Wednesday, December 31, 2008

John 8:37-47

37 I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father."

39 "Abraham is our father," they answered.

"If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do what Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father."

"We are not illegitimate children," they protested. "The only Father we have is God himself."

42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! 46 Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me? 47 Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God."



Dig Deeper

One of the big challenges that I had as a teacher whenever we took a large group of students out into public was to get to remember and actually act as though they represented the school. If they went around acting like a bunch of hooligans, they would send the clear message that this was what the school stood for and believed in. When you represent something or someone, the usual assumption is that you will act in a manner consistent with their values and beliefs. A few years ago, I am reminded as I write this, I was sitting down having a meeting with the leader of Muslim group in the United States. I asked him if would agree with the assertion that Islam seemed to be a religion of violence and subjugation more so than it does peace, despite the best efforts of some to claim that it is a religion of peace. He gladly admitted that those who make Islam out to be a religion of peace, misrepresent Islam. It is, he claimed, the goal of Islam to rid the world of anything that stands in the way of Islam. This is their view of God’s will and so when they act in such a way that is consistent with that, they are following the spiritual nature of Allah and what he has called them to do. He then asserted that Christians are the same way, we just don’t want to admit it. As evidence of this, he cited the Crusades. What he was missing, however, was that those who acted violently and imperially during the Crusades were not at all representing the true Jesus Christ. The point became clear, and surprisingly this Muslim teacher agreed wholeheartedly. When Muslims engage in holy war, they are acting consistently and enacting the principles of Allah, their god. When Christians act in love and peace, they are acting consistently and enacting the principles of YHWH, our God.

Jesus has already charged the Jews to whom he is speaking with the need to be freed from their bondage to sin. Now he will make clear that when they do remain in their sin it should be of no surprise, because they are simply acting in a way that is consistent with their spiritual father. They think and would certainly have claimed to represent God but if they would just take a long, hard, honest look at their actions, they would see that they are not acting consistently with the principles of God, but of their true spiritual father.

Jesus concedes that the crowd, which can probably best be described as a mob at this point, are Abraham’s descendants. But the real question is are they acting like it? The importance of being Abraham’s descendants, after all, was being the heirs of the Covenant, the people of God. Murder was certainly something that no God-fearing Jew would be a part of, and yet that is exactly what they have been looking to do. At this point in his life, Jesus is quite clear in his own mind with the fact that these Jewish leaders are going to have him killed. He knows they will succeed but not before his hour has come. In the meantime, Jesus seems quite concerned with letting his accusers know that he knows what they are up to and where it will all lead. If they would just stop and think about it, they might realize that this is one more sign for them pointing to their need to believe in him as the Messiah. In fact, Jesus leaves no room for them to think that he knows what they are up to because he is a great detective or just quite discerning when it comes picking up on clues. How does he know that they are looking for a way to kill him? Because he is only telling them what he has seen in the Father’s presence. The very things that they hate him for are the things that he has seen, heard, and relayed from the Father Himself. The point is clear. Jesus comes from his Father as is evidenced by the fact that the things he says and does are the types of things that the Father says and does. They, on the other hand, are doing the things that their father says and does. Jesus doesn’t yet say who he thinks their father is, but the fact that he is clearly distinguishing it from God begins to make the point. The implication is that it can’t be Abraham either, because in the Jew’s eyes, he was the ultimate law keeper even before there was a law.

The Jews here, sensing that Jesus is implying that they have a father different from Abraham, affirm that Abraham is their father. This was an important fact for the Jews because being the children of Abraham was their identity. It gave them, in their own eyes, their status before God as his people. Notice Jesus’ subtle yet deliberate switch in terminology in response to their affirmation that Abraham is their father. They may be his descendants, Jesus agrees with that but the question is, are they his children? Being the child of someone, in biblical terminology usually denoted a spiritual connection. Jesus’ point is that they might be the physical descendants of Abraham but that does not get them anywhere if they’re not his spiritual descendants. They are not acting like Abraham would act because they are trying to kill him. Abraham would never do such a thing. He would never plot to kill God’s messenger. In fact, Genesis 18 is quite clear that Abraham met the messengers of God with humility and hospitality, eager to hear a word from their Lord. Again, in verse 41 Jesus implies that they are doing the work of some other father but it’s sure not Abraham. This stands as a comparison, in one sense, and a contrast in another to Jesus. They are both doing the works of their fathers, but Jesus’ Father is a very different father than theirs.

The response of the Jews in verse 41 to Jesus’ second insinuation that they have a spiritual father that is not Abraham is probably meant as a slight towards Jesus. The early Christian community certainly believed and taught that Jesus’ birth was a result of the miraculous virgin birth but there were likely rumors swirling around quite a bit already during his lifetime that something was fishy with Jesus’ birth. Those who rejected Jesus as coming from God would certainly have rejected any notion of a virgin birth and would have maligned Mary as having a child out of wedlock. This status as an illegitimate child would have greatly reduced Jesus’ standing in the community. If he wants to question who their father is, then they will throw it back in his face and question who his is. Picking up, though, on the fact that Jesus is speaking in terms of spiritual fatherhood now, the Jews skip past Abraham and declare boldly that God is their Father. Jesus might be physically illegitimate, but they are certainly not spiritually illegitimate.

This is not the least bit concerning to Jesus, however, because he is confident of his identity in the Father. Jesus is never swayed by human opinion and this case is no different. In fact, Jesus turns things right back around to the mob. If God were their Father they would be embracing him. In the Jewish culture, after all, to reject the son was to reject the Father. Jesus did come from the very presence of the Father, so when they malign him, they malign the Father and the mission that He gave to the son. When they deny the work of the son, they are really demonstrating that they do not not embrace the work of the Father.

Jesus now gets right to the point. Their father is not God or Abraham but the devil. They are busy doing his works and behaving like him. That’s why they cannot understand what Jesus has been teaching. They cannot understand his logos, his word, because they speak in the language of their spiritual father. Jesus has been speaking the truth that comes from heaven but the devil is fluent only in lies from the earthly realm, that is his native language, and by implication, theirs as well. They do not believe Jesus because they are so consumed with the works of their father that they cannot even recognize the genuine works of the Father when they see them. The worst part was, though, that they had defined what they were doing as the work of the Father. This was fatally dangerous. When we don’t discern the truth and begin to label our own will and the works of Satan as the real spiritual truth of the Father then we will find it very difficult, if not impossible to step out of that delusion and recognize the authentic truth.

All they needed to do is look at the works in their life and in Jesus’. They might try to trump up a few charges of Sabbath violations and even blasphemy but no one could honestly point to any sin in Jesus’ life. This is a bold challenge. Could any of them prove him guilty of sin? They were welcome to try but they could not. If they looked at their own lives, they needn’t even look past their impending plot to kill Jesus to find ungodly sin in their own works. That’s the importance of works in the life of the Christian. They don’t earn or establish our status in Christ but they do demonstrate it. If we see the fruit of the Spirit in our lives that’s a sure sign that he is present with us. If, however, we see the works of the flesh, then we should be quite concerned (cf. Rom. 8:1-17; Gal. 5:16-25). Is the Spirit there? Are we allowing him to work in our lives?



Devotional Thought

Spend some time reading Galatians 5:13-25 and Romans 8 today. Take an honest look at your life. Do you see the evidence of the desires of the Father in your life or do you see consistent and willful evidence of the father of lies in your life. Ask a few people who are close to you what they see.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

John 8:30-36

30 Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him.

Dispute Over Whose Children Jesus' Opponents Are

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

33 They answered him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?"

34 Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.



Dig Deeper

Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, announcing that it would go into effect on January 1, 1863. The Proclamation declared that all slaves that lived in territories that remained in rebellion against the United States government would go free on January 1st. Because those states continued in their war efforts, this meant that the Proclamation itself freed virtually no slaves. This particularly applied to Texas, which was almost completely under Confederate control for the remainder of the war. Although the American Civil War ended in essence on April 9, 1865, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that Union General Gordon Granger and his soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas to enforce the end of the war and the emancipation of the slaves. Immediately, the slaves broke into jubilant celebrations over the fact that they had been freed for good. That day has gone into history as Juneteenth and has developed into a huge holiday of parades and celebrations commemorating the actualized date of the end of slavery in Texas, and symbolically, all of the United States.

Imagine, though, if those slaves in Texas had not broken into celebration. What if they had, instead, began to shout down General Granger as he stood out on a balcony announcing their freedom? What if they got angry, denying that they were even in slavery rather than being filled with joy? If that had happened, they would have remained in their slavery, at least in their own minds and would have never enjoyed their freedom. Indeed, the only thing worse than being in slavery is having the opportunity to be free, not realizing it, and choosing to stay there in slavery when freedom has been offered to you. This might sound unthinkable but it is exactly the situation that Jesus found himself in with the Jewish leaders and much of Israel in general. He was announcing that the time of their freedom had finally come, but rather than celebrating jubilantly and praising God, they railed against the suggestion that they weren’t free. They didn’t like the idea that there might be something from which they needed to be freed. So, when the offer of freedom came they rejected it rather than embracing it.

