From Suspicion to Salvation: Understanding Jesus’ True Identity

Amen.

I'm excited to pick back up in our series of messages through the Gospel of John, and I'm even more excited that you're here to join us in worshiping Jesus as presented in Scripture.

A notable atheist of the 20th century by the name of Bertrand Russell was once asked if upon death he discovered that he was wrong about his atheism and he stood before God to give an account.

He was asked what he would say.

He said, Well, I would look at God and I would say, Not enough evidence, God.

Not enough evidence.

As we open our Bibles back to John chapter 10, it would seem that those to whom Jesus was dialoguing in our text, they felt much the same way.

John 10 · chapter mention

The Jews had gathered around Jesus, and verse 24 tells us, How long will you keep us in suspense?

They ask.

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

In other words, they located the problem of their doubt and their unbelief in Jesus and conveniently not in themselves.

Give us more evidence.

Some of you this morning may come to the house of God with doubts in your heart, or maybe wishing that Jesus had made it clearer who he really was.

I remember a time in college when I went on a study abroad trip to Mexico.

I had a roommate for about five weeks who was this ex-marine about 30 years old, big old guy, and he was just actively weeping at one point in the dorm room.

And as we were talking about Christ, when I started asking him questions about what he believed, and he started crying, and he said, I want to believe, Tim, I want to believe, but it's so hard.

I had seen on the plane him reading the book, the 2003 bestselling book by Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code.

It was a work of pure fiction, right?

It was just a fictional story, sensationalizing aspects uh surrounding the Gospel of Thomas and perhaps the suppression of the Gospel of Thomas who told us what was really true about Jesus, but the early church did that according to Dan Brown because they wanted to use uh deify Jesus to wield uh power and express the Roman Empire.

So it was this grand uh essentially a grand conspiracy theory that Christianity wasn't true at all, but was the product of suppressing the truth and propagating a lie.

It was a work of fiction, but many people found it engaging.

They found it even credible because they'd never really thought about it in those terms.

In fact, much of the success of opponents of Christianity today do not come by the provision of incontrovertible evidence against Jesus, but rather unbelievers filling textbooks and classrooms and high school and college and Amazon warehouses full of books, not with evidence to the contrary, but alternative theories, plausible deniability, the ability to see maybe things, maybe there's something that we don't know, maybe there was something being hidden, something insidious in the whole system that caused us to question and wonder at least, who Jesus really was.

I'm entitling my sermon today, From Suspicion to Salvation: Understanding Jesus' True Identity.

In our text, Jesus is going to respond with some of the clearest words in all the Gospel of John.

And throughout several sermons, I've already said that several times.

It seems as we progress through the Gospel of John, it becomes more and more clear as John artfully writes his gospel that he is getting, he's centering down to the core of Jesus' claims.

And here we find Jesus answering this question.

The text is really broken up into three uh parts, and we're going to look first at the first part.

Let's read verses 22 through 30.

At the time of the feast of dedication, at the time it was taking place at Jerusalem, it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon, Solomon's porch.

So the Jews gathered around Jesus and said to him, How long will you keep us in suspense?

If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.

Jesus answered them, I told you.

But you don't believe.

The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice.

I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

I and the Father are one.

So, like numerous passages earlier in John's Gospel, this text is pre is comprised predominantly of dialogue between Jesus and the Jews.

It happens during the season of winter, so you can almost put yourself uh just imagine walking outside in this chilly wind and being a part of that crowd, dialoguing with Jesus, challenging him, calling upon him to give more evidence.

The feast of dedication was a Jewish feast that happened every year, otherwise known as the Feast of Hanukkah.

Happens in the winter.

It was a Jewish holiday celebrating the rededication of the second temple that had been uh desecrated with uh the slaying of a pig by Antichus Epiphanes, and I think it was 168 BC.

The Maccabean revolt resulted, and they were able to route the Seleucideans, and which were sort of Greek in nature, and they rededicated the temple in 164.

They established a holiday called Hanukkah.

It was eight days long because there was a miracle apparently that happened during the Feast of Hanukkah.

In the temple there, it was established by God that the temple lamp must not go out, the menorah.

And it turns out that they only had enough oil for one day because it was a time of war and they'd been taken over by the Seleucians.

And so they prayed, and that oil lasted eight days without the lamp going out, and they were able to secure more olive oil to keep the lamp going.

They took that as a sign, it was the gift of God prospering them.

They established a holiday called Hanukkah.

And because of that oil, no kidding, they eat fried foods during Hanukkah.

So if anyone gives you a hard time about eating French fries, you just tell them you're celebrating Hanukkah.

It's biblical.

So we see in part one of our text in verses 22 through 30 that Jesus tells us his true identity.

Jesus tells us his true identity.

Jesus is going to make three major claims.

