John 9:17-19 - Doubting miracles

9:17

The Jews then turned to the man himself to see what his opinion was. It is not clear why they did this. Maybe it was a genuine inquiry after the truth. The man had actually been healed by Jesus, so maybe he had something worthwhile to say. This would be a reasonable thing to do, but the Jewish leaders were not reasonable people. It seems more likely that it was said in the tone of “and what do you say about this!”, with an angry intonation. When reading the Bible we need to recognise that often we are not dealing with reasoned academic statements, we are not reading a paper submitted to a learned journal. If we are to appreciate what is happening we need to remember the emotions of the people involved.

Whatever the case, the man had no hesitation in answering that the man was a prophet. Prophets were commonly associated with miracle working.

9:18,19

The Pharisees were looking for a way out. The fact of the miracle presented a problem to them, it was a hard fact that demanded some sort of response, so it would be much better for them (or so they thought) if it had not happened. So, clutching at straws, they sent for the man’s parents, hoping to find out that the whole thing was a hoax or a gross exaggeration. we see the same phenomenon today. People are highly reluctant to believe miracles, any half plausible alternative explanation will do. Now there is some justification for this for parts of the church do have a habit of over claiming, and some parts of downright lying. So a degree of scepticism is in order, but only some. There comes a point where a miracle actually becomes the most reasonable explanation, and the idea that miracles never happen is without foundation.

So the man’s parents were summoned.

John 9:13-16 - Here's mud in your eye

9:13,14

The Pharisees were out to get Jesus and His “working” on the Sabbath provided the ideal opportunity from their perspective. They are of course completely blind to the fact that the man who was physically blind from birth could now see, no thought of rejoicing in this matter. Sin blinds us totally, and completely distorts our thinking.

It says “they brought” the man. Why did the acquaintances of the man bring him to the Pharisees? Maybe they wanted to present them with evidence of the power of Jesus, or perhaps they wanted to keep in with the Pharisees. When evil people rule there will always be those who kowtow to them.

Verse 14 makes it clear that it is the mud making that was the crucial issue in the eyes of the Pharisees.

9:15,16

So the Pharisees asked the man how he had received his sight. The man gave a very basic and perfunctory explanation of what had happened.

The Pharisees were not completely united. There were those who followed what we think of as the typical Pharisee line, being totally obsessed with the “working” on the Sabbath. But there were others who could not see how miraculous healings could be the work of a “sinner”. In the Pharisees defence, Deut 13:1-5 does warn that if someone claims to be a prophet, even if their words come true, but they lead them to worship false gods, then they must follow that prophet. Jesus, of course, was not leading people to worship idols, but to true worship of God.

John 9:6-12 - How and who?

9:6

This isn’t the only instance of Jesus using spit in healing blindness (Mark 7:33; 8:22-25). We may recoil at this, but if you had been blind all your life and then were healed you would not be overly concerned about the methodology used. The significance of Jesus making mud is that this counted as work and this was the Sabbath. So, horror of horrors, Jesus had done “work” on the Sabbath. Note that this was purely man’s invention of the law, not God’s. We need to be very careful about building our own edifices on top of God’s ways.

9:7-9

Jesus told the man to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. This pool was part of the water system developed by Hezekiah. The man did as he was told and when he had finished was able to see. His whole demeanour and life was now completely different and people noticed. When God does a real work in our lives it has an outward effect and people will see the difference. In fact some were so surprised by the change that they thought they must be mistaken and that it wasn’t actually the same man they were used to seeing beg. When we see someone in a different context to that in which we are used to seeing them we can easily be unsure about whether or not we do actually recognise them.

9:10-12

The man had insisted that it was really him. So the next natural question was “how then can you see”? When people see a God produced change in us they will wonder why and how, we need to be ready to give an explanation.

At this stage the man had not seen Jesus, so just knew Him by name, for he had not been enabled to see until after he had washed in the Pool of Siloam. This also meant that he couldn’t tell them where Jesus was.

John 9:3-5 - Does sin cause sickness?

