New Thoughts (07/25/09-08/01/09)
In almost the same degree as I felt it needful to pursue things verse by verse in the preceding section, I find that approach runs counter to my thoughts for this section. The things that are capturing my attention simply do not proceed smoothly in the order of the text. So, I shall simply take them in the order that seems best.
To that end, I am actually going to begin by considering the end of this chapter. Jesus, we are told, hid Himself as they prepared to stone Him. Now, there are apparently some manuscripts which add a note to the purpose of saying that He had done so by ‘going through the midst of them.’ The King James and New King James versions, in particular hold to this phrase’s inclusion. Others deem it a scribal insertion into the original text, and therefore pass over the phrase.
On this point, I would simply like to say that we have no cause to suppose that the image to hold in mind is of Jesus cowering behind some architectural feature or other, seeking to avoid the searching eyes of this crowd. Honestly, think about it! Somebody would have noticed Him scuttling behind whatever He might have chosen as cover. Guards above, already on the alert as to this Man, would easily note His position and point it out to their companions on the ground. As such, whether that debated phrase is valid or not, I suspect we should find it accurate enough. Jesus hid Himself by the simplest of means: becoming part of the crowd.
It is to be noted that the easiest way to hide generally turns out to be hiding in plain sight. Those who seek to hide by other means tend to make their intentions obvious, and thereby raise the suspicions of those watching. If, for instance, I suddenly duck down below window level as the car I am in passes a police cruiser, the officers in that cruiser are far more likely to take an interest in me than if I am simply sitting as I normally would. There is a reason why the one who starts running when the cops arrive is the one they are going to focus on. It broadcasts a sense of guilt on the part of the runner. Those who just continue as they were profess innocence by their action. Either may be a lie, but the evidence presented to the eye is too suggestive to ignore.
Likewise, in a place as crowded as the Temple might be supposed to be on the typical day, nothing could be easier than to slip into that crowd. Oh, it’s to be understood that many in the immediate vicinity were riled up and looking to stone this Man, but not all of them. The crowd was not universally hostile to His message, nor universally convinced that He was a blasphemer. He could easily have chosen to move into the crowd where they were not picking up stones, and those who were not thus occupied would have no particular cause to point out His path to those who were. These are two very distinct bodies of opinion, and each must be wholly anathema to the other by this point. There could only be two ways to react to what Jesus had just said. No room had been left for ambivalence or tolerance. Once through the first wall of that crowd, Jesus could easily make His way to the exits without ever once encountering those hostile to His truth. The disciples, at least some of whom I presume were also present, would have to follow suit. However, I would guess that the crowd broke them up, or that they were wise enough to break themselves up, so that the tide of their passing was not so evident to watchers above.
Now, then: I am going to save the particulars of the insult these Jews have thrown out for later and move more directly into the response Jesus makes to their baseless charge. His response is utterly dismissive of their accusation, anyway, and moves instead to matters of glory and honor. So, let us do likewise. Glory and honor: These are terms which we feel we understand until we are pressed to provide a definition for them. If I added a request to explain the difference between the two, it should only become more difficult. Given that we are also dealing with translated material, and the problem of determining what, if anything, Jesus meant to indicate by the distinction becomes a true challenge.
Let me start, then, with the underlying terms: doxa and timao. Doxa, as we generally think of it, is a matter of splendor and majesty. It is, if you will, visible greatness. It is interesting, then, to note that Zhodiates indicates the meaning in Scripture is almost universally that of recognition. In other words, it’s not so much that the greatness is visible, but that one acknowledges what is seen. Timao, on the other hand, has to do with perceived value. In other words, we honor someone because we think them valuable. This is the idea behind veneration. One thing becomes clear in this: the terms are more similar than we might suppose. If, then, we talk of glorifying somebody or something, it is making our own veneration and honoring of that somebody or something as evident as glory is generally deemed to be.
Turning to the English language, Webster’s gives us a meaning of praise and honor ‘extended by common consent’ for the term glory, as well as that meaning of magnificence. For honor, the definition leans towards reputation: a good name, a known character of purity and integrity. Again, we see that the two terms are connected, although bearing a slightly different shade.
So, consider: Jesus says that He does not seek His own glory. He is not out there trying to get folks to praise and honor Himself. He notes that He honors the Father. Looking back to Webster’s again, let me consider the verbal form: He treats with respect. Alternatively, looking to the second definition given, He seeks to live up to or fulfill the terms of a commitment to the Father. This is not stating it quite strongly enough. He doesn’t seek to do this. He does it. He does live up to the terms the Father has specified for life. This is why Jesus is Man with a capital M.
This also, by the way, fully introduces the thrust of His last argument against the Pharisees, and once more sets Him out as the reality of that which they have merely been playing at. He honors the Father. He keeps the commitments. He obeys the commandments. He doesn’t pretend. He doesn’t put on a show of it. He doesn’t do one thing in public and another at home. He certainly doesn’t lower the standard and then claim maintaining the lower standard as honor. Furthermore, and this is a definite slap in the face of the Pharisees, He doesn’t do any of this in order to garner praises for Himself.
Compare and contrast this with the practices of the Pharisee in that time. Elsewhere, when Jesus pronounces His woe upon that movement, we shall hear of those practices, and we shall learn that just about everything the Pharisee did was for show. Just about everything was about making oneself look good, garnering praises from the people for one’s great piety. Let me state plainly, here, that where piety is real, there is nothing wrong with being praised for it, such as it is. The issue is getting into that mode of doing it strictly for the praise. Because, what we find in such cases is that when the opportunity for praise is removed, the actions change.
What do I mean? Well, take some of the examples from that woe. They pray, but only when there’s somebody around to notice how prayerful they are. They make great show of their public avoidance of anything or anyone less obviously holy than themselves. Go near a sinner? I should think not! It might rub off! Indeed, their disdain for those who do not make as great a show of it as themselves has been clear already. These commoners! What do they know of God? These uneducated Galileans! What can they possibly bring to the discussion of heaven? Come! Even the Sadducees are suspect, and you would have us listen to this rabble?
I suppose we could as easily choose to hear Jesus say things the other way around: that He glorifies His Father, and does not seek honor for Himself. It works out almost the same that way. However, He has said what He has said. He honors His Father. That, I must say, is a very human picture, although He speaks of God in heaven. It is something that I suppose every man and woman can understand at a visceral level. We may not grasp the specifics of the matter in His case, but we have a sense that honoring our own father is right and good, and dishonoring him casts our own character in a very bad light.
To grasp the full power of that statement, though, I think we need to hear at least one other statement Jesus has made on this subject. The Father, He says, has given all judgment into the hands of His Son, and He has done so with a specific purpose in mind: “in order that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (Jn 5:22-23). Note well the implication of that statement: God has made it so. The Father has acted with the explicit purpose of making it clear that His Son is equal with Himself. He is worthy of equal honor to the Father. This comes from the One who proclaimed, “you shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex 20:3). This, from the Jealous God, the God who will not share His glory. What does this say, then? What it says is that Father and Son are One. They are equal precisely because they are One. They are worthy of the same honor because they are the same God. In declaring the Son worthy of equal honor, God has not required Himself to share His glory with another. He is sharing that glory with Himself. This may twist our limited human minds in a knot, but it is what it is.
On that occasion, however, Jesus did not stop with the declaration that He was to be awarded equal honor. Listen to the end of that sentence in John 5:23: “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father.” Now step back into what He has just said to those who are slandering His name. “You dishonor Me.” In that fashion which can only be found in the essence of the Triune God, Jesus honors His Father by honoring Himself. It cannot be otherwise. By corollary, these opponents of His dishonor the Father by dishonoring Jesus. Again, it cannot be otherwise. Behold, the Lord your God, He is One! Though the Son be Incarnate upon the earth and the Father remain upon His throne in heaven, He is One. This has not been changed, nor ever shall be. But, we have allowed our limited knowledge to gain a greater foothold in our thinking than heavenly knowledge. So, we find this conception difficult to bear. For many, the temptation to decide that there must be multiple gods in this conception of Trinity after all is too much. Even those who grasp the unity of Trinity are often inclined to slip into a multi-god perspective on the subject when they are not careful. It’s a hard thing, this Trinity concept. But, we must hold that in Trinity, God is yet One, else we fail of true belief.
As to this matter of glory, one statement in particular really hits home for me. Admittedly, I am taking this wholly out of context. I will see what happens if I put it back in, but for the moment, just consider this statement in stark relief. “I don’t receive glory from men” (Jn 5:41). Yes, that’s Jesus speaking. Yes, there are a few ways we might take His meaning there. To begin with, we might understand Him to mean that men don’t offer that glory to Him in the first place, and there would certainly be truth in that statement, at least taken on the grand scale. Men, by and large, do not recognize Jesus for His true worth and character, even today. Looking at it globally, we have many religious groups outside of Christianity that, being forced to acknowledge the historical reality of Jesus, are yet unwilling to grant Him His due. They must be unwilling, else they would have to reject their own religion in favor of the true faith!