He's actually going to make more, but the other two, this the other two fit into these three.

So we're just going to look at the three major claims he makes.

The first is that he is the good shepherd.

He says, I am the good shepherd.

Verse 25 reads, And Jesus answered them, I told you.

Like a parent who's told the kids 15 times, and the kids are still like, wait, what did you want me to do?

Jesus is like, I already told you.

And you don't believe.

The works that I do in my father's name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you're not among my sheep.

He's continuing this analogy that he had started earlier in John chapter 10, when he called himself the good shepherd and his followers sheep.

John 10 · chapter mention

Here he continues that and says, You're not among my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice.

I know them and they follow me as their good shepherd.

Jesus restates his claim from the preceding verses that he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep.

But he also points to the fact that he wasn't coming and appearing into a vacuum and just making these grand claims about himself and telling people they have to believe him.

But that rather his claims, his teaching was always wedded to miraculous signs.

And the gospel of John is no different.

It's this cycle over and over again of Jesus teaching and it being verified by a sign.

Teaching being verified by a sign.

John does this pattern seven times over.

And so in John's Gospel, we've already seen Jesus teach and then provide a sign six times.

The first six miracles that were recorded in the Gospel of John were that Jesus turned water into wine at Canaan of Galilee, his very first miracle in John chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

Water, these barrels of water because they'd run out of wine.

And Jesus, as it were, snaps his finger and says, Yeah, serve the water up to the director of the feast.

The director of the feast comes in, he surprises it and says, This is this is the best wine I've ever had.

We should have served this first, right?

Instead of the bad one.

He had no idea Jesus had turned the water to wine.

The second miracle, healing a royal official's son in Capernaum.

Healing a paralytic man at Bethesda who'd been laying there for years and years and years.

And Jesus says, Take up your bed and walk in John chapter 5.

John 5 · chapter mention

In John chapter 6, Jesus, for three days, this huge crowds of people had followed Jesus into the wilderness.

John 6 · chapter mention

They didn't have anything to eat, probably not much to drink.

They were weary, and Jesus has compassion on them.

Instead of sending him home, he decides to feed them with a sack lunch.

Five loaves, two fish, you see, feeds five thousand men, not counting the women and children who were in attendance.

Later that same day, Jesus tells his apostles to get on the lake of Galilee, go to the other side, a storm arises in God's providence.

Jesus comes walking on the water to their boat and calls the storm for the fifth miracle.

And then in chapter 9, the healing of a man who'd been born blind 38 years before.

But not only is Jesus gonna reaffirm his claims, going to remind them of his miracles, he's going to tell them something about their own doubts and unbelief.

He's gonna diagnose the spiritual root cause of their unbelief.

We should ask the question: why is it that despite all these miracles, all these amazing teachings, and the mixed response of the crowd, some people were believing and following Jesus and couldn't get enough of them.

Others were being hardened in their unbelief.

Why is it that they did not believe?

And Jesus tells us the answer in verse 26.

He says, You do not believe because you're not among my sheep.

You don't belong to me, therefore you don't follow me.

This does not mean that true Christians will never doubt, that true Christians will never have questions arise in their minds, that they will never be offended because of Jesus, that they'll never struggle in their faith, right?

I mean, I think we can all give testimony of times we've doubted this is the existence of God, or the deity of Jesus Christ, or the story of Christianity, or doubted that even if all that's true, that I'm actually one of his children.

Doubts come in many, many forms.

Jesus is not saying that his followers will never wander away from him.

In fact, he is that good shepherd that chases us down when we do.

Jesus is, however, reaffirming that there's a fundamental difference between those who trust in Jesus and those who refuse to trust in Jesus.

And the difference is one of who they are on the inside.

It's not merely a matter of what you do, it's a matter of who you are.

He ties the act of belief or unbelief to someone's state of being a sheep or not his sheep.

The second claim Jesus makes in our passage is that I am the giver of eternal life.

He's the good shepherd that lays down his life for his sheep, but he's also the giver of eternal life.

We see this in verse 28.

They say, Don't keep us in suspense, tell us who you really are.

And he says, Okay, I'm the eternal life giver.

I give them eternal life, they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.

So Jesus is our shepherd to whom we owe our love, faith, and obedience.

And Jesus also is the one who satisfies our greatest need.

If I were to ask you this morning, what is your greatest need?

Let's say you're a husband, or a wife, or an employee, or um a friend, or a son-in-law, or whatever.

Many of us are all a lot of those things.

What is your greatest need?

There's a whole branch of psychology, the psychology of human behavior called humanistic psychology.

And it was first propagated by a guy named Maslow.

Maslow set up this hierarchy of human needs.

This hierarchy of human needs starts at the very bottom of the pyramid.

We need to feel safe.

We need to have food and water, we need shelter.

