Who Does He Think He Is? (John 8:48-59)

Audio

I don’t really know if there are any golf courses in heaven. Since heaven is a place where there is no sin and suffering, I would suspect that either there are no golf courses there, or else my own golf game will be greatly transformed there. But I heard a story once that takes place on a golf course in heaven. It seems that Joshua was caddying for Moses one day, and Moses had about 180 yards to the green. Joshua handed him his 3-iron, and Moses said, “What would Tiger Woods hit from this distance?” Joshua thought for a moment and said, “I think he would hit a 7-iron.” Moses said, “Give me the 7-iron.” Joshua said, “You can’t hit a 7-iron that far; take the 3-iron.” Moses said, “If Tiger Woods can hit a 7-iron that far, I can do it too.” Well, Moses hit the ball and it landed in a lake well short of the green. He went up to the lake and held out his 7-iron like the staff he used at the Red Sea, trying to part the water so he could retrieve his ball. About that time, Paul and Silas came up behind them and Paul said, “Look at that guy trying to part the lake – who does he think he is? Moses?” And Joshua just shook his head and said, “He is Moses, but he thinks he’s Tiger Woods!”

Who do you think you are? Maybe you’ve been asked that question before. Maybe you have asked it of others. In our text today, a group of people ask Jesus this question in verse 53. “Whom do you make yourself out to be?” Who are these people? They are a group of Jewish people who have heard Jesus make some startling claims about Himself, and who, at least initially, found themselves believing in Him (vv30-31). But as Jesus continued to speak with them, their belief in Him begins to evaporate. He has challenged them by saying that the genuineness of their faith in Him can only be proven by continuing to abide in His Word (v31). His Word, He says, is truth, and has the power to set them free from their bondage (v32). They assumed He was talking about an earthly kind of bondage. They protested, saying that as the descendants of Abraham, they had never been enslaved to anyone (v33). This was, of course, not true. The Israelites had been in bondage to many nations throughout their history, and were presently living under the dominion of Rome as a conquered people. But Jesus let that assertion go, because it was not His point. His point was that they, like the rest of humanity, are enslaved to sin, and that He has the power to release them from that slavery (vv34-36). But rather than continuing to abide in His Word, thus proving themselves to be genuine disciples of Jesus, they react to His Word with hostility. In their hearts is brewing a murderous hatred for Jesus. They slander Him in an attempt to discredit Him. And Jesus questions their claim to be the true children of Abraham because they lack the faith of Abraham, and He disproves their claim to be children of God because they do not recognize and receive Him as the Savior whom God has sent. Jesus has audaciously charged them with being children of the devil (v44). You can imagine, this wouldn’t go over well with anyone; especially not with people who claim to be citizens of God’s chosen nation, descended from the great heroes of faith through history. So, the debate continues to escalate in intensity, and here it is reaching a boiling point.

That’s where the conversation is as we begin to read these verses today. This is what prompts the question in verse 53, “Whom do You make Yourself out to be?” In other words, “Just who do you think you are?” They have their ideas about who Jesus is, and they voice them. But in His response to them, Jesus indicates that who they think He is, and even who He thinks He is, is not important. What is important is the truth – who He is in actuality. That is who God proclaims Him to be. Like these Israelites, you may have your own idea about who Jesus is. But, if our idea about who He is does not correspond to who God has proclaimed and revealed Him to be, then our idea about Him is wrong and needs to be corrected. This passage is the corrective to that wrong thinking about Jesus. 

I. Who do you think He is?

Suppose we were talking about the President of the United States. Suppose you were asked, “Who do you think he is?” I imagine that our opinions would vary widely, and would tend toward extremes of greatness or incompetence, with very few opinions falling in the middle. It really doesn’t matter who we are talking about, the fact is that if you live in the public eye, people are going to form opinions about you, and those opinions will vary widely. I would venture to say that in human history, there has been no person who has lived under more scrutiny than Jesus Christ. He is not an ignorable person. To know of Him at all is to have an opinion about who you think He is. This group of people certainly did, and they weren’t afraid to voice it.

In verse 48, they answered Jesus with these words. That means that they were responding to Him. What were they responding to? This is their response to the statements of Jesus that questioned their claim to be Abraham’s children and God’s children, and the statement that they were the children of the devil. So, they retort, “Do we not rightly say that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” That’s an interesting thing for people to say who just a few moments earlier (back in vv30-31) were saying that they believed in Him. These are present tense verbs, indicating that all the while, beneath the veil of belief, they have been saying these things amongst themselves. Now, they confess that they think they have been “rightly” saying these things. Things that they suspected were true of Him, now they are persuaded are correct about Him. And what are they saying about Jesus? “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Those are bold assertions about the character and nature of Jesus!

Thanks to Jesus and His story of the Good Samaritan, we probably don’t think that calling Him a Samaritan is too big of a deal. After all, in that story, the Samaritan was a good-hearted, compassionate hero. But you have to understand that this was not the way that the Jews of that day thought of Samaritans. The Jews despised the Samaritans, and the feeling was mutual. The Samaritans were the descendants of Jewish people who had intermarried with Assyrians following the Assyrian invasion of the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the 8^th Century before Christ. They were considered half-breeds in the eyes of a full-blooded Israelite because they were tainted with Gentile blood. Here, we find the third and final instance in this passage of the Jews casting an aspersion on Christ that was rooted in the unusual circumstances of His birth. As we pointed out in verse 19 (when they asked, “Where is Your father?”), and in verse 41 (when they said, “We were not born of fornication”), there were likely rumors going around that Jesus was conceived out of wedlock, and that the man she married had admitted that he was not the biological father of the child. Of course, we know that He had been miraculously conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary’s womb while she remained a virgin, but there were some who had undoubtedly heard rumors that Mary had been engaged in sexual promiscuity with someone other than Joseph. One of the most lingering rumors had her involved with a Roman soldier. So, when they say that Jesus is a Samaritan, they mean that He is a half-breed. Because of this, they want nothing to do with Him, even as they refused to have any contact with the Samaritans or even to pass through their territory. What is really interesting is that when Jesus passed through Samaria in John 4 and spent time talking to a Samaritan woman, she immediately spoke of Him as being a Jew, and then came to know Him as her Savior.

The hatred that the Jews had for Samaritans was not only rooted in their ethnicity, but also in their theology. Over the centuries, the Samaritans had re-crafted many of the biblical narratives to make themselves out to be the true children of Abraham and heirs to his promises. They had their own temple, their own priesthood, and their own doctrines which were opposed to those of the Jews. Of course, their theology was utterly flawed, and for good reason the Jews considered the Samaritans to be heretics. But here’s the thing, with Jesus saying that the Jews were not truly the children of Abraham nor of God, the Jews are prepared now to claim that He is a heretic of the same vein as their hated Samartian neighbors. They think Jesus is a half-breed heretic. But this is not the worst of it.

They also claim that He “has a demon,” that is, that He is demon-possessed. This is one of many places in the Gospels where Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed. Some would soften the blow of this remark by saying that it merely meant that He was insane. However, in John 10:20, we see that some will say of Jesus that He “has a demon and is insane,” indicating that these are two different claims. So radical are the claims of Jesus that these people believe that it could only be a result of Him being driven by demonic powers. Now, here we will have to give this crowd of people some credit, in that they have come up with one of the only possible explanations for the person of Jesus Christ. For someone to do and say the kinds of things that Jesus said and did, only a very limited number of options are available. He could say the kinds of things He said if he was a lunatic. But, then again, if He were merely a lunatic, He could not have done the miraculous signs that He often did. Another option is just what these people say: that He has a demon. To make the kinds of radical claims that He makes, and then to provide convincing supernatural signs and wonders, indicates that some kind of supernatural power is at work. This kind of power, if not of God, could only come from Satan. So, we have to hand it to these people – they at least understand that He cannot merely be a man and do the things He does and say the things He says. They assume that He cannot be of God, since He is not on their side. Therefore, they conclude that a demonic power must be at work within Him.

