Introduction
I had a
great conversation with my daughter this week about her faith journey over the
last year. She explained that for much of last year, she felt as though God had
abandoned her. However, over the last few months what she discovered was that
God wanted her to know who He really was and not who she want Him to be. Her
experience is really not that unusual for Christians who are truly seeking a deep
and personal relationship with the Creator of the universe. However, God wants
us to be in a relationship with the God who has created us in His image not a
god we create from our own imaginings. Many Christians don’t have these
struggles in their relationship with God. These Christians have successfully boxed
God up and have Him properly stored on a shelf where they can access Him as
needed. But for those who are driven to know God at a deeper level, God in a
box on a shelf is not enough. They want to know the God who created all things
out of nothing; they want to know the God who parted the Red Sea; they want to
know the God who spoke out of a burning bush; they want to know the God who
left his throne to become a man; they want to know the God who healed the sick,
gave sight to the blind, gave hearing to the deaf, gave voice to the mute; they
want to know the God who willingly died on the cross to pay for our sins; they
want to know the God who walked out of the tomb after being dead for three
days; they want to know the God who is preparing a place for us where we will
be able to enjoy him for all eternity.
It was
exciting to hear how my daughter didn’t give up reaching out to God even while
He was dismantling her illusion of who she believed Him to be. It might take
some time but God promises that if we seek Him we will find Him; if we continue
to knock at the door, He will answer. When God did answer my daughter, her
reaction was the same as it is for so many who run headlong into God—she was
compelled to go to her knees in reverence. It’s what should happen anytime God
steps into our lives and reveals something more about Himself to us. This
happened regularly during the life and ministry of Jesus. However, many people
who encountered God in the person of Jesus revered Him more for what He did for
them than for who He was. The people followed Him around because he fed them,
healed them, raised the dead and taught them. However, he also tried, often
unsuccessfully, to tell the people who He was as a person. On one particular
occasion he explained to those present that the Scriptures they studied
diligently and believed were the key to eternal life, those same Scriptures
testified about Him (Jn 5:39)! Much of the text in my Bible is underlined and
this particular text is no different. However, I also have the comment,
“Awesome!” right next to it. However, few who heard Jesus’ proclamation about
Himself were prepared to accept it; to them it was hardly “awesome.” They had
God in a box on a shelf and were perfectly happy to keep Him there. They had
created god in their image and Jesus didn’t fit that image. Today, we want
Jesus to be God but struggle to reconcile the image of God in the Old Testament
as one who commands reverence with His thundering presence and God in the New
Testament nailed to a cross. Nevertheless, they are one in the same God who we
know and who the Jews knew as The Great
I AM.
Subject Text
John 8:48-59
48The Jews answered him, “Aren’t
we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” 49“I am not possessed by a
demon,” said
Jesus, “but I honor my Father and
you dishonor me. 50I am not seeking glory for
myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51I tell you the truth, if
anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” 52At this the Jews exclaimed, “Now
we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the
prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste
death. 53Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the
prophets. Who do you think you are?” 54Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My
Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would
be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of
seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” 57“You are not yet fifty years
old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” 58“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59At this, they picked up stones
to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping
away from the temple grounds.
Context
More than
any of the other Gospel writers, John portrays Jesus as a continuation of God
from the Old Testament now revealed in the person of Jesus. As a result, John’s
portrayal of Jesus has a much more divine perspective. John’s biography of
Jesus’ life and ministry seems to highlight the many times the religious leaders
opposed Jesus’ revelation of Himself and our Subject Text is no different. Earlier in the chapter, we see Jesus
forgiving the woman caught in adultery and ready to be stoned by the religious
leaders. Jesus then goes on to proclaim that He is the “Light of the world” and
that all those who fail to accept Him will be dead in their sins. Jesus says
that those who believe Him will be known as His disciples and will be set free
by the truth of who He is. However, the religious leaders refuse to accept what
Jesus says and cling to the god they have created in their image. The god they have
created has served to elevate them to a status of prominence and respect.
