"Then You Will Know" (Salter) | John 8:21-30

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Please stand for a reading from John chapter 8, verses 21 through 34.

John 8:21–34

So he said to them again, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.

Where I am going, you cannot come.

So the Jews said, Will he kill himself since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come?

He said to them, You are from below, I am from above.

You are of this world, I am not of this world.

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.

So they said to him, Who are you?

Jesus said to them, Just what I have been telling you from the beginning.

I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.

They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.

So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.

And he who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Jesus is still there in the temple on the last great day of the feast having conversations.

And this will go all the way through chapter eight.

Feast of Tabernacles, just as a reminder, was when the church went camping, like family camp.

It was like Old Testament family camp.

They went, they stayed in tents, they stayed in booths to remember what it was like to go to the wilderness and how God provided for them.

And they remembered bread and they remembered water and they remembered light.

They remembered God's faithfulness.

In the midst of that, remembrance, the bread of life, the living water, the light of the world is standing right before them and they're missing it.

Let's pray that we want.

And that may characterize most of us in this room.

And so help us not miss you this morning.

Help us see you.

We pray in your name.

Amen.

Well, in a room of the National Gallery in London hangs a painting that I can't show you this morning, but you'll probably go look it up this afternoon.

It's by Hans Holbein.

It's called the Ambassadors.

And in that painting, two men, painted in 1533, stand life-size on either side of a table.

There's a French royal ambassador in fur and satin.

His friend on the other side is a young bishop, one hand resting on a book.

They look distinguished.

Between them on two shelves sits everything a person of that time could want.

A globe of the earth, instruments for charting the stars, a lute, the books, tools of learning, wealth and faith, and all these tools that anybody would have wanted in that time, they're arranged and put on display on these shelves.

These are men as you look at them who have arrived according to their times.

But at the bottom of the painting, across the floor at their feet, there is a smear, a long, pale, slanting blur that when you look at it seems to belong to nothing.

If you stand in front of it, you'll take it for a flaw.

And your eye will slide past it just to see the two proud men above.

And then someone says, Why don't you move?

Why don't you come up to the right edge of that painting and now look?

And what's looking at you is a human skull.

And it's meant to take you aback.

From that one angle, the smear pulls into focus.

And staring up from the floor at the feet of these successful men is death.

It's supposed to rattle you.

And what's interesting is that death, that skull, was there the whole time.

You just couldn't see it from where you stood.

You had to be moved to see it.

All of us are sinners, and left to ourselves, we are those two men.

We build the shelf of our lives out of real accomplishments, and we set things on the shelf where the light is good so everybody can see what I've done.

And yet the one thing slanting toward us at our feet is the one thing we cannot see, or let's say we refuse to see it.

What is that?

It's death.

It's sin and death.

In John chapter 8, Jesus stands in front of people who have everything those ambassadors had in that painting.

John 8 · chapter mention

They have religion, they have heritage, they have education, they have certainty, and he tells them there's something you can't see, and you're about to die in it.

And then he tells them the one place where they need to go stand, where they need to move, so that things would become clear.

So first, we're going to see the solemn imperative.

Here it is: Unbelief in Jesus as the I am leads to dying in your sin.

Look at verse 21.

So he said to them again, I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.

Where I am going, you cannot come.

Jesus says here, I'm going away.

In John, that language is associated with him saying, I'm going to my death.

And that death is the road home to the Father who sent him.

And when he says, You will seek me, he does not mean that one day these people listening to him would come looking to him in repentance.

What he means by that is that they will keep hunting for the Messiah.

They'll keep seeking, all the while they're missing the one who truly is right in front of them.

And so utterly perplexed, they asked this question in verse 22.

So the Jews said, Will he kill himself?

Since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come.

Why this odd reaction?

Well, it's based on a very grotesque misunderstanding.

In their world, suicide was the act only of a madman or one forsaken by God.

That was their view.

That's not the biblical view of what that reality.