So, they may account Him a good man, a good teacher, maybe even a great prophet. But… There will always be that exception, that point that falls short of the Truth of the God-Man. They must reject that final step, because it would require of them what they are unwilling to give: a true glorification of the Christ in their own estimation, a recognition of the whole reality of the Son of God, very God of very God.
However, there is another way to hear what Jesus says in that statement. That is to suggest that He does not take into account the things men do or say about Him. Going back, once again, to what glory can mean, we are talking of magnificence, a visible greatness. It is in that light that I am thinking upon this matter at the moment. In other words, Jesus’ greatness is not something He obtains by the hand of man. His magnificence is not founded upon the number of followers He has in a given time or place. His greatness is founded solely upon Himself.
Any number of fictions and explorations of one ancient mythos or another has wandered into the line of thought that asks, “what happens to a god when nobody believes in him anymore?” Indeed, for the atheist, although he may not ask that question directly, the answer must be of great interest. In our day of militant atheism, it must surely be the hope that they can kill off the last vestiges of God if only they can get people to stop believing in Him. The Truth is quite the opposite, though. God’s greatness does not rest on man’s recognition of Him. He is not some egotistical tyrant in heaven who will go into a fit if He can’t get folks to praise Him constantly. He is already surrounded by more than enough beings to praise Him anyway, and frankly, even that is not necessary for His self-esteem. It certainly isn’t necessary for His existence. He is the self-existent One. He depends on nobody. He is the Source, not the result. He does not receive His being from men, nor His character, nor His true reputation. All of these things flow outward from Who He Is in Himself. If anything, it is exactly the opposite: that we receive our being from Him. If our character and reputation are of any worth whatsoever, these, too, have been received from Him.
This, at any rate, is the thought that struck me upon considering those words. I have to note, in support of my understanding, that receive translates the Greek lambano, which has the meaning of taking, laying hold of, or claiming for oneself. Looking at the setting of this verse, I see that Jesus is even here defending Himself against those who reject Him. “You do not receive Me” (Jn 5:43). The word is the same, and the meaning ought to be accepted as the same. You do not lay hold of Me, or claim Me for yourself. Likewise, I do not lay hold of that glory men try to foist upon Me.
It is interesting, this setting. Leading into the statement, He speaks of their unwillingness to come to Him for life. Following the statement, He notes that hey do not love God. And, in the middle, “I do not receive glory from men.” I have to return to that point that He remains unchanged in Himself. Their unwillingness, their rejection of His Godhead, their rejection of God Himself: none of this changes the Truth. It is as I have often said, the Truth remains true whether you choose to believe it or not. Calling it a lie does not make it so. It merely makes you foolish in your arrogance and delusion.
So, to the Pharisees with all their focus on garnering praises to themselves from the masses, Jesus says, “not Me! I don’t look to glorify Myself. I don’t receive glory from man.” That game may work for you (or so you like to think), but it’s empty and meaningless. After all, Jesus knew the heart of man, even then. He knew full well that those same throats that voiced Hosannas as He passed into Jerusalem that one last time would be calling for His death a short time later. Empty praise, empty glory. It means nothing if the reality is something different. All the praises and glory that the Pharisees garnered from the people around them would be worth absolutely zilch before the Judge. All the ridicule and spite heaped upon the Son by those same people would do nothing to tarnish the true glory of Him to Whom all judgment has been given.
There is something ominous, though, in that added clause, “There is One who seeks My glory, and He it is who passes judgment.” Follow the chain. You dishonor Me, you dishonor Him. He seeks that I may be glorified by you people as I ought to be. He will judge whether you have done so or not, and in so doing, He will judge whether you have glorified Him or not. Oh, yes, and He has passed that power to judge into My hands. So, then, I, whom you denigrate and slander and seek to destroy, shall be the One to hear your case when the time comes. You might wish to bear that in mind. Yet, rest assured in this knowledge: He who judges will judge truly. His justice is perfect because He is Justice. And, who knows? Perhaps there is time yet to call upon His mercy, for His mercy is also perfect because He is also Mercy.
Repent, then, and kiss the Son lest He be angry (Ps 2:12). Do homage to Him, lest you perish in the way. Oh, how blessed are all who take their refuge in Him! For He is the great and victorious warrior king of heaven, and His triumph shall be complete.
[07/207/09] Jesus returns to this matter of glory in the course of countering the charges made against Him, saying that if He were glorifying Himself, the result would be empty and meaningless. Literally, He says His glory would be nothing. This casts the matter of glory in the light of a habit we would commonly call bragging or boasting. Why, after all, are we so inclined to boast of our accomplishments, except to make sure everybody knows how great we are? However, the end result is more likely to be that those who must listen to such chatter will recognize it for the vanity it is. The truly great, it seems, are ever reticent to take notice of the fact.
As Jesus continues His point in this recapitulation, He does note that His Father does glorify Him. That, too, might be taken as boasting of a sort thinly disguised by calling another as the source. It is thus that He moves immediately to establishing that He says this solely because it is a fact pertinent to the argument (v55). He makes this point obliquely, but the point is made: In defending myself against your charge of self-aggrandizement, don’t think that I have given you grounds for another such charge. I only say what I say because it is the Truth and it bears on this matter you raise.
The nature of His argument at this point hinges on knowledge. Now, others may not find it so, but I find it interesting that in the point Jesus makes, He speaks of two distinct forms of knowledge and knowing. The distinction may not be that great, but there is, indeed, a distinction. We are dealing, after all, with a language that was particularly good at exploring the nuances of meaning. Greek, we might say, is the language of the philosopher. It is the language that gives us so many different terms to describe love. In English, for all intents and purposes, we have but one by which to refer to the entire spectrum of terms Greek offers.
In this matter of knowing, the case is similar. This is a topic I have explored at length elsewhere, but I always find myself curious as to just what sort of knowing is indicated when the word comes up. Here in verse 55, we have the two most common verbs for knowing, ginosko and oida. The latter term is a variant of the term eido, and that connection should help to nail the specific meaning to be understood there. Eido is the verb to see, and thus takes the meaning to perceive. It expands, as does the English equivalent, to incorporate that which the senses bring to our understanding, and even to that matter of understanding itself. Are we not inclined to say, “I see!” when we finally grasp a point being made? We may be hearing the explanation given us by somebody else. We may be feeling our way along, trying to discern how some mechanism operates. But, whichever sense we are using to find the answer, when it is found we say we see. That is the knowledge of oida.
Where these two terms are distinguished, oida is generally taken as indicating the knowledge of intuition. It is what we are able to perceive and understand ‘immediately’. In other words, it is that which doesn’t necessarily take great exercises of rational thinking to arrive at. That is not to say it is devoid of sense, by any stretch. It is more that oida, being that which the senses report to our brains, is relatively clear and easily assimilated.
Ginosko, on the other hand, refers to experiential knowledge. While there is the clear meaning, here, that this is knowledge gained from experience, there is more to it than simply that. Here, too, there is that issue of observation, so we are not entirely separate from the knowledge we gained by oida. However, with ginosko, we are touching upon the empirical. This, according to Webster’s, may have implications for good or for ill. To the negative, it can indicate theories arrived at by less than rigorous application of method. I.e. one has observed some data points, undergone certain experiences, and formed one’s theories immediately upon that minimal data set. However, on the positive side, the accuracy of those theories are able to be submitted to experimentation, or to data obtained through further observation, such that the theories may be proved or disproved.
This, of course, has drawn us into modern meanings for our terms. But, that is a necessary matter for understanding, is it not? If we cannot bring Scripture to bear on our present-day patterns of thought and action, then it becomes a dead letter. This is not to say that Scripture needs to be made relevant in such ways as are becoming sadly common in our day. It’s not that we need hip packaging and all the latest gadgetry of presentation in order to captivate every thought and imagination to the power of the Word. It’s that we must take the message, as it was intended for its original audience, and bring it forward in such ways as to make it comprehensible and with the same meaning for ourselves. To do less is to fail as a student of the Word, and to settle for vain opinions when real Truth is laid out before us.
