John MacArthur

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 9-30-12

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

John 7:20-31

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

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

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

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

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

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

Legalism gives Birth to Hypocrisy

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

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

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

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

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

How are we Justified?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dual Nature of Christ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Stinging Indictment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some truths to take away from this:

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

The Age of Accountability and Infant Mortality

~ pjwenzel ~ 3 Comments

We all know or have ourselves been intimately acquainted with the death of a newborn, or of a young child.  The question very often that comes up is “will that child go to heaven?” this is closely tied to the question of “when is the age of a child’s accountability to God for their sin?”  I wanted to address that with some resources here, and lay out a few thoughts.  Let it be said from the start where I stand on this matter.  I believe that when a when a child dies before maturity – before understanding their culpability and what their sin actually means – that child goes to heaven.

I looked over what Sproul has to say (here) and what MacArthur says as well.  In the past I found that MacArthur was the best on this issue, but his total lack of addressing the role of original sin in this article really bothered me. Nevertheless, he has a book on the matter that may be more helpful and more extensive (here).

Al Mohler wrote an article on this in the Baptist Press here – This is by far the best explanation for how the Bible talks about this difficult issue that I could find to share with everyone.  Mohler brilliantly addresses each tradition, and brings historical facts and Biblical text to bare on the matter in a way that is very helpful.  Because of this, I’ve pasted his entire article below.

 

FIRST-PERSON: God & the tsunami (Part 3) 

Posted on Jan 6, 2005 | by R. Albert Mohler Jr.

EDITORS’ NOTE: This commentary follows a two-part look at theological questions stemming from the Asian tsunamis.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)–The photographs and images are now seared into our consciousness. One of the most troubling aspects of the disaster in South Asia is the death of infants and young children. Moving at the speed of a jetliner, the walls of water fell on the young and the old alike — and so many of the youngest were simply swept away.

The death of the little ones poses anguished questions that reach to the depth of Christian faith. What happened to these young victims after death? Did they go to heaven or to hell?

I am convinced that those who die in infancy and early childhood — along with the severely cognitively impaired — go to heaven when they die. That is quite a claim, but it stands within the mainstream of orthodox Christian theology throughout the centuries, and I believe it is biblically and theologically sustainable.

In fact, I am hard pressed to imagine how any other answer can be given.

This is a question of emotional urgency for grieving parents, and it is a stone of stumbling for some who jump to hasty theological conclusions. The scope of the problem is huge, for untold millions of human beings have died at the earliest ages. Infant mortality still stands at several million babies a year. In the developing world, disease, famine and abandonment take a heavy toll. Even in the most highly developed nations, armed with the latest medical technologies, thousands of infants die each year.

The best estimates out of Indonesia and Sri Lanka indicate that young children make up a disproportionate number of the victims of the tsunamis. Like Rachel in the Old Testament, anguished mothers weep for their children.

What is our answer to the question of the eternal destiny awaiting those children? My argument that these children are safe in the presence of Jesus Christ is based upon biblical evidence and theological reasoning. I cannot accept the glib and superficial assertions put forth by those who would simply offer assurance without adequate argument.

These infants are in heaven, but not because they were not sinners. The Bible teaches that we are all conceived in sin and born in sin, and each of us is a sinner from the moment we draw our first breath. The doctrines of original sin and total depravity do not spring from some speculative theological imagination, but from the clear teaching of Scripture. There is no state of innocence, and these babies cannot enter heaven unless the penalty for their sin is provided by the atonement of Jesus Christ.

These infants are in heaven, but not because everyone is in heaven. The Bible presents us with a stark picture of two destinies for humankind. Those who are in Christ, who have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, will be in heaven. Those who are apart from Christ will be in hell. Hell may be a despised concept — rejected by the theological modernizers — but it will not disappear, and its horrors await those who die without Christ. Jesus warned sinners to fear hell, and the Bible warns that we must flee the wrath that is to come. Universalism is just not an option for any Christian who believes the Bible. Those who deny hell deny the authority of Christ.

These infants are in heaven, but not because any of them were baptized. The practice of infant baptism has led to multiple theological confusions, and the death of infants is often one of the points of greatest bewilderment. Most of the early church fathers simply assumed that baptized infants who die in infancy go to heaven, while unbaptized infants do not. These significant Christian leaders and thinkers, including figures such as Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo, taught the doctrine of baptismal regeneration — a belief still held by the Roman Catholic Church and most Eastern Orthodox churches. Among Protestants, Lutherans hold to a form of baptismal regeneration and some sacramentalists in other denominations also lean in that direction. According to this logic, infants are saved because they have been baptized and have thus received the gift of salvation. There is simply not a shred of biblical support for this argument. What these churches call infant baptism cannot help us in framing our argument. There is no biblical foundation for arguing for the salvation of infants from baptism, or for positing the existence of “Limbo” as a place of eternal suspension for unbaptized infants.

