More than enough Light; John 10:22-26
It is in the prologue of John
chapter one that the next scene is introduced. In John 1:4 John introduces the
scene of light. Remember the purpose that John is writing this gospel for is to
convince people that Jesus is the Messiah. John believes that there is more
than sufficient evidence given in this gospel to convince anyone that Jesus is
who he claims to be. He organises his material around seven different signs,
plus the sign of the resurrection, in order to give substantiating evidence as
he would in a court of law in order to demonstrate his premise that Jesus is
exactly who He claims to be. Part of that sub-theme is that as the Messiah, the
second person of the Trinity, it is Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone who
reveals the Father. This is a critical sub-theme of revelation and illumination
and it falls under the doctrine of light in John’s Gospel. “In Him was life,
and the life was the Light of men.” That is, the life that is self-existing in
Jesus Christ as the second person of the Trinity. In the first four verses of
chapter one we are looking at the pre-incarnate
Christ, we are not even looking at Christ as the incarnate Son of God yet. So
the life being talked about here is that eternal life that belongs to God and
God alone, that He is the source of all life, He is the self-existing one, and
it is His life by its very nature that is self-revelatory. You can’t escape
this aspect of its nature. God by nature is revealing Himself. John 1:5 NASB
“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
This is a present tense verb indicating continual action. From this we learn
that Jesus is the source of life in all of its categories. Colossians 1:16, 17 tells us that He is the one who made everything. In Genesis
chapter one God speaks and it is through His Word that God creates, and He is
the Word, the Logos of God. It is the second person of the Trinity.
We also see from John 1:5
that this light continually shines. The verb is the present active indicative.
A present tense verb can be used about nine different ways. Usually we say it
is durative or continuous action, and that is true here. But another nuance of
the present tense is what is called a gnomic present, it indicates a continual
principle, something that is normal through all time. That is what we see here.
The light shines as a general principle, it continually shines in the darkness.
So here we have God the second person of the Trinity and throughout all of
human history, from Adam all the way through, He is continually revealing
Himself. The light always shines in the darkness. An
look at the continual characteristic response of darkness. It doesn’t
understand it. As part of incomprehension there is rejection. God continually
illumines men; men continually reject that illumination. This is clearly taught
in Romans chapter one.
Rom 1:18 NASB “For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men …” And
there we have a masculine genitive plural noun, anthropon,
from anthropos [a)nqrwpoj]
meaning men or mankind, and then it is qualified by a relative participial
phrase, “who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” This is a present active
participle. The present tense of the participle indicates contemporaneous
action with the main verb which is “is revealed.” So we see this continuousness
throughout all of human history. That is the point. It is from the verb katecho [katexw] which means to hold down, to suppress, to withhold,
or to repress. So the wrath of God is revealed against men and these men who
receive the wrath of God are characterised by the fact that they are
suppressing the truth in unrighteousness. What does that mean? That means that
in order to suppress, repress, or to hold down the truth they have to have the
truth. It has to be there. So they are volitionally engaged—it is a present
active participle which means that these men are performing the action—in
suppressing the truth. [19] “because,” dioti
[dioti] which is the strongest causal particle in the Greek
language, “ that which is known about God is evident within them,” en [e)n] plus the dative
of the third person plural pronoun, which indicates that they have a knowledge
about God, who He is and His existence, and it is within every single human
being. “… “for God made it evident to them.” There we
have the aorist active indicative of the Greek phaneroo
[fanerow] which means to reveal or to make clear. God is the subject, it is an active voice meaning that God performs the
action. God specifically makes His existence clear to every single human being.
[20] “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal
power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what
has been made, so that they are without excuse.” That means no one has an
excuse and can say they didn’t have enough information. God says they not only
understood is clearly but they had more than enough information to be held
accountable for it. The point of this is that every human being that is an
unbeliever has not believed on the basis of their own volition. [21] “For even
though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God
or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations…” They replaced
the knowledge of God with their own speculative theories about origins, about
creation, about ultimate reality. “… and their foolish heart was darkened. [22]
Professing to be wise, they became fools, [23] and exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and
four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”
What we must realise from
this is that when we are engaged in any kind of witnessing situation the person
we are witnessing to may not be willing to admit it at this point in time. They
may have covered up their knowledge of God with so much rationalisation and
scar tissue that they no longer remember the fact that they once knew that God
existed, and they may not even want to out of arrogance admit that God exists.