So who do they think Jesus is? A demon-possessed, despicable, half-breed heretic. I would be willing to bet that no one in this room thinks that about Jesus Christ. In fact, I would even bet that you’ve never met anyone who thinks that about Him. So, who do you think He is? Everyone has an opinion, and the opinions vary widely, but we can’t all be right. Is He just a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur? Is He a demon-possessed charlatan? There are really very few other options, unless He really is who He thinks He is. And if He really is who He thinks He is, and we think He is something different than that, it is of eternal importance and infinite urgency that we change our perspective. It really matters who you think He is. What matters more is who Jesus really is, and that you think that of Him. If you don’t think He is who He really is, then it makes no difference what you do think of Him. You might as well think He is a demon-possessed heretic. He So who does He think He is? We move to that question now.

II. Who Does He Think He Is?

John Calvin opened his monumental Institutes of Christian Religion with these words: “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But,” Calvin notes, “while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and brings forth the other is not easy to discern.”[1] What Calvin is saying there is that as we come to understand ourselves, it drives us to know more about the God who created us; and as we come to know God more, we grow in our understanding of ourselves in light of His revelation about us. But, true as this is for us, I suggest that it is infinitely more true of Jesus Christ. I would say that His true and sound wisdom consists also of His knowledge of God and His knowledge of Himself. If He is not who He thinks He is, then not only does He not know Himself, but neither does He know the God for whom He claims to speak. So, who does He think He is?

First of all, notice that He quickly dismisses the charge that He has a demon. He says, quite simply, “I do not have a demon” (v49). You might expect Him to say that, but here’s an interesting thing. Whenever Jesus confronted someone who had a demon, not one of them ever denied it. In fact, it was the demons who acknowledged themselves as Jesus confronted them. It is not like a demon to hide its own presence within a person. For Jesus to be able to say, “I do not have a demon,” it must be true. Additionally, no demon ever claimed to honor God. It would be counter to their very nature. Yet, this is precisely what Jesus claimed to do. He said, “I do not have a demon, but I honor My Father” (v49). And in verse 54, He says that His Father is the One of whom the Jews say, “He is our God.” So, there is no way that Jesus could have a demon, and at the same time claim to honor God and claim to be the Son of God. No demon has ever uttered such words.

Remember that there are only a few options as to who Jesus could be. He could be a lunatic. But, though lunacy could explain some of His radical sayings, lunacy does not come with supernatural powers to perform signs and wonders. That seems an impossible option. Now we see that being a demoniac seems impossible as well. This only leaves us one option. He is who He thinks He is. So who does He think He is?

Well, before He answers this directly, He issues a disclaimer. He says, “I do not seek My glory.” In other words, He is not just making empty boasts about Himself. He isn’t trying to win a popularity contest. In fact, if He was, He is doing it wrong. He is saying all the wrong kinds of things to make Himself look good in the eyes of the populace. It’s already gained Him a label of being a demoniac. Soon enough, its going to get Him killed. As He says in verse 54, “If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing.” He’s not seeking glory for Himself. But, He says, “There is One who seeks and judges.” In verse 54 He says, “It is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’” It is God who is seeking the glory of Jesus, and it is He who judges the Lord Jesus to be worthy of this glory. So, we can trust Jesus’ words about who He is, because the Father is glorifying and judging Him rightly in these claims. Now, we are ready for the answer.

Jesus claims to be the One who can enable us to live forever. Look at v51: “Truly, truly I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” This is not the first time He has said something like this. In what I call the greatest sentence ever written, John 3:16, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” In John 5:24, He said, “ Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” In John 6:48-54, He said, “I am the bread of life … the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.” He said, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh. … He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” And then later, He will go on to say more of these kinds of things. In John 11:25-26, He will say, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” And then ultimately, on the night before His death, He will say to His disciples, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (14:6). By these and many other words, the Lord Jesus makes it perfectly clear to everyone who has ears to hear Him that He is the only hope we have for eternal life. The only hope that any of us have to be forgiven of our sins and gain entrance to heaven is through the person of Jesus Christ. This is because He will bear our sins on our behalf as our substitute in death, enduring the wrath of God that we deserve in Himself as He died on the cross, so that we could be cleansed by His blood and covered in His righteousness. Apart from Him, we have no hope of life beyond death. As John 3:16 made it perfectly clear, to not believe in Him is to perish. To believe in Him is to not see death, but to pass through it into everlasting life with Him in heaven.

Now, the Jews to whom He was speaking misunderstood Him once more, and they return the conversation to Abraham. Thinking that Jesus is only speaking of physical death, and giving no thought to eternal life, they say, “Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death. Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died?” They say, “The prophets died too,” implying, “You are not greater than they were, are You?” The questions are asked in a way that expects a negative answer. Surely Jesus is not greater than Abraham, is He? But in His response, He indicates that He indeed is greater than Abraham.

In verse 56, He says, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad.” In Genesis 12, when God first called Abraham, a promise was made. God told Abraham, “I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” This promise made to Abraham was that somehow, in some way, Abraham would be the cause of blessing to all nations. In Genesis 15, the word of the Lord came to Abraham, again with a promise: “One who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir. … Now look toward the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them. … So shall your descendants be.” At this point in Abraham’s life, he was childless. But the Bible records of Abraham that at this moment, “he believed in the Lord; and He (the Lord) reckoned it to him as righteousness.” In that moment, Abraham was saved; He was justified (made righteous) before God through His faith in God’s promise concerning the offspring he would bear. In God’s time and in God’s way, Abraham saw the child of promise born, his son Isaac. God’s promise was coming true. But then God called Abraham to once again do something unimaginable. In Genesis 22, Abraham was told to take his only begotten son to Moriah and offer him as a sacrifice unto the Lord. As they came to the place of the offering, Abraham said to his entourage, “Stay here … and I and the lad will go ove there; and we will worship and return to you.” Get that. Abraham knows what God has called him to do. But he also knows that God has made a promise that through his descendants all the earth will be blessed. So He says in faith that they are going to worship, and that they are both going to return. When Isaac started to take inventory of the offering supplies, he said, “My father … behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb?” Abraham said with great and forward looking faith, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the offering.” And they came to the place, and Abraham bound his son and prepared to offer him to God, still believing that God would provide the ultimate sacrifice and that he and his son would come back together from this episode. And God stayed the old man’s hand and turned his eye toward a thicket where a ram was caught by his horns – caught by his horns so that he might be an unblemished and spotless offering. And that ram became the sacrifice, and Abraham and his son returned, just as he had believed. And he called that place, YHWH Yireh, “the Lord will provide.”

We find an interesting, God-inspired commentary on these events in Hebrews 11:17-19. There, we read, “By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said, "IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED." He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.” Abraham believed in a God who had a plan for the offering up of an only begotten son, and a God who was able to raise an only begotten son up from the dead. But Abraham found out on that day that the plan was not for Abraham to see his only begotten son as that sacrifice, but that God would provide for Himself the lamb. He received Isaac back from the ordeal “as a type.” A type is something that corresponds, represents, and even foreshadows another. Abraham saw in Isaac, and in the ram in the thicket, a type – a foreshadowing – of what God was going to do. God was going to provide up His own only begotten Son as a sacrificial lamb to atone for the sins of humanity, and He would raise Him up from death.

On that day, Abraham rejoiced, because in the ordeal on Mount Moriah, he saw down through the corridors of time to the day of Jesus Christ. And he was glad – not because it meant that Isaac would not see death; but because it meant that all who believed in God as He had done, and who accepted this sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, would not see death, but have everlasting life in Him. The writer of Hebrews says of Abraham and of all the saints of old, “All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance.” Abraham had seen the day of Jesus Christ. And in Jesus Christ, he saw the fulfillment of every promise God had made to him. And he rejoiced and was glad in what he saw in Jesus Christ. He is One greater than Abraham. As He said in other places, He is the One who is greater than Solomon, greater than Jonah, greater than Moses. He is the One to whom all of God’s promises were pointing. As Jesus said in Luke 24, all that had been written in the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms (to a Jew, that would indicate the entire Hebrew Bible), had been written about Him.