That’s the god they want not the God that Jesus is describing. The religious
leaders claimed to be purveyors of the real truth but Jesus says that because
they fail to believe Him, they are actually perpetuating a lie about God under
the influence of the father of lies—the devil! That’s when Jesus rocks their
world with a revelation about Himself that demonstrates the continuum of the
God of the Old Testament and the God that is now revealed in Him.
Text Analysis
When the
Jews ask Jesus if they are right to say He is a Samaritan and demon-possessed
in v. 48, they’re not really asking a question as much as they’re making a
statement. They are saying Jesus is unqualified to teach them anything and that
He’s crazy for saying the things He was saying. Nevertheless, calling Him a
Samaritan seems like a bit of an arbitrary accusation. It’s more obvious to see
why they would claim Jesus to be demon-possessed but it’s not immediately
obvious why they would say Jesus is a Samaritan. This is particularly puzzling
when we remember that at the end of Chapter 7 the Pharisees were debating how
Jesus could be the Christ since He came from Galilee. Clearly they knew He
wasn’t a Samaritan so what were they saying? “In the language in which they
spoke, what is rendered into Greek by ‘Samaritan’ would have been either Cuthi, which, while literally meaning a
Samaritan, is almost as often used in the sense of ‘heretic,’ or else Shamroni. The latter word deserves
special attention. Literally, it means ‘Samaritan’; but the name Shomron is also sometimes used as the
equivalent of Ashmedai, the prince of the demons. According to the Kabbalists
[A body of mystical teachings of rabbinical origin, often based on an esoteric
interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures], Shomron
was the father of Ashmedai, and hence the same as Sammael or Satan…If therefore the term applied by the Jews to Jesus
was Shomroni—and not Cuthi, ‘heretic’—it would literally mean
‘Child of the Devil.’”[1] Certainly, when the
religious leaders referred to Jesus as a Samaritan, they may have intended it
in the context of heretic, but based on the many times the religious leaders
insisted Jesus was doing the work of the devil, it seems just as likely that
their intended meaning was that Jesus was a child of the Devil.
Not
surprisingly, Jesus refutes their claim directly in v. 49. But then He goes on
the say something very interesting—Jesus says that He honors His Father and
they dishonor Him [Jesus]. For Jesus there was no difference—if they honored Him
then they would honor the Father and if they dishonored Him they dishonored the
Father. “It is Jesus who shows the Father, who reveals God: ‘whoever has seen
me has seen the Father’ (Jn 14:9). Some have found the Jewish concept of agency
to be a helpful model to explain this relationship…‘The one who is sent is like
the one who sent him,’ so to encounter the one sent is, in effect, to encounter
the sender. This model also explains the dependence of the Son on the Father,
as the former must act out the Sender’s commission exactly and unerringly.
Disrespect shown the Son becomes dishonor shown the Father.”[2]
Jesus was
on a mission from the Father and part of that mission was not to bring glory to
Himself according to v. 50. However, the Father seeks to be glorified and
revered. Everything Jesus did was to bring glory to the Father. The Father will
be the judge of those who reject the Son because the Father has sent the Son in
order the reveal Himself to the world. This attitude flew in the face of the
religious leaders who always seemed to be trying to bring glory to
themselves—either through the way they dressed or the way they ate or the way
they set themselves above the common, everyday people. They were special and
they wanted everyone to know it. They sat in the place of prominence; the head
of the table. They were at the top of the guest list for all the important
gatherings. The religious leaders became drunk on their self-importance when
along comes Jesus, God Himself, who says that He’s not seeking glory for Himself.
