Sunday Class Notes

Study Notes 12-16-12

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9:8-12 The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar were saying, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” [9] Some said, “It is he.” Others said, “No, but he is like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” [10] So they said to him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” [11] He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” [12] They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

Textual Note: Morris explains that the “NIV’s ‘demanded’ (from verse 10) is a mite strong; the Greek means no more than ‘they said.’

The Testimony

Morris notes that the neighbors were in awe, “They were so astonished at such a cure that some of them refused to believe that this was the man who had been blind.”

He also notes that the man who was healed speaks of Christ in a way that indicates, “he has, as yet, little understanding of his Person. As the chapter progresses we will observe how his awareness of the significance of Jesus grows.”

I love this point from Morris because it connotes the subtlety and writing ability of John.  I never ceased to be amazed at the intricacy of this Gospel. John has so many strong themes, and so many subtle points, that it is a real joy to let the truth written herein soak into one’s mind for continual meditation.

There is no denying that when the man had been healed, people noticed. I find this significant because, as it relates to spiritual blindness, we are all groping in the dark until Christ heals us (1 John 2:11; John 3:19-21). When that happens, it is not something that happens in a vacuum. Baptism is meant to be the first outward showing of the inward change. But as one begins to follow Christ, can there be any doubt that neighbors, friends, family, co-workers and others will be able to see the light of Christ shine through us? There will be something different about those who love and follow Christ.

John says in his epistles that, “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him (1 John 2:29).”

And Christ says that we will recognize false prophets because they won’t reflect this change:

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. [16] You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? [17] So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. [18] A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. [19] Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. [20] Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20 ESV)

That is what is meant that we are to be salt and light (Matthew 5) to a dying world (Puritan Richard Baxter first said he would preach as a dying man to a dying world – something echoed by Paul Washer and others as of late in their preaching of the gospel).

Therefore, let us reflect the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5), and shine forth the light of Christ so that they may see our good works and give glory to God (Matt. 5:16).

9:13-14 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. [14] Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes.

The Neighbors Have Questions…

I wondered at first why in the world these neighbors and friends would have brought the man to the Pharisees. It truly puzzled me. My first thought ran to the story of how the lepers were once cleansed by Christ and he instructed them to go show themselves to the priests (that was part of the law for cleansing) and that perhaps this was the same thing. But I think not, that would have been something the man would have done on his own, and in private. This was more than that.

The second thought that came to mind was that these people ought to have minded their own beeswax! What business was this of theirs? But as I read further into the customs and backdrop of the situation, I found that there is no reason to suppose these neighbors were committing any social taboo here.

In the end, D.A. Carson provided the most satisfactory explanation:

There is no need to ascribe malice to those who brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. They could not have known that the healed man would be subjected to interrogation and expulsion from the synagogue. In a day when almost all events bore religious overtones, the extraordinary healing cried out for comment by the religious authorities – much more so than the way that, in today’s world, after a significant international event millions of people will expect the Foreign Office or the State Department to express an opinion.

In short, John pictures the healed man’s neighbors turning to their local religious leaders and asking them what they should make of the healing.

The Significance of the Fulfilled Sabbath

I think it’s helpful to read the ESV notes on verse 14:

The belated mention of the Sabbath (cf. 5:9 and note on Matt. 12:8) recalls the earlier Sabbath controversy in John 5. Jesus had kneaded the clay with his saliva to make mud, and kneading dough (and by analogy, clay) was included among the 39 classes of work forbidden on the Sabbath (Mishnah, Shabbat 7.2). Jesus’ frequent conflicts with the Jews over the Sabbath suggest that by his coming he is changing the Sabbath requirements (see John 5:17).

Although Calvin seems to think that Jesus purposefully wrought the miracle on the Sabbath to make a point (and indeed He did nothing without purpose), Morris points out that it isn’t as though He seeks publicity on the matter, and only approaches the man after his interrogation with the Pharisees. This is evidence “against” this design says Morris, but I tend to agree with Calvin, because as we all know, Christ did not do anything during His life and ministry that was not specifically designed to be done, and although we must be cautious about reading meaning onto a thing which does not exist, still this controversy over the Sabbath was not a new thing (see chapter 5), and not something Christ avoided.

Sabbath Under the Old Covenant and Overview

There are two important things to understand about the Sabbath controversy in the gospels.  First, the Pharisees misunderstood the nature of the Sabbath under the old covenant.  They had added to it to make is something that it simply was not.  Second, we are no longer under the old covenant, so it is not as if we need to learn from the Pharisees’ mistakes, and correctly keep the Sabbath.  The Sabbath was never meant to simply be a physical rest, but also a spiritual rest.

The word “rest” itself has been misunderstood to mean physical rest, when it really means to “stop” – when God “rested” on the 7th day, it wasn’t as though He needed a break due to exhaustion.  It was because He stopped creating. The reason the Jews had a Sabbath was because it was a time for them to “stop” striving to keep the law and rest in the provision of God for their salvation. Of course they could never fully do this because even keeping the Sabbath was a form of law! So they were striving even in their stopping/resting.

And just as Christ pointed out that the Jews were incorrectly “keeping” the Sabbath during His day (under the Old Covenant), Paul had to show new covenant Christians that they were incorrectly enforcing a law that no longer was in force. To this day we misunderstand the nature of what the Sabbath means

J.C. Ryle, whom I love and admire dearly and who has imparted to me many spiritual truths, is a study in contradictions on this point.  First, he (rightly) sees that these Pharisees are completely misunderstanding the meaning of the Sabbath under the Old Covenant (they have added to the law).  He says:

These would-be wise men completely mistook the intention of the Sabbath. They did not see that it was “made for man,” and meant for the good of man’s body, mind, and soul. It was a day to be set apart from others, no doubt, and to be carefully sanctified and kept holy. But its sanctification was never intended to prevent works of necessity and acts of mercy. To heal a sick man was no breach of the Sabbath day. In finding fault with our Lord for so doing, the Jews only exposed their ignorance of their own law. They had forgotten that it is as great a sin to add to a commandment, as to take it away.

But Ryle completely goes astray after this, for his still applies the old covenant law to new covenant believers! Note how Pharisaical he sounds here:

Here, as in other places, we must take care that we do not put a wrong meaning on our Lord’s conduct. We must not for a moment suppose that the Sabbath is no longer binding on Christians, and that they have nothing to do with the Fourth Commandment. This is a great mistake, and the root of great evil. Not one of the Ten Commandments has ever been repealed or put aside…Whatever men may please to say, the way in which we use the Sabbath a sure test of the state of our religion. By the Sabbath may be found out whether we love communion with God. By the Sabbath may be found out whether we are in tune for heaven. By the Sabbath, in short, the secrets of many hearts are revealed. There are only too many of whom we may say with sorrow, “These men are not of God, because they keep not the Sabbath day.”

Note those bolded words “by the Sabbath may be found out whether we love communion with God.”  He is saying that by keeping the 10 commandments we show we love God. Nonsense! This is not what we’re told in the New Testament at all!

John says this:

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. (1 John 2:3)

And what is this commandment?  The commandment of Christ – to love the Lord with all our hearts minds and soul and to love our brother as ourselves.  Not “keep the old law to the best of your ability.” John continues…

Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. [10] Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. (1 John 2:9-10)

The New Testament/New Covenant Sabbath

The overarching point regarding the Sabbath is this: the Sabbath was meant primarily as a way to point forward to the spiritual rest that Christ has become for us.

It actually took a little while for this legalism to catch so much fire that it became the norm for us to think that we need to keep a “Sabbath” day, and certainly the puritan writers who were so influential in early American history were very legalistic about keeping a Sabbath.

However, the early church under Roman rule didn’t keep a Sabbath in the Jewish legalistic sense, if for no other reason than they weren’t allowed to.  Certainly these stalwart Christians would have died to obey Christ if this was truly a command worth dying for.  Craig Blomberg explains the context:

…Christians scarcely transferred everything about the Jewish Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday.  Gentile believers, who comprised the majority of the church from the middle of the first century onwards, had no weekly days in their communities on which to rest. Greeks and Romans had several holidays each month according to the various religious festival calendars they followed. Bu unless one of these holidays fell on a Sunday, Gentile Christians had to work a full day on the first day of the week and squeeze in worship and fellowship with other believers either on Sunday morning before dawn or Saturday or Sunday night after dusk.

Perhaps one of the most important passages on the Sabbath is found in Hebrews where we read of how Christ has become our rest:

For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. [15] As it is said, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” [16] For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? [17] And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? [18] And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? [19] So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

So already here in Hebrews we see that entering the Sabbath rest is directly connected to obedience – and of course none of these Jews could obey – in fact the entire law was given to show them mainly just that (Romans 3:23).  But the passage continues:

4:1 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. [2] For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. [3] For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,’” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. [4] For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” [5] And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, [7] again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” [8] For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. [9] So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, [10] for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. [11] Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. (Hebrews 3:14-19; Hebrews 4:1-11 ESV)

So that opportunity still stands for rest – that is what the author of Hebrews is saying. That even though the Old Testament saints failed to enter into this rest by their disobedience, we can now enter into it simply by faith in Christ – not by the works of the law which no man can keep. After all, we are no longer under the law of death.

This is further explained in Hebrews 8:

Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. [5] They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:4-5 ESV)

And…

For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, [9] not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. (Hebrews 8:8-9 ESV)

And finally…

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:13 ESV)

Gotquestions.org summarizes this point well, they say, “There is no other Sabbath rest besides Jesus. He alone satisfies the requirements of the Law, and He alone provides the sacrifice that atones for sin. He is God’s plan for us to cease from the labor of our own works.” They continue, “Because of what He did, we no longer have to “labor” in law-keeping in order to be justified in the sight of God. Jesus was sent so that we might rest in God and in what He has provided.”

In the Old Testament, Israel had the Sabbath to be reminded to stop and depend on God because of their woeful inability to obey God. It pointed forward to Christ, to a time when one day they would not have to labor to keep His law; one day they would be freed from the curse of the law. Christ would come and fulfill the entirety of the law, and we would “rest” in His finished work.  Our only “work” now is to declare His work by proclaiming the gospel.

The Law Kills…Christ Fulfills

We have a tendency as Christians to fall back into legalism. The Sabbath is no different, and Paul addresses this in Galatians because these men and women fell into the same trap:

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. [2] Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? [3] Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? (Galatians 3:1-3)

They were still striving to accomplish all that laid out in the law, instead of resting in the finished work of Christ. They were still forcing people to be circumcised and still following holidays (like the Sabbath) where some did not feel the need follow these for sake of conscience. For we are no longer under this curse as Paul says:

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—[14] so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:13-14)

Perhaps the key passage here is verses 24-26:

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. [25] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, [26] for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. (Galatians 3:24-26)

Note the word “until” Christ came. The law was added and did not annul the gospel promise that was made to Abraham. But the law has now been fulfilled in Christ. Paul puts it this way that “we are no longer under a guardian” (the law). How much more clearly must he state it? We are no longer under the law! Stop trying to keep the law – fulfill the law of Christ as He commanded.

Hebrews 10:1 explains the futility of trying to keep the Old Testament law, “For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.”

I enjoy the insight of my friend Pastor Tony Romano on the matter of the Sabbath.  In an email conversation about this he put it this way:

Foundationally, commanding literal rest is anything but rest-giving, it’s part of the deliberate burden woven into the old covenant (Galatians). The Decalogue is not described as rest-giving in the New Testament scriptures, but as the “letter that kills.”  Yes, they were meant to use the Sabbath as an occasion to be thankful and remember God…because that is right…but the commandment could not produce this righteousness God required of them. That was the whole point of giving the commandment, to show they could not follow it and needed a Savior. The Sabbath ordinance brought death; not life and not rest. They were constantly under the burden of making sure they rested when Sabbath came. I guess that’s the nuance I would add here…the Sabbath is actually not ultimately about physical rest and relaxation, as it finally provided neither. Law creates work, not rest.

Another important passage in this discussion is Colossians 2:16-17 which states:

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. [17] These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17 ESV)

The ESV Study notes have helpful commentary on this passage:

Col. 2:17 “a shadow of the things to come.” The old covenant observances pointed to a future reality that was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Heb. 10:1). Hence, Christians are no longer under the Mosaic covenant (cf. Rom. 6:14–15; 7:1–6; 2 Cor. 3:4–18; Gal. 3:15–4:7). Christians are no longer obligated to observe OT dietary laws (“food and drink”) or festivals, holidays, and special days (“a festival … new moon … Sabbath,” Col. 2:16), for what these things foreshadowed has been fulfilled in Christ.

If the law kills, how does Christ fulfill? In Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

Christ was on a mission to fulfill these laws completely not abolish them.  He didn’t abolish them because He had not fulfilled them yet. In other words, He is describing His work, not ours.

Commenting on the Matthew 5 passage, Blomberg puts it this way:

It’s an unusual contrast. Normally, if someone says he is not abolishing something, he goes on to say he is preserving it intact. But that’s not how the word fulfill is used in the Bible. In Matthew alone, its most common meaning is “to bring about that which was predicted” or “to give the complete meaning of something that was once only partially disclosed” (for example, 1:22; 2:15, 17, 23; 3:15; 4:14).

Therefore, He came to earth to be subject to the law and to complete it in perfect obedience. Then, and only then, could this perfect righteousness of His be imputed to our account. If He had abolished the law and said “I’m not going to obey the law, but do what I want”, He certainly could have done anything since He is God, but the point was to fulfill that which we could not fulfill (to obey what we could not obey) so that His righteousness could be given to us.  Despite our failures, He has completed the task perfectly for us.  But there’s no more task to be completed.  He did that already.  He fulfilled the task’s assignments and we no longer need this guardian of the law because Christ has come to get rid of the babysitter (so to speak) and adopt us into the family. In this way we need no more communion with the law because we have communion with God through the Holy Spirit who is the one helping us obey the commands of Christ, namely to love the Lord and our neighbors as well.

Blomberg, commenting on the Colossians passage, concludes, “Christ’s incarnation is the reality that the holy days foreshadowed. Jesus’ followers come to Him and He gives them rest 24-7, as we would say today, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). Our whole lives are a Sabbath rest, foreshadowing our eternal rest (Heb. 4:9-11).

This leads me to the final point in our look at the Sabbath…

We Also Look Forward

Like the Israelites who looked forward to one that would usher in spiritual “rest”, we also feel the tension of the already/not yet in that while we rest in His finished work, His provision, His imputed righteousness, and our adoption, we also long for the day we will see the consummation/realization of this rest (in a physical sense – we will no longer battle sickness and disease which are all the results of the fall and original sin) and the kingdom of earth will become the kingdom of Christ at His parousia.

Paul explained this tension in Romans 8:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. [19] For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. [20] For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope [21] that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. [22] For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. [23] And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. [24] For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? [25] But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:18-25)

9:15-17 So the Pharisees again asked him how he had received his sight. And he said to them, “He put mud on my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” [16] Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner do such signs?” And there was a division among them.

So we see here that the reaction of the Pharisees is once again abhorrence for Christ.  This time, as in chapter 5, it is for His breaking of the Sabbath.  Morris notes, “John evidently wants us to see that the activity of Jesus as the Light of the world inevitably results in judgment on those whose natural habitat is darkness. They oppose the Light and they bring down condemnation on themselves accordingly.”

Not only this, but I see a sort of interesting parallel in the way they (not unlike the disciples) were using faulty logic. It is a sign of the weakness and impotence of the mind of man that, without the aid of the Divine Being, they cannot understand the things of God. Here the Pharisees deduced that because Christ did “work” on the Sabbath, He must have therefore not been “from God.”

While we understand from our previous study of chapter 5 that this is incorrect (because Christ is “Lord of the Sabbath”), what was going on here was something bigger – a new covenant was about to be inaugurated, with new rules. This new covenant would not simply be a renewal of the old (Jer. 31:32), but would be something entirely new.

The reason for this is also explained in the book of Hebrews where it says, “Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well (Hebrews 7:11-12).”

Commenting on this passage, Blake White says, “Notice that the law and the priesthood are bound up together. It is a package deal. If the priesthood changes, then the law changes as well.”

Christ was changing the paradigm, and this was yet another outward manifestation (or “sign”) of that reality, of that Kingdom which He came to usher in.  In Matthew 12:28 after performing a cleansing of a man who had a demon, Christ had been criticized by the Pharisees for casting out these demons by the power of Satan.  But Christ corrected their illogical argument and then added, “But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.”