9:3

Jesus tells them they are wrong. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned”. Now these words should be a stark warning against over literal interpretation of passages. Words are to be interpreted within their context. Every Bible believing Christian would say that Jesus is the only man never to have sinned, yet if we interpret these words in a crudely literal sense then clearly there are at least three more people who did not sin. This is quite clearly nonsense, what Jesus is saying is that the man’s blindness is not a result of his or his parents’ sin. So we need to exercise a bit of common sense in interpreting the Bible, and that includes Genesis 1-3.

Now we can make one of two mistakes with regard to sin and sickness. One is to say that all sin is a direct result of sin. Jesus is saying that that is not true. All sickness is a result of sin in a general sense, but not all sickness is a direct result of one’s own sin. The other mistake is to say that sickness is never a direct result of sin. That is equally unbiblical nonsense. Sometimes sickness is a direct result of sin. These verses should also be a warning of going overboard on “generational curses”. Some things are passed on in families, but not everything is a result of that.

“But this happened ...” The Greek actually doesn't actually say that, the words “this happened” do not appear in the Greek, but are an interpretation. We should also remember that early Greek had no punctuation. Verses 3 and 4 could equally well be translated  “Jesus replied neither this man sinned nor his parents, but so that the works of God may be revealed in him it is necessary for us to work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming when no one can work” (Kruse).

9:4,5

We live in darkness. Dark things happen in the world, they happen in general, and they happen in individual lives. Sometimes dark things happen in our own lives. But Jesus came to do good. “While I am in the world I am the light of the world”. Jesus is not in the world any longer, so now we are to be light in the darkness.

There is a time to do good, but there also comes a time when it is impossible to do so, so we need to seize every opportunity. Soon the world would crucify Jesus so that He could no longer heal people, but even this happened for a purpose, a much deeper and greater purpose as we know. We need to understand that for reasons beyond our comprehension there are times when evil seems to triumph, but everything is in God’s hands and the ultimate defeat of evil is assured. In the meantime we should seek to do all the good that we can.

John 9:1,2 - Who sinned?

9:1,2

We now get another healing and another Sabbath controversy, and also a correction of common religious thought, which is highlighted in these two verses.

Jesus saw a man blind from birth. He had not become blind, but had been born blind. This stresses the enormity of the miracle that Jesus performed here. There is no way there could be a “natural explanation”.

The disciples were more concerned with why the man was blind. We have just seen in the foregoing chapters that the Jews and the people both had serious misunderstandings, to put it mildly. In fact they were spiritually blind. Perhaps that is why John places this miracle here. For the disciples also had spiritual blindness. So what is the difference between the disciples and the Jews? The disciples were with Jesus, trusting in Him, looking to learn from Him. All of us suffer from spiritual blindness to some extent, even if we have been Christians for many years, but Jesus can, and does, give us sight.

Who sinned? The common thought was that all disease was a result of either a person’s own sin or the sin of their parents. Some even thought a person could be punished for sins committed in the womb. Whatever we may claim to believe, or not believe, all men have a conception that disease and suffering is somehow related to sin. More on this matter tomorrow.

John 8:56-59 - I am

8:56

This is was one of the many cases in John where faced with opposition Jesus makes his statements even stronger. There is no backing off here. He now tells them that Abraham was looking forward to Jesus coming. Then says that he saw it and was glad. Hebrews 11 talks about Abraham and his faith, and those men in faith looking ahead. So Abraham looked ahead with faith, he was relying on God. The Jews, in contrast, were relying on their own wisdom.

8:57

The Jews continued to interpret things with the eyes of human wisdom. Jesus was nowhere near old enough to have seen Abraham. The specific mention of fifty years old maybe that fifty years old was just a key age. Anyway, following their purely human wisdom there was no way that Abraham could have seen Jesus, or that Jesus could have seen Abraham (though Jesus does not actually say that He had seen Abraham).

8:58,59

Now we get the strongest statement of all, “before Abraham was, I am”. And this is prefaced with the “Truly, truly ...”, to leave us in no doubt that Jesus had not “misspoken”. He knew what He was saying and He meant what He said. “I am” was the title that God used of Himself when he met Moses in the burning bush. Jesus is God, and there can be no doubt about this.

