The Gospel of John - Outline Part 32 - The Glory of the Servant

TITLE

John 13:1-20 – The Glory of the Servant

EXPLANATION

The time had arrived for the Feast of the Passover, and Jesus ate with His disciples.  During supper He took off His outer clothing, put a towel around His waist, and washed the feet of every man there.  This was a servant’s job.  It was a menial task that was usually assigned to the one who had the lowest standing in a group.  This act that Jesus performed was a powerful illustration for His men.  It graphically illustrated to them the teaching He had previously given concerning the least and the greatest.  The physical washing of skin also pre-figured the spiritual cleansing of the soul that would soon come when the men were filled with the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus came to Peter, Peter at first recoiled from the idea of his Lord washing his feet.  However, once he realized that if Jesus did not perform this service for him, he would not have a part with Him anymore, Peter wanted his whole body washed.  He wanted all of Christ he could get.  Jesus assured him that more washing, over and above his feet, was not necessary.  Peter did not need to do more to receive more of salvation.  What Jesus did was enough.

After He was finished, the Lord instructed the men that just as He had done for them, so He wanted them to do for others.  He knew that not all of them were His.  He had chosen the ones who would receive His gift.  Back in chapter 6 Jesus taught that the Father gave people to Him.  But now He says that He Himself chose them.  This is yet another beautiful illustration of the oneness between Father and Son.  They are both God, and they are both involved in the choosing of the elect.  Jesus finished by showing the relationship between Christians, Christ, and the Father.  Those who receive Christians also receive Christ.  Those who receive Christ also receive the Father who sent Him.  Thus, we see the mysterious unity that exists between the Godhead and His chosen children.

APPLICATION

This is a wonderful passage that is dripping with symbolism.  It touches on the deity of Christ, the duality between Father and Son, the doctrine of election, and the role of Christians.  But, I think the most striking feature of this section is the illustration of the servant that Christ performed for His men.  By washing their feet, He painted a clear picture for them of servant leadership.  What is amazing about this is that, just as with the previous passage, it is backwards to our typical human way of thinking.  Jesus, who Himself is the most glorious of all men, showed that in order to be the greatest and most glorious you must become the least of all.  It was His act of humility on the cross that led Christ to be crowned with all glory and honor in the universe.  It is the same way with those He has chosen to be one with Him, Christians.  If we truly desire to be first in the Kingdom of Heaven, then we are required to submit our human wills to the service of others.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 31 - Cultivating the Harvest

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John 12:20-50 – Cultivating the Harvest

EXPLANATION

Following Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, and all the acclaim that had accompanied Him, some Greeks desired to see Him.  They came to His disciples and requested an audience.  The disciples, not knowing how to respond, went and told Jesus.  Undoubtedly, the men’s confusion had to do with the fact that the people wanting to see the Lord were Gentiles.  This was a 1^st century Jewish culture of deep seated racism toward anyone not Jewish.  So, most likely, the disicples were uncomfortable with the thought of Greeks gaining access to their master.

Jesus, however, responds with a cryptic illustration of wheat seeds and death.  His point was that if a grain of wheat remains unplanted and in seed form it produces nothing.  However, after being planted, the seed “dies”; in other words, it transitions to a new form, that of a wheat stalk.  And in so doing the seed, having first died, ultimately replicates itself and produces a great harvest of wheat.  In the same way, Jesus was going to have to die in order that He could be resurrected, and the saving power of the gospel could be transmitted to the ends of the earth, thus producing a far greater harvest of souls than if Jesus had remained alive and in Israel only.  To be a follower of Christ it was and is a prerequisite to embrace this difficult doctrine.

In spite of the truthfulness of what Jesus said, at the same time this was a difficult proposition for Him to embrace.  He had to willingly walk into cruel physical torture, unimaginable spiritual agony, and eventually face the terrible sin-authored specter of death.  However, Jesus knew that it was only by enduring this process that He would be glorified, and His Father would be glorified through Him.

Such a difficult and perplexing teaching was impossible for man to comprehend in his own intellect and reasoning.  Jesus implored the people to walk in His light.  Regardless of how baffling His message was, and His impending death would be, the only alternative to faith in Christ was darkness.  The great perplexity of God’s plan of redemption through Christ was evidenced by the unbelief of the Jews.  As Isaiah had prophesied hundreds of years earlier, people would not believe, in fact could not believe, and it was the will of the Lord for this to be so.

Even though it was God’s will for most people not to believe in His Son, yet the people are still held responsible for their stubborn and hard hearts.  To reject the Son of God is to remain and walk in darkness, ultimately leading to eternal judgment.  Jesus’s message was the Father’s message.  Jesus’s words had the power of salvation in them.  To receive Jesus and His word was to receive the Father.  To reject Jesus and His word was to reject the Father.  Those who have rejected God have no grounds of complaint at the judgment of their soul.  They are complicit in their own condemnation and destruction.