The Point and Application

Now, I don’t think that the Pharisees understood what was going on here entirely – they couldn’t have understood it (Rom. 8:7), but for us looking back on this I find it significant.  Christ is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:8), and here He is showing us what kinds of things must be done by those who rest in Christ (us!).  We must go to a lost and dying world and offer them the Bread of Life, which can only be found in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

John MacArthur points out that this was a beautiful illustration of the salvation process:

Blinded by sin, lost sinners have no capacity to recognize the Savior or find Him on their own. The blind man would not have been healed had Jesus not sought him and revealed Himself to him. So it is in salvation; if God did not reach out to spiritually blind sinners, no one would be saved. And just as the blind man was healed only when he obeyed Jesus’ command and washed in the pool of Siloam, so also are sinners saved only when they humbly and obediently embrace the truth of the gospel.

And R.C. Sproul concludes:

The Bible uses the metaphor of blindness again and again for people who have never perceived the truth of Christ. The eyes of their hearts are blind until God the Holy Spirit, without the help of spit and clay, opens them. When He does, they not only perceive the light of day, they see the light of the world. John said in his prologue, “We beheld His glory” (1:14). All those whose spiritual eyes have been opened may say the same. Are you among them?

Therefore, we must learn to be mortifying and hating sin, and we must understand that God has a plan for us that outweighs all the pain and suffering caused by sin.

On the latter score Barnes remarks, “Those who are afflicted with blindness, deafness, or any deformity, should be submissive to God. It is His appointment, and is right and best. God does no wrong; and when all His works are seen, the universe will see and know that He is just.”

And on the former point, J.C. Ryle says, “Let us learn to hate sin with a godly hatred, as the root of more than half of our cares and sorrows. Let us fight against it, mortify it, crucify it, and abhor it both in ourselves and others. There cannot be a clearer proof that man is a fallen creature than the fact that he can love sin and take pleasure in it.”

Study Notes 12-9-12

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John Chapter 9

Introduction

In the last two chapters we have seen how Christ angered and amazed the people and the religious leaders of His day by His teaching and His knowledge. Now John is going to tell us of another physical miracle that Christ performed – a “sign” – that would point once again to who this great man was.

The ESV Study notes tell us that “This miracle is one of several events in John in which the events in the physical world are a “sign” that points to a deeper spiritual meaning. Here Jesus gives sight to a man born blind, but this is also an evident symbol that Jesus, “the light of the world” (v. 5), brings the light of the knowledge of God.”

D.A. Carson says, “This chapter portrays what happens when the light shines: some are made to see, like this man born blind, while others, who think they see, turn away, blinded, as it were, by the light.”

9:1-5 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. [2] And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” [3] Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. [4] We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. [5] As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

A Man Lost in Blindness

Perhaps no one that I read on this passage does a better job of existentially reading the passage, and getting inside the thoughts of this blind man than R.C. Sproul. Here is what he says in his commentary on John:

How many years did that man grope in the darkness, asking: ‘Why me, God? Everybody else can see, but I can’t see anything. My whole life I have listened to people talk about what they’re seeing, and I can only imagine. I don’t even have any memories to aid me in my imagination because I’ve never seen anything. Why me?’ Imagine the frustration, the torment. Year after year he dealt with this affliction. He had no idea that one day the Son of God would come to him and heal him. But that was the plan of God for his life from all eternity.

The reason I quoted Sproul here is because I think we often forget that we are called to identify with others in their trials and struggles. As we share the gospel with others, as we care for others, we are called to love them. John’s entire first epistle is crying out “Christians show they are Christians by showing love to others.”

Imagine yourself in your neighbor’s place, in your husband’s place, in your wife’s place. Imagine the ultimate fate of your co-worker, and the difficulties of their struggles. This is important because it helps us remember that these people are all important to God. They are all to be objects of our love.

The Universality of Sickness and Death

Jesus gave sight to this man, just as He would give men spiritual sight. That is why He called Himself the “light of the world.” He is the One true God who imparts right knowledge of God to a lost and dying world.

It seemed like a common, and even obvious question for the disciples to ask whether or not it was sin that caused the blind man’s sickness. And indeed original sin is the cause of all blindness, both physical and spiritual. Sin is at the root of all sickness and disease. The entire world was plunged into darkness because of the Fall.

John MacArthur says this, “Sickness is a universal effect of the fall, as a result of which sin, death, and decay exist in this imperfect world. It afflicts all human beings, periodically reminding each of them that they ‘are but dust’ (Ps. 103:14), and that one day ‘to dust (they) shall return (Gen. 3:19).”

J.C. Ryle agrees and says, “If Adam had never fallen, we cannot doubt that people would never have been blind, or deaf, or dumb. The many ills that flesh is heir to, the countless pains, and diseases, and physical defects to which we are all liable, came in when the curse came upon the earth. ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin (Rom. 5:12).”

But Why?

But the assumption that the man’s blindness was a direct result of either his sin or the sin of his parents was incorrect. For this man would have had to have sinned prior to birth, which is impossible (although MacArthur notes that it was a popular thought among Jews of the day that a baby could sin in the womb).

Also, it seems wrong that the man would have been responsible for the sins of his parents. MacArthur addresses this:

The disciples may also have been thinking of certain Old Testament passages in which God seems to promise punishment on children for the sins of their parents (Ex. 20:5, 34:7; Num. 14:18; Deut. 5:9)…Such passages, however, must be understood in a national or societal sense. The point is that the corrupting effect of a wicked generation seeps into subsequent generations. This is axiomatic, an obvious reality. The idea that a child will be punished for the sins of his own parents is a concept foreign to Scripture (cf. Deut. 24:16).

What the disciples did here was setup a false dilemma, a logical fallacy based on only believing that the answer for the man’s condition was one of two things (Sproul and MacArthur both note this logical misnomer).

But what Christ told them was that they were wrong on both accounts. The reason the man was born this way was because God was going to be glorified. What a thought! From the foundation of the world God had prepared this man to show forth the riches of His kindness in him.

F.F. Bruce has framed this truth brilliantly (as MacArthur also notes):

This does not mean that God deliberately caused the child to be born blind in order that, after many years, his glory should be displayed in the removal of the blindness; to think so would again be an aspersion on the character of God. It does mean that God overruled the disaster of the child’s blindness so that, when the child grew to manhood, he might, by recovering his sight, see the glory of God in the face of Christ, and others, seeing this work of God, might turn to the true Light of the World.

Sproul says, “The blind man’s life is a concrete example of suffering that went on and on for year after year until it finally resulted in glory. That’s why the apostle Paul wrote, ‘For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (Rom. 8:18).”

Finally, D.A. Carson notes that Christ has been the one initiating all of this, and in this way it is a picture of salvation (as MacArthur notes later). He says, “Now the man (who of course has still not seen Jesus) obeys and washes, and came home seeing. John’s readers know that, although the healing is as thorough as the blind man’s obedience, the power itself came not from the obedience, nor from a pool called ‘Sent’ (Siloam), but from the ‘sent one’ Himself.”

The Urgency

I also think we need to note the urgency of the mission of Christ. He says, “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.”

MacArthur notes that “Here the plural pronoun ‘we’ includes the disciples, who also were empowered to do the words of the Father who sent Jesus…the phrase ‘as long as it is day’ conveys a sense of urgency. It refers to the brief time that Jesus would still be physically present with the disciples.”

Ryle says, “He (Christ) knew well that his own earthly ministry would only last three years altogether, and knowing this, He diligently redeemed the time. He let slip no opportunity of doing works of mercy, and attending to His Father’s business.”

We also ought to have this sense of urgency about our mission here on earth. Paul tells us:

Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, [16] making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. [17] Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15-17 ESV)

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. [6] Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. (Colossians 4:5-6 ESV)

Ryle concludes, “The life that we now live in the flesh is our day. Let us take care that we use it well, for the glory of God and the good of our souls. Let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling, while it is called today.”

9:6-7 Having said these things, he spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then he anointed the man’s eyes with the mud [7] and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing.

The Miracle

John MacArthur rightly points out that Christ’s healings were amazing, “He virtually banished disease from Palestine during that time in an explosion of miraculous healings.” MacArthur goes on to note in some detail some of the characteristics of Christ’s healings. Here is a condensed point-by-point list as Dr. MacArthur sees it:

  1. He healed with only a word or touch
  2. He healed instantly – “unlike some of the alleged healings of modern faith healers, none of His healings were progressive or gradual.”
  3. He healed completely
  4. He healed everyone who came to Him
  5. He healed organic, physical diseases and infirmities – not invisible ailments such as lower back paint, headaches etc.
  6. He raised people from the dead “unlike modern fakes”

Carson goes into a lengthy explanation as to exactly what the significance of the use of mud and saliva might have been, but admits, “It is extremely difficult to decide just what this signifies.” He notes that “Not a few church Fathers saw an allusion to Genesis 2:7: since God made human beings out of the dust of the ground, Jesus, in an act of creation, used a little dust to make eyes that were otherwise lacking.”

There is also a possible sense in which using saliva would have been a social and religious taboo, and that Christ was attacking the norm of thinking – once again making Him Lord of all things. Though it is hard to say for certain whether this is the statement He is making here in chapter 9.

I like what Ryle has to say on the matter as well, “The reason why our Lord used the action (spittle) we cannot tell…He is not tied to any one means of doing good, and that we may expect to find variety in His methods of dealing with souls, as well as with bodies.”

Historical NOTE: As an aside, there have been several archeological discoveries around the Pool of Siloam. You can see some of the pictures if you click here. Or you can visit: http://www.bibleplaces.com/poolofsiloam.htm

Study Notes 11-18-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

We continue our study of John’s Gospel and will be looking at some of our Lord’s greatest words (if one can possibly peal off greatness from greatness) as it pertains to freedom, and our natural state of slavery to sin and darkness.

The Lord has freed us from the galleys of slavery and to sin and self-centeredness and brought us into the glorious light of the knowledge of His gospel.  God be praised!  Let’s start into the lesson…

John 8:31-36 – Freedom from Sin

8:31-32 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, [32] and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

First I want to go back and examine how verse 30 and verse 31 interact with each other, because many good commentators have pointed out that both verses in many of our English versions use the word “believe” to describe the people’s reaction here.

Some say there is some difference between the meanings used, Boice, for instance says that the first is meant to be saving faith and the latter to mean intellectual ascent.  But they both utilize the same Greek word “pisteuō”, so I’m not entirely convinced of that.  What I am convinced of is that those who were listening to Jesus may have believed what He was saying mentally, but obviously they didn’t stand the discipleship test, which we’ll see later on.

Abiding in the Word

The second thing we note here is the nature of a true Christian.  The true Christian “abides” in the word of Christ.

In our study of John 6:55-56 we talked about the nature of abiding.  Those verses say, “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.” Here is what I noted about what it meant to “abide”:

The word “abide” is “meno” in the Greek and can mean to sojourn or tarry in a place, to be kept continually, to continue to be present, to endure, and when talking about it in relation to a state a condition of a person it can mean to “remain as one” and “not become different.”

To abide in Christ and have Him abide in us is normally meant that we are continually relying on Christ for our vitality.  I like what the ESV Study notes say, “abide in me means to continue in a daily, personal relationship with Jesus, characterized by trust, prayer, obedience, and joy.”

What Christ is saying, in affect, is that a true Christian will have the desire to spend time listening, reading, and meditating on His word.  A true Christian will be obeying His word as well.  These are fruits of a true Christ-follower.  Truly it is a privilege to know something of the eternal God, and that we should know this truth in even a small way is in itself part of our reward as well as our fruit of the relationship we gain by acquaintance with Jesus.  Calvin enumerates upon this privilege as only Calvin can:

Wherefore, whatever progress any of us have made in the Gospel, let him know that he needs new additions. This is the reward which Christ bestows on their perseverance, that he admits them to greater familiarity with him; though in this way he does nothing more than add another gift to the former, so that no man ought to think that he is entitled to any reward. For it is he who impresses his word on our hearts by his Spirit, and it is he who daily chases away from our minds the clouds of ignorance which obscure the brightness of the Gospel. In order that the truth may be fully revealed to us, we ought sincerely and earnestly to endeavor to attain it. It is the same unvarying truth which Christ teaches his followers from the beginning to the end, but on those who were at first enlightened by him, as it were with small sparks, he at length pours a full light. Thus believers, until they have been fully confirmed, are in some measure ignorant of what they know; and yet it is not so small or obscure a knowledge of faith as not to be efficacious for salvation.

Freedom from Sin

The third thing we take from the passage is the result of abiding is learning the truth, and by learning that truth we will experience a great reality: freedom.  What kind of freedom could He mean?  I believe that Christ is talking about freedom from sin, freedom from guilt, freedom from the slavery to the prince of this world – what Calvin calls “an invaluable blessing.”  It is these points Jesus goes on to labor in his debate with the Pharisees.

What does true freedom looks like? Freedom looks like someone who has the fruit of the Spirit.  And, not coincidently, those who have the fruit of the Spirit are also abiding in the Word of God – written by that same Spirit.

Perhaps there is no better expositing of this truth than Paul’s writing in Romans 6.  The entire chapter is about being free from sin, and being a slave to righteousness.  The dichotomy between the two is labored by Paul because so many people think that they are basically good people who happen to sin a little here and there.

Amazing to think that what was so important for Paul to intensively labor in Romans 6, is actually more pertinent today than ever before.

Perhaps the most pertinent part of Romans 6 as it applies to this particular verse, is the section between verses 6 and 11:

[6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. [8] Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. [9] We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. [10] For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. [11] So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

The main thrust of this part of the passage is that we were formally slaves to sin, but because of Christ’s work we have been set free from sin.  It is the gospel that has delivered us from our sin. That is the freedom Christ is talking about here in verse 32.  He’s saying that because He was going to conquer death, death would no longer have dominion over us. Sin’s end is death, and so sin and its result (death) would no longer have power over anyone who believes upon Christ. Calvin agrees, saying that the kind of liberty that’s being described here is “that which sets us free from the tyranny of Satan, sin, and death.”

Barnes says, “The service of God is freedom from degrading vices and carnal propensities; from the slavery of passion and inordinate desires. It is a cheerful and delightful surrender of ourselves to Him whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light.”

When we think about the practical way this has revolutionized our lives, its unthinkable to go back to living any other way. Calvin says, “All men feel and acknowledge that slavery is a very wretched state; and since the gospel delivers us from it, it follows that we derive from the gospel the treasure of a blessed life.”  To this comment I can only add “amen!”

Born Free?

I’m always amazed at how many Christians insist on stating that they “freely” chose Christ because they were born with “free will.”  But as R.C. Sproul reminds us, we need to be cautious when we talk about free will so that we know exactly what it is we’re saying.

Certainly God gives us the freedom of choice to make decisions.  We aren’t robots, and we aren’t puppets.  But there are some things that even in our natural freedom we are not free to do.  One of those things is not sinning.  When we are born into this world, we are not free not to sin.  In other words, we are going to sin because it is who we are, and we are enslaved to it.  We will continue in this sin until Christ sets us free from it.

Calvin comments, “It is astonishing that men are not convinced by their own experience, so that, laying aside their pride, they may learn to be humble. And it is a very frequent occurrence in the present day, that, the greater the load of vices by which a man is weighed down, the more fiercely does he utter unmeaning words in extolling free-will.”

This is what irked the Pharisees.  They were saying, “Hey Jesus, we’re not slaves to anyone!  We make our own decisions.  We live our own lives.  No one rules over us, or our families!” But they were wrong in saying this, and people today are wrong in thinking that mankind is free to do whatever they’d like – we aren’t free to be holy and perfect because we’re incapable of it in our natural state.

When you think about how this plays out, it’s really worth contemplating and meditating on deeply because it shows the state of our old self and where we were headed apart from Christ.  For when we were slaves to sin, not only were we tethered to that form of life that is most odious to Christ, but we are tethered to the result of that life, namely death. When Christ unchains us from our slavery to sin, He also unchains us from the pangs of death – death could not rule over him (Acts 2), and we also have victory over death due to His death and resurrection (Rom. 6).

