J.C. Ryle

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

Enslaved to Merit or Enslaved to Christ?

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This past Sunday, I briefly mentioned near the end of the lesson that we ought not to think about earning any merit or grace with God.  I stressed that we need to get out of this cycle of thinking that as Christians we need to strive to “be good” as a way to earn something in heaven. For all of our reward has been purchased by Christ, and given by grace. Now, I realize, and as humans we sometimes have difficulty balancing the role of grace and merit, and understanding the purpose of Christian works here on earth.

Though we are prone to either excessive legalism, or sinful liberty, what I want to stress is that the principles of living holy lives, and understanding God’s grace in our lives are not mutually exclusive.  We need to be seeking holiness while also seeking to please God and love others through our actions. In order to do this, we must understand why we are to love others, and where our “merit” in heaven ultimately comes from.  Our motivation for loving others and doing good works is gratitude and enjoyment of God.  Likewise, any merit we have before God, ultimately, has already been won by Christ.

Let me explore these two co-existing principles further with some perspective from those who are wiser than myself.

First, we are called to holiness. JC Ryle said this about seeking holiness as it relates to our relationship to reward and closeness with Chrirst:

Above all, grieve not the Spirit. Quench not the Spirit. Vex not the Spirit. . . . Little jarrings between husbands and wives make unhappy homes; and petty inconsistencies, known and allowed, will bring in strangeness between you and the Spirit. . . . The man who walks with God in Christ most closely, will generally be kept in the greatest peace. The believer who follows the Lord most fully and aims at the highest degree of holiness will ordinarily enjoy the most assured hope, and have the clearest persuasion of his own salvation

And commenting on this passage from Ryle, John Piper says:

Can you really “drive [God] to a distance, by tampering with small bad habits”? Do “petty inconsistencies bring strangeness between you and the Spirit”? Is the greatest peace really enjoyed by those who “walk with God most closely”? Is the greatest assurance known by those who “aim at the highest degree of holiness”?  Yes. This is clearly taught in Scripture. “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).

This means that there is a precious experience of peace and assurance and harmony and intimacy that is not unconditional. It depends on our not grieving the Spirit. It depends on our putting away bad habits. It depends on forsaking the petty inconsistencies of our Christian lives. It depends on our walking closely with God and aiming at the highest degree of holiness. If this is true, I fear that the unguarded reassurances today that God’s love is unconditional may stop people from doing the very things the Bible says they need to do in order to have the peace that they so desperately crave. In trying to give peace through “unconditionality” we may be cutting people off from the very remedy the Bible prescribes. Let us declare untiringly the good news that our justification is based on the worth of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice, not ours (Romans 5:19, “as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous”).

But let us also declare the biblical truth that the enjoyment of that justification in its effect on our joy and confidence and power to grow in likeness to Jesus is conditioned on our actively forsaking sins and forsaking bad habits and mortifying lusts and pursuing intimacy with Christ, and not grieving the Spirit.

To give an even fuller perspective on the merit of Christ in all of this, Jerry Bridges labors how it is by God’s grace that we are what we are.  In his book ‘Transforming Grace’, Bridges has some great remarks on the matter.  Here are a few of them:

  • We believe God’s blessings are at least partially earned by our obedience and our spiritual disciplines. We know we are saved by grace, but we think we must live by our spiritual “sweat.”
  • If you are trusting to any degree in your own morality or religious attainments, or if you believe God will somehow recognize any of your good works as merit toward your salvation, you need to seriously consider if you are truly a Christian.
  • The generosity and the magnanimity of God are so great that he accepts nothing from us without rewarding it beyond all computation…. The vast disproportion existing between our work and God’s reward of it already displays his boundless grace, to say nothing of the gift of salvation which made before we have even begun to do any work.’
  • That is what Peter experienced. His failures and his sins abounded. There is no question about that. But however much his sin increased, God’s grace increased all the more. It superabounded. God blessed Peter, not in spite of his sins, but without regard to his sins. That’s the way His grace operates. It looks not to our sins or even to our good deeds but only to the merit of Christ.

In conclusion, let us strive toward holiness and intimacy with Christ, drawing near the throne of grace with confidence, while also realizing that we deserve not this grace, nor do our feeble works merit further blessing. The blessings we received were already purchased for us by Jesus Christ. His merit has earned our blessings, and even in our state of continual sin He is anxious to restore us, to bless us, and to conform us to His image – by His own power, not ours.  What a relief this is! How comforting! Let me close with the words of Paul in Romans 6:

What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! [16] Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? [17] But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, [18] and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. (Romans 6:15-18 ESV)

Soli Deo Gloria

Study Notes 10-28-12

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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 10-14-12

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(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

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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 9-16-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

Chapter 7

Introduction and First thoughts on Chapter 7

Chapter seven begins a new section of the book of John.  In fact, chapters 7-8 could easily be lumped in together under one heading ‘Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles’ as Carson says.  John is now wrapping up the portion of Christ’s life and ministry that contains many of his miracles, and the work He did in Galilee.  This is the portion of His ministry that the synoptics spend the most time on.

A.W. Pink introduces the chapter in this way, “Our Lord’s ministry in Galilee was now over, though He still remained there, because the Judeans sought to kill Him. The annual Feast of tabernacles was at hand, and His brethren were anxious for Christ to go up to Jerusalem, and there give a public display of His miraculous powers. To this request the Savior made a reply which at first glance appears enigmatical. He bids His brethren go up to the Feast, but excuses Himself on the ground that His time was not yet fully come. After their departure, He abode still in Galilee. But very shortly after, He, too, goes up to the Feast; as it were in secret.”

The feast itself was one of the most popular feasts (the most popular of the three major feasts according to Josephus cf. Carson), and people would have been flocking to Jerusalem.  Carson explains, “The institution of the Feast was associated in the Old Testament with the ingathering of harvest (Ex. 23:16; Lev. 23:33-36, 39-43; Deut. 16:13-15; not grain, which was reaped between April and June, but grapes and olives).”

“People living in rural areas built makeshift structures of light branches and leaves to live in for the week; town dwellers put up similar structures on their flat roofs or in their courtyards” says Carson.

I think that it’s worth noting here that what has just occurred in 6:66 (many of His disciples leaving Him) precipitates some of the events in chapter seven.  There’s no doubt in my mind that the ministry of Christ, at this point, is about to reach some very great heights of influence, and create a tension within Judaism that leads to His death on a cross.  John spends a lot of time on the final week of Christ’s time here on earth, and the lead up to that final week is relatively short by comparison to the other gospels.  The tension will reach its ultimate heights at the end of chapter 11, and beginning in chapter 12 we have the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the final week of Christ’s ministry here on earth.