So, how can we frame an argument that is true to Scripture and consistent with the Gospel? Before turning to heaven, perhaps we should take a closer look at hell. According to the Bible, hell is a place of punishment for sins consciously committed during our earthly lives. We are told that we will be judged according to our deeds committed “in the body” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Adam’s sin and guilt, imputed to every single human being, explains why we are born as sinners and why we cannot not sin, but the Bible clearly teaches that every person will be judged for his or her own sins, not for Adam’s sin. The judgment of sinners that will take place at the great white throne (Revelation 20:11-12) will be “according to their deeds.” Have those who died in infancy committed such deeds? I believe not, for they have not yet developed the capacity to know good from evil. No biblical text refers to the presence of small children or infants in hell — not one.

Theologians have long debated an “age of accountability.” The Bible does not reveal an “age” at which moral accountability arrives, but we do know by observation and experience that maturing human beings do develop a capacity for moral reasoning at some point. Dismissing the idea of an “age” of accountability, John MacArthur refers to a “condition” of accountability. I most often speak of a point or capacity of moral accountability. At this point of moral development, the maturing child knows the difference between good and evil — and willingly chooses to sin.

The Bible offers a fascinating portrait of this truth in the first chapter of Deuteronomy. In response to Israel’s sin and rebellion, God condemns that generation of adults to death in the wilderness, never to see the land of promise. “Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give to your fathers.” (Deuteronomy 1:35). But God specifically exempted young children and infants from this condemnation — and He even explained why He did so: “Moreover, your little ones who you said would become prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good and evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it” (Deuteronomy 1:39). These little ones were not punished for their parents’ sins, but were accepted by God into the promised land. I believe that this offers a sound basis for our confidence that God deals with young children differently than He deals with those who are capable of deliberate and conscious sin.

Based on these arguments, I believe that we can have confidence that God receives all infants into heaven.

Salvation is all of grace, and God remains forever sovereign in the entire process of our salvation. The Bible clearly teaches the doctrine of election, but it nowhere suggests that all those who die in infancy are not among the elect. Even the Westminster Confession, the most authoritative Reformed confession, states the matter only in the positive sense, affirming that all elect infants are received into heaven. It does not require belief in the existence of any non-elect infants. Those who insist that all we can say is that elect infants are saved while non-elect infants are not confuse the issue by assuming or presuming the existence of non-elect infants and leaving the matter there.

We must remember that God is both omnipotent and omniscient. He gave these little ones life, knowing before the creation of the world that they would die before reaching moral maturity and thus the ability to sin by intention and choice. Did He bring these infants — who would never consciously sin — into the world merely as the objects of His wrath?

The great Princeton theologians Charles Hodge and B.B. Warfield certainly did not think so. These defenders of Reformed orthodoxy taught that those who die in infancy die in Christ. Hodge pointed to the example of Jesus: “The conduct and language of our Lord in reference to children are not to be regarded as matters of sentiment, or simply expressive of kindly feeling. He evidently looked upon them as lambs of the flock for which, as the Good Shepherd, He laid down his life, and of whom He said they shall never perish, and no man could pluck them out of his hands. Of such He tells us is the kingdom of Heaven, as though Heaven was, in good measure, composed of the souls of redeemed infants.”

Charles Spurgeon, the great evangelical preacher of Victorian England, and John Newton, the author of “Amazing Grace,” added pastoral urgency to this affirmation. Spurgeon was frustrated with preachers who claimed to have no answer to this question, and he hurled judgment on anyone who would claim that infants would populate hell.

In the end, we must affirm the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the full authority of Scripture. We trust the goodness, mercy, justice and love of God. Whatever He does is right. Salvation is all of grace, and there is no salvation apart from Christ. All are born sinners, and those who reach the point of accountability and consciously sin against God will be judged and punished for their sins in hell — unless they have come by grace to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

B.B. Warfield may have expressed it best when he beautifully affirmed, “If all that die in infancy are saved, it can only be through the almighty operation of Holy Spirit, who works when, and where, and how He pleases, through whose ineffable grace the Father gathers these little ones to the home He has prepared for them.”

Keep those words firmly in mind as you contemplate this great and often troubling question. The little ones are safe with Jesus.
–30–
R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. For more articles and resources by Dr. Mohler, and for information on “The Albert Mohler Program,” a daily national radio program broadcast on the Salem Radio Network, go to http://www.albertmohler.com.

Study Notes 9-23-12

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John 7:11-19

The Righteousness and Brilliance of Jesus Christ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Calvin might have an idea…

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where Jesus Got His Authority

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

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

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

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

Testing the spirits

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

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

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

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

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

The Purpose of the Law

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

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

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

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

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

How does the law lead us to Christ? 

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

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

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

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

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

What Kind of Man is This?

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

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

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

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

The Importance of Being Sinless: The Perfection of Christ

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

Wayne Grudem helps us understand:

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

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

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

The Perfect Sacrifice

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

The Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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.”