Goes up from there to relational needs, it goes up from there, emotional needs, it goes up from there.

At the very top of the pinnacle is self-actualization for all your dreams to come true, for you to become the best version of yourself.

For Maslow, that was the peak of human existence.

You becoming the best version of yourself.

And that's secular psychology.

And we've drank that in unbelievable ways.

If I ask you what's your greatest need, did you think my greatest need is eternal life?

We don't tend to think in that way.

We tend to think my greatest need is to be understood or to be loved or to be respected, or my greatest needs is physical touch, or or to be useful, to be needed, or whatever.

Your greatest need and my greatest need is eternal life.

Because we can take safety away from you.

We can take your food and your water away, and in a couple days you die.

But if you have eternal life, that changes everything.

They can take your life from you, Jesus would even tell his apostles, and they would.

But he would give them something in eternal life that could never be taken away from them.

Jesus says, I am the eternal life giver.

To understand the importance of Jesus' radical claims, I think we need to hear not only what he's saying about himself, but what he's saying about us.

Let's ask the question.

Why, since we're talking about doubt and belief and faith and unbelief, why did these Jews not believe Jesus?

He did not say, You're not my sheep because you do not believe.

You're not my sheep because you don't believe.

He didn't say that.

He said, You don't believe because you're not my sheep.

So as I said a few minutes ago, being precedes doing.

You cannot do something contrary to your nature.

The fact that knowing, loving, trusting, and obeying Jesus is something sheep do, means that those who are not Christ's sheep won't do it, therefore they can't do it to become sheep.

There's something taught in Scripture called sovereign grace, where God doesn't tell us you need to accept Jesus into your heart, submit to him as Lord and Savior, profess with your mouth, believe in your heart, and then I'll come into your life and I'll transform you, make you a new creature, make you a sheep, and then you can follow me.

It doesn't say that.

It does call us to faith and repentance and submission, all those things.

But there's a work of God that is prerequisite to us doing all those things.

He has to make us a sheep before we can act like a sheep.

Ezekiel chapter 36 talks about the new covenant.

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

If you read the storyline of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch is arranged.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy, the whole message of Deuteronomy is that God had established the nation of Israel to represent him, and over and over again they failed because it was dependent upon their works.

At the very end of Deuteronomy, which happens to be the very end of the Torah, he promises a new covenant and a coming prophet who's going to implement that new covenant.

Jesus, of course, is the fulfillment.

And that new covenant is that no longer will it depend on you to get your act together, but rather God invading your life and making you who he wants you to be and you living in accordance with that reality.

The new promised covenant.

Ezekiel 36 prophesied about that very coming new covenant.

He says, This I will give you a heart, a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a living heart of flesh, and I will put my spear within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Until God does that to you, you will always find one more reason to not believe in Jesus.

But when God gives you a new heart, when the new covenant, which was sealed by Christ's blood, is then implemented to you through the Holy Spirit, you will find Jesus altogether lovely.

You will hear his voice and you will recognize it and you will follow him, because that's exactly what God promised in Ezekiel 36, Jeremiah 31, numerous other places.

To use Jesus' own analogy, Jesus said, Hey, the kingdom of God is like a sower that goes forth and he has a bunch of seed and he starts casting seed in this field.

And some of the seed falls on hard rocks, right?

These big rocks in the ground.

And the seed that sits on the rock, is that going to grow?

No.

In fact, it doesn't even germinate.

Just the birds of the air come down and it's it's bird food.

The seed also falls among uh thorns and thistles.

There's brambles, and there's no room for the seed to actually germinate and to grow, and it chokes out what is there.

The seed then also falls upon stony soil, but there's a little bit of soil.

It's it's it's uh what's the what's the term?

A very shallow soil.

And so the seed, because of the warmth of the shallow soil, and if it has enough moisture, the seed germinates and it starts sprouting up, but there's no room for the roots to grow down deep and it withers as soon as the sun grows up.

That's like many people who profess Jesus, Jesus said, and then they're offended because of the opposition they experience or the difficulty of the way.

They're easy come, easy go.

But there's a fourth soil, which is good soil.

It's tilled soil.

It's soil that's been prepared to receive the seed, and when the sower casts the seed, it germinates, it's watered, fruit is then born some 30, some 60, some a hundredfold.

How foolish would it be for us to think that eternal life happens by the seed going forth, falling upon the rocky soil, and the rocky soil better get its act together.

That rocky soil better remove its rocks, it better change its constitution, it better somehow figure out a way to receive that seed and become fertile soil.

Absolutely not.

Jesus taught that the soils represent who you are before God, the rocky soil, as opposed to the fertile soil.

The God, the work of God in our hearts is to make our hearts fertile so that once we receive the word, fruit is born.

And Jesus' words here in John chapter 10 reinforce this idea.