A.W. Pink laments at how fallen we are in our natural state, and yet how unwilling we are to realize this fact:

The condition of the natural man is far, far worse than he imagines, and far worse than the average preacher and Sunday school teacher supposes. Man is a fallen creature, totally depraved, with no soundness in him from the sole of his foot even unto the head (Isa. 1:6). He is completely under the dominion of sin (John 8:34), a bond-slave to divers lusts (Titus 3:3), so that he “cannot cease from sin” (2 Pet. 2:14). Moreover, the natural man is thoroughly under the dominion of it. He is taken captive by the Devil at his will (2 Tim. 2:26). He walks according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). He fulfills the lusts of his father, the Devil (John 8:44). He is completely dominated by Satan’s power (Col. 1:13). And from this thraldom nothing but the truth of God can deliver.

When I first read Pink’s comments it struck me to the bone. His first sentence was aimed at me – the teacher. Am I really honest with how ugly I was before Christ? That is a question that not many men or women truly meditate on for much more than a passing thought – perhaps before taking the Lord’s Super. But what Pink is calling us to realize is our state of depravity and darkness without Jesus.

Calvin says this, “For so long as we are governed by our sense and by our natural disposition, we are in bondage to sin; but when the Lord regenerates us by his Spirit, he likewise makes us free, so that, loosed from the snares of Satan, we willingly obey righteousness. But regeneration proceeds from faith, and hence it is evident that freedom proceeds from the gospel.”

Barnes adds, “There is need of the gospel. That only can make men free, calm, collected, meek, and lovers of truth; and as every man is by nature the servant of sin, he should without delay seek an interest in that gospel which can alone make him free.”

In the midst of our celebration of this freedom, we pause and wonder, “now wait a minute, how is it that I still continue to sin?”  Well, as Paul works this matter of slavery out in Romans 6, we are glad he continued to write because when we get to Romans 7 we learn that he faced that same dilemma – namely that he still continued to battle sin.  Despite the freedom not to sin that Christ has given us, Paul says that we still sin due to the nature of the flesh. But I don’t want to get too deep into that here.  The main point we need to see is the dichotomy between one who is a slave to sin, and one who is not, and that we have been made free men and women by the power and work of Christ.

8:33 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

Ironically, the very shackles that bound these Pharisees in their sin were the same chains causing them to claim they weren’t enslaved to anyone.  In their blindness they claimed they weren’t blind.  In their darkness they claimed to be enlightened.  These were truly men who were missing the point.

Oddly enough (and Calvin picks up on this point as well) it isn’t as though these people have never been enslaved physically to anyway…in point of fact, they were currently under a type of mild slavery/tyranny by the Romans at this very time in history – something I will address shortly. Warren Wiersbe collects these thoughts together succinctly:

Their claim that Abraham’s descendants had never been in bondage was certainly a false one that was refuted by the very record in the Old Testament Scriptures. The Jews had been enslaved by seven mighty nations, as recorded in the book of Judges. The ten northern tribes had been carried away captive by Assyria, and the two southern tribes had gone into seventy years of captivity in Babylon. And at that very hour, the Jews were under the iron heel of Rome! How difficult it is for proud religious people to admit their failings and their needs!

Pink cites all of the above that Wiersbe mentions, and then says, “It was therefore the height of absurdity and a manifest departure from the truth for them to affirm that the seed of Abraham had never been in bondage. Yet no more untenable and erroneous was this than the assertions of present-day errorists who prate so loudly of the freedom of the natural man, and who so hotly deny that his will is enslaved by sin.”

8:34-36 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. [35] The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. [36] So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Jesus uses the emphatic phrase “truly, truly” to get our attention.  He is saying to us “pay attention to this.”

Bondage to our Self-Centeredness

D.A. Carson explores the intent of what Christ is saying, “For Jesus, then, the ultimate bondage is not enslavement to a political or economic system, but vicious slavery to moral failure, to rebellion against the God who had made us. The despotic master is not Caesar, but shameful self-centeredness, an evil and enslaving devotion to created things at the expense of worship of the Creator.”

In other words, we are so self-centered and self-serving that our own sin and moral failures are the chief problems that need to be dealt with in life.

I think this is so important because the context in which Jesus is saying this is under the oppression of the Roman regime. The Jewish people had found their freedoms limited, and their liberties cut off. We also are going through a time in America where our own liberties are in question. We see the despotic nature of our government, which is becoming ever more tyrannical and hostile to Christian beliefs and values, and we wonder (rightly) if our freedoms will all be gone within a generation.

The generation of men and women Christ was addressing were far worse off than we are today, yet, like them, we often find ourselves distracted from solving life’s most important challenges, and that is what Christ came to solve.  The real problem is with ourselves, not our government. There’s only so much you can do about government – believe me, I’ve been fighting that battle for a while now.  Jesus isn’t saying that freedom from political tyranny isn’t important, what He is saying is that there’s something even more important.  When the Son of God came to the earth, He came to address life’s biggest problems, life’s biggest challenges. He came to free us from our bondage to sin.

That’s why we gather on Sunday mornings, that’s why we “abide” in the word of God, that’s why we pray and devote ourselves to growth in Christ. Because what we are doing today and on these other days, is addressing the real problems in life – life’s most consequential and difficult challenges.

The Power of the Son

The second thing that Jesus says in this passage is that as the Son of God He has unique privileges and power. He has the ability to set them free, because He has full reign over the house of God.  Calvin comments, “By these words he means that the right of freedom belongs to himself alone, and that all others, being born slaves, cannot be delivered by his grace.  For what he possesses as his own by nature he imparts to us by adoption, when we are engrafted by faith into his body, and become his members.”

“…the Gospel is the instrument by which we obtain our freedom” – Calvin

One of the main reasons I like to bring up the issue of the way we view “free will” is because in our “freedom” we come to rely too heavily on our flesh for the support of our souls. Here is what I mean by that: when we are going through the turmoil that this life brings us, it is natural (because of the flesh) to wonder at the purpose of life, and even whether our souls are truly saved. We wonder at God and ask Him in our difficulties whether He’s really there or not.  We wonder at Him and ask if we are truly saved or not.

Well one of the great things we hear Jesus saying in this passage is that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” In other words, He is the one with the power over sin and death, and not your “free will” or your “fleshly power.”  To steal a recent campaign theme, “you didn’t build this” – no indeed: Christ built this!

Carson says this, “Jesus not only enjoys inalienable rights as the unique Son of God, but exercises full authority, vested in him by the Father (3:35), to liberate slaves. Those who Jesus liberates from the tyranny of sin are really (ontos) free.”

Those who build their house upon this Rock will be able to stand firm in the storm because they know they weren’t the craftsmen, they weren’t the guarantee of the foundation’s sturdiness.  Christ Himself is the cornerstone and the Master Builder, and when life’s trials come, you can say with confidence “I will survive this, and either by life or death I will be with Christ, for He is my firm foundation, and in His work I can trust.”

Carson makes the great point that once free, we have been set free for a purpose:

True freedom is not the liberty to do anything we please, but the liberty to do what we ought; and it is genuine liberty because doing what we ought now pleases us.

What an amazing truth he’s hit on here. Christ knows that those who are set free are going to want to please Christ – before we simply wanted to please ourselves, now we have a desire and are at liberty to please the Lover of our Souls.

Dear friends: step away from the reliance on your own work, and rest upon the great and mighty work of Jesus Christ – the Son who has set you free!

 

Study Notes 11-4-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

John 8:21-30


8:21 So he said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”

In the 7th chapter John records that Jesus said something very similar:

Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” (John 7:33-34)

There are similar elements, but in 8:21 Jesus is more explicit by what he means by “where I am you cannot come” (7:34), because in 8:21 he says this but it’s preceded by the words “you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.”

Can there be any more stinging indictment from the lips of Christ?  In fact, its less of an indictment than a grizzly prophecy. These are the kinds of words that ought to give us chills and fill us full of urgency. The lives of those who are so full of themselves, so sure that they are going to go to heaven, and yet they are not saved…those lives are in peril.  Unless one has humbled himself to repentance and place their faith upon the Lord Jesus Christ they risk their souls – what Jesus says plainly enough here is that these Pharisees were going to die without coming to peace with God.

When the Son of God makes a remark like this, its wise for us to take note, and fearfully realize the stark realities of Hell.  These are the kinds of comments that ought to be burning every man’s conscience who has read this gospel but not yet yielded to the Lordship of Christ. If that is where you stand today, then surely the Lord Jesus’ words have just a full a consequence for you as they did for his hearers then.

Furthermore, it is not as though He is telling them that they will seek him correctly.  For we know that all who seek Christ in faith are given the opportunity to become sons of God. But such is not the case here, as Calvin remarks:

Christ does not mean, therefore, that they sought him by the right way of faith, but that they sought him, as men, overwhelmed by the extremity of anguish, look for deliverance on every hand. For unbelievers would desire to have God reconciled to them, but yet they do not cease to fly from him. God calls them; the approach consists in faith and repentance; but they oppose God by hardness of heart, and, overwhelmed with despair, they exclaim against him.

8:22 So the Jews said, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”

Ferguson talks about how ironic it is that these Pharisees think He’s going to kill himself, when they are the ones who will kill Him.  He will indeed offer up His life, but it will be voluntarily for the sins of man.

Calvin remarks, “Shocking stupidity! But thus does Satan infatuate the reprobate, that, intoxicated with more than brutal indifference, they may throw themselves into the midst of the flame of the wrath of God.”

8:23 He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. [24] I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

Here Christ delivers the gospel message plainly.  Under a potential “double meaning” of the Greek words for “I AM”  (ego eimi), there is also the instruction of what is needed for eternal life: believe in who He is.  They must have faith in Jesus Christ.

Here is what the ESV notes say:

At one level may simply mean “I am the Messiah” or the one “sent” by the Father (or, in view of v. 12, “I am the light of the world”). The Greek phrase egō eimi simply means “I am” and is used in an ordinary sense in 9:9 by a man Jesus healed. However, John is fond of using words with a double meaning (see notes on 3:14; 4:10; 11:50–51;19:19; cf. also 3:7–8) and this verse is one of several that hint at a connection with God’s statement to Moses in Ex. 3:14, “I am [Gk. Septuagint: Egō eimi] who I am.” See notes on John 6:20; 8:58.

It is not clear, however, that Jesus is making a veiled statement about His deity here.  There is some disagreement about this. Calvin disagrees with it being a direct statement of deity, but rather says that it makes more sense that He is pointing to His office of Messiah for mankind, and that all men ought to look to Him for salvation.  I think this is splitting hairs a bit myself, being as it is that all men look to the Messiah who, as it turns out, is from heaven.  I think though that Calvin means to say that the Jews didn’t expect the Messiah to be the Son of God, and so that when Jesus refers to “I am” in this context and in the previous verses just prior, He is saying specifically that He has come to fulfill the office of the Messiah, the role expected to be fulfilled by a man sent from God – though no one knew that the man sent from God would actually be God Himself incarnate!

But let me move to the heart of the verse at hand…the thing we need to note here is how Christ says that He is from above and they are from below. And so the Pharisaical concept of the Messiah was about to be reinterpreted (correctly) in Christ. Calvin’s commentary on the matter is simply full of wisdom that it is worth quoting in length here:

Under the words, world and beneath, he includes all that men naturally possess, and thus points out the disagreement which exists between his Gospel and the ingenuity and sagacity of the human mind; for the Gospel is heavenly wisdom, but our mind grovels on the earth. No man, therefore, will ever be qualified to become a disciple of Christ, till Christ has formed him by his Spirit. And hence it arises that faith is so seldom found in the world, because all mankind are naturally opposed and averse to Christ, except those whom he elevates by the special grace of his Holy Spirit.

Thus the natural man is opposed to the things of God (1 Cor. 2:14) – we are naturally at enmity with God and will not submit to Him (Romans 8:7).

I can think of no more plane indication of deity than for Him to indicate that He came down from heaven and was not of this earth. “You are of this world; I am not of this world” – this statement was so bold, so direct, and so amazing that it could lead to nothing more than the bewildering question they asked of Him next…

8:25-26 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. [26] I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.”

Now we come to it.  These religious leaders are starting to get the idea that He is either crazy, or who He said He is…but since the latter never entered their minds, the former is creeping up on them as a possibility.

Their question reveals all: “Who are you?” – in direct reaction to Him saying “I am not of this world.”

The next thing Jesus says is that He has a lot of say and judge about these people, “but”, He isn’t doing that right now, it’s not His primary mission.  His primary mission is to “Declare to the world what I have heard from him.”

So once again Jesus enumerates His mission – right now He is not come to judge the world but to save the world.

The “him” in this case is the Father – which we’ll see in the next verse…

8:27 They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.

Why wouldn’t they be able to understand what it is that Jesus was talking about?  Well we’ve talked about this in the past.  Their minds were darkened, and they were “blind guides” and therefore they couldn’t see what it was that He was speaking of here.

It’s so vital to understand this truth: before the magnificent and gracious work of the Holy Spirit we are all dead in our sins.  That means that we cannot perceive divine truth.  We can’t understand it – just as these men here couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying.

John repeats this over and over and over again – obviously it’s an important principle!

8:28-29 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. [29] And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.”

There’s just so much to unpack here…

First Jesus eludes to being “lifted up”, and in this case it’s a similar reference as He made in 3:14: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” This is a reference to Him being lifted up on the cross.

Jesus had to die – that was the only way for men to be reconciled to God. That was the only way for the gracious plan of God, that He had foreordained to occur, to be fulfilled.  James Boice says that not only was it necessary for Him to die because of God’s plan and because His was the only life that would be able to really atone for sin, but that His was the only death that would truly draw men to God:

Moreover, it was necessary for Christ to die also because nothing but a crucified Christ will draw men to God. Nothing but this will eve draw men to hear preaching. Liberalism does not draw men. The cults do not draw men in great quantities. Men and women will not long attend a man-centered religion. But preach Christ crucified – preach him in the power of the Holy Spirit – ad men and women will begin to come to him. They begin to leave their comfortable homes in the suburbs and come to city churches, where they would have come for no other reason. They begin to take weeks of their vacation time to attend seminars or attend Bible conferences. At time they will even mass in the millions as they did in Korea for the Billy Graham crusades in that country.

Preach any Christ but a crucified Christ, and you will not draw men for long. But preach the gospel of a Savior who atones for the sins of men and women by dying for them, and you will have hearers. Moreover, as Christ is lifted up, many of those who hear will believe.

The second thing is that He said to them that only then will they know that “I am he” – and this reference to being “he” Jesus uses in other areas to denote false Messianic claims (Mark 13:6l Luke 21:8), and here is using to indicate His own proper and correct fulfillment as the Messiah.

The third thing is that Jesus reiterates to them that He doesn’t speak of His own authority, but rather His authority has been given Him (all of His message have been given to Him) by God the Father. Thus, His words are truthful and full of authority and must therefore be listened to.

The fourth thing is that Jesus says something so magnificent and so significant that it would be wise to spend time looking closely at it.  He says, “he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone.” What an amazing thing.  I think it is easy to slip into a misunderstanding of the nature of Christ.  Sometimes we forget His deity, and His humanity and they work together and yet are not mixed together. He is fully God and fully man. And as God, He shares communion with the Father – they are One. Just because He was walking the earth as a man doesn’t mean that He somehow broke communion with the Holy Father.  And that is what we see here.  Furthermore, these words echo a promise that Christ left for us, namely that wherever we go, He will be with us. We often take solace in this fact – and rightfully so.  For if Jesus Christ treasured this reality, so much more ought we to do so.

Fifthly, and lastly, we see Christ’s perfect obedience to the Father described here.  He says of His own righteousness, “I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” Surely Christ is the perfect man, the righteous fulfillment of the law, and what Paul called the “second Adam.”

What an amazing unfolding of truth! Let’s look at this closer in summary as it relates to how the early church – particularly Peter – understood His words.  First, He starts by foretelling their sin and what they would do to Him, and in so doing He point forward in time to the crucifixion.  In Acts 2 in his speech at Pentecost, Peter looks back and recounts what the people did to Jesus by murdering the “Lord of Glory”, and then goes on to share the resurrection, and then the gospel which is that if we believe in this Jesus and trust him for life then he will indeed give us that life!  In this instance, we see that Jesus preaches a gospel going forward instead of backward as Peter did.