In verse 55, Jesus says his opponents don’t ginosko God, but that He does oida God. The question that must be resolved is first, did Jesus intend anything more than varied vocabulary in speaking thus, and second, if so, what was His intent? To the first question, I would say that I find no great cause to think Jesus was concerned about linguistic niceties. He is not, primarily an author, although He does have a phenomenal talent for parables. But, parables do not require finessing of the language. They would not call for varying words for the simple ability to use multiple terms. He is not, in this case, speaking with that particularly Jewish form of parallelism, else He would choose terms more divergent to further express His meaning. Of course, I must also acknowledge that, at least when measured as a simple man, He was not a deep scholar of the Greek language, either. Yet, the form of Greek we are given in the Scriptures is the Koine, the common form. In other words, the fundamentals of the language were commonly known. It was the language of the marketplace, not that of the philosopher’s circles.
All this to say that I would expect that if Jesus chose to use two distinct words in this verse, He did so with a distinct purpose in the choosing. So, for His opponents, the experiential knowledge, the gaining of knowledge, the intimate knowledge. Here, we must be a bit careful. There is that Hebraistic meaning to the word, which they used as a euphemism for illicit sexual intercourse. Whether there were applications of a less sinful nature to the depth of knowledge in other areas I cannot say for certain. What strikes me as a potentially more applicable sense of the word, is that in ginosko, there is this matter of acknowledging and approving the knowledge gained. With all that, we might hear Jesus as saying that they had thus far had no true experience knowledge of who God really is, nor, when they were handed such knowledge, did they accept or approve of it.
For His own part, Jesus declares that He has that intuitive, more immediate knowledge of oida. He has seen God, heard God, touched God. His senses have brought Him clear and obvious data on the matter of God. He has it first hand. Further more, He owns that knowledge as His own. He has deep regard for it, cherishes it, and attends well to every implication of the knowledge He has of His Father. This point is reiterated in what follows: “and I keep His word.”
I have to say that with that final point, there is the unspoken counterpoint for those who don’t know, don’t acknowledge and don’t approve. With that as their starting point, it must be clear that they also don’t keep His word. How can they when they refuse to know it?
It would be within reason to suppose that the knowledge of experience is deeper than that of intuition. In general, I think it might be taken that way. After all, the experiential knowledge of ginosko lies at the root of the life-changing knowledge of epignosis. Yet, in this case, I think it must be understood that this One who has such firsthand knowledge of God, having seen and heard and walked with Him through all eternity, also has that experiential knowledge, and in a degree these men could never hope to match. An eternity of fellowship with the Father gives one an great deal of time to garner that experience, after all!
I think, then, that we have arrived at the point being made: They have no experience of God, and will not accept or acknowledge the truth of Him when they are confronted by it. He has direct and immediate knowledge of God, built upon a fellowship that dates back long before Abraham was born. They reject out of hand the Truth. He keeps it. They know about as much about the Law as they do about the God who imparted the Law. He obeys it to the full. They claim a parentage denied by their actions, and act in the ways of a father they deny. He is consistent as a true Son of the true Father, cherishing and obeying, His character shaped wholly by that which He has observed in His Father.
This serves as a fine bridge back to the context of the debate we have been observing between Jesus and His opponents. The issue at stake is legitimacy, and legitimacy is represented by parentage. Both Jesus and those who are arrayed against Him have made their claims to lineage, and each has sought to strike down the claims made by the other.
For the Jews, there have been two major claims: first, that Abraham is their father, indicating a pure bloodline, and second, that God is their father, indicating a pure spirituality. Jesus acknowledges the bare physical reality of that first claim. Yes, they could doubtless produce documented evidence of their descent from Abraham. He leaves unsaid that any number of non-Jews could make the exact same claim with equal legitimacy. He could have pointed out that this physical connection means nothing, but He chose a different course. He chooses to point out that while descendents, their legitimacy is suspect. It is suspect because they do not act anything like the father they claim. They may be children descended from that man, but they are not sons after his own heart.
The second claim is dealt with by producing, based on the same evidence used to indicate the illegitimacy of their claim to the badge of Abrahamic honor, the father their actions indicate as their true source of inspiration. They may say that God is their father, but actions speak louder, and their actions clearly proclaim that the devil is their father.
For their part, they are aware of the more immediate record of Jesus’ birth, or so they assume. They have attacked on that line, because they feel certain that they can demonstrate that He is illegitimate by birth and therefore illegitimate as to message. But, their knowledge of His lineage, as it turns out, is just as spotty as their knowledge of God and Truth. They are running on rumor, not fact, and as such, their attempts on His legitimacy are easily dismissed. Of course, in doing so, Jesus must produce His real Father, and He has done so in this passage. You cannot arrive at the end of this chapter without recognizing that Jesus has very clearly indicated that He is God’s own Son. Those who stood listening to Him certainly couldn’t, and they clearly didn’t. However much they may have misunderstood all that was said leading up to this, and however willful they were in refusing to understand, now the point is made so blatantly that there can be no ignoring it any longer. There can be no other meaning in what He has said. Those who, in our own day, insist that Jesus did not know Himself (or think Himself) to be the Son of God are insisting on what they must surely know is not the Truth. I dare say that they show themselves more willful and more dishonest than these men who opposed Jesus to His face.
That said, the point here is parentage and lineage, but it is parentage and lineage in terms greater than that pursued in the typical family tree. These are not matters such as we might find here in New England, where there is a certain cachet in being able to show one’s descendants arrived on the Mayflower. Clearly, having a descendant on the Mayflower does not make one a Pilgrim or even a Puritan. Likewise, being able to trace one’s family tree back to Abraham does not make one a child of the Promise.
In a sense, then, what has happened in this court case is that Jesus has effectively severed the Jewish connection to Father Abraham. The legitimacy of any future claims to the inheritance left by Abraham is destroyed. If they would have their right to that inheritance restored, they will have to find an avenue to their own restoration. They will need to be redeemed.
It is interesting, in light of this, that I happened to be reading from the book of Ruth this morning, as part of the day’s Table Talk devotional. She, too, was dependent upon a redeemer for her future and her inheritance. It was not enough to be in the land. It was not enough to be able to produce a marriage document. Unless that redeemer stepped up, she had no future to speak of. This is, then, a clear parable of Israel’s condition. But, for Israel, that Redeemer has come, and she rejected Him. Yet, He is a passionate pursuer of her favor. He has not given up, nor will He. How could the One who chose Israel out of all the nations of the earth leave her in the end to die hopeless and unloved? He cannot!
Listen to what is said on their behalf: “For there shall be a day when watchmen On the hills of Ephraim shall call out, ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, To the Lord our God.’” For thus says the Lord, “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, And shout among the chiefs of the nations; Proclaim, give praise, and say, ‘O Lord, save Thy people, The remnant of Israel.’ Behold, I am bringing them from the north country, And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth, Among them the blind and the lame, The woman with child and she who is in labor with child, together; A great company, they shall return here. With weeping they shall come, And by supplication I will lead them; I will make them walk by streams of waters, On a straight path in which they shall not stumble; For I am a father to Israel, And Ephraim is My first-born.” Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, And declare in the coastlands afar off, And say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him, And keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock” (Jer 31:6-10 NASB). “Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a delightful child? Indeed, as often as I have spoken against him, I certainly still remember him; Therefore My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him,” declares the Lord (Jer 31:20).
Like the prodigal son, they have made themselves as reprehensible to their Father as they could possibly do, yet He continues to love them. Yet, He continues to hold out the hope that they shall return to Him. They are, in this regard, just exactly like ourselves. We, too, have been the cause of an infinite heartache for God. We, too, have spent the better part of our youth wandering far astray, squandering what was ours by right and design. We, too, have acted in such a way that our lineage was severed. But, Daddy God, our Father – our Father! – took steps to see that we snapped out of our self-destructive foolishness. He took steps to set us on the path back towards home, and He stood, patiently waiting, to enfold us in His arms of love on that day we walked back into His life.
Listen! He Who severed the branch of Israel from the tree of life is also He who grafted us into place on that same tree. Surely, He is able to graft the original branch back in when the time is right! Surely, He Who keeps Israel is faithful! He neither slumbers nor sleeps, nor has any word of His, any promise of His, ever been spoken without accomplishing its purpose in the earth. If He has declared a remnant shall be preserved, then we can be quite certain that said remnant will be preserved. If He has shown such love for us, who were strangers and enemies to His household, how much more will He manifest His great love for those He long ago set aside as His own portion?
But, for the moment of time that we see before us in the record of the Gospels, the line had to be severed. Discipline required tough love such as we shall never be called upon to show to our own children. The punishment that must come upon His household for their rebelliousness in that day would be terrible, and no father could see that on the horizon and welcome its coming. Look, He wasn’t pleased to send them into Babylon, to see David’s kingdom utterly destroyed. He wasn’t pleased, either, to have Jerusalem destroyed at the hands of Rome, wasn’t pleased by the utter degradation His people underwent in that destruction. Neither was He pleased to see those later evils that would befall His people, nor those that continue to dog them to this day. But, neither would He prevent the discipline. Love that spares the discipline that may bring about honorable character is no love at all. It is, in the end lazy, and disdainful of the welfare of that child one would claim to love. It is terrible, because such a failure to discipline sets that child up for a failure from which there will be no recovery.
