The litmus test of heaven, John 8:21-30

Today is the Lord’s Day.  It is the day when Christians worship the Lord.  It is the day set aside each week to honor Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for us so that we might be truly free. Jesus Himself said, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends.” The remarkable thing about Christ’s sacrifice is that He did not just lay down His life for His friends, but He laid down His life for His enemies.  Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”Jesus said He did not come to save the righteous, but sinners.  Sinners are by definition the enemy of God who is holy and righteous.

The essential fact of the gospel that is so often missed however, is that all men are sinners.  Romans 3:10 says, ”THERE IS NONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE;  THERE IS NONE WHO UNDERSTANDS,THERE IS NONE WHO SEEKS FOR GOD;  ALL HAVE TURNED ASIDE, TOGETHER THEY HAVE BECOME USELESS;THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD,THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.”  That’s the bad news.

The good news however, is found just a couple of chapters later in Romans 5:8 which I read to you a moment ago;  “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

But a lot of people are so offended at hearing Romans 3:10 that they never get to know the benefits of Romans 5:8.  They are so offended that the Bible says that all men are condemned because of their sinfulness, that they never come to know the salvation that is offered through Christ’s death as our substitute.  But the fact is, that if you do not acknowledge your need for forgiveness from your sins, and trust in Christ’s atonement on the cross as the propitiation for your sins, then you cannot know the freedom from condemnation that comes through salvation.

Now that is really the crux of the passage we have before us today. This exchange between the Jewish leaders and Jesus which is recorded here for us is due to the fact that the Jewish leadership trusted in their own righteousness and rejected salvation through Christ. As a matter of review,  Jesus had been preaching in the temple for a week at this point, during the weeklong celebration known as the Feast of Tabernacles.  And He has presented through many different messages the truth of the gospel.  That truth simply stated was that He is the Messiah, the Son of God, the eternal God come to Earth in human form, so that men might have the spiritual life that God offers to them that believe in Him.

And Jesus has used a couple of metaphors to illustrate that truth,  which we have looked at in detail in previous weeks. In the first metaphor He says He is the source of living water which if anyone drinks of, out of their innermost being will spring up living water. Then His other incredible claim is that He was the light of the world, and that the world was in darkness, but for those that follow Him, they will have the light of life.  In both of those metaphors, Jesus is teaching that He is the source of life, abundant life through the Spirit of God, and He gives it to those who believe in Him.

But at every point that Jesus makes in His messages during the Feast, the Jewish religious leaders want to find fault with Him and argue over some technicality.  And at the heart of their response is their fervent belief that they did not need a spiritual Savior.  They believed that they were inherently good people.  They were obviously very religious people.  They thought that they knew what the scriptures taught.  They thought that they had been given entry into the kingdom of God through their heritage and that they insured it by their adherence to certain laws such as circumcision and keeping the Sabbath. 

In many respects, they were not unlike many Americans today.  According to a recent Pew Research survey, 70% of Americans claim to be Christians.  They believe in God.  They go to church on somewhat of a regular basis.  They believe in the golden rule.  They have a few Bibles in their possession.  They are what we would call “good people.”  And the real danger for these people is that they have never come face to face with their sinfulness and as such have rejected the idea that they need a Savior.

This was the predicament of the Jews who listened to Jesus that day.  He had told them repeatedly that He had come from the Father in heaven and as such had been doing the works of the Father and speaking the words of the Father, shining the light of the truth unto the world so that men might have life.  But they had repeatedly rejected His claims. Therefore Jesus says in vs. 21, “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.”

Their response is that of disdain, again missing the significance of what He is preaching, and focusing instead on trying to discredit Him.  So they respond with dripping sarcasm, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”  I think there is even a hint in their response of their intention to kill Him, but they phrase it as if He will commit suicide.  Suicide by the way in Jewish culture of that period, was considered the most egregious sin, and they believed that the bottom level of Hades was reserved for those who committed suicide.  