Jesus says in affect that “you will crucify me, then and only then will you realize what you have done.” How will they realize? Because Peter and his other apostles will tell them.  How?  By the power of the Holy Spirit. How can they do that?  Because God is with them just as Jesus promised at the conclusion of Matthew’s 28th chapter. Not coincidently, we read here that the Father also never left Jesus (cf. vs. 29), and so it is that Christ Jesus will never leave us!  Furthermore all things that he is speaking here are from the Father – just as all things that Peter and the apostles spoke were given them from Jesus through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus spoke on authority from God the Father, so the apostles spoke not of their own authority but with authority of Christ by the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Lastly, just as Christ’s mission was to reveal the plan of the Father, so our mission is to reveal (by preaching) the plan of the Son in the Gospel. The two are One, and their plans are one in the same. We are instruments of righteousness to share this plan to all ends of the earth (Romans 6, Acts 1).

8:30 As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

The result of this powerful testimony is that “many” believe in Christ.  Not surprising whatsoever given the powerful nature of these words. For the word of the Lord will not return void – Isaiah said this hundred of years before Christ walked the earth.  Here is exactly what he said:

“…so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Is. 55:11).”

This is a great promise. The promise is this: God will accomplish exactly what He planned on accomplishing. There is nothing that can thwart His great purposes. What a comfort to us when we preach Christ crucified and many do not believe. Many will believe, but unless they understand what only the Holy Spirit can show them, they’ll never follow Christ.  Just as these men would later seek after Christ and not find Him.  They’d be seeking for the wrong reason. In their judgment they will reach out like the rich man did in Luke 16, but they will not be saved.

But for those who trust in Christ, for those who put their faith in Him and the glorious gospel of grace, they will indeed be saved for all eternity.

Study Notes 10-28-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

As we get deeper into the 8th chapter of John’s Gospel, I want to just say how struck I am at the importance of the reality of the Trinity and that doctrine of the Trinity to me and us as Christians.  In the notes that follow, I scratch the surface at the doctrine, and once again light upon how the truth of the Trinity has such an important affect on our lives and relationship to our Lord and Savior.  I hope you take time to reflect on the complexity, and yet the simplicity of this great truth about God’s being and personality.  Because He is who He is, you can know Him in a way that no man ought to know Him – certainly a way that no man deserves to know Him.

His depth of character, and complexity of being only magnifies the privilege of entering into a relationship with His Son, and sets in sharp relief the gracious state of our situation, namely our adoption, relative to His kingdom and His heavenly family.  This week, ask yourself this question: what does Jesus mean to me as it pertains to my relationship to the Father?  Words like “reconciliation” or “justification” might pass through your mind, or perhaps more simply “peace.”  I thank God for the reality of the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Enjoy the notes – and have a great week!

John 8:12-20

8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

The Backdrop

Sinclair Ferguson points out that there were 4 large candles in the courtyard of the temple. He also points out that John is indicating that Jesus fulfills three pictures at the feast of tabernacles: 1. the tabernacling of his people, 2. the light of the world, and 3. the life giving water.

In fact, there are a lot of parallels here to being born again, which we read about in chapter three – for instance, we will note the similarities between walking in darkness, and being dead in our trespasses and sins; as Piper says, “Dead people are blind; so they need life.”

Walking in Darkness

There is something starting here about Jesus’ statement about His being “the light”, and that is that He’s addressing the condition of those who do not walk in that light.  In other words, the presupposition that Christ makes is that the whole world is in a condition of darkness.  Ryle comments, “These words imply that the world needs light, and is naturally in a dark condition.”

So all men without Christ are without light.  Ryle says we can see this to be the case in our daily lives as we look around us: “The vast majority of men neither see nor understand the value of their souls, the true nature of God, nor the reality of the world to come!”

This evoked a terrible image in my mind – that of a group of blind people with no one to guide them. If you’ve ever watched a blind person operate, you’ll notice that if they are used to being blind they move slowly and carefully.  But observe the one who is freshly blind and still getting used to the tremendous difficulty of feeling around, this is a man most to be pitied.  Now imagine a whole mass of blind people who refuse to acknowledge their blindness at all!  They confidently wander into danger after danger, keep falling, keep injuring themselves, all the while living as though they know better!  As if they can see the full picture…and yet they can’t see a single thing!  Would you take council from a person like this?  Of course not.  That’s why Christ told the disciples, not to follow the teaching of the Pharisees because they were “blind guides” (Matt. 15:14) and we’ll talk more about that in a minute.

Now we must also examine what Jesus is saying about Himself.  This is quite a declaration! Jesus is saying that He is the light of the entire “World.”  He is making another exclusive claim about Himself here. Certainly “whoever” is a qualifier to the word “world”, and it causes us to ask questions about what John means by this phrase.  What does he mean by “light of the world”?  We know by simple deduction that all men don’t walk in this light, just because the light of the world came, doesn’t mean that these men could see it – the blind man cannot see the sun even on a beautiful day – he’s still blind.

John Piper explores more deeply what this phrase “light of the world” means by separating its meaning into four areas:

      1. Jesus being the light of the world means, the world has no other light than Him. Apart from Him there is only darkness. Ryle says it this way, “For this state of things, the Lord Jesus Christ declares Himself to be the only remedy.”
      2. It means therefore that all the world and everyone in it needs Jesus as the light.
      3. It means that the world was made for this light.  God made the world for this light.  Creation was made for this light to fill it. It’s not a foreign light to this world, it the light of the owner of the world. The light of Jesus illumines everything in its proper beauty. Without this light we can’t see the world and how it was meant to be in God’s eyes. I think Ps. 36:9 is a great example of this, “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.”
      4. He is the light that will one day light the entire world. Piper says, “One day this world will be filled with the light of Jesus and nothing else. When this light comes, it not only makes sin plain but sooner or later it will take all darkness and banish it out of the world. All the works of darkness will be banished out of the world, all the sons of darkness will be banished out of the world, which is why Jesus calls Hell the outer darkness. There will be not darkness in the world, in the universe. Hell is utterly outside of the creation God has made. Except that it is held in being in its unique place, and it’s dark, totally dark. And don’t get bent out of shape about fire without light – that’s not a problem for God. There are more horrors in Hell than you’ve dreamed of…darkness…utter darkness.”

The Promise to His Followers

The third thing we see Jesus saying in this verse, besides His presupposition on the state of the world, and His declaration that He is the light of the world, is the result of coming to Him and “following” Him.

What does it mean to “follow” Christ?  Ryle is very helpful here, he says, “To follow Christ is to commit ourselves wholly and entirely to Him as our only leader and Savior, and to submit ourselves to Him in every matter, both of doctrine and practice. ‘Following’ is only another word for ‘believing.’”

Our reward for following/believing is to receive the “light of life.”

There is a beauty in this, and a rich history behind the idea of Christ as the coming light.  C.H. Spurgeon notes that during the darkest ages of history God chose to reveal to the prophets some of the most glorious news of the impending birth of the Christ.  Amid the distresses of our own lives, God has given us a bright Morning Star, He has fashioned within us that knowledge of the holy, that light is also in us because Christ’s Spirit has come to reside within us.  Spurgeon says, “In the worst times we are to preach Christ and to look to Christ! In Jesus there is a remedy for the direst of diseases and a rescue from the darkest of despairs.”

Read Isaiah 9:1-2 and we find this is the case.  It says, “But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”

To have the hope of eternity dwelling within us, to have the wisdom of God made manifest to us, and to have all the promises of God illumined to us in a way our ancestors before Christ never dreamed of, these are all manifestations of the fact that indeed those who come to Christ will “have the light of life”!

If I were a preacher and I were allotted 45 minutes to talk on one verse, it would be easy to talk more about this verse and all that it means.  But I must be satisfied for the time being and move on to the reaction this statement provoked from the Pharisees.

Side Note: As we read through the rest of this dialogue here, it almost seems a bit disjointed, as if Christ is allowing the conversation to get off his main declaration in verse 12 that He is the light of the world.  However, upon closer study, this isn’t the case at all. As we continue reading, it’s crucial to see how He’s using their interruption and the conversation about His truthfulness, and the connection to His heavenly Father to validate the declaration in verse 12.  Piper explains, “He isn’t an autonomous light. If Jesus is the light of the world He is the light of the world precisely because of his relationship with the Father.”

8:13-14 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.” [14] Jesus answered, “Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.

My Testimony is True

This is kind of a strange comment I think, and one that is hard to understand in a cursory reading.  What does Jesus mean that His testimony is true because He knows where He has coming from and where He is going?  What does that mean? Well, what seems enigmatic at first is actually not very hard to figure out with some thought.  The reason Jesus knows from where He is coming and going is because He is God and the Son of God.

Ferguson says, “He is saying as we read elsewhere in John’s gospel that he had come from there very side of the Father. He was in the beginning with God, and He was God. And the reason His testimony is valid and to be trusted, is because He is God.  And because God is to be absolutely trusted because his word is infallibly true.  Not only so, but it follows logically that there is no higher testimony to which Jesus could appeal.  You see they say to him ‘appeal to a higher testimony and then we’ll believe you.’ But since He is God there is no higher testimony for Him to appeal to. You don’t come to God and say ‘Prove yourself to me. Call in some more reliable witness than you are.’  So he says my testimony is reliable and valid and true because of my personal identity.”

The last thing to note about this little portion of Christ’s response is that he tells them that they don’t know as much about Him as they think they do. They are making all kinds of wild assumptions about Him, and Christ is not only setting them straight on the purpose of His ministry, but He’s also saying in affect, “you are assuming too much; you don’t know the first thing about me or where I came from.”

8:15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.

This reminds us of what Jesus had said in chapter seven.  He said, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” (John 7:24)  These people can’t judge correctly because they are judging according to the flesh.  They judge what they don’t understand. Their assumptions are built on false premises. Why? Because they are judging from a position of darkness. Back to my analogy of blind men, this is like having these blind men tell Jesus what He looks like, and how he ought to style his hair one way or another, or shave his beard one way or another. What utter nonsense!  They can’t even see – they’re in no position to be giving advice about how he styles his facial hair!

So just as we mentioned earlier, Christ had used this same illustration in Matthew 15:14, and its worth marking in your text so that you can memorize it and keep on alert for “blind guides” in our own day and age.  This is why I so regularly harp on the false teachers of today – it is because they are dangerous!  They are blind guide who’d love nothing more than for you to gleefully and ignorantly skip down the street and fall into a sinkhole! All the to praise of their father, the Devil! And we’ll touch more on that front later in the chapter…

Fellow brothers and sisters, this is scary stuff. First, we must be watchful not to fall into the net of false teaching.  Second, we must test all teaching by the light of the Word of God.  Third, we must not regard the opinions of world as if they mean anything.

I Did Not Come to Judge

Sometimes it’s easy to read an isolated portion of Holy Scripture and forget that there is more to the story than an isolated verse. We have a phrase in theology for correctly reading the entire Bible in light of everything said, and not isolating single passages apart from the entire scope of Scripture, and that term is simply “always interpret Scripture according to Scripture” (2 Pet. 1:20-21).  There’s a lot of meaning in that term that I won’t go into here, except to say that we ought to follow basic rules for correct Biblical interpretation when looking at a difficult passage.  Some of the rules include the necessity of interpreting the implicit by the explicit, and the difficult by the more clear.  For we assume the Bible to be completely consistent and coherent.

So what did Jesus mean when He said, “I judge no one”?  What He meant was exactly what He said, namely that during His earthly ministry He didn’t come to judge anyone.  He mission during this period was not to judge humanity but to save humanity. His earthly ministry revolved around salvation (John 3:17; 12:47).

However, when Christ returns, we are told that He will judge the world, and that all judgment has, in fact, been given into His hands.  So it is not as if He will never judge the world, or that we will somehow escape this judgment (Acts 17:31; Romans 2:16).

8:16-18 Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. [17] In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. [18] I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”

So the first appeal Christ made was to His deity.  They could trust Him because He was and is God. Therefore He is trustworthy. Here He’s saying something else.  He’s saying that even in according to the strict Law of Moses, His testimony was true because He had two witnesses.  Who are the two witnesses?  Jesus is one of them, and the other is the Father. This is a hint at His deity, and the fact that the Father was “always with Him” – something we’ll talk about more when we get to verse 29.

I mentioned in the last section of scripture about how in order to condemn an adulteress to death there had to be at least two witnesses – and preferably three.  The same was true for other capitol offenses or testimony in the courts (see Numbers 35:30, Deut. 22:22-24 etc.)

8:19 They said to him therefore, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

At the announcement that He had more than one witness, the Pharisees stopped Him again and said, “wait a minute, who is your father?” To which Jesus responds that they don’t know His Father.

Now to them this may have seemed a little odd, since perhaps they might have been familiar with Joseph, or have heard a little background info on Jesus from some of the folks listening to Him.  They probably weren’t completely ignorant of Jesus’ life, but it seems that there’s also a chance that they were simply by their question.  The other possibility here is that they knew of Joseph, but when they said “where is your Father” they were meaning to say “where is he we want to call him as a witness – go ahead and bring him out so we can question him.”  They may have even been hinting that they thought Jesus might have been born illegitimately (MacArthur – citing verse 41).  But whatever the case, “they were rejecting Him” (MacArthur).

Ironically, later in the discussion in verse 41 Jesus says, “You are doing the works your father did.” And the Pharisees responded by saying, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father—even God.”  But of course Christ goes on to correct them – but we don’t need to read that far to hear Christ’s rebuke, He’s already rebuked them in verse 19, they were just too dense to see it.  When Christ says, “You know neither me nor my Father” He is saying that they don’t know God! He is saying point blank that the religious leaders of the day didn’t even know the author of their religion.  What an insult, but what truth!

The Nature of the Trinity and Our Privilege

Not a week goes by and we don’t see John recording for us some very clear manifestation of Christ’s teachings on the nature of the Godhead.  It is not insignificant that Christ says here, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

Not only does the statement have significance in the context of the discussion Christ is having with these false teachers, but it rings true for us today.  The reason is thus: if we know Jesus, if we have a relationship with Him, by this relationship we also “know” the Father as well. That because the Holy Spirit has befriended us by the power of the new birth (John 3) we have entered into a family in which the Creator of the Universe is our daddy.  The significance for daily living cannot be understated.  When we commune with Christ we commune with the Father – what more do we need out of life than that?

Because of Christ we have “boldness and access” to the Father (Eph. 3:12), and can confidently approach the throne of the great God of the Universe (Heb. 4) because of how we are related to Him – we are adopted (Heb.12)!

Spurgeon relished the reality of what the Trinity means for us and said this, “He who comes forth fresh from beholding the face of God will never fear the face of man.”  What splendid promises, what beauty we have the privilege to access, what depth of love are we at leisure to plumb.  We who were sinners are now related through adoption to our great Creator.  All because of the significance of Christ’s words here – “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”

8:20 These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.

The “treasury” could have meant a number of things, and the ESV Study Bible has some helpful notes on this:

The treasury as a structure is mentioned in Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 19.294; Jewish War 6.282) and likely was located adjacent to the Court of the Women (Josephus, Jewish War 5.200; cf. Mark 12:41–44; Luke 21:1–4). The NT occurrences of this Greek term may indicate either a collection box for the treasury or the treasury structure itself. Furthermore, in John 8:20 the Greek preposition (en), translated as “in the treasury,” can mean “in the vicinity of” (i.e., “at” or “by”); thus it need not be assumed that Jesus and the disciples had access to the secured halls that stored the immense wealth of the temple.

I have mentioned before that when no one arrested Him, it was because He was completely sovereign over the events of His life and ministry. No one by Christ controlled Christ. No one set the agenda for God besides God.  He and He alone had complete control over His destiny – an even more mind-bending thought when we meditate upon His sufferings, and the fact that at any time He could have called down myriads of angels to vanquish His foes (Matt. 26:53).

Study Notes 10-21-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

Chapter 8

CONTEXT NOTE: There is a great deal of discussion amongst scholars as to whether or not the first 11 verses of John 8 are part of the Canon of Scripture.  After consulting with our own pastor, and with commentators from every age of the church, I believe that it is part of the Canon, although it was not perhaps originally part of John’s gospel and may have been meant to go in Luke’s gospel, or may have been meant to be placed elsewhere.