Finally, since there is at least a six-month span of time between chapter six and chapter seven (one taking place around Passover and the other just before the feast of the Tabernacles), I think its worth while to consider how Christ spent this time.

John MacArthur notes that during this span of time, the synoptics spend many chapters covering His healings, the Transfiguration, the feeding of the 4000, and many other things He says and does.  But John is writing from another perspective.  John’s goal is to show us the Messiah, and as such he spends the most time of any of the gospel writers on the final week of Christ’s life.  We’re not hopping forward, as it were, through some of the most important miracles He did in order to get to the teaching.  Not that John is unconcerned with miracles – but he obviously puts them below the teaching of Christ in their importance, even labeling them “signs.”

Another point that MacArthur asks us to ponder is how Christ spent His time leading up to this seventh chapter.  Certainly He was healing and performing miracles, but most of His time (it could easily be argued) was spent teaching and pouring His life into His disciples.  He invested so much time into 12 men (one of whom He knew would fall away) that one wonders how Christianity ever got off the ground.  But God was pleased to use these men, from diverse backgrounds and varying education, to proclaim His word to the world.

We each of us have groups of people that God has been pleased to surround us with.  We each of us might also wonder from time to time “why doesn’t God use me in a way that He uses other highly prominent people?”  “Surely” we erroneously conclude “my impact for the kingdom will not be very significant.”  But there we fail to consider Christ’s own methodology.  It is His method to use seemingly insignificant people to invest in others for the glory of God.  He took from “the least of these” and created a kingdom.  Christ ushered in a kingdom that has included tens (if not hundreds) of millions of people throughout the past 2000 years.

Therefore, we ought not to despair of our influence for the kingdom.  Look at your children, look at your friends.  Pour your life and love into those whom God Almighty has surrounded you with, for the glory and expansion of His kingdom.

7:1 After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.

So when the text says “after these things” or “after this” it is probably not necessarily referring to an immediate event, but rather simply stating a matter of chronology.

Until now, Christ had been going back and forth between Judea and Galilee in His ministry, and now was about to leave Galilee for Jerusalem – not for the final time (Matt. 19:1; Mark 9:30), but His ministry there seems to have reached a conclusion.

The fact that Christ knew what His enemies intended for Him, and yet also knew that He was destined to die on a cross for the sins of the world, plays heavily into our thoughts as we see that His timing for all things is in His own hands.  He will not be allowed to die before the time He and the Father have ordained.  We’ll read more about this later, but look at John 10:17-18:

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 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.

Can you imagine spending your life knowing that you were destined to die – not only knowing that you would die, but knowing what kind of death you would die? This was the knowledge that Jesus Christ had to bear alone.  We sometimes think of the stresses and anxieties of waking up on Monday morning with a long list of things to do throughout the week.  We think of the meetings, the presentations, the children, the places we need to be, the things we’ll have to do.  And yet none of this compares with the weighty burden that our Lord faced day in and day out. Surely He can sympathize with our weaknesses.

But He was not going to allow any man’s timing to change the time of His death.  In fact, He didn’t live any part of His life by man’s timing, but by God’s as we’ll see in a few verses.

7:2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand.

As I explained above, this was one of the three major feasts that the Jews celebrated.  The three feasts are: the Feast of Weeks, the Passover, and the Feast of Tabernacles/Booths.

The commandment for these festivals is found in Exodus where we read the following:

“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. [15] You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. [16] You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. [17] Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord GOD.” – Exodus 23:14-17

The feast of the “Unleavened Bread” is Passover and is in April or May in the Jewish month of Nisan (called “Abib” in Scripture).  The feast of the “Harvest” is the Feast of “Weeks” (the English word “weeks” is from the Hebrew “shavuot”) which comes 50 days (or 7 weeks) after Passover and celebrates the giving of the law to Moses at Mt. Sinai.

The Feast of the “Ingathering” comes at the end of the year (in September or October – the Jewish calendar is lunar whereas our western Gregorian calendar is solar, so their holidays can shift accordingly) and is the feast of Tabernacles that we’re discussing in this chapter here.

7:3-5 So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. [4] For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him.

A Different Kind of Agenda

His brothers certainly didn’t have a good idea of what Christ came to accomplish on earth.  We learn in verse five that they didn’t believe in Him, and here we see them sort of egging Him on to go up to the feast and perform as if He’s a trained monkey.

Carson comments that it wasn’t as if they didn’t believe He was capable of doing the miracles, but that they just “could not perceive the significance of what they saw.”

Why would they want Him to go to Jerusalem then?  I think Carson’s explanation is spot on here as well:

(In Jerusalem) not only would He enjoy the biggest crowds of His career, but the word would spread very quickly…What better place for a religious leader to parade his wares? If Jesus is interested in religious prominence, His brothers reason, sooner or later He must prove the master of Jerusalem. Otherwise He will always be regarded by the authorities and by the upper echelons of society as no more than a rustic, rural preacher.

It seems obvious here that they have no idea of God’s plan for Jesus – simply look at the way they tell Him to “show yourself to the world” – their minds were not above but here on earth.

The Unbelief of His Brothers

In his commentary on John, R.C. Sproul says that verse five in this chapter is one that really disturbs him. It’s a cautionary verse that we ought to examine a little bit on its own merit for a moment.

It’s obvious that Jesus’ brothers believe that He can do miracles, that He has a sort of following, and that He’s got a destiny of leadership – though their ideas of these things are radically different than God’s plans, as it turns out.

Sproul says this about the brothers, “They were following Jesus for what He could provide…they were rooting for Him to go to Jerusalem to manifest His power. This tells us they were still unbelievers, outside the kingdom of God.”

He then makes an interesting point about these brothers, “If we could have asked Jesus’ brothers, ‘do you believe in your brother?’ they would have said: ‘Of course we believe in Him. Why else would we want Him to go to Jerusalem and make Himself known?  We want the people to know about Him. We want to see His ministry grow and expand. Just like John the Baptist, we want Him to increase.’ Nevertheless, the Word of God says Jesus’ brothers were unbelievers. That is why we have to ask ourselves, ‘Is the Jesus we believe in the real Jesus?’”

What he means, of course, is that we humans have a tendency of making out God to be something different in our minds than He is in reality.  We shape and fashion him in our own image.  When we do this, Sproul says we “become like Jesus’ unbelieving brothers who looked to Him only for what they could get, for worldly power and worldly success.”

The Sovereignty of God in Salvation

The next thing that occurs to me is that His brothers had been with Him growing up.  They had seen the miracles.  They had seen His ministry and heard His words, and yet they were not true believers.

Later on these same unbelieving brothers would become His followers – but not until after the resurrection.  What an amazing proof text to the sovereignty of God in all things – including the timing of when people come to faith in Jesus Christ.  Seeing and hearing Christ is not enough.  There has to be repentance and faith accompany these two things.