The question must be asked - why do they have such hatred towards Christ?  I’ll tell you the answer. It’s the same answer that Jesus gave for their hatred in John 7:7, He says, “[the world] hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” It’s the same hatred we see vented towards those who proclaim the truth today; it’s because of the conviction of sin.  If you dare call anyone a sinner today, or suggest that the Bible condemns certain activities as sinful, then you are going to be the object of intense hatred.  And by the way, this doesn’t just come from atheists, it also comes from those claiming Christianity.  The late Bishop Desmond Tutu said that he would rather spend eternity in hell than a minute in a homophobic heaven. Well, he just might have gotten his wish. Because that statement reveals his hatred towards God. Jesus said that God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  That means that God gets to make the rules, not us.  We must worship who He is, and not who we want Him to be.  The world does not get to define God.  God has defined Himself in His word.  And we must love God more than we love the world. 1John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

The essential principle that Bishop Tutu fails to understand is that God’s law is a reflection of God’s nature. It is how He reveals His holiness.  I read another quote by Bishop Tutu in which he said, “We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven. God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.”  I have news for him,  God’s standards are anything but low.  God’s standard is absolute perfection.  And there is only one person that has been able to meet God’s standard, and that is Jesus Christ.  All the rest of mankind is dead in their trespasses and sin. That is why Jesus says three times in this passage, “you will die in your sins.” Unless you repent and call in faith upon Jesus Christ - that is the only way for your sin to be forgiven.  

And listen, your sin is not forgiven because God just decided one day to get with it - just go along with the culture and forget about all that sin stuff,  just live and let live.  No, God still counts sin.  God did not do away with the requirements of the law.  Jesus kept every law perfectly so that He might be the blameless, spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  No, God didn’t stop counting sin, He just counted it against Christ.  He transferred our sin upon Jesus and beat Him for it with a whip within an inch of death.  He transferred our sin upon His Holy Righteous Only Begotten Son, and pounded nails into His hands and feet and let Him hang on a rough cross for hours bleeding to death.  He transferred our sin upon Jesus and let Him die and descend into Hades to pay the penalty for sin.  He transferred our sin upon Jesus so He could pay the price of our sin, and only when His justice was satisfied could He transfer Christ’s righteousness upon us.  God’s standards are anything but low.  No one comes to heaven, to the Father, except through Jesus Christ and by His righteousness alone.

So in spite of their unbelief and sarcasm,  once again Jesus shows compassion by restating His warning to the religious leaders. In vs.23 He says, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”  

Now what Christ has done is give a litmus test of sorts for belonging to the kingdom of heaven.  That was the primary message of Christ.  He was preaching about the kingdom of heaven.  And the Jewish leaders recognized that the requirement of citizenship was righteousness.  So Jesus is in effect giving a litmus test for righteousness.  He says they are of the world, and as such they are still in their sins, and they will suffer the consequences of that sin, which is death.  How do you know whether someone is of the world or of heaven?  How do you recognize those belonging to the kingdom of darkness, and those belonging to the kingdom of heaven?  I mean, anyone can claim to be of the kingdom of heaven, can’t they?  People all over the world claim to be of the kingdom of heaven.  We already said that 70% of Americans claim to be Christians, that is, belonging to the kingdom of heaven.  So how do you know? What is the evidence? 

Well, to find out the truth, I’m not going to quote Desmond Tutu, but instead quote the Apostle John once again.  As we read earlier, 1John 2:15-16 says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

And Paul says virtually the same thing, that those who are of the world set their mind on worldly things.  In Phil. 3:18-19 he says,  “For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,  whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.”

That’s the litmus test.  If you love the world, if your focus is on worldly things, if your passions are in the world, if your pride is in the things of the world, then you are of the world.  You cannot serve God and mammon.  That’s why James says, show me your faith by your works.  Show me.  Don’t tell me.  You say you have faith, but show me your faith.  Faith is not an intellectual exercise, by which we gain heaven.  Faith is an exercise by which the will of heaven is worked out in my life.  Where God’s will supersedes our will.  Faith is praying, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

That’s the litmus test.  That is why Jesus was able to point to His works as the litmus test that proved He was sent from God.  Three times in this little passage He says that He does the works of God, as evidence that He is not of this world, but of God.  Look at vs.26, “the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.”  Then again in vs.28, “I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” And third, vs.29, “I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

It’s noteworthy that Jesus categorizes things in threes. Three times He says “You will die in your sins.”  And three times Jesus says He does the works of God. The principle is clear; if you are of the world, then you will die in your sins.  If you do the works of God, then it’s evident that you are of the kingdom of heaven.