But their view was if somebody took their life, they were a madman or forsaken by God.

So I want you to hear in their question, it's really an accusation.

When they say, will he kill himself, they're saying this man's mad.

This man's obviously been forsaken by God.

He's making bizarre claims.

And yet I want you to see that what they say is truer than they know in one sense.

He is going to lay down his life.

But it will not be by his own despairing hand.

It will be freely in obedience to his father.

And the sharpest irony of their question is this the very men asking whether he means to kill himself are the very men who are already plotting to kill him.

They wonder aloud about his death while they're planning it.

And then this sentence in verse 23 begins to clarify their problem.

He said to them, You are from below, I am from above.

You are of this world, I am not of this world.

You see, they can't see.

This is not, just to make sure we understand, this is not Jesus prioritizing the spiritual world over physical matter.

That's not the view of the Bible that only spiritual things matter.

No, what's happening here with Jesus is he's making a distinction of origin and nature.

He's saying this to all of us.

You are either rooted in the life of God above, or in the darkness of a world that will not have him below.

Ecclesiastes calls this under the sun.

Under the sun, you are hopeless if you are left to yourself.

And so what are you to do?

Jesus says to them, You are of this world, I'm not of this world.

Jesus earlier said, Where I am going above, you cannot come.

What are we to do?

It seems, how do we transcend from below to above?

You don't reason your way there.

We've already heard in John 3, only the new birth from above can move a person from one side to the other.

And so in light of that, the solemn imperative lands.

Unbelief in Jesus is going to lead to dying in your sin.

Verse 24.

I told you that you would die in your sins.

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

That's the claim.

Don't miss that.

I messed it up even reading it.

It's hidden.

I am he.

That's the claim.

I am he.

What is he saying?

I'm God.

I am as the covenant name of God, the name spoken from the burning bush, the name Isaiah sets on the lips of the Lord in Isaiah 43, 10.

Hear this.

You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant, whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He.

Do you see the connection?

Unless you and I believe, I am He.

You're going to die in your sins.

What are we to believe?

That Jesus is God.

But I want you to notice from verse 21 that that is a singular there.

When you look, look at verse 21.

You will die in your sin.

Verse 24 is that you would die in your sins.

What's happening here?

Well, verse 21 is the root of all sin.

It's unbelief.

Unless you believe, you will die in your sin.

And then out of unbelief comes the farming and the harvest of all other sins.

So the singular sin here that Jesus is speaking to is unbelief.

And that is why Jesus so solemnly warns us in this text.

You're going to die.

In your sin, if you do not believe, you will remain what?

From below.

Now, Jesus is not warning us because he's cold.

He's warning them because he loves.

Remember, he said, Where I am going, you cannot come.

Listen, we can't go there.

We're not allowed there.

To be with God is a gift.

It's never an achievement.

It's never a right.

We have to be given the gift of faith so that we can be born from above.

I want to illustrate in this way.

Consider, as we consider Jesus' warning, there's a town, Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

And high above that town, a lake sat behind an old dam.

And a club of wealthy men had bought it and subsequently weakened the dam.

And every spring, someone warned that the dam might go.

The town heard it and it actually, they heard it so frequently it became a joke.

They laughed and they would go on with their days, but on the last day of May of 1889, it came down.

And a wall of water 40 feet high reached that town in under an hour.

And 2,000 people died.

The warning had been true all along.

They did not die because no one told them.

They died because they had heard it so often they no longer heard it at all.

That's the warning.

The warning to the crowd and the warning to us.

He does not speak this way because he is cold.

He speaks this way because of his love.

I want to say a warning that you have heard your whole life can flatten into background noise.

And that is very dangerous.

You can sit in a pew or a chair and you can know the words, you will die in your sins.

But yet, if you do not believe, the sin of unbelief is lethal.

So this morning I'm asking you, do not laugh and do not ignore the warning.

But recognize that the most dangerous place to stand is underneath a warning you've stopped hearing.