As J.C. Ryle says, “That great Scriptural doctrine, man’s need of preventing and converting grace, stands out here, as if written with a sunbeam. It becomes all who question that doctrine to look at this passage and consider. Let them observe that seeing Christ’s miracles, hearing Christ’s teaching, living in Christ’s own company, were not enough to make men believers. There mere possession of spiritual privileges never yet made any one a Christian. All is useless without the effectual and applying work of God the Holy Ghost. No wonder that our Lord said in another place, ‘No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.’”

The Isolation of Christ

I remarked already before how this chapter comes on the heals (not immediately chronologically) of what must have seemed in some ways as a low point in Christ’s ministry.  John 6:66 tells us that He lost a lot of followers, and even though its been some time between that time and the beginning of this chapter, chances are that He has not accrued as many followers as his brothers seem to think necessary to lead a movement (against Rome for example).

Ryle says, “Our blessed Master has truly learned by experience how to sympathize with all his people who stand alone. This is a though full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort. He knows the heart of every isolated believer, and can be touched with the feeling of his trials.”

Isaiah predicted that Christ would be treated in this way, “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Is. 53:3).

But because of this, He can identify with our suffering, and He comforts all those who come to Him (Heb. 2:17-18). What a beautiful truth to rest our hopes on.

7:6-9 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. [7] The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee.

What Kind of Time?

It is an extremely familiar saying for us here to read that Jesus said “my time has not yet come” because we encounter Him saying something like this – or we read different gospel writers saying it – in relation to times where Jesus could have been killed.  In fact Jesus escaped death at the very beginning of His ministry after enduring 40 days in the wilderness and a test by Satan.  The first thing He did was go into the synagogue and proclaim that a certain prophecy had been fulfilled, and for this the people (recognizing His claim to deity) attempted to hill Him.

However, in those instances, the scripture is almost always referring to “His time” as His time to suffer and die – the crucifixion.  The time when He would fulfill the very thing He was born into this world to do – He was born to die.

But this is not what Christ is referring to here.  When He says, “my time has not yet fully come” He is using a different word (kairos) here than in previous instances (hora).  What He is saying, in essence, is that His brothers can go up to the feast any old time they want, but He must tarry a little while longer, for He has not yet been told by the Father to go up to the feast.  He has not yet fully fulfilled His time where He is now.

If we read this in the way that Christ is saying His time to die and fulfill His passion has not yet come, then we must also read the inverse into His statement to His brothers…i.e. their time to die is “always here!”  This would certainly have scandalized them! It would also make verse 10 almost impossible to understand, because we’d think Jesus had either told a lie, or Scripture had contradicted itself.

And so we also see that Christ is saying to His brothers not only something of His own time frame, which is dictated by God, but of theirs, which is dictated by their own whims.  Carson says this; “All appointments that ignore God’s kairos are in the eternal scheme of things equally insignificant.”  In other words, the brothers’ opinions on what Christ ought to do hold absolutely no significance or bearing on the plan that God Almighty has laid out for His Son!

7:10 But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.

His Timing is Not Our Timing

Now we see that Jesus has left Galilee and gone up to the feast – this time going up not publically but “in private” – the opposite of what His brothers had suggested.

This leads us to consider the nature of how God works in time.  We see His Son, the Timeless Son of God, step from eternity into finitude.  He has marked out a time whereupon He will walk with us and step on the very dirt He breathed into existence.  This is quite something to ponder, is it not?

Often our mindset on the way in which God works timing in our lives is finite at best – and completely ignorant at worst.  Of course we are all of us ignorant of the mystery of God’s mind, but it is wise for us to understand a few principles here that articulate for us not only how He works, but also something of His character in doing so.

The mind of God in eternity is described well by James Boice.  He says, “We can make the same point also by imagining time to be something like a motion picture We view it in a sequence. God views it as though it were millions of individual frames, all seen at once. From His perspective, God sees Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, Christ on the cross, you and me, simultaneously.”

Boice points out that this has an effect on how we view God’s interaction with us, and how we view His “decision making.”  He says, “We make decisions constantly, and we do so in an effort to cope with variableness, ignorance, previous indecision, and other things. Our decisions are attempts to deal with problems not previously considered.  God’s decisions are not like this because of the nature of His relationship to time.  There is no variableness or indecision with God. Consequently, His decisions are rather in the nature of eternal decrees, unchanging and unchangeable.”

So from eternity past God had a perfect will and timing for when Christ was going to go up to Jerusalem to die on the cross, but He also had a perfect ordering to every day of Christ’s ministry – just as He has a perfect ordering to every problem and blessing you experience in your life.  Consequently, ordering your life around your own whims rather than the will of God is an exercise in futility.  God has a plan for your life, a beautiful, difficult, worthwhile plan to bring Him glory and pleasure, and bring you joy and an eternity with Him.

Read how James Boice concludes these thoughts by saying, “God does not make decisions because He is suddenly confronted with a problem that He has not foreseen.  He determines both the problems and the solutions in advance. He is never surprised, never caught off balance.  Thus, there is never a problem that baffles Him, or a work that He does not intend to finish. Because of this we can rest in Him, and trust Him for the ordering of our days.”

‘Christ is All’ in the Bible

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I have mentioned in this space before how I have been slowly reading through J.C. Ryle’s book ‘Holiness’, which is a volume dedicated to the christian’s sanctification.  It is easily one of the best books I’ve ever read, and as I finish up the book, I’m finding some gems that I’d like to share with you all.

In the 20th chapter, Ryle addresses the centrality of Christ in several ways.  The verse this chapter is built upon is part of Colossians 3:11, which simply states that “Christ is all.”  One of those ways is how Christ is “all” is in the whole of Scripture.  Often we forget this – we forget that Christ is the central theme and person and subject of scripture.  Ryle gives a beautiful overview of this truth, and I have put this portion of the chapter below for your enjoyment.  I’m sure it will be a blessing to you!

 

Let us understand that “Christ is all” in the inspired books which make up the Bible.

From Chapter 20, ‘Christ is All’, in ‘Holiness’, by J.C. Ryle

In every part of both Testaments, Christ is to be found – dimly and indistinctly at the beginning – more clearly and plainly in the middle – fully and completely at the end – but really and substantially everywhere.

Christ’s sacrifice and death for sinners, and Christ’s kingdom and future glory, are the light we must bring to bear on any book of Scripture we read. Christ’s cross and Christ’s crown are the clue we must hold fast if we would find our way through Scripture difficulties. Christ is the only key that will unlock many of the dark places of the Word. Some people complain that they do not understand the Bible. And the reason is very simple. They do not use the key. To them the Bible is like the hieroglyphics in Egypt. It is a mystery, just because they do not know and employ the key.