Of course, the audience to which Jesus was speaking missed the point again. Not understanding what He was saying about Abraham seeing and rejoicing in His day, they say obtusely, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” (v57). Jesus was probably in His early 30s, and in Jewish reckoning, a man didn’t hit the peak of wisdom and maturity until he was in his 50s. Jesus was still a young man. Abraham had been dead for 2,000 years. How could Jesus have seen Abraham? His response contains the most radical of all of His words here in this text. He said in v58, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” What is obvious here is that Jesus is claiming to have some kind of pre-existence. He had an existence that dated back prior to His birth in Bethlehem. He was in existence before Abraham was even born. But this is not just a claim to pre-existence. If it was, He could have simply said, “Before Abraham was born, I was.” That would have been better grammar, and far more easy to comprehend (even if not to believe). But He didn’t say that. He uses an awkward and unexpected grammar here and says, “Before Abraham was, I am.” The Greek words are ego eimi. The Jews would have recognized these words, for these were the very words that were used to translate the Hebrew words of Exodus 3:14. When Moses asked God, “What if the people ask me who sent me? What shall I say to them when they ask me Your name?” God said, “I AM WHO I AM.” Translated: ego eimi. He is the Great I Am. And here Jesus takes up that same expression to say, “I saw Abraham and he saw Me, because you see, I am the preexistent divine God standing right here in front of you in the flesh. The God you claim to know, but really you do not – I am He. The God you claim to honor while you dishonor Me – I am that God, so when you dishonor Me, you are dishonoring Him. Before Abraham came into being, I am.”

Now you may say, “How do you know that’s what He meant?” Well, that’s what the Jews understood Him to mean. How do we know that? Look what they did: “Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him” (v59). Stoning was a punishment reserved only for a few specific offenses, and one of those offenses was blasphemy (Lev 24:16). Later, in John 10, we will see them do it again. They pick up stones to kill Him, and when Jesus asks them why they are doing that, they say, “For blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God” (10:33). They understood exactly what they meant. In fact, if they had misunderstood, Jesus could have easily said, “Wait, wait, put those stones down. That’s not what I meant.” But He never did. Their attempts to stone Him only proved that they understood perfectly exactly what He was saying. But it was not the Father’s time for Him to die. So, somehow (mysteriously and miraculously – we are not told how), Jesus hid Himself and went out of the Temple. As Augustine said, “Jesus fled from the stones, but woe to those from whose heart of stone God flees!”[2] Because when Jesus vanishes from their midst, so does the hope of everlasting life and the hope of ever knowing the God that they claim to believe in.

Who does He think He is? He says that He is the only way to live forever, beyond death. And He says that He is greater than Abraham and all the prophets. He says that He is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. But more than this, He says that He is God in human flesh. Is He a lunatic? No, that’s impossible. Is He a demoniac? No, that is impossible as well. That really only leaves one option. He really is who He thinks He is. And for this reason, the Father glorifies Him. And if God the Father can give glory to the Son, how much more ought we give Him glory? He is worthy of worship! The Bible says that “He existed in the form of God,” but He “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:6-11).

Now, who do you think He is?

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[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.1.1.

[2] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 358. 

Family Ties (John 8:37-47)

Audio 

When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of the Star Wars movies. I can still remember sitting in the theater, watching that climactic scene in The Empire Strikes Back where Luke Skywalker was engaged in that epic lightsaber duel with Darth Vader. Here was Luke, the clean-cut, nice guy, unlikely hero, trading blows with his evil nemesis. We were on the edge of our seats, and we just knew that Luke would win, evil would be vanquished, and there would be peace in the galaxy once more. But the scene didn’t end that way. As Luke clings to a pole on a ledge over this cavernous airshaft, Darth Vader said those four words that shocked us all: “I am your father!” And Luke argued and disputed it, crying out in disbelief, “No!” as he plummeted into the airshaft. Prior to that scene, Luke never knew who his father was. He had been raised by his uncle, and mentored by the great Obi Wan Kenobi. In the absence of his father, these men had shaped him into the person he had become. He bore far more resemblance of character to these men than he did to his actual biological father. Even though, biologically Darth Vader was his father, he was not following in his father’s footsteps, and in that epic scene, he vows that he will not come along side his father, but will do what is right.

This text reminds me of that scene a little bit. In this text, Jesus is talking to a group of Jewish people – a group that had come to some level of belief in Him, but it was not a genuine faith commitment. They begin to dispute His words about being set free by His truth, and they claim that they do not need to be set free because of who their father is. They are the children of Abraham, and they say that they have never been enslaved. Never mind that this is blatantly not true – for they had been continually enslaved to various nations throughout their history. Jesus was talking about being enslaved to sin. That is the true condition of every human being, no matter their ethnicity or history. And so Jesus begins to talk about the truth of who their father really is. And it is a difficult and painful truth for any person, Israelite or Gentile to swallow. But as painful and difficult as this truth is, it is necessary for us to understand the reality of our true spiritual condition, and the identity of our true father, in order to see our great need to be rescued by the saving work of Jesus Christ, and adopted by God into His family forever. The passage speaks to us about the things we put our trust in, and challenges us to make sure that we are not trusting in false assurances for our spiritual satisfaction.

Verse 38 sort of sets the tone for the whole passage. Jesus says, “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.” As we so often say, “Like father, like son.” Our character and conduct demonstrate our true position, either within the family of God or outside of it. Jesus’ divine Sonship can be demonstrated through the things which He says and does, which are things that He has seen with His Father. If we truly belong to God, then there will be certain “family resemblances” that are evident in our conduct, our character, and our conversation. And to this group of people, Jesus says, “You do the things which you heard from your father.” So, who is their father? We will see in this passage who they claim their father to be, but we will also see the cold hard truth about what their character and conduct demonstrates, and the family resemblance that they actually bear.

I. Biological descent from a godly heritage does not place us in the family of God.

(vv37-41a)

As you might have already guessed, I love movies. One of my all time favorites is The Sound of Music. When the Von Trapp family fled from Austria, as depicted at the end of the film, they made their way to the United States, ultimately settling down on a mountainside in Vermont. Come with us next year to Vermont on our mission trip, and we’ll take you there to the Trapp Family Lodge. When we were there a few weeks ago, some of us had a close encounter with a real live descendant of the Von Trapp family there. Her grandmother was Maria Von Trapp. When she was pointed out to us, I had this immediate thought, “Oh yeah, she kind of looks like Julie Andrews.” Then I realized what a stupid thought that was. She is not related to Julie Andrews. She is related to the person Julie Andrews played in the movie! We wondered if we should go up and talk to her, but I could envision myself saying something ridiculous like, “So, how do you solve a problem like Maria?” Instead, we just said hello and went about our business, and let her go about hers. I don’t want to assume that she derives her entire sense of identity from being related to a family that had a movie made about them.

But some people do want to base their identity on their family ties, and even put their spiritual identity and their eternal hopes in their family tree. Perhaps you are the son or daughter of a preacher or a missionary. Maybe your grandfather was a faithful deacon, or your grandmother was a faithful Sunday School teacher. Maybe you were brought up in a family that loved the Lord in a Bible-saturated home. Praise God for that. But none of these things mean that you automatically have a right relationship with God. You have heard me say perhaps before that God does not have any grandchildren. He only has sons and daughters, and those are the ones who come to Him personally by faith in Jesus Christ. You can inherit a lot of things from your ancestors. You cannot inherit salvation from them. You cannot be a generation removed from God. Each person has to make that faith commitment to Him for themselves.