Bible Study Resources

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

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 9-2-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

This week we finished off the 6th chapter of John’s gospel and in two weeks we’ll begin the 7th chapter.  Below are my full notes on the section (about 7 pages worth I believe).  I included all of them instead of bullet pointing because I think there’s probably a lot more below than I covered in class + I didn’t get to record the audio (oops!!).  Hopefully this is sufficient.  Enjoy!

6:67-69 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” [68] Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, [69] and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

Before we go into what it is that Peter says, I wanted to note something that Calvin says about this shift in dialogue. “As the faith of the apostles might be greatly shaken, when they saw that they were so small a remnant of a great multitude, Christ directs his discourse to them, and shows that there is no reason why they should allow themselves to be hurried away by the lightness and unsteadiness of others.”

This is one of the things I love about Calvin; he’s always putting himself in the situation so that he can explain the context to us more accurately than we might initially compose it in our minds. And what it is that he draws out here is the compassion of Christ.  He directs His attention to the disciples because He knows their hearts and thoughts and wants to be sure that they understand the truths He’s teaching.  He does the same with us, don’t you think?  So many times when I get shaken about something I’ve read or learned, I turn to Christ in prayer and He settles me down.  He speaks soothing words to my heart and helps me understand what it is that He’s made known in His word.

The Bible and specifically the words of Christ, aren’t always easy things to understand.  Carson points out that Peter’s understanding of what Jesus had been saying thus far might have been a bit “muddy.”  The same is often true of myself. That is why it is so comforting to see this example of the attention Christ is giving these men.  His desire is for us to learn more about Him.

Peter’s Confession

Peter makes a great confession here. He must have thought to himself, “what am I to do? What can I say to this”?  This is the same thing we might think from time to time.  We get frustrated with something we face in life and we blame God.  Or we can’t understand the difficult mysteries of Scripture so we get turned off by them and don’t read anymore, or we get rubbed wrong by a pastor or leader and stop coming to church etc.  But Peter, while acknowledging that Christ’s words are difficult – note that he doesn’t deny this – still admits that Christ is the only one with the words of life.  And so He is. We must therefore approach the throne of grace with confidence, but with humility, knowing that these mysteries are difficult even for those who spent time in the very presence of God incarnate.

John Piper talks about the vast wisdom and knowledge of Christ in his book ‘Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ’ and says that the greatest knowledge Christ had was of who God was.  He had this knowledge because He was God Himself!  And this is what Christ is trying to get these people (and us) to understand: that He is God.  Here’s what Piper says:

Nothing greater can be said about the knowledge of Jesus than that he knows God perfectly. All reality outside God is parochial compared to the infinite reality that God is. What God has made is like a toy compared to the complexity and depth of who God is. All the sciences that scratch the surface of the created universe are mere ABCs compared to Christ’s exhaustive knowledge of the created universe. And even this knowledge of the created universe is a dewdrop on a blade of grass compared to the ocean of knowledge that Jesus has of the being of God himself. While the universe is finite, God is infinite. Complete knowledge of the infinite is infinite. Therefore to know God as Jesus knows God is to have infinite knowledge.

And so this is the reality that Peter came to at the end of this discourse.  And this is why verse 64 is so significant, it all points to Christ’s knowledge.  He knows everything from before the foundation of the world.

There are other instances of this in Scripture.  For example, in John 18:4 it says “Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him…” and earlier in John 2:24-25 it says, “But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

I also love the example of a time when the Pharisees were trying to question Jesus to see how smart he really was, and He ended up asking them the questions instead.  The passage is Matthew 23:41-46:

Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

I just love that last verse – the reaction to His scriptural example is that “nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions”!  What a great verse!

This is where Peter found himself, only his reaction was one of confessional worship, while the Pharisees were simply silenced in their embarrassment.

6:70-71 Jesus answered them, “Did I not choose you, the Twelve? And yet one of you is a devil.” [71] He spoke of Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the Twelve, was going to betray him.

First we notice that Christ makes certain that His disciples understand that it is He that is doing the choosing and not themselves. This is perhaps a very clear example of election, though MacArthur says “He is not here referring to election to salvation, but rather selection to apostleship.” God knows who His chosen ones will be, as He also knew who Jesus’ disciples would be. Peter makes his declaration of faith, first and then Christ reminds him that it wasn’t Peter who chose Christ for His words, but rather Christ chose Peter that he might hear His words and choose to follow Him. So while we see that Christ might not specifically be talking about salvation, the principles of sovereignty are the same – in all things He is sovereign.  As D.A. Carson says, “Ultimately, the twelve did not choose Jesus; He chose them.”

Very interesting that Jesus would choose to react in verse 70 to Peter’s confession this way.  In another discourse Peter makes a more clear confession of faith and Christ responds slightly differently, but the point is really the same.  That confession is found in Matthew 16:16-17.

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

There are some wonderful parallels between this passage and the one we’re looking at here in John.  As you recall, we said that being taught of God is the same as being drawn or chosen by God.  And these two verses demonstrate this all the more.  The Matthew passage shows us that what Peter understood about Christ did not emanate from within himself, but rather from God who revealed it to him.  We might call this being “taught” of God.