“Jesus can truly say that he honours the Father only if he can also truly say
that he does not seek glory for himself. Unlike others, he pursues only the
glory that comes from God. What others think is immaterial; God’s approval is
everything, for he is the judge.”[3]
To this point, Jesus’ words might
seem a bit mysterious and obscure, but Jesus’ proclamation in v. 51 is like a
swift punch in the gut. Keep His word (i. e. believe and do what he says) and
never taste death. At least in this particular exchange with the religious
leaders, Jesus has been hinting at his identity; nibbling around the edges;
casting a shadow of Himself. Here too Jesus only hints at His identity, for who
but God is able grant eternal life? Yet Jesus stops short of explicitly making
this proclamation—for now. “John understands eternal life in relation to Christ
through faith, love and in keeping the commands of Christ. The word ‘eternal’
here indicates a definite quality: it is a different life from the old
existence typified by hate, lack of love, sin, pain and death. Eternal life
does not therefore just begin in the future, it is already the possession of
those who have entered upon fellowship with Christ. Thus Jn. 3:15 speaks of
having eternal life in the present. But there is also a temporal sense, so that
eternal indicates the quantity of this life: because it belongs to Christ, who
himself is the Life, it has no end. It will not even cease at death.”[4]
As you can imagine, Jesus’
proclamation sent the religious leaders into a frenzy. They simply couldn’t
accept what Jesus was saying. The Jews, especially the religious leaders, were
set in their ways and were blind to all else; they were fully invested in the
status quo. In vv. 52-53 they confess that their identity is tied to their
history and heritage. They believed their greatest asset was their lineage.
They were descendants of Abraham and followers of the prophets yet as great as
these men of God were, they had all died. They just couldn’t grasp Jesus’
eternal perspective when He said that those who obeyed Him would not die. The
religious leaders saw everything in terms of their past establishment as a nation,
their current oppression by an invading foreign power and their future
re-establishment to national prominence by a conquering Messiah. The Jews
defined God in the narrowest of terms and nothing else was acceptable. “[Jesus]
had warned the religious leaders that they would die in their sins if they did
not believe his message. He had been speaking about the Father’s presence and
returning there. But they saw only the earthly interpretation. Abraham died.
The prophets died. Yet this strange Galilean promised a life with no death?
Obviously, he must consider himself greater than Abraham and the prophets, an
unthinkable arrogance which they diagnosed as demon possession. Do not miss the
switch in the key question from ‘Who are you?’ in verse 25 to Who do you think you are? in verse 53.”[5]
Jesus is going to give them an
answer but not until He is through making his point in vv. 54-55 when He
returns to the theme of glorification. Here He repeats that glorifying Himself
would mean nothing, but His Father, who they claim to be their God, is the one
that glorifies Him. The religious leaders have demonstrated through their words
and actions that they don’t actually know the God they claim as their God. They
know the god they have created but they don’t know the Creator. “Jesus’
audience argues in the same manner regarding their natural ancestry…But Jesus
argues that lineage from Abraham is evidence not through bloodline but through
spiritual disposition…Abraham is the father of those who have faith, not simply
those who keep the Jewish traditions and possess his bloodline. Ancestry and
tradition offer false promises to those who think that God is found in them
alone.”[6]
And if that didn’t infuriate the religious leaders
enough, Jesus pours gas on the fire in vv. 56-57 when He says that Abraham was
glad when he finally saw the revelation of God in Jesus. With this comment,
their minds had to be spinning out of control—Abraham had been dead for more
than 2,000 years by this point and Jesus was not yet 50-years old so how was it
possible that Abraham was witness to Jesus’ day? True to the end, the religious
leaders failed to see the eternal perspective that even Abraham recognized
2,000 years earlier. Their religious world was so small that they couldn’t even
imagine that someone as great as Abraham thought differently than they did. “In
Jewish terminology ‘the day’ usually signifies the appearance of the Messiah in
the last days, but here, as in the Gospel generally, it will denote the
ministry of Jesus in its totality as Revealer and Redeemer, through which the
saving sovereignty of God comes…Abraham, seeing the day of salvation as the day
of Jesus, acknowledged that the Son of God-Redeemer, not himself, was the means
of bringing to pass the divine purpose for blessing the nations. He did not
begrudge that Jesus was greater than he, but exulted in his work…What a contrast, not to say gulf, between
Abraham and these descendants of his!”[7]
Jesus is done beating around the
bush with the religious leaders in v. 58 and the religious leaders are equally
as serious in v. 59. Jesus makes an earth-shattering proclamation with just two
words. With two small words Jesus connects the past, present and the future in Himself.