As Jesus spoke against the Jewish leaders and their earthly agenda, many put their faith in him. Generally when John brings up the idea of someone having faith in Jesus it is in the positive sense of trusting in his life as the only means to reconciliation with the Father. In fact, many people have read this passage out its full context and assumed that John is speaking of those who had faith here in a positive sense. A careful reading of the rest of the scene, however, puts verse 30 in context and demonstrates that they came to a certain level of faith that Jesus was saying the right things and was, perhaps, the Messiah, but they didn’t have the real kind of faith that Jesus demands of his disciples. John, then, is evidently demonstrating that it is possible to come to a level of faith that reaches a mental assent to the ideas of Jesus, but they were not truly willing to follow Jesus’ teachings all the way, which is always the true sign of a genuine disciple (2 Jn. 1:9). As Jesus will expose in the rest of the passage, these "believers" were not willing to die themselves and their former identities. They still put value on who and what they were and thought that there was some value to their lives.

It was to these nominal believers that Jesus challenged further, as his word will do to everyone who supposes to have faith in him. To these Jews who had believed in him, Jesus said that if they really were his disciples, they would hold to his teaching. They wanted the Messiah part, it would seem, without the teaching that they must rely on faith in his life alone. It is important to notice that Jesus did not say that if people hold to his teaching then they will be his disciples. Holding to Jesus’ teaching is not what creates disciples, faith does that. Instead, holding to Jesus’ teaching is the marker of a true disciple. It is the attribute of a genuine disciple not the creating condition. In issuing this challenge, Jesus shows that he is more interested in deepening the genuine faith and discipleship of his followers than he is in simple and often misleading numerical growth.

What Jesus truly wanted for these Jews, as well as all human beings, was to know the truth and be set free. Jesus is not talking about some sort of religion here. True Christianity is not mere religion and if ever is reduced and starts sounding something like other religious beliefs, then we can be sure that it is not the truth that Jesus was offering. His truth is far more than just a set of doctrines or fundamental set of beliefs that needed to be adhered to. He is speaking of new creation. Jesus is the truth and the life (14:6). Try as we might, humans will never find complete light and truth outside of his life. His life, this truth is the only thing that will ever free any human from what truly enslaves us.

This is exactly what these Jews could not understand. Talk of needing to do something to be free implied that they were enslaved too. This notion would have been unacceptable to the average Jew and certainly was to those speaking with Jesus here. Freedom was the natural birthright of any Jew; they were, after all, the children of Abraham. The law declared that regardless of how poor they were, no Jew should ever sink to becoming a slave (Lev. 25:39-42). The Jewish Mishnah states that, "Even the poorest in Israel are looked upon as freemen who have lost their possessions, for they are the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob." They had overlooked the political reality that Israel had been in subjection to Babylon, Persia, Greece, and now Rome for the better part of the previous six centuries. Although that may be a small part of his point, Jesus’ real concern is the true enemy that had enslaved God’s people, and all human beings. Sin was the real enemy, the real slave master. The Jewish leaders would have known this, even if they denied that it was a problem in their individual lives. Yet, Jews believed that sin was something that God would only deal with at the end of the present age. They simply could not and would not consider Jesus’ message that the gift of freedom from sin and the life of the age to come could be made available in the here and now through the life of Christ.

Everyone who sins, says Jesus, is a slave to sin. This is the problem in a nutshell. Those who are in sin are a slave to sin. The language that Jesus uses here does not mean occasional sin. He refers, rather, to those who remain in a continual state of sin, the realm of sin. The problem was that the Pharisees, chief priests, and so many other Jews confused being children of Abraham with being the children of God as though they were one in the same. But they were not. God would bless all of the nations through the seed of Abraham (Genesis 12:3; 18:18) but it would be one seed. The Messiah would come through the children of Abraham but the blessing for all people of the world would come through him and him alone. The Jews assumed they were the solution, but in fact they were part of the problem. Israel had succumbed to the disease of sin just like everyone else in the world. This was the big problem that Israel did not want to face. What do you do when the doctor through whom the cure is supposed to come becomes a carrier of the disease? The answer is the solution that the Jewish leadership simply did not want to face. They weren’t the solution at all, they were part of the problem. Until they owned up to that they could never consider Jesus as the cure.

The true fault in their thinking is that the Jews believed themselves to be sons in God’s household. They presumed on rights that belonged to sons but they were slaves not sons. In the ancient world, the rights of the son lasted forever, but the rights of the slave were temporary at best, and were dependent on the will of the master. At any point a slave can be sold or sent away, but a son has rights that nothing can alter. It is only Jesus who fulfilled the words of the prophecy of 1 Chronicles 17:13-14: "I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will never take my love away from him, as I took it away from your predecessor. I will set him over my house and my kingdom forever; his throne will be established forever." Jesus was the true son but he wasn’t trying to cast them out forever. His true desire was to share his sonship with all of those who would enter into belief in his life. If they would only humble themselves and consider for a moment that his word might be true, then they could be set free from the slavery that they didn’t even know that they were in. It is only when the Son sets you free, that you will be free indeed.



Devotional Thought

Throughout the book of 1 John, John warns his beloved fellow disciples of the danger of walking in darkness and remaining fully in the light. There is always a danger when those who are called to reflect Jesus’ light to the world slip into darkness themselves. Spend some time reading 1 John this week and reflecting on whether you have truly been remaining in the light of Christ.

Monday, December 29, 2008

John 8:21-29

Dispute Over Who Jesus Is

21 Once more Jesus said to them, "I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come."

22 This made the Jews ask, "Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, 'Where I go, you cannot come'?"

23 But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am he, you will indeed die in your sins."

25 "Who are you?" they asked.

"Just what I have been telling you from the beginning," Jesus replied. 26 "I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world."

27 They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, "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 but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him."



Dig Deeper

An interesting thing happened this morning as I sat down to begin working on this section. I got up fairly early in the morning while most everyone else was still sleeping and I wanted to begin working. The only problem was my laptop computer’s battery was almost run all the way down and I didn’t know where the power cord was. I began to look for it but I already knew that it wasn’t plugged into the socket behind our Christmas tree because I would never plug it in there (it’s a couple of weeks before Christmas as I write this). With that location safely excluded, I began to quietly look around the house for the power cord but I simply could not find it. I looked in the computer bag and everywhere else that it might be but I simply could not find it. This was beginning to get frustrating as I realized that perhaps I had left it at church and would not be able to get the work done this morning that I wanted to get done. It wasn’t until my wife realized what I was doing, got up and found the cord immediately that I could relax. The cord was in the one place that I knew it wasn’t and had already excluded. It was behind the Christmas tree, precisely the place I did not look because I knew that it wouldn’t be there. Apparently my wife had plugged it in there the night before, but I had just assumed that it wouldn’t be there without actually looking there. Once I had excluded it as a possibility, I was simply not going to find the cord.

This seems like it is something of the case with the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day. They were waiting for the Messiah to deliver them but they had already, in their own minds, excluded Jesus as a possibility. This left them in somewhat of a quandary. No matter what Jesus said or did, he wasn’t going to convince them that he was the Messiah. They simply were not going to come to faith in him because, although they had yet to find the true Messiah, they knew he wasn’t it. That’s the great danger in making assumptions and excluding one possibility without fully considering it. It might be the one place where the thing you are looking for is actually at, but if you never look there, you will never find it.

To truly understand what Jesus is telling his critics in this passage, we must remember the Jewish concept of the King. As is demonstrated by the account of David, the anointed King of Israel, and Goliath, the fighting champion of the Philistines, what was true of the King was true of His people. If David won, the whole nation won. This is what led Paul, in Romans 6, to argue that those who had died to themselves and entered into the life of Christ, will share in all that he has received from the Father, including resurrection and the resurrection life. It is to this truth that Jesus alludes and appeals here.

He came from the presence of God and he will soon return there. He was the Word that has become flesh. He was the only human being who had truly done the full will of God (even David failed miserably in doing God’s will throughout his life), and he would be the only one to receive resurrection and the life of the age to come. Anyone who would trust in their own life and remain in their own life will receive their just reward and be judged according to their own sinful life. Those in Christ, however, will share the fate of Christ, who, following his death, will return to the presence of the Father. That is where he is going. He is going into death and out the other side, something that no human being can do on their own. He is, he is telling them, about to enter into the new creation, the life of the age to come. But they have already excluded the possibility that he is from the Father. They simply cannot abide the thought that he is the living water, the light of the world. They are looking everywhere else, but he cannot be it. That is why they will die in their sin and could not come where he was going. It was not that Jesus was barring them from coming to salvation or saying that there was a certain line or point of no return that they were about to cross. The problem was that they had rejected him as the way, and once you have rejected the only way as a possibility, you simply will not find it. He is going into the age to come, and they will not be able to follow because they are looking for every other way possible to enter in except his life. As John 1:4 has already stated, "In him was life, and that life was the light of all people." Those questioning Jesus had become the embodiment of John 3:19-20: "Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. All those who do evil hate the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed."