The passage we have in John shows us a similar confession by Peter, though slightly different in the phraseology.  He states that Jesus is the “Holy One of God” and Jesus doesn’t say specifically this time that God revealed this to him, but rather says that it wasn’t Peter that chose to have this knowledge, it wasn’t something within Peter that made him want to stay and be with Christ and follow Him, rather Jesus says that it was Christ who called him out of darkness.  Peter would later write this about what it means to be a Christian:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

So we see here that Jesus isn’t going away from His main point of this passage, which is that in all things God is sovereign, and particularly in the matter of salvation.

Allowing Evil

The second thing we notice here is what Boice calls “a disturbing revelation.”  He points out is that one of the disciples is “a devil” and John adds a contextual note that Judas will betray Jesus.  Leon Morris says that all the gospel authors make this betrayal clear when they first introduce Judas in each of their accounts.

There is no question that Jesus is stating that He is sovereign over who will be His disciples, just as He is sovereign over salvation and is sovereign over all living things.  He’s already stated this numerous times throughout the passage, and once more again just now.  But why would He allow Judas to be numbered among them?

The answer lies in the fact that, while God hates evil, He allows evil, and even chooses to work through evil situations and people, to bring good to His people.  This is the whole meaning of Romans 8:28.  It isn’t that God simply is sovereign over the good times, and it isn’t as though these evil people are somehow out from under His thumb.  No indeed.  God in His mysterious sovereignty allows evil people to do what they do in order that He might bring about redemption.

This is the kind of thing that baffles us.  Christ ends the passage that is so rich with predestinarian language and teaching that one can’t help but realize that from the beginning of time God had a plan for us and for His Son’s incarnation, death, and glorious resurrection.  Yet we struggle with the purpose of evil.  And we must be careful, because this is where errors can filter into our thinking.

We must guide our thoughts of Jesus’ allowing of Judas, and other evil men, into His plans by what we know is true about God’s character.  God is not the author of evil Himself, nor does He like, or condone it.  Evil is contrary to God’s holy character, it is so fully opposite of who He is that He will not evil look upon sin (Habakkuk 1:13).

And yet His Spirit strives with us while we continue to sin, and He also uses evil to accomplish His will on earth.  This is close to being a paradox – it is something that seems contradictory on the surface, but when we look at God’s character we find it is not so.  God can be both merciful, and holy.  He can be both loving of His sinful creatures, while displaying at least some measure of His wrath at our sin.

We would not call these attributes contradictory in a person, just as we won’t call them so in God.  But we do have a tendency as human beings to assume God’s mercy outweighs His justice and wrath.  We tend to think of God as sort of a one-sided all loving God, or perhaps as a lopsided all-judging and wrathful God.  But the truth is that God’s characteristics are balanced as He sees fit.  We can’t know the “why” of His choosing to be merciful to some and deliver justice to others.  He chose to be merciful to the disciples and deliver justice to Judas.  He had a plan that involved Judas betraying Him.  If He hadn’t have chosen Judas to be one of the 12, there would be no betrayal, no cross, and no redemption for sins.

The Mind of God and Vessels of Wrath

It is impossible to understand fully the mind of God.  For the past several weeks we have been struggling with the operation of God’s choosing some and not others.  We have mostly been focused on how God chose us, and how amazing it is that He would do so – and indeed it is amazing!  But here we’re confronted with the necessary opposite of that choice of His.  Here we see that Judas was not only not chosen for heaven, but was in fact chosen by God for a purpose – as a vessel of wrath to fulfill the scriptures.

This seems even more unacceptable and unpalatable to us that God discriminating who will be chosen to go to heaven!  But the Bible isn’t silent on this either.  In Romans 9 Paul explains the mysterious dilemma we’re facing right now:

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, [7] and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” [8] This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. [9] For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” [10] And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, [11] though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls—[12] she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” [13] As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

[14] What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! [15] For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” [16] So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. [17] For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” [18] So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

[19] You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” [20] But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” [21] Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? [22] What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, [23] in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory (Romans 9:6-23 ESV)

This is an astounding passage of scripture and it would be easy to fall into error if we don’t properly understand what God is saying here.

In one sense, God is both active and in another He is passive.  This is a paradox – not a contradiction (hence why I’ve taken the time in the past to explain this important principle).  God is actively not choosing some men – like Judas, and in the passage above Esau, while He is also not actively putting any kind of evil into their hearts.

This doctrine is called by some “Double-Predestination”, and the idea is that God elects some to life and others to destruction, while not retracting any responsibility from mankind whatsoever. Judas was still responsible for his actions. So then, God knows both who will go to hell and who will go to heaven.  He elects believers to life – we know that because we’ve spent the last few weeks reading all about Christ’s teaching on the matter.  But now we read that He also has plans for Judas – plans that end in his destruction. We can’t escape the fact that Jesus knew what was going to happen, and not only knew, but also chose to have Judas as part of the 12.