APPLICATION

This doctrine is so counter-intuitive to the human heart.  In order for Jesus to triumph, He had to submit to temporary defeat.  This is not the way human brains are wired.  We think in terms of cause and effect.  Good causes lead to good effects.  Bad causes lead to bad effects.  We tend to think that good leads to better and eventually best.  Yet by taking this philosophical position, we ignore the clear and obvious facts that God has placed in the world all around us that in many cases reveals that this is not always the way things work.  Christ’s illustration of a wheat seed is a perfect example of this.  The seed must die in order to produce a great crop of wheat.  We know this as fact.  But, we are unwilling to apply those same principles to our theological understanding.  We think that if we desire to be first, then we must rise to the greatest position, over and above our peers.  Yet, Jesus taught that to be first in the Kingdom of Heaven one must be last on earth.

And so, in God’s grand vision of redemption, the tables are completely turned upside down on human reasoning and wisdom.  The most horrible evil the world has ever seen, the unrighteous murder of the Son of God, led to the most liberating freedom obtainable for all of humanity.  This is complete and utter foolishness to the mind of man.  This was the Apostle Paul’s point in 1^st Corinthians 1.  God has chosen the weak and foolish things of this world in order to shame the strong and the wise among men.

Even as Christians, I think we fight against and contend continually with our faulty reasoning that runs into conflict with God’s revealed truth.  We may know the gospel backwards and forwards.  Yet, in our heart of hearts, we often strive to manufacture our own success in ministry, we labor to accomplish the salvation of souls in evangelism, and we take ultimate responsibility for the condition of our children’s spiritual status.  To be sure, we have definite responsibilities in each of these areas.  However, ultimately the results are up to the Lord.  And, to the point here, He is often pleased to produce the greatest success through our most overpowering weaknesses.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 30 - Seeing the Trees but Missing the Forest

TITLE

John 12:12-19 – Seeing the Trees but Missing the Forest

EXPLANATION

The day after the dinner party in Bethany, Jesus entered Jerusalem.  In fulfillment of prophecy, He rode into the city on a colt.  The people greeted Him joyously, praising Him and exalting Him as King.  This had the effect of making the Pharisees even more jealous and desirous to destroy Him.  This entry into Jerusalem was a hugely significant event.  It represented the restoral of God’s glory to Jerusalem.  His glory had departed hundreds of years ago, during the time of Ezekiel.  And now, the visible and physical image of the glory of God returned in the form of Jesus.  The Lord’s disciples did not understand the significance of this event at first.  But later they did recall the prophecy and came to understand the importance of these things.

APPLICATION

We are so often like the disciples were.  We become too focused on the minutiae of our lives, stressing over the details, as Martha did a few chapters ago.  In fact, at times we become so myopic and concerned with the situation “on the ground”, as it were, that we fail to recognize God at work in His larger story that we are caught up in.  As Jesus said back in chapter 5, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”  We need to be a people who look for the hand of God at work at all times.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 29 - Exposing the Heart

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John 12:1-11 – Exposing the Heart

EXPLANATION

The week before His final Passover, Jesus went to Bethany again, to the home of Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.  They had dinner together.  In the midst of the dinner, Mary took some expensive perfume, anointed Jesus’s feet with it, and wiped His feet with her hair.  Judas Iscariot, who was in charge of the money for Jesus’s ministry, and who used to steal from the money bag, grew angry at Mary.  He cared nothing for her desire to minister to Jesus.  Rather, he was focused on the material gain he could have gotten from the perfume.  So, he criticized Mary’s actions and covered his own evil heart by claiming to have wanted to take care of the poor with money from the sales of the perfume.  Jesus rebuked Judas and protected Mary from his anger.  He stated that the disciples would always have the poor with them, but they would not always have Him. 

When the people learned that Jesus was in Bethany, many of them came to see both Him and Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead.  As a result, the chief priests decided that Lazarus needed to die as well, because they saw him as an accomplice to Jesus’s ministry and part of the reason people were believing in Him.

APPLICATION

Pressure always reveals the heart of man.  Turmoil and difficulty are where people’s true character comes out.  The veneer of civility is sometimes stripped away and what a person really thinks and feels becomes visible.  This is what happened here with Judas.  He had probably been covering his wicked heart for some time.  It is possible that he followed Jesus in hopes of attaching himself to a military type of Messiah who would sweep the Romans away.  But, when Jesus continued to talk about sacrifice and death Judas may have decided he did not want anything to do with that.  And now, with the opportunity for monetary gain draining away onto Jesus’s feet, Judas could not contain himself any longer, and his sinfulness burst forth.

As Christians, are we guilty of putting on masks?  Do we “perform” for our fellow church goers by doing the cultural things that we have learned will make us look acceptable?  Is all of this just a facade that is covering “private” sins that rise up when we leave the church building?  Let us pray that we will not be hypocrites.  Let us instead strive to be authentic and love God and His Christ with all of our hearts.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 28 - Out of the Mouths of Pagans

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John 11:45-57 – Out of the Mouths of Pagans

EXPLANATION

The resurrection of Lazarus was divisive.  It could not be ignored.  It demanded a response from everyone who heard of it.  People had to decide what they believed about Jesus and take sides; either with Him or with the Jewish leaders.  Some did believe.  But, others did not.  These unregenerate ones went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.  The Sanhedrin met in order to determine what to do about Jesus.  And it was here, in the midst of this meeting, that one of the most amazing prophecies in Scripture was uttered.

Caiaphas, the high priest that year, told the council that Jesus must die for the good of the nation.  He said it would be better for one man to die than that the whole country be punished by the Romans.  The remarkable thing about this is that Caiaphas, although he did not know it, was not speaking of his own accord.  He was being used as God’s tool to utter a prophecy about the death of the Messiah.  This is akin to the prophecies of Balaam in Numbers. 