The Jewish leaders apparently mock Jesus in response to his statement that they cannot come where he is going. Is he going to kill himself? Surely if that’s the kind of death he is talking about, then they have no interest in following him. Suicide was reviled in the Jewish culture. Jewish people were horrified at the thought of committing suicide and assumed that those who were guilty of such a crime, except in extreme circumstances of heroism of some type, would be punished to the lowest pits of Hades. They would leave the corpse of a suicide case unburied until sunset and there was no public mourning for the person. It was a foregone conclusion, in their minds, that those who committed suicide would be excluded from God’s age to come. In this mocking accusation, though, the Jewish leaders again demonstrate that their minds are set on earthly things. Jesus has, in somewhat veiled terms, been discussing his own death. These leaders, no doubt, are well aware that discussions have taken place and a plot is in the works to kill him, but Jesus should know nothing of this. If he is going about teaching that his death will somehow be central to his mission and the sustenance that he will provide for the whole world, then he must be planning to kill himself. That’s the only way that someone could know the time and circumstances of their own death and plan for it. He must, they mock, be planning something repulsive like that to make some grand statement, and if that’s the case, in their own way of thought, then they have no interest in following this worst of law-breaking suicidal fools.

Jesus doesn’t respond directly to the slights of his questioners but reiterates the differences between he and them. They are from below, their minds are set on earthly things and they are stuck doing their own will. He, on the other hand, is from above, his mind is set on the things of God and doing God’s will. They are of the present world that is stuck in their own sin, separated from God but he is the only one that is not in that condition. In verse 24, Jesus says plainly what he hinted at in verse 21. It’s not that they have been barred from finding salvation. No, but they will die in their sins if they do not believe that he is the one. He is the Messiah, the servant of God (Isa. 40-55) who had come to earth to do the perfect will of God and be what Israel never could. But Jesus knows that they will not believe in him. They have already rejected him as a a possibility and so they will indeed die in their sins. He came to his own but his own did not receive him (1:11).

If Jesus is making such bold claims to be "he," to be the one, then they demand that he tell them who he is. The problem is that he has been telling them from the beginning who he is, but they have rejected that as a a possibility. How can they solve the problem of two plus two if they have already declared that the answer cannot be four. Their rejection of Jesus will bring about their own judgment, and Jesus confirms that he has much more to say about that. Yet, what Jesus is telling them is not his own words. He is only telling them what he has heard from the Father. He bears the words of the Father, so when they reject him as a possibility, they reject the very thing they claim to be looking for.

Because they have already rejected the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah or being sent directly by the Father, they simply could not understand what he was saying. Jesus boldly informs them that they will indeed lift him up, there will be no suicide. The word that Jesus uses that is translated "lift up" is an unusual word for crucifixion and usually means something like "to exalt." Perhaps, that is Jesus’ whole point. When they life him up on the Cross, thinking that they are laying the most shameful of covenantal curses on him (Deut. 21:23), that is actually the moment when he will come into his full glory. They will be doing what pleases them, but he will be doing what pleases the Father. So, when the world thinks that they have passed and executed judgment on the Son of Man, they will actually be bringing down the judgment of the one sent by the Father on themselves and bringing him to the fullest expression of the glory of God for mankind.



Devotional Thought

Part of our human nature is to generally attempt to avoid uncomfortable situations. We don’t like to have to endure hard times or persecution. Yet, Jesus alludes here to the fact that just when it might look like he was being persecuted the most, he was actually being exalted and was perfectly doing the Father’s will. It was through the most difficult of circumstances that Jesus was obedient to God’s will and brought about the greatest good. Sometimes, the fact is, that when we go through the most difficult of times, God will use those circumstances for the greatest good. Rather than automatically trying to avoid trials, spend some time praying and considering if the path God’s will might be right down the middle of that impending trial.

Friday, December 19, 2008

John 8:12-20

This will be the last post until Monday, December 29th.





Dispute Over Jesus' Testimony
12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

13 The Pharisees challenged him, "Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid."

14 Jesus answered, "Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me."

19 Then they asked him, "Where is your father?"

"You do not know me or my Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.



Dig Deeper
A few months ago I had the chance to watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games while my oldest son, my wife and I were in South Africa. The opening ceremony is always an incredible display that seems to transcend the moment. They get bigger, more elaborate, and more impressive each year. The opening ceremonies are especially important because they symbolize all that is supposed to be good about the Olympics. This is the time when the nations of the world forget all of their problems, tensions, and even wars, and look to a time when there is real peace between the nations. After the many dances and incredible performances, it was time for the torch lighting ceremony. The torch lighting ceremony not only signals the opening of the games but it is symbolic of the hope of peace and unity of the Olympic games that will hopefully never be quenched. Imagine if, after all of the pomp and circumstance and ceremony of the opening show, right after they lit the big torch that would burn throughout the games, someone got up and, with their voice booming through a microphone, declared that they were the true flame of peace. They had the only genuine solution to what the world hoped for and what was symbolized by the Olympic games. That would be a heady claim and would be quite a memorable moment.

What Jesus did as the Festival of the Tabernacles drew to a close was every bit as stunning as our imaginary Olympic scene. The Festival of Tabernacles was, in many respects, the biggest festival of the Jewish religion. It was the big moment of the year full of pomp, ceremony, circumstance, and memorable moments. Everything that took place at the Festival meant something that usually hearkened back to God’s glory in the past and looked ahead to His might hand working in the future. Jesus, like any Jew of his day, knew the meaning of the symbols of the Festival quite well and used them to his advantage to teach the people. The hopes that the most awesome moments of the Festival of Tabernacles pointed to, were all embodied in Jesus. In a move just as stunning as someone grabbing a microphone and making such bold claims about themselves during the Olympics, Jesus declares to the people of Jerusalem that he is what they have been waiting for. Everything they hoped for and celebrated during the Festival was right there in front of them if they would only believe.

Verse 12 comes right on the heels of 7:52, which took place on the final morning of the Festival of the Tabernacles. You might have noticed that, in this study guide, we have skipped 7:53-8:11. It’s not a mistake. That section, although inspiring, was clearly not present in any of the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospel. In fact, it did not appear in any manuscripts until the fifth century, and even then it was only slowly added into the Gospel. Nor did any of the early church leaders seem at all aware of this passage in John until the fifth century. It also appeared in at least five different locations, including after John 7:36, 44, 52, at the end of the Gospel or even after Luke 21:38 (the section clearly interrupts the flow between 7:52 and 8:12). It seems, then that this passage bounced around and may have even come from a non-cannonical work called the Gospel to the Hebrews. Even though it is possible, then, that this passage happened in Jesus’ life, it was clearly not in the original Gospel of John and we cannot rightly ascribe inspiration to that passage. With that in mind, we will pass over that section with no comment and move on to the present passage.

Chapter 7 ended during the morning of the water pouring ceremonies on the last day of the Festival. It is quite possible that verse 12 picks up about eight hours later that evening. The illumination ceremony was, along with the water pouring ceremony, one of the two great moments that took place daily during Tabernacles, although the illumination ceremony began on the second night of the Festival and continued through the end. In Hebrew the illumination ceremony was called simhat Beit ha-Sho’eva, which means the rejoicing at the place of the water drawing. Yet, interestingly it did not occur where the water was drawn but inside the Temple itself, in the area called the Court of the Women (John carefully tells us in verse 20 that this took place in the court where the treasury was located, which was the Court of the Women, giving a strong indication that this scene did indeed take place during or shortly after the lighting ceremony).

The Levites and priests, along with musicians with instruments of all kinds moved from the Court of Men through the Nicanor Gate and down the steps into the Court of Women. As they made their way through the Temple, the processional of people following them would sing songs from Psalms 120 through 134, known as the Psalms of the Ascent. Inside the Court of the Women stood four huge candelabras, which according to the Talmud, towered above the Court, standing 73 feet high. At the top of each candelabra were four bowls for lamps that were filled with oil. Wicks made from the priest’s worn-out robes were carried up ladders by young priests who then lit these giant lights. As they were lit, the entire Temple was illuminated by these candelabras. At the moment that they were lit, the priests and Pharisees picked up torches and danced around with joyous abandon, mimicking the way King David once danced in celebration of God. This jubilant dancing and singing would continue late into the night, until three loud trumpet blasts were sounded. At that moment, the people would all turn to the East and declare, "Our fathers who were in this place stood with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the East and they worshiped. But for us, our eyes are turned to the Lord." This was the way the Jews fulfilled Deuteronomy 16:15 and it’s command to make their joy complete.

The illumination ceremony was far more than just a celebration, though. Like everything else in the Festival of Tabernacles, it had deep and profound meaning. The candle lighting ceremony was a symbol for the Jews of the presence of YHWH, the God of Israel. It was He who, during the time in the wilderness, graciously led the Israelites with His presence through the pillar smoke and cloud during the day and the pillar of fire at night. The light signified the Shekinah glory of God that had once inhabited the Temple, and declared the desire of the Jewish people to see the Temple once again filled with God’s glory.