[07/29/09] What Jesus says of Abraham must cause quite a stir, for Abraham is so central to the very identity of those He speaks with. Were I to speak in similar terms of George Washington, even that would not begin to compare other than in its capacity to generate consternation. He rejoiced to see My day. He did see it and he was glad. The reaction of that crowd is actually pretty predictable. Even amongst those who held to a belief in the afterlife, it would be a bit jarring to hear it spoken of with such immediacy, such reality. These are the words of a madman. How else would you take such a claim yourself? If I told you that the founding father of this nation had seen me and rejoiced, what else would you think than that I had gone off the deep end. Either that, or I was on some serious drugs. You surely wouldn’t think there was any truth to what I had just said. So it is with these men hearing Jesus. If they had any least inkling as to His true nature, it might not have been this way, but their inability to hear Him with any acceptance or understanding leaves them utterly unprepared for this point.
The question that deserves consideration, though, is what did Jesus mean by this? Was it truly an allusion to the eternal life of the faithful? Or did He mean to credit the prophetic sense of the man? Is He speaking of Abraham as then and current, sitting in heaven and looking down with joy to see the Son walking the earth? Or, is He indicating that Abraham had been given a vision of this time?
It is interesting that so many of the references provided to help understand this verse tend to include Hebrews 11:13. There, we read of those who died in faith, with the point made that they had not received the promises at the time of their death, only saw them from a distance. The implication in this is that we should understand Jesus to be saying something similar of Abraham. He understood the promises he had been given. He knew what they portended as far as it concerned Messiah. And, his faith was such that he knew God’s promise to be a certainty. Thus, he went to his grave satisfied, even though the time had not yet come.
That, however, falls short of completing the story. There is more said of Abraham than merely crediting his faith during life. The Amplified Bible speaks of him as being “extremely happy at the hope and the prospect of seeing My day.” This is more than the prophetic vision of the day, then. He needed that to know there was such a prospect. What is being said, then, is that he was certain (for hope in Scriptural usage is more than wishful thinking, it is certainty in God’s promise) that he would see it. He would be there. Do you see it? Those who died in faith did not lose prospect of experiencing the longed for day because they had died. Abraham was not disappointed of his hopes because of the grave. He did indeed see the day he had been promised sight of, and he was overjoyed to see it. That is what Jesus is telling us here.
In some ways, this really does echo the point He made to Martha when Lazarus lies in the tomb. “If you believe in Me you will never die” (Jn 5:24). On that occasion, He felt it necessary to ask Martha, “Do you believe this?” He was quite aware that she accepted the reality of the resurrection. But, it’s one thing to accept truth as a theory, and quite another to accept it in application. Amongst those Jesus is dealing with in this passage, the majority held resurrection to be a part of sound doctrine. It would seem, though, that they missed the implications of that doctrine. It wasn’t as if those who had gone to Sheol had been snuffed out for millennia, but would be snapped back to life at some later date. No! Life continues apart from the tent of the body, for it is ever the spirit that is central to being. So, when Jesus says that Abraham saw, he means just that. From his place in the waiting room of heaven, he saw, and he was glad. He was glad, for he could not help but understand that what he was seeing meant the day of God’s victory, of God’s rescue of man.
As I have been saying, the whole battle here has been a question of the legitimacy of parentage. They claimed Abraham as father. He claimed God as Father. Bearing that point in mind, look again at what Jesus says beginning near the end of verse 54. If I may borrow from my loose translation thereof: “You keep saying is your God. Yet you have no experience of Him, you don’t even begin to know Him and His ways.” This is of one piece with the point He had made earlier. “You seek to kill Me for telling you God’s truth, which Abraham did not do” (Jn 8:40).
The contrast, then, between Abraham and these who claim to be his children is most telling, now that we are given the full picture. Abraham had also heard God’s truth coming from Jesus. He rejoiced. These seek to kill him. And they wish to be called sons of Abraham? They are unworthy of the name!
I have thus far considered Jesus’ reaction to the attack upon His legitimacy. But, it is worthwhile to also look at the attack itself, to consider briefly the nature of the offensive launched against His honor. Let me set the stage, however, so that we retain the context for their accusation. Beginning back in John 8:44, we find Jesus laying out the case for their real lineage going back to the devil, the father of murder and lies. They trace back to the serpent rather than the Adam. Oh, they have their physical ties, yes, but their actions are prompted by their true father. Then, to seal this slap to their honor, He tacks on: “I speak truth, and the truth is you are not of God.” This is serious stuff! They cannot let that stand unchallenged. They are the experts on holiness! They must answer or find the case lost immediately.
So, they answer. They answer in the fullness of their indignation. We are the devil’s spawn? Come, let’s have the truth! It is you! Would we not be quite accurate in saying that you, sir, are a Samaritan, a madman, a demon possessed pawn of the devil? Why should we believe a word of what you say? This is the charge. And, I dare say, as they spoke of Him being a Samaritan, there was a spitting of that word, quite possibly a most literal spitting. Indeed, I’m not sure which they would have considered the greater issue: demon possession or being a Samaritan. In most respects, they may well have thought the two interchangeable, so deeply did they despise the Samaritans.
Another possibility is that they just wanted to plant another seed of suspicion. He was from the north, after all. He said He was from Galilee, but maybe He’s just another Samaritan heretic come to trouble the true faith. This would then be a case of poisoning the well. Honestly, that is what they are doing either way. This is not a reasoned response to what He has said. No effort is made to point to any error in His assessment. They simply seek to discredit Him, to paint Him in a suspect light, and thereby to turn the people’s opinion against Him. So they call Him a Samaritan. That in itself would be felt as grounds to dismiss whatever He might say. In fact, it would be grounds to avoid being anywhere near Him, at least so far as anybody in Jerusalem would view the matter.
What was it about these Samaritans that made them so reprehensible in the eyes of the Judeans? A quick look at the history shows that these were the people left behind when the ‘important’ people were sent into exile. The majority were probably local farmers or the like, whom the conquering nations saw as no particular threat to themselves. Furthermore, as was typical of these conquerors, foreigners had been sent to the lands that these remaining Jews lived in. It is unclear to what degree, if any, intermarriages occurred between the Jewish remnant and these foreign settlers. What does seem clear enough is that the Jews who stayed held to their faith in God, and that the foreigners who came viewed the Jewish God as the rightful God of the region. Whether those foreigners became proselytes or not is another question, and there, I think the answer is pretty clearly that they set up their own idols to worship, but (by their thinking, at least) gave this God of Israel His due.
In this, they were not much different than those peoples that Israel had failed to clear from their lands when first they came. It is doubtful, then, that the natives during this occupation were any more successful at remaining pure Israelites was any better than had been the record of Israel at the height of its own kingdom powers. There would be those who chased after false gods and those who held to the true God. Thus it had ever been, and thus, I suspect, it ever shall be with God’s people.
What is interesting to note is what transpired when the exiled Israelites returned under Nehemiah and Ezra. Those who returned came with a priority of rebuilding the Temple of God which had been destroyed. They came with the authorization of their conquerors. When they arrived, those who had remained in the land came to them with an earnest desire to help in that reconstruction. Now, I could be wrong, but to me that says that real faith was still alive in these folks. They might need some instruction to clear up any error that had crept into their doctrine during the seventy years of an absent priesthood, but they still sought to follow the God of Israel and to serve Him. They were still sons of Israel. But, those who came from Babylon rejected them, would not take their offer of help, and shooed them away as unfit to be associated with. Somehow, it’s not that surprising that those who had come to help became bitter at their treatment. It’s not surprising that we find them acting in opposition to the project that rejected them. Honestly, I don’t think it was the project they opposed so much as those proud men who were running the project.
Now, I have to say that I have great respect for Nehemiah and for Ezra. The faith that they display in getting both Temple and city reestablished in the face of such violent opposition is true and praiseworthy. But, in this decision, one must wonder if they were following God’s direction, or manifesting an unhealthy pride. We suffered, not you. We are the true Israel. That’s why God disciplined us with the exile. You were left here because He has made you orphans. We remained pure in our enclave, but we have no idea what you people have been doing in our absence. And, somehow, it never occurs to them that the ones who had stayed in the land might view them with equal suspicion, might be able to make much the same sorts of statements in regard to themselves.
