Who do you think He is?

Who do you say that He is? John 8:48-59

Introduction: We return to the scene we left a few weeks back in John 8, Jesus is in the midst of a confrontation with some of the leaders of the Jews; and He had just revealed that their rejection of Him was evidence that they did not know God (8:42-47) – Rather than being children of God, their unbelief revealed them to be children of the Devil. The One whom they should have been waiting for, the One predicted in the Scriptures they claimed to believe, the One promised since the Fall was there in their midst, and they did not recognize Him. In this scene Jesus is about to reveal more explicitly who He claims to be, and they are not ready to receive the truth! It was not enough to attribute the titles of the Messiah to Him, they needed to understand correctly what those titles meant. As I studied this I thought, there is a lot of doctrine in this chapter, a lot of theology, is it practical? It’s good to know whom we have believed. In fact it’s essential to understand what God is like and what He has done and can do and what He expects of us. As I visited with one of our senior saints in the hospital this week I read a few scriptures talking about the power and abiding presence of God, His steadfast love for His elect. Her reply: “I guess I don’t have much to worry about, do I?” She got it! Doctrine is not abstract it’s extremely practical. If Jesus is God, the Great I AM, and He knows us, loves us, and is with us always, what do we have to be afraid of? Whatever struggle we might face, knowing the God who is, knowing him intimately, is the answer. The Context: Read v.47, Jesus responds to their unbelief by saying their rejection of Him and His words reveals they are not God’s children: "He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God…” If they were God’s children they would believe Him, but their unbelief reveals that their heart is far from Him.

The Big Idea: Jesus is God, the Son, deserving of honor and worthy to be praised. His words are the Word of Life. Do you believe that? Will you hear Him today?

I. The claim that faith will lead to life (read 48-51). First of all, the claim is made that if we believe Him we’ll be rescued from death, implied is the inverse: faith will lead to life. The dishonor of the Jewish leaders is shown by their attempt to insult Jesus rather than respond to Him: "Do we not say rightly that you are a Samaritan…” For a Jew in the time of Jesus, this was about as strong an insult as you can imagine…” For someone from New England it might be roughly equivalent to: “You are a Yankee fan and come from NJ…” How did the Jews come to hate the Samaritans? The history goes back to the time of the Assyrian captivity. You remember that after the time of Solomon the kingdom was divided, Israel in the north had Samaria as its capital, and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom of Judah. Israel had a series of wicked kings in the north, men that did not walk with God, and God allowed them to be over run by the Assyrians in 922 A.D. The Assyrians carried off many of the men of Israel and enslaved them, and, according to their custom, transplanted other captured peoples to the land. We read about it in 2 Kings 17:23-24,

“So Israel was carried away into exile from their own land to Assyria until this day. 24 And the king of Assyria brought men from Babylon and from Cuthah and from Avva and from Hamath and Sephar-vaim, and settled them in the cities of Samaria in place of the sons of Israel...”

These intermarried with some of the Jews that were left behind, so some knowledge of the God of Israel was preserved in the land. In 586 BC the southern Kingdom also fell to the Babylonians, and they were taken into exile. After 130 years or so, king Cyrus issued an edict allowing some of the people, under Ezra and Zerubbabel to return to the land. Now when they got there the Samaritans offered to help rebuild the temple and they were rejected – Ezra 4:1-3 tells the story,

“…Let us build with you, for we, like you, seek your God; and we have been sacrificing to Him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria, who brought us up here." 3 But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the heads of fathers' households of Israel said to them, "You have nothing in common with us in building a house to our God; but we ourselves will together build to the LORD God of Israel…"

And so it started… The animosity grew over the centuries. By the time of Jesus it was a given that “the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans…” (as we saw in the scandalous encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman in John 4. There she was, wearing her Yankee cap, “I luv New York tattooed on her forearm, and Jesus spoke to her, and revealed himself to her!). They were despised, and a Jew would go out of their way to avoid contact. Calling Jesus a “Samaritan” was intended as a provocative insult. Jesus doesn’t even respond to that part of their intended insult. They also said: “…you have a demon…” This insult was even more serious from the perspective of Jesus. He wasn’t a respecter of persons, so there was no sense in which He shared the prejudices of the Jews against the Samaritans. But saying He had a demon? He is the Son of God, and in his human nature He was living and acting as a man filled with the Holy Spirit. His teaching came from the Father and all that He did was to honor and bring glory to the Father… and they accuse Him of being possessed by a demon. They probably were not really saying they believed him to be demon possessed, but they were trying to be as strong as they could be in their insults. It was their way of saying, “Are you out of your mind? You’re crazy!” Jesus’ answer is pretty straight forward: “I don’t have a demon” and he essentially says that their dishonoring of Him, when the Father honors Him and seeks His glory, reveals that they are children of the devil. He then makes a statement that intensifies their anger and escalates the situation, v. 51, “…if anyone keeps my word he shall never see death…” The word order his is emphatic (it reads a little like “Yoda” on Star Wars– The one who “keeps” his word, “…DEATH, by no means [double negative for emphasis] will he experience forever!” He is clearly not saying that a believer will never experience physical death. Lazarus dies in just a couple of chapters , in the book of Acts we see believers being martyred and throughout the ages Christians have died just like unbelievers. He makes a parallel statement at the funeral of Lazarus in John 11:25,26… “Jesus said to her, "

I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 "And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die…"

It’s clear that He is saying that for the believer in Jesus death does not have the last word, it is nothing to fear, the believer will not experience ultimate and final separation from God. We have eternal life—that’s a promise from Jesus, God the Son, the One deserving of honor and worthy to be praised. His words are the Word of Life.