In response to Caiaphas’s prediction, the Jews began to seriously plot Jesus’s death and actively seek an opportunity to arrest Him.  Knowing this, the Lord remained hidden and stayed in the wilderness, until the appointed time for Him to die was at hand.

APPLICATION

God can work through a pagan Mesopotamian soothsayer such as Balaam.  He can accomplish His purposes through a hard-hearted religious ritualist like Caiaphas.  God can even work mighty acts through the Hitlers, Stalins, and Maos of the world.  Why then would we think that He is powerless in the face of whatever our current physical circumstances are?  Is the world on fire around us?  God is in control.  Is our culture increasingly morally bankrupt?  God is in control.  Are our jobs and our children and our marriages in jeopardy?  God is in control.  This is not a cliché.  It is not an empty salve that preachers carelessly slather onto the wounds of their parishioner’s lives.  It is an ironclad, rock solid, time tested, eternal principle of God’s sovereignty.  We would do well to embrace it wholeheartedly.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 27 - No Limits on God’s Power

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John 11:1-44 – No Limits on God’s Power

EXPLANATION

After spending time away from Jerusalem, Jesus now prepared to return.  His friend, Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, which was quite near the city, was terminally ill.  Jesus, knowing what He was about to do, was not concerned.  He fully intended to allow Lazarus to die, so that He could raise him from death and showcase the glory of God through it. 

When Jesus proposed His plan to the disciples they were afraid.  The Jews had just tried to stone Jesus, and now He was wanting to go right back into the lion’s den.  Jesus chided them for their unbelief by encouraging them to walk in the light of obedience rather than the darkness of fear.  It is noteworthy that Thomas, he who is called doubting because of his later actions, demonstrated that doubtful tendency here as well.  Yet, in spite of his worry, it should also be noted that Thomas had a zeal for God.  Although he thought they were going to die, he was prepared to go with his Lord and die with him.

Jesus arrived at Bethany four days after Lazarus had been buried.  He was met by Martha, Lazarus’s sister.  She lamented that if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died.  Jesus encouraged and strengthened her faith by questioning what she believed about Him.  Martha confessed that she believed Him to be the Messiah.  Next Jesus was met by Mary, Lazarus’s other sister.  Mary was grief-stricken by her brother’s death.  And, Jesus, upon seeing her depth of emotion, was Himself moved to grief.  This must have been a sorrow borne of compassion.  Jesus certainly was not saddened by Lazarus’s death, because He knew that he would be alive again in a brief time.  Therefore, He must have felt empathy for Mary’s grief.

Finally, Jesus arrived at the tomb.  He had the stone rolled away.  And, in a loud voice He commanded Lazarus to come out of the tomb.  Lazarus was restored to life, serving as a graphic illustration of the Lord Jesus’s own death which was to occur in the very near future.

APPLICATION

We humans are forever trying to limit God’s power.  We think He cannot sustain us.  We think He cannot defeat sin within us.  We think He cannot mend broken relationships.  We think He cannot salvage the mess we have made of our lives.  In this chapter, even those who walked and talked with Jesus continually doubted Him.  These people, who had seen His miraculous divine power firsthand, repeatedly thought He was limited to what they had already seen.  First the disciples questioned Jesus about returning to Jerusalem.  Then Martha questioned Him about having any power over her brother’s death.  Then Mary did the same.  Even at the very point of resurrection, even after acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah, Martha still balked at the thought of removing the stone from Lazarus’s tomb, because she still did not truly believe that the Lord could raise him from death.

This should be a lesson for us to not doubt the power of God, that is at work in our lives.  We should trust Him implicitly and have faith that He can do anything He wants to do.  We need to stop limiting in our own minds His ability to work miracles.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 26 - Speaking Plainly to the Deaf

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John 10:22-42 – Speaking Plainly to the Deaf

EXPLANATION

Next, we see Jesus at the Feast of Dedication, in winter.  While walking in the temple He was confronted once again by the Jews.  They demanded that He clearly tell them whether He was the Messiah.  If they had been willing to listen previously, they would already have known the answer to this, just as Peter did back in chapter 6.  Nevertheless, ask the Jews did.  Not willing to play their games, Jesus pointedly responded that He had already told them, both in words and in works, that He was the Messiah.  Yet, He said, they refused to believe because, drawing on the sheep and shepherd metaphor again, they were not of His flock and therefore they could not hear His voice.

On the other hand, Jesus’s sheep, who do hear and respond to His voice, are given eternal life by Him.  This eternal life cannot be taken away from the sheep because the Father who gave them to the shepherd will not allow it.  What is more, Jesus and His Father, the shepherd and the giver of the sheep, are one.  Upon hearing this, the Jews immediately resorted to their tried and true response to whatever they heard from Jesus that did not sit well with them; they picked up stones to throw at Him. 

Undeterred, the Lord asked them what they were going to stone Him for.  The Jews responded that it was His supposedly blasphemous claim to be God that merited death in their eyes.  Ever the student of Scripture, Jesus fired right back with a quote from the Psalms.  He followed that up with a challenge.  If He was not doing the works of God, then by all means the Jews should not have believed in Him.  On the other hand, if Jesus was doing the works of God, then they should have believed the works even if they did not believe His words.  And again, Jesus re-iterated that He was one with the Father, this time through the imagery of each of them being in the other.