This is what Jesus is saying to His audience here in the early part of this text. When He spoke of being set free by His truth, they claimed that they did not need to be set free by His truth, because they were Abraham’s descendants. Here in verse 37, Jesus says, “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants.” But then in verse 39, when they repeat that Abraham is their father, Jesus challenges that assertion and says, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham.” He says that their deeds prove that they are not really Abraham’s children. So, is Jesus contradicting Himself here, or speaking out of both sides of His mouth? No, not at all.

The thrust of what Jesus is saying cannot really be detected in the English text. If we look at the underlying Greek words that Jesus is using here, we see what He is getting at. In verse 37, he says, “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants,” and the Greek word is the word sperma. You recognize the connection with the English word sperm. It has to do merely with biology. They possess the same biological DNA with the family of Abraham. But, the word He uses in verse 39 is different. He says that they are not acting like Abraham’s children, and the Greek word there is tekna. This word speaks not merely of biology, but of relationship. The difference is not hard to see, especially in our day when multitudes of children are “fathered” biologically by men who have no desire to maintain a “fatherly relationship” with them. They are fathers in the sense of the word sperma, but their children do not have a relationship with them in the sense of the word tekna. So here, the Jews can look to Abraham as their father in the biological sense (they are products of his sperma) but not all of them have this kind of relationship to him in the sense of being his tekna. They have not learned from or emulated the character of Abraham.

In verse 37 Jesus says, “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants (his sperma, his biological offspring),  yet you seek to kill Me.” Then in verse 39 He says, “If you are Abraham’s children (his tekna, his children who are related to him and who emulate his character), do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” In the account of Abraham in the book of Genesis, we see a man who believed in the Lord, and who was made righteous before God through his faith in Him (Gen 15:6). We see a man who obeyed God (12:1-9; 22:1-19), and who welcomed the divine messengers of God with hospitality (18:1-8). Abraham was not a perfect man, and the Bible records some of his flaws, but at the end of his life, God could say of Abraham that he “obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws” (25:6). But these things are not true of the group of his biological descendants that Jesus is confronting here in the text. Jesus has come as the ultimate messenger of God – God Himself in human flesh – and they are not receiving Him. Rather than continuing to abide in His word, as Jesus says in verse 31 (the true mark of being a follower of Jesus), they reject His word, and seek to kill Him. He says in verse 37, “My word has no place in you.” In rejecting Jesus, they are rejecting God, and thus proving that they are not ultimately Abraham’s children. Jesus says to them, “You are doing the deeds of your father,” but the clear implication is that their true father is not Abraham.

The really interesting thing about this is that Abraham’s true children (His true tekna) can be found even outside of Abraham’s biological descendants (His sperma). In Romans 3:28-29, Paul writes, “he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” A right relationship with God is not a product of mere biology, and it cannot be obtained through an external ritual such as Jewish circumcision, or even Christian baptism, but it is something that is received through a personal relationship with God whereby we receive His saving grace through faith. In Romans 9:6, Paul says, “they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel, nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants.” There Paul uses the same two Greek words that Jesus uses here. Not all are Abraham’s tekna even if they are his sperma. So Paul says in Galatians 3:7 that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham, even those from many nations outside of Israel. The Jewish people can boast in being Abraham’s biological descendants, but if they do not have the faith of Abraham, then they are not his spiritual children. Non-Israelites who believe in God through faith in Jesus Christ are more Abraham’s children than are those who are his descendants through mere biology. Their descent from even such a godly ancestor as Abraham does not place them in the family of God by faith.

So there is a lesson for us here in this. If you had godly parents, grandparents, or some other faithful influence in your life, you should absolutely rejoice and give thanks to God for that blessed gift of His grace. But you should by no means be mistaken and think that your connection to those people automatically makes you a participant in the family of God apart from your own personal exercise of faith in Jesus Christ. When you stand before God in judgment, He will not ask you to account for the faith of your father or your grandmother. He will hold you accountable for yourself. You will not be able to slide in on the coattails of your godly ancestor. The question is, have you come to Jesus and trusted Him as your Lord and Savior, and do you have a personal relationship with Him for yourself? If you are trusting in your connection to some other godly person, even if that person is Father Abraham himself, then you are outside of the family of God. He does not have grandchildren, only sons and daughters who come to Him personally through faith in Jesus Christ.

II. Living in a land, or among a people, historically blessed by God does not place us in the family of God. (v41b-42)

Realizing perhaps that they were not getting anywhere with the whole “descendants of Abraham” argument, the crowd now ups the stakes. They retort to Jesus, “We were not born of fornication.” This is the second of three veiled attacks on the character of Jesus here in this chapter, aimed at the unusual circumstances surrounding His birth. It was perhaps becoming common knowledge that Jesus was conceived prior to the marriage of Mary and Joseph, and that Joseph had acknowledged that he was not the child’s father. The truth of the matter was that Jesus had been born in a miraculous way, without an earthly father, conceived as the Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit while Mary remained a virgin. But it did not take long for rumors to begin swirling. One early story that began to circulate was that Mary had engaged in fornication with a Roman soldier by the name of Panthera. Whether it was this particular version of the story or some other that had captivated the imagination of this crowd of people, the question of Jesus’ true paternity is here raised in an attempt to discredit Him. “In the ancient Near East, ‘to question a man’s paternity is a definite slur on his legitimacy.’”[1] So in their protest, they say, “We were not born of fornication;” in the Greek, it is the word porneia (from which we get the word pornography), which is a broad term for sexual sin. Their statement seems to imply that even though He claims to be the Son of God, He really is not. They suggest that Jesus is the child of sexual sin, but they say, “We have one Father: God.”

Their claim to have God as their Father comes from Jewish history. In Exodus 4:22, God speaks of Israel as “My son, My firstborn.” Through the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord said, “I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is My firstborn” (Jer 31:9). King David had prayed, “Blessed are You, O Lord God of Israel our Father forever and ever” (1 Chron 29:10). In these and many other passages of the Old Testament, God was spoken of as being the Father of the nation of Israel. About this there can be no debate. Jesus does not deny God’s Fatherhood of Israel. It was through His sovereign work that Israel came into being as a nation, and through His preserving grace that Israel remained a nation. But Jesus does take issue with the underlying assumption that the people seem to have, namely that simply because they are from the land and people of Israel, that they are personally part of God’s family of faith. As in the previous exchange about Abraham, here again Jesus says in essence, “Your character and your conduct disprove your claim.”

Jesus says in verse 42, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.” In their hearts, there is brewing a murderous hatred for Jesus. Jesus says this is incongruent with their claim that God is their Father. God is the One who sent the Lord Jesus into the world. It is theologically accurate to say that God not only sent Jesus, but came in the person of Jesus. But Jesus is speaking with Trinitarian language here to say that He came from God, not on His own initiative, but was actually sent by God. In their attempt to discredit Jesus and their desire to murder Him, they are despising God’s heavenly Ambassador. It is the ultimate dishonor to God to reject and despise the One whom God has sent. That is not how one ought to treat his or her Father. Jesus claims to be the Son of God, and that claim is validated by His words and deeds. The Israelites claim to be the sons of God, and their claim is voided by their words and deeds.

Let’s bring this home to us. We live in a land that boasts of having been greatly blessed in our history by the hand of God. We sing it often enough: “America, America, God shed His grace on thee.” Whatever our personal opinion or theory on America’s spiritual heritage might be, it is right for us to give thanks to God for the freedoms and the blessings that we have experienced from His hand here in America. But we must not make the mistake of these Israelites and assume that just because God has blessed our nation in the past, that He is obligated to always do so. It is a mistake to assume that being American means that we are more loved and more favored by God than, say, people who live in Iran, Egypt, China, or Russia. It is a mistake to think that America is God’s favorite nation in the world, or that He automatically smiles on all that Americans do, or on all that America represents. We hear people saying all the time that America is, or was, a Christian nation. Whether that is true or false, the Church in America needs to be very clear to the world that we do assume that every American is a Christian or that the American government always acts on Christian, biblical principles. If you think, that because you live in a land and among a people that have been historically blessed by God, you are by default a member of God’s family of faith, then hear the Lord Jesus telling you that you are sorely mistaken. This is something that cannot even be claimed by Israel.