The Jews were able to take no more. When faced with the truth, those who reject the truth will at some point react with violence. There are some who quibble asking where they managed to find stones from. This is a rather pathetic question to ask, demonstrating how people can so easily completely miss the important features of what is being said, ie demonstrating a lot of commonality with the Jews of the day! For what it is worth there are at least two plausible explanations. Perhaps the most likely is that the building work was not actually complete at this stage, so there would have been some stones around. Alternatively, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the stones were immediately available. Maybe they had to look for them? What ever the case the key point is Jesus claiming to be “I am”.

John 8:52-55 - You've got a demon!

8:52,53

The Jews were still unable to see the truth. They were more convinced than ever that Jesus was demon possessed. Abraham and the prophets had all died. Yet if Jesus was who He said He was then surely they kept God’s word and should not have died. They did die, yet here was Jesus claiming that if anyone kept His word they would not see death. What did Jesus mean? Who was He claiming to be? He was clearly claiming to be greater than Abraham or any of the prophets had been. There is a lot of silly talk about Jesus not claiming to be divine, and that His being God was something Paul and later Christians foisted upon Jesus. The Jews of the time were perfectly clear about the enormous claims that Jesus was making for Himself.

8:54

Jesus did not glorify Himself, it was the Father who glorified Him. The Jews saw the glorification of Jesus as grounds for killing Him. The truth was that it was proof that the Father had sent Him, that the Father approved of Him. It is the Father who honours the Son. The Jews claimed that the Father was their God, yet they did not honour the One whom the Father honoured. They were working directly against God.

8:55

The truth was that the Jews did not know God, but Jesus did know Him. We are always wanting to come to God on our terms. Listen to arguments from liberals and sceptics and notice how often (in fact most of the time) what they are saying is that we will decide how we approach God. Just think about this. God is the creator and sustainer of all things. We are mere mortals. Yet we think we decide the terms of how we approach God? This is a ridiculous notion.

Jesus had to make the claims He did make, otherwise He would have been a liar. He does know the Father and does keep His word. The world is keen for us to say that all religions lead to God, but if we go along with this then we are making Jesus out to be a liar. Jesus is the only way to God, there is no other way. It doesn’t matter if we like it or not, it is the truth. And if we accept the truth we actually find that is very good news indeed.

John 8:48-51 - Honour

8:48,49

The Jews react by insulting Jesus, to call Him a Samaritan was a grave insult in those days. As we saw when we looked at the chapter on the Samaritan woman, the Jews regarded the Samaritans as grossly inferior. As if that wasn’t  enough they then accuse Him of having a demon. There were a number of “prophets” from Samaria and the Jews said that they were demon possessed.

Jesus is completely unfazed by all this, answering calmly that He does not have a demon. He honoured His Father, but the real problem was that they dishonoured Him.

8:50

“I am not seeking glory for myself”. There could be a side swipe at the Jewish leaders here who were seeking glory for themselves. Jesus was not seeking glory for Himself, yet He would receive more glory than anyone ever had. However, there was one who was seeking glory for the Son, and that was the Father. So we see the contrast here. The Jewish leaders sought their own glory, relying on their own methods and so-called power. Jesus was completely obedient to the Father. In the world we are encouraged to seek our own glory, to advance ourselves. It is far better to let God advance us. That does not mean we do not do anything, but that we live our lives in obedience to Him and we rely upon Him. This is actually by far the wisest course, for the Father is the judge, He is the one who decides the final outcome.

8:51

This is another amazing statement of Jesus. He draws attention to Himself and His teaching. We see this throughout John. On the one hand Jesus will say that He is completely dependent upon the Father, and does only what the Father says and does. Then He will insist that He has the words of life and must be listened to. We only have authority when we are under God’s authority. If we want to be a preacher or teachers whose words mean something then we must be people who speak the words of God.

In saying that they would never see death He did not mean we would not die, but that we would be raised from the death.

John 8:45-47 - Do you belong to God?