Nevertheless, while men across church history seem to agree that this was not a passage in the original manuscripts, they almost all equally agree that the passage should be included in the canon.  Here are a few thoughts from wiser men than myself on the matter, and why we ought to still consider this passage as inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore worthy of our consideration and reverence:

Calvin says this, “…it has always been received by the Latin Churches, and is found in many old Greek manuscripts, and contains nothing unworthy of an Apostolic Spirit, there is no reason why we should refuse to apply it to our advantage.”

Our own Pastor Gabbard said, “Even though this passage is not found in the earliest manuscripts, my recollection is that it is in enough later manuscripts to still give it some credibility. I have always taken the position that since God in his sovereignty allowed this passage to be in our Bibles for hundreds of years and it is a beautiful story which is consistent with the character and ministry of Christ, I teach it as the word of God.”

D.A. Carson says, “On the other hand, there is little reason for doubting that the event here described occurred, even if in its written form it did not in the beginning belong to the canonical books.  Similar stories are found in other sources. One of the best known, reported by Papias (and recorded by the historian Eusebius) is the account of a woman, accused in the Lord’s presence of many sins (unlike the woman here who is accused of but one). There narrative before us also has a number of parallels with stories in the Synoptic Gospels.  The reason for its insertion here may have been to illustrate 7:24 and 8:15 or, conceivably, the Jews’ sinfulness over against Jesus’ sinlessness (8:21, 24, 46).”

MacArthur, speaking to the external evidence says, “The external evidence also casts doubt on the authenticity of these verses. The earliest and most reliable manuscripts, from a variety of textual traditions, omit it.”  But then goes on to say, “It contains no teaching that contradicts the rest of Scripture. The picture it paints of the wise, loving, forgiving Savior is consistent with the Bible’s portrait of Jesus Christ. Nor is it the kind of story the early church would have made up about Him.”  Finally he comments, “The story was most likely history, a piece of oral tradition that circulated in parts of the Western church. (Most of the limited early support for its authenticity comes from Western manuscripts and versions, and from Western church fathers such as Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine.)”

Leon Morris has this to say, “The textual evidence makes it impossible to hold that this section is an authentic part of the Gospel (of John)…In addition to the textual difficulty many find stylistic criteria against the story. While the spirit of the narrative is in accordance with that of this Gospel the language is not Johannine.”  Morris continues, however, by stating, “Throughout the history of the church it has been held that, whoever wrote it, this little story is authentic. It rings true. It speaks to our condition. And it can scarcely have been composed in the early church with its sternness about sexual sin. It is thus worth our while to study it tough not as an authentic part of Jon’s writing.”

James Montgomery Boice says this, “The difficulty, simply put, is that the majority of the earliest manuscripts of John do not contain these verses and, moreover, that some of the best manuscripts are of this number…Interestingly enough, very few scholars (even man of the liberal ones) seem willing to do this (omit the passage), and the fact that a good case can be made out for the other side, should make one cautious in how he deals with it. I am willing to deal with the story as genuine – though perhaps not a part of the original Gospel as John wrote it (then he lists several reasons which I will not take time to list here).”

Finally, R.C. Sproul says this, “The overwhelming consensus of textual critics is that it was not part of the original Gospel of John, at least not this portion of John. At the same time, the overwhelming consensus is that this account is authentic, it’s apostolic, and it should be contained in any edition of the New Testament…I believe it is nothing less than the very word of God, so I will treat it as such in this chapter.”

I know that John Piper, John Calvin, Ambrose, and many other great pastors and theologians also lay out good and convincing cases for including this passage in Scripture.  And so the task before us is no longer to question the veracity and authenticity of this text as apostolic, but to agree that it is the “very Word of God” as Sproul says, and submit ourselves to its teaching and authority.

The Text

7:53-8:1 They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

The first thing we note here is that Jesus went up on the Mount of Olives after everyone else went home.  This is significant for a few reasons.

First, this is the only reference to the Mount of Olives in John – perhaps a reason to doubt the manuscript here should be included in John and not in Luke or one of the other synoptics.

Second, it reminds us that Jesus was homeless.  In Matthew 8:20 we hear Christ say, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” MacArthur notes that we cannot note for certain that He slept out under the stars or whether He went a short distance on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives at the home of Lazurus, Martha and Mary, however, I think it’s a good reminder of the humiliation of the incarnation.  MacArthur also agrees and cites the famous passage from Phil. 2:7-8.

Third, Boice points out that what Jesus normally did on the Mount of Olives was commune with His Father in prayer.  This is something to keep in mind as we head into the text ahead of us.  While Jesus was communing in prayer with His Father, the Pharisees and Scribes were laying a sinful plot to trap Him. Boice says that from a practical standpoint, if we are to imitate Christ in His handling of the situation before us in all the difficulties we face in our own lives, we must also imitate Him in His devotion to prayer.  “Where does this compassionate attitude toward other persons come from in practical experience? It comes only from communing with our heavenly Father. We are personal with others only when we know ourselves to be persons (as opposed to “things”).  We know ourselves to be persons only when we see ourselves as persons before God.”

8:2 Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them.

In classic Rabbinic style, Jesus sits down to teach.  Note also that all the people were coming to Him on their own.  Truth draws people in who have a desire to learn about God – something many modern day pastors would do well to remember as they lay out their church “marketing campaigns.”

8:3-4 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst [4] they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery.

Several scholars take time to note how the author puts together “the scribes and the Pharisees” here.  This isn’t a very Johannine phrase – but is one used a lot in the synoptic gospels.

Scribes were also called lawyers and they were experts at reading and writing opinions about the law of Moses.  We ought not to be confused here into thinking that the scribes and Pharisees were one in the same, for they were not.  Scribes were simply lawyers – that was their training and trade.  It is how they made their living.  Pharisees were a political type of party (at least that’s the best way I can describe it).  Not all Pharisees were scribes, and conversely, not all scribes were Pharisees.  In fact, my scribes had strong alliances with the ruling class of the Sadducees.

Now, we note here that this group of people says that this woman has been “caught” in the act of adultery.  What they are inferring is that she has been caught in the very act – not in simply a compromising situation.  Jewish scholars (note Morris, Boice, and Sproul) are clear that in order to be seized on this matter, it would require at least 2-3 witnesses, and all the details of the witnesses had to match exactly.  Thus it was very hard to get into this situation.  For one had to be caught in the very act, and there had to be several witnesses, and their testimony had to agree in every part down to each detail.

8:5-6 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” [6] This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground.

The Evil Trap for a Young Woman

The text that these guys are referring to is found in a few places.  First, the most notable text for this would have been in Deuteronomy 22:22, which says:

“If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.

The first thing we note here is that someone is missing from the scene.  Who?  Why the man who committed the act along with the woman!  Perhaps the man got away, though this is unlikely if he was caught in the very act (a requirement of the law as mentioned above) of adultery.  It is also possible that the man was an important person – perhaps on the Sanhedrin council – and the Pharisees didn’t want to arrest him.  There is also the very dark and nefarious possibility that James Boice is right on this and that the man (whoever he was) was involved in the plot to setup this young woman by the Pharisees, and therefore have something with which to trap Jesus.

I can’t think of a more dark and sinister thing than this.  But as we read on here, it becomes apparent, at least to me, that this is probably what these evil men had done.

Now, looking at the language that the Pharisees’ use here, we note that they have a specific intent in mind, a specific form of execution that they believe that Moses commands them to follow – namely stoning.   If we read further on in Deuteronomy 22 we read this:

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, [24] then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:23-24)

So we see that this method of execution was reserved only for those who were betrothed and fell into immorality – most of whom were young women and men, probably 13-15 years old.  Therefore, it’s very likely that this young woman was not a prostitute, but a teenage girl that was lured into a terrible trap by these evil men.  They were using her for their own evil purposes.

The Legal Trap for Jesus

Now that we see what this group of evil men had been working on with regard to this poor young woman, we turn our attention to the legal trap that they had concocted for Jesus.

R.C. Sproul explains, “The Romans permitted significant self-rule in the nations they conquered, but they did not allow vassal nations to exercise the death penalty in capital cases…If Jesus were to say, ‘Stone the woman,’ they would run to the Roman headquarters and say, ‘This teacher is advocating that we exercise capital punishment without going through the Roman system.’ That way they would get Jesus in trouble with the Romans. But if He were to say, ‘Don’t stone her,’ they would run back to the Sanhedrin and say, ‘This Jesus is a heretic because He denies the law of Moses.’ No matter how Jesus answered the question, He would be in serious trouble.”

In addition to the issue with Him getting into trouble with the Romans if He were to pronounce the guilty verdict, some Scholars (MacArthur, Boice, Morris among others) think that Jesus would also undermine His ministry which was marked by compassion – and would perhaps even contradict what He said in John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Though this might be the case, I don’t think it is necessarily what the scribes and Pharisees had in their minds.  I don’t think their mission at this stage was to simply undermine His ministry, but to find a reason to put Him to death.

Jesus Write in the Sand

The reaction of Jesus to their question is odd – very odd indeed!  There are so many theories on what it is that Jesus wrote that I can’t even begin to list them all here.  Most scholars that I respect say that we simply cannot know what He wrote, and that, as Sproul says, “We have to be careful about speculation. As John Calvin said in his commentary on Romans, when God closes His holy mouth, we should desist from inquiry.”

So I will not spend time on what He might or might not have said.  Needless to say, it further provoked His enemies, who continued to pester Him for an answer.

8:7-8 And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” [8] And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.

Jesus’ words are masterful.  He doesn’t vacillate between Moses and Roman law (as Sproul notes), but sides with Moses, and upholds the law of the Old Testament without directly engaging in the judgment Himself, and therefore not incurring any legal issues with Rome.

But His words are masterful in other ways as well.  He is actually shedding light on a problem – namely that we are all guilty of sin, we have all fallen short of God’s glory and high standard (Rom. 3:23), and that there is only one righteous judge of the universe who is fit to issue the verdict.  But at the same time, if we are all guilty, and we all deserve to die, how can the law of Moses be upheld while still believing in a God that is good and merciful?

This is the problem that Paul addressed in Romans 3:26 – As Boice points out, “Ho can God be both just and the justifier of the ungodly? From a human point of view the problem is unsolvable.”

But because with God “all things are possible” there is a solution.  Namely that Jesus bore our punishment in His body on the cross.  So that God would be just and not wink at sin (as Sproul is commonly saying) and still punish sin and therefore remain just, while providing mercy for those whom He has predestined to salvation (the elect).  Our punishment has not been excused and forgotten.  That sentence has been carried out – Jesus bore our sentence for us on the cross.

8:9 But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him.

These men thought they had trapped Jesus, but now they were so utterly undone by the overpowering nature and truth of His words (and perhaps even His presence) that their hearts melted within them.  One minute they had stones in their hands ready to physically kill someone, the next they were so struck in mind and heart that they had to flee the scene.

James Boice comments “Think of the efforts they had gone through! Think of the plotting! Yet there were destroyed in a moment when they were confronted by the God who masters circumstances.”

8:10-11 Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” [11] She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

How can we explain the reaction of Jesus here?  Boice says that His response was characterized by understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and a challenge.  I think he is right on the money with this breakdown (MacArthur offers a similar, though less compelling outline as well).  I will use his outline here but add my own thoughts under each section:

He is Understanding: Jesus knows all circumstances, all hearts, all minds.  There is nothing about this situation that Jesus doesn’t fully comprehend or understand.  He sees the hearts of the scribes and Pharisees, and He sees the heart of the young woman here.

He is Compassionate and Loving: The best way to think about the love and compassion Jesus had for this young lady is to think about how you love your own children.  It’s an unconditional kind of love.  You don’t love them because they are good, or because they are yours (they could have been adopted), or because they are talented or handsome or pretty.  There is an almost divine and unexplainable love you have for them.  Your heart is knitted to theirs in an almost supernatural way.  That is the way Christ sees people.  That’s how He saw this young lady, and that’s how He sees you and me.

Furthermore, that’s how we are called to see others.  We aren’t to use people like these Pharisees did.  What they did was so evil and so dark that we think we never act this way.  But as Boice points out, we are all guilty of using people from time to time.  We treat others as less than human, and we forget how God loves them, and how He loves us despite our deep sinfulness.

Boice says this, “Love is unexplainable. The best you can say is that love is divine and that you love him (others/your children) because God himself has loved us.”

Christ is Forgiving:

I think it may well be said here that Jesus forgave this young lady – for he says that He does not condemn her.  However, we aren’t told specifically if she sought repentance.  I do think, though, that He would not have issued these words if He had not already looked into her heart and seen her repentance.  I don’t want to get too far down the road of speculation here though, for no one can know what is in a man’s (or woman’s) heart.

The most important principle here is that of Christ’s forgiveness not merely for the specific sin in view, but for sin of any kind.

Now matter how disgusting, evil, or hateful, our sin can still be forgiven by the Lord of lords.  Interestingly enough none of the commentators talk about Christ’s view of the Pharisees and scribes at this juncture. Surely if there was ever a group that could have been called Christ’s “enemy” it was this group of men.  But what does Christ tell us about our enemies?  He tells us to love them (Matt. 5:44).  And so none of His enemies receives a stinging rebuke by Jesus in this instance – though they deserved it. Rather He goes right to the heart of the matter, piercing their souls and pricking their consciences with truth that could not be warded off even by the stony defenses of a hardened heart.  What is amazing to me is the thought that not only did Christ love this woman, but He probably had a love for those who were accusing Him (Luke 23:34) – perhaps even some in that group would later repent of their sins and follow Him (Acts 6:7).

Christ Issues a Challenge:

He says, “go, and from now on sin no more.”  Forgiveness is followed by a challenge, and we receive the same admonition as well from Paul who says:

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? [2] By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? [3] Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? [4] We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

[5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. [7] For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:1-7)

As followers of Jesus Christ, we have had our sins atoned for and we are no longer slaves to sin. This is an important final point. In the garden Adam could choose to sin, or choose not to sin.  We know which way he went.  But he was not a slave to sin as most of the human race is today. When Adam fell into sin, all men born afterwards were born into slavery.  We couldn’t not choose to sin.  We were sinners by our very nature. Such was our state prior to Christ!  Now we, like Adam originally, can choose either to sin or not to sin.  Often we follow the flesh, but as we become more and more conformed into the image of Christ, we choose to sin less and less.

The challenge we face is to crucify our desires of the flesh, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 13:14). This challenge is one we can meet with gusto because we have motivation that most people don’t have – we have hope for a wonderful eternity in heaven, and we have the enjoyment and communion with God right now.  In short, we are motivated by the gospel and by His love for us.

 

 

 

 

 

Study Notes 10-14-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

(please forgive the audio – I’ve clearly got a cold here!)

7:40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.”

This is telling – its very similar to verse 31 and it reminds us that these folks were looking for a “prophet” that would be greater than Moses (Deut. 18:15-18).   If you recall, people reacted in a similar way in 6:14 when He had just fed the 5000:

When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

Now they were reacting not to His miracles but to His words.

7:41-42 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?”

There are a few interesting things to note here.  First we see that some people think that He is the Christ – the Messiah who would deliver them from bondage.  Others were saying that He was “the Prophet” — remember that there was a general consensus at the time that these would be two separate people.

The second thing that sticks out like a sore thumb here is that these people knew their Bibles! They are thinking of Micah 4:2:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.

Earlier some of the people were confused as to whether or not they would even be able to know where the Christ came from (cf. 7:27), but here we see people hat were more studied than others.  So we see a diversity here in the learning among the people, and a disagreement as to the nature and origin of Jesus (which makes sense since we have a real melting pot of people in town for the feast).  As Sproul says, “These people had no idea that Jesus had been born in Bethlehem; all they knew was that He had come to them from Galilee.”