So, if these people are not the true children of Abraham, and not the true children of God, then who is their father? This is the startling reality …

III. To not be under the fatherhood of God is to be under the fatherhood of the devil (vv44-47).

There is such a thing as a false dichotomy. That is where two alternatives are presented as the only alternatives, when in fact other alternatives exist. So for instance, someone may ask you if you are a Republican or a Democrat. The question posed is a false dichotomy because it assumes that one must be either a Republican or a Democrat, and that there are no other alternatives. But there are other alternatives. Not every issue is a juxtaposition of two and only two polar extremes. But when it comes to being a child of God, there are really only two alternatives. If God is not your Father, then the devil is. Who said that? Jesus said that, right here in this text. In verse 44, He says, “You are of your father the devil.” Now, lest you think that this statement only applies to this particular group of people, and not to anyone else in the human race, hear what Paul says in Ephesians 2: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air (that’s the devil), of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.” Who’s Paul talking about? He’s talking about every single human being who has ever lived, including you and me. All of us, at one time, were children of the devil, children of wrath. And the family resemblance could be seen within us.   

Jesus said to the crowd of people there, “You want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning.” They want to kill Him because it is in their DNA. From the beginning, their father was a murderer. The words “the beginning” take us back to the garden of Eden. There, God had set aside one tree of all that He had made and said to Adam, “In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.” And what did Satan conspire to lead Adam to do? To eat of that tree and die. Adam, and indeed every human being since Adam, bears the unique image of God. The human race is an affront to Satan, because it reminds Him of the glory of God, the creator. Jesus said in John 10 that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. He wants people to die; he wants the human race to be destroyed, because everywhere a human life exists, it is a representation of the image of God. And because Satan wanted to rid the world of the image bearers of God, he tempted Adam and Eve to defy God’s command and eat of the forbidden fruit so that they would die. And not them only, but through Adam’s sin, death has infiltrated the entire human race. Paul says in Romans 5:12, “Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”

 Satan is a murderer. Wherever there is a murderous hatred in the hearts of men, there is the family resemblance. At some point in our lives, we have all wrestled with that murderous DNA that we inherited as children of the devil. When we have hated another person, we have committed murder in our hearts against them, and fantasized of ridding the world of that particular image bearer of God. We see it here in the desire of these people to kill the Lord Jesus Himself. Satan had been scheming to destroy the Messiah since before the birth of Christ. He sought to use Abraham’s sin with Hagar to thwart God’s plan to bring the Messiah into the world. He sought to use the infanticide of Pharaoh in Egypt and the genocide of Haman in the days of Esther to rid the world of the Messianic promise. When Jesus was born, he inspired the murderous plot in the heart of Herod to kill all of the male children. These people want to kill Jesus because they seek to follow in their father’s footsteps.

Not only is Satan a murderer from the beginning, Jesus says that the devil “does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Lying is his native tongue. The first lie ever told on earth was told by the devil. God said, “In the day that you eat thereof you shall surely die.” Satan tempted Eve with a lie. He said, “You surely will not die.” He told her that God was just holding them back from true greatness, because if they would only eat of that fruit they would be more like God. The truth was that they could not be any more like God than they already were. It was a lie. And every lie ever told by every human being who ever told it is a product of the devil who is the father of lies. We were all born fluent in the language of dishonesty. You know, I never really had a very strong Southern accent. What little I did have, I’ve worked hard to shake off over the years. But every now and then, I will say something that sounds like just pure hillbilly. Try all you want, your native tongue shines through. And when we lie, we are speaking with a hellish accent. It’s in our DNA, because by nature, we were born in this state of sinfulness, children of the devil. In our human nature, we fear the truth; we hide from it; we try to cover it up; we do not seek it. Jesus says, “Because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” Why do they not believe Him? Because He speaks the truth. In verse 43 He says they don’t understand Him; they cannot hear His word. It is like He is speaking another language. And that is the way that all of us respond to truth in our natural condition. We hate truth, because truth shines a bright light on the dark realities of our sinful hearts. It exposes the family ties that connect us, not to God, but to the devil. He says, “For this reason you do not hear” His truth: “because you are not of God.”

That’s hard to swallow isn’t it? Everything within us hears that, and we want to say, “That’s not true!” But Jesus says, “Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” Are we going to call Jesus a liar? We cannot! He speaks the things which He has seen with His Father. He tells us the truth which He heard from God – from God, from whom He proceeded forth and came from; from God, who sent Him. He speaks the truth, and His truth is true, whether we believe it or not. Our disbelief gives the lie to our false claims to be in right relationship with God. God cannot be our Father while we are resisting and rejecting the truth that confronts us in the person of Jesus Christ. And if God is not our Father, there is only one other alternative: the devil is. It doesn’t matter if we descend from a long line of godly men and women of faith. We cannot cling to our spiritual ancestors. It doesn’t matter if we were born in a land and among a people who were historically blessed by God. It doesn’t matter if we are Jewish, or American, or anything else. These things do not bind us to God. Trusting in them only proves that we do not belong to God, but that our father is none other than the devil himself.

That’s bad news. But there is good news. You see, in His infinite love, God desires to rescue the children of the devil and adopt them as His own sons and daughters. That is why Jesus said in John 3 that we must be born-again. We must be born anew by the Holy Spirit into the family of God. How does this happen? It is the result of God’s sovereign grace, drawing us to Himself. We are so deceived and so enslaved to sin that we would never come to Him unless He drew us. That’s why Jesus said in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him.” And He said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out” (6:37). And so by God’s sovereign, saving grace, He draws us out of our old life of sin, and He draws us to Himself through Jesus Christ. We come to see Him by faith as our sinless Savior, who came from God – better, in Whom God came to us – and He lived and died and rose again on our behalf. He died so that the full measure of all of our sin – all of our lies, all of our murderous hatred, every bit of our unrighteousness – could be punished in Him as He died on the cross as our substitute under the wrath of God. Our hearts are opened to His truth, and we begin to hear Him, to understand Him, and ultimately to believe in Him. And John 1:12 promises us this, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

So, who’s your father? What are you trusting in? Are you trusting in your family ties to some godly person who lived before you – your parents, your grandparents, a friend, a mentor? Even Abraham’s descendants could not trust in this. Nor can we. Are you trusting in your national or ethnic heritage – that you are an Israelite, that you are an American, whatever? No, not even the Jews can trust in that. To trust in these things is to remain children of the devil. So how do you become a child of God? You trust in Christ and come to Him by faith as your Lord and Savior. Then God will adopt you into His family and lavish His fatherly love upon you. Is the Father drawing you today? Perhaps in your heart of hearts you can hear Him beckoning you, “Come home. Be born again. Become part of My family.” Jesus Christ is the way. And if you have come to God by faith through Him, you are now part of His family. He is your Father. Maybe you never had a father before, maybe you had a wonderful earthly father. It doesn’t matter. God will be a greater Father to you than you have ever imagined. He loves you. Rest in His love. He is with you. You aren’t alone. You have a Father in Heaven who will never leave you, and from Whom you can never be severed. He is for you. Trust in His goodness. Find in Him your complete satisfaction, knowing that you belong to Him forever. You’ve been rescued. You’ve been adopted. You are secure in His family, set free from the sin of your past through the blood of Christ that was shed for you. And as you rest in Him, He will transform you by His Word and by His Spirit, so that the family resemblance between you and your Heavenly Father will become more apparent with each passing day until you see Him face to face, and He receives you to your eternal home with a welcoming embrace. For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).

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[1] Andreas Kostenberger, John (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 265; citing Leon Morris and Merrill Tenney. 