At this point the Jews attempted once again to arrest Jesus.  But, He escaped from them and left Jerusalem, traveling across the Jordan River.  He ministered there for a while, and many came to Him and believed in Him.

APPLICATION

As one reads through John, it is striking how many back and forth debates raged between Jesus and the Jews.  Repeatedly, He claimed to be the Messiah.  Repeatedly, the Jews refused to listen and attempted to shout Him down or kill Him.  And repeatedly, He went right back and did it again, using different words and images.  The question begs to be asked, why?  Why did Jesus spend so much time that, to our eyes, looks to have been wasted?  Perhaps the answer is to demonstrate God’s unfailing love for His people.  Just as God patiently sent the prophets to the ancient Jews over hundreds of years of apostasy and rebellion, so Jesus went again and again to the Jews of His day, continually seeking their repentance.  How much more then should we exercise patience with those we have opportunity to interact with?

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 25 - The Shepherd and the Thief

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John 10:1-21 – The Shepherd and the Thief

EXPLANATION

Jesus, in His earthly ministry, was a master at using figures of speech.  Here in chapter ten we find one of His classic illustrations.  Continuing the discourse from the previous chapter, Jesus pictured a shepherd who has a flock of sheep living in a sheepfold.  Using this setup, He drew a comparison between two characters.  One enters the sheepfold by climbing over the wall.  The other enters by the door.  The first is a thief and a robber, who is Satan.  But the second is a shepherd, who is Christ.  The sheep listen to the voice of the shepherd, but they flee from the thief, who is a stranger to them.

Then the Lord clarified that He Himself is the door for the sheep.  Everyone else who had come before Him were impostors, and the true sheep did not listen to them.  Only those who listen to the shepherd and enter through Him will be saved and find pasture.  The thief’s only intention is to kill.  But, the shepherd’s purpose is to give abundant life.  The shepherd is so committed to this objective that He is willing to die for His sheep.  A hired hand, by implication the Jews Jesus was speaking to, would flee from the wolf, or the thief, rather than stay and defend the sheep.  This hired hand does not truly care for the sheep as the shepherd does.

Continuing the illustration, Jesus again emphasized that He was the shepherd.  As the shepherd, He knows His sheep and His sheep know Him.  This mutual awareness is akin to the intimate knowledge that Jesus and the Father have of each other.  The sheep of the shepherd include both those of the present fold, by implication the Jews, as well as sheep from outside the fold, by implication Gentiles.  Jesus said that He would gather all the sheep together and make one flock.

Jesus would do this by laying down His life.  It is for this that the Father loves Him.  After laying down His life voluntarily, the shepherd would take it up again.  He had the authority to do this; in fact, the authority was given to Him by the Father.

This teaching caused division among the Jews, just as much of Christ’s teaching did.  Some said He was insane, or had a demon, or both.  However, some of the people listened and rightly pointed out that neither Jesus’s words or His works were those of a demon possessed man.

APPLICATION

There are two perspectives from which to view this passage; that of the shepherd and that of the sheep.  As the sheep, we must recognize that we are essentially dumb, defenseless, and gullible creatures desperately in need of a shepherd.  That shepherd, being the Lord Jesus Christ, is not merely an impersonal God.  He is an intimate caretaker, friend, and companion.  He was willing to die for us.  How then can we possibly doubt that He loves us and is willing to do whatever is required to take care of us.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 24 - The Unreasonableness of Man

TITLE

John 9:1-41 – The Unreasonableness of Man

EXPLANATION

Next Jesus and His disciples encountered a blind man.  The disciples, indoctrinated into an unbiblical cultural belief that misfortune is always the specific result of personal sin, asked Jesus who was at fault; the man or his parents.  This is a mis-understanding that goes at least all the way back to Job’s friends.  Jesus corrected the error of His followers by stating that the man’s blindness had nothing to do with sin.  Rather, his condition existed so that God could display His works through him.

Jesus then proceeded to give the disciples, as well as the man, a graphic illustration of the proof of His words.  He healed the man of his blindness.  This gave the Jews another opportunity to harass the Master, because He had performed this healing on the Sabbath, which was a violation of the Pharisaical oral traditions that were given the same weight as the Law itself.  First, the man’s neighbors interrogated him to find out how he had been healed.  He freely admitted that it was Jesus who had done it, but confessed that he did not know where the Lord had gone.  Not content with this response, they brought the man to the Pharisees whose codes had been broken.  The poor man had to tell his story again to satisfy the rigid dogmatism of his countrymen.

The Jews refused to believe that he had ever been blind in the first place.  So, they brought in his parents to testify.  Unfortunately, the man’s parents were more interested in defending themselves than their son.  They deferred all questions, other than his parentage and his former blindness, to their son out of fear of Synagogue expulsion.  So, the Pharisees brought the man back in and asked how he had been healed for the third time.  Clearly exasperated with their childish refusal to accept the facts, he poked fun at them by asking if they wanted to follow Jesus also.  The Jews responded to his barb by cursing him and calling upon their devotion to Moses.  Because of this devotion, so they claimed, they did not know where Jesus came from.  You have to admire the cheek of the former blind man.  He did not let up his theological attack upon his so-called religious leaders.  And in the process, he demonstrated better theology than they had.  He stated that God only listens to righteous people, which clearly implied that Jesus was righteous.  He had performed an unheard of miracle, which could only have been accomplished by God, yet these religious fools adamantly stopped their ears and wagged their heads at the truth.  So, they cast the man out of the Synagogue, which was the equivalent of an economic and religious exile from society.

