THE SELF-AWARENESS OF OUR LORD – John 8:47-59

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on February 13, 2013 under PM Bible Study |

PM Home Bible Study Group; February 13, 2013

John 8:47-59

Theme: Jesus’ encounter with those who opposed Him moved Him to declare boldly who He is.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

This evening, we come to the conclusion in John’s Gospel of our Lord’s great debate with the rulers of the Jewish people. It was a debate that had its roots in the fact that He had healed a man on the Sabbath (John 5:1-15); and that was further aggravated by His forgiveness of the woman caught in adultery (8:1-11). His declaration that He is "the light of the world" in John 8:12 seems to have been the spark that ignited this last debate. As we have seen, it became an opportunity for our Lord to declare His own witness of Himself (vv. 13-30), and His witness of the true nature of those who opposed Him (vv. 31-46).

In all of this debate, no one could accuse Him of sin. Even their strongest case against Him—that is, that He healed a man on the Sabbath—made it very difficult for His opponents to accuse Him convincingly. How can you accuse someone of sin when what they did was make a man well in the power of God on God’s day of appointed rest? Far from condemning Him, His actions actually justified His claims; and proved Him to be the Teller of truth—whom not to believe was itself a condemnation to the unbeliever (v. 46).

In this last portion of this debate, our Lord makes some of His boldest and most clear affirmations of Himself. It shows that He was fully aware of who He is. What’s more, it illustrates a principle about ourselves as we proclaim Him in our own times. We often encounter opposition to the clear Scriptural and experiential testimony of our Lord from those in our own day. Many today, who are committed to their sin, will not believe the testimony about Him. We shouldn’t be entirely surprised at this. After all, He was not even believed on by many of those who were alive in His day—who actually heard His own testimony about Himself from His own lips, and who actually saw His own miracles with their own eyes.

Truly, only the Holy Spirit can open the unbelieving heart, and give sinners the faith to believe!

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Note how, in this debate, the Lord Jesus affirmed Himself as . . .

I. THE ONE WHO DECLARES THE TRUTH FROM GOD (vv. 47-50).

A. In the course of His debate—as He affirmed His integrity before God—He declared, "He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God" (v. 47). Just think of what a bold thing that was to say! It’s self-evident that, if someone truly was from God, they would hear—and give whole-hearted assent to—the words of God. As He had said earlier, "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority" (7:17). If they truly were of God—as they believed and boasted that they were—they would have given assent to God’s word. But He had already declared that they were not from God; that, in fact, they were of their father the devil, who was a liar from the beginning (v. 44). And then, He adds that they therefore do not hear what He was Himself saying to them; "because you are not from God". In saying this, He was boldly declaring that He was speaking forth truth from God—truth that those who truly were of God would readily believe and receive.

B. They, of course, believed they were of God simply because they were "Abraham’s descendants" (v. 33). And so, the suggestion that they were not of God evoked a blasphemous response: "Then the Jews answered and said to Him, ‘Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?’" (v. 48). To declare Jesus to be a Samaritan was, in their minds, very derisive. As we’ve already seen from John 4:9, the Jews despised the Samaritans and had no dealings with them. For them to call Jesus ‘a Samaritan’—the Samaritans being a half-breed people of Gentiles mixed in among the idolatrous and fallen northern kingdom of Israel—was to say that He was outside the covenant relation that God had made with the true, pure Jewish people. And more; it was simply a slanderous insult—associating Him with a despised people group. But that wasn’t enough. They took it even further and called Him a demon-possessed man. They were suggesting that He was a madman ruled over by evil forces; but it isn’t very far from the horrible slander of Matthew 12:24; when the Pharisees said, "This fellow does not cast out demons except by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons."

C. But note how Jesus responds with a calm self-declaration. "Jesus answered, ‘I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me’" (v. 49). The very works that our Lord performed proved that He had no demon. "Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit" (Matthew 12:33). It’s as He had told them earlier in John’s Gospel; that "the works which the Father has given Me to finish—the very works that I do—bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me" (John 5:36). And what’s more, He had no need to concern Himself with the way they opposed His own self-awareness as the Truth-teller from God. He said, "’And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges’" (v. 50). Even though they did not believe Him, it made no difference to the truth of the matter. His approval did not come from them, but from the One who sent Him.