8:45

When we sin we become enslaved to the father of lies, so we can longer hear the truth. That is one of the greatest dangers of sin. It starts to distort our thinking. Despite our denials, we know we have done something wrong, but instead of repenting the temptation is to seek to justify ourselves. So when someone speaks the truth we don’t believe them. This is what was happening with the Jews and Jesus. It it what happened with us when we said marriage provides the best environment for children, society didn’t believe us. When we said so-called gay marriage is not good, society doesn’t believe us. We need to pray for our society. Our proclamation and presentation of the truth alone will do nothing, it needs our proclamation and presentation along with the grace of God on our society.

8:46,47

Now all this talk of the inability of people to see the truth does not mean we don’t use arguments or logic, it means they are not sufficient. Here Jesus challenges them to prove Him guilty of sin. Of course they could not. Jesus then asks them again, “Why don’t you believe me?”.

Then we get the words if someone does belong to God, then they will believe what God says. The Jewish leaders could not hear because they did not belong to God. So what should they have done at this stage? Given up in despair? No, repented and asked for mercy. If they had done this then they would have received mercy.

Just an ordinary day

Just an ordinary day. Nothing dramatic, no crises, just going about my business, but constantly weighed down. The events of the past, the mistakes I have made, the sins committed, the drudgery of life, like a weight around my neck, but I just get on with life as best I can.

Off to the well, something I do everyday, and will continue to do everyday. But wait, why is there a man there? He isn't from around here.

He speaks to me. Why would he do that? 

"If you knew who I was you would ask of me and I would give you the gift of life."

How can he give me that? What is he on about?

"I will give you water that will become a spring of eternal life within you."

Does that mean I won't have to keep coming to this well? Then he starts getting personal! Starts talking about my life and seems to know more about it than I do. Better not let him get too close, I don't like this. Better keep him at a distance, but he keeps talking, and his words keep drilling deeper into my soul. I feel frightened, but there is something strange about his words. He touches the deepest wounds in me, the places I want to forget about, yet his words seem to bring healing. Who is this man?

"I am your saviour".

So I want to tell everyone, go and listen to this man.

Go and listen to Jesus.

[John 4]

John 8:42-44 - Children of the devil

8:42

Everything derives from the Father, so if we truly belong to Him then we will love the Son. By the way, this knocks on the head notions that all religions are the same. A follower of Islam or Hinduism may claim to respect Jesus, but unless they love Him, unless they recognise Him as the Son of God they are not of the Father.

Jesus did not come on His own authority, but because the Father sent Him. The Jews were assessing Jesus on the presupposition that Jesus had come on His own authority, and so were unable to realise who He was. Most people adopt the same approach.

8:43

Jesus had spoken clearly, yet the Jews were unable to hear. This is crucial to understanding how salvation works. Fallen man is unable to hear what Jesus says. Not in the sense of being unaware of that Jesus is saying something, but unable to comprehend what He is saying. Proclaiming the gospel is a partnership between us and the Holy Spirit. Elsewhere Jesus tells us that we must testify, but the Holy Spirit must work as well. For someone to believe it requires us to declare and teach, and for the Holy Spirit to work in a person’s heart and mind.

8:44

Jesus not tells them plainly that their father is the devil. See how Jesus does not mince His words. There is no need to be needlessly offensive in debate or discussion, but there are times to stop beating about the bush.

The fact that their father was the devil is shown by their actions, namely plotting to kill the Son of God.

The devil is a murderer and a liar, and has been so from the beginning. Notice how modern (im)morality loves death. It demands the right to abort babies. Now their demands to be allowed to kill old people. It is dressed up as euthanasia, or mercy killing, but it leads us down an exceedingly dangerous road. With all the demands for LGBT rights it claims to be helping to set people free, but is in fact only enslaving people. Jesus is the only one who can set us free.

John 8:38-41 - Abraham's children?

8:38

Jesus spoke with authority because He told them what He heard in the Father’s presence, His words are the Father’s words. Conversely, the Jews were also doing what their father was telling them. Their father was the devil and they were acting out of his promptings. Now they did not think they were doing this, but it was what they were doing. There are two things to learn from this. The first is that people can be genuinely deluded, they think they are acting or teaching in accordance with God’s ways when in fact they are acting as instruments of the devil. The second is that Jesus is quite direct about their position, He does not pussyfoot around the issue.