 Now I hope no one here today tries to weasel out of this principle of your works being evidence of where your heart is by saying that Jesus did the works of God, but grace makes us free to do whatever we want. Grace is the means by which our guilt and punishment are expunged. And grace is the means by which we are given the Holy Spirit to lead us in paths of righteousness. But all through the New Testament we are told to imitate Christ.   Peter said in 1Peter 1:15-16  “but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;  because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.”  And again in 1Peter 2:21 he says, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps.” We are to follow the pattern that Jesus laid down for us. That is what it means to be a disciple by the way.  We follow the pattern of Christ. As He did, so do we.  That’s what Jesus is saying in vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.”  To continue in His word is to continue in obedience to His word.

And Paul also makes it clear in Ephesians that we are saved to do the works of Christ. Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” So the principle that Jesus is teaching is clear, how you live illustrates where your citizenship is.  Is your citizenship in heaven?  Then you will be about your Father’s business.  A ceremonial tip of the hat once every couple of weeks is not indicative of where your citizenship is.  Jesus said in Luke 12:34  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

You know what disturbs me though is when Christians, who have been set free from the enslavement to the world by the death of Christ, try to keep one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom of God.  They claim to be a citizen of heaven, but their priorities are all about the world. Everything seems to take priority over the things of God. I worry about such people. 

That reminds me of the prophet Elijah, who seeing the double mindedness of the Israelites, who worshipped the idols of the world while claiming to be the people of God.  And so he cries out to them in 1 Kings 18, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions?  If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.”  If you say you are the Lord’s people, then serve the Lord with your whole heart.  But if you are people of the world, then continue to serve the world.  But don’t think you can live in two places at once.

Well, back in our text, the Jews respond to Jesus’ words with more sarcasm, more condescension, saying “Who are You?”  In a more modern way of speaking they may have said, “Who do you think You are? We have to believe in You or we die in our sins?  Just who do You think You are?”  That question was obviously intended to be sarcasm as well, but nevertheless, Jesus responds to them by saying, “What have I been saying to you from the beginning?” 

What had He been saying from the beginning?  Well, let’s remember what Jesus has said so far;  that He was the Messiah, He was the Son of God, He was the resurrection and the life, He was the Temple of God, that God has given Him the power to execute all judgment, that He is the source of eternal life,  that He was the one of whom Moses wrote, that He was the bread of life which came down out of heaven, that He has seen the Father, that He had the words of eternal life, that He was the supply of the water of life, and that He was the light of the world.  I think it’s pretty clear who He was.

But since they asked, Jesus gives them another clue.  In vs 28 He says, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”  Now what is Jesus referring to in this statement?  I believe that He is speaking of going to the cross, being lifted up as the serpent was lifted up on the pole in the wilderness.  Jesus is saying, when you see Me lifted up on the cross, then you will know that I am He.  

What a tremendous statement.  Not only was His life indicative of His deity, and not only was His words indicative of His deity, but His sacrifice for sinners was the ultimate indication of His deity.  The crucifixion was the expression of God’s love for the world.  And the magnanimity of that act revealed a love that could only be that of God. I’m reminded of the centurion who seeing Jesus give up His Spirit on the cross said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

But sadly, many of those who were debating with Him would still not recognize Him even when He was lifted up.  They should have seen the parallel with the serpent in the wilderness which Moses lifted up for the healing of sting of vipers upon the Israelites.  And they should have understood that the serpent on a pole symbolized that there would come One who would be lifted up on a pole for the healing of the sins of the world. And perhaps some did make that connection  during the crucifixion such as the centurion.  But as I have pointed out before, I believe that by the time of the crucifixion, the scribes and Pharisees and the priesthood not only knew that He was the Son of God, but they deliberately, purposefully put Him to death because they hated Him so much by that point that their hatred had blinded them.

And that is born out by the fact that He says, when I am lifted up, then you will know that I am He.  Now in the Greek there is not the pronoun He. It is simply “that I Am.”  And many theologians suggest that He is making a direct reference to the same “I AM that I AM” which spoke to Moses out of the burning bush.  This is the name that God gave Moses to tell the Israelites and Pharaoh who it was that gave him his authority.  It was the name of God that refused conventional definitions.  So in answer to the Jews question of “Who are You?”  Jesus  answered, “When you see Me lifted up, then you will know that I am the I AM.” He is telling them who He is in terms that they were very familiar with.  

