John 8:21-30

Welcome back. Thanks for joining us.

Appreciate you being with us as we close out the week in the Gospel of John.

Here we are in the eighth chapter, the 21st verse.

Never far from Jesus's thoughts in John.

Never.

Far from John's reminding the reader of where the story is going.

And so, we have a section today with this subtitle.

Jesus Foretells His death.

And again, I think John uses these moments

to keep us on the track of the story.

As he takes us through other things as well.

But, that's where we are today.

Let me read a few verses.

We'll come back and talk them through again.

He said to them, I'm going away,

and you will search for me, but you will die in your sin.

Where I'm going, you cannot come.

Then the Jew said, is he going to kill himself?

Is that what he means by saying where I'm going?

You cannot come.

He said to them, you're from below.

I'm from above.

You are of the world.

I am not of this world.

I told you that you would die in your sins, for

you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.

They said to him, who are you?

Jesus said, why do you?

Why do I speak to you at all?

I have much to say about you and much to condemn.

But the one who sent me is true.

And I declare to the world that I have heard from him.

They did not understand what he was speaking to them, that he was

speaking to them about the father.

So Jesus said,

when you've lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he,

and I do nothing on my own,

but I speak these things as the father instructed me.

And the one who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.

As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

So again, we don't want to

overdo this, but just another moment to point out

that John stands out as somewhat different from the other three gospels

that keep the controversy of who Jesus is alive,

and they sort of like

that that question to be unanswered

till late in the story, especially, for instance, in the gospel of Mark.

That's not the case in John.

And we see a good example of it here.

I'm from above. You're from below.

You can't understand what I say.

You will die in your sins unless you believe in me.

These are all theological ideas that get fleshed out in the church

that John presents for us in Jesus words.

And Jesus says, I have much to condemn.

The one who sent me knows that I speak the truth.

So this is narrative.

This is kind of a monologue that Jesus gives toward

the religious leaders, those who stand against him.

And then

again, as John will do,

he lets us know that Jesus message does get through.

So we end here with this verse.

As he was saying these things.

Many believed in him.

And Michael, I don't know exactly what you call this story.

It's not necessarily a conflict story.

It's not a miracle story, obviously.

Maybe a pronouncement

would be the closest thing that Jesus shares.

Something that tells us something about him,

that advances our understanding a little bit.

But these are these are pretty blatant words.

And I think especially for a gospel that we're, you know,

somewhere near halfway through it, it's

telling that John has so much to say or that Jesus in

John has so much to say about who he is and and why that matters at this point.

So I don't know exactly

what your thought about this term in the conversation might mean.

I'll see it in your face here in just a moment,

but I don't think in our study

we've talked much about some of the controversies of the book of John.

I think that this text actually does

maybe provide a good example of one of the reasons

that the Gospel of John has been controversial

in Christian history, and I'll keep this really brief, but this is an interesting

a thing that is unique to this book, really.

And in the very early church, there was this sort of theological belief

that later became it really fleshed out

and then sort of explored by the church and ultimately called a heresy

or an untrue belief called Gnosticism.

And John has been accused of having some Gnostic ideas in it.

Scholars will debate this back and forth.

Many books have been written about this.

If if that kind of technical thing is of interest to you, you could find

just hours and hours and hours of reading about that.

But to keep it really simple and hopefully interesting, Gnosticism

was this idea that there are multiple levels

on the way to perfection, and that humans would sort of pass

through the spiritual levels on their way to perfection, like God.

And the key that led one from one level to another was what you knew.

There was a sort of this idea that if you had special knowledge,

which is where that word Gnostic comes from,

if you have special knowledge, you would gain you access to these

these higher levels.

The reason that was so compelling was because the,

ancient world had lots of cults that believed things like that.

And so it was kind of important to Christianity. Okay.

So why they go down this whole rabbit hole, this whole piece

here where the Jews are saying, is he going to kill himself?

Is that what he means when he's saying, I'm going to a place that you can't come?

When they ask him, who are you?

That these are our little moments in the text where scholars would debate

and have conversation about you know, is this that kind of thing?

Is John celebrating

that Jesus has this special knowledge that these others don't have?