II. THE ONE THROUGH WHOM IS ETERNAL LIFE (vv. 51-55).

A. Having established Himself as the Truth-teller from God, He next goes on to speak bold truth: "’Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death’" (v. 51). As we’ve learned from our previous times in John’s Gospel, it’s a very significant thing whenever Jesus speaks at all—but most especially so when He prefaces what He says with the words "Most assuredly" or "Verily, verily". The truthfulness of what He says at any time should be fully accepted; but special attention should be given to words He presents in that way. And what He here affirms with the utmost truthfulness is that if anyone keeps His words, he will never "see death". It’s not that they would not die physically; because all who have believed on Him from that time up to this present generation have died physically. Rather, it’s a promise that they will not remain dead. They will have eternal life; and will be raised on the last day to enter with Him into eternal glory (see John 5:24-29).

B. The nature of those who opposed Him is further demonstrated by their scorn at these words. "Then the Jews said to Him, ‘Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, "If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death." Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?’” (vv. 52-53). They, of course, only saw things from the perspective of physical life and physical death. And it’s true that all those that they mentioned died—not without hope however! "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth" (Hebrews 11:13). As Paul put it—as he himself faced death—"I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day" (2 Timothy 1:12). How little the unbelieving heart really understands of our Savior’s perspective of death and the life to follow!

C. These shallow criticisms didn’t move our Lord. In fact, in answering them, it almost seems as if He passed them by—simply affirming again that He spoke as one sent by the Father, and who had no need to defend what He said. "Jesus answered, ‘If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word" (vv. 54-55). He stood boldly by His claim that He truly was the one through whom eternal life was given. We should do the same in proclaiming Him to our time. His claim is what it is; and men have either to believe it or not. His claim would either be validated to the believing heart by the Holy Spirit; or it would prove itself in the last day.

III. THE ONE WHO WAS THE HOPE OF ABRAHAM (vv. 56-59).

A. The Jews had mentioned their relationship with Abraham back in v. 33. And they made reference to Abraham again in verses 52-53. Abraham was the great father of the Jewish people. But Jesus then spoke these shocking words to those who esteemed themselves as being ‘of Abraham’: "’Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad’" (v. 56). This was an extremely bold claim! They perhaps would have thought back to the stories of their father Abraham back when God had first called him to Himself, and told him, "in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Genesis 12:3)—a reference to the Messiah. They may have thought of the faith of Abraham at the time when God had commanded that he sacrifice his only son Isaac; when he told Isaac, "My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering" (Genesis 22:8). Jesus was saying that He Himself was the hope of the very same Abraham through whom they esteemed themselves to be God’s people. They may have identified themselves as Abraham’s children; but as Jesus pointed out earlier, they did not at all act like the one they claimed as their father (vv. 39-40).

B. As with most everything else Jesus said, their hard-heartedness caused them to misunderstood this as well. He said that Abraham had seen His day. They took this as a claim that He had been alive in His bodily state to see Abraham. "Then the Jews said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’" (v. 57). Fifty years is a round number. It was usually associated (and probably still is) with the beginnings of the final age of a man’s life—the golden years, as we sometimes say. And they were recognizing that Jesus was not even yet past middle-aged. How then could He have made the claim to have been seen by Abraham?—or to have seen Abraham? Once again, they were only seeing things on the horizontal level.

C. That’s when Jesus made His boldest affirmation of self-awareness. He once again used those words that indicate a statement of solemn truth—something that is to be fully believed and accepted. "Jesus said to them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM’" (v. 58). He didn’t merely claim to have been alive in the time of Abraham. He made the claim to have existed before Abraham ever was! And not only that, He used a phrase that would have been heard by the Jews as the most blasphemous thing that could have met their ears. He said that before Abraham was, "I AM". This phrase (egō eimi in the original text; emphatic in that it would read "I—I AM") was the name that God gave Himself to Moses at the burning bush (Genesis 3:14). Jesus was clearly claiming to have been God—being in a state of eternal pre-existence, and present at the time of Abraham! This was too much for them! "Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by" (v. 59). They could not harm Him, because His time had not yet come. Nor did He try to correct any misunderstanding they may have had of His meaning. He stood by what He said; and departed from them. They would one day kill Him; but not by stoning. They would crucify Him—just as the Scriptures promised.

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Jesus’ self-affirmations are as controversial today as they were back then. They will be received by mocking and scorn and opposition today—just as they were in His day and when He Himself spoke them. But we should never shy away from declaring what He said about Himself. As we’re told in verse 30, many believed in Him back then. And many will believe today.

Let’s be as bold in our proclamation of our Lord as He was in proclaiming Himself—trusting the results to the power of the Holy Spirit!