Imagine, then, that it was at this moment, perhaps just after the candles had been extinguished that Jesus once again declared to be the fulfillment of an element of the Festival. He was the light of the world (the second of Jesus’ "I am" statements in the Gospel of John). He was, in other words, the Shekinah glory, the presence of God, the pillar of fire. He was the one who fulfilled the messianic role of God’s servant in Isaiah, the one who would be the light to the world that Israel was supposed to be, but had failed to do so (Isa. 49:6; 60:1-2). Jesus was in no uncertain terms, claiming to be the Messiah and the very presence of the almighty God, but he was also doing something else. One of the criticisms against Jesus was that he could not be the Messiah because no Messiah would come from Galilee. Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world, pointed directly to Isaiah 9:1-2, "In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan— The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." Jesus was informing them that they were wrong, the Messiah could come from Galilee (John, of course, expects us to put all of this together and see how Jesus was the fulfillment of this passage and Micah 5:2 which intimated that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem). In a fell swoop, Jesus has answered questions about himself and made an incredibly bold claim.

In John 5:31, Jesus claimed that if he served as his own witness, then his testimony could be disregarded. The Pharisees jump on that as a chance to put Jesus on trial and convict him by his own words. Jesus is not contradicting himself, but moving his critics on to a new understanding of who he is. In chapter 5, Jesus descended to human standards and offered other testimony, but now he is showing them that he is the light, and he can testify about himself. It all has to do with the fact that he has come from God’s presence, heaven, and will return there one day soon. Jesus stands as one with the Father, so the Father’s testimony is his, and his testimony is the Father’s. The Law declared that in order for anything to be considered valid, there must be two witnesses, well here thy are. Jesus’ has narrowed down the witnesses that to him matter, he and the Father alone. Yet because he has come from the Father and is one with the Father, then his testimony is just as valid. If they want to follow the law and demand two witnesses, they have them. The Pharisees then demand that Jesus produce this father that will verify his claims, but in doing so they make Jesus’ point. They think they represent God’s interests, but they don’t even know Him, because they don’t know His Son. If they truly knew the Father, they would know that the light of the world was standing in their presence.




Devotional Thought
Can you ever identify with the Pharisees here? Do you truly accept Jesus as the light of the world? It is easy to forget just how deeply the darkness can run through each one of us. It is easy to start out with a calling to be God’s people, but to somehow turn that calling into privilege for ourselves. When we do that, we have rejected the light of the world and embraced our own will rather than God’s.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

John 7:40-52

40 On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet."

41 Others said, "He is the Messiah."

Still others asked, "How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David's descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.


Unbelief of the Jewish Leaders
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him in?"

46 "No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards replied.

47 "You mean he has deceived you also?" the Pharisees retorted. 48 "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them."

50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 "Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?"

52 They replied, "Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee."



Dig Deeper
It quickly became clear that this guy didn’t want any actual debate, he wanted everyone to agree with him. I was watching a television show that was supposed to be a forum where the host/ moderator asked questions and fostered a debate between himself and his four guests. The topics were usually centered around political and social issues that were quite controversial at the moment. What became painfully obvious after watching the show for just a couple of times, however, was that the host, who was also the creator of the show, did not want real debate. He usually stacked the guests so that anyone who disagreed with his positions would be outnumbered four to one, or at least three to two. Whenever anyone did disagree with the host, though, he would not actually challenge their position in a logical manner. He would generally resort to calling them hicks, idiots, simpletons, or something similar. Anyone who held differing political or social views would also incur his wrath and be subject to his name calling. He didn’t want real debate or a truly open marketplace of ideas, he wanted allegiance to his ideas and he would basically attempt to intimidate and belittle anyone who might dare disagree with him.

Whether they liked it or not, the chief priests and the Pharisees simply could not control public opinion. They were certainly very influential but they couldn’t determine what each and every person might believe about Jesus. It certainly seems that, above all else, they didn’t want to investigate Jesus’ claims and have an open and public discourse with him. That might be too risky and definitely would be too hard to control. What they would do instead is what so many people like that television talk show host did. They sought to discount, intimidate, and belittle anyone who might cross them or think differently. Perhaps using the authority and influence they did have, to intimidate people, would keep belief in this dangerous man to a minimum.

The danger, of course, was coming from the fact that some people were beginning to believe in Jesus, despite his difficult and challenging words. The reaction of the crowds and people of Jerusalem was all across the board, as reactions to Jesus continue to be to this day. Some thought he was demon-possessed, some thought he was worthy of death, some thought he might be the Messiah, and some were now saying, "surely this man is the Prophet," while others said, "He is the Messiah." This was actually two different lines of thought, as most Jews in the first century, though certainly not all, believed that the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:15-18 and the Messiah were two different figures.

It is of great importance to John that these people came to belief in Jesus based solely on faith in his words. There were no great signs that convinced them. It was simply the power of what he was saying. John uses the theme of belief in Jesus’ word throughout his gospel. Jesus was the logos, the word that had become flesh. The matter of belief in his life, for John, comes down to whether or not people will have faith in the words, the logos of Jesus (Jn. 2:22; 4:39-41, 50; 5:24, 37-38; 6:60; 8:31-32, 37, 43, 51, 55; 10:19; 12:48; 17:14, 17; 20:29) or are they looking for something more, something more in line with their expectations.

The response to the idea that Jesus is might actually be the Messiah, shows just how varied the beliefs in the Messiah were in the first century and how across-the-board the reactions to Jesus were. Earlier, some had disavowed that Jesus could be the Messiah because no one would no where he came from (7:27). Now the objection is that it was well known that Jesus had come from Galilee. He couldn’t be the Messiah because he was from Galilee in the minds of some. Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem? (Likely they were referring to Scriptures such as 1 Sam. 20:6; 2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89:3-4; Mic. 5:2). John surely expects that his readers are familiar with the other Gospels and the fact that Jesus was, in fact, born in Bethlehem but grew up in Galilee. Thus, the objection raised here is actually confirmation of his Messianic claim. The real issue is not where Jesus was born, however, but whether or not they would have faith in him. The reactions remained mixed. Some believed, others wanted to get rid of him, but his time had not yet come so no one laid a hand on him.

The Temple guards, who were sent to arrest Jesus, were those who didn’t lay a hand on him. John takes special care to draw attention to the fact that they weren’t rebuffed because the venue was too public or because those who favored Jesus protected him and repelled the guards. No, they were deterred simply by the power of his words. These were no simple muscle head guards, by the way. The Temple guards were chosen from among the Levites. They would not have had the Scriptural knowledge of the priests themselves, but they were trained in the Torah and they would have heard all kinds of teachers and rabbinical debates. They were fairly well-schooled men who stood awestruck at Jesus’ words in such a way that they were rendered incapable of doing their job. They had never heard anyone speak the way that Jesus did. We aren’t told that any of them specifically came to faith but they were certainly struck by hearing Jesus’ words, and as Paul would later write, faith comes from hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17).

The guards have just given high praise to Jesus’ words but the chief priests and Pharisees want no part of it. They don’t ask what he said that might have been so convincing, nor do they go and investigate for themselves. They won’t even consider what Jesus has to say. This response is sadly mimicked by many today who reject the entire concept of Jesus as Lord without ever actually knowing much about what he said or what he truly called his followers to be. The Jewish leaders, though, rather than considering Jesus’ words resort to intimidation and minimizing the credibility of those who believe in Jesus. Their immediate question insinuates that those who believe have only been deceived, the guards have not been tricked as well have they? After all, the people who really know their stuff, the true experts in the Scriptures, you don’t see any of them being so foolish as to believe in this drivel.

This is not an appeal based on fact or proof that Jesus was not the Messiah, but simply the dismissive attitude that the really smart people didn’t believe in him so why would the guards. They next turn to the tactic of heaping insults, scorn, and abuse on the crowds that are believing. They are not experts. They don’t know anything. They are a mob that knows nothing of the law. They are the very ones who have brought all of the trouble on Israel in the first place. They don’t know the law, therefore they don’t follow the law in the proper way that the Pharisees and the chief priests do, so they are under a curse anyway. Why would anyone want to side with a bunch of superstitious, ignorant fools? The irony is that it is God who makes the wisdom of the world look foolish (1 Cor. 1:20). The leaders who are so sure of their own wisdom and knowledge of the Scriptures are the very ones that are missing the boat. The ones that they are accusing of being foolish and under a curse are the ones who actually have the opportunity to find and embrace the truth.