(a) It was Christ crucified who was set forth in every Old Testament sacrifice. Every animal slain and offered on an altar was a practical confession that a Saviour was looked for who would die for sinners – a Saviour who should take away man’s sin, by suffering, as his Substitute and Sin-bearer, in his stead, (1 Peter iii. 18.) It is absurd to suppose that an unmeaning slaughter of innocent beasts, without a distinct object in view, could please the eternal God!

(b) It was Christ to whom Abel looked when he offered a better sacrifice than Cain. Not only was the heart of Abel better than that of his brother, but he showed his knowledge of vicarious sacrifice and his faith in an atonement. He offered the firstlings of his flock, with the blood thereof, and in so doing declared his belief that without shedding of blood there is no remission. (Heb. xi. 4.)

(c) It was Christ of whom Enoch prophesied in the days of abounding wickedness before the flood. – “Behold,” he said, “the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all.” (Jude 15.)

(d) It was Christ to whom Abraham looked when he dwelt in tents in the land of promise. He believed that in his seed – in one born of his family – all the nations of the earth should be blessed. By faith he saw Christ’s day, and was glad. (John viii. 56.)

(e) It was Christ of whom Jacob spoke to his sons, as he lay dying. He marked out the tribe out of which He would be born, and foretold that “gathering together” unto Him which is yet to be accomplished. “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the law-giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come, and unto Him shall the gathering of the people be.” (Gen. xlix. 10.)

(f) It was Christ who was the substance of the ceremonial law which God gave to Israel by the hand of Moses. The morning and evening sacrifice – the continual shedding of blood – the altar – the mercy-seat – the high priest – the passover – the day of atonement – the scapegoat: – all these were so many pictures, types, and emblems of Christ and His work. God had compassion upon the weakness of His people. He taught them “Christ” line upon line, and, as we teach little children, by similitudes. It was in this sense especially that “the law was a schoolmaster to lead” the Jews “unto Christ.” (Gal. iii. 24.)

(g) It was Christ to whom God directed the attention of Israel by all the daily miracles which were done before their eyes in the wilderness. The pillar of cloud and fire which guided them – the manna from heaven which every morning fed them – the water from the smitten rock which followed them – all and each were figures of Christ. The brazen serpent, on that memorable occasion when the plague of fiery serpents was sent upon them, was an emblem of Christ. (1 Cor. x. 4; John iii. 14.)

(h) It was Christ of whom all the Judges were types. Joshua, and David, and Gideon, and Jephthah, and Samson, and all the rest whom God raised up to deliver Israel from captivity – all were emblems of Christ. Weak and unstable and faulty as some of them were, they were set for example of better things in the distant future. All were meant to remind the tribes of that far higher Deliverer who was yet to come.

(i) It was Christ of whom David the king was a type. Anointed and chosen when few gave him honour – despised and rejected by Saul and all the tribes of Israel – persecuted and obliged to flee for his life – a man of sorrow all his life, and yet at length a conqueror – in all these things David represented Christ.

(j) It was Christ of whom all the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi spoke. They saw through a glass darkly. They sometimes dwelt on His sufferings, and sometimes on His glory that should follow. (1 Peter i. 11.) They did not always mark out for us the distinction between Christ’s first coming and Christ’s second coming. Like two candles in a straight line, one behind the other, they sometimes saw both the advents at the same time, and spoke of them in one breath. They were sometimes moved by the Holy Ghost to write of the times of Christ crucified, and sometimes of Christ’s kingdom in the latter days. But Jesus dying, or Jesus reigning, was the thought you will ever find uppermost in their minds.

(k) It is Christ, I need hardly say, of whom the whole New Testament is full. The Gospels are “Christ” living, speaking, and moving among men. The Acts are “Christ” preached, published, and proclaimed. The Epistles are “Christ” written of, explained, and exalted. But all through, from first to last, there is one name above every other, and that is the name of Christ.

I charge every reader of this paper to ask himself frequently what the Bible is to him. Is it a Bible in which you have found nothing more than good moral precepts and sound advice? Or is it a Bible in which you have found Christ? Is it a Bible in which “Christ is all “? If not, I tell you plainly, you have hitherto used your Bible to very little purpose. You are like a man who studies the solar system and leaves out in his studies the sun, which is the centre of all. It is no wonder if you find your Bible a dull book!

Bible Study Resources

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This is a post I’ve had on my “to-do” list for a LONG time now.  Many people ask me for tips on how to study the Bible, and how/where to find the answers they need as they are reading.  It’s a very common thing (for me and everyone one I know) to be reading along and stumble on a word, a phrase, an idea, a name etc that raises questions, concerns, or curiosity.

So where do you go to find the answers to these questions? Well, I’d like to begin a post here with some sites/books you can use to compliment your Bible Study.  I’d imagine that I’ll need to periodically update this post as I find new resources myself – I also intend on starting with a relatively small list and adding as I have time. So here goes…

Bible Overviews and Handbooks

Bible overviews usually take a broad look at whole books, locations, and people in order to distill things into a readable and quick reference.  I like:

Wiersbe’s ‘With the Word’ – this is a chapter by chapter summary of the entire Bible.  Very cool stuff.  Very easy to read.

MacArthur’s Bible Handbook – this book is fantastic.  It gives a book by book overview of the entire Bible, including “where is Christ” in every book, an outline of each book, and many other great background and authorship notes.  It also has a “tough questions answered” section for each book – very neat and very helpful!

Westminster’s Theological Dictionary – ever wonder what those fancy theological terms mean? Well now you can know! LOL  This book is seriously really great.  Each definition is only one or two sentences long.  Very concise and easy.  Very helpful.

New Dictionary of Theology – this is like the Westminster Theological Dictionary, only a little more expanded.  It almost reminds me of an encyclopedia.  This one is written and edited by Ferguson, Wright, and Packer, so needless to say its VERY good!

What’s in the Bible? – this is a great overview of the entire Bible by R.C. Sproul and Robert Wolgemuth.  Its eminently readable, and very helpful if you’re looking to get a quick overview of entire books/sections of biblical history.

Bible Commentaries

Commentaries are probably the most important study resource a Bible Scholar should have on their shelves at home.  Commentaries come in a variety of different ways.  Some are a collection of notes on each book of the Bible by 1 author (like Calvin or MacArthur), others are a collection of notes on each book by a series of authors, others are simply stand alone notes on one or two particular books of the Bible by 1 author.  Some commentaries are expositional and some are more pastoral.  The former is focused more on a verse by verse explanation of the text, the latter focuses on the bigger picture only and takes large sections of the text at a time.  As you might imagine, commentaries reflect a Biblical theology of the writer, and shouldn’t be taken as “gospel” (so to speak).  However, every pastor I know uses commentaries to see what the great Christian men and women thought about the Biblical text long before we were born.  Here are some of my favorites (though I may not agree with each person on every point):

Calvin’s Commentaries – these are available online for free and here. These are a blend of pastoral and exegetical. Calvin wrote commentaries on most of the Bible, but some of the OT books are left out, as is Revelation.