8:39-41

The Jews were adamant that Abraham was their father. Yet Abraham is the man of faith, if they truly were his children then they would believe in Jesus. Notice that Jesus says they would do what Abraham did. Abraham trusted God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Gen 15:6), he relied upon the Lord. Instead the Jews were relying upon themselves and their adherence to the Law. Now the Law had not even been given at the time on Abraham. Instead the Jews were plotting to kill Jesus. Their actions clearly demonstrated that they were not really Abraham’s children. All this demonstrates that actions and lifestyle are more important than human ancestry. We should also take note that if someone has made a “profession of faith” but their lifestyle shows no signs whatsoever of being consistent with it then they have not really demonstrated faith.

The words “we are not illegitimate children” may have been a snide remark hinting at Jesus’ parentage, and shows that the conditions of Jesus’ birth were indeed mysterious.

John 8:35-37 - True freedom

8:35

Now “son” is normally used of Jesus in John’s gospel, and we are referred to as “children of God”. So some take “the son remains forever” as referring to Jesus being permanently in the father’s house. This verse then contrasts the Jews with Jesus. The Jews (being the Jewish leaders) thought they were in charge of the house, that it belonged to them. But slaves are kept only for a time. They had a purpose, but the purpose under the Law was only temporary. If they persisted in their rejection of Jesus they would find that very soon they would no longer have a part in God’s plan. The Son, however, remains forever. Jesus is eternal and He is the One to whom people should look, not the religious leaders.

Today there are all sorts of people pontificating on various matters, contradicting what the Bible says. Whom should we believe? The pontificators who will not remain forever, or the Word that last forever? The answer should be obvious.

8:36

So if we look to the Son then we will be truly set free. Looking to the religious leaders would do nothing to set anybody free. Today there are all sorts of people claiming to be able to help people get free. A key issue these days is that of homosexuality, and there are many in the church who claim that we need to adopt a more accepting attitude of homosexual lifestyles and that by doing so people will be set free. This will do nothing to set anybody free. It is only be coming to Jesus, by making Him Lord of our lives that we will find freedom.

We need to beware of a false freedom. The Jews were proud of their heritage, and thought that their adherence to religious practices gave them freedom. It did not. If only they would believe in Jesus would they be free indeed.

8:37

The paucity of the Jews’ position was shown by the fact that they were trying to kill Jesus. If they were truly Abraham’s descendants then why were they trying to kill the Son of the God of Abraham?

The NIV says “because you have no room for my word”, the Greek is actually better translated “because my word finds no room in you”. The Jews were like the bad soil of the famous parable. It is a key question we all need to ask ourselves, does God’s word find a home in us?

John 8:33,34 - Slaves

8:33

We now see that the “believers” still had a lot of junk thinking to get rid of. The same applies to all of us, even if we have been Christians for many years. Jesus comes to renew our minds (Rom 12:2). As Jews they were proud of their Jewish heritage and saw themselves as being descendents of Abraham. As we know, Paul made great play of the role of Abraham in God’s plan, and how he showed us that God’s plan is based on faith (Galatians, Romans 3,4, 9-11 etc). So Abraham appears again here. The Jews thought that their natural lineage was what counted, and so were badly mistaken.

Notice their comment “we have never been enslaved to anyone”. Now think of the Old Testament! They were enslaved to the Egyptians. They were enslaved by the Assyrians and Babylonians, had been subdued or oppressed by various other nations, and now by the Romans. Our thinking gets badly distorted. It is possible that the Jews were talking about freedom purely in spiritual terms, but in this regard they were just as mistaken, in fact more so.

8:34

Jesus tells them that anyone who sins is a slave to sin. This is a fundamental truth that everyone needs to get hold of, and Jesus use of “truly, truly...” emphasises this. When we sin we think we are exercising our freedom to do what we want, but the end result is that we become enslaved, the sin takes over. It is like someone choosing to take drugs and then becoming an addict. We have a wrong view of freedom and slavery. We think freedom means the freedom to do what we want, but freedom is actually the freedom to be what we are meant to be. When we sin we become enslaved and we need to be set free. It is only when we make Jesus Lord that we are truly free, we then find that we start to live as we are meant to live.