But none of this makes God the author of evil, nor does it take away Judas’ responsibility for his own sin. This is why it is so very important that we have a clear understanding that mankind is fallen, sinful, and without God. We are strangers and aliens (Eph. 2:19) to God until He brings us into His kingdom.  Once we understand our radical depravity, we’ll understand how God can not be the author of evil, and yet allow some men (like Judas) to be vessels of wrath.

Just as with Pharaoh, Judas was a sinner who loved the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19-21). We are all the same way. Why did Judas sell Christ out to the Pharisees?  For money!  He was a lover of money and not a lover of God.  It wasn’t as though Christ did something within the heart of Judas to make him do what he did.  No indeed.  We all are bound for Hell regardless of how sinful we are because we’re all sinful at some level – we were born that way.  So all men, in a manner of speaking, are destined for Hell until God intervenes and saves us from that terrible destruction!

But we know that here there’s another more terrible reality.  God actively allowed this man to do what he did.  Judas was a vessel of wrath.  The same was true for Pharaoh.  But in “hardening” Pharaoh’s heart, God was not placing some new evil there, but rather turning Pharaoh over to him own desires.  Paul tells us in Romans 1:24 and 1:26 that God “gave them up” to their sins.

God does actively make His children alive from the dead through the power of His spirit, and God does actively pass over those who are not His children.  But God does not actively implant evil in men – He doesn’t need to!  For we are already evil, and when He lifts His restraining arm of common grace from our lives and turns us over to ourselves, we quickly destroy ourselves.

In all of this, He has a purpose and a plan.

The Answer is Hidden in His Purposes

The “answer” or the “reason” in all of this is that God chooses some for heaven and not others – in fact He hardens some and not others.  And this seems difficult, but we don’t know all of His reasoning, we just know that He does it because for His own pleasure and for His own glory.

You see, as Paul pointed out, God is the creator, and as part of the Trinity, Christ was a part of that creation process.  So Christ saying that He chose these 12 men – including one as a vessel of destruction – is the same as God saying He chose these 12.  Jesus is God, and that is what He’s trying to get across.  He can do whatever He wants with His creation for His own glory and pleasure.  We’re the creatures.  He made us and can really do whatever He wants.

When I was younger I played with Lego men, army men, and GI Joe figurines.  I would make Lego fortresses and ships and zoom them around my bedroom.  Some I kept in pristine condition because I wanted to make certain I could continue to use them the next day, but others I crashed into the floor.  I did so because it was my pleasure to do so, because it brought my joy.  Now God is not an 8-year-old boy.  God’s heart is much more complex and more sincere and loving.  And we are not merely Lego men, but we are creatures and He is the creator and He is absolutely sovereign over our lives and over who will join Him in heaven, and who He will use as vessels of wrath.

Judas was placed where he was because God allowed it.  Boice talks about how this was an ongoing trial for Jesus – even when He was alone with the 12, He had an enemy in His presence.

A.W. Pink says that God chose Judas for several reasons:

  1. Because it furnished an opportunity for Christ to display His perfections
  2. It provided an impartial witness to the moral excellency of Christ
  3. It gave occasion to uncover the awfulness of sin.
  4. The choice of Judas supplies the sinner with a solemn warning – Boice says, “A person may experience the closest possible contact with Jesus and still not come to Him for salvation.”
  5. The presence of Judas shows us that we may expect to find hypocrites among the followers of Jesus.
  6. It affords us one more illustration of how radically different are God’s thoughts and ways from ours.

This is a mystery that will not be solved in one day or in one reading.  We have to have faith that God, who created us and has saved us, also has a plan that is bigger than our finite minds can comprehend.

What Should our Reaction be?

I think the only proper reaction to this is to fear the Lord.  We too easily forget that His ways are not our ways.  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  So often we use that as a cop-out for learning more about God, but this is one instance where His mind and His plans are simply out of bounds.  And I do not mean simply beyond out understanding, but also beyond our questioning.  What He has purposed from eternity past we must not question.  Instead we must bow before Him in admiration for His power, His sovereignty, and His love for us.  For indeed we see evil all around us.  We ourselves were once enemies of God.  And yet, not because of anything in us – “not because of man who wills or who runs” but for His own purposes and His own glory (Eph. 2:8-9) He has chosen to redeem us from our fallen state (Rom. 5:8).  He does this because He wants your worship.  God has saved you for a point.  He has not only saved you from something but also for something (Eph. 2:10).  He wants you to know about these great truths because He wants your to be broken.  He wants you to be humbly relying completely on Him – for surely if He has planned all things from eternity, He can guide you through the rocky shoals of life.

This should cause us to love God. We see what He’s done in us, and though we can’t know His secret purposes, we do know the why of His purposes in our lives and what we ought to do with this new life we’ve been given.  Boice says, “let us learn to trust God in matters for which we can see no reason. Let us humble ourselves before Him. Moreover, since we can se that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, let us learn that our thoughts must change.”