Later, Jesus found the man, revealed to him the truth of His status as the Messiah, and invited the man to believe.  In sharp comparison to the last chapter, the man immediately believed and demonstrated it by worshiping Jesus as God.  And so, Jesus concluded His lesson to His disciples by contrasting the man’s former outward blindness with his newfound inward sight, and the continuing outward sight of the Pharisees with their obstinate inward blindness.

APPLICATION

Sinful man is a hopelessly unreasonable creature.  He will stubbornly dig in his heels, refuse to see the truth that is as plain as the nose on his face, and go to his grave under a blue sky while insisting that it had been green all along.  The Pharisees stand in this passage as a clear example of the utter futility of trying to convince mankind of the truth if God has not seen fit to open their eyes.  The blind man, on the other hand, is a wonderful picture of the explosion of faith that occurs when the Lord graciously intervenes and provides light where before was only darkness.

Although this chapter is dealing with salvation and unbelief, I think it hits home even for Christians who have already come to faith in Christ.  The utter ridiculousness of the Pharisees in their refusal to admit the truth should serve as a dire warning for us of the dangers of stubbornly insisting on having things our way.  Our sinful flesh constantly throws up temptations to be self-centered, often in the context of inter personal relationships, and usually based around the actions, speech, or desires of others that conflict with our own.  As those who are supposed to be engaged in fleeing away from sin and toward the Lord Jesus, we ought to be so appalled at the sin on display in this chapter that the thought of having such things displayed in our own lives is horrifying.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 23 - A Question of Parentage

TITLE

John 8:31-59 – A Question of Parentage

EXPLANATION

Jesus’s conversation with the Jews continues.  Immediately, we are confronted by an enigma.  The last verse of the previous section, verse 30, proclaimed that “many believed” in Jesus.  Then, in the next verse, John clarifies that Jesus is still speaking to this same group “who had believed” in Him.  The Greek verb root behind both of these is “pisteuo”, to believe.  It is often used of those who have truly believed by placing their faith and trust in Christ (e.g. Peter’s confession of faith in 6:69).  However, that presents a problem of interpretation here.  The reason is that the clear contextual implication from the remainder of this chapter is that these Jews were definitely not true believers. 

As will become apparent momentarily, when Jesus pressed them to cast aside their cultural and religious baggage and accept His extreme message, the Jews as a group refused to listen to Him.  And, in fact, they attempted to kill Him.  The theological straw that broke the camel’s back for these people was Jesus’s insistence that He, in His messiahship, was God.  This the Jews could not tolerate.  Yet, clearly from the OT the Messiah is identified as God.  Therefore, the Jews were refusing to believe the witness of their own Scriptures that urged them to accept this man from Galilee as their promised Messiah.  And in rejecting the full revelation of the Messiah they were incapable of being redeemed by Him.  The only logical conclusion from these facts is that this group of people, in spite of their description as “believing”, clearly were not exhibiting authentic saving faith in their Savior.

It could be that theirs was a superficial belief, Jesus knew that, and therefore He decided to double down on His rhetoric so as to expose their unbelieving hearts.  Never one to pull His doctrinal punches, Christ accomplished this by calling into question the parentage of the Jews.  To use a modern expression, He called their momma names.  Only in this case, it was their papa that came under fire.

This back and forth arguing is clear in the text.  Jesus accused them of being slaves to sin.  The Jews responded by calling upon their Abrahamic heritage.  Jesus acknowledged their biological descent from Abraham, but then turned around and pointed out that, ancestry or no ancestry, they were not acting like Abraham, because he did not reject the truth of God as these Jews were.  Obstinately digging in their heels, the people then appealed to God as their Father.  Jesus refused to give them even that satisfaction.  He identified their real father as the devil rather than God.

This was too much for the Jews to take.  We can almost see the blood rising in their veins as they began to resort to ad hominen attacks against Jesus’s character.  They called Him a Samaritan (a terrible epithet for the Jews of that day) as well as demon possessed.  The Lord did not back down.  He continued to press His attack, almost as if He was deliberately pushing the Jews to the brink of an explosion.  He offered eternal life to anyone who would accept His teaching.

And, finally, we come to the point of no return.  Throughout this entire debate, Jesus has hinted, suggested, and alluded to His own parentage as well as the Jews.  However, He did not come right out and stake His claim of deity.  Until now, that is.  He told His opponents that Abraham looked forward joyously to Jesus’s day.  The Jews fired back that He was not even fifty years old, so how could He claim that Abraham had seen Him.  Jesus’s response sent them over the edge.  He said that before Abraham even existed, He existed as God.  Having heard what was blasphemy to their unbelieving ears, the Jews prepared to stone Jesus.  But, He avoided them and left the temple.