The last thing, and perhaps the most obvious thing here is that they didn’t know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  Imagine if they would have known…He doesn’t inform them of this for a reason I believe until after His ascension. When people like Luke go back and thoroughly document the narrative of Jesus’ life.  All of this happened in the providence of God so that in all things His timing would be worked out.  The same timing we see here in the birth and life of Christ was also instrumental in bringing Saul to the Lord at the right time, and Saul was aware of this – not only did he call himself one “untimely born” (tongue in cheek), but he recognized that the gospel revelation also happened according to God’s timing as we see in Ephesians 3:

Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace, which was given me by the working of his power. [8] To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, [9] and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, [10] so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. [11] This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, [12] in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. [13] So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. (Ephesians 3:7-13)

7:43-44 So there was a division among the people over him. [44] Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

Division — note the way some reacted in wanting to arrest him.  Why? Was it because He was offending them?  Surely not all of them could have been so scrupulous (as we have already learned) as to claim that they were defenders of the faith!  So I have to guess that some of them were offended personally and not simply for their religious presuppositions.

And again, no one lays their hands on Christ for the reason we’ve talked about before, namely that Jesus said that He would lay down His body on His own initiative and in His own timing:

No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. (John 10:18)

7:45-46 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” [46] The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

No One Ever Spoke Like This Man

Now John brings us back to the scene at the Sanhedrin Council where the temple police squad has just returned back empty handed.  Did they return because Jesus evaded them?  Did they fail to bring in Jesus because He knew the Judean countryside better than anyone and hid away in a secret cave?  Or perhaps He evaded them by supernaturally disappearing?

None of these things happened, neither were they the reason that these temple guards came back empty handed.  We’re told why they were unsuccessful in their mission though in verse 46 when we hear the excuse the guards give for not bringing Jesus in for questioning and jail.  They say, “No one ever spoke like this man!” Quite literally, ‘No man (anthropos, “human being”) ever spoke as he does’ (Carson).

Wow. So it wasn’t through some magical, supernatural, or extraordinary evasion that Jesus avoided arrest at this time.  It was due to the power of His words.  These temple guards were likely men who were learned. They came from the tribe of Levi.  They hung around the temple complex all day long, and they likely would have had a life full of “hearing.” They would have heard Gamaliel, they would have heard Anas, and Caiaphas, and the other high priests.  They knew what fancy words sounded like.  But this was something different altogether.  These weren’t fancy words.  This wasn’t empty rhetoric. This was the very Word of God incarnate: this was truth!

As Ryle comments, “…they probably meant that He spake with a dignified tone of authority, as a messenger from heaven, to which they were entirely unaccustomed.”  Surely Ryle hits the mark here!  These men were Levites and had heard many powerful men as I mentioned above.  Surely they would not have been easily impressed.

Our Responsibility to Proclaim the Truth

We are called to proclaim this same truth – not in words of splendor, but in grace and the power of the Holy Spirit.  Listen to what Paul has to say about this in 1 Corinthians:

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5)

And yet these officers didn’t seem to repent of their ways and devote themselves to Christ. Why? Well that is the question that Calvin addresses:

Let us, therefore, learn that the doctrine of Christ possesses such power as even to terrify the wicked; but as this tends to their destruction, let us take care that we be softened, instead of being broken. Even in the present day, we see many persons who too much resemble those officers, who are reluctantly drawn into admiration of the doctrine of the Gospel, and yet are so far from yielding to Christ, that they still remain in the enemy’s camp.

7:47-49 The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? [48] Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? [49] But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”

What a significant arrogance that these lofty minded Pharisees had about themselves!  First the criticize the temple guards for their lack of discernment, and then they state that the crowd is ignorant and “accursed.”  All the while they are indicting themselves – for their lack of love shows their lack of knowledge of even the law (Lev. 19:18 for one).

But even more than that, they indict themselves by criticizing the crowd for their ignorance, for they are supposed to be the teachers of Israel!  If the people are ignorant of the law, whose fault is that? I have to believe that they would at least share in the responsibility for a supposedly ignorant populace.

At the same time, its important that these men, while acting in arrogance, were perhaps right to be cautious of the ignorance and passions of the masses.  For God had set men of authority over the masses in order to keep order – this is from the law as Calvin points out (Deut. 17:8).  But where these men went wrong, is that they thought they were above even God Himself:

“But they err in this respect, that, while they claim for themselves the highest authority, they are unwilling to submit to God….All the authority that is possessed by pastors, therefore, is subject to the word of God, that all may be kept in their own rank, from the greatest to the smallest, and that God alone may be exalted.” (John Calvin)

7:50-52 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, [51] “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” [52] They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

They Will Hate You

Nicodemus is basically calling these fellow leaders to account, and to follow their own principles and law.  As Sproul puts it, “Nicodemus argued that if the Pharisees wanted to use the law to judge Jesus, they ought to follow the law in doing so.”

Then we see the reaction of the Pharisees to his words – clearly a demeaning reaction, and one that was uncalled for considering that who they were addressing.  Nicodemus, who was apparently a big deal teacher in Israel during this time, was probably not deserving of this kind of treatment.  But soon he would learn that all the followers of Christ will endure persecution as Christ Himself had foretold (Luke 21). Here’s what Christ said of this:

Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. [11] There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven. [12] But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. [13] This will be your opportunity to bear witness. [14] Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, [15] for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. [16] You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. [17] You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. [18] But not a hair of your head will perish. [19] By your endurance you will gain your lives. (Luke 21:10-19 ESV)

In chapter three we read of Nicodemus that he was “a ruler of the Jews” and Jesus calls him a “teacher of Israel.”  He was on the Sanhedrin Council, and as such deserved to be heard out in this matter. But all men will be treated with scorn for following Jesus.  The world is not our ally or friend – they will hate us because they hated Him first (John 15:18).

There is an important lesson for us here. Often times we forget that our citizenship is in heaven.  We have a duel citizenship, so to speak.  But we are not to love the world, because we are not of the world. We deceive ourselves into thinking that loving the world is okay.  We live lives that are totally and completely oriented around what others think of us, instead of standing for what Christ would think of us.

We brag about “personal” relationships with Jesus, all the while acting as if He’s not standing in the midst of us hearing and seeing every word and deed we do.

At the same time we might honor Him transcendent and holy, while completely disregarding His anger at our sin – we feel as though He’ll love us so unconditionally that we can get away with anything!  We fool ourselves into thinking that our words have no bite.  That our deeds have no consequences!  And our testimony is defiled while Christ stands HERE in this very room and is spat upon time and time again.  We are shallow creatures like the men of old who were led up from Egypt by the mighty hand of God only to doubt Him when it came to conquering Canaan.  We see the miracle of regeneration in our lives and the lives around us.  We experience the amazing power of God to heal our sick and unite the lost with their loved ones.  And still we won’t stick up for Jesus! Instead we offer half-hearted defenses – as that of Nicodemus here who Calvin calls “neutral” in this depiction.  Perhaps he was neutral because he had not yet been made alive to Christ…but WE are not neutral!  No indeed, we are children of God, and soldiers in His army.  Are we then to love our Lord and obey Him, or are we to love our own self and the world and deny our Savior?

Hear what John says later in one of his epistles:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. [17] And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15-17)

Today I hope that we take a lesson from Nicodemus and examine ourselves and see if we are really found to be without a love for the world.

The Most Arrogant Men in History

When the Pharisees suggest that he go and “search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee” they are essentially saying that he needs to go study his Scripture some more.  They’re saying that Nicodemus doesn’t even know his Bible.  Sproul says:

“I do not believe there has ever been a more arrogant bunch in all of history than the Pharisees.”

And Ryle adds:

“These verse show us, for one thing, how useless is knowledge in religion, if it is not accompanied by grace in the heart.”

But in their haste to put him down they actually reveal their own ignorance!  For Scripture says quite plainly what and where Jesus will be and where He will come from. MacArthur comments on the put-down in this way:

Then they (the Sanhedrin) mockingly invited him to “search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee” conveniently overlooking the fact that Jonah (who was from a city near Nazareth in the tribal region of Zebulun; 2 Kings 14:25; cf. Josh 19:10) was from Galilee.  (Some scholars believe that Nahum and Hosea, and possibly other prophets, may also have been from Galilee.) They implied that he was ignorant of the most basic theological truths. But the statement actually exposed their own lack of knowledge since some prophets had come from Galilee and Jesus was originally from Bethlehem.

Even a respected member of the council caught a major amount of heat for even suggesting that the council follow standard protocol and give Jesus a hearing first before condemning him.

The fact that the council members were so violently opposed to even following standard procedure (which their legalistic minds usually adored) shows us that they were willing to do anything to kill Jesus.  They wanted this man gone.  I wonder if today we still have the courage to stand for Christ in the heat of death – much less an uncomfortable moment with our unbelieving friends.

Concluding Thoughts:

  • We hear the words of God incarnate in the words here in John.  Will you surrender to them?  Or will you be like the temple guards and be deeply affected but keep and stirred, all the while resisting the Holy Spirit and “kicking against the goads”?
  • If you sit here today listening to what I have to say, and are, in fact, a Christian, will you closely examine yourself to root out any love of the world?
  • Will you ask yourself this question: Is Jesus not eminently worthy of my honor and love?  Will I not adore Him above all other things?  And if this is so, will I be ashamed to give a defense of my faith, or make a half-hearted defense as an unbeliever with a conscience like Nicodemus?

Study Notes 10-6-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

7:32-34 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. [33] Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. [34] You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.”

Setting the Scene for the Warrant

Carson sets the stage for what is to follow: “The authorities have already indicated that they do not want Jesus to be the topic of conversation (cf. vs. 12-13), let along venerated as Messiah. The whispered and tentative faith of those described in verse 31, once it reached the ears of the Pharisees and chief priests, therefore served as a signal that is was time to sign an arrest warrant.”

The Pharisees and the chief priests (most of whom were Sadducees) didn’t get along, but the fact that they issued a warrant here shows that they were together on this matter (it would have taken all of them getting together to do this).  Sometimes “common enemies make strange bedfellows (witness Luke 23:12!)” (Carson).

Carson tells us that the “officers” mentioned in verse 32 were “temple guards” that “were a kind of temple police force, drawn from the Levites, with primary responsibility for maintaining order in the temple area.”  They served at the pleasure of the high priest and their leader was the Captain of the Temple.  The Captain of the Temple had a good amount of leeway to govern the area around the temple since the Romans didn’t really care about the Jews affairs so long as the order was kept.

You’re Not Coming With Me

It almost seems like there’s a double entendre here in the words of Jesus.  He says that he will be leaving to go to “him who sent me”, meaning that He will be going home to the Father, and then says that those listening to Him “will not find me.”  Why?  Because “where I am you cannot come.”  I think there are two potential reasons why He said, “you cannot come.”

First, I think that the obvious meaning is that since He will be going to heaven, those who are still on earth cannot physically follow Him to heaven.  This would have been more acutely directed at His disciples and crowd who would have loved to come with Him or who were indifferent one way or another.  Secondly, the saying could have had undertones directed at the Pharisees with the intent of meaning that they were not able to enter into the blessedness of heaven due to their unbelief.

Ryle puts it this way:

We can hardly doubt that these words were meant to have a prophetic sense. Whether our Lord had in view individual cases of unbelief among His hearers, or whether He looked forward to the national remorse which many would feel too late in the final siege of Jerusalem, are points which we cannot perhaps decide. But that many Jews did remember Christ’s sayings long after He had ascended into heaven, and did in a way seek Him and wish for Him when it was too late, we may be very sure.

However, taken either way, it seems that those listening still didn’t understand Him…

7:35-36 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? [36] What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”

Contextual Note: The word “dispersion” is “diaspora” in the Greek.  Morris comments, “The Dispersion, a technical term for the large number of Jews who at this time were dispersed throughout the Roman Empire and beyond. Ever since the exile to Babylon there had been Jews living outside Palestine. When permission to return from Babylon was given many availed themselves of it, but many also did not.”

It would have been a natural (though not discerning) conclusion for them to assume that Jesus would have been referring to His returning to the northern country and then perhaps going further out to the northwest to Greece – where they would not be able to bother Him.

Morris notes “This would seem to mean going to the Jewish synagogues and making them the springboard for a mission outward to the Greeks. It is, of course the method that the first Christian preachers actually employed (as we see in acts). These Jews, however, dismiss the method as too fantastic to be considered a proper activity of the Messiah, which is another example of John’s irony.”

However, this is not what He meant at all.  And we don’t see that He answers them at all.  He just lets them wonder to themselves as to the meaning of the thing.  Morris agrees saying, “It is clear that the saying puzzled them greatly. And it not only puzzled them; it apparently made them uneasy. Was there perhaps some meaning in it that still eluded them?  Was the Man from Nazareth mocking them? Should they have understood more?”

In fact, Jesus is talking about His glorious return to heaven where He will once again enjoy the glory He had before the foundation of the world (cf. 17:1-5 – also see Carson’s notes).

Lastly, we see another underlying threat of the fact that where He was going they weren’t going to come – if He looks forward to this (the glory awaiting Him cf. Heb. 12:1-2), then what must await them is the opposite…a scary proposition that Christ touches on later in 8:21 when He says, “So he said to them again, ‘I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.’”

7:37-39 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. [38] Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” [39] Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Contextual Notes about the Feast: There is a disagreement from scholars as to whether the feast actually lasted 8 days or 7 days.  It seems as though originally the feast lasted 7, but that it may have grown to an 8th day by the time of Christ.  The “great day” of the feast was the last, and biggest, day of the weeklong celebration.  If anyone came in late for the feast (say, mid-week), they would not have wanted to miss this day.  Morris notes that Chrysostom thought that Christ might have waited until this final day, when the crowds would have been largest, to impart this important truth.

There is also a significance here to Jesus’ use of “living water” that tied in with both the celebration at hand, and with the remembrance of the experience of the Israelites at the waters of Meribah in Numbers 20:2-13.

Both Morris and Carson explain that during the seven days of the feast a golden flagon was filled with water from the pool of Siloam and taken “in a procession led by the High Priest back to the temple.”  During the procession the people following would be singing Psalms from chapters 113-118.  “When the choir reached Psalm 118, every male pilgrim shoot a lulab (see notes below) in his right hand , while his left raised a piece of citrus fruit (a sign of the ingathered harvest), and all cried ‘Give thanks to the Lord!’ three times” says Carson.

The lulab comes from Leviticus 23:40: “And you shall take on the first day the fruit of splendid trees, branches of palm trees and boughs of leafy trees and willows of the brook, and you shall rejoice before the LORD your God seven days.”

SIDE NOTE: There was a disagreement between the Sadducees and the Pharisees as to whether these “leafy trees and willows” were to be used to build the booths (as thought the Sadducees) or whether they were to be paraded in through the temple (as thought the Pharisees).  In the end the latter – the Pharisees’ interpretation – won out (Morris).

The lulabs signified the years of wandering in the desert and the citrus fruit the promised land of their forefathers, and both were also a celebration and thanks for current blessings as well.

Along with this procession and the recitation of the Psalms, Ps. 118:25 became a rallying cry: “Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success!”  Little did they realize that Jesus was about to answer their prayers in a way that they’d never have expected (Morris).

Rivers of Living Water

It is against this background that we read the words of Jesus.  We recall also that back in John 4, during His conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus said the following:

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (4:13-14)

But this text in front of us is the only time where we learn what exactly Jesus means by “living water” – the gospel writer tells us himself with an editorial note in verse 39 that “this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.”

So now there is more clarity placed on His words – and more significance as well.  Not only is this “living water” equated with “eternal life” but we’re told Who gives this living water, and how: Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The people who were listening would have perhaps been familiar with some of Jesus’ words.  They might have thought about what Ezekiel saw in his vision:

Then he brought me back to the door of the temple, and behold, water was issuing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east). The water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar. [2] Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate that faces toward the east; and behold, the water was trickling out on the south side.

Going on eastward with a measuring line in his hand, the man measured a thousand cubits, and then led me through the water, and it was ankle-deep. [4] Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand, and led me through the water, and it was waist-deep. [5] Again he measured a thousand, and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen. It was deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through. [6] And he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen this?”

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. [7] As I went back, I saw on the bank of the river very many trees on the one side and on the other. [8] And he said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and enters the sea; when the water flows into the sea, the water will become fresh. [9] And wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish. For this water goes there, that the waters of the sea may become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes. [10] Fishermen will stand beside the sea. From Engedi to Eneglaim it will be a place for the spreading of nets. Its fish will be of very many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea. [11] But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt. [12] And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.” (Ezekiel 47:1-12).

 Other significant Old Testament texts that might have been ringing in their ears are found in Isaiah:

With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. (Is. 12:3)

And..