John 10 · chapter mention

He says, You're looking at me as if I'm the problem.

I've given you sign after sign, I've told you who I am.

You don't believe me, you don't believe my works.

You're telling me I'm I'm performing my miracles through the power of Satan.

Not because there's something wrong with me, but because you don't belong to my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, they follow me.

But in John chapter 10, verse 30, we find that Jesus, having already said he's the good shepherd, he's the giver of eternal life.

John 10:30

Now he, I think, speaks in some of the most brilliant theologically, theological words in the New Testament in terms of Christology, the study of Jesus Christ.

In verse 30, he claims, I am one with God the Father.

Or in his own words, I and the Father are one.

There's a couple things Jesus didn't say here.

Jesus did not say, I am the Father.

There are some who would like to think about God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit in terms of uh what's called modalism, that God has these different modes or maybe different hats he puts on.

He's wearing the Father hat today.

And so he sends his son, puts on the son hat and is sent.

And then the son goes back to heaven and sends the Holy Spirit, God puts on the spirit hat and comes and dwells among us.

This is also called oneness theology, also anciently called Sabellianism.

This doctrine that basically there's one God, one person at a time that can appear in different modes.

Jesus didn't say, I am the Father.

That's what you'd expect if that's what was going on.

I am the Father, the Spirit is me, and we sort of move back and forth, transition fluidly between these different roles.

But Jesus says, I and the Father are one, which maintains their simultaneous distinction and unity.

The distinct persons of the divine Godhead are maintained, because the one speaking who says I is different than the one he's saying he's one with, namely the Father.

This is the basic formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.

God is one being and three distinct persons that are co-equal and simultaneously coexistent.

Such ontological unity, that is the idea of being, ontology.

This is admittedly far beyond our capacity to fully understand, but scripture is clear.

This is how it talks, this is how Jesus talks.

Notice Jesus does not say either, okay, you got me, I'm God.

There's some who would actually point this out and say, nowhere in the New Testament do you find Jesus uttering the words, ego emi Hateas, I am God.

You don't find that, and therefore he must not be God.

But what Jesus did say, and reaffirm in numerous places and places and ways, is actually more theologically nuanced than saying, I am God.

Because if Jesus had said, I am God, and they knew the Father was God, Yahweh, there must be two gods.

But Jesus was the Trinitarian.

At least the things that he said only make sense if you understand the doctrine of the Trinity.

Jesus did not say, I am a God, or I am God, because that would be two gods.

Rather, he says, I and the Father are one, which calls the mind back for the Jews.

Their collective memory back to the Shema.

You see, faithful Jews would recite the Shema in Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verse 4 three times a day.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

The Jews Jesus was talking to here had literally said, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

They had said it thousands upon thousands of times.

They would say it when they first rose from the beds.

They would say it at the noontime.

They would say it in the evening.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Here Jesus takes the Shema and pulls the lid off of it to reveal what's even more inside, and that is not just that God is one, but that Jesus and the Father are one.

And then in Matthew, and then in John chapters 14, 15, and 16, he gives us our theology of the Holy Spirit.

John 14 · chapter mention

We'll get there later.

Here he's only talking about the relationship of the Father and the Son.

Here, O Israel, I and the Father are one.

The Shema was a brilliant, brilliant theological statement.

Because it doesn't just say there's one God.

That's true.

But it leaves the possibility open for there being one God in multiple persons, which is what we find once we get to the New Testament.

John chapter 1, verses 1 and 2 say, In the beginning was the Word.

John 1:1

And the Word was with God.

And the Word was God.

Now, how can you have in the beginning the Word was there?

Okay, we got that.

The Word exists.

And the Word was with God.

Okay, we have a distinction: the Word and God.

But then John says, the Word was God.

Mind-blown.

How can we do that?

It only works if you take the Shema and you understand that God has multiple persons in one Godhead, which scripture reveals as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

They're all co-equally God in one Godhead.

They're not God apart from each other, yet they're still distinct in personhood.

And this is exactly what we see in Jesus' phrase, which was just theologically way ahead of the Jews he was talking to when he said, I and the Father are one.

Because it didn't fit into their paradigm of monotheism, one person, one God, it was kind of like they couldn't accept it.

They reject his claims by and large.

We see in the second part of our text in verses 31 through 39.

Many reject Jesus' claims as blasphemy.

Many reject Jesus' claims as blasphemy.

Let's read verses 31 through 39.

The Jews picked up stones again to stone him, and Jesus answered them.

Hey Jesus, I have a question for you.

Okay, yeah, I and the Father are one.

Stone, let's get him.

Wow, things are escalating.

Jesus answered them, I've shown you, uh I've I have shown you many good works for my father.

For which of those good works are you gonna kill me?

And the Jews answered, It's not for a good work that we're gonna stone you, but for blasphemy.