APPLICATION

There is simply no way around the deity of Jesus that is presented in this passage.  There have been people throughout church history who have denied the historic confession of faith that holds to the deity of Christ.  They have offered various intelligent sounding and supposedly exegetical arguments to deny this basic tenet of the Christian religion.  Yet, all of that withers and dies in the face of Jesus’s insistent and dogmatic claim to deity.  This passage wonderfully illustrates the Lord’s absolute refusal to back down.  He just kept stirring the pot, round and round, pressing the Jews back on their heels, never allowing them to catch their breath and mount a serious counter-attack to His message.  All of this climaxed in verse 58 with Christ’s self-identification as the self-existent I AM of Exodus 3:14. Jesus did not use the past, but rather the present tense of the Greek state of being verb.  This was a clear allusion to God’s self-identification to Moses at the burning bush.  Jesus’s meaning was clear to His audience.  They knew exactly what He was saying.  This is apparent from their reaction.  They picked up stones with which to stone Him to death.  This was the prescribed punishment in the Law for blasphemy, which is what the Jews interpreted Jesus’s words as being.

As Christians, it is important to know why we believe what we believe.  It may be enough to simply have a “child-like faith” when times are peaceful, life is easy, and one is surrounded by like-minded friends and family members.  But when opposition comes, difficulties arise, and we are alone facing down the enemies of God we had better have a strong spiritual backbone behind our faith.  A passage such as this one is critical to nail down those fundamentals of our system of belief.  We need to know it and have it prepared and ready for use in circumstances where our faith is tested and we are confronted with the question of whether we really believe what we profess.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 22 - The Light of the World Is Not of the World

TITLE

John 8:12-30 – The Light of the World Is Not of the World

EXPLANATION

After this Jesus began a long conversation with the Jews, beginning in verse 12 and continuing to the end of the chapter.  He began with a cryptic description of Himself as the light of the world and elaborated that those who follow after Him will walk in light rather than darkness.  The Pharisees fired right back, accusing Jesus of false testimony about Himself.  In response, the Lord said even if He was the only one testifying, it did not alter the truth of what He said.  Besides, Jesus said, He was in fact not the only witness.  Both He and the Father who sent Him testified about Him.

The expected response from the Jews was to inquire about who Jesus’s Father was.  They were not grasping the implication of what He was saying.  Jesus, however, did not give in to the Pharisees’ obtuseness.  He continued to speak cryptically by saying that He was going away, they would seek Him, but they would die in their sin because they could not follow Him.  This understandably confused the Jews, so they asked where it was that He was supposed to be going.

And now Jesus began to get even more pointed and potentially offensive.  He changed from a light and dark metaphor to above and below as well as of the world and not of the world imagery.  The clear implication Jesus was making was His own righteousness contrasted with the unrighteousness of His opponents.  He ended this part of the discourse by prophesying His impending crucifixion as well as the true knowledge of who He was that would be given to the Jews at that time.

APPLICATION

There is a fundamental and substantive difference between Jesus and all other men.  Normal people are of the earth and are tied to corruption.  Jesus is of heaven and is freed from corruption.  This is an essential point to understand.  The reason is that we must have a proper view of ourselves in relation to Jesus.  If we esteem ourselves too highly then we immediately devalue the Lord, and that is a grievous sin because it robs God, at least in our minds, of some portion of His proper glory.  We also need to be constantly reminded of our abject unworthiness to be recipients of God’s grace.  If we fail to keep His value relative to ours firmly in mind then we will run the very real risk of under-appreciating what He has done for us.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 21 - Hypocritical Condemnation

TITLE

John 8:1-11 – Hypocritical Condemnation

EXPLANATION

Not content to leave Jesus alone, the scribes and Pharisees continued to hassle Him.  The next day they brought to Him a woman caught in adultery.  Insultingly, they pointed out that the penalty for adultery was death by stoning (as if Jesus would not have known that already).  And, they asked Him what His response was.  Their purpose was to catch the Lord between the rock of conflict with the Law and the hard place of the opinion of the people.  Conveniently, although for the woman to have been caught in adultery there must have been a male partner, he was nowhere to be found.  The intent of the Jewish leaders was not to see justice done, but rather to entrap Jesus.

As He so often did, Jesus sidestepped the petty efforts of the Jews and effortlessly turned the tables on them.  He merely instructed them that the one among them who was without sin should be the first to cast a stone.  Convicted by their own guilt, the accusers melted away in shame.  Finally, and this is a key point, Jesus turned to the woman and admonished her to stop sinning.

APPLICATION

The issue of biblical judgment is often misunderstood by people.  In an attempt to avoid having the lens of truth pointed at their unrighteous deeds they love to carelessly cherry pick Bible verses and throw them around to cover themselves with a veneer of Scripture.  Jesus’s statement in John 8:7 is one such favorite of carnal Christians.  When confronted about their sin, they glibly say “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”  Such statements are a gross misrepresentation of the Bible. 

In the first place, the context here is about capital punishment.  It is about guilty verdicts being applied by people who stand condemned before God of the same crime.  That is what Jesus’s point was.  What He said has nothing to do with an exhortation from one Christian to another to cease from sinning.  Secondly, Jesus was not condoning the immorality of this woman.  Undoubtedly, she truly was guilty of what she was accused of.  And, Jesus did not let her off the hook.  His final word to her was to “go and sin no more.”