See, for the Jews, Moses was their guy.  He was the greatest prophet.  In fact, the Sadducees only recognized the writings of Moses, nothing else.  So it’s interesting that in every evidence that Jesus gives to His deity He uses something that happened during the life of Moses.  He was the source of water from the rock.  He was the manna from heaven.  He was the pillar of fire over the tabernacle.  He was the serpent lifted up on the tree.  And He was the I AM from the burning bush.  Yet these champions of the law of Moses would not accept what He was saying, because they believed that  they were justified by the law of Moses.  

But Paul tells us that the law was not given to be a stepladder to heaven.  But the  law was given to be a tutor to lead us to Christ.  The law was given so that our sin became even more sinful.  Even more apparent.  But when Jesus showed them that, in the Sermon on the Mount for instance, then they became indignant, and rejected the idea that they were sinners.  And that disdain of the need for forgiveness would condemn them to die in their sins.

From our perspective though it should be clear, that Jesus was not only sent from God to be all the things that we stated earlier like the light of the world, and the source of eternal life, etc, but the characteristic that really completes the picture is that He is the Savior of the world.  This is the basis for John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the exact representation of God. So as Jesus declares that He is Savior, it completes the picture. It completes the picture of God.  God is holy, righteous and just.  God is the judge of the earth.  God is the source of life.  And God is also the Savior of the world because God loved the world.  He loved His creation.  But for God’s love to be enacted, His justice had to be satisfied.  God’s law had to be upheld.  And so God sent Jesus to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Christ.  

Well, for a few people in Jesus’ hearing that day, the light suddenly came on.  They saw the light of the truth.  So it says in vs.30 that as He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.  I can only pray that someone here today has suddenly had the light of truth dawn in their hearts.  You recognize that you are a sinner in need of a Savior.  And perhaps you have come to believe that Jesus Christ is the sinless Son of God who gave Himself in your place on the cross so that you might be saved.  If that is you, then simply call on Jesus to save you, believing in all that He says He is, and God promises that He  will transfer you  from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of heaven.  You will become a citizen of heaven, but even more than that, you will be made a son of God by adoption.  And as the result of that adoption, you are guaranteed an inheritance in glory and eternal life.  I pray that today will be the day of your salvation.   

Two witnesses to the truth, John 8:13-20

There are many voices calling out for attention in the church today.  And there are perhaps as many messages as there are voices.  How are we to know which are true, and which are trustworthy?  Many of them sound convincing.  Many of them claim to be based on scripture. And yet many messages are at odds with one another.  So they cannot all be true.  If some are true, then others have to be false.  The great difficulty comes in discerning which are true and which are false.

I believe that the Bible teaches us that the way to know the truth is by the leading of the Holy Spirit. When I got right with God 37 years ago in California, that was the primary thing I asked of the Lord, that I would know the truth.  And later on that evening, as I read the book of John, God showed me three passages which I believe indicated that the Holy Spirit was the source of truth, and the means by which I could know the truth.  The apostle John records Jesus as introducing the Holy Spirit specifically as the Spirit of Truth.  Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:16-17  "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever;  that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

And Jesus reiterates that in the next two chapters.  John 15:26, "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.”  The third is in John 16:13  "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”

So three times Jesus gives us this phrase, the Spirit of Truth, as both a title and a description of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So when Jesus declares this three times, we can be certain that it is an essential doctrine, and that it’s validity is without question.

Knowing that principle then helps us to understand the nature and purpose of the Holy Spirit. One of the greatest misunderstandings in Christianity today is that of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just taking these three verses at face value, then we must recognize that the primary ministry of the Holy Spirit is to reveal to us the truth.  So many people seem to miss that altogether.  They think that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us feel  something, ie, the presence of God, or to give us some emotional response or ecstatic experience.  But that simply is not taught in the Bible.  

Paul makes it clear in 1Cor. 2:11-14 that we have been given the Spirit so that we might know the things of God, through the word of God.  He says, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,  which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”   So we have to have the Spirit of God to understand the things of God, particularly the word of God, which of course was inspired by the Holy Spirit.