I pray we learn to use this small understanding of His ways to foster a new love for Him in our hearts.  For we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Martin Luther on John 6:44-45

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We had a wonderful discussion on the “drawing” of the Holy Spirit today in class, and so I wanted to follow up with a quick post because I just came across what the great reformer Martin Luther had to say on the passage, and I thought it was really good.  Here’s what he said:

John 6:44-45 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. [45] It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me,”

As we mentioned in class, the drawing of men to God is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit by the will of the Father (see John 6:45).  To be “taught of God” is to have God work in your heart to awaken you to the things of God and “implant” in you (to use MacArthur’s wording) a new desire – a desire that you would not otherwise have.

Luther says this, “He declares (in John 6:44), not only that the works and efforts of ‘free-will’ are unavailing, but that even the very word of the gospel (of which He is here speaking) is heard in vain, unless the Father Himself speaks within, and teaches, and draws.”

And commenting on Paul’s writing on the matter, Luther says, “Luther says, “Paul’s whole aim is to make grace necessary to all men, and if they could initiate something by themselves, they would not need grace…”free-will” it utterly laid low, and nothing good or upright is left to man; for he is declared to be unrighteous, ignorant of God, a despiser of God, turned away from Him and unprofitable in His sight.”

It is most difficult for us to take all of this in.  But Christ understood this because His own disciples were struggling with it.  Look at the bottom of the passage:

John 6:60-65 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” [61] But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? [62] Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? [63] It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. [64] But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) [65] And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

Jesus here explains the difficulty that they were having was because of the “flesh” (vs. 63) and that is why it takes the Spirit to discern what is spiritual.

The question we need to ask ourselves is this: if this is so difficult to submit to and comprehend as a believer who has the Spirit of God, what makes us think that we were at all capable of making a correct choice for God without any supernatural work of God in our hearts?  The answer is plain – just as we need God’s help in understanding His word, and in our sanctification process, we needed it even more in the process of salvation.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” Ephesians 2:8

UPDATE:

Thanks to Parris Payden for sending along this little ditty by Luther from his (Luther’s, not Parris’) masterpiece The Bondage of the Will:

“I frankly confess that, for myself, even if it could be, I should not want “free-will” to be given me, nor anything to be left in my own hands to enable me to endeavour after salvation; not merely because in face of so many dangers, and adversities and assaults of devils, I could not stand my ground ; but because even were there no dangers. I should still be forced to labour with no guarantee of success.¦ But now that God has taken my salvation out of the control of my own will, and put it under the control of His, and promised to save me, not according to my working or running, but according to His own grace and mercy, I have the comfortable certainty that He is faithful and will not lie to me, and that He is also great and powerful, so that no devils or opposition can break Him or pluck me from Him. Furthermore, I have the comfortable certainty that I please God, not by reason of the merit of my works, but by reason of His merciful favour promised to me; so that, if I work too little, or badly, He does not impute it to me, but with fatherly compassion pardons me and makes me better. This is the glorying of all the saints in their God.” 

Additional Resources:

Monergism.com has a great selection of Scripture to help the believer walk through the “irresistible call” of God, along with the other Doctrine of Grace. Thank you Parris for sending this great resource along!

R.C. Sproul’s book ‘Chosen by God’ is the classic work on the topic of election and predestination for the layman.  This is the book that helped me initially understand this concept.

Study Notes 8-5-12

~ pjwenzel ~ Leave a comment

I have re-adjusted this text to include only my notes for verse 45, as that is all we covered last week.  Enjoy!

John 6:45

6:45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me—

There are really two parts to this verse, or at least two ideas that I think are important.  One corresponds with salvation, the other with sanctification.  First I will deal with that which is dealing with salvation and then move onto the upshot of the salvific teaching (sanctification), which is driven by several passages in the Old Testament.

Teaching = Drawing

As we see in verse 44, there’s a sine qua non (a necessary precondition) involved in the act of coming to God.  That precondition is that He first “draw” us to Himself.  In the previous section, I mentioned the “why” as well as the overarching “how” as it pertains to the mode of operation in the drawing process.  Now, with this verse before us, I want to get into more specifics of the “how” operation of the spirit in our lives, and some of the distinctions we need to make to understand this process more accurately.  I think we all want to know “what happened to me?” as John Piper puts it.  We all want to know what it is that God did to change our lives and bring us into His everlasting kingdom.

In the context of this verse, what does it mean to be “taught by God”?  Well the “teaching” that John refers to here is in direct connection to the “drawing” that He mentioned in verse 44 (see also 1 Cor. 2:13, 1 Thess. 4:9, and 1 John 2:20).  As John Piper says, “So the connection between drawing and teaching is clear. The drawn are the taught. They are drawn by being taught.”

Thus the thrust of verse 45 is that Jesus is explaining more of the how of this drawing. How does He do that?  Well, Jesus seems to indicate that not only is this teaching in coordination with the drawing, but that the teaching of God is effective – it can’t fail.