Just when we think that the Jewish leaders are at their most condescending, we are re-introduced to Nicodemus who we have not heard of since his encounter with Jesus in chapter 3. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark during that incident but now perhaps he has stepped into the twilight, so to speak. He was, as we learned in chapter 3, a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council; he was one of their own number. Nicodemus certainly doesn’t make any grand statement of faith at this point or number himself among Jesus’ disciples but he does call for fairness based on the common ground respect for the law that they share. He has, perhaps seen the hypocrisy of the others and is not impressed. They have made a judgment on Jesus without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing as the law demands. He has exposed that the supposed guardians of the law do not hold themselves to the law. Rather than listening to Nicodemus’ appeal for law-abiding and cautious behavior, they resort to the same tactics of intimidation and belittlement that they used on the guards. Why would Nicodemus stick up for this would-be Messiah? Is he from Galilee too (a modern-day equivalent would be like asking someone in America if they are a hillbilly from West Virginia or someone in Africa if they are a villager from Cameroon)? In their anger, they retort that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. In their haste they demonstrate that despite their alleged expertise, they have made an error, for Jonah came from Galilee (2 Ki. 14:25) and possibly so did Elijah (1 Ki. 17:1) and Nahum (Nah. 1:1). The so-called experts have appealed to their earthly wisdom, but are wrong on nearly every single point.



Devotional Thought
The Jewish leaders met the growing belief in Jesus with intellectual intimidation, scorn, and by heaping abuse on those who would believe. Those same tactics of intimidation and abuse are often used against Christians today where the world often accuses Christians of being superstitious, foolish, backwards, or just plain idiotic. Are you ever tempted to cower from those attacks? Can you get intimidated by the "intellectual" prowess of those who criticize your faith? The way to truth that is found in Jesus is based on belief in his word not what the intellectuals of the day are saying. Be confident of that and don’t waver in the face of criticism.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

John 7:37-39

37 On the last and greatest day of the Festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.


Dig Deeper

I realized the other day just how spoiled we are. I was standing in my bathroom, having just flushed the toilet. I ran the water in my sink quickly as I brushed my teeth and then flipped on the shower. All the while, I had a glass full of water on the counter that I was drinking from. We tend to take water for granted in our society. It is everywhere and we don't even have to think about it. We are so comfortable with the over-abundance of water that we have, that most of us can leave the water running in a sink while we go do something else and not really even consider how wasteful it is. Water is simply not a concern for us (at least for those of us in the United States), whether it be something we worry about having, or something we think about needing to be thankful to God for.

That was not the case in Israel in ancient times. Water could be scarce and hard to come by. Times of drought would be devastating, causing many people to lose their lives. The need for water was quite simply a matter a life and death for the people of biblical times, especially for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. They came to see the provision of water as something that was directly connected with God's provision for them as His people. The vital need for water became a main concern for the Jewish people, as for most of the people that surrounded them, and instigated a great deal of prayers and thanksgiving during harvest time for the continued provision of water.

The Festival of Tabernacles was, when you boil it all down, a ceremony of joy, celebrating the harvest and God's provision for his children. Israel was commanded to celebrate God's gracious provision through the harvest in Deuteronomy 16:13-15: "Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your Festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Festival to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete." Above all else, the Festival of Tabernacles celebrated with all joy the fact that God would always provide everything that His people truly needed. What could be more fitting than to celebrate the fact that "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit" (Lev. 26:3-4).

The Festival of Tabernacles began each morning at the crack of dawn with one of two very symbolic acts (we will discuss the second of these in 8:12) that Jesus would pick up on and use to teach about who he is and what he was doing. Every morning a grand procession of priests, musicians, and other worshipers would wind their way the full half-mile from the Temple to the pool of Siloam. The High Priest would dip a golden pitcher into the pool and then return to the Temple where the trumpet players would play three loud blasts on silver trumpets. At that moment the priests would cry out from Isaiah 12:3: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." The High Priest would then slowly ascend to the top of the altar via the ramp where he would pour the water from the pool of Siloam into one silver basin and wine into another silver basin. As he was pouring, the trumpet players would sound off three more blasts on the trumpets. Then the whole congregation would sing from Psalm 118. This Psalm was part of the hallel, the Psalms of praise from 113-118. Psalm 118 speaks of God's deliverance for His people in the past and His sure salvation in the future. It looked forward to the time when God would finally deliver His people once-for-all and dwell with them forever. It reaches a crescendo in 118:24-25, which says, "The LORD has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad. LORD, save us! LORD, grant us success!"

The Festival itself began as a seven-day Festival but there came to be an eighth day that was associated with the Festival but could also be spoken of separately (Lev. 23:36). It appears, though, that the seventh day was still spoken of as the last and greatest day of the Festival. The last day of the Festival was called Hoshana Rabbah. Hoshana Rabbah means "Lord, save us," a reference to Psalm 118:25. The seventh day of the Festival was a bit different from the previous six days. On the seventh day, the altar was circled seven times and the three trumpet blasts were sounded seven times. During each circuit around the altar, the crowd would shout, "Please bring salvation now. Please, God, please, save and bring salvation now!" With each time around the altar, sounds of the chants would grow louder and more intense. All of this pointed back to the conquest of Jericho and the deliverance of God's people from their enemies. There was certainly a sense of being delivered from their enemies in all of this, but even more importantly, there was hope that when the Messiah came, he would bring the salvation and deliverance that they so longed for.

We can imagine thousands of pilgrims and devout Jews singing together, watching the life-giving water flow into the basin as an appeal to God for continued deliverance and thanksgiving for His past provision, and shouting, "Lord, save us." The last of the seven circuits is made in a crescendo of jubilation. It is time to make their joy complete (Deut. 13:15). It is at this moment, perhaps, that Jesus steps up and cries out in a loud voice so that all can hear, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." When we understand all that is going on at the moment that Jesus utters these words, they suddenly leap off the page. All that they are celebrating and hoping for, Jesus is saying, is right there. It is him. The word has become flesh and contains all of the hopes of the people of God.

When Jesus declared that Scripture has said all of this, he is not referring to one passage in particular. He means that there are a combination of Scriptures that delivered the ideas that he has put forth, no one text has these particular words. The Festival of Tabernacles was associated with rainfall as a provision from God (Zech. 14:16-17) but it pointed to a time when all those who thirsted could come drink forever form the Lord's provision (Isa. 55:1). Isaiah 12:3, another passage associated with the Festival looked forward to drawing from the wells of God's salvation. Psalms 42-43 speak of thirsting for God as the only source that will truly quench the thirst of those who love Him. A key passage from which Jesus undoubtedly draws is Ezekiel 47 which points to a time when Jerusalem will be brought back once-and-for-all from it's exile. Ezekiel says that a new river will flow from under the Temple and will completely renew and bring life to the entire land. This is the same picture that John uses in Revelation 22 for his description of the New Jerusalem as it comes from God's presence into the earthly realm.

The Old Testament also has many prophecies that foretold of a time when God would pour out his Spirit like water: "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants" (Isa. 44:3; see also Ezek. 36:25-27; Joel 2:28). It is to all of this that Jesus appeals as his witness in Scripture. The Festival of Tabernacles looked forward to the ingathering, the harvest when all people would be brought under the reign of the Messiah through the outpouring of God's Spirit. It would be the coming of God's Kingdom. Jesus has boldly gathered all of that imagery and pointed it squarely to himself.

Jesus uses the specific term "living water," which was distinctive from the stagnant and dead water found in ponds or pools. Living water was water that moved and brought life to everything. He is not calling them to be dead pools that take in God's provisions and store it up for themselves. No, if they drink from his life they will have God's Spirit welling up inside of them, pouring out like a river, overflowing out of their life and into others around them. The pilgrims at the Festival prayed for rain and the time of the resurrection of the dead, well, this was indeed the moment of water and new life. That's what this is all about, life. As Jesus told the Samaritan women at the well, the water that Jesus is offering is "a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The good news for the pilgrims at the Temple that day, and for us, is that they didn't have to wait anymore. They no longer needed a celebration that pointed ahead to what God was going to do one day. That day had come and is still here.








Devotional Thought

The Essenes were a sect of Jesus' time that were serious about being God's people. They were so serious that withdrew from society at large to Qu'mran so as to keep themselves pure from the rest of society. The problem is that societies like that, no matter how well meaning, become stagnant and usually don't impact society around them at all. Jesus said that his followers would have an overflow of the living water that would effect everyone around those who would drink of him. Is your life more like a stagnant pond or a river flowing with the waters of life that bring nourishment and healing to everyone around you? Make a renewed effort to let the living water flow through you and into the lives of those in your life.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

John 7:25-36

Division Over Who Jesus Is

25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, "Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from."


28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, "Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me."

30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd put their faith in him. They said, "When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?"

32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

33 Jesus said, "I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come."

35 The Jews said to one another, "Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? 36 What did he mean when he said, 'You will look for me, but you will not find me,' and 'Where I am, you cannot come'?"



Dig Deeper

Where we come from shapes us more than most of us probably realize. It has a great effect on how we think and how we go about most things we do. This can sometimes be a mystery to us because we forget that much of what we are comes from where we came, but it can be an even bigger mystery for those around us who usually have little to no idea about where we came from. Recently, a very good friend of mine lost his rather high-powered job and was busy looking for another one. Some people wondered if it would be a hardship on him because he made a fair amount of money. Would he be able to cope for a while without that income? He told me something very interesting, however, one day. He said that people didn't realize how we grew up. He had come from a small, fairly remote village in Africa and had grown up extremely poor. He wasn't worried in the least about money because of where he had come from. A little hardship was nothing for him. As it turns out, he found another similar job quite quickly and things worked out just fine, but he would have been okay even if they didn't. He had no problem trusting in God and losing some of his material possessions if need be, because of where he came from. Once people knew or remembered that, we understood a lot more about my friend and his situation.