Because you being a man, make yourself God.

I think they got the message.

When he said, I and the Father are one, he was claiming deity, but he did it in a more appropriate way than even saying I am God.

He said, I and the Father are one.

They understood the message.

And Jesus answered them, Is it not written in verse 34, in your law I said you are gods, plural, if he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken, it can't contradict itself.

Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blasphemy?

Because I said I'm the Son of God?

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then don't believe me.

But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, at least believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.

Did that work?

Well, again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.

In keeping with John's established pattern in throughout his gospel of the revelation of Christ, and then a mixed response, namely rejection or belief, you find this same part of the cycle here in John chapter 10, same thing.

John 10 · chapter mention

Jesus teaches, he reminds them of their miracles.

They either believe in him or they reject him.

Those who rejected him were picking up stones again to stone him.

Now, why would they pick up stones to stone him?

Well, they thought they were keeping God's law.

Because whenever Israel was a theocracy under the leadership of Moses in the Old Testament, God had given a command to stone blasphemers.

Found in Leviticus chapter 24, verse 16.

Leviticus 24:16

God said, Whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death.

And all the congregation shall stone him, the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death.

In this case, they were happy to obey God's law because they didn't like Jesus anyways, and it certainly seemed like he was blaspheming the name of God.

But what we're what we can see they were overlooking was that the Old Testament had presented God in this one God in multiple persons way.

It wasn't something as clear there as it is in the New Testament, but God presented himself as a God, one God in multiple persons, numerous times in the Old Testament.

I'm going to give you just a couple uh examples.

First is Genesis chapter 1.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

Let's start at the very beginning.

The very first chapter of the Bible.

Do you realize that when God was going to create humans, this is how he did it?

God said in verse 26, Let us make man in our image after our likeness.

Notice the plural pronouns?

There was a divine conference among the persons of the Godhead.

God alone has the ability to create.

No angel can create.

He wasn't saying, hey, God and angels let's create.

Nowhere in the Bible do angels create anything, except maybe chaos or fear.

God is speaking within the economy of the Trinity, and He's saying, Let us make men in our image and our likeness.

Very first chapter in the Bible.

Maybe they overlooked that fact.

Psalm 45 is a very interesting example of one God and multiple persons.

We find that God is being addressed.

He says, Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.

The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness.

You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

So far, so good, right?

But then notice this.

Therefore, God, your God, has anointed you, which is God, with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

What is going on here?

The only way to understand this is there are two persons in the Godhead being addressed right here: God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, if we want to read the New Testament.

But you have the first God he's addressing, that's a king exalted over all, upright, ruling over the nations, who has been anointed by his God with the oil of gladness above his peers.

You know what the word anointed is in Hebrew?

The word anointed in Greek, it's the word Messiah, anointed one, or Christ.

We get the word christen from that, right?

When you christen someone with something, let's say you're in the kitchen and you spill some dough or something.

That's christening your child.

Sometimes Brandy says the behind every every powerful woman is, or behind every good man is the drawer she's trying to get to.

And she tells me, get out of the kitchen.

She tells me that about once a week.

Psalm chapter 110 in verse 1 says this the Lord says to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

Psalms 110 · chapter mention

The Lord, Yahweh, says to my Lord, Adonai, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.

We know who the who Yahweh is.

That's God.

Who's Adonai?

Who's this Adonai figure to whom Yahweh will subject all the nations of the world and all the enemies of God under his feet?

Well, it's Messiah.

Because David would say this in prophecy about Messiah.

And we find in the New Testament that Psalm 110 is quoted numerous times about Jesus.

He is the Lord, the Adonai.

This is picked up in Acts, I believe, chapters 3 and 4, and it carries on throughout the book of Acts that Jesus is Lord.

It's a way of saying Jesus is Adonai, He is the promised one.

Multiple persons going on here.

And Adonai would be the king over all, something only God is.

Finally, Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 and 14 is another interesting multiple personality or persons in one Godhead.

Daniel 7:13

Daniel 7, 13 says, I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man.

The clouds of heaven was talking about the angelic hosts.

Son of man refers to someone who has the image of a human.

And he, the son of man, came to the ancient of days and was presented before him.

The ancient of days was clearly God.

He had no beginning, he was God forever and ever.

In this ancient of days, before him appears someone who looks like a human, but is leading all the angelic hosts before him.

Interestingly, we find Jesus adopted this moniker, this son of man language, all throughout the Gospels.

About half the time he referred himself as the Son of God, about half the time he referred himself as the Son of Man.

In fact, the night before his crucifixion, when Jesus stands before the 70 members of the Sanhedrin court as they're looking for occasion to kill him, they're like, Tell us who you are, if you're the Holy One of God.