Piper’s longer explanation for this is as follows:

The answer John gives to how the Father draws people to the Son is by teaching them. “No one can come unless the Father draws him…It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’” So the connection between drawing and teaching is clear. The drawn are the taught. They are drawn by being taught.

And the connection between being taught and coming to Christ is unbreakable. No one is taught and then decides not to come. The teaching produces the coming. You see that most clearly in the second half of verse 45.

Verse 45 says, “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” (This is why I said this verse confirms our understanding of John 12:32.) Not some of them come. All of them come. So Jesus uses at least three phrases to describe how the Father draws people to Jesus. He calls it “being taught,” and he calls it “hearing from” God, and he calls it “learning from” God. “‘They will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”

Beale and Carson agree with Piper that there is a strong link between the “drawing” in verse 44 and the “teaching” in verse 45, “In light of the Jews’ largely negative response to his message, Jesus points out that while his ministry in fact fulfills the prophetic vision that one day – which has now arrived – all people will be taught by God, this applies only to those who are drawn by the Father (vs. 44), the sender of Jesus and who subsequently come to believe in him as the Messiah.”

Leon Morris mentions that liberal theologian Rudolph Bultmann got it wrong when he said, “any man is free to be among those drawn by the Father.”  The statement itself sounds so ridiculous that it almost need not be refuted. But this is, in effect, what Armenians hold to, when they hold to the complete dominion of man over his fate.  Surely the very thrust of the text here is quite the opposite of Bultmann’s conclusion.  Such is the fate of errant theologians who come to Scripture in an eisegetical (so to speak) fashion.

Calvin agrees, “It is a false and profane assertion, therefore, that none are drawn but those who are willing to be drawn, as if man made himself obedient to God by his own efforts; for the willingness with which men follow God is what they already have from himself, who has formed their hearts to obey him.”

The Old Testament Connection and Fulfillment

In teaching us, the Holy Spirit is “implanting” (as MacArthur says) a new desire and a new understanding of the ways and law of God. This is why Christ says to us that it is “written in the prophets.”  He is saying that in Isaiah and Jeremiah and others, we are promised to one day have the law of God written on our hearts.  As Piper says, “Both Isaiah and Jeremiah explicitly promise the day when the God’s teaching will no longer merely be external on tablets of stone, but will be internal written on the heart.  God will teach us in the New Covenant first by sending Christ as the sum of all truth, the fulfillment of the law, and then by making that truth real to hour hearts.”

Interestingly, MacArthur notes that, “Jesus’ statement was also a subtle rebuke of His Jewish opponents, who prided themselves on their knowledge of Scripture. But had they truly understood the Old Testament, they would have eagerly embraced Him (5:39).”

The passage Christ quotes is from Isaiah 54:13 and says:

All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.

This also holds a close connections with Jeremiah 31:33-34 which says:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Carson and Beale paraphrase Young by noting that “the greatest spiritual wealth that Isaiah is able to imagine for God’s people is that all their children ‘will be taught by [literally “become disciples of”] the Lord.”

Note especially that Jeremiah says that “they shall all know me”, why?  Because “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”  And therefore, “no longer shall each one teach his neighbor” – because, as Isaiah says, “all your children will be taught by the Lord.”

So the inward work of the Spirit will help people “know” the Lord.  Calvin says, “The way of teaching, of which the prophet speaks, does not consist merely in the external voice, but likewise in the secret operation of the Holy Spirit.”

What does this mean? What does it mean to “know” the Lord?  To understand this, we must look at the close ties between knowing the Lord, and knowing His law (since Christ is quoting the Old Testament here, we do well to draw our conclusions by first looking at the context in which Isaiah and other wrote). The law was an outward guide and revelation to the holiness of God.  It showed us His standard of perfection, as well as our own sinfulness.  In other words, it showed us who we were in comparison to who God was, and in that way made us aware inwardly of a need to repent and rely completely on God.  Once under the new covenant, we no longer needed to be taught by men, because we had an inward law – one written on our hearts.  The law, which was a schoolmaster (or “guardian”) to lead us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), was now implanted on the hearts of those who are quickened by the Holy Spirit (John 16:13).

The reason I mentioned 1 Corinthians 2:13 earlier as a reference is because it so excellently reminds us that the great truths of Christ are only able to be discerned by us with the help of the Holy Spirit.   It says, “And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.”

As He’s wrapping up the discourse here, as we’ll see later, Christ explains why they can’t understand what He’s talking about.  He says in verses 63-65, “‘It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe. (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.)’ And he said, ‘This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’”

If by now you cannot see the sovereignty of God in salvation then you must not be reading or listening to the Words of Christ – you must not have “ears to hear”, for Christ is saying again and again that from the beginning of time through the end of time, He and the Father have chosen a people, and elect group of people, for themselves.  They have not only determined who these people will be, but have seen to it that by their power, and theirs alone, these people are brought to a saving knowledge of themselves (the trinity).  The operation of salvation is synergistic only in the sense that it is carried out by the three members of the Trinity acting in full knowledge and power, for their own purposes and glory and enjoyment.  The Godhead does not share power for salvation with man.