That is very dangerous.

Unless you believe, you will die in your sins.

So everything hangs on believing who Jesus is.

And so the answered question that they ask, they naturally say, Who are you?

in verse 25.

And the answered question of point two is Jesus is the Father's sent one.

They ask a good question, finally.

Verse 25.

Who are you?

But it shows that they have not been listening.

It is actually not an honest inquiry.

It is a challenge, probably closer to a sneer than a search.

Who are you?

I love how Jesus answers.

Verse 25.

Who am I?

Just what I've been telling you from the beginning.

In other words, you haven't been listening.

Here's what he's saying, though.

My word is my person.

You want to know me?

You want to know who I am?

Listen to what I say.

Don't go looking for me somewhere else.

You're not going to find the Christ, the real Christ, or the one you want, or an idea that you happen to prefer about him somewhere else.

You find Jesus where.

You find Jesus where he speaks and nowhere else.

Do not miss how much weight that puts on his words.

Jesus is not simply handing them information about himself so that you understand it the way you read a label.

No, he's saying, my speech is my self-disclosure.

If you want to know me, you have to deal with my word.

And he says, I'm the one who sent from the Father.

And so when he speaks, the Father is making himself known.

Now notice where he keeps pointing.

Verse 26, to the Father who sent him.

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

But he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.

They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.

Listen, their problem is not a shortage of evidence.

The answer is standing in front of them talking.

They can't see.

They don't know.

They don't know the Father because they don't know the Son.

And so why don't they know?

Because they're not listening to the Word.

Why are they not listening to the Word?

Their ears have not been open to hear.

Their eyes have not been opened to see.

But they have also not come to a place of humility of admitting that.

You can't have Jesus while refusing what he says.

His words are not an accessory to knowing him.

Something you can set aside so that you can get the real thing.

No.

His words are how the sent one makes the Father known.

Do you want to know God?

You got to turn to the Word.

The Word of God, the Word of Jesus.

Turn from His speech to a Christ of your own preference?

No, you're not going to find Jesus there.

You have to find Him in His Word.

So I ask you this.

Are you looking for Jesus somewhere other than His own words?

Are you looking for Jesus in experiences, in feelings, in a Christ of your own imagining, while leaving his actual speech unread?

Are you looking for Jesus, but you don't want nothing to do with the Word of God?

You're not going to find Him.

Who are you?

Jesus said.

They asked who He was, they can't hear.

So Jesus points them then to the one place where no one will be able to miss it any longer.

Jesus actually, in this third point, takes them and says, Come with me to this painting, step over here and look.

And he says, Then you'll know.

Where do you got to stand to understand this?

Well, look at the clear confirmation.

Jesus exaltation.

Verse 28.

So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.

That phrase lifted up carries two meanings at once.

On the surface, it is referencing a body raised on a Roman cross.

But on the other hand, it is referencing a coronation, an exaltation, being lifted up.

You need to listen to the Old Testament to understand it.

Lifted up is the very word that Isaiah uses of the servant of the Lord in Isaiah 52, 13.

He says this Behold, my servant, the anointed one, the Messiah, shall act wisely, and he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.

And that servant is the one of whom Isaiah goes on to say in Isaiah 53, 5, he was pierced for our transgressions, and with his wounds we are healed.

Do you know what this means?

The lifting up is the wounding.

It is the suffering of Christ.

And the suffering is the glory.

The title he chooses, the Son of Man, when he says this, when he says, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know.

Comes straight out of Daniel chapter 7, verses 13 through 14.

Daniel 7:13–14

One like a son of man comes with the clouds of heaven and is given what?

Dominion and glory and a kingdom.

Does that sound like exaltation?

Does that sound like being lifted up?

Sure does.

See, it's a double meaning.

So hear it again.

When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He.

Then you will know that I am God.

And that I do nothing on my own authority but speak just as the Father taught me.

