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.
No comments:
Post a Comment