I don’t know. It may well have been God’s perfect will to so alienate this Jewish population that became known as the Samaritans, but somehow I doubt it. It feels more like one of those errors akin to Abraham and Sarah trying to rush the promise, and winding up seeding the unending problem of the Arab nations. On the other hand, of course, God is perfectly sovereign, and was not taken aback by the things His people did. Ishmael has been worked into His perfect plan, and so, too, the Samaritans. But, what would have happened if Nehemiah and company had accepted these brothers back with open arms? How different would things have been?
If ever there was an example set before us of what can happen when the seed of bitterness is allowed to take root, it seems to me that the Samaritans are it. This rejection was never resolved, never dealt with. Rather than seek to forgive, rather than to pray for those who had slighted them, they chose revenge. Rejected as help to the cause, they became determined to see that cause fail and to see its proponents crushed. If they could not do it by strength of arms, they would do it by politics. My! They acted towards the returning Jews much like these folks are now acting towards Jesus! It is not a Samaritan trait that they manifest, then, but a common trait of fallen humanity.
It is part of our fallen nature to lick our wounds, to hold onto our grudges, to nurse our lust for vengeance against those who have wronged us. It has been that way since the first sons of Adam, hasn’t it? And, how often it is in matters of faith and worship that the offenses we allow to poison us first take root! What was it, after all, that first set Cain against Abel? It was the perceived offense in worship. It was the gentle rebuke of God against the improper offering that had been made. Rather than correct his own practices, the offender chose to become bitter with he who had been accepted by God.
Here is a lesson we must take to heart: That one who is accepted by God will almost invariably be found as the cause of bitterness in those who are not. This is not any fault in the accepted, but solely the nature of the unaccepted. They are not inclined to correct their course, and so, yet those who pursue the right path make their error too obvious to ignore. So, they must tear down the ones who are right. They must seek to improve their comparison, and if they refuse to change themselves, then of course they must force change on the other.
Much as it pains me, I need to accept that this is an issue I have need to check in myself. There are those to whom I find myself reacting in a very negative way because, in my opinion, they have become ‘too heavenly minded’. They are ‘too much’. I want them to come back down to earth, to return to the real world. So, I become offended by their faith. The question I must ask myself, and really, I must ask God to reveal to me – hammer through my thick head if necessary – is whether they are too much, or I am too little. I suppose it could be both. But, the point is simply that I must be very careful that I not make their devotion and purity an excuse for my bitterness against them. I should rather rejoice to see their growth in the kingdom of God, even if it outstrips me. Indeed, I should find encouragement in their growth, encouragement to go, therefore, and do likewise.
But, let me get back to the Samaritan problem. Whatever lay at the root of the division, the impact of that division and the failure to reunite is terrible to behold. They began with opposition to the reestablishing of the temple, but they didn’t stop there. As Israel reformed, they stood apart to the north. If anything, they decided to react to the return of the temple by moving in the opposite direction. As the true faith returned, they set up an alternate faith. Oh, they still spoke of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I somehow doubt, though, that they spoke of the God of Israel. They had been told they were not Israel, so why would the continue to serve Israel’s God? What happened? They bent the revelation. They twisted things about ever so slightly. Then, because this had become a competition of sorts, they began to shift the practices of worship. Theirs was a more comfortable religion. Concessions were made for human frailty. People, after all, needed to relax. Life was hard enough without making faith a challenge, too.
The result of this was predictable. When those in Israel found themselves corrected by the strict rule of the Temple, they took the cowardly rebel’s route, and headed north to the church across the street, where they didn’t truck with such rules. Why submit to discipline, when I can go over there and they’ll accept me as I am? So, the false church to the north grew, but it grew in malcontents, and it grew in its opposition to the Truth. Nor, did this stop with the coming of the Messiah.
It must be remembered that He retained an exclusivity in His ministry, though it had been intended only for a time. It was a matter of due order. Israel must come first, have the right of first refusal. Yet, His plans had always included Samaria, and indeed, the whole world. After all, His plans were God’s plans, and one doesn’t need to dig too deeply in the Old Testament to recognize that God never intended to satisfy Himself with Israel alone. But, in the course of His own ministry, there had only been that one stop in Samaria that we know of. A small inroad had been made, seemingly by accident, but that was it. On the larger scale, He had even instructed His disciples not to preach there. Yet, He had demonstrated a respect for those Samaritans that was quite foreign to the larger Jewish population. He did not absolutely avoid the region, as most would. He even used them as an example of a faith that was more accurate than that of the proud Pharisees. But, the root of Samaritan bitterness remained. They would focus not on the ways He sought to restore their honor, but rather on the slight they perceived in His refusal to minister in their region.
So, this same people that had opposed the restoration of the true Temple were found to be just as actively opposed to the restoration of the true faith as it was presented in Christianity. As Christianity was spreading through the Empire, it would find Samaritans already there ahead of the Church. These were the bankers, the moneylenders. They were also a very active part of the opposition. When we read of the Jews who rejected Paul at every hand, it may not be so much the Pharisees and Sadducees that we are reading about, as it is these Samaritans. The root of their bitterness was never severed, and so, the bitterness grew, even as the people itself declined. That same root of bitterness was planted in the greater Jewish population, as the Church that had sprung from their temple found cause to reject its heritage. What had begun as a truly Jewish faith began to purge itself of Jews, becoming a more purely Gentile faith. Yet, Paul, writing to the church in Rome, is adamant in reminding his readers that the exclusion of the Jews was but for a season, that they had not been rejected finally as a people.
The remnant remains, as it always has and it always will. What could be said of Israel at the manifestation of the Christ might just as easily be said of the Church in our own time. What we see between Judea and Samaria plays out between the various denominations and sects of Christianity on a daily basis. We, too, have our moments of pride. We, too, have our badges of authenticity to which we point, and many of those are as inappropriate as tests of authenticity as was descent from Abraham. Abraham fathered many nations, but only the one was chosen. Christianity has spawned many forms, and some number of those are as false in lineage as the Muslims are to true faith. Yes, they can point back to Abraham, but they cannot point back to the faith of Abraham, for they do not do as Abraham did.
Indeed, if I look back over the argument that Jesus presented to His people, surely the same applies in spades to His cousins in Arab lands! “You do the deeds of your father. He was a murderer from the start. He lies whenever he speaks, because he is the father of lies, he can do no other.” Those who would claim that jihad is a reasonable way to manifest godliness, whose highest view of their god is as he who will serve as their personal pimp, providing them with a whole roomful of prostitutes, how can this be seen as anything but a lie? When they suppose that the God of heaven seeks only chattel, would as soon destroy the life He created as save it, they are not promoting God, they are promoting the father of murder, and they do only what they see their father doing. He comes only to kill and destroy, and so his children do likewise.
But, it is not just the violence of the Muslims that we must consider. We must consider our own house as well. There have been periods when the error that has poisoned certain corners of the Church became equally evident by its violence, but it is often more pernicious, more cleverly concealed in order that it may deceive the more. Wherever the true doctrines are set aside in favor of a more comfortable, more acceptable doctrine, we are seeing the sons of the liar at work in our own house.
The plain truth of the matter is that there are many within the population of the church who are utterly devoid of faith in Christ. They may give Him some nod of acknowledgement, but they are not there for Him. They are there for social contacts, perhaps, or to curry business opportunities. They are, like the Pharisees, doing what they feel they must in order to look good. But, as to true religion, they have no place for it and no interest in it. Wolves in sheep’s clothing. And these are the more benign imposters.
There are also many who truly come into the church in hopes of being party to its destruction. They would not put in those terms, except when surrounded by those of like purpose, but that is their intent. These are the purveyors of false doctrines. These are the proponents of refashioning the church after the world’s image. These are the ‘charlatans in leisure suits’ of which Steve Taylor wrote. They salt their lies with just enough Scripture to sound plausible, and then set themselves up to prey on those whose knowledge of God’s truth is weak enough that they can be misled. Yet, even these will stand before you and tell you that they are Christians. Oh, absolutely, sir! Among the best! Just look at the numbers, look at the accounts! We’re prospering, isn’t that proof enough that God is with us? Well, no. Frankly, it’s not. It proves nothing, and makes much more suspect.
If I look back across the history of this world, I can clearly see that the unbelievers have outnumbered the believers at pretty much every stage. Even within Israel at its height, there was but the remnant that held fast to God. Remnant. Not majority, but the few who are left. So, the church that points to its numbers as proof of its validity might do well to think again. The church that has become popular with the surrounding culture might do well to wonder why that is. Has the culture changed that dramatically? If so, then well done, good and faithful servants! But, if not: then it can only be the church has changed, and not for the better.