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John 8:31-36 - The True Disciples of Jesus

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Do you know who Joseph Cosey is? In the late 1920s, he became notorious for his expert skill in forgery. Cosey began to earn quite a living forging signatures of significant historical figures like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, but his claim to fame was his nearly exact replicas of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington’s signatures. So prolific was Cosey that, among the many documents and pictures of Lincoln and Washington bearing signatures that are in circulation today, a good number of them are actually fakes produced by Cosey, or copies of Cosey’s fakes. An original Cosey document is worth quite a bit of money because of his notoriety in the forgery trade. Cosey’s skill at counterfeiting signatures teaches us the importance of distinguishing the real from the fake, and his success at it reminds us that the task of identifying the genuine article is sometimes extremely difficult. When it comes to historical memorabilia, the stakes can be pretty high. But the stakes are infinitely higher when it comes to the difference between genuine disciples of Jesus and counterfeit believers. Nowhere is it more important to know the difference between the genuine and the fake than when it comes to this.

It has been a month since our last look at John’s Gospel, so let me remind you of the preceding context. In verses 21-30, Jesus was speaking about His departure from this life through His crucifixion. He spoke directly to the Jewish crowd gathered around Him at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, warning them of the tragic reality of what it means to die in one’s sin. And as a result of His pointed words there, verse 30 says, “many came to believe in Him.” That sounds like a good cause for rejoicing! People are believing in Jesus! And now in verses 31 and following, Jesus turns His attention to those Jews who believed in Him there and makes it very clear that not all who profess to believe in Him are truly His disciples. This passage teaches us that just because a person experiences some attraction to Jesus, or professes some measure of faith in Him, they are not necessarily truly born-again followers of Christ. Some are just faking it.

We’ve seen this before in John’s Gospel. In Chapter 2, after Jesus turned the water in to wine, John 2:23 says, “many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.” But the very next verses say, “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” Jesus did not have any faith in their faith. He knew it was just a superficial kind of faith. We might even call it counterfeit faith. Then again in Chapter 6, after another series of miracles and bold statements, Jesus had amassed a large number of followers. But when He began to speak about the hard truths of being His followers, John 6:66 says that “many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” They had demonstrated that their faith in Him was not genuine because it was only shallow and temporary. These, like the ones in Chapter 2, were counterfeit disciples. But now a new crowd of people have attached themselves to Jesus. They have come to some level of belief in Him. And once again, Jesus speaks to them of the hard truths of what it means to be His disciple. And the words He spoke on that occasion are particularly relevant to us today.

According to the Gallup organization, 77% of Americans surveyed in 2012 (more than 3 out of every 4!) claimed to be Christian.[1] Now let me ask you: when you look around at our society, does it really look like we live in a nation where 3 of every 4 people are truly disciples of Christ? If 3 of every 4 people in America were really true disciples of Christ, would we be facing the moral degradation that we see in our nation on issues like abortion, homosexuality, divorce, sexual promiscuity, drug and alcohol addiction, and other things of this nature? You see, so many times, we want to withdraw from our culture and retreat into the holy huddle of the Church building and complain about the spiritual and moral decay “out there,” but the statistics and realities we see around us indicate that the real root of the problem may in fact be “in here.” Might it be that significant percentages of those who think they are Christians really and truly are not, and that this is a contributing factor to the culture’s spiritual and ethical tailspin? There has never been a greater need for the Church of Jesus Christ to understand the difference between false believers and true disciples. And there is no time better than the present for every person who professes faith in Christ to do as Paul admonishes us in 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” So what is a true disciple of Jesus Christ? In this text, Jesus identifies the distinguishing mark of a true disciple and the unique blessings of a true disciple.

I. The Distinguishing Mark of a True Disciple (v31)

If I were to ask you, “What is a true disciple of Jesus?” what would you say? I imagine that at least some of you would say, “A person who believes in Jesus.” And yet here, Jesus is speaking to a group of people who, at least on some level, do believe in Him, and He says that some of them may not in fact be true disciples. He says that there is a distinguishing characteristic that serves to identify a true disciple, and you might be surprised to know that this characteristic is not simply saying that you believe in Him.

He says, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” Notice that this is not a condition of being a true disciple. He is not saying, “If you continue in My word, then you will become a true disciple.” He says, “If you continue in My word, then you ARE truly disciples of Mine.” The difference is subtle but significant. Put one way, the impetus is upon us to perform our way into the Kingdom of God. Do this in order to become that. That is about as far from the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as you can get. In fact, I would say that if you have ever walked away from hearing me or Pastor Jack preach in this pulpit and thought we said that the key to being a Christian was working harder, trying harder, and doing better, then you grossly missed the point. Jesus isn’t saying, “If you try harder and do better, you can become My disciple.” Rather He is saying that if you have truly become His disciple by faith – that is, if you faith in Him is genuine – then this will be true of you: you will continue in His Word. That is NOT “do this to become that.” It is “You are this, therefore this is true of you.” A true disciple is distinguished, not by his or her verbal claim to believe in Jesus, but by the reality that is present in his or her life that they continue in His Word.
So what does it mean to continue in His Word? Your English translation might read here “continue” or “hold to,” but the Greek word that originally occurs here is most literally translated “abide” (as the New King James has it). The great commentator Matthew Henry said of this that it means “to dwell in Christ’s word, as a man does at home, which is his centre, and rest, and refuge.”[2] The life of the true disciple is lived out in the sphere of Christ’s word. It has to do with perseverance. Jesus is saying that it is not enough to begin well; what matters is that we continue on and finish the course of our lives in faith and obedience to His Word. The mark of the true disciple is that he or she remains committed to the truth of Jesus Christ and His word throughout their lives. There should be an appetite for the Word of God in a true disciple, and a desire to read it, hear it, understand it, apply it, and obey it. That appetite should continue and even increase throughout the days of our lives. This is not what makes a person a Christian; rather it is what proves that a person is a Christian. Anyone can say that he or she believes in Jesus, and by that, they mean any number of things. They may simply mean that they believe that He existed; they may mean that they agree with and even appreciate the things that He said. But the true disciple is one who has a personal relationship with Jesus that begins with a complete and total surrender to Him as Lord and a personal trust in Him as Savior and continues abiding in His word throughout life.

A true disciple does not merely believe that Jesus lived and died, or even that He actually rose from the dead. A true disciple believes that Jesus did this for me: that Jesus lived to satisfy the righteous demands of God’s law on my behalf, so that I can be covered in His righteousness, since I am unable to be righteous on my own effort; that Jesus died to bear the full penalty of my sins for me so that my sins are removed through the blood He shed on the cross; that Jesus rose again for me, so that I can have eternal life through Him. And as a result of this, I commit myself to Him by faith, trusting Him alone to save me, and yielding my allegiance to Him as my Lord and King. It is a personal relationship, knowing that He is with me, that He speaks to me through His Word, and that He loves me and cares for me, and invites me to commune with Him through prayer and worship, and desires for me to live to bring Him glory. His word feeds my soul and instructs Me in living for His glory. The true disciple never outgrows his or her need to continue abiding in the Word of God. It is the milk that feeds us in our spiritual infancy, the meat that sustains us as we mature in the faith, and the bread that gives life to us as we digest it. 

If a person claims to be a believer in Christ, and does not have an appetite for God’s Word, and is not continuing in His Word, Jesus says that they are not a true disciple. What then are they? They are a false believer. You might wonder if there could be such a thing! There is. Jesus tells us this plainly in many places in the Gospels, but nowhere more clearly than in the parable of the sower and the soils.