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. (Is. 55:1)

It is significant that the Spirit is shown by Christ to give the life of water.  Why?  Because it is the Spirit who does the “washing of regeneration” as Paul tells Titus:

He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. (Titus 3:5-7)

Passing the Blessing Onward

The most disputed portion of this text has to do with punctuation.  Is there a period in the right spot?  Some translations (some versions of the NIV for instance) separate the verses out differently in order to show that the living water doesn’t flow from those who believe, but rather from Christ.  The problem with this is that there is no Old Testament evidence or other scripture to support this interpretation (Morris).  However, it does make sense that once one is filled with the Holy Spirit that person produces spiritual fruit (Galatians 5:22-23) of a life giving nature.

Personally I believe that it makes all the sense in the world that the living water that Christ gives us also flows from us.  Not as though there is any power in ourselves, but rather we are vessels of service for the Lord’s Spirit (the Holy Spirit – for it is the Holy Spirit which does the washing of regeneration).

What is significant in this is to look at what Christ says in verse 38: “out of his heart” is what it says.  And thought He is not quoting from a specific text, one of the texts that scholars associate with this is the one from Ezekiel 47 I mentioned earlier.  In Ez. 47:1 it states that the water flowed from the “temple.”  We know that Christ referred to His own body as the temple in at least one way, and that is that it would be torn down and rebuilt in three days.  But the New Testament mostly uses the term temple in reference to the Christian.

Furthermore, if we are the temple we are so by the consecration of the Holy Spirit and are set apart for His service.  Indeed Christ is with us everywhere – (Matt. 28) through the indwelling of His Spirit.  Therefore we are the temple which flows with the Spirit’s living waters.  We are overflowing because of this life that Christ came to give us “abundantly” (John 10:10).

Conclusion

Jesus obviously meant for this to be a significant statement – one that we ought to take time and meditate upon.  Here are a few things we ought to be asking ourselves:

  • Am I keeping my temple pure and clean and ready for His service?
  • Do the waters of the Holy Spirit flow out of me in praise and adoration to God?  Is it evident to others by my actions that I am a believer in Christ? (We are not only saved from something, we are saved FOR something…)
  • Am I clinging to any false notion of the work of salvation, or have I realized that regeneration is the monergistic work of the Holy Spirit and Him along?
  • Am I quenching the Spirit’s work in any way in my life?
  • Are my words healing to those around me, or are they poisonous waters set on fire by Hell (James 1)?

Study Notes 9-30-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

Here are my notes from Sunday’s class.  We talked about the dual nature of Christ, touched on justification, and even (of course) the gospel.  Enjoy!

John 7:20-31

7:20 The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?”

At this point we see that those who were pilgrims to Jerusalem (coming in from the Diaspora) didn’t have an understanding of the full picture of what was going on with the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem.

7:21 Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it.

Last time Jesus was in town, a year ago, He had healed a lame man (cf. 5:1-15) and I think that most scholars feel this is what He is referring to.  This had made such an impression on them that they still remembered Him for it.  For not only had he made a “man’s whole body well”, but He had healed that man on the Sabbath, which had caused an even greater disturbance.

Boice sets the scene, “What Jesus had done in the north was not really much in the minds of these religious leaders. But there was not one of them who had forgotten that on his last visit to Jerusalem a year before, Jesus had violated their understanding of the Sabbath by healing a paralyzed man. That was work, according to their understanding.”  He went on to say, “If Jesus could do such things of the Sabbath, he was obviously dangerous. He was a sinner, and he was teaching others to sin. At the time of this miracle the leaders had, therefore, tried to kill him. Jesus had escaped.  But he had now returned, and they remembered.”

7:22-23 Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. [23] If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well?

Legalism gives Birth to Hypocrisy

Admittedly, this example that Jesus gives puzzled me a little bit until I started to dig into the context, and read what others had to say about it. Here’s what James Boice has to say on the matter:

His argument went something like this. It was the law of the Old Testament that a male child should be circumcised on the eighth day after his birth (Lev. 12:3). Naturally, the eighth day would often fall on the Sabbath. But it was the teaching of the rabbis, recorded in the Mishnah, that, ‘everything necessary for circumcision’ could be done on the Sabbath day. ‘Well’, said Jesus, ‘don’t you see what you are doing? You say that you fully observe the law that was given to you through Moses, including the laws concerning the Sabbath. The laws of the Sabbath forbid work, and you have interpreted that to mean every kind of activity except that which is absolutely necessary to save life. Technically, this should exclude circumcision. Yet you permit it, and it is right that you do. Moreover, you notice that circumcision is a form of mutilation. How hypocritical then for you to blame me for curing a man’s body, making it whole, when you for the sake of religion actually mutilate it on the seventh day!’

When he mentions “mutilation” Boice might be making a good point, but perhaps missing the deeper significance (literally “sign” relevance) of circumcision.  For instance, as Wellum and Gentry note in their biblical theology on the covenants, “circumcision, as a physical act, signified the removal of the defilement of sin, the cleansing from sin, and it pointed to the need for a spiritual circumcision of the heart.”  Given this, perhaps deeper meaning, what Christ is doing in healing an entire man on the Sabbath is essentially a much grander way of showing His power to cleanse us from our sins (this is probably also closer to Sproul’s interpretation, though I don’t think he is very clear explaining it).

This is a difficult and rather intricate legal argument that Jesus is making here, but it points to the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders at the time.  And, as Boice points out, what Jesus is saying in essence is that their “legalism gives birth to hypocrisy.”

This is why I labored the point in prior sections that the law cannot save us, but only lead us to Christ.  The reason, of course, is that the law is always condemning us.  But the gospel is always bringing us into a saving knowledge of Jesus’ work on our behalf – so that while we were “yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).  So even though we have all violated the law – a law which so many people want to try and live every day by still – we are found with favor in the eyes of God because of Christ’s work, not ours (Eph. 2:1-10).  For no man is justified by the law because no man can keep the law (Gal. 3:11), and this is why we need the gospel. We need Christ’s work, His righteousness, credited to us (to our account).

How are we Justified?

This is a good opportunity to just briefly remind us of why and how we are justified. We covered this just last week, so I will not spend too much time on it.  But we are not justified by our work in keeping the law, but rather in the life, cross work, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We must also be sure to make a distinction between justification and sanctification/transformation.  Christ’s work (His righteousness/His merit) is imputed to our account, as it were, and therefore in the final analysis we are counted as “righteous” before the throne of God.

In his new book on the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, R.C. Sproul explains the classical Protestant view on imputation as drawn from Scripture:

When Paul explains the doctrine of justification, he cites the example of the patriarch Abraham.  He writes: “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness’” (Rom. 4:3 citing Gen. 15:6). In other words, Abraham had faith, and therefore God justified him.  Abraham was still a sinner. The rest of the history of the life of Abraham reveals that he did not always obey God. Nevertheless, God counted him righteous because he believed in the promise God had made to him. This is an example of imputation, which involves transferring something legally to someone’s account, to reckon something to be there. So, Paul speaks of God counting Abraham as righteous, even though, in and of himself, Abraham was not yet righteous. He did not have righteousness inhering in him (‘Are We Together?’, pg. 43).

But that doesn’t mean that we are sinless, perfect people.  As Jerry Bridges rightly points out, the Holy Spirit is still working in us to affect this transformation. Bridges says that the Holy Spirit brings conviction, creates desire, and creates change. He enables us and abides in us so that with Christ’s help (John 15:5) we are able to do the things that please Him.  In this way we are being made righteous and more and more like the Son everyday (2 Cor. 3:18).

So once again, we see that as human beings we try to justify ourselves by the law, and our view of the law.  We tend toward legalism.  But as believers we must be very cautious not to do this; we must remember the gospel in all things, and at the heart of this gospel is the centrality of Christ and His work for us in His life, death and resurrection.  I do not think we can talk enough about this, so I will continue to bring it up whenever Christ discusses how the law interacts with the gospel.

7:24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Finally we see Christ’s admonition to be discerning in judgment.  Note that he says that we are to not judge simply by appearances – this, of course brings to mind how God told Samuel to not judge His new king by outward appearances (1 Sam. 16:7). So Jesus is doing the same here; He is admonishing them to not judge as men judge, but to judge as God judges (God’s judgment is always “right” and just/righteous judgment).

In light of this, and as Christians living under the New Covenant, we should ask ourselves these types of questions:

  • Is my parenting being informed by legalism, or by the gospel?
  • Is my marriage based on gospel principles, or on legalistic expectations of our mates?
  • To I hold others to the high standard of the law without affording them the grace Christ gives them in the gospel?

7:25-27 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? [26] And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? [27] But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.”

Here we see the reaction of the people to Christ’s preaching in Jerusalem, and His ministry as a whole, I think. Their reaction is mixed.  The first thing they note is that their leaders are seeking to kill Him (whereas others of them didn’t seem to understand this cf. vs. 20).  MacArthur makes a distinction between the people in verse 20 and those in verse 25.  He says that the people in verse 20 are pilgrims coming to Jerusalem, whereas the folks in verse 25 must have been those living inside Jerusalem who were well aware of their leaders’ intentions.

The second thing the people note is that their leaders won’t debate Jesus openly – as we talked about before, this was because every time someone tried to debate Jesus they got shut down.  The Scripture that comes immediately to mind is this:

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him any question.  (Luke 20:27-40)

This of course set the people to asking, “Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?”  This is the key verse of this section in my opinion.  The people are starting to figure out that their leaders may not be fully accepting of a man that may actually be the long awaited Messiah.  So they sense potential corruption in their leaders. This is a very dangerous time politically for the leadership of the Council.

The last thing the people ask is why it is that they know where Christ is from.  This seems odd in hindsight, but we need to understand how they viewed the coming Messiah, and what pretences they were holding in their minds.

The people got this idea of ‘no one knowing from where the Christ will come’ from tradition, and popular opinion, as well as what MacArthur calls a “misinterpretation of such passages as Is. 53:8, ‘who will declare His generation?’ and Malachi 3:1 ‘The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple.’  Several commentators also say that the apocryphal book of 4 Esdras informed the people’s thinking on the matter, “He said to me, ‘Just as no one can explore or know what is in the depths of the sea, so no one on earth can see my Son or those who are with him, except in the time of his day.’” So since they knew something of Jesus’ background, they assumed that He couldn’t be the Messiah.

Of course this popular belief didn’t square with what the Old Testament teaches us about the Christ coming from Bethlehem.  MacArthur notes that this was “a point that others in the crowd would later acknowledge(d) (verse 42).”

7:28-29 So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. [29] I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.”

The Dual Nature of Christ

The first thing that we see here is that Christ doesn’t correct their misunderstanding of the Old Testament, but “instead, He responded by directly confronting their heard-hearted unbelief (MacArthur).”

Then Christ goes on to reiterate what He had said before about authority, namely that He did not come of His own, but He came instead from the Father.  He was giving all glory to the Father, and pointing to God the Father as His divine source of authority.

One of the signs of His authority and that He was coming directly from the Father (God) was His divine knowledge.  All of this knowledge had been given to Him directly by God.  This is something we talked about before, but I failed to mention much about exactly how He got this knowledge, and the importance making a distinction between the divinity of Christ, and the humanity of Christ. Not that the distinction is important as a thing in and of itself, but rather it is important that we understand (as best we can) the nature and person of Christ.  It is important because we don’t want to slip into wrong thinking about our Lord, and it is these types of statements He is making here that lead us to ask important questions like “how could Christ have known all of this, and yet not known the time of His own second coming (Mark 13:32)?”

These are important questions, and ones that tend toward the person and nature of Christ, and we should briefly address them here.

When we talk about the person of Christ, the first thing we need to understand is what I hinted at above – His dual nature. As Bible-believing orthodox Christians, we affirm that Christ is “vera homo, vera Deus” which is to say that He is truly man and truly God.  One person with two natures.  As Sproul says, “If we are to have a correct understanding of Jesus, we have to understand that His divine nature has all the attributes of deity while the human nature has all of the limitations of humanity.”

Wayne Grudem says that some of the key aspects of His humanity included the virgin birth, His human body, His human mind, His human soul (which I like to define as “the mind, will, and emotions”), His human appearance to mankind (others near Him saw Him as human).  Grudem also lists several aspects of His deity: The direct scriptural claims He made, His miracles of healing, His power over nature, His eternity, His omniscience, and His immortality (among others).

Some theologians say that Christ laid aside some of these attributes and so while being human didn’t possess many of the divine attributes – the so-called “kenosis” theory derived from Phil. 2:7.  But this has been proved to be a misunderstanding of scripture (see Grudem’s systematic theology pg. 549-552). In fact, the theory completely misunderstands the context of the text.  The text isn’t talking about Christ’s emptying Himself of His deity, rather in humility, emptying not grasping onto (“a thing to be grasped”) the rights of His deity.  This “emptying” is addressing His attitude and complete surrender to the will of God.  I’m reminded of Heb. 12:2 which tells us that Jesus endured the “shame” of the cross while looking forward to the “joy” of being reunited with the Father.  He actually “despised” the shame of the cross, and yet submitted to the humiliation of the thing on our account.  Christ didn’t empty Himself of His deity, but only the right to be worshiped unreservedly by those who He breathed into creation. Because in heaven there is none who do not bow the knee to this King – and so it will soon be on earth at the close of this age!

Continuing on this same theme, Scripture shows us that the Christ was the Word, and that while He was made flesh (John 1:14), it doesn’t say that Christ stopped being the Deity.  Michael Horton explains: “The verb ‘became’ (egeneto) here does not entail any change in the essence of the Son. His deity was not converted into our humanity. Rather, he assumed our human nature.”  He continues, “Each nature is entirely preserved in its distinctness yet in and as one person” (Heb. 2:14-17).

So if Christ was vera homo vera Deus, how did his humanity know/have supernatural knowledge?  Sproul answers, “It came from the communication of the divine nature to the human nature.” I think Horton is helpful here as well:

When we give due attention to Christ’s humanity as the servant of the covenant, more spece opens up for the person and work of the Spirit. There is no mention in the gospels of Jesus’ divinity overwhelming his humanity. Nor do the gospels refer his miracles to his divinity and refer his temptation or sorrow to his humanity, as if he switched back and forth from operating according to one nature to operating according to another. Rather, the gospels routinely refer Christ’s miracles to the Father and the Spirit, accomplishing their work in and through Jesus Christ.  Jesus was conceived by the Spirit, was filled with the Spirit, grew in wisdom and understanding by the Spirit, was led by the Spirit into the desert for his temptation and was there upheld by the Spirit, and spoke what he heard from the Father and as he was empowered y the Spirit. Jesus is therefore not only God turned toward God, but humanity turned toward God in the power of the Spirit.

Therefore, His human nature was not omniscient, but in His divine nature He was obedient to the Spirit and could therefore “know all things” that the Spirit gave Him from God.  In this way, Jesus was divinely omniscient.  He had a well of knowledge that was eternal. This is why He – in His humanity – didn’t know the time of His second coming.  The divine nature of Christ didn’t communicate it to His human nature (we don’t know why…but it is not for us to question the “why” of God!). Therefore, he could rightly and correctly say He didn’t know. Horton says, “Without surrendering his divinity (which included omniscience), the eternal Son fully assumed our finite humanity.”

Again, Sproul explains, “There were things that Jesus didn’t know, but whatever He taught was impeccable, because He never taught on the basis of His own human insight. So the Christian church has understood for centuries that, touching His human nature, Jesus is not omniscient, but He is infallible, because if He teaches something that isn’t true, then He’s held accountable.”

This is an extremely hard concept to understand. But it is important to realize that all things that Christ knew He received from the Father.  He had a divine communication with His Father.  He and the Father were of one mind, and the teaching authority of Jesus came directly from God the Father.

NOTE: The doctrine of Christ’s deity and human nature was affirmed at the Council of Nicea in 325 where a formal statement on the nature of the Trinity was written down and at the Council of Chaldedon (451) the doctrine of Christ’s “one person in two natures” was affirmed.

NOTE: For more information about this see Michael Horton’s Systematic Theology, or Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

A Stinging Indictment

What He said after that, however, was the greatest rebuke of the conversation.  He states, “him you do not know” speaking of the Father. Here Jesus is looking at the religious leaders and telling them in no uncertain terms that they do not know the God they claim to be representing.