It’s also interesting that the Holy Spirit is spoken of not only as the Spirit of Truth but as the Spirit of Christ.  Look at Romans 8:9  “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  In fact, Peter goes even further stating in 1 Peter 1:11 that the Spirit of Christ was working in the Old Testament prophets when they wrote the scriptures.

So in the Trinity, all three are one in agreement, in unity, and are the same in nature, but different only in administration.  So Jesus is the exact representation of the Father in flesh, speaking the words of the Father and doing the deeds of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the exact representation of the Son in the Spirit, enabling us to do the deeds of Christ and to know the words of Christ, which is how we come to know God.

Now this may seem like a lengthy introduction and unrelated to the passage before us, but I believe that it is actually very pertinent to understanding today’s text as I hope to show you in due time.  Because what is at stake here is the authority and deity of Jesus Christ.  How could the Jews know for sure that what He was teaching was true?  Was His message trustworthy?  Was He claiming to be God, and was that a true teaching?

Now the Gospel of John is different from the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Even more specifically than the others, John wants to show that Jesus is the Son of God, the very God come in the flesh. In the first place, rather than starting his gospel with the birth of Christ as the other writers do, John opens his gospel with Jesus in heaven, an eternity past before His physical birth. He says, ”In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." John does not present miracles in his gospel, he has signs. That is, his miracles are intended to teach spiritual truth. He is very strategic in deciding which signs to include, and those which he does are used to point to Jesus’ divinity.  Furthermore, the book of John is characterized by the upper room discourse, in chapters 13 through 16, and then the great high priestly prayer, in chapter 17. 

But one of the primary things that characterizes the Gospel of John as different is the claim of divinity that Jesus Christ makes for Himself. They are unique in the sense that they are self-proclaimed. And that was a problem for the Jews. It was a problem because the law specified that truth cannot be established on the basis of a single testimony, but that only by the testimony of two or three witnesses may a matter be established. 

The claims of Christ are extraordinary to say the least.  The well known prophets of other religions such as Mohammed or Buddha or Confucius did not claim to be God. But Christ claimed to be God.  For example, Jesus has proclaimed in the temple, with thousands of people in attendance at the Feast of Tabernacles, three great claims equated with the pre-existent God of the Israelites.  The first statement was, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”   

Now in that claim, Jesus is speaking at the exact moment when the priests poured water into basins which spilled down upon the altar, signifying the water which came from the rock in the wilderness when Moses struck it.  John tells us in the next verse that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit who had not yet been given to those who believed.  Paul said in 1Cor. 10:4 that “all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.”  So the rock was Christ, and the water is a picture of the Holy Spirit which springs from Christ, welling up inside of the believer.  This picture of living water flowing from our innermost being is representative of the life of Christ, the power of Christ, living in us, enabling us to do the works of Christ and to understand the truth of God.

That was the reason that in the first instance of water coming from the rock, Moses was told to strike the rock, signifying that God would smite Jesus on the cross, and by His sacrifice making us holy so we are able to receive the Holy Spirit.  But 40 years later in the second occurrence of Moses smiting the rock for water he was disobedient.  Because God does not strike Jesus again and again.  He was the sacrifice for sin once on the cross, and now He ever lives to make intercession for us.  Hence, the second time Moses needed only to speak, to ask for God to give water, signifying that we have a mediator, great high priest in heaven, Jesus who is able to make intercession for us.  

So in the first statement in effect Jesus is saying that He was the Rock in the wilderness, from which the Israelites were able to drink.  And in the second statement, Jesus cries out during another ritual when the priests lit the great candelabras which lit up the courtyard and the temple during the evening, saying, “I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

In this second statement, Jesus indicates that He is the great “I Am”, the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush.  And then thirdly, He compares Himself to the pillar of fire that led and protected the Israelites as they wandered in the wilderness.  That was the significance of the ceremony during the Feast which was the context for Jesus’ proclamation.  It celebrated the light that shone above the tabernacle over the camp of the Israelites and protected them as they traveled.  And at just the moment when the priests lit the candelabras, Jesus cried out in the temple, “I am the light of the world, he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

So Jesus proclaims with great boldness who He is, and what His purpose is, and I’m sure the full import of what He said was not lost on His hearers, especially the Pharisees.  And yet their response was not to accept the truth of what He was saying, but to focus on a technicality.  They say, "You're bearing record of yourself. Your record therefore is not true. “  What they are really saying is, "You're not following the teaching of the law.”