Barnes Notes – Albert Barnes wrote these, this is a new testament only. He’s very conservative, and really solid on most every passage.  He does a great job of dispelling error and helps you logically sort through the possibilities for difficult verses as well.  Really like a lot of his work.

Wiersbe’s Commentary – very pastoral in his approach, this is most of the entire Bible, with a few of the old testament books combined. I enjoy his writing and his overarching points.  It’s not a “must have”, but its very helpful on some of the OT books and minor prophets.

Sproul’s Commentary Set – this is very pastor in its approach, and not as in-depth on a verse by vese basis as some of the others.  Still, there’s no one with insights quite like R.C. Sproul.  Often he has things to say that many of the others simply don’t think of, or are too timid to focus on.  He has only done 5 volumes (6 books) thus far.  I’ve read through most of all of them (except the Mark edition which I don’t have) and have really enjoyed them thus far.

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible – great puritan preacher Matthew Henry wrote these notes for teaching his family, not his church.  But they have ended up as classics, and show a brilliant depth of understanding, and wonderful heart for God.  A blend between exegetical and pastoral style.

Pillar Commentary Set – I’ve used D.A. Carson’s volume on John (which is what this link is for), and have a lot of respect for some of the other authors in this set (some overlap here with the New International Commentary Set).  This is a more exegetical/technical commentary set from what I’ve seen. Only New Testament.

MacArthur’s Bible Commentaries – These are very good, very exegetical, and really helpful commentaries.  He takes the time to explain words, phrases, and history even larger themes.  This is only New Testament though. They can be purchased as a set or individually.

John Stott’s Set – These are edited and partially written (in some cases) by Stott and from what I’ve read thus far they are really solid.

MacArthur Whole Bible Commentary – these are his Study Bible notes (maybe slightly expanded) put into a one volume edition.  A good quick resource for getting a grasp of the passage you’re looking at.

The New International Commentary Set – These are very technical and very good.  If you’re interested in knowing all the angles, all the background, and all the key view points on each passage of scripture, I’ve found that these are great editions.  Leon Morris, Douglass Moo, F.F. Bruce and others wrote each volume. This link is for the NT, but there’s also OT volumes as well.

Vernon McGee’s Commentary – This is very pastoral, very funny and light hearted.  He has some good insights, notes, but you won’t get the kind of in-depth education that MacArthur or Carson will provide.  He’s also dispensational in his approach to the Scripture, which means that some of his Old Testament comments are a little wacky.

James Montgomery Boice– This is a link to his set.  He’s done Daniel, Romans, Acts, and several other books as well.  These are probably some of the best pastoral-styled commentaries that I’ve ever read.  He and Ryle are probably tied at the top of my favorites list for men who know how to bring out the very best in a passage of scripture.

J.C. Ryle’s Commentary on the Gospels – He only did the gospels, but its worth looking at anyway!  Ryle is very pastoral, but also provides a verse by verse analysis in some parts (especially in John).  You can also get his Matthew commentary online for free here. 

Crossway Classic Series – This is a set of commentaries that form a compilation of many great authors, including Ryle, Calvin, Manton, Henry, Owen, Hodge and more.

Systematic Theologies

Systematic theologies sound more daunting than they really are!  A systematic theology is a book that organizes the different theological topics of the Bible and provides a doctrinal overview of each topic.  Topics usually range from election, adoption, the incarnation, justification, sanctification, the millenium and much more.  These books are heavily influenced by the theology of the person compiling the volume, but most that I’ve read try and offer an objective viewpoint and reason why we believe what we believe.  You really only need one or two at most, because they are SO large!  However, these are some of the most helpful tools you can have at home for personal study.

Grudem’s Systematic Theology – if you’re going to buy one systematic theology, it should be Grudem’s.  I don’t agree 100% with him on the millenium or on the age of the earth, but he’s very very good on just about every other big theological issue.  Just a tremendous resource to have at your fingertips.

Michael Horton’s Systematic Theology – I am borrowing this edition at the moment, and unlike some of his other work, I think its a slightly more readable volume.  Horton tends to speak in a sort of unnecessary academic vernacular, so if I had to recommend a volume that is readable for the layman, this probably wouldn’t be my first pick.  As I read more I’ll add more information here.

Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology – This is one that is a classic, and is really good as well.  I don’t have as much experience pawing through its pages as some others, but I can’t begin to count the times that Sproul and others have quoted this volume.

Websites

CCEL – this is an amazing collection of online commentaries, essays, sermons and more.  Calvin, Ryle, Augustine, Edwards and on and on.  All of it is here.

Blue Letter Bible – This is probably the best place I’ve found online to look up the Greek and Hebrew meanings of words in Scripture.  It’s simply an amazing resource.

Biblos – One of the best parallel Bibles online today.  This site is also just simply terrific.  You can get commentaries here as well, and there are some language tools available too.  What I like most about it is that when you look up a verse, you can immediate see 10 different versions of the verse.  There are also pretty decent maps that go along with some of the passages here.

ESV.org – If you don’t own an ESV Study Bible, well, you should.  The notes in the ESV are probably the best notes available today.  The general editor was JI Packer, and the contributing editors and authors are nothing short of a laundry list sof the finest scholars in the world.  It’s been endorsed by just about every major Christian scholar today.  If you have the study Bible, you have automatic access to the online study notes, maps, and other goodies.  If you don’t, then you can at least read the Bible, but you need the code to sign up and get the study notes.  The site also has the ability to plug in MacArthur’s study bible notes as well if you purchase them.

Study Notes 8-19-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

This section covers John 6:48-54 and begins with Christ’s reaffirmation that He is the Bread of Life.  I regret that I didn’t record audio from today’s lesson, I simply forgot to do that, but hopefully these notes are sufficient for those who might have missed the lesson today.

6:48 I am the bread of life.

It is perhaps significant that Christ repeats this again and again. And it got me thinking once again about the importance of what He’s saying.  I see an obvious parallel between His desire to feed His sheep and the instructions He left with Peter at the end of this gospel.  He said to Peter:

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” [16] He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” [17] He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.  –  John 21:15-17

When Christ repeats something it means that its important, in fact, that was a sign of emphasis during New Testament times.  They didn’t bold or italicize words, they simply repeated them.  And what He says to us here three times He also tells Peter three times, namely that He is the Bread of Life, and that Peter (and the church) was to feed on Him and to pass that food along to others constantly and faithfully.

How Does This Look in Your Home?