In Mark 4, Jesus talks about a sower who sows his seed, and the seed lands upon different kinds of soil. Some of it falls on the hard packed ground beside the road, and is eaten by the birds. Some of the seed falls into stony ground, where there is not much soil. It springs up quickly, but it is scorched by the sun because it lacks roots to sustain it. Some of the seed falls into thorny ground, and as it begins to grow, it is choked out by the weeds and thorns. But some of the seed falls into good soil, and it grows up and produces an abundant crop. Jesus explained the parable to His followers, saying that the seed is the Word of God. The seed that fell by the road represents those who hear the word, but immediately the word is taken away by Satan. Their hearts are hard to the word of Christ, and the seed does not penetrate them. The seed that fell in the rocky soil, which bloomed immediately only to be scorched by the sun represents those who immediately receive the word with joy, but who fall away when affliction or persecution arises. The seed that fell in the thorny ground only to be choked out by the thorns as it began to grow represents those who initially receive the word, but who turn away from Christ because of the worries of the world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things. None of these are true disciples of Christ, even though initially some of them professed to believe in Him. It is the seed that lands in good soil and grows to produce a bountiful harvest that represents the true disciple. The true disciple endures and perseveres through persecution and affliction. The true disciple is not led astray from Christ by worldly enticements. The true disciple abides in the Word and continues walking with Jesus even though life gets hard and the world attempts to entice them away with many temptations.

It is likely that we have known many who came to Christ with much enthusiasm initially, but who began to suffer some affliction in their lives and turned away from Christ because of it. Some might have cowered to intimidation and persecution and gave up on Jesus in order to protect themselves, their reputations, their social status, and the like. Some might have decided that there were other things in life that were more important to them than Jesus – they opted to pursue wealth, possessions, relationships, or pleasures that they did not think they could obtain by walking faithfully with Jesus. Maybe some of you find yourselves in these descriptions. Do not rest in a false assurance that things are well with you and God because you once prayed a prayer when you were a child. Perhaps you have watched your children or other loved ones wander away from Jesus in ways like this. Do not assume that because they prayed a prayer or were baptized upon joining the church that they are genuinely saved! Remember that Jesus is here talking to people who had “believed in Him,” but their belief in Him was superficial and shallow. Some of these will pick up stones to kill Him before this very chapter ends! They demonstrate that they are not true disciples of Jesus because they do not continue abiding in His Word.

These are uncomfortable truths for us to wrestle with, because many of us have been taught for a long time that proverbial Baptist expression, “Once saved, always saved.” Perhaps you think I am saying something contrary to that, but in reality I am not. It is true that if a person is genuinely saved, he or she is forever secure in Christ. But, what I am saying – in fact, what Jesus is saying here – is that not everyone who professes to believe in Him is genuinely saved. So how can we know? Genuine faith bears a distinguishing mark – a person who is a true disciple of Jesus will continue to abide in His Word. Our abiding does not save us; our salvation produces the abiding. One of the surest ways of knowing that you genuinely belong to Christ is that you sense within yourself a continuing and increasing appetite, a hunger, a sense of dependence on Christ and His Word. This is the distinguishing mark of a true disciple.

II. The Unique Blessings of a True Disciple (vv32-36)

Now that Jesus has distinguished between the counterfeit believer and the true disciple, He goes on to speak of two particular blessings that the true disciple will receive. In verse 32, He says that the true disciple, the one who abides in His word, will “know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Now, when He says that the true disciple will “know the truth,” this is not to say that no one else in the world can know anything that is true. There are true facts that can be known by anyone, regardless of their spiritual condition. But there is a truth, we might call it “Truth” (with a capital “T”), that can only be known by the follower of Jesus. And the significance of this Truth is so great, that all other truths pale in comparison to it. It is a Truth that, if one does not know it, it matters very little what else one does know; and if one knows this Truth, then it matters very little what else he or she does not know. This Truth is not an intellectual concept or a philosophical proposition, but is an actual living Person. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” So, He is saying that He Himself is Truth, and to know Him is to have eternal access to God the Father. Everyone who is attempting to approach God in any other way, or to know God in any way outside of coming to Him and knowing Him through Jesus Christ, is basing their life and all eternity on falsehoods. God’s truth is revealed and is moreover incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ. Thus, if we want to know God and come to Him, we must come to Him and know Him in Jesus Christ.

Being Truth in the flesh, Jesus is true and trustworthy.  Because He is true and trustworthy, then the things He says are, by necessity true, and the things which He says are true are true indeed. And in John 17:17, Jesus prays to the Father, saying, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” So, knowing Truth involves knowing God Himself through Jesus Christ (who is God’s true Living Word), and through the Bible (which is God’s true Written Word). It is that Word in which we abide as a result of being His disciple. The true disciple, even though he or she may be uneducated and ignorant of many things in this world, knows a Truth that far outweighs all other truths. He or she knows God – they do not merely know facts about God, but they know God in a personal and relational way, because He has been revealed in Christ and in Scripture. Some of you have known godly people like this – some of you are godly people like this! I have spent time with some of the most precious saints of God, who by modern standards never received more than a middle school education, and who are completely unaware and unconcerned with matters of philosophy, science, or politics. But, they have a wisdom that the world does not know, because their lives are anchored in this ultimate Truth. They know Christ Himself, and walk with Him faithfully. They know God’s Word, and they know how to apply it to their lives in every situation that comes their way. That is not to say that all Christians are uneducated and ignorant, though the world sometimes would have us believe that. In fact, some of the most well-educated and brilliant people I have known are completely sold out to Jesus. Their intellect shines all the more because it is fixed upon the Truth of Christ and His Word. They know the Truth because they are truly disciples of Christ who are abiding in His Word. That is a unique blessing reserved for true disciples.

But Jesus goes on to say that there is another unique blessing for His true disciples: they are set free as a result of the Truth that they know. What is this freedom that Jesus is speaking about? The context helps us to understand.

When Jesus speaks to this group of people about the Truth making them free, notice how they respond. Almost immediately, they demonstrate their unwillingness to abide in His Word. It offends them, and they want to get out from under His Word. That is enough to suggest that they are not truly committed to Him. They protest and object to His Word about being made free, and they claim that they do not need this. They say, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone!” This is a bold-faced lie. Almost their entire history has been one of bondage. They were enslaved in Egypt, conquered by Assyria, deported by Babylon, subservient to Persia, engulfed by Greece, and at the time of this conversation they were living as conquered people under the iron fist of Rome. But, Jesus doesn’t dwell on their lie. The kind of freedom He is talking about can be experienced even by people who are enslaved, controlled, and dominated by other earthly powers. There is an enslavement that is harsher than physical or political slavery.
You and I live in a land that cherishes “freedom.” Since 1776, we have been an “independent” nation, free from the control of other powers. But not everyone in America was free. In the saddest chapters of our nation’s history, multitudes of people were enslaved to taskmasters who treated them inhumanely. In the 1860s, this form of slavery was abolished, but still not all were free. Since the 1960s, great strides have been made in civil rights, but still not all are free. The kind of slavery and freedom that Jesus is speaking about has nothing to do with the personal or political liberties that a person or a nation enjoys. Even in a free land with laws protecting the rights of free people, many are still enslaved and in need of being set free in the way that Jesus speaks of it here.

He is talking about freedom from sin. Notice in verse 34, He says, “Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Because every human being is born in sin, we are all born into slavery. Every human being can sing the words of Charles Wesley: “Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night.” But only the true disciple of Christ can sing the rest of the words: “Thine eye diffused a quickening ray; I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth, and follwed Thee!” The truth of Jesus Christ sets us free from this enslavement. But, even among those who are truly disciples of Christ, who have been set free in this way, we still sin. Does that mean that we have not truly been set free? No. When Jesus speaks of those who “commit sin” and are thus “slaves of sin,” He speaks with a present tense participle that indicates a person who “continues in sin.” They are not “continuing in His Word,” but rather “continuing in sin,” meaning that they are willfully engaging in ongoing patterns of sin with no regard for turning from it in repentance. This pattern of sin demonstrates that the person is enslaved; but the practice of such sin also strengthens the bonds of their slavery. But do we not all continue to sin in some way? Indeed we do. But when a person who has been set free from sin commits a sin, there is a difference. It is a momentary lapse – a forgetting of one’s true state. Old habits die hard. We are accustomed to following our corrupted desires, because for much of our lives it was the only way we knew to live. In that moment of sin, we forgot that we were free to follow our new Master (Jesus) rather than following our old master (sin).