In essence, this is the problem that lies beneath the misunderstanding that Jesus is having with the Jewish leaders and the crowds listening to him teach outside the Temple at the Festival of Tabernacles. They cannot quite understand what he is talking about or what he is doing because they do not understand where he has come from. They think they should be able to figure him out because they think they know where he is from, but that is exactly their problem. He has been telling them all along that he is not from where they think he is. Jesus is not from this world as far as his mission and his will. That all comes from heaven and until they embrace and accept that, they will never understand what Jesus is all about.

There are apparently, three different groups that John identifies in this section. We have "the Jews," which seems to denote the Jewish leadership; we have "the crowd," which was, presumably, primarily made up of pilgrims to Jerusalem during the Festival that seem largely unaware of the controversy between Jesus and the Jews; and now John describes the people of Jerusalem. These were the people that lived in Jerusalem and seem to be a bit more knowledgeable about Jesus and the opposition that he has received from the Jewish leadership. They are the ones that began to wonder aloud if Jesus is the man that the leaders in Jerusalem want to kill. Is this the man, in other words, that has caused the big stir in recent months? They seem to notice a discrepancy. The chief priests and the Pharisees would clearly like Jesus dead and out of the way, but here Jesus is speaking publicly. If they wanted him all they have to do is arrest him. So why aren't they saying anything? Are they afraid? Perhaps, the people reason, the authorities really think that he is the Messiah. That's the only reason that they could think of that would logically keep them from carrying out their plan. Of course, John's readers know already that that is not the case. They would love nothing more than to eliminate Jesus, and they certainly do not believe that he is the true Messiah. The reason that they have not arrested him yet, although unbeknownst to even the Jewish leaders themselves, was that it was not yet his time. His hour had not yet come.

The idea of Jesus being the Messiah simply doesn't fit into the worldview of the Jewish people, though. There was, evidently, a fairly popular belief at the time, although not all Jews believed this, that when the Messiah appeared, he would be born of a woman, but would appear somewhat mysteriously out of nowhere. It was this oral tradition that had no basis in Scripture that was keeping many people from fairly considering whether or not Jesus was the Messiah.

They thought that they knew that he had come from Galilee, and could not then, even be considered to be the Messiah. This is the point that Jesus picks and stresses as he continues to drive the point home that everything he does comes from the Father. They think they know him, they think they know where he comes from, and in one sense they do, but in the more important sense they do not have a clue. When it comes to where Jesus is truly from and where his mission comes from, it has nothing to do with Galilee. They cannot understand what Jesus is doing because they are thinking in purely earthly terms. If they would simply look at the things that Jesus is doing and listen to what he is saying, they would know where he came from, they would know on whose authority he is acting. Jesus is doing works and saying things that only the Father does and says. People generally act like where they came from, so if they would but stop and think, they would truly know that he was the Messiah.

The Jewish leaders understand Jesus' point and once again make an attempt to seize him, but they are kept from doing so, perhaps even miraculously (although not in a way that was obviously noticeable to those present). The people present had already noticed the contradiction between the Jewish leadership's desire to arrest Jesus with the fact that they had not. Perhaps this present effort and failure was enough for many in the crowd to put their faith in Jesus. It's a faith that seems predicated on the fact that Jesus seems to be performing more signs than any other potential Messiah might. It's not a strong faith, but even shaky faith is better than no faith at all.

The Pharisees were much more in the community and able to move about around the common people than the chief priests would have been (the priests and the Pharisees were usually opposed to one another but a common enemy makes strange bedfellows) and so they are down amongst the crowd as they began to whisper that perhaps this strange man from Galilee is the Messiah after all. The Pharisees would not have had any official authority to send the Temple guards but they likely urged the chief priests to do so after informing that public opinion was beginning to sway over to belief in Jesus as the Messiah. The guards go to arrest Jesus but they cannot. He rebuffs them simply by speaking. They will not touch him until his time has truly come.

They might think they can arrest him whenever they would like, but that's not the case. A time is coming when they want to stop him and the power of his teaching even more than they do now, but by then they will not be able to find him. Once again, the Jewish leaders cannot understand Jesus because they are thinking in earthly terms. They don't understand Jesus' message because they cannot understand the place from where he came. They do not know God so they don't recognize Jesus. And just as they don't truly know where Jesus came from they will not ever understand where he is going. He's not going off to teach, or even hide, among the Jewish Greeks spread throughout the world outside of Israel. He is talking of returning to the presence of the Father, a place they can never go in their present state.

The fact that they are puzzled by Jesus' words also seem to make them downright uneasy. What is this man talking about? Does he know something they don't? Is there some meaning behind what he is saying that still eludes them? The Jewish leaders prided themselves as the descendants of Abraham. They were the ones that knew God. Yet, the real problem was not that they did not know about Jesus or didn't understand him. The real problem was that they didn't know about God. They thought they were rejecting Jesus but the truth was they were rejecting God.

Surely, John wants us to hear, in this passage, echoes of the proverbial warning for rejecting wisdom. If they did understand the wisdom that Jesus had brought they would have embraced it. "But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me" (Proverbs 1:24-28).



Devotional Thought

Jesus felt that it was a significant point that his contemporaries understand that he had come from the Father. He also hinted in several passages like this one that he would be returning to His presence, a place where he still resides to this day. Spend some time today thinking about the significance for us in understanding and embracing that truth. How does it effect our daily lives to know that Jesus is now enthroned in the presence of the Father.

Monday, December 15, 2008

John 7:14-24

Jesus Teaches at the Festival

14 Not until halfway through the Festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, "How did this man get such learning without having been taught?"

16 Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?"

20 "You are demon-possessed," the crowd answered. "Who is trying to kill you?"

21 Jesus said to them, "I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man's whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly."



Dig Deeper

I once had a friend that led the singles ministry in his church. We were having a long conversation about different aspects of the ministry especially as it related to working with single people. He pointed out that one of the constant complaints that he heard from the young men in his ministry was that there just weren't any single ladies available in their particular Christian community to date. He thought this was an odd complaint because there were actually a lot of incredibly spiritual single women that were available and willing to enter into a dating relationship with Christian men. He said that all of the men claimed that they wanted to find someone who was especially spiritual, but he just didn't believe that that was the case. I thought that perhaps he was being a little hard on the young men until he recounted a bemusing incident. A young lady that had left God and their church quite a while before had begun to come back into the fellowship. She was still going through a lot of spiritual struggles but she was officially welcomed back into the community one Sunday. The thing about this young lady was, that despite her spiritual struggles, she was extremely beautiful. My friend chuckled as he recounted how all the single men in the church nearly tripped over one another as they made their way to "encourage" this sister by asking her out on a date. They had all claimed that they wanted to date spiritually strong and focused women, but they failed to notice sisters like that all around them, because that really wasn't what they wanted, truth be told.

Jesus has stressed over and again that he is only doing what the Father has sent him to do. He does not do his own work, he doesn't testify about himself, and he doesn't even speak his own words. Everything that he does comes directly from the Father. Just as surely as the Father sent him, people can only come to him if the same Father testified about him and sent people to him through his word. This is exactly what Jesus said the Father had done. Yet, there was a problem. The people of Israel had waited for God to send his Messiah. They said that that was what they wanted. Now he was here, but they were soundly rejecting him. The reality was that, despite their claims, they didn't really want and weren't really looking for what God was doing. If they did, they would accept his teachings. What they claimed to have wanted was right there in their midst, but that wasn't really what they wanted, truth be told.

Jesus finally did go up to the festival in Jerusalem but he intentionally did not go with the pilgrims and did not go as a public part of his ministry. He began to teach, presumably in one of the outer porticoes of the Temple but probably not in the Temple itself where the festival of Tabernacles was still being observed. As Jesus enters into Jerusalem and begins to teach, there are two concerns or questions that are raised. The first was brought up in verse 12. Jesus was a teacher that was deceiving the people. This doesn't sound like a significant charge, but it was in Judaism. Beginning in Deuteronomy 13, and continuing throughout the Old Testament, Israel was warned that false teachers and prophets would come, testing them to find out whether they truly loved the Lord their God. They were to adamantly reject these false teachers and anyone associated with them. They were, in fact, to destroy the false teachers with impunity. Deceiving God's people was a serious charge, worthy of death, and would not be tolerated.

The other issue at hand is how did this man get such learning without having been taught. It would not have been unique for a Jewish man to know the Scriptures well, in fact that would have been expected. What was disconcerting to the Jewish leaders was how Jesus could apparently teach the Scriptures and ask pointed questions the way only a well-trained rabbi or Pharisee could. He hadn't been trained by anyone that they knew of, so where did all of this ability and knowledge come from? In addition to that, no Jewish teacher or rabbi would ever claim that his knowledge was original to himself. They would always appeal to other authorities or rabbis but Jesus did not offer any such verification except to say that he was telling the truth and had come from the Father.