But what does this look like in practice?  In your life, are you feeding on Christ, and what does that look like?  What it ought to look like is a constant devotion and passion for the Word.  You ought to be immersing yourselves in the Word as much as possible.  Those whom you love, you spend as much time with as possible, and the same is true with Christ.  That means stoking the passions of Scripture reading.  It means spending more time in prayer.  It means meditating on and memorizing Scripture.

6:49-50 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 

Much of this I have covered earlier, but Christ repeats it here again for a reason, namely to bookend this discussion by getting back to his earlier analogy about the nature of fulfillment and eternal life.  As Ryle says, “We must never be ashamed of repetition in religious life.”

At first Christ had given the example of manna, but had then explained the nature of salvation, and now He comes back to explain once again (with the fresh thought of His teaching on God’s sovereignty in mind) how what He said earlier fits into the discussion on His role in their salvation.

One thing that Christ adds here that He hadn’t mentioned earlier, is that, “the bread that I will give for life of the world is my flesh.”

This is simply another way of stating, “mankind can only achieve life through me.  Through my life, death and resurrection I will achieve righteousness and justification and finally glorification for humanity.”

Does He mean all of humanity?  Surely not, for that contradicts what has been said elsewhere (in fact just earlier in His explanation of God’s sovereignty).  But rather the word “world” is used to represent mankind as a race.  He is obviously not advocating universalism.

6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.

I wanted address this particular verse separately.  Christ concludes this section by alluding to His flesh being the life He is giving (an elusion to the cross).  Ryle says, “The thought here is only an expansion of the one contained in the 35th verse…The meaning is that the soul of the man who feeds on Christ by faith, shall never die and be cast away in hell. There is no condemnation for him. His sins are put away. He shall not be hurt by the second death.”

But first let me look at one other thing, namely the nature of the claim as it relates to His person.

Dealing With the Claims of Christ

So many people in our day say that Jesus is a nice man, a good man, in fact.  They say that He was a great teacher, maybe, or that He was even a prophet (as Islam says).  But as C.S. Lewis said, “He has not left that open to us, nor did He mean to.”

Look at His words here.  He says, “I am the living bread…from heaven!”  He says He is from Heaven!  Then, He goes on to say something even crazier (if we are to think of Him merely as a good teacher) and states, “If anyone eats…he will live forever.”  He’s saying that He has eternal life.  You eat of this bread and you’ll live forever!  Do those sound like the words of a “good teacher?”  Do those sound like the words of a sane individual?  No.  If Jesus Christ is not the Son of God, the very Deity Himself, then He must be a lunatic because these statements are about as far fetched as any you’ll ever read.

In the course of your work week, or your trip to the store, or your gathering with friends, if someone brings up the fact that they think Jesus was a good teacher, or a good godly man, then you take them to John 6:51 and ask them if these are not the very words of God incarnate.  Because they aren’t the words of a finite man – at least not one we’d consider sane.

We must take Jesus for what He is.  We must realistically deal with these claims and come to grips with the Person of Christ.

6:52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”

Once again the Jews get stuck on the metaphor rather than on the meaning of the metaphor.  Their spiritual ignorance is not astounding, for we have seen earlier that they did not have an understanding of the things of God.

For this very reason we must not be surprised when Roman Catholic leaders or television personalities like Pat Robertson who are supposed to be evangelical church leaders advocate for this or that shocking position, or fail to understand the gospel. We must not be surprised when they say things that are quite contrary to scripture.

Why just this week Pat Robertson said to a lady who had adopted children that she shouldn’t be surprised if a man didn’t want to marry her because her kids could “grow up weird” or even dangerous.  Russell Moore rightly condemned Robertson and helps us understand these types of comments better.  He said, “This is not just a statement we ought to disagree with. This is of the devil.”

There are two possibilities why these supposed leaders – like the Jews of Jesus’ day – don’t understand the gospel.  The first is that they are believers who have been led down a path of man-centered doctrine to a point that they now no longer put a priority on the gospel and have deadened their senses to the teachings of grace.

The second, and perhaps more obvious, is that their fruit reveals their deadness. One who is still dead in sin, will surely not understand the things of Scripture (1 Cor. 2:13).  Jesus told us that in order to see the kingdom of God, we must be born again.  “Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’” (John 3:5-6).

In other words, they are not followers of Christ; His Spirit has not quickened them. They are, in fact, part of the church of Satan.  For whoever is not under the control of the Spirit is surely under the control of Satan (Eph. 2:1-3).  Therefore, they will say and do things that are, of course, completely ignorant of what Christ and the Scriptures would say or have us do.

Augustine says that these men are completely unable to hunger for the bread and makes a great connection between the righteousness of Christ, and hungering for Christ, “This bread, indeed, requires the hunger of the inner man: and hence He saith in another place, ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied’ (Matt. 5:6). But the Apostle Paul says that Christ is for us righteousness (1 Cor. 1:30).  And, consequently, he that hungers after this bread, hungers after righteousness, – that righteousness however which cometh down from heaven, the righteousness that God gives, not that which man works for himself.”

What a great connection between our thirst for the righteousness of God, and Christ being our ultimate satisfaction for that righteousness.  Augustine explains a bit further, “God’s righteousness here means, not that wherein God is righteous, but that which God bestows on man, that man may be righteous through God.”

So these men were unable to hunger after Christ the way He was calling them to, and Ryle sums up what I’m saying: “Fallen man, in interpreting the Bible, has an unhappy aptitude for turning meat into poison.  The things that were written for his benefit, he often makes an occasion for falling.”

6:53-54 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Early Church Historical Background

It was said by the Roman authorities of the early church that they were cannibals and atheists (among other things).  They were called cannibals because they participated in the Lord’s Super where they “at of the body and drank of the blood of Christ.”  Now of course we know this is simply an ignorant falsehood, but it was such a prevalent misunderstanding in the early days of the church that it was a main point of accusation and was one of the false reasons Christians were martyred by Roman Caesars. The reason they were called “atheists” was because they didn’t worship the pantheon of Roman gods.

Catholic Misunderstanding of the Passage

The Romanists (Catholics) have taken this verse incorrectly to mean that whoever participates in the Lord’s Super is saved.  They couldn’t be further from the truth.  As Carson says, “…if its primary reference is to the Eucharist we must conclude that the one thing necessary to eternal life is participation at the Lord’s table. This interpretation of course actually contradicts the earlier parts of the discourse, the least verse 40. The only reasonable alternative is to understand these verses as a repetition of the earlier truth, but now in metaphorical form.”