But what the Scripture tells us is that we don’t have to convince them that God
exists, they already know it. Unbelievers are going to ask how we know God
exists. We don’t answer that because they already know it. If we answer their question
what we have basically done is buy into their
assumption that there isn’t enough evidence. The Scripture says there is more
than enough evidence.
John 1:7 NASB “He
[John the Baptist] came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all
might believe through him.” So John the Baptist’s ministry is related this
illumination. [8] “He was not the Light, but {he came} to testify about the
Light.” So even though the light continually reveals itself to mankind there is
still the need for the witness, the testimony, for us to be engaged in
witnessing. The incarnation of Christ, then, is the basis for all condemnation
to mankind. [9] “There was the true Light which, coming into the world,
enlightens every man.” We see underlying this verse the principle of common
grace, i.e. the illumination of every man to the existence of God and the
reality of who Jesus is. The unbeliever can’t avoid it. It is proclaimed loud
and clear and God is making it evident to them but the reason they don’t admit
it is because of negative volition. It comes back to volition, not evidence.
The issue isn’t having the right reasoning, the right argument, the issue is
spiritual and it has to do with volition; whether or not man is willing to
accept Christ and to submit to the claims that God makes to be the final
authority in the universe.
The Scripture portrays to us
that man is made in the image of God, Genesis 1:26, 27. Think about what that
means. We are a reflection of God, so in our material makeup we reflect the
essence of God. So what happens is that every time an unbeliever looks at the
world around him it resonates in his soul with the reality of God, because
Scripture says that that soul is a reflection of God. So when the unbeliever
hears the truth of God’s Word or sees it there is something in his soul that
reverberates and resonates with that truth. What Paul says is that the person
on negative volition is actively squelching that, repressing that. They are
actively engaged in denial that that has happened. That is why there is such an
antagonistic response when we bring the gospel up to certain people. They may
not even be conscious of it but they are actively engaged in suppressing this,
and when we come along and start talking about Christ or the Scriptures we are bringing
this to the surface and it is like somebody grating their fingernails on a
chalkboard in their soul and they have to squash it again.
John introduces the them in the first chapter and then in chapter three he
develops it a little more. We have already seen that the light illumines every
man, which is making God evident to them, the existence, the reality of God is
clear. John 3:19 NASB “This is the judgment, that the Light
has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for
their deeds were evil.” Not everybody does but the majority do. They
reject the testimony of the light. [20] “For everyone who does evil hates the
Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
So there is a reaction in man to exposure. Light is illuminating and it exposes
us in all of our creaturely dependence and the person who has rejected God, who
at the point of God-consciousness or the point of gospel hearing has gone negative is in reaction to that. [21] “But he who practices [Bad
translation; it is poiew – “does”] the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be
manifested as having been wrought in God.” Doing the truth refers to the simple
positive volition at God-consciousness. The person who responds to the truth
comes to the Light who is Jesus Christ. This is a metaphorical way of saying
trusting in Christ as Saviour.
Then in chapter eight we
get a little more development. John 8:12 NASB
“Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who
follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will
have the Light of life’.” There Jesus ties light and life back together again. John
9:5 NASB “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” John
11:9 NASB “Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours in the day?
If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of
this world’.” So we see this theme of light over and over again. John is almost
hitting us between the eyes with light.
Now John is going to get
very subtle. John 10:22
NASB “At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem.” This approximately two to three
months after v. 21. The Feast of Booths was in late September,
early October and the Feast of Dedication took place in late December. In
between this time Jesus left the hostile environment of Jerusalem and Judea and was engaged in a ministry to the people across the
Jordan in the region of Peraea. We
know that from Luke chapters 12 & 13.When John says the Feast of the
Dedication he is speaking about the festival we call Hanukkah. We know from
Josephus that it had another name. It was called the Festival of Lights. See
how subtle John is! As soon as he mentions this is the Feast of Dedication he
is reminding us that we are still talking about Jesus illuminating the truth, and we are still talking about the rejection, the
darkness that does not comprehend it, and that the darkness flees from it and is
repressing it. The rabbis had another name for this feast. In the Talmud it is
called the Feast of Illumination. So John is reminding us in a very subtle way
that he is still talking about illumination. He is still talking about the fact
that Jesus has clearly revealed Himself through His works and His word. He
healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, He has fed the multitudes, He has
walked on water, He has controlled the elements, He has stilled the storm, He
has healed lepers, He has healed the sick, He has healed the lame, He has cats
out demons, and He has even healed a man born blind before the eyes of the
Pharisees. Yet continually, despite all the empirical evidence, the religious
leaders have refused to believe Him.