Jesus identifies Himself as something quite familiar to the Jews—Jesus
identifies Himself as “I AM.” There was no confusion in the minds of the
religious leaders. Jesus was telling them that he was God! And they were going
to stone him for it. In case you’re unfamiliar with the title, let me connect
the dots for you. I’ll take you back to Moses and the burning bush of Exodus 3.
God summoned Moses to go to Pharaoh in Egypt and secure the release of the
Israelite slaves. In his conversation with God, Moses asks him what he should
tell the people if they ask who sent him. What should he say if they ask him
what God’s name is. God tells Moses that if the people ask, he was to tell them
that “I AM” sent him. This would be one of the divine names of God throughout
Israel’s history; it was a revered name; it was a holy name, and now Jesus was
calling himself I AM! It was blasphemy of the highest order for which the
religious leaders immediately armed themselves to stone Jesus. “The contrast
between the en [Gk. “was”] applied to
Abraham and the ego eimi [Gk. “I AM”] applied to Christ was
undoubtedly intentional in John 8:58. The ego
eimi here must be seen as linked with
the name for Yahweh revealed in Exodus 3 and with the absolute use of ‘I am’ in
Isaiah 46:4. It must be noted that when the form of words used in this latter
passage occurs elsewhere in the OT (Dt. 32:39; Is. 43:10), it is attributed to
God as speaker, followed by words which express his uniqueness. There seems
little doubt, therefore, that the statement of 8:58 is intended to convey in an
extraordinary way such exclusively divine qualities as changelessness and
pre-existence. The divine implication of the words alone account for the
extraordinary anger and opposition which the claim immediately aroused.”[8]
Application
It can be hard letting go of
something we have built our lives around. It was hard for the religious leaders
as well. Even when the divine Truth was standing before them, they couldn’t
believe because they refused to let go of the god they had created for
themselves. They knew their god; they were comfortable with their god; they
could control their god; they could keep their god in a box; they could put him
on a shelf where they could have access to him whenever they wanted and put him
back on the shelf when they were done with him. The religious leaders liked
their lives the way they were and they weren’t about to have Jesus changing
that. But Jesus isn’t that kind of God. Jesus isn’t comfortable; Jesus can be
known one minute and unknown the next; Jesus will not be controlled; When they
put a dead Jesus in a box, he walked out three days later. Jesus will not be
put on a shelf like a canned food product. Jesus is not going to sit by
blithely as sin destroys your life while you claim that He is the Lord of your
life. God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ not to become a hobby
that we dabble in on Sunday mornings or some other day of the week. Jesus
became a man to become what we could never be—a payment for sins. Jesus became
a man to do what we could never do—rise from the dead. Jesus came so that we could
have a model for living. Jesus came so that we could know God personally and
enter into a relationship with him personally. It is a precarious relationship
however when you consider who we’re dealing with. Jesus as a close and personal
friend yet one who has the power over life and death is the definition of
precarious. Nevertheless, we are left with a choice: Does an intimate
relationship with Jesus really matter to us? We cannot have the Friend and
reject Sustainer of life; we cannot revere the Sustainer of life and spurn the One
who considers us a friend. My daughter chased hard after God last year and in
her own way, she was asking God “Who are you?” or “Who do you think you are?”
God answered her recently; revealed Himself in some way to her. She responded
in the way Jesus knew the religious leaders never would—she went to her knees
and worshipped the God of all things who would be her Friend. If you say you
are seeking God, what will you do when you find Him? What will your reaction be
when you encounter the God who would be your Friend and you realize that he is
also The Great I AM?
[1] W.
Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s
Greek Testament, Vol. 1, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1983), p. 780.
[2]
David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the
New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation, (Downers Grove,
IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 419.
[3] D.
A. Carson, The Gospel According to John—The
Pillar New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1991), p. 355.
[4]
Colin Brown, ed., New International
Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 3, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1986), p. 832.
[5]
Kenneth O. Gangel, John—Holman New
Testament Commentary, (Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2000), p. 168.
[6]
Gary M. Burge, John—The NIV
Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000),
p. 267.
[7]
George R. Beasley-Murray, John—Word
Biblical Commentary, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1999), p. 138.
[8]
Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology,
(Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1981), p. 332.
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