Yet, his teachings were not his own. In the Judaism of his time, Jesus would have been immediately rejected if he had made such a claim. He had no mentor or rabbi to appeal to, his teachings came directly from God. Thus, Jesus was claiming that his teachings were not those of another rabbi but was direct knowledge from the Father himself. He was no false teacher, they were deceived listeners.

You see, it all comes down to the will of the Father. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose, at the behest of the Serpent, to do their own will rather than God's. When you boil it all down, sin is simply doing our own will rather than God's. The long, sad history of a sinful world is the history of human beings doing their own will rather than doing the will of the God who made us. Verse 17 is the key to what Jesus is saying here. Those who really are interested in doing the will of the Father rather than their own will, will accept Jesus' teachings and recognize that they come from the Father. Those who reject Jesus' teachings, do so because, when it comes right down to it, they would rather do what they will rather than God's will. It should come as no surprise that the motto of one of the most sinister and evil (yet also one of the most well-followed with self-proclaimed disciples from the members of the Beatles to Timothy Leary who began the drug revolution in America) Satanists of the 20th century, Alesiter Crowley, was "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

The reality is that when people do their own will, they are doing for their own personal gain or glory. When people reject God by rejecting Jesus, they were exalting their own desires and will over that of the Father's. In contrast, nothing Jesus did was out of his own will. His brothers wanted him to be exactly the kind of religious leader that gained personal glory and did things that were beneficial to him. Jesus wanted none of that. He was not doing things that were personally beneficial, quite the opposite. False prophets and teachers almost always engage in teachings that benefit them personally. Jesus, though, was doing things that benefited the Father and followed His will. In fact, any version of Christian or religious teachings that are based mostly on benefiting the individual, with only a thin veneer of doing God's will, will be clearly false to those who truly seek the will of God rather than their own benefit.

The main problem with clinging to our own will and things that are comfortable to or benefit ourselves, is that when we put a value on things of this age, we discount the values of the things of the new creation. Jesus' critics could not recognize the new creation that the Father was enacting through Jesus' words because they were holding too tightly to the old. One simply must die to themselves and their own will in order to recognize, appreciate, and embrace the values of the age to come and the will of God when we encounter it.

They have so embraced the old to the exclusion of the new that they have failed to accurately see that they have never, and never truly could uphold the law. The leaders themselves have demonstrated that they are incapable of keeping the law by the fact that they have plotted to kill Jesus. Moses gave them the law, they have not kept it, but now they want to kill him for supposedly breaking it (we can infer that this conversation has to do with the controversy still boiling over the man from chapter 5 that Jesus healed). The crowd, made up of primarily pilgrims, claim to know nothing of this plot and accuse Jesus of the blind ramblings of a demon-possessed man.

Jesus puts the whole issue in perspective by appealing all the way back to Moses. He had given two commandments that could apparently come into contradiction. Jews were supposed to keep the Sabbath but also circumcise their sons on the eighth day. What if those days coincided? It had been decided that it was permissible to perform the circumcision because it was the greater good. How then could they argue against healing a man completely on the Sabbath? They were clinging so tightly to the old order of doing things, that when a moment of the new creation broke in as Jesus healed this man, they simply refused to comprehend the truth. If they had judged the situation correctly they would have realized that Jesus was fulfilling the purposes of God not breaking them. This demonstrates the truth that it is quite possible to hold so tightly to faulty ideas, as religious as they might sound, that we can miss the truth, even when it is right in front of our face.



Devotiional Thought

Have you ever been tempted to be like the Jewish leaders here and emphasize a rule or tradition over the greater good of enabling God's new creation to break through in someone's life? Standards and beliefs are good but they must be tempered, balanced and placed in proper relation to God's overall purposes of reconciling people to Himself through His community of those who have entered into the life of Christ.

Friday, December 12, 2008

John 7:1-13

Jesus Goes to the Festival of Tabernacles

1 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. 2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus' brothers said to him, "Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

6 Therefore Jesus told them, "My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. 7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the Festival. I am not going up to this Festival, because my time has not yet fully come." 9 Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.

10 However, after his brothers had left for the Festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the Festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, "Where is he?"

12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, "He is a good man."

Others replied, "No, he deceives the people." 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.



Dig Deeper

It was a special day and the bride and groom couldn't just go walking around on the stage once the guests started arriving. They had been up there earlier quite a bit for different reasons to get ready for the wedding, but once everything was set, timing was everything. This was especially true of the bride. Imagine the disappointment of all of the honored guests if the bride had suddenly sauntered out to adjust some flowers on the stage or to go over one more time where she would stand. Other people, even people in the wedding party, could and did go down the aisle and even up on the stage for various reasons and nobody much cared or noticed but the bride simply could not do that. When she came down the aisle it meant something. When the time was right, though, the attendants proceeded down the aisle, everyone took there places, and then with a dramatic pause, the music began. The time was now. The doors swung open and the bride appeared. Everyone knew that the wedding had officially begun. All the signs were in place and now the bride had arrived.

Although this isn't a perfect analogy, they never are, it does help to keep this concept in mind as we read through this passage. Jesus wasn't just running around Israel making things up as he went along. He had a plan, and there was specific timing and specific symbolism involved. It just wouldn't do for him to saunter into Jerusalem, get the Jewish leaders angry, and be put to death. Nothing In Jesus' life just happened without forethought and meaning. He carefully followed the will of the Father. There was a timing and a reason to everything he did, and whether or not he would go to Jerusalem during the festival of the Tabernacles was included in that. There were many things about this festival that did point to the Messiah and John will make that fairly clear, but the ultimate timing involved Passover. The death of the Lamb of God had a Passover flavor to it, not the festival of Tabernacles. When the Messiah arrived in Jerusalem with all of the attention and fanfare that demonstrated that what he was going to do was at that moment, must hap[pen during Passover. Here is the major difference between the wedding analogy and what we see here. The bride remains safely hidden from the eyes of the guests until the wedding begins. Jesus would go to Jerusalem this time, but in a way that made it very clearly that this was not the big moment. The time for that simply hadn't come yet.

John's, "after this", doesn't mean it happened immediately. In fact, the time period that passed between Passover (6:4) and this incident would have been about six months. This demonstrates that John isn't writing a complete blow-by-blow history of Jesus' ministry but recording what is necessary so that people might come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah (20:31). John doesn't tell us precisely what Jesus had been doing during this time, but he does stress that Jesus had stayed out of Judea, for the most part, because the Jewish leaders were constantly seeking to kill him. John does tell us that he "went around" in Galilee, using a word that indicated the actions of a rabbi or sage walking among the people and teaching. Since Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas and Judea by the Roman Governor, staying in Galilee would have provided Jesus a certain amount of protection.

As this scene unfolds, it is obvious that there is a basic conflict between Jesus and his brothers. They simply don't understand what he is doing. Whether they thought he might be the Messiah or not, they certainly didn't understand what sort of Messiah he was going to be, so John uses their misunderstanding to show us exactly what shape his Messiahship will take. His brothers want him to go to Jerusalem for the festival. If he is truly going to be a public figure, a public Messiah, then the issue must be settled in Jerusalem. That's where he is going to really gain the most attention and the most followers. It's quite possible, in fact, that his group of followers remained relatively small since the events of chapter 6. He has been doing some incredible things, which his brothers seem to accept that he has, but how will anyone know? How can he truly be the Messiah of the whole nation if he continues in the relative secrecy of Galilee? They disapproved of Jesus' handling of the situation. If he was the Messiah, then he needed to step up and prove it in the only place that mattered for such things. They simply could not conceive of a Messiah that would be largely unpopular. In that sense, his brothers, to this point, have the same attitude as the crowd of 6:15 who wanted to make Jesus king, or even Satan who tried to lure Jesus into a form of Messianic fulfillment that would be self-aggrandizing (Mt. 4:5-7).

They didn't understand the full impact of what they were asking Jesus to do. If he was going to do something, it might as well be now. But they had no divine mission. They had no commission from God to fulfill a specific role. The world wouldn't reject them (hate them) because they were very much of the world. They were still stuck in the same small pattern of expectations that the world was, so it would have no reason to reject them. Jesus, though, had opposed the values and reality of the world with everything that he had said and done, and the world would simply not accept that.

Jesus tells his brothers to go to the Festival whenever they like, because what they do is not that important in the grand scheme of things. If they went up with the regular band of pilgrims, it would not mean anything (we get the idea from Luke 2 that these pilgrim caravans could be quite large as it took Joseph and Mary an entire day to figure out that the twelve-year old Jesus was not with the group). Jesus, however had a specific time. His work had to be completed and his time had not yet fully come. John doesn't explain explicitly why this would not yet qualify as his time, but he has already given us several hints that Jesus' hour would be at Passover time, not the festival of Tabernacles. Like a bride coming down the aisle, the timing and attention were of vital importance. Jesus simply could not make a spectacle of traveling to Jerusalem in a Messianic fashion yet. The timing was not right. He had more of the Father's work to complete.