Abraham fathered many nations, Jews and Arabs alike. Of that nation the God of Abraham chose as His own, very few accepted Him as their God when He came to walk among them. Having rejected Him, they found themselves rejected by Him. Yet, even then, He says it is but for a time. He will not utterly forsake the nation He chose. Of course He won’t! He is faithful even when we are not. He has cut off their branch, but He has noted through His spokesmen that He is fully able to graft them back on when the occasion arise. We, then, who were grafted on in their place must bear in mind the need to hold to the True Vine, the trunk of the true Tree of Life. We, too, need to be aware of those who claim to share our lineage, and yet, are devoid of faith. The faithless may claim the lineage. They may even point to a long list of ancestry to prove their point. But, that list means nothing. It is the spiritual line, the line of Promise, that matters.
For us, then, who hold ourselves faithful, let us make our faith more certain. It’s one thing to say we know that Jesus is the Christ, and this is, by Scripture’s own testimony, one mark of true faith. But, that confession from us is an empty thing if our conception of the Christ is false. Many in Jerusalem thought it probable that Jesus was the Christ. But, they thought the Christ would be a man. He would be a man of some worth, a leader among men and savvy in the ways of war, but he would be a man, and nothing more. He would come to restore the earthly kingdom of Israel, leading its troops to victory over these oppressors from Rome. On these terms, they could accept and even say that Jesus was the Christ. But, when the true nature and office of the Christ is revealed to indicate that Jesus is not only God’s chosen representative for that time and place, but is Himself very God of very God, now there’s a problem. Now, those lips are unwilling to make the same confession.
So, with us. It is all well and good to claim that we are Christians, but if our Christianity is not reflective of the faith given once for all to the saints, then our claim is empty. The tests are throughout the Scriptures for us to take. If we say we love Him, but we go and do these things, we are deluded. If we claim to love Him, yet hate our brothers, we are beyond deluded. We are liars, sons of the father of liars. If we say we love Him, and yet, give no thought to doing as He has taught and commanded, where is faith in that? If we say we are His servants, and yet run after every chance to do the things He has told us to refrain from, who are we kidding? Not Him, certainly. Not those who observe us and wonder that He should employ such poor representatives.
Let me return, though, to the argument these opponents have thrown up against Jesus. First, there are the accusations of madness or worse. Then, they turn to matters of overweening pride. It’s interesting. This is pretty much the same reaction the Samaritan woman had when confronted with the Son of God. Are you greater than <insert hero of your choosing here>? For her, it was Jacob (Jn 4:12). For these, it is Abraham. And, to this, they add the prophets. Are you greater than the father of our nation? Well, yes, folks, He is. Are you greater than the prophets who spoke God’s message to us? Why, actually, yes. He IS the message! But, Jesus will not play their game. “I’m not here to buff up My own image. If that’s what I was doing, you would be right to reject Me. But, I’m not doing that. My Father is.”
Now, I had never noticed this before, but these Pharisees are actually alluding to Scripture with their questions, in fact, they all but quote one of the prophets in their question “Where are your fathers? Where are the prophets? Do they live forever” (Zech 1:5)? Look! The prophet himself notes that all men die, even the greatest. Yet, You stand here telling us that Abraham has seen You?
But, the prophet is clearly speaking of the limited life of the flesh. Jesus is speaking of something greater. For many, the concept of a life beyond that of this earthly existence is all but unthinkable. That number should not have included these men, if they were indeed Pharisees. Pharisees, after all, professed to a belief in the afterlife. They had not, however, really thought through the implications of all that. If there is a life beyond the grave, and that life proceeds through eternity, then one must either suppose such a barrier between the after life and the present that no observation is possible in either direction, or one must accept that those who have passed on are indeed witness to what now transpires.
Interestingly, the NET gives us a footnote to this whole discussion that attempts to paint John’s theology as somewhat unique in supposing that eternal life begins in the present, rather than beyond the grave. I am reticent, however, to suppose that each of the Apostles had their own unique theology. They certainly each had their areas of focus, and their own personalities would lead them to emphasize certain aspects of the faith more than others. But, there is one theology, for there is one God, and His hand has assuredly been on the development of the Scriptures by which He has purposed to reveal and explain Himself to man.
It really just stands to reason that if there is a life of the person that continues beyond the grave, it should be the same life that this person lived prior to the grave. Paul writes of us putting on a new body, a resurrection body, but the spirit was long since reborn, and the soul continues apace. If it were not so, then it would be some other person who had attained to eternal life by our salvation, and where is the sense in that? It strikes me that we have lost a great deal if we don’t perceive the reality of our existence in exactly the light that is attributed to John. That is, after all, one of the major distinctions of our faith.
Other religions speak of a continued life, but make of it a matter that is so disconnected that it is all but meaningless. Reincarnation, which is one form that such beliefs take, suggests that our life-force continues, but with no memory of what has gone before. Why, we may not even come back in human form! Perhaps in the next round we shall be a fly. What consciousness has a fly? Why would we think that this even makes sense?
Even amongst those who propose some sort of reincarnation limited to human form, other than making a fun topic for conversation, what would be the real point of such a continued life? If there is no memory of what we were previously, how is that continuation? We might as well lay claim to our eternality by the fact that we come from dust and return to dust. That dust may well become a component part of another’s body in some future remove. But, that does not make our life continuous. The dust motes to which our flesh has dissolved do not carry in themselves some spark of our prior genius. We might as well find ourselves with a certain spiritual affinity to our desktop, or our carpet, for by that measure we share just as much in common with them. Who knows? The same ancestral dust that has become part of my body might also be in the light bulb over my head. Shall I call it cousin?
The point, to me, stands thusly: Either eternal life continues with the same consciousness that is here in the present, or it is no continuation at all. It is not eternal life at all. But, the great truth of Scripture is that there really is an eternality to this life. We really shall continue on when this flesh has failed. Because that is the case, our present really does matter. For, Jesus makes clear that the decisions we have made in this lifetime, the character we have formed, and the faith we have either laid hold of or rejected will determine what the remainder of that life will be. Considering the few short years we have in this physical life, as measured against the eternity that follows after, how can we make light of that? Are the brief pleasures of this world worth throwing over all chance of prospering in the hereafter? Are the afflictions of the flesh anything worth taking into account when weighed against an eternity spent experiencing the fullest blessings of God?
OK. It may be easy for me to say that, compared to some. I am not battling a chronic illness. I have my struggles and my weaknesses of character to be sure, but I do not live with constant pain. I do not have to deal with blatant discrimination on a daily basis. I have no great torments in my life. But, I should like to think that were the case different, my outlook would not be. Part of the problem we have with modern forms of Christianity is that it has been turned into nothing but a self-help program. Believers have become so focused on the material aspects of the bless me now church format that they have barely a thought for eternity anymore. What use is eternity if I’m in pain today? My, but how far from Paul’s example we have strayed!
One more quick aside, here, before I move to the best parts of this passage: In Matthew’s account, we read a stunning declaration from Jesus. “I tell you in all truth that some of you standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom” (Mt 16:28). Much has been made of this. There have been those who see it as a proof that Jesus was not the Christ, that He was fallible and delusional. There have been those who take this as indication that the Second Coming already transpired, or that the Church by and large has in some other way been way off in its eschatology.
Others, seeking to defend the accuracy of these words, will necessarily accept that yes, all the Apostles indeed died, so far as the physical body was concerned, but that it was spiritual death that Jesus meant. They may point to that deeper meaning of death, which is an eternal separation from God. For, the soul, after all, is eternal, and cannot therefore be terminated in some fashion. Death, then, must mean something different, something more, to God. This is well and good, but if that had been His point, surely everybody would live to see the Son coming in His kingdom. They may see it from Hades, but they’ll see it.
Choosing a different approach, there are those who would point to the fact that His kingdom had come when He came, that in the act of Incarnation, His kingdom had arrived. Isn’t this, after all, what John was saying? Hadn’t Jesus said on any number of occasions that this was the case, either indicating that the kingdom was near or that the kingdom was here? But, if this were His meaning, then all had seen it already, and His words become empty and meaningless. Perhaps, they shall move the point of the kingdom’s arrival to the Resurrection, or to the Ascension. But, these events were near at hand, and there would be few if any who were not physically alive still when those events transpired.
What, though, if the issue is not with the nature of the death He is talking about, but rather with the nature of the seeing? The prophets saw His day, after all, long before that day had transpired in this world. They also saw it from the heavens as it unfolded here. But, so far as we know, only Moses and Elijah had thus far witnessed it in person in this earthly realm, and they only saw it for that brief moment on the mountaintop. But, if Jesus is speaking of prophetic vision, then certainly John counts as a fulfillment of the prophecy. What, after all, has he recounted to us in the Revelation other than the full arrival of the kingdom? It is hardly unreasonable to suppose that others among the Apostles also had vision of that time, although no record has been left to us. In short, what Jesus says in that prophecy is quite accurate and completed. They did see Him coming in His kingdom before their earthly bodies gave way, and we who are the church of our own time have not missed the physical arrival to come.