The Feast of Dedication
was a very patriotic time in Israel. It was a memorial to a time of tremendous national
victory and triumph and as they looked back to that time of national military
victory and triumph it would also tend to bring to the foreground their hopes
of freedom from Rome today, and this elevating their messianic
expectations.
In 165 BC the Greco-Syrian
leader Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the temple. He
was anti-Semitic. He outlawed all Jewish rituals and after he captured Jerusalem he erected an idol on the altar of burnt offering in
the temple and then sacrificed a pig on the altar and scattered pig’s blood,
which was unclean in the Mosaic law, all over the
altar. This desecrated the altar. That was the near fulfilment of the
abomination of desolation predicted by the prophet Daniel some 400 years
earlier. At this time there was a priestly family in Israel known as the Hasmoneans. They
raised the cry of revolt and brought together an army which eventually defeated
the Syrians and threw them out of the land. After this, this priestly family went
in and cleansed the temple and restored the sacrifices. But as they were
cleansing the temple and it was time to rededicate the temple to the Lord after
its cleansing they could only find one flagon of oil to burn in the great candelabra,
the golden candlestick that burned in the holy of holies. So they declared one
day of dedication, but at the end of that one day they discovered that the
flagon of oil was still full. It lasted another day and eventually for eight
days. That is the basis for the non-biblical feast of Hanukkah. It is a feast
of dedication because it was a reminder of how God miraculously supplied all
for these eight days during the rededication of the temple. In their
celebration of it, in every Jewish home, depending on which side you took on
certain theological matters, you either lit eight candles on
the first day and then backed it down to one going through the process, or
you lit one the first day and then moved it through to eight by the last day. In
some homes they would do a multiplication of ten. They would start off with ten
the first day, twenty the second, and so on. There was light everywhere, and in
the midst of this festival of lights would be this particular episode where
those in the darkness are denying that they see the light. It is in contrast to
the blind man who sees the light in chapter nine and the Pharisees who are in
the light but love the darkness in chapter ten.
John 10:23 NASB “it was winter, and Jesus was walking
in the temple in the portico of Solomon.” This was an area that dated all the
way back to Solomon’s original temple. It has survived the destruction of the
temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 but it did not survive the destruction of the
temple in 70 AD under Titus. It was an enclose portico where you
could walk in all sorts of weather. Jesus begins
to walk, it
is an ingressive imperfect tense, possibly a dramatic imperfect, indicating
Jesus beginning to walk in the temple. The religious leaders have just been
waiting for this opportunity. Everything He said in the confrontation back in
the good shepherd analogy has been rankling for three months, eating away at
them, and now they are going to get Him. Eighteen months before when Jesus
healed the cripple at the pool of Bethesda, John tells us, they were determined to kill Him. So
this is not a group of objective religious teachers who want to know the truth.
This is a group of men who have already determined that they are going to take
Him out and they are just looking for the opportunity to kill Him.
John 10:24 NASB “The Jews then gathered around Him…” In
the Greek we have the aorist active indicative of the verb kukloo [kuklow]. It comes from the noun kuklos [kukloj]
which means to circle, to surround. They surrounded and trapped Him. They enclosed
Him in this tight circle, there is no place for Him to
go. They are tired of His sophisticated arguments overturns their reasoning the
slips away. He is not going to get away this time, there is no place for Him to
go, they have Him trapped. “… and were saying to Him, ‘How
long will You keep us in suspense?’” That is not
really a good translation. It sounds like they are being very objective. They
are not being objective, they have already made a
decision. They have already determined to reject Him and are not asking for
more information. The Greek idiom is difficult to translate. Literally it means,
“until what time will you keep our souls lifted up?” If
we were to translate that in our vernacular we would say, “how
long are you going to keep us in the air?” As if He hasn’t made that clear! They
are really asking how long they are going to remain in the dark. Jesus knows
they have had more than enough illumination. They are claiming a lack of light
and are standing in front of the Light of the world. They are claiming ignorance
but they have no basis for that. They have heard the words and seen the works
of Jesus. They are not asking for truth, they want to incriminate Him. “If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus knows the time is not right; He is in
control of the situation. That is why Jesus does not answer them directly. It
is fascinating to watch how Jesus in the process of this discussion with these
hostile unbelievers does not grant them their assumptions. That tells us
something about witnessing. Just because we are talking to somebody that doesn’t
mean we have to answer all their questions. There are some questions
unbelievers ask that no matter how you answer them you have lost the argument. Jesus
has to fulfil the Old Testament pattern and He has to die on Passover. So He
has to defuse the situation so that He is not convicted for another three
months.