Based on this, we ought to first stop sinning, second rightly assess the sins of both ourselves and our brothers and sisters in Christ, and third not pull Scripture out of context in order to justify our own actions.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 20 - Truth Divides

TITLE

John 7:40-53 – Truth Divides

EXPLANATION

The account of the Feast of Booths continues by showcasing the sharp divisions among the people, and even the leaders, over whether Jesus was really the Messiah or not.  Some of the people recognized Jesus’s words as truth.  Even the Jewish soldiers who had been sent to arrest Him could tell that He spoke in a way that no one else had ever spoken. 

However, at the same time, other people continued to disbelieve.  Some of the people even had objections based on the Hebrew Scriptures.  They correctly pointed out that Jesus, according to prophecy, had to come from Bethlehem, in the region of Judea, rather than from Galilee.  For their part, the chief priests and Pharisees attempted to ridicule those who believed in Jesus.  They set themselves up as supposed paradigms of righteousness, implying that if they did not believe in Him then no one else should.

APPLICATION

This passage illustrates another principle of belief.  Namely, it is not easy.  The reason, in this case, is because authentic belief in God will always face stiff opposition from a rebellious ungodly world and the people who are enslaved to their satanic mindset.  The Bible clearly teaches that God, having once enabled faith in our hearts, will ultimately give us victory over such antagonism.  However, it is perfectly legitimate to recognize that there will be hurdles along the way.  If we anticipate the difficulty that we will undoubtedly face, it is less likely that we will suffer acute discouragement when the time comes.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 19 - The Root of the Problem

TITLE

John 7:25-39 – The Root of the Problem

EXPLANATION

Still in the midst of the Jews during the Feast of Booths, Jesus continued to face opposition from them.  The people could see the evidence of His authenticity, in the face of the verbal opposition yet active apathy of the authorities.  However, in spite of the obviousness of the situation, the people could not get past the human wisdom they were relying on.  This false wisdom prompted them to question Jesus because of His humanity.  They had built in their minds an image of the Messiah that was incongruous with what had been revealed in the Old Testament; the same picture that Jesus was now advertising.  Therefore, they questioned and doubted.

At this point Jesus drove the stake of truth right into the heart of the issue.  The simple fact of the matter was that He had come from God.  Yet, the people did not truly know God.  He had been obscured from their sight by their unrighteous obsession with fulfilling the letter rather than the spirit of the Law.  So, because they did not know God they could not know the One whom God had sent.  In spite of the bleakness of the situation, we see a ray of hope shine through the storm clouds of faithlessness.  The text records that, true to God’s pattern, there was a remnant in the midst of the people who did believe in Jesus.

Hearing the grumbling of the people, the Pharisees thought they might have an opportunity to attack Jesus.  So, they sent soldiers to arrest Him.  Responding to this threat, Jesus continued to focus on the real issue that was at the heart of their unbelief.  It was that they did not truly know God and could not find their way to Heaven where He would be going.  Taking one final opportunity on the last day of the feast to proclaim truth, Jesus again pointed out that it was only through belief in Him that the people could have a hope of eternal life.

APPLICATION

Faith in Jesus is faith in God.  This is a fundamental staple of the Christian religion.  This was the focal point of opposition from Jesus’s Jewish countrymen in the 1^st century, it has been the single greatest point of contention between Muslims and Christians throughout the centuries, and it is the singular dividing line between spirits who are from God and spirits who are not from God.  John makes this clear in 1^st John 4:1-6.  Those of us who engage in great amounts of theological education must not lose sight of the relatively simple truth that faith in Christ is the key that under-girds everything we do.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 18 - Right Motives and Wrong Discernment

TITLE

John 7:1-24 – Right Motives and Wrong Discernment

EXPLANATION

After losing some of His followers, Jesus continued His traveling ministry.  He restricted His movements to the area of Galilee, because He knew that the Jewish leaders were seeking His life in Judea.  However, the time for the Feast of Booths was now approaching, and this feast was celebrated in Jerusalem.  At this point, Jesus’s brothers urged Him to go to Jerusalem for the festival, and in so doing they demonstrated their own lack of faith in their brother.  They encouraged Him to gather acclaim and human praise for Himself.  They wanted Jesus to seek after temporal fame and prestige rather than continuing to, as they saw it, muddle about in the backwater areas of Israel, ministering to the poor and needy who could not possibly repay Him with earthly rewards.

In spite of the short sighted and man centered advice of His brothers, Jesus chose to continue ministering in secret.  He initially told them He was not going to the feast because He knew that it was not yet time for the final confrontation between Himself and the Jews.  After telling the brothers this, Jesus turned around and did go up to Jerusalem.  Did Jesus Lie about His intentions?  No, He did not.  When He told His brothers He was not going, it was in the context of what they were wanting Him to do.  That is, making a spectacle of Himself and artificially drawing the people’s attention with parlor tricks.  Such was not Jesus’s motivation.  He did intend on going to the feast, but as a teacher rather than a miracle worker.  And, this is precisely what He did.