II. The claim to be the glorious Son; greater than Abraham and the Prophets (52-56).

First of all, we see the theme from the previous context reinforced here, they completely misunderstand what Jesus is saying. They are focused merely on physical death—how can Jesus say a believer will never die where all the prophets died?-Jesus is talking about spiritual life and spiritual death. The Jews said to Him, "Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, 'If anyone keeps My word, he shall never taste of death.' 53 "Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too…” We’ve seen this theme of “misunderstanding” frequently in John’s Gospel. Nicodemus didn’t understand when Jesus spoke of the new birth, “How can a man be born when he is old?” The woman at the well was confused about the water Jesus offered, “Give me this water that I may drink…” The people in chapter 6 wanted “bread” from Him when he offered the “Bread of Life.” Here he is talking about spiritual life and spiritual death, and they don’t get it. Their question (v.53c) is really at the heart of the matter: “…whom do You make Yourself out to be?" Who do you think you are? That’s the biggest question any of us can ask ourselves about Him, who do you believe He is? Or, do you really believe that He is who He claimed to be? In vv.54-56, Jesus answered, "If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, 'He is our God'; 55 and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I shall be a liar like you, but I do know Him, and keep His word.” The God you claim to follow has spoken of me in his word! If you believed His Word you would believe Me! And then he says in v.56 "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad." I think Jesus is speaking about more than just Abraham, but rather all the faithful of the Old Testament. Just as we look back on the coming of the Son of God and look ahead to the promise of His return, those who believed the prophecies and took God at His word were looking for the coming of the promised One. Just as we have a sure hope, a blessed hope that we know is coming, the return of Christ, their hope was sure that the promised when would come in accordance with God’s Word, and the hope of His coming was cause for rejoicing. It made them glad! If you know the God who created the universe, you have reason to be glad as well. Whatever the circumstance, whatever trials you might be passing through, “…if God is for us, who can stand against us?” For those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, fix your hope in Jesus, God the Son, the One deserving of honor and worthy to be praised. His words are the Word of Life.

III. The claim to be God, the Great I AM (57-59).

V. 57 reveals that the Jews still don’t understand what Jesus is saying: “The Jews therefore said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?" You’re not even an elder, not even half a century old, how can you have seen Abraham who lived centuries ago! In 8:58 Jesus makes a powerful, unambiguous statement as to who He claims to be: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’" We’ve seen hints of this in the “I AM” statements that occurred up until this point in the Gospel, echoing through the pages, 10 times already before this: “I AM He, I AM (It’s me walking on the water!); I am the Bread of life, the Living Bread, the Bread from heaven, I AM the Light of the world, I am the true witness, I AM the One in whom you must believe, when the Son of Man is lifted up, then you will know that I AM, finally here, “Before Abraham was, I AM…” Their reaction in v.59, “And they took up stones to stone Him…” They knew what He was saying. If Jesus had simply said “Before Abraham was, I was…” He would have been claiming to have existed before Abraham, and that would have been pretty incredible. But He says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” Their immediate reaction leaves no doubt that they understood that He was identifying Himself with the God of the Old Testament, the God who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush in Exodus 3, “I AM that I AM, tell them I AM has sent you…” Their reaction is a climax to this part of the Gospel. It is a powerful example of what was stated in the opening of the Gospel: “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not…” Even as they took up stones to kill Him, “He was hidden from them…” The scene reminded me of the sodomites who tried to take the angels that were sent to the house of lot, they were struck with blindness and wearied themselves trying to find the door. Jesus didn’t hide, but He was hidden from them, passed safely out of the Temple area. He would not killed by stoning. God had another plan. And the hour had not yet come. Jesus is God, the Son, deserving of honor and worthy to be praised. His words are the Word of Life.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Do you believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be?

He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. He claimed to be God. He claimed that as the eternal Son He came to save. He pronounced on the cross, “It is finished,” i.e., the debt is paid, the work is done. He, the Good Shepherd, laid down his life for his sheep. The price was paid and the offer extended and your response will reveal whether or not you belong to Him. His sheep hear His voice and He knows them, and gives them life, eternal life. Do you hear Him calling you in this story? Could it be that the Spirit is prompting you to believe, to trust Him? Admit that you are a sinner and need His grace. Believe that He died for you and was raised from the dead, and put your hope and trust in Him as the Savior and Lord of your life. For you who know Him, be assured, whatever circumstance or trial or tribulation you might be passing through, He has promised to be with you always, to never leave you. When you think about that, you really don’t have anything to worry about, do you? AMEN.