In that one phrase, Jesus ties together the Messiah who must suffer and the King who must reign.

And where do you got to stand to see it?

At the cross.

The cross is not the interruption to the kingdom of God.

The cross is the coronation of the king.

See, these men thought they were silencing a blasphemer.

Without knowing it, they're crowning the king.

Go to Peter at Pentecost.

He preaches this very message, lifting up the exaltation of God in its dual meaning.

Listen to Peter preach.

Men of Nazareth, hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God.

This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed.

You lifted him up on a tree.

But God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God.

Do you see that double lifting?

You lifted him up on a tree.

And that was his exaltation because he rose from the grave from that atoning death.

You're going to understand who Jesus is.

If you're going to get the then you will know, you have to go to the cross.

Stay with that picture for a moment.

A cross becoming a throne, an instrument of death becoming the place of highest honor.

I read this week of Britain's highest medal for valor.

It's called the Victoria Cross.

By tradition, it is cast from the bronze of captured enemy cannon.

Isn't that great?

The medal of the weapon that killed becomes the mark of highest honor.

Is that not the cross?

The instrument of execution lifted up becomes the throne.

When the Son of Man is lifted up, then you will know what?

That he's God, that he's the eternal king who reigns.

And for some that knowing, then you will know, will be convicting, and for others that knowing will be condemning.

But make no mistake, everyone will know when he returns.

Every knee will bow.

And then one more word in verse 29.

And he who sent me is with me.

He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

The Father is with the Son.

Why?

Because the Son lives in perfect obedience and delight in him.

Did you see that in verse 29?

I always do the things that are pleasing to him.

Do you?

Do we?

Well, how are we going to go from below?

People living below don't do the things pleasing to him.

How are we going to go to the above to being with him, not being left alone?

We must be what?

In the one who always does the thing that is pleasing to his father.

Because if you're in him, you get what?

The Father's favor.

So we don't obey to win that favor.

We obey because we already have it.

In Christ.

And then in verse 30, there's the application, no one in the room expected it.

As he was saying these things, shocked, many believed.

Okay, that has not been what has been happening.

This has been a dogfight.

And suddenly, in this room of religious people who were blind, many believed.

After such hard words and disputation between one another, what does this mean?

What is this to do to us as we end this passage?

Jesus is not bound by our sense of who's too far gone.

Not the hard case in your family, not the hardness in your own chest.

His grace can bring you to the cross and open your eyes and you see.

That's what happened.

Now, once you go back to that room in London, remember the two men are still standing there in that painting, sure of themselves, and the skull is still stretched across the floor where you look.

Well, you look now because you moved and you can see it.

The death you could not see is real now to you.

But there's one more thing in that painting.

So small that most visitors never notice.

It was intentionally put there.

Up in the corner, half hidden behind a curtain, the painter tucked a tiny cross.

The one thing that could save you from the thing below, the skull, the cross.

Can you see it?

Jesus says, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know.

See, at the cross, we know who he is, but we also know who we are.

You will know that he was lifted up to save you when you stop staring at the shelf of your life that you have built and come and stand where he tells you to stand.

Where?

Underneath the cross.

So I invite you.

Would you look at the Son of Man?

Lift it up that you may live.

Let us pray.

Father, let this not be a warning that is so repeated when we have heard so often that we neglect it.

Lord, thank you if we are the ones who believe that we have been given a gift to see what we could not see for ourselves.

You have made us born from above.

And continue to help us stand underneath the cross and in the righteousness of Jesus who always does the things pleasing to God, knowing that is the grounds for the Father's favor.

But Lord, if there are any here who find themselves moving this morning to be able to see, that's you.

That's you moving them.

Give them an expression of faith to say that they need you, that they want to live, they want to be where you are going, where they cannot come on their own terms.

Father, bring new life to people that have heard this warning a million times.

And finally, this morning, perhaps the warning sinks in.

Give us all faith in the one lifted up in Jesus' name.

Amen.