It’s like this: on April 29, 2004, the last Oldsmobile that would ever be made rolled off the assembly line. There would be no more Oldsmobiles ever manufactured. But, all of the Oldsmobiles didn’t disappear from the road on that day. We still see them driving up and down the road, even though the Oldsmobile factory has been shut down. But with every passing year, you will see fewer and fewer of them on the road. You see, when Jesus sets you free from sin, He shuts down the sin factory in your life. You are no longer a product of that assembly line, you belong to Him. But you still see the reminders of that old factory riding around in your life. The sins that a Christian commits are like Oldsmobiles – relics of a defunct factory. And you will still see them until you are perfected and glorified in the presence of Jesus. But hopefully, as you abide in the Word of Christ, you will see fewer and fewer of them because He is shaping and sanctifying you as you walk with Him as His disciple.

When a Christian commits a sin, its different than when an unbeliever continues in sin. For the Christian, there is the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit’s conviction. He pricks our conscience and sounds the alarm in our lives that something is not right. He reminds us that we have forgotten that we have been set free. This drives us to confession and repentance and we are freshly cleansed by the blood of Christ as we turn to Him with a contrite heart. But the one who continues in sin operates with abandon and the Holy Spirit’s conviction is not sensed by them at all. They are continuing in sin because it is all they can do; they are slaves to sin and they are merely doing the bidding of their master. Jesus says that He is able to set us free from this, and because He is not a slave, but the Son of God, He is able to transform the slaves of sin into sons and daughters of God who have full access to the Father and to His dwelling place. “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever” Jesus says in verse 35. If He were merely God’s servant, God’s slave, He could not make us eternal promises about liberation. But because He is God’s Son, and abides with Him forever, He is able to set us free forever from the enslavement of sin! By His death, we are freed from the penalty of sin. He bore it for us. By His indwelling life, we are freed from the power of sin. A greater power dwells within us, and we can overcome sin. And ultimately, praise God, when we see Jesus face to face in heaven, we will be free for eternity from the very presence of sin, never again to see or experience it or its heinous effects. Some people misunderstand what it means to be free in Christ. They think it means that we are free to sin. No, we were already free to sin. In fact it is all we could do! But now, we are free to live for Christ! We are free to not sin, and to choose each moment of each day to live for His glory as we abide in His word.

To be free in this way is to be free indeed. It is to be free in a way that no earthly power can overcome. You might spend the rest of your life in prison, or in slavery to an earthly master, or under the subjection of a foreign power; but you will be free indeed and free forever because the Son has made you free. That is why, though we are glad we have the rights and privileges of freedom in America, we understand that this is not the main thing. It is a waste to be free in this way and yet still enslaved to sin! It is also why, though we are concerned about oppression and social injustice around the world, we understand that democracy and liberty can only do so much to help a person. The greatest need of people who live under oppression is the Gospel of Jesus Christ because He can set them free in a way that far surpasses the limitations of their political and personal freedoms.

The audience to which Jesus was speaking claimed to believe in Him, but in fact they were not true disciples. They were not continuing in His Word; they were in fact continuing in sin. Their attitudes and actions over the rest of this chapter demonstrate that. Rather than abiding in His word, they tried to argue with His word. Instead of knowing the truth, they were entrapped in lies. Instead of seeing their true spiritual condition, they boasted of their ethnic superiority. They did not think they needed to be set free because they were the descendants of Abraham, and falsely believed that because the Jews were God’s chosen people, that they were automatically right with God. The Bible never promised this to them. The conditions of redemption were the same in the Old Testament as in the New. Human beings bound to sin had to be reconciled to God through repentance and faith in God’s saving promises. In the Old Testament, those promises pointed people forward to the saving work of Christ on the cross. In the New Testament, the promises point us back to His saving work on the cross. Being a biological descendant of Abraham was never sufficient to make anyone right with God. They were enslaved to sin, and blinded to their true condition by a false assurance.
The same might be true of many who think they are Christians today. They think that because they recited the words of a prayer as a child, or were baptized, or joined a church, that they have become Christ’s true disciples, and have truly been set free. But their lives lack the distinguishing characteristic of a true disciple – they are not continuing to abide in His Word. That’s the bad news. The good news is that Jesus is still in the business of setting people free who turn to Him in repentance and faith as their Lord and Savior. Do you know Him? Do you have a personal relationship with Him? How can you tell? You ought to see the distinguishing mark in your life. Are you abiding in His Word? You ought to see the unique blessings in your life. Do you know the Truth of Christ and of God’s Word? Have you been set free: free from striving to please God with your own efforts; free from trusting in false assurances and from pretending that you have something you really don’t have; free from marching to the orders of sin in your life and free to walk in holiness as you grow in Christlikeness? These things demonstrate to us whether we are truly His disciples, or if we are just counterfeit Christians.

What a glorious reality it is to abide in the Word of Christ and to walk in truth and freedom as His true disciple! If you have never experienced this in your life before, I pray you will – even today! And if you have, will you ask God to show you how you can share these truths with others so that they too can know the truth and freedom that comes from following Christ and abiding in His Word? When the Lord Jesus came into the world, He was beginning an abolitionist movement to rid humanity of its enslavement to sin. He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” Will you join Him on this mission to abolish the slavery of mankind to sin? Will you proclaim with Him freedom to those who are oppressed?

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[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/159548/identify-christian.aspx. Accessed September 25, 2013.

[2] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1991), 1969.

Vermont Update - 9/19 (Final Post)

I want to thank all of you who have been praying for us during our Vermont trip. We left Vermont on 9/20 and returned home on 9/21. Thankfully, those were pretty uneventful days that consisted primarily of driving, driving, and more driving. On 9/19, we took a day off to have some fun in Vermont, and here is a post I wrote that night when we returned back to our lodge.

9/19

Today we had a day off to play the role of tourist ... And by
"tourist", I mean "people who eat a lot." We rolled out at the crack
of 10 this morning and went to Wayside Restaurant in Berlin for
brunch, which everyone seemed to enjoy. From here we went to Morse
Farm, a large Maple Syrup production farm north of Montpelier. They
even make maple creamies, so, you know, it's obligatory.

 From Morse Farm, we went to the Cabot Cheese store in Waterbury, and
the Brave Coffee Shop, and some other shops there at this site. After
sampling various cheeses and maple products, we moved on to the Cider
Mill where we watched cider being made, drank it straight from the
vat, and had cider donuts.

We opted to proceed to somewhere that did not have food, so we went to
the Trapp Family Lodge. Some of us even had a close encounter with a
real live Von Trapp grandchild there. After a stroll around the lovely
grounds, we we departed to the quaint downtown area of Stowe. After a
brief jaunt through a couple of shops, we made our way down the
mountain. One team member requested another stop at the Pump & Pantry -
not for a maple creamie, but for maple syrup. The same syrup that sold
for $45 in some of the  tourist shops is sold to locals at the gas
station for $22. But you know, since we were at the Pump & Pantry
anyway, some decided to go ahead and have a maple creamie. Not me. No
sir. I have already one today, and I have willpower. So I didn't have
one. Instead I had a maple sundae! I might have found something that
tops a maple creamie.

Completely overwhelmed with our own gluttony, we went over to
Northfield to say goodbye to Pastor Trey and his family. After some
hugs and farwells we made our way back to the house to pack and
prepare to depart in the morning. We have been truly blessed during
this trip. Hard to believe it's almost over. Always hard to leave a
place where the needs are so noticeably great, but we are eager to get
home -- and perhaps reawakened to the needs around us there.

When I plan mission trips, there are several "underlying" objectives.
(1) that the team would have such an experience that all would be
eager to go again in the future. (2) that the team would go home eager
to sere the Lord there with as much intentionality and focus as here.
I am praying that both of these will be so. We are already talking
about next year's trip. Hope you'll come along!