And whether or not you're persuaded

by that very technical argument that that scholars have?

I think the point here that is really fascinating is this is unique to John.

To your point, Clint, your it was your comment about the fact what is this?

Is this it's this isn't really a healing story.

It's really not a parable story.

In some ways. It's not even a teaching story.

Yeah, I think this kind of story is unique to John.

It's Jesus revealing the truth of who he is in a deeply spiritual sense.

He's using deeply spiritual language to do it.

And here he is connecting that deep spiritual truth

to ultimate physical outcomes for these people.

I mean, he says, ultimately, I told you that you would die in your sins,

for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am here.

Jesus frames explicitly the connection to the father,

his connection to the father as the only hope for salvation

for those who put their faith and belief and trust in him and I.

I think there's some interesting nuances in the text like this,

because you're not going to see this kind of discourse,

and you have to remember this kind of language.

It's going to go all the way through chapter eight,

and then we're going to see a little bit

of a change of pace at the beginning of chapter nine.

This gospel is chock full of this kind of language,

and there's been a significant amount of conversation around, you know,

why does John emphasize this so much, and what do we have to learn from it?

I think more so than the other gospels and again, push back Michael. But.

The other gospels

perhaps make some allowance for we believe in God,

but we don't believe in you.

That's incompatible.

Yeah. Right.

In the Gospel of John. Yeah.

I mean, it's not it's not celebrated.

It's not.

It's not accepted in the other gospels, but in, in the Gospel of John,

that flat out doesn't work.

That and so you see that in, in these verses,

they didn't understand he was speaking to them about the father,

that they missed the very conversation that these men

who who are trained in religion.

Really it in from John's perspective,

possibly don't believe in any of it because

you cannot believe in God the Father, I think, as John sees it,

without therefore also believing in Christ.

They are.

They are so intertwined.

They are they're one to use Trinitarian language and and I don't think

John allows for a category that says,

Will we accept this part, but not your part?

And I think that occasions much of the difficult and kind of,

harsh language that Jesus uses.

You know, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sin.

Well, what is their sin?

Jesus is not talking about their you know, that they

that they lied or that they stole or that they did something on the Sabbath.

Yes, those things are sins as well.

But that's not what Jesus mean.

Jesus is talking about their unwillingness

and their inability to see him and recognize him as the Messiah.

That's their sin.

He doesn't mean a specific action like we saw the woman committing adultery.

Their sin is that they refuse

to to acknowledge who Jesus truly is,

and in refusing to acknowledge that they also don't see God clearly,

and therefore they stand apart from God, which is to be lost,

which is to die in one sin.

So there's a lot of theology happening here.

I feel like we we said that yesterday as well. But

but it also, I think, is a wonderful example

of the the kind of conflicts that are more prevalent in the Gospel of John,

or at least they're presented differently in the Gospel of John.

And it gives this book it's part of its flavor.

So if you think with me about the book of Mark and that Mark

and secret, how Jesus is always sort of quieting people along the way,

and it's not until the cross where suddenly

the divine revelatory moment is fully encapsulated,

and it's sort of become apparent to any who would look to it.

I think what's fascinating when we look in this text is right here in verse 28,

when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize

that I am he, that I do nothing on my own.

But I speak these things as the father instructed me.

It's a kind of explicit reference to that reality.

We see it another gospel, but it's it's not a secret.

It Jesus outright says it.

And there's nooks and crannies

in this text that you could read past and miss some of the depth of it.

It happens right here in verse 28.

You see in my Bible where it says that I am he.

And then we have a small little each there.

Well, if you click on that, your, your Bible,

your editor is going to give you some help in the Greek.

That's I am which when you know that, then your mind

should immediately be spinning to where's the other time I've heard I am,

I am is who God names himself to be to Moses.

One of this pivotal moments in the Old Testament.

Jesus here, in other words, is claiming

that in being lifted up, which we the end

reader, the one who's encountering this text, knows is a reference to the cross.

When Jesus is lifted up,

then we will know the I am ness of the one who's being lifted up.

We'll know that he is indeed not just sent by God,

but he is one of the persons of God.