John 10:25 NASB “Jesus answered them, ‘I told you,
and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify
of Me’.” He doesn’t admit anything; He doesn’t say He
is the Messiah. The first thing we realise is that Jesus doesn’t back down. The
issue isn’t that they need more light or more evidence, they have more than
enough. The issue is that they have rejected the light that they have been
given. Jesus doesn’t answer their questions for two reasons. First of all, He
sees the trap and is trying to avoid it because He has to control the time of
His death. Secondly, He rejects the assumption that underlies the question:
that there is no enough evidence yet of who He is. He
rejects that, and it is that latter assumption that he addresses. His answer is
specifically stating that their assumption is invalid, that there is more than
enough evidence: “the works that I do bear witness of me.”
John 10:26 NASB “But you do not believe because you
are not of My sheep.” This verse is used by some
people to talk about the doctrine of election, but this isn’t talking about the
doctrine of election. We have to interpret the verse in context. The issue is
the volition of the Pharisees, not God’s volition in election. Jesus stated who
these people were in John 8:43: “You are of your father the devil.” They are
not His sheep because they have rejected Him. It is the volition of the
individual that determines salvation, not some predetermined, fatalistic
doctrine of election.
John 10:27 NASB
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; [28] and I give
eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them
out of My hand.” This is one of the most profound verse
in all of Scripture related to the doctrine of the security of the believer. The
illustration is, My sheep hear My voice, and I know
them, and they follow Me.” We respond by faith alone to Christ alone, we are
following the Lord. And He gives us something. In the Greek the verb there is didmoi [didomi], to give, and this always reminds us of grace. Grace
is a free gift. At the moment of salvation God gives us eternal life. He is not
someone who takes back, it is not given conditionally, it
is given unconditionally. “They will never perish” is an unconditional promise;
it is something that is given for all eternity. The hand of God, His
omnipotence, is greater than any other power in the universe. [29] “My Father,
who has given {them} to Me, is greater than all; and
no one is able to snatch {them} out of the Father’s hand.”
The doctrine of eternal security
1) Definition: Eternal security is the work of God which
guarantees that God’s free gift of salvation is eternal and cannot be lost,
terminated, abrogated, nullified or reversed by any thought, act or change of
belief by the person saved. There is nothing that can be done to reverse or
eradicate our salvation once we are saved. God does not give His gifts with
strings attached. What He gives he gives permanently. Eternal security is
defined as an unbreakable relationship with the integrity of God. It based upon
His perfect righteousness, His absolute justice and His immeasurable love. It
is unbreakable because God will not break the relationship,
it is based exclusively on who He is and not at all on who we are.
2) God the Father’s purposes in salvation cannot be overridden.
There is nothing greater than the plan of God. The same group that He foreknew
He predestines, calls, justifies and redeems. This is the point in Romans 8:29, 30 NASB “For those whom He foreknew, He
also predestined {to become} conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would
be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He
predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and
these whom He justified, He also glorified.” The foreknowledge of God is a
sub-category of the knowledge of God. We call the overall category of the knowledge
of God His omniscience, i.e. that God knows all the knowable. In foreknowledge,
though, God distinguishes between the actual and the possible. In the
omniscience of God He knows every contingency, every possibility and ever permutation
out to infinity. In foreknowledge God knows the difference between the actual
and the possible. All of human history is present to God in one eternal
presence. He knows which of mankind is positive at God-consciousness and who
would respond to whatever impetus is necessary to be saved. But in volition
there are many people who no matter how much evidence is in front of them, like
the Pharisees, they will always reject it because they have made a decision to
reject the truth. The issue is volition. God desires that all men be saved, and
so those who are foreknown are elect. God chooses them, not because they have
faith but through faith. He chooses those who would under whatever condition respond
positively, and God in His faithfulness will make sure that the positive person
will receive the information necessary in order for them to believe. Everybody else
God knows that no matter how much evidence is in front of them will reject the
gospel. So the issue boils down to human volition.
To be continued….