In fact, Jesus Himself had stated that principle of the law, back in chapter 5 verse 31 Jesus said, "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." So you would think that perhaps the Pharisees have a point in their accusation. But Jesus answers them in a way that shows that while in His flesh He has submitted Himself to the Law, but in His divinity He is outside of the Law, because He is the author of the Law.

So to establish that He is outside the law, first of all He says, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.”  In other words, men are creatures of the present.  We cannot revisit the past, nor can we know the future.  That is the province of God alone.  Therefore the testimony of men is unreliable, but what Christ knew in Himself embraced the two eternities, the eternity of the past and the eternity of the future. And therefore, He knows that the things that He says are true.

Secondly He says that they may judge according to appearance or human logic.  But He does not judge by appearances or human standards. Vs.15, “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone.”  That is exactly what Jesus said in John 3:17, "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  

But the world would in fact one day be judged by Him, because they rejected Him.  So vs 18 says,  "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”  The judgment of sin was already in place in the world.  It is only removed by Christ.  So to reject Christ is to reject forgiveness of that judgment, and thus the judgment remains upon him.  But Christ came the first time to save the world, not to judge it.  Judgment came upon the world way back in the Garden of Eden with the first Adam.  Salvation from judgment comes with the second Adam.

Not only can we say that Christ was the second Adam, but there is a sense in which Christ was the second Noah as well.  Heb.11:7 says “By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world, and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.”  Again, the condemnation of the world had already been established. The ark represented salvation for the world, but they rejected it.  The Bible says that Noah preached 120 years, and yet we have no record of his message.  His message was the living testimony of his life, and the coming destruction was foretold by the building of the ark.  So also Christ is patient, not willing for any to perish, and the gospel has been preached for 2000 years so that they who reject it are without excuse, condemning themselves to destruction.

The third argument Jesus presents to them is to say that divine testimony can only be witnessed to by a divine being.  Note vs.16 "But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.”  So Jesus says that God the Father also testifies concerning Him. Matt.3;17 says that at the baptism of Jesus, God spoke from heaven saying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  Only divinity can attest to the truth of divinity.  No man was there in the beginning with God, only God was in the beginning with God.  So if we are going to know the truth about God, then God must reveal it Himself.  Finite man cannot know it, therefore he cannot attest to God’s truthfulness. 

So Jesus is saying then that God can testify about Himself, otherwise we could not come to know God.  God has to reveal knowledge of Him if we are to know Him.  Otherwise we worship Him in ignorance.  Otherwise we are left to guess how to please God.  We have to imagine what God is like or compose a picture of Him based on earthly evidence such as creation.  We can in fact learn that God must exist from observing nature, and we can ascertain certain eternal characteristics about God through nature, but we cannot know God fully as He wants to be known simply through nature.  He must reveal Himself, He must testify of Himself if we are to know Him.  And God has testified about Christ, and Christ has testified about God.  Jesus was the exact representation of God, according to Hebrews 1:3.  

One of the amazing things this passage illustrates is that although these men claimed to know God, they really did not know Him, because they did not recognize the truth about Jesus. I find this is the problem with many people today. They say they know God, but the god they believe in is a god of their own imagination. They are merely projecting an idea about God that is a fantasy of their own imagination. Consequently they do not know God at all. Neither do they worship God; they are worshiping a product of their imagination. As James said, “you say you believe in God, so what? The devil’s also believe and tremble.”  You are not saved by believing in the existence of God.  You are saved by worshipping God in the truth.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones had this to say about such people: “Their god is something which they created themselves, a being who is always prepared to oblige and excuse them. They do not worship Him with awe and respect, indeed they do not worship Him at all. They reveal that their so-called god is no god at all in their speech. For they are forever saying that "they simply cannot believe that God will punish the unrepentant sinner to all eternity, and this and that." They cannot believe that God will do so, therefore, they draw the conclusion that God does not and will not. In other words, God does what they believe he ought to do or not do. What a false and blasphemous conception of God! How utterly untrue and unworthy! Such is the new paganism of today.” That was written about 60 years ago.  How much more true it is today.