And Jesus says, Hereafter, he says, You say it, yes, and hereafter you will see the heavens open and the Son of Man and the clouds coming with the Son of Man.

In other words, I'm the fulfillment of Daniel's Son of Man prophecy.

I'm given all authority, I'm king over all.

Multiple persons who share the divine attributes, but they're spoken of as distinct individuals.

So all that stuff was happening in the Old Testament.

But the Jews, when Jesus comes and says, Yeah, I and the Father are one, it was too much for them.

And they doubt him.

Now this brings us to a difficult part of our passage.

In fact, it would be almost tempting.

For about 10 seconds, I was tempted to be like, you know what, I'm not sure if this needs to be in the sermon.

We can read it.

But I'm not sure I want to spend time in the sermon, a sermon that's that's saying that Jesus is God in the flesh, he's the Son of God, because the verses we're about to read have been used by many to actually argue the exact opposite.

So I thought about that for about 10 seconds.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

We believe all of Scripture is inspired, and I'm not gonna force an interpretation on one part and then overlook another.

So Satan tempted me and I declined.

Scripture wins.

Let's read it.

Verses 34 through 36.

Jesus answered them.

Because remember, they're picking up stones to kill him right now.

He's got one last tactic under his belt, under his tunic, he's going to bring out.

Jesus answered and said, Is it not written in your law?

I said you are gods?

He's quoting Psalm 82.

If the psalmist called them gods, plural, to whom the word of God came, and scripture can't contradict itself, can't be broken, then do you say of him whom the Father has consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming?

Because I said I'm the Son of God?

Here Jesus is going to use an argument from the Old Testament to show that what he's doing isn't blasphemy, they shouldn't be killing him.

But the problem for us today, as modern readers, is that there are those who would come along and say, Well, here, of course, Jesus is putting himself on par with the rest of us.

Let's say our Mormon friends, our Mormon friends, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they'll point to this exact passage and they'll say, Aha, see right here.

Jesus is saying, Hey, you all are gods.

Because that's Mormon theology.

It's a process theology that says that who God is, we one day hopefully will be, and who we are, he used to be.

In the words of the fifth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Lorenzo Snow, he said it this way: As man is, God once was.

And as God is, we may become.

In other words, we're all the offspring of the God we know, the God of the Bible.

And one day, if we're really obedient, have lots of kids, have lots of spiritual kids, and lots of physical kids, we can grow our own universe and be given dominion over it.

It's really like a pantheistic sort of religion that sounds Christian because they believe that Christ is sort of the God over us, under the Father.

And so it can sound orthodox in some ways.

They pray in Jesus' name, but very different under the hood.

So is Jesus making this argument?

Carl Truman, a theologian today, perceptively said it this way: He said, Every heresy is one aspect of the truth pushed to the exclusion of all others.

In other words, you can take pretty much any verse in the Bible, especially one that has a lot of theological import, and if you take that verse in isolation from the rest of Scripture, you can uphold it, you can even build a church around it.

It's called Mormonism.

But we have to hold all of Scripture in unity with itself.

And the ironic thing is, in the very passage that people would take out of context, not just John 10 and the Gospel of John and the New Testament and the whole of Scripture, Jesus actually affirms that Scripture can't be unbroken.

So don't break it.

Look at Jesus' claim in light of all of Scripture's unbroken theology, and we find something very different.

For example, we don't have time to get into it, but in Psalm chapter 82, we find a really interesting psalm where Jesus is actually, excuse me, where the psalmist is actually speaking in the place of God, addressing fallen angels.

Psalms 82 · chapter mention

Fallen angels have power.

They're called principalities and powers in the New Testament.

Fallen angels have the ability to afflict humans, to bring about error.

There's doctrines of devils, the apostle Paul warned about in 2 Timothy chapter 3.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And here he's addressing the fallen angels that had gone against God created God's created order, and now God is pronouncing judgment upon them in Psalm 82, when he says in Psalm 82, verse 6 and 7.

Psalms 82:6

He says, Like men you shall die, and like princes, like any prince you shall fall.

In other words, he's not addressing humans at all.

Psalm 82 is talking to angels.

So our Mormon friends, sorry, not sorry, it's not even talking about us that we're all gods.

Scripture says we're all gods.

No, it doesn't.

God was talking to angelic beings in Psalm 82.

The other thing to note is the word Elohim, which is the word God, is most often translated in the Old Testament into, in context, talking about God, right?

In the beginning was the word, or in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

That's Elohim.

Genesis 1.26, let us make man.

And God said, Elohim said, let's make man in our image.

But it can also be used, because it's pretty flexible, to talk about human judges a couple times who talk about angelic beings who'd been given authority from God to execute in the earth.

So Elohim doesn't in itself say that, oh, if something's Elohim, it's the part of the one true God.

So on one hand, he's talking to angels, which means the Mormons aren't right because he's not talking to us as humans.