We may well find that we have joined the growing crowd of saints in heaven, who join with the living in worshiping the God of creation. This is what the author of Hebrews points us to: We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, he writes, which ought to encourage us to set aside every sin and endure in the faith (Heb 12:1). As we do so, there are two possible outcomes for us: Either we shall find ourselves amongst their number in time, joined with them to encourage those who come after, or we shall find ourselves in the final number, who are on the earth to greet the King at His return. Either way is a fine way, don’t you think?
[08/01/09] Finally, I am arrived at what is potentially the key verse of Jesus’ earthly ministry: “Before Abraham was born, I AM.” The other major candidate for that status is, “It is finished” (Jn 19:30), which is such an important fact to lay hold of in this walk of faith. But, the truth is, that “it is finished” would be of little value were it not for the fact that, “before Abraham was born, I AM.” It could as easily have been before Adam was born, or even before the universe was created. It matters not, in the end, what point in time you choose. Before that point, He is. It matters not to what distant future time you choose to refer. After that point, He is. He is the One who was, who is and who is to come. There is no point in all of time in which He is not. This is a claim that is only possible for One to make, and that One is God. The very fact of that claim – not that He makes it, but that it is True – declares that He is God. There is no time when He is not. There is no cause outside of Himself by which He has come into existence. He has not come into existence. He has always existed. He is existence.
Skeptical ‘scholars’ like to tell us that Jesus did not think Himself God during the years of His ministry. They like to look at the Gospels as having been polluted by the later needs of the Church, that they reflect not the real record of those three years, but only how the Church had tinkered with that record to support itself. But, this is Jesus making a clear statement as to His understanding of Himself. Clearly, what He understands Himself to be is God. Clearly, those with whom He has been arguing took His meaning to be exactly that. They would not take up stones against Him if they thought He was just a raving lunatic.
We need to bear in mind, as well, that these records that we have in the four Gospels were written in a time when those who had been eye-witnesses to the events, not just the Apostles, were still available to either corroborate or deny what was written. Let us suppose the argument of those skeptics is correct, that these writings represented the teaching of the church in that time, and how they had bent the record to suit their needs. If such had been the case, those teachings could very easily have been checked against the testimony of others outside of leadership. The twelve were not the sole witnesses to those three years. We have met many ancillary witnesses in the record. That Centurion up in Caesaria Philippi, for example. He’d be an easy one to look up. Luke, after all, was apparently able to uncover many witnesses to these events in preparing his own text. Nothing prevented those in the Church from doing likewise, particularly those in the church in Jerusalem. They would hardly even need to travel to begin asking questions.
Given the amount of opposition this sect faced from the outset, don’t you suppose that prospective new converts, or those recently coming to attend the church might be inclined to check things out just a bit? Do we think that these people, being from ancient times, were somehow incurious as to matters of faith? In Jerusalem, it was common understanding that association with this Church meant the threat of the Temple ban. Do we really suppose, then, that people joined the church with no searching out of its validity? Honestly, it would seem rather improbable to suppose that the Gospels were fabrications of the elders. Were that the case, the likelihood that we would find the Church persisting into our own day would seem highly improbable.
The most shocking part of this thing Jesus has said, then, at least as it would first hit the ears, is His use of the present tense in speaking of something so far back in history. Abraham’s day was millennia in the past. His name might still be known, but what of the place from which he came? Ur was gone. The kings of Ur were forgotten. Even Babylon which had encompassed that region was gone. Empires had risen and fallen since the days in which Abraham walked the land. Why, several centuries had passed just covering the period of Israel’s stay in Egypt. Yet, here is this young man in His early thirties declaring that even before that, He is.
It’s jolting enough to hear somebody claim to have been around that long, particularly one with such obvious youth about him. If He had said, “Before Abraham was, I was,” that would be enough of a challenge to accept. But, He said, “I am.” Even if we don’t hear that as the uttering of God’s own name, it is a shocking thing. It is saying that He is just as present in that long ago moment as He is in that moment in which they are speaking to Him. By implication, it is also saying that He is just as present right here, right now, in my study as He is in either of those other two points, or any other point. He is omnipresent. That is not just a matter of being in every place. It is also a matter of being in every time. We, with our linear experience of time, do not tend to consider omnipresence in that way, but there it is.
The simple fact of the matter is, though, that having spoken thus, there was only one way in which His claim could be true, and that would all but require hearing that “I am” as “I AM”. It is all but impossible not to hear Him identifying Himself as that very One who sent Moses into Egypt to fetch His people. As I said, it’s very clear by the reaction that this is how they took His meaning, as well. Hearing such a thing said, right here in the courts of the temple, they could not let it go unremarked. They must respond, and there were only two reasonable responses they could make.
Having heard this, each one present must come to his conclusion. Either this Man speaks Truth or He speaks blasphemy. His reasoned argument has shown clearly enough that He is no madman. His actions are too well known to take charges of demon-possession seriously. This eliminates any excuse for His statement. He has spoken from a free and lucid mind, and those hearing Him have to choose. If He has spoken Truth, then the only reasonable response available is to bow down before Him in worship, for the Truth is clearly that He is God. These God-fearing Jews, then, must surely honor the manifest presence of God in their midst as did their forebears. If, on the other hand, He is a blasphemer, then the mandates of the Scriptures are equally clear. Such a liar must be purged from the land, lest his pollutions be allowed to spread to the detriment of true faith.
In short, what we see playing out in the courts of the temple is the same drama that must play out in each individual who is brought face to face with the reality of Jesus. In its way, it demonstrates the crisis that comes upon every one to whom the Son reveals Himself. We are brought to that point where we must either accept Him wholly or reject Him utterly. We like to talk of this God of second chances, how He will keep coming back to seek us again and again until we finally come to accept Him. Maybe so. On the other hand, I wonder if all those earlier times were not the real times of His seeking us. I have to suppose that God has a point beyond which He determines that our choice has been made. He must have a point at which He says, “so be it.” Were it not so, why should we find any who died without having come to Him? But, perhaps I push this point too hard.
The plain and simple fact of this verse is Jesus has clearly claimed to be God and those listening clearly heard the claim. It is the same for us. He still makes the claim, and we must hear it thusly. We must respond. Praise be to God that He so ministers within us that we can respond positively! He removes the several blinders that are upon us that we might accept the impossibility that He is, that He seeks us, that He accepts us even though we have done so much that is against His will, and so much that was intended to insult Him and drive Him away. While we were yet His enemies, He comes. It is the clear and constant testimony of those who have come to Him that they can look back across the life they led before they had acknowledged Him and find the evidence of His activity on their behalf even then. Oh, He may not have saved them from every trial, every error, every consequence of sin. But, He preserved them. He kept that devil that drove them from destroying them utterly, just as His hand restrained the destruction of Job.
I need to come back, now, to the matter of knowing. When Jesus speaks of knowing His Father, He adds that He keeps His word. This gives us an eye to the particular shade of meaning He has in mind when He speaks of knowing His Father. It is the sort of knowing that cherishes the one it knows. He is saying, “I know Him well, and knowing Him as I do, I just love Him all the more. I hang on His words, for they are life to Me. What He commands of Me it is My pleasure to do. No desire is greater in Me than to do what is pleasing to Him.” This is our model. This is what it must mean for us to know Jesus.
You see, there is a clear implication for the believer in what Jesus says of Himself. If for Him, to know the Father is intrinsically linked to obeying the Father, then it must be so with us as we relate to Him. Knowing, loving and obeying: All three of these are so wholly tied together. Can it be that this is the cord of three strands of which Scripture speaks (Ecc 4:12)? Think about that for a moment. Love may be the greatest, but it is not enough. For, we cannot truly love one we don’t truly know. Apart from such knowledge, a deep knowledge, we are not experiencing love, but merely infatuation. Yet, even when these two are combined, it is only the power to resist.
Love alone can be overpowered by the assaults of the enemy. Knowledge alone can be overpowered by those attacks. Even obedience will fail under trial if it must stand by itself. Even combined, love and knowledge are only a power to resist until obedience is joined to the defense. That resistance may not be enough, in the end. It may delay a fall, but it cannot stop it. Those three combined, though! Love joined with knowledge joined with obedience: that is the power of victory over every sin and temptation that the enemy of our soul may choose to throw at us!