The Jews were not willing to face up to their bondage to sin. This verse is also relevant in the Calvinist/Arminian debate. If we are slaves to sin then we are unable to set ourselves free, unable to believe in Jesus. The Calvinist view is that we need to the Holy Spirit to regenerate us, ie salvation is completely a work of God and this regeneration produces faith. The Arminian view is that God sets us free to be able to make the choice, but that we have to show faith in order for salvation to be complete.

John 8:31,32 - Set free by the truth

8:31

Now Jesus spoke to those who believed in Him. He is giving them further instruction. When someone makes a profession of faith that is only the start of the process. Jesus told us to make disciples (Matt 28:19,20), not converts, nor decisions. The fact that Jesus was giving them further instruction also implies that the faith of at least some of them was genuine, though the later discussion then seems to count against this.

Making “a decision” for Jesus is not a matter of intellectual assent, nor an emotional response, though intellect and emotion will play a part in varying degrees. It involves a commitment, and that involves “abiding in His word”. Ie we take the words of Jesus seriously (and that includes the whole of the Bible) and seek to live by them. One must seriously doubt the genuineness of the faith of people who claim to be Christians but then deliberately reject aspects of God’s word. Now this is different from finding some things difficult, or differences of interpretation over secondary matters.

8:32

We are back to the issue of how we know the truth which I talked about a few verses ago. Man’s way is to use reason alone to get to the truth. God’s way is that we abide in His word. we make Him Lord of our lives, we put faith in Him. Sin makes us blind and we cannot hope to see the truth. When we put our trust in Christ the scales are removed from our lives and we can start to see clearly.

This does not just apply to intellectual matters. When we are in difficult circumstances we want to work out how we are going to get through the situation, or out of the situation, or we want to work out how God is going to get us out of the situation. This usually ends in frustration and anxiety. It is usually better to start by putting our trust in the Lord, then we will find that freedom comes.

John 8:26-30 - If you exalt me you will know me

8:26

There is a mixture of judging and not judging in John. There is no need for us to meet Jesus as judge, for He came to save us. But if we persist in unbelief then we will be judged by Him, and all His words will turn out to be words of judgement. Jesus simply continued to tell them what His Father had told Him to say.

8:27-30

True to form they failed to understand what Jesus was saying. The term used for “lifted up” means “exalted”. It is used elsewhere in John as referring to the crucifixion, and commentators seem to take it that way, but that doesn’t make sense here. Yes they would put Jesus on a cross, but they didn’t realise then who He was anymore than they did at this point. It seems better to take it as “if you exalt me then you will know that I am He ...” If we try to reach Jesus by reasoning alone we will not get very far. It is only when we put faith in Him, when we recognise Him as Lord, then everything starts to make sense. But we want to use reason first, not faith. Faith is not unreasonable, but reason stems from faith.

The Father was always with the Son, and the Son lived His life in perfect obedience to the Father. If we do what pleases the Lord we can be confident that He will always be with us.

Some put their faith in Him. This was not necessarily saving faith. Going by the context it is difficult to work out.

John 8:22-25 - Who are you?

8:22-24

The Jews continue in their ignorance, failing to see what Jesus is saying. They wondered if Jesus was going to kill Himself. Jesus points out the fundamental difference between Himself and the Jews. They were of the world, He was from above. When we rebelled against God we became of the world, we were cut off from God. It is impossible from an earthly perspective to fully realise who Jesus is. Jesus was sent from above, from the Father, from beyond this world. In order to fully understand we need revelation from above. Then in verse 24 Jesus gives them hope. It is also a warning against interpreting any verse in the Bible in isolation. If we look at verse 21 on its own then they were done for without hope. That was not the case. They were done for if they persisted in their unbelief. The heart of the matter was that they need to believe in Jesus, and that is the heart of the matter for all of us.

8:25

“Who are you?” The Jews had no idea who Jesus was, no understanding at all. We are dead in our sins without Christ and cannot even recognise Him. Remember the great advantage that the Jews had. They had all the history, they had the Law, they had the years of study, they had the Son of God standing right there in front of them, they heard His teaching, they saw His miracles. Yet they did not know who He was. So how can anyone hope to believe in Jesus unless the Father draws him?