He says, like men you shall die, not as men you shall die.

He's talking to them and pronouncing judgment upon them, they'll be leveled like humans.

But it brings up the interesting question: well, if the Mormons aren't right, then maybe the Jehovah's Witnesses are right.

Because they love this verse as well.

Because it seems to say Jesus is equating himself with angelic beings, which is exactly who they say Jesus is.

They say Satan, Lucifer was sort of the alter ego of Jesus, and you have you have the good angel, you have the bad angel, and they're sort of underneath God.

And in fact, some of them will even say that Jesus is the incarnation of Michael the archangel.

Satan, Lucifer, Michael the archangel, Jesus came as a in a human form as Michael the archangel.

That's part of their theology, right?

So they would put Jesus on par with the angels, and they would quote Psalm 82 and John 10, 34 through 36 to prove it.

The problem with this is it doesn't fit Jesus' argument.

Here Jesus, I think, is using a very clever use of the Old Testament to get to really confuse and distract them because he's not putting himself on par with angels, but he's saying, if Scripture in the Old Testament can call angels Elohim, then why are you going to stone me for saying the same thing?

Because I have come into the world as the good shepherd, as the giver of eternal life, as one performing all these miracles.

None of you can do this.

I've come proclaiming and preaching things that people can't find irreputable.

I have come as the one who is in the Father and the Father in him, as one who's one with the Father.

And if I can say that about myself, and if Scripture can say that about angels, then you have no grounds to stone me.

So his argument is really an argument from the lesser to the greater.

If you could call the angels, in a sense, Elohim, then don't stone the Messiah for saying the same thing.

The Jehovah's Witnesses just take it one step farther and they say, contrary, in contradiction to the rest of Scripture, Jesus was putting himself on the level of angels.

They missed the whole greater to lesser or lesser to greater argument of Jesus.

This actually worked because it worked to stop the crowd for a second.

He brought up a theological point because the scriptures were their authority.

They did not want to go against the scriptures.

So by him saying, Hey, if your scriptures call the angels Elohim, and I'm saying something similar about myself, you can't stone me, it caused them to stop and to rethink why they were going to kill him.

And then they're like, Well, at least we can arrest him.

And he slips out of the crowd to safety.

In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus does something kind of similar, which is just amazing how well Jesus knew the scriptures.

Matthew 22 · chapter mention

And even as a 12-year-old, remember in Luke chapter 2, as a 12-year-old, he was in the temple, and he's arguing and he's debating with the doctors of the law, and they're marveling at look at this kid.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

This kid knows scripture like no one else.

Well, here Jesus as a man, uh as a full-grown man, is unparalleled in his understanding of God and of man, of his hearers of the scriptures.

In Matthew 22, you find Jesus presenting a conundrum to his um two of the doctors of the law who came to him specifically in Matthew 22 to trip him up so that they could have reason to turn him over to the authorities.

He says to them, Okay, so you're coming to me with questions that try to catch me in my words.

I've got a question for you.

And these are the sharpest tools in the shed.

These are the guys who know the scriptures like nobody else.

He presents a conundrum they never heard before.

He quotes Psalm chapter 110 and verse 1 that says that David's Lord, which was Messiah, they understood that to be Messiah, was David's Lord, and yet they also, curiously, called Messiah the son of David.

Psalms 110 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 21, Jesus goes into Jerusalem, they quote the Old Testament saying, Blessed is the son of David.

Matthew 21 · chapter mention

Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, son of David.

They'd never thought, wait a minute, how is it that the Messiah can be both David's Lord and David's son?

The answer is because we know as Christians who understand the dual uh identity of Jesus as two natures, divine and human in one person of Jesus Christ the Son, that he predated David and was therefore David's creator and Lord, but he would also come incarnate as a human in the lineage of David as a Jew, and thus be David's son as a human.

They didn't have that kind of Christology, they didn't understand the scriptures to teach that, therefore they couldn't answer it.

They'd never thought of it that way.

So Jesus has done this numerous times where he presents a problem to sort of silence his critics.

And here in John chapter 10, it's no different.

John 10 · chapter mention

This does bring us, thankfully, to the last part of our text in verses 40 through 42 that's very encouraging, and we see that many believe in Jesus.

Many believe in Jesus.

Let's read verse 40.

He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first.

And there he remained.

And many came to Jesus, and they said, John did no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.

And many believed on him there.

So he goes back to there where John the Baptist had been ministering, and there's probably lots of people still live in the area.

And when they see Jesus, they're like, Yeah, Jesus fits the bill.

Everything John had already said came to pass, and John didn't even produce miracles.

The fact that Jesus matches what John said and that he's doing miracles, it's obvious he's the true and uh Messiah to be received.

And so they believe on him there.