So once again, the Pharisees don’t want to acknowledge the truth of what Jesus is saying. Instead they try a personal attack to disparage His credibility.  Jesus is obviously speaking of His heavenly Father, but they try to disparage His legitimacy by bringing up the rumor of His illegitimate birth.  They are insinuating that His father in the flesh, Joseph, who was actually His step father, was not his legitimate birth father, and so then Jesus was born out of wedlock. 

Vs. 19 So they were saying to Him, "Where is Your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.”  Now you might look at that at first and think, well now, that's an incomplete answer, He hasn't said where is His Father. He hasn't answered their question. But  He's answered the more fundamental question. He said you don't know Me because you don't know my Father. If I produced my Father you wouldn't even know him. If you had known Me, you would have known the Father. One knows the Father only as he knows the Son. There is no other way to the Father, except through the Son. The God of the Scriptures is only known through the Son. Over and over again the Bible teaches that. The Lord Jesus later on will say, after Phillip asks him, "Lord, show us the Father." He will turn to Phillip and say, "Phillip, have I been so long time with you, and yet you have not known Me? He that has seen Me has seen the Father. How then do you say, show us the Father." And then later on he will say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me." It's impossible to know God except through the Son.

Now John concludes this section by saying in vs.20,  “These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.”  And I can’t help but think that this is the bookend of a single thread of teaching that began back in chapter 7 vs. 8  where Jesus said to His brothers, ”Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.”  Now in chapter 8vs.20 we see that even though Jesus said all these things in the temple, in the very headquarters of those who sought to kill Him, no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not come.  His hour speaking of course, of the hour in which He would lay down His life for the sins of the world.

And I think if you look at this section in total you will see that the theme of Jesus being sent from God, being in unity with God, presenting the truth to the world and then going back to God is consistent throughout the whole section. Implicit in this passage is the principle that God exists out of time, and Jesus being One with God, existed in eternity past, but came into time present, in order to bring the truth of salvation to the world.  Those that believe in Him, He promises to give them life, to give them the deposit of their inheritance, the Holy Spirit, and to give them all the blessings of God.  But those that reject Him remain in darkness, and as such will ensure their own destruction as they remained condemned by that rejection.  

This principle of faith in Christ revealing the  truth of God was stated in chapter  7 vs. 17 "If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”  This is the principle that belief in Christ is self validating, when you submit your will to God, then God will reveal His will to you.  You will know the truth, when you submit to the truth that has been revealed to you. Repentance and faith leads to confirmation of the truth.

Those who claim a superficial form of Christianity would rather skip over texts like the one we have in front of us today.  Instead they would rather find a text that focuses on some benefit to us, like the power to heal, or the power to perform miracles. Let’s find something that assures us of our specialness.  Something dramatic, exciting.  The attention of  many in the church today is firmly fixed on what they suppose to be the dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit.  We don’t want to know God, we want to experience Him.

But if we are going to worship the Lord in Spirit and in truth, then we need to make sure that our worship is based in sound doctrine, and that our doctrine comes from the facts of the gospel which were written for our instruction.  Jesus has much to say here about who He is, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  So it behooves us to study this passage thoroughly, that we might fully know the truth of God, so that we might worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and not be led astray by a gospel which is not according to Christ, but manipulated by self serving individuals who wish to twist the gospel to serve themselves rather than serving the Lord.

As I said earlier, to judge according to appearances means to judge according to human experience.  Human experience is the fail point of much modern Christianity today.  Unfortunately doctrine has taken a secondary place to experience.  So then, what we feel, what we think, the way we determine truth, is dependent upon our human experience, our human judgment.  And from our experience, or human reasoning, we then interpret scripture or even reject scripture and  determine for ourselves what is worship or determine according to our dictates what God is like.  But that is not the pattern of the gospel and that is not what Jesus taught.  God must disclose Himself to us if we are going to know Him.  And we have to submit ourselves to His truth if we are going to be found acceptable to Him.  So all human experience must be subject to sound doctrine.  And when we believe in Him as He has declared Himself to be, then we must submit ourselves to do His will, and then we will  know the truth of God, because the Holy Spirit will lead us and guide us as we study His word.  That is the pattern of the gospel.  Only then can you know the truth that can truly make you free.