A common objection to the gospel is that it is unfair on those who haven’t heard. There are two things to say to this. The first is that the best thing we can do about this is to go and tell them. The second is that it is based on a false premise, namely that if only they heard then they could believe. But they are dead in their sin and would not believe. Now this most assuredly does not mean we should not tell. It is a clear command from God, and a clear expression of His will that we should go and tell, but the notion that some people will go to hell through the mere misfortune of not having heard the gospel is simply not true.

“Just what I have been telling you from the beginning”. This could also be translated “why do I bother continuing to speak to you”, but the translation in the NIV (and ESV) is probably preferable. From the beginning could refer to all the time Jesus has been with them, or could refer to right back to the time of Abraham.

Sermon on John 15:1-9 - Riches of Relationship

A sermon of  mine on John 15:1-9
http://gatechurch.co.uk/media/ian-mackie-sunday-14th-june-2015/

The book referred to in the message can be found here

John 8:16-21 - Bearing witness

8:17,18

Even on the grounds of the Law itself Jesus testimony was valid, because He had His own testimony and the testimony of the Father. The real question anyone needs to answer about Jesus is whether or not He was sent by the Father. Doe he have the Father’s approval or not?

8:19,20

The Pharisees continued in their lack of understanding. “Where is your Father?” Joseph was dead by this point. There could even be a snide aspect to this remark, harking back to the unusual circumstances of Jesus’ birth. Jesus tells them that they do not know Him. If we know Jesus then we know the Father, if we know the Father we know Jesus. They come as a package, and Jesus is the only way to the Father.

Jesus was teaching this openly in the temple, but no one would arrest Him. The timing was in God’s hands, not the hands of men.

8:21

These words are not encouraging for the Pharisees! Jesus tells them He is going away and they will not be able to find Him, but will die in their sin. Then He tells them that they cannot come where He is going. After Jesus rose from the dead the Pharisees wanted to know what had happened to the body, having no idea what had really happened, or not wanting to face up to the truth. As long as they carried on in their current way the Pharisees could not enter heaven. Now consider this. Sceptics, liberals and atheists love to debate and argue about how heaven ought to work, who should be allowed in and who should not (even though they often don’t believe in the existence of heaven!). But they do not decide the rules, God decides the rules! We do well to remember this.

John 8:12-15 - I am the light

8:12

Remember that the previous section was probably an incident that occurred at some other point in Jesus’ ministry. Another feature of the Feast of Tabernacles was candle lighting ceremonies each night, so again Jesus’ claiming to be the light of the world was particularly apposite. Furthermore there are passages in Isaiah that are relevant. Is 42:6 speaks of God’s servant become a light for the Gentiles, tying in with Jesus saying He is the light of the world. Is 49:6 says a similar thing and speaks of God’s salvation going to the ends of the earth. Finally Is 51:4 talks of God’s justice becoming a light to the nations. Right back to the promise to Abraham (Gen 12:2,3) it was always God’s plan that His salvation would go to the nations. The nation of Israel tended to forget this, but the prophets frequently remind them of this. Jesus is the fulfilment of this plan. If we follow Jesus we will not walk in darkness. We need to hold on to this promise. The world may seek to put us in darkness, circumstances may seem to put us in darkness, but God is the One who said “let there be light”, and He is the source of light. In Revelation 21:23 tells us that the new Jerusalem will have no need of the sun for the glory of the Lord will be our light. Jesus is the source of true light.

8:13,14

True to form the Pharisees were not happy. They sought to argue against Jesus from the Law, for someone could not be their own witness. Jesus’ response is that His testimony is indeed valid for He is God. The Pharisees’ reasoning was based on ignorance, for they did not know where Jesus came from, nor where He was going. Jesus did know these things. If we consider Jesus as just a man we will never understand Him and any conclusions we reach will be worthless and wrong.