That's the kind of depth of this text

that that Jesus is making

both claims about himself,

but also reinterpreting claims of who God was in the Old Testament.

He he's both proclaiming something that will be

when he's lifted up, but he's also teaching something

about what he's proclaiming in this moment.

Jesus is so multi sensed in this book.

He there's so many different variables that that he's always

speaking to at the same time.

So you can never just nail it down to one thing.

It's a rainbow of realities.

It's not just one.

I, I think this is a fair statement.

If if you think about the other gospels

as who's on this stage, I would say that by and large,

they really try to shine the spotlight on Jesus.

In the Gospel of John.

Jesus is a to, to person character.

So to see Jesus is also to see God.

And so you have this language, the father and I I'm saying what the father did.

I'm I'm telling you what the father told me.

You don't know me.

You don't know the father.

You can't go where I'm going.

And and that presentation is,

is much more apparent, I think, in this gospel.

Now, again, as we try to do every day,

if we want to back out and say, what do we learn in this text?

Well, what do we learn? We learn

that that when

we refuse to acknowledge Christ,

we miss God.

What do we learn?

That when we do that, we risk dying in our sin?

So what's the implication that Jesus is the one who saves us

from our sins, that brings life instead of death?

All of these are pretty standard doctrines for Christians,

but they're woven in through these words.

And then what?

What do we get at the end?

As he was saying, many believed him

that when Jesus presents truth, we've seen it

at every page of this gospel, the divisive moment

where some believe and some do not, some accept and some refuse.

That's woven in to the presentation of who Jesus is.

Whenever Jesus is on the scene, we wish that everyone would get it.

But in John, above all gospels, there's always a division

that Jesus creates or an occasions maybe would be a better way to say it.

And so

what do we learn?

We learn that we have each of us a choice to make.

Who do we believe Jesus to be,

and what do we see in him of God the Father?

And so I, I think you have to work a little harder

to get to some of the devotional stuff in these kind of passages,

but I do think it's there.

So that ending is absolutely key as we come to try to land.

You know what?

What's the takeaway here?

Well, many believed after he said these things.

What is it that he said, really if you if you pull yourself back and consider

what he said is in verse 28, I am the one,

I am he, I am Jesus claimed to be God,

the one speaking for God, the one living as God in the world, that Jesus

is the incarnate one and and friends, that is an unbelievable spiritual truth.

It's good to be reminded that the faith is not what you believe

about Jesus positionally, this, this and this and this, that's a part of it.

What the faith is at its core is, do you believe Jesus?

Do you believe that he is who he says

he is, that that the whole of the universe turns on him?

When you look at him?

And do you see when you look at Jesus, do you see the one who created you?

See the one who restores? Do you see the one who judges?

Do you see the one who proclaims righteousness and grace?

If you see that in Jesus, then you too, like the crowd, may believe.

You may have your imagination transformed.

It becomes a turning point in your life when you discover that

that Jesus is revealing something that is more true

than what the world believes to be true, because he is the truth.

That's I think what's so incredible about this text is Jesus is not giving us

some kind of 100 point multiple choice test

that we need to affirm in order to believe in him.

No, we simply need to look to him and to believe in

who he is, and that is the foundational starting point.

And everything, no matter how complex or multivalent it is, it

all grows out of that one very core foundational reality.

Yeah, I think that's a good word, Michael, because I think often Christians,

especially given the differences of denominations and faith traditions,

can become overly focused on what we believe about Jesus.

And and that's sort of

doctrines that

undergird our understanding of what Jesus is.

And John brings us back to that fundamental question

that he starts with in it every point, who Jesus is

and that that that's a helpful,

that's always a helpful reminder, I think, for those of us

that are comfortable with the idea that we know

that we've answered that question, but we know there are other questions about

what does it mean, the what questions are very important.

But at the center of them all, foundationally, is that question Who is

Jesus?

That's a great question to leave us on at the end of our study this week.

I believe we're back, strong next week.

All of our days back in the studio, I think.

So we would love to see you then, but I hope

that this study has been encouraging, challenging, interesting to you.

Certainly, if you have any questions, let us know in the comments.

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Monday. Be blessed. Have a good weekend!