Jesus withdraws his ministry, withdraws at this point in John, back to where it all began.

In other words, I think John is very artfully in his narrative uh trudged through the Gospel of John, wanting to quicken our minds back to, okay, he's back right now where it all started.

Well, has anything changed since it all started?

What did John say at the beginning?

Well, here's what John said at the beginning when it all started in John 1, 29.

John had said, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks before me because he was before me.

And I have seen verse 34 and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.

That's what John said at the beginning.

Let me ask you, because John wants us, I think, to ask this question.

Is that true?

Have we learned more about Jesus since John chapter 1 that would convince us that what John was actually saying was true?

John 1 · chapter mention

The answer is oh yeah.

John chapter 2, the miracle of Cana.

John 2 · chapter mention

Chapter 3, the healing of Capernaum.

Chapter 5, chapter 4, the meeting with the woman at the well and telling her everything she knew about herself and then no one else knew.

John chapter 5, the healing of the man at the Pulubathesda.

John 5 · chapter mention

Chapter 6, right?

Miracle of the feeding of the five thousands, walking on water, etc., etc., etc.

We've learned so much about Jesus.

And here John brings us back to the beginning and says, it's all true.

And the people that were with Jesus at that time are evidence because they believed it too.

Now this brings us back to today, and we're going to wrap up this message.

Many people today in the 21st century stumble over the person of Jesus, right?

Maybe even some of you.

You've read things, you attended a class, a lecture seminar, you were watching the History Channel and talking about multiple universes and alien life forms, and you started thinking, I wonder if I wonder if all this is true.

I wonder if Jesus, that the secular scholars talk about as the you know, the philosopher sage or the uh the rebel who got himself killed by the Romans in the first century.

Um maybe that's who Jesus was, and we're just an echo chamber as Christians telling each other what we want to hear and propagating this big, huge lie that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the one true and living God.

And we have these doubts, like earworms, get into our minds we can't seem to sh to shake.

Maybe it's not you, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's your child, maybe it's someone who's been raised in your home and they've flown the coop and they've developed other ideas about Jesus.

I want to call us back today through the words of Jesus Christ Himself in our text.

In the words of John, as he tells us, it's the same, same message from the beginning that's been proven over and over again.

The testimony of Jesus' fulfillment of Old Testament miracles, the testimony of angels at Jesus' birth and at his temptation, at his at his death, at his resurrection, the testimony of John the Baptist at his baptism and the voice of the Father coming down on at least three separate occasions, saying, This is my beloved son, hear him in the presence of miracles.

Jesus' seven nature-defying miracles presented in John's gospel, and now Jesus' own words saying, I am the good shepherd.

You don't need another shepherd.

I am the one you're to follow.

I'm the giver of eternal life.

I am one with the Father.

Jesus who completes the Shema.

Jesus, the revealer of the nature of God and the nature of man.

Does it expose you today?

Does it call your doubts into question?

Tim Keller, the late Tim Keller, spoke often about the fact that we should doubt our doubts.

We somehow feel like, if we doubt something, that that's pure reason.

And we can trust that.

You can trust the doubt.

But he says you should doubt your doubts.

Who says your doubt is true?

It feels true.

Doubt your doubts and submit them to the scrutiny of Jesus Christ.

But if you're here this morning and you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal Son of God, then I've got a promise I want to leave you with in our text, and it is glorious.

The promise is this in verses 27 and 28 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hands.

Do you realize if today you actually believe that Jesus is the Christ?

That that's not because you're just a super rational person and have and have analyzed all the theistic arguments and Christological arguments and all the information in Scripture, and because you're so smart, you've concluded Jesus is right.

There's a rational component of the faith, absolutely.

But there's a moral component to the faith too.

It takes someone with a conscience awakened to the truth of God.

It takes, like we discovered before, a new heart with new capacities to believe in Christ.

And if that is you today, you don't have to labor for eternal life.

You have eternal life right now.

If lightning comes down and strikes this building and kills every believer here, you will immediately be brought into the presence of your creator and your God and the lover of your soul.

You have eternal life.

You have passed from death unto life.

You are a new creation.

You are the ultimate miracle of the Gospel of John.

You've been made a sheep of Jesus Christ.

O believing family of God, would you rejoice in this security of being held within the grasp of our omnipotent Savior?

No matter what may threaten you in this life, physically or emotionally or psychologically or relationally or spiritually, it cannot threaten to take away the love of Jesus Christ for you or from you.

My prayer this morning is that whatever assails your peace and security in your soul, whatever tempts you to doubt your Lord, will be washed away right now by the blood of Jesus Christ that poured forth from his incarnate body.

And if you've never professed Jesus as your Lord, I pray that you'll do that for the first time.

Because he is the only access we have to our Father, where we alone are saved and safe and sanctified.

Let's pray.