And so it seems obvious that Christ is not talking about a literal eating and drinking.  Though, as Ryle points out:

The plain truth is, there is a morbid anxiety in fallen man to put a carnal sense on Scriptural expressions, where he possibly can. He struggles hard to make religion a matter of forms and ceremonies, of doing and performing, of sacraments and ordinances, of sense and of sight. He secretly dislikes that system of Christianity, which makes the state of the heart the principle thing, and labors to keep sacraments and ordinances in the second place. Happy is the Christian who remembers these things, and stands on his guard.

So when Ignatius (as representing the Papists) says that the Eucharist is “the medicine of immortality”, Carson is right to respond that this view is “ruled out of court.”

A Correct Interpretation of the Passage

So what does Christ mean here?  Perhaps Augustine summed it up best in the Latin phrase, “Crede, et manducasti” which is to say, “believe, and thou hast eaten.”  The full context of what Augustine said is this, “For to believe on Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again. A babe within, a new man within. Where he is made new, there he is satisfied with food.”

I’d further point out that each of Christ’s statements in this chapter are miniature gospel messages.  The amazing truths of the gospel are contained in each vignette.  Here Christ said that by eating His flesh and blood we will have life – not just life here on earth, but eternal life.  “Eating,” means partaking, it means believing in His bodily sacrifice for our sins.  Then it says that not only will we have eternal life, but that our bodies will also be raised up on the last day.  This is a complete gospel.  Take part in My sacrifice by believing in Me and you will have eternal life spiritually and bodily.

Rightly commenting on this verse the puritan Thomas Goodwin said, “Christ is as meat that man feeds on, chews, and digests, and whose stomach works on continually. The man lives on Him everyday; that is the application of faith.”  And Ryle adds, “We need food every day, and not once a week or once a month, and in like manner, we need to employ faith every day.”

Some Examination of American Christianity…Paying Lip Service to Christ

This passage, and Augustine’s commentary in particular, has brought to my mind the nature of our devotion and hunger for Christ here in America.  Christ is calling us to feast on Him, to seek His kingdom first, and says that He is all we’ll need to be satisfied. He is saying that He is sufficient for our life here and in the hereafter. Without saying it, He is ordering our priorities for us – priorities that we often pay lip service to, but don’t actually obey.  I’ve been calling our class to holiness, and we’ve been discussing how to further pursue holiness each day.

And so, I’m sure you’d agree with me, that it is a bit of a snare to us that we often fear getting too spiritual. We fear giving up a certain way of living, or some certain things we do.  For we find freedom in those things.  They may not seem like sin to us, but they may be distractions from a more satisfying life – the life of a Christian. Some might say that I go too far, or that these words might cause some to stumble into asceticism.  However, I’m clearly not advocating that!  The problem the American Christian Church finds in its body is not asceticism, but rather worldliness. We are far less like the Puritans and far more like the Catholics who (mostly) aren’t even Christ followers at all.  They simply play at church (you’d know what I mean if you ever attended a local Catholic service – they have no clue what they’re talking about, aimlessly wandering around in the dark, quoting scriptures completely out of context, mashing them together with other, as if its some kind of children’s rhyming game).

I fear that in today’s world, you might not know the difference between a Catholic and a Baptist if you were to talk with most of them.  Ah, but you say that we know the truth!  So we have the truth on our side. Well, I suppose that’s correct.  But if our outward life doesn’t conform to the holiness God demands of us, then how are we to tell the difference?  And what good is all that knowledge without any fruit. Your knowledge is rotting you from the inside out.

But I won’t let most American Christians off that easy because most Protestant Evangelical Christians in America today only think they have the truth on their side because they know that they are saved by faith and grace, and they don’t have to pray to a priest.  But if you ask them why, they can’t cite a single passage in Scripture, they can’t tell you how this came about, or why the distinction was made in the first place (much less the historical circumstances leading to the rediscovery of these truths in the 16th century).  Most American Christians would rather preach to you that their “free will” is intact than that God is sovereign (foolishness that’s nowhere found in the Bible).  In other words, having the truth doesn’t matter much when you don’t actually know the truth (Heb. 5:11-6:1).  We’ve lost that in America.  We need to get back to a frame of mind that is more humble, and more dedicated to the study of Scripture.  We must devote our entire lives to understanding and teaching these truths to our children and others.

The Importance of the Bodily Resurrection

One of the things that gets lost in the discussion of this great portion of Scripture is the fact that now 4 times Christ has mentioned the bodily resurrection.

This is something (the resurrection) that many of the Jews – particularly the Sadducees – were adamantly against. Paul gives a great deal of time in 1 Cor. 15 to discussing this, and we find that it is extremely important for understanding the plan Christ has for us.  This, if nothing else, shows His sovereignty over His creation.

He is, in affect, saying that God has complete power over life and death.  He will create spiritual life in whom He wishes, and He will raise those people (His creation) to an entirely new kind of bodily life at the resurrection.  There is no part of life on earth or in heaven that God does not control.  There is no part of the scope of redemption – spiritual or bodily – that He does not sovereignty reign over.

Ryle paraphrases, “It is though our Lord says, ‘this bread that cometh down from heaven is bread of such a nature that he that eateth of it shall never die. His soul shall not be hurt by the second death, and his body shall have a glorious resurrection.”  Note the dichotomy between the soul and the body in Ryle’s statement.

This entire discourse has been about salvation, both the nature and the method (and also the benefits) of salvation.  Throughout the discussion Christ has been emphasizing the sovereignty of God.  There is no getting around verses like 37 and 44 here.  In explaining all of this to these people (who are getting more than they even dreamed of asking for), Christ wants them to know that from all eternity He and the Father and the Spirit have had a plan for them.  This isn’t plan B, so to speak.

And in doing so, Jesus is explaining that the resurrection will play an important part in our future.  Christ will grant to us not only spiritual redemption, but also bodily redemption. What God does, He does completely.  He is not content to allow our bodies to remain in the ground rotting in remembrance of past sins and their resulting death.  He will wipe all of that away with the resurrection of the body.  Sin and its traces will be wiped off the face of the earth and all will be renewed.  There will be no sin and no death, and no reminder of the slavery to which we once were held captive!

Paul says this in 1 Corinthians:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. [21] For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. [22] For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. [23] But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. [24] Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. [25] For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. [26] The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor. 15:20-26

Study Notes 8-12-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

John 6:46-47

6:46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.

It is a well-known fact that no one can see God and live – for this is one of the first things that students of the Bible learn as they read through the Old Testament.  Moses records for us the words of God in response to Moses’ request to look on His holy face.  The exchange went like this:

Moses said, “Please show me your glory.” [19] And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The LORD.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. [20] But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” [21] And the LORD said, “Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock, [22] and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. [23] Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen.”(Ex. 33:18-23)

The Father does not rebuke Moses for wanting to look upon His glory, indeed He grants him an amazing opportunity to get to know Him more; for Moses wanted to know God more intimately, and this is a desire God wants us all to have. Moses wanted to bask in the glory of who God is in all of His awesome holiness. But God explains to Moses that if he were to look upon the glory of His holiness he would perish.