Conformity

Now I want to look at this inward work of the Spirit as it pertains to being continually “taught” by the Spirit of God and how we were all “taught” of God for a purposes.

As I mentioned earlier, the Old Testament prophecy that is connected with being “taught” by God has to do with His law being written on our hearts.  Galatians tells us the law “was added because of transgression” (Gal. 3:19) to keep the people of Israel in constant remembrance of the character and standards of their God, that they might conform their lives to His standard (a sort of Old Testament sanctification process minus the Spirit’s help, of course). Now we have that law written on our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we also have His help to guide us and conform us to Christ’s mind and complete image. This is significant, and ought to lead us to understand how Christ would want us to act, and live. That is part of the Spirit’s grand work in us to conform us to the image of Christ until that day when this work is complete (in heaven).

Taught for a Purpose

Remember, we have been saved not only from something (Hell), but for something (good works and conformity to the image of Christ).  As Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Now, as you can see, not only is Christ explaining how we were first quickened and “taught” of God and our deficit before Him, but He is also explaining how we are taught of God continually for the purpose of growth in grace and truth. You were saved for a reason, to become holy.  You aren’t saved so that you can simply enjoy the fact that you aren’t going to Hell. You aren’t saved simply so that you can enjoy heaven with Christ (although that is certainly a part of it – see John 17), but rather you are saved so that you can be made holy.  Why?  So that you can glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Christians today have lost a focus on practical holiness.  We don’t wake up in the morning thinking, “how can I be more holy today?”  We have no driving desire to be “taught” of God.  Instead we have minds full of trivial and temporary desires.  We need to refocus our attention as Christians back onto the process and goal of sanctification, and becoming a holy people.

Jerry Bridges says, “But here is a basic truth: We will not grow unless we see our need to grown, we will not pursue holiness unless we see how much we are still unholy, and we will not see our unholiness unless we look at the holiness of God instead of what we perceive to be the unholiness of our neighbor. This is why we must face up to the sinfulness of our sin.”

We also need to remember that when Christ was raised from the dead and was going to go back to heaven, He says to Mary, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (Jon 20:17b).  Therefore we now have been included in His family, and must be made fit for the family.  We must be made ready to enjoy this blessing in its fullness.

“Everyone”

In the last part of verse 45 Christ says, “everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”  Note that He purposefully uses the word “everyone” to establish the fact that in the “teaching” or “drawing” of people, God the Father does not fail to bring to fruition that which He planted in the hearts of His elect.

As J.C. Ryle says, “The words do not mean that under the Gospel all mankind, or all members of the professing Christian Church, shall be ‘taught of God.’ It rather means that all who are God’s children, and come to Christ under the Gospel, shall be taught of God.”

Note also that Christ says “the Father” instead of the Spirit, and that is because while it is the Spirit doing the “drawing”, He acts on the eternal unchangeable will of the Father.  From the first, God had intended to “teach” certain people about Himself, and here we learn that “everyone” who is taught of God comes to Christ.  Not one of His pupils fails to come to Christ.  We’ve already talked briefly about why this is, but it doesn’t hurt to go over it again.

God is effective in all that He sets out to do because He is God and His purposes cannot fail.  When He teaches men of Himself (they have “heard” and “learned” of Him) they always come to Christ.  What is He teaching them?  The gospel.  He is teaching them of a (new) covenant (Jeremiah 31) that He is making with them, that if they believe on His Son Jesus Christ, they will be saved. That is why Christ goes on to say in verse 47 that, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.”  This fact comes with a promise – if they believe, they will be saved and will also (an added benefit) have “eternal life.”

The heart which “hears” this message from God cannot refuse it.  It is irresistible! It is so not because God has cajoled them into belief, but because the sweetness of it is such that they flee to the cross.  Of course there are two elements to learning of the gospel of God.  It is not simply that a man learns of the benefit of eternal life, but that he also learns of his own sinfulness in light of the cross.  This is what inevitably happens when we are taught by God, we learn who He is and who we are in light of His holiness.  This is what happened to Isaiah in chapter 6 of his book.  We see that not only did he learn about who God was and what His surroundings looked like, but he immediately realized who he was in light of who God is.

Isaiah did not see the holy majesty of God and respond by saying “well, since I have free will to choose whether or not to believe in you, and since you seem to have laid out all the proper facts about things, I will make the choice now to believe what you have to say.”  No indeed.  His response was compelled – not forced by God – but he was compelled I say to do the obvious thing, and that was to repent of his utter sinfulness and throw himself on the mercy of God.  This is what happens when men and women are “taught” of God.  They do the obvious thing when their eyes are opened to His holiness, they repent and run quickly to the cross!  This happens without exception, and that is why it is that Christ can use the word “everyone.”