8:15

The Pharisees were basing their judgement on pure human reasoning, this was a mistake and meant that they could not see the truth. Now this most definitely does not mean that we should not use human reasoning, but it is not all that we need. We see the same problem arising in the scientific arena. Now science is good, and reveals many useful things. However, a purely materialistic approach will never reveal the whole truth, and indeed will lead to error. We do not live in a closed system. The universe exists, and we exist, because God created us, and God also interacts with the world.

John 8:7-11 - Leave your life of sin

8:7,8

The teachers of the Law persisted with their questioning, so eventually Jesus says His famous words “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Then He resumed His doodling in the sand. Now the “without sin” is very general. Some think He may have been hinting that the accusers were guilty of adultery. Given the size of the crowd, no doubt some of them were, but surely not all of them. If they had heard the sermon on the mount and Jesus’ words on committing adultery in our hearts then this could include all of them, but this would be crediting the crowd with an unreasonable degree of spiritual maturity. It is best to take these words as referring to sin in general.

These words, along with Jesus words on not judging others (Matt 7:1) are greatly misinterpreted, misused and abused. Stephen Fry in his viral interview on RTE mentioned these words, saying they were nonsense because it means the courts could not work. It is Stephen Fry’s (lack of) interpretation that is nonsense. Then there are multitudes of Christians and atheists who use Matt 7:1 as an excuse for condoning sin.

What Jesus is doing is getting the people to look at their own lives. The teachers of the Law were fixated with finding some way of trapping Jesus, they thought this was the most important thing in life and if they succeeded then their problems would be over. What they really needed to do was to admit the sin in their own lives, then they could turn to Jesus and receive the true solution to the real problem. The same applies to all of us. It is all too easy to focus on someone else's sin, when our first concern should be dealing with our own sin. Matt 7:3-5 is the lesson that Jesus is teaching, which interestingly comes after 7:1.

8:9-11

The people then drifted away, the older ones first. The older ones had lived longer and knew more of their own failings, younger people tend to be more full of themselves. Notice how Jesus words had authority. If one of the Pharisees had said this then many would have quickly been able to find fault with the Pharisee and then reject his words. They could not do this with Jesus.

Jesus then turns to the woman and tells her that He does not condemn her either, and, crucially, warns her to leave her life of sin. This is how God deals with sin. He is willing to forgive the sin of those who come to Him (though the woman here was brought to Him), but He does not condone our sin. So many people use Jesus’ forgiveness as an excuse for continuing sinning or not taking it seriously. Sin is so serious that the only solution was for Jesus to go to the cross and take upon Himself the judgement that should have been ours.

John 8:4-6 - Stoning of adulterers?

8:4-6

They brought her before Jesus and questioned Him on the matter. They were doing this not because they wanted to learn something, but because they wanted to trap Him. The Law said one thing, but the state of the times meant that they could not actually do this, and so whatever Jesus said (or so they thought) would get Him in trouble.

As noted in the comments on verse 3, the teachers of the Law were actually only quoting half the Law, for it required the stoning of the man as well.

Now leaving aside the immediate situation, what are we to make of the Law’s requirement for stoning of adulterers? Let me say a little about this and our approach to the apparently “harsh” aspects of the Law. First, the Law is actually amazingly liberal in many of its social and legal requirements, treating all as equal before the Law, its concern for the poor, for immigrants and for slaves. And its financial system (Sabbaths and Jubilee years) stand in stark contrast to our current world system. The Law was certainly liberal in terms of the time it was given in, and actually is much more liberal than much of what we see in the world today.

Even so, there are parts, like stoning of adulterers, that we recoil from. We should remember that the Law was not the ultimate state. This was the mistake the Jews made, they saw it as the destination, rather than a stopping place along the way (Gal 3:1-4:8). It is perhaps helpful to see the Law as a picture of what things will be like in God’s kingdom. Now this does not mean that in God’s kingdom adulterers will be stoned, it does mean that in God’s kingdom there won’t be any adulterers. There won’t be any sin at all, we will all have been transformed (1 Cor 15:52).

We should bear in mind that adultery is definitely sin and is destructive to individuals and to society.

Jesus then wrote in the sand. Now we don’t know what He wrote, or if He was just doodling. Some see an allusion to the writing of the ten commandments. Or it could be just a demonstration that He was not going to get involved in the matter.