We get an idea of the power of this holiness in Isaiah 6 when we read about the Seraphim who have six wings – two of which are for covering their eyes.  These creatures have never sinned, and are holy beings, yet they cannot stand to look directly into the holy resplendency of God.

But Christ says here that there is one person who can look on the holiness of the Father: that is the Son.

Sinclair Ferguson makes the connection between this passage in Isaiah 6 and how John describes the “Word” in chapter 1 of the gospel we’re reading now.  Here’s what he says:

It is in stark yet glorious contrast to this (the Seraphim in Is. 6) that we find John opening his Gospel by saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (pros ton theon – literally ‘toward God’).  Do you see the picture here? If the Son is “toward God”, He must be face to fact with Him – alone (with the Spirit) able to bear the intensity of the Father’s gaze. That face is all-consuming love, and burns to destruction all in the object of its gaze that is not itself perfect love. Thus, He gazes on His Son. All creatures must cover their faces or avert their eyes. Only the Son (always in and with the Spirit) is able to love in return with an intensity that preserves His from being consumed by the holiness of the Father.

Jesus Himself states that He has “seen” the Father in John 8:38, “I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

Only when we have a true sense of the powerful, awful, holiness of God the Father can we truly understand what it means that Christ says “no man has seen the Father” and also simultaneously comprehend that He (Christ) alone has the ability to view Him face to face in perfect holy communion.

This difference between the creaturely and the divine is how Christ chooses to punctuate His teaching on the mode of salvation.  It is as if He is saying, “no one comes to the Father unless we (The trinity) teach Him, and in case you have a problem with the order of this, let me remind you of your place in the order of creation!”

6:47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

Morris notes, “For the third time in this discourse there is the solemn ‘I tell you the truth’. Jesus’ main concern is with life and how people obtain it, not with his own person. Now he solemnly repeats the way to life.”

What is the upshot of all of this?  What is it that results in being “taught” and “drawn” by God?  The result is that you will believe, and like the golden chain in Romans 8:28-30, we see that it leads inevitably to a result.  That result is the obtaining of eternal life.  For if we are united with Christ in His death and His resurrection (Rom. 6), and if He has desired for us to come and be with Him and see Him in His glory (John 17), then it is a necessary precondition that we have eternal life with Him.

This verse isn’t stating that we wouldn’t have eternal souls without belief in Christ, for man is made in God’s image (Gen. 2:27), but rather that we will have eternal “life” in Christ.  Life is the word we use to identify with that which is eternal blessedness with Christ forever.  Those who do not have eternal “life” actually could be said to have something of an eternal “death” because they will continually suffer the consequences of their separation from God and His blessedness.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we notice the shining doctrine of Solus Christus. Solus Christus is the doctrine that states that it is in Christ alone which our salvation lies.  In Him alone we find all of our sufficiency for life in God.

Monergism.com has an excellent blurb on this doctrine and states, “Christ’s all-sufficiency means, by implication, that we are insufficient of ourselves. Indeed the Scripture says “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” 2 Corinthians 3:5.  We reaffirm that our salvation is accomplished by the mediatorial work of the historical Christ alone. His sinless life and substitutionary atonement alone are sufficient for our justification and reconciliation to the Father. We deny that the gospel is preached if Christ’s substitutionary work is not declared and faith in Christ and his work is not solicited.”

Michael Horton gives a good historical background to the this doctrine:

In the Middle Ages, the minister was seen as having a special relationship with God, as he mediated God’s grace and forgiveness through the sacraments. But there were other challenges. We often think of our own age as unique, with its pluralism and the advent of so many religions. But not too long before the Reformation, the Renaissance thinker Petrarch was calling for an Age of the Spirit in which all religions would be united. Many Renaissance minds were convinced that there was a saving revelation of God in nature and that, therefore, Christ was not the only way. The fascination with pagan philosophy encouraged the idea that natural religion offered a great deal–indeed, even salvation–to those who did not know Christ.

The Reformation was, more than anything else, an assault on faith in humanity, and a defense of the idea that God alone reveals Himself and saves us. We do not find Him; He finds us. That emphasis was the cause of the cry, “Christ alone!” Jesus was the only way of knowing what God is really like, the only way of entering into a relationship with Him as father instead of judge, and the only way of being saved from His wrath.

But not only is our salvation resting firming on the work of Christ, but as evangelical Christians, we believe that the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is all about Christ.  As Martin Luther said, “(Christ is the) center and circumference of the Bible.”

So when Christ calls us to “believe” in Him, He is calling us to put our full faith and trust in Him and His work, and to lay aside any ideas that we can add anything to our salvation, and also to lay aside any ideas that we can add to His words.  In this verse, He is saying, in affect, “I have just laid out the truth about salvation and of heaven, and in order to have these things you must believe what I say is true, and also you must believe in me.  You must place all your faith and hope on me alone for these things.”

Finally, when Christ seals his teaching here with this verse, He is doing so on the heals of some difficult (some say “hard”) sayings.  Some of these are sayings our own class has struggled with.  But Christ doesn’t say, “if you’d like to believe in My sovereignty over salvation that’s fine, but regardless you need to believe in my words.”  No indeed.  For the two are invariably intertwined and cannot be separated.

Christ is saying in this discourse that:

  1. I am all sufficient for life here and in heaven
  2. I am the most satisfying thing you will ever experience
  3. God, not you, makes the choice over who will be saved
  4. In order to believe to me, you must have God’s help
  5. You aren’t going to believe in me unless you’ve been given faith from God to believe me
  6. In order to be saved you must believe in my words

What seems like a circle is in fact a linear line that starts with God in eternity past (Eph. 1:3-14) continues with God’s quickening us (John 3), drawing us (John 6:44) and ends with His keeping us in His bosom until the day of glorification (Romans 8).

Jesus, in affect, has said to his audience that they must believe to be saved but that those listening will not believe. The reason they can’t believe is because they love their sin more than they love God.  In order to believe we must be quickened by the Spirit of God and given faith, which we then place on our Lord.  Placing this faith on Christ is what results in salvation, as we see from above.

Getting back to the heart of what Christ is saying specifically in this verse, J.C. Ryle says, “He that would have his sins pardoned and his soul saved must go to Christ for it.”

The utter simplicity of the gospel message here is perhaps easily missed in our discourse because of how many other important things Christ has said, but I think its so important that we remember the simplicity of the Christian faith. There is no series of objectives, no rites, no hoops that we need to jump through, as the Catholics erroneously believe, there is simply Christ and Christ alone.  He alone is our sufficiency, and our only “work” is to believe (John 6:28).