This leaves us with a bit of puzzle, though. Jesus appears to say that he is not going to Jerusalem, but then he turns right around and does exactly what he seemingly just said he was not going to do. What Jesus appears to be declining, however is the option of going up with the regular band of pilgrims. He will not go with the caravan, making their way to Jerusalem to observe the festival of Tabernacles in the traditional manner. Jesus will not do that. He will not meet the expectations of the public and the Jewish leaders, who were evidently expecting that he would make the most of this very public opportunity.

Rather than doing what might have been expected, Jesus waits. He goes by himself, in relative secrecy (that doesn't imply that he snuck around or wore a disguise, simply that he did not go publicly with a great deal of fanfare). We could almost say that Jesus won't be making an "official Messianic" visit to the holy city of God. He will go and he will teach but it is not yet time for the new Exodus that Luke will describe as Jesus quite deliberately and publicly makes his way to Jerusalem before the Passover which would mark his death.

John tells us that the crowds were quite split on their perceptions of Jesus. Some thought he was a good man, while others charged him with deceiving people, in essence, making him a false prophet, a charge worthy of death in ancient Israel. Regardless of how they felt, however, no one wanted to say much of anything publicly. The risk was simply too great.

What John has given us as this scene opens is a picture of a Messiah who is on a very specific mission. He is not being tossed around, back and forth, by the whims and wills of the Jewish leaders, the Romans, or even Satan. The Word has become flesh to do only what the Father has sent him to do. His mission is not a haphazard one of random teachings and miraculous signs that resulted in his tragic and untimely death. No, everything he was doing was pointing to his death. The new creation was coming, but it would somehow come, strangely enough, through his own death (this is precisely the point that so many of his own disciples simply could not understand). Jesus would complete his work and go to his death, but that would not happen until his hour had come. His life would not be taken until he laid it down.



Devotional Thought

Does Jesus' careful thought, planning, and timing inspire you at all? Do you carefully think through your spiritual life and growth or even opportunities to evangelize the lost in your life the way that Jesus did? We certainly don't have the same type of specific commission from God that Jesus did, but we do all share a commission to demonstrate a life reconciled to God and to call others to that life. Make some efforts this week to consider the careful thought that went into each of Jesus' actions and learn and apply what you can to your own life.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

John 6:60-71

Many Disciples Desert Jesus

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them."

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God."

70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)



Dig Deeper

When I was still in college, I found what seemed to be an incredible job opportunity. It was working for a company that made and sold very high quality but also very expensive knives. The cool thing seemed to be in the fact that it wasn't a store. All of the sales were made through in-home demonstrations. This meant there were no set hours, I could make my own schedule, and I would be making straight commission, which could be rather lucrative with the price of these knives. After a little research I discovered that this place was legitimate and that there were a lot of people who had made a lot of money working in sales for this corporation. It seemed perfect for the first few weeks. I went and did demonstrations in the homes of my friends and family members and made quite a few sales and quite a bit of money. Then I went to a sales conference and heard what it was really going to take to be successful in the long term in this corporation. It would take me gathering names and phone numbers from my friends and family members and calling people I didn't know at all and making appointments with them and trying to sell to them. It would, they told us, take a total dedication to selling knives. That must become the most important thing to us if we really wanted to be successful. I recall leaving that conference and telling our supervisor as we traveled home that I was done. I just didn't understand, I told him. He wanted to know what I didn't understand, and it was then that I explained that it wasn't that I didn't comprehend, it was that I didn't understand why someone would want to commit like that to selling knives. I knew perfectly well what they were calling us to do, I just wanted no part of it. It was way too demanding.

This whole discourse that continues on through the end of this chapter began with the crowds looking for Jesus. Well, they've certainly found him. Only he isn't giving them the sorts of signs and teachings that they particularly wanted. They want something that would benefit them and meet their expectations, but now he is talking about being from heaven and hinting that he is going to suffer and die and that they will have to benefit from that and find him as their whole source of sustenance if they want eternal life. This is not at all what they were looking for. Oh, they understand the important aspects of what Jesus is saying (even if they don't understand every detail) but most of them wanted no part of it. It was way too demanding.

We find out in verse 60 that the ones arguing about Jesus' words here and now the ones that are grumbling openly (an act which connects them once again to the people of the Exodus who complained and grumbled against Moses' leadership and, ultimately, against God) about it. They complain that what Jesus has just told them is a hard teaching. They language here, in the original Greek, does not mean that they couldn't comprehend what Jesus was saying, it is actually more along the lines of saying, "this is an offensive teaching." How could he stand there and call Jews that were loyal to God and the Torah (Scriptures) and tell them that everything they needed for life would come through him? They wanted some kingly leader that would throw off the oppression of the Romans, not some guy who was talking of his own death and saying that they would have to benefit from it somehow in order to be part of the resurrection and the age to come.

Jesus knew they were grumbling, just as God knew the hearts of the Israelites in the wilderness, and asks them if they are offended. The issue is basically that they do not understand who it is that has been speaking to them. They were unwilling to surrender control of their lives to Jesus, but that is because they were unwilling to accept who he might really be. What if they were to see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? Would that convince them or would it just offend them more? Where was he before? In God's presence in the realm of heaven. When Christ returns there through his death, resurrection and ascension, which is often viewed by John as one theological event, what will their response be then? If they could only humble themselves to the fact that the one they have been following really is from heaven and really will return there, they might be convinced.

They are so focused on their earthly expectations and demands that they are missing the spiritual truths being laid out before them. Jesus is speaking of things that can only come through understanding things at a spiritual rather than natural level. His words are full of spirit and life but their hearts are full of the flesh and death. The implication is that they will not accept the things of the Spirit and the life he is offering because they will not accept the Spirit. When they reject Jesus' teachings, they are rejecting God's Holy Spirit.

All of this comes as no surprise to Jesus, however, John tells us. He knew from the beginning that that some would not believe and that some would betray him. John is not telling us that Jesus was just really insightful and discerning. He means to relay to us that behind Jesus' statement "there are some of you who do not believe," there was divine insight. Jesus knew all along who would believe and who would not. This does, however, imply that these people did not have free will or the choice to believe or not believe. The fact that God has foreknowledge of all things does not mean that they are predetermined or that humans have no free will.

Jesus has already stated and now reiterates the fact that no one can come to him unless the Father has enabled them. All humans are slaves to sin and stuck in that slavery without the real possibility of coming to God or reconciling ourselves to him on our without Him taking initiative. This is, of course, the whole point. The Father has enabled all to come to him, but they have chosen not to. The responsibility for their unbelief does not lie with God, it is with them.

It is at this point, that many of Jesus' disciples turned back and no longer followed him. These weren't just part of the crowd that had stayed and watched from the periphery. These were people who had counted themselves among his disciples. They had followed Jesus and were prepared to recognize him as the Messiah. The demands that he had made on them, namely laying down their own agendas and relying on nothing other than the bread of life available in the life of Jesus, were just too much for them. They understood precisely what Jesus was saying to them, but wanted nothing to do with it. This is instructive for those of us who have experienced times when we have shared the message of the gospel of Jesus with someone, only to be disappointed as they have walked away and not accepted it. We then begin to blame ourselves as if we had just presented it better or done something differently they would have listened. The fact is, some simply will not. They will hear the demands of laying down their life and want nothing to do with it. It has little to do with the presentation and everything to do with the willingness to be obedient to the Word.

Many of those who had supposed to be his disciples simply leave Jesus and fall away. This is not the Messiah they wanted and they will no longer follow him. With the migration of many of his disciples, Jesus turns to the Twelve, the men into whom he has poured the most time and training. Will they leave too? The question is worded, in the Greek, in such a way that demonstrates that Jesus expects a positive response. Peter, in his usually impetuous manner, takes up as spokesman for the group. He addresses Jesus as Lord, a word that could mean anything from a respectful "sir" all the way to the name used for God in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that most Jews used in the first century (Septuagint). It is likely that Peter means to use this term in the highest possible sense. He is the Holy One of God. He is the one who speaks the words of eternal life, meaning that he doesn't just speak of the age to come, but his very words actually are in the process of bringing the new creation into reality.

It is fitting that they recognize this because they have a high calling. They have been chosen, just as Israel was chosen as God's people. Yet one of them was a devil. Just as Jesus knew who would and who would not believe in him, he knew that Judas would betray him. The point is clear. Jesus was the one whose very words were bringing God's new creation into existence, but some just were not ready for that and would not embrace it, regardless of what Jesus said or did. Some would enter into eternal life because they believed while some would refuse to believe and refuse to enter into that life.



Dig Deeper

You probably wouldn't be reading this if you weren't willing to follow Jesus at some level. Yet, there is still a challenge out there for us in a passage like this. Are there any areas of your life in which you read the words of Jesus but just simply aren't too interested in following them? Have you truly laid down your life in every area and grabbed hold to the eternal life that is available to all of those in Christ or have you walked away from certain aspects of Jesus' teaching?