Is it any wonder, then, that our Jesus makes such a point of obedience in His followers? He’s not just out to make the Way difficult. He’s seeking to make those whom He has set upon the Way successful in persevering along that Way. Anyone who loves Me will keep My word and My Father will love him. We will make Our abode with him (Jn 14:23). Do you notice that something has been joined to the mix, here, by which power we have hope of our success? You see, we love our Lord. We know Him, and we know His commandments, because He has carefully recorded them for us that we might refer to them whenever we have need. But, obedience remains a battle. You will not find a believer who does not battle with sin, and what is sin but a failure to obey? Yet, apart from that obedience, it seems all hope is lost, for hope is found in obedience, obedience having been joined to love and knowledge, all with God as its focus. But, obedience isn’t found in the flesh. Obedience is found in the Promise!
Listen to what this same Jesus says of His disciples, in spite of their imperfections. “I made Your name – all that You are – evident to those You gave Me from out of the world. They were Yours already, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” (Jn 17:6). They have kept your word. They held firmly to that word. Upon what God instructed, they stood fast. They observed what He had taught them as the rule of their own lives. They were, then, the very epitome of discipleship. Yet, their imperfections are clear enough to us. They had their failings, some of them pretty severe. That may not have happened yet at the moment Jesus was making this statement, but then, in the moment of their failings He is.
The deciding factor, then, is not our perfect adherence. Were it so, then we are all of us doomed and beyond all hope! Neither is hope to be found in just chucking it all with that realization. No! Keeping His word, in the end, leads us back to that three-stranded cord of knowing His word, loving His word, and obeying His word. But, it also leads us inexorably back to the reality that we are incapable of doing so perfectly. We remain dependent upon a Redeemer. But, our great joy lies in knowing that we have a Redeemer, that He has atoned for our sins, and that He does so still. His eternal blood shed for us is indeed sufficient to wipe clean the record of our sins, and because in whatever time we may speak of He is, His blood is sufficient even for those sins that lay ahead of us, just as it was sufficient for Peter’s failures.
Yes, He commands us to go and sin no more, just as He did the woman brought before Him earlier (Jn 8:11). Even so, He teaches us that once He has cleaned our spiritual house, we need to do our part to keep it clean lest those who first soiled the place come back in greater number (Lk 11:24-26). Yet, He also tells His own that as He has already washed them clean, it is but their feet that now need occasional attention (Jn 13:10). So it is in our walk. We have been left to walk in this world, and that cannot be done without getting the dust of the world upon ourselves. Our Redeemer knows this. He has made arrangements to deal with this. If we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us, and can do so in righteousness, and will do so in such fashion as to cleans us from all unrighteousness (1Jn 1:9). That’s the foot wash. Confess and repent! Then, accept the forgiveness that is yours.
I have seen a linkage then between the way Jesus relates to our Father and the way we relate to Jesus. He knows and loves the Father, and for love of the Father obeys the Father. His disciples know and love Him, and for love of Him obey Him. As a final note, I should like to point out that this linkage continues downward to His servants. “I told you,” He says, “that the slave is not greater than his master” (Jn 15:20). Now, let me skip to the end of that verse before taking the middle. “If they keep My word, then they will also keep yours.” They will know you and love you, and for love of you they will obey you. That love for us is not anything for us to boast of in itself, of course. Their love for us, in this case, can only be there because they know that our love and knowledge of Jesus has led us to obey Him. If the linkage is broken at any point, then the lower application must fail. But, because the linkage is held together by the very One who holds the center, we can remain assured.
Looking now at the middle of that verse, we will find we have great need of that assurance. For, the flip side of what Jesus is saying is this, “If they persecute Me, they will also persecute you.” There is no way to take that as a pleasant prospect. Oh, I have known one saint who would actually show excitement at the prospect of further persecution. He is hardly alone in that, only the rare one in my experience. But, isn’t that the power of the martyrs throughout the history of the Church! They were pleased to be honored as worthy to share in the sufferings of their Lord and King, for it was proof enough that the rest of the Promises of God, the inheritance of the saints and the assurance of an eternal blessedness, were theirs in full. Here, in spite of every failure (for we are ever keenly aware of our failures), was the seal upon their acceptance. They had been persecuted as He was persecuted.
Again I will say that it is a rare man indeed who looks forward to and even seeks out persecution. Indeed, it could be argued that seeking such persecution falls short of the glory of God. But, it is a rarer Christian indeed who never faces persecution whatsoever. I dare say, if everything’s gladness and joy on every hand every day of your life, it might be well to check and see if you’re with God or not. Either you have hidden yourself away from the world you were explicitly left to be in, or you have become a part of the world you were not left to be of. Either way falls short of obedience, doesn’t it?
In persecution, in those times of being pressed, squeezed and challenged on every side, then real faith will shine. Then it is that we will need every bit of strength that can be had from that three stranded cord that leads us back to God: knowledge of Him, love of Him and obedience to Him. Faith that is clearly manifest to all is not such faith as is demonstrated in the good times. It’s nice to be blessed, to be sure, and there is no sin in being so blessed of God and enjoying those blessings which He bestows upon us. But, the real measure of faith is found in those periods when the skies are like brass, when it feels like our prayers go unheard and unanswered. It is in those times when faith has no support from feelings, no feedback from daily experience, and yet faith continues, that faith will be commended to all who are made aware of it.
This last year or so – perhaps longer – has felt like one of those periods for me. Much of what I enjoyed about church life has been taken away from me for one reason or another. I do not mean to suggest that I have ceased from attending church. Not at all. But, the things I truly enjoyed, the things that have been part of my experience of church life as long as I can recall, I have found necessary to set down. Battles and challenges on the home front seem to continue unabated. My wife’s health is a constant roller coaster, with each day holding a surprise package. Will she be well today, or bedridden? Will she be clouded with pain, or filled with joy? It’s like a lottery, except there really is no winning ticket. There is only a certain dread of the next drawing. Every joyful day, it seems, is clouded by premonitions of the day of sorrow which will doubtless follow.
Add to this the invariable challenges of raising a young lady in the world we live in. To be daily witness to the struggle for her soul, seeing her drawn simultaneously to God and world, but seeing also that it seems the world is winning. Yet, I know my Redeemer lives! And, I know that He is fully able to do in her life as He did in mine. Even so, the dilemma of responsibility remains. How does one balance the command to train up this child with the command not to drive her to anger and frustration, when anger and frustration are her common response to every restraint? How do I manifest my trust in God to keep her when I don’t trust her out of my sight? How am I supposed to render decisions as to what she can or cannot do when all my decisions, it seems, must violate what seems right to me or else be proven wrong in the end, anyway? It’s an impossible task.
Add to this the economic challenges that have been inherent in this last year. Oh, I can certainly speak of any number of others whose financial situation is far worse than my own. Honestly, we are doing ok, so far as that goes. Yet, the weight of steering us through these murky waters, the responsibility for making certain that we continue to have food and shelter, these fall upon me. And, ever, there are those things that one member of this family or another deems absolutely necessary, even if we can’t afford it. What sort of nonsense is that? If we can’t afford it, it really doesn’t make much difference how necessary it is. In the end, there are two necessities of physical life that are absolutely necessary: food and shelter.
Yes, my God, I know that these are in Your hands, and I do my best not to be anxious for them. Yet, You have also called us to be good stewards of those things You give us. You also instruct that those who won’t work should not expect to be fed. You, my Lord, have placed me into this place of responsibility, and I know that You will also empower me to deal with the responsibilities You have given me. But, I also know my weakness, my capacity to go wrong. It is all well and good to know that You are assuredly in control. It is all well and good to know that I know that I know that You have never left Your children out begging for their food. Even so, Lord, I feel so near to breaking. And, it seems as though I have felt so near to breaking for so long that I almost wish the breaking would just come and be done with it. Yet, You remain unchanged and unchanging. You remain my Strength and my Shield.
You, Lord, are Wisdom itself, and You have promised that when I lack wisdom and seek it from You, You will indeed give of Your infinite Wisdom to see me through. Well, here I am, God! If feel so thoroughly devoid of wisdom to deal with any one of the challenges of the present, let alone the combination of them! So, I am indeed calling upon You. Guide me! Grant me the understanding to know the way we should go in each and every one of these things, and grant me the wisdom to do as You guide. Clear out these ears of mine, that I might hear You more readily and more fully. And crush the pride of me, Lord, that still finds it possible to insist that I know what I’m doing.
God, as I have not felt it so strongly in a long time, I surely feel it now: I am lost without You. If You do not come to my aid, I am surely at my end. Yet, I will trust You. Somehow, through this all, I shall come forth still standing in the light of Your love. This I know. This I believe. Let me come to understand how to join these with the obedience You desire, that I might stand firm even in the storm. Let me return to the place where I can say with great earnestness that in You, I am ready for that storm.