He is not merely saying, “you have misinterpreted Scripture” but that “you don’t even know the God of the Scriptures!”  BOOM!  This must have just infuriated them to no end.  What a stinging rebuke.

7:30-31 So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. [31] Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”

The reaction of the crowd at this point is mixed – many believed in Him, but the leaders’ reaction makes a lot of sense doesn’t it?  They are fixated on arresting him. They wanted to take Him down! But because of the providential work and plan of God, “no one laid a hand on him.”

No one was going to take His life from Him – no one – unless He laid it down.  Look at what John 10:18 says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

So Jesus Christ came to speak truth into the world, and when He did so He was misunderstood, and hated by the world.  This is why his brother’s didn’t believe that He was the Christ, and why the religious leaders didn’t believe He was the Christ – they were of the world, and they didn’t know God.

Some truths to take away from this:

    1. Jesus has authority to do what He pleases
    2. Jesus had authority over His life, and He has authority over your life as well – both spiritually and physically.  Isn’t this a great truth?
    3. If you know God, you know Christ – by knowing Christ you know the Father.  What a great truth!

Study Notes 9-23-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

John 7:11-19

The Righteousness and Brilliance of Jesus Christ

7:11-13 The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” [13] Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.

There are two things we need to note about the Jewish leaders here.  Two characteristics about their actions and the way the people perceived them.

1. First, they were conniving.  They hoped that this popular feast would draw out Jesus so that they could catch Him and destroy Him.

2. Secondly, they were ruling by fear and not by love.  The people were split on how to take this man from Nazareth.  Was he a good man?  Was he something more? But no matter their indecision about Jesus, they knew that whatever they thought it was best to keep it to themselves – not out of righteous fear of God, but of fear of man.

7:14-15 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. [15] The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?”

It is evident here that Jesus had a supernatural knowledge.  As one reads through the gospels this is evident.  Many times the Bible will say that Jesus “knew their thoughts.”  Here we see that this knowledge extended not only to “mind reading” (to put it crassly), but He had a superior mastery of the texts of Scripture.  As Calvin says, “It was an astonishing proof of the power and grace of God, that Christ, who had not been taught by any master, was yet eminently distinguished by his knowledge of the Scriptures; and that he, who had never been a scholar, should be a most excellent teacher and instructor.”

In these days, it wasn’t unusual for a Jewish man to know how to read and write – even many women were trained in these basics.  But here we aren’t talking about simply a learning that was common – Jesus had an uncommon understanding and grasp for the Scriptures.  His knowledge was proving to be superior even to those who had access to the best schools and had spent years studying the Old Testament.  This man (Jesus) had not formal teaching, except that which His parents had undoubtedly taught Him – at least that’s what these people thought…

7:16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

Here Christ reveals that His learning isn’t simply from a school or from His parents, but from a Higher Source.  His learning came from God.  For Jesus to be able to speak and teach the way He did without a formal education was indication enough for the people to ask questions – soon we’ll read that they asked the ultimate question, the question that His teaching and miracles ought to have led them to ask…

Before getting into the thrust of what Christ is saying, I think its worth while to address how He phrased this great truth.  Augustine is brilliant in his exposition of this passage.  He points out that some people thought there was a contradiction here because Christ is saying that “My teaching is not mine” – those in opposition say “how does it make sense for this to at one time be Christ’s and at the other time not be Christ’s?  Augustine answers:

The subject of inquiry, then, is that which He says, “My, not mine” this appears to be contrary; how “my,” how “not mine”? If we carefully look at what the holy evangelist himself says in the beginning of his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;” thence hangs the solution of this question. What then is the doctrine of the Father, but the Father’s Word? Therefore, Christ Himself is the doctrine of the Father, if He is the Word of the Father. But since the Word cannot be of none, but of some one, He said both “His doctrine,” namely, Himself, and also, “not His own,” because He is the Word of the Father.

So Christ Himself is the doctrine, the very Word incarnate! So that all authority is vested in Him.

This leads us into what is the substance of what Christ is saying.

Christ’s authority comes directly from God. The Jews are wondering “who is your teacher?”  They want to know where He got his education, and who has taught Him all of this.  But Christ turns it on their heads.  He says, in affect, that unlike them, He has got His teaching not from the Rabbis but from the Source!  He’s heard it straight from the Father.

We might then ask why Christ, an uneducated man by human standards, came into the world in this way, and why God chose to go about displaying His gospel this way.

Calvin might have an idea…

For the reason why the Heavenly Father determined that his Son should go out of a mechanic’s workshop, rather than from the schools of the scribes, was, that the origin of the Gospel might be more manifest, that none might think that it had been fabricated on the earth, or imagine that any human being was the author of it. Thus also Christ chose ignorant and uneducated men to be his apostles, and permitted them to remain three years in gross ignorance, that, having instructed them in a single instant, he might bring them forward as new men, and even as angels who had just come down from heaven.

7:17 If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.

So this is what MacArthur calls “the test”, which is simply that if anyone truly wants to do the will of God, they will surely be able to know whether Christ’s teaching is from God.  In the Greek the term actually says something to the effect of “if anyone wills to will” – that is, if we desire in our hearts to REALLY know what God’s will is, and truly desire to know if Jesus is who He says He is, then we won’t be disappointed.  He will show Himself, and we will “know whether the teaching (of Jesus) is from God” or not.

The second part of Jesus’ exhortation addresses the question of authority, and elaborates on where His teaching derived (which I will get into more in the next verse).  His teaching derived from God the Father – the very Creator of the entire universe.  Therefore, He had authority to teach because He had been given all authority by the Father (Matthew 28:18), and because all authority comes from God (e.g. John 19:11), and because Jesus was/is God (John 1:1-18) He could speak of these things with credibility and believability.

Jesus didn’t come to seek glory – He laid all of that aside (Phil. 2) – and that yet another reason He points to the Father for all of His authority here.  He’s not going to fall into this trap that the scribes lay for Him.  He won’t simply say, “I’m just inventing this teaching up on my own.”  He won’t seek His own glory during His ministry on earth.

7:18 The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.

Where Jesus Got His Authority

This is a different type of “test” – this one gives us an idea of what sort of “christ” would seek his own glory – a false one.  A man claiming to be the Messiah and doing so purely based on his own inherent authority – with no authority from God – is a false Christ.  In contrast, Christ is seeking the glory of “Him who sent Him” – the Father (the Father will then give Him back His glory upon arrival in heaven – John 17:5).

It isn’t as though Jesus isn’t claiming to have any authority, but it helping them understand that the authority vested in Himself comes directly from God the Father.  He is saying that God’s authority is THE ultimate authority, and that if anyone comes with another word, we need to test it against the supreme Word of God.  Consequently, as Augustine notes, who is the Word of God? Jesus Christ!

Another Biblical example of appealing to that ultimate authority comes to us in Jude 1:9 where we read that Michael the Archangel doesn’t claim to have authority in an of himself.  It says, “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”  So if one of the greatest heavenly beings (Michael) in the created universe also defers all judgment and power and authority to the Lord, how much more ought we to do the same.  We ought to recognize that there is no power either in heaven above or on the earth below that does not answer to the Lord God Almighty.  This is properly what we mean when we refer to the kingship of Christ or the kingship of God.

Calvin says, “For every thing that displays the glory of God is holy and divine; but every thing that contributes to the ambition of men, and, by exalting them, obscures the glory of God, not only has no claim to be believed, but ought to be vehemently rejected.”

Testing the spirits

But how are we to know the difference? A.W. Pink says there’s a strong correlation here with 1 John 4:1-3 which says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.”

Calvin also hits on this same theme and says, “Satan continually plots against us, and spreads his nets in every direction, that he may take us unawares by his delusions. Here Christ most excellently forewarns us to beware of exposing ourselves to any of his impostures, assuring us that if we are prepared to obey God, he will never fail to illuminate us by the light of his Spirit, so that we shall be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood.”  He continues on later to say, “If we be entirely devoted to obedience to God, let us not doubt that He will give us the spirit of discernment, to be our continual director and guide.”

We very often refer to God’s sovereignty, when we probably should be using the word “providence” instead.  He providentially has designed circumstances, people, world events because He is sovereign.  And He is sovereign in that He reigns supreme over the universe.  Sovereigns have thrones – and our God rules from a throne so glorious that none can approach for its brightness (1 Tim. 6:16).

Therefore, when we here a “word from the Lord” we ought to test whether it really is from the Lord.  Jesus makes it perfectly clear that His words have authority in and of themselves and that all other words on earth by which men claim to have authority must be brought up against the test of His words, and His truth.  Here He is claiming ABSOLUTE authority.  All authority on earth has been vested in HIM.  And, like causality, all authority flows from Him.  That’s why I like John 19:11 so much.  Jesus tells Pilate not to worry about his decision because he doesn’t have any authority that he didn’t get from God.  Jesus basically stares Pilate down and says, in affect, ‘you can’t do anything that I don’t allow you to do.  You asked if I’m a king? That’s right.  I’m the supreme king of the universe and I personally fashioned you from dirt.  I spoke everything into existence.  I am the I AM.  So any authority you fancy yourself having was derived from Me.’

7:19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?”

The Purpose of the Law

Jesus has just laid out a test by which to measure a man’s authority, and now He reminds them of the test they would have been intimately familiar with, namely the law.

What is Jesus saying here?  He says that they have the law but that none of them can keep the law…NONE of them.  They ought to know this, but they didn’t.  The Pharisees, the ruling class of the day, thought that they more than kept the law.  They were the holy ones, the righteous ones.  They went above and beyond what was required.  And yet, Jesus says, “None of you keep the law.”

Calvin whets our palates with this fiery introduction to the passage:

But Christ connects here two clauses. In the former, he addresses the consciences of his enemies, and, since they proudly boasted of being defenders of the Law, he tears from them this mask; for he brings against them this reproach, that they allow themselves to violate the Law as often as they please, and, therefore, that they care nothing about the Law. Next, he comes to the question itself, as we shall afterwards see; so that the defense is satisfactory and complete in all its parts. Consequently, the amount of this clause is, that no zeal for the Law exists in its despisers. Hence Christ infers that something else has excited the Jews to so great rage, when they seek to put him to death. In this manner we ought to drag the wicked from their concealments, whenever they fight against God and sound doctrine, and pretend to do so from pious motives.

So these men, according to Calvin, were using the law as a mask to cover their sin.  When, in fact, these scribes and priests misunderstood the whole point of the law.  No man can keep the law!  Paul explains the reason for the law in Galatians 3:24, “So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.”  The law was a “guardian” or “Schoolmaster” as some translations say.

How does the law lead us to Christ? 

  • First, it shows us that God is perfect and requires perfection (Lev. 11:44; 1 Pet. 1:16).
  • Second, it shows us that we fall way short of that standard (Rom. 3:23-24), and that we need to repent and believe in the promises of God, namely that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).

Tullian Tchividjian says this about the nature of the law and its interaction with the gospel:

The law of God shows us what God commands (which, of course, is good) but the law does not possess the power to enable us to do what it says.  You could put it this way: the law guides but it does not give.  The law shows us what a sanctified life looks like, but it does not have sanctifying power. It’s the gospel (what Jesus has done) that alone can give God-honoring animation to our obedience. The power to obey, in other words, comes from being moved and motivated by the completed work of Jesus for us. So, while the law directs us, only the gospel can drive us. (from the Foreward of ‘Give Them Grace’- Fitzpatrick/Thompson).

So the purpose of the law was to show us our sins, to show us God’s holiness and righteous standard, and to lead us to Christ.

The Bible tells us that the only way we can be saved is not by works or by keeping the law (Eph. 2:1-10), but by placing our faith and trust in Jesus Christ and His work on the cross (Rom. 5:8).

What Kind of Man is This?

In the second part of this verse Jesus says something without saying it.  He says, “Why do you seek to kill me?”  Immediately after saying that none of them can keep the law.  So what is He saying by implication?  That He’s the ONLY One whose ever kept the law!  He’s claiming to be sinless!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone alive that has ever claimed to be perfect.  In fact, it’s an axiom of sorts in our culture to say, “well, nobody’s perfect.”  It’s a fact that we all accept – and rightfully so!

But here is a man who is on one hand preaching clear-headedly and brilliantly, while on the other hand claiming to have never sinned!  So the people don’t know what to do with this.  They say to themselves “well He can’t be crazy, because He’s making too much sense to be crazy.”  But on the other hand they are saying, “there’s no way He can be saying that He’s perfect…can He?”

So these are the things that the Jews had to deal with, and consequently, these are the things we all have to deal with today.  Everyone born into this world has to read this and decide whether Christ is a crazy man, a horrible liar and sinner, or Lord of the Universe.  Because He doesn’t fit into any other category.

The Importance of Being Sinless: The Perfection of Christ

In the Bible, we find the importance of Jesus’ claim to being sinless.  He was fully God and fully man, and even though He had been clothed in the flesh, He was not born of man, but of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore He did not have the taint of what we call “original sin.”

Wayne Grudem helps us understand:

The key to understanding the duality of Christ’s human nature and His sinlessness is understanding that sin, as part of the human condition, is not the normal condition. God did not create us as sinners, but as a result of the fall, sin has marred our lives. Christ’s sinlessness is made clear in Scripture, from His 40 days in the desert, where Satan tempted Christ but failed to entice him in to sin, to the time of the beginning of His ministry where “the favor of God was upon Him” (Luke 2:40).

Throughout the Bible, the sinless nature of Christ is an important theme.  In Hebrews 4:15 it says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”  And in Hebrews 7:26 it says, “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”

Peter, who traveled with Jesus for three years and was a close observer of everything Jesus did and said, puts it this way, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth” (1 Peter 2:22).

The Perfect Sacrifice

So the Bible stresses Christ’s sinlessness for two reasons.  First, because Christ’s atonement for us on the cross had to be perfect – He had to be sinless in order to be a perfect sacrifice.  We recall the symbolism in the Jewish Passover feast and how the lamb whose blood was used to paint the lentels of the doors was a spotless lamb.  A perfect sacrifice.

The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness

The second reason Christ had to sinless was because He needed to be able to credit His righteousness to our account.  Paul explains the vital importance of the sinlessness of Christ when he states, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor. 5:21).

How have we become “the righteousness of God”?  Because the perfect, sinless, righteousness of Jesus has been credited to our account. Jesus’ sinless life here on earth was the basis for His righteousness.  That’s why He didn’t simply come down from heaven in full manhood and die the same day on the cross for our sins.  For no man is righteous enough to stand in the presence of God.  It is by Christ’s imputation of His righteousness that we are able to have fellowship and eternal life with God.

The moment we trust Christ for salvation, the instant we place our faith in Him, we gain the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.  That is to say, that in the eyes of God, we are accounted righteous.  Therefore, we can stand upon His righteousness and not our own (Eph. 2:1-10), for entrance into heaven.  It also gives us comfort that because it is on Christ’s merit that we “earn” heaven – He earned it for us. If we had to earn it ourselves, we’d never earn it, we’d never get there.

Sproul says this in his commentary on 1 Peter 3:15-20:

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water (vv. 18-20). Peter’s language brings to mind again the teaching of the Apostle Paul, who wrote that Christ took upon Himself the punishment due to us and bestows on those who believe the reward that accompanies His righteousness. Since God requires punishment for sin He receives satisfaction not fem us, the unjust, but from Christ, the just One so that God might be both “just and the justified” (Rom. 3:26).

God is just insofar as He does not wink at human sin. He is just because He requires the penalty for sin to fulfill all righteousness, which righteousness was accomplished by Christ Himself. It is through His righteousness that we are made just in the sight of God. The only ground for our justification, now and forever, is the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to all who believe. The righteousness by which we are justified is what Luther called a iustitia alien, an alien righteousness, a righteousness that, properly speaking, is not our own. It comes extra nos, from outside of us. It, properly speaking, belongs only to the One who is just, but it is precisely that foreign righteousness that God accounts to us when we put our trust in Jesus.

 How does one respond to such amazing truth?  It is in our nature to reject it and continue to strive on our own strength.  My plea is that you give up, dear friend.  Allow the glorious truth to overwhelm you, and realize that one man died so that all men anywhere from every tribe tongue and nation, from any background, from any country could live forever.  That is why for centuries men and women from around the globe have said with the hymn writer, “I surrender all.”