In the middle of the feast Jesus went into the public area of the temple and began to teach.  His teaching astonished the Jews, because they could tell He was knowledgeable even though He had never been formally educated.  Jesus’s explanation for His wisdom continued His traditional habit of being counter cultural.  He identified His teaching as coming from God.  And, He turned this truth into a point of confrontation.  He said that anyone who was truly seeking God’s will would recognize whether Jesus’s teaching was from God or not.  The implication was that if they thought He was not from God, then they proved the point by their unbelief that they were not truly seeking the will of God.

Jesus went on to teach that someone who teaches based on his own authority is seeking after his own glory as well.  However, someone endowed with the authority of another works and teaches for the purpose of magnifying the authority of their master.  Then, Jesus again confronted the ridiculousness of the Jews’ lack of faith.  They wanted to castigate Him for healing on the Sabbath, because they saw it as a form of work.  Yet, they had no problem circumcising a Jewish child on the Sabbath when necessary.  Again, the hypocrisy and inconsistency of the Jews was demonstrated.

APPLICATION

In following Jesus’s teaching and His example from this passage, we should walk away with two very strong points of application.  First is to avoid the praise of the world.  Jesus’s brothers were not interested in the glory of God.  They only had eyes for how their brother might be able to become famous and prestigious.  Jesus, on the other hand, had pure motives that began and ended with what His Father wanted.

The second point illustrated by this text is the importance of exercising good judgment and sound discernment.  The Jews should have known that Jesus’s teaching was from God.  They had no excuse for their unbelief.  All they would have had to do is consult the Hebrew Scriptures with an open mind, uncontaminated by their own pre-conceived notions, and they would have immediately recognized the source of Christ’s power, authority, and instruction.  Of course, we know from the previous section, that they were incapable of making these theological connections in and of themselves.  Only God is capable of granting such faith.  Yet, that did not absolve the Jews of their responsibility to believe and their culpability in disbelieving.

We who are already followers of Jesus have been graciously spared from this conundrum of faith.  However, it is still incumbent upon us to exercise good discernment to determine whether things are from God or from the world.  The Scriptures are our plumb line for this.  Just as the Jews had the Hebrew Bible, so we Christians today have the whole of the canon to draw from in determining truth from falsehood.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 17 - The Difficulty of Faith

TITLE

John 6:60-71 – The Difficulty of Faith

EXPLANATION

After listening to Jesus’s lecture on the bread of life, many of the people following Him were unsettled.  The Lord had been describing to them a pattern of life and behavior that was, quite frankly, significantly more extreme than anything they had encountered before in Judaism.  The message Jesus taught was one of complete devotion and unwavering loyalty.  Such a single-minded fixation on God seemed then and continues to seem today like lunacy.

For this reason, some of the people who were following Jesus balked and the instincts of their flesh prompted them to recoil from pursuing Him any longer.  Rather than console the people in their unbelief, Jesus instead pressed His attack of truth even harder than before.  He confronted them for being offended at His teaching.  He upped the ante by questioning, if they were already hesitating over what He had said to that point, what would they do when they witnessed even more extreme examples of truth such as when He would, in the future, ascend into Heaven.

Critically, Jesus identified that the reason for the unbelief of the people was their flesh.  He correctly pointed out that only the Spirit of God can give life.  The flesh is a hindrance to someone who desires to follow the patterns of the Spirit.  Furthermore, because all men are in the flesh, Jesus clarified that no one can willingly come to Him on their own.  They must be drawn by the Father and granted the gift of faith.

Many disciples chose to stop following Jesus at this point.  This demonstrated in graphic fashion that they had not been granted to believe by the Father.  In sharp contrast to this stood the twelve, Jesus’s personal chosen representatives.  He asked them whether they wanted to stop following Him also.  Peter, ever the spokesman of the group, responded that there was no one else to turn to because only Jesus had the truth that leads to life.  As if to drive the point home that He had already made about the difficulty of faith, Jesus pointed out that He had chosen these twelve men.  They did not come to faith in Him on their own.

APPLICATION

This is an incredible passage that deals with one of the most difficult aspects of salvation for many people to accept.  That is, true saving faith which leads to salvation comes not from men, but from God alone.  There is no way to read this text clearly and with an open mind, and then walk away with the idea that man can drum up the faith to believe in Christ on his own.

How does this actually impact us in everyday life though?  I think there are two aspects we must consider.  The first is to express profound gratitude toward God for choosing and drawing us to Christ.  Were it not for His work, we would be hopelessly lost in our sins.  The second is to recognize that anyone we witness to who rejects us does so out of their own nature.  Their rejection is not personal.  It is merely who they are.  It requires a fundamental change of the heart, accomplished only by God, for anyone to be saved.  Therefore, we must view our evangelism with at least somewhat of a detached eye, understanding that God will use the seeds we plant in His timing, not ours.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 16 - The Most Satisfying Food in the World

TITLE

John 6:41-59 – The Most Satisfying Food in the World

EXPLANATION

Continuing the conversation from the previous passage, we see the ongoing complaints and unbelief of the Jews.  Having been confronted over and over with the truth, and being completely unwilling to yield in their hard hearted stubbornness, they now resorted to ad hominem attacks against Jesus’s character.  Rather than dealing with the truth He was teaching, they began to discuss the fact that He was a simple carpenter’s son whom they had all known for years.  The implication that hangs over the text is that, because they knew of Jesus and His family, He had no right to be saying the things He was saying.

In spite of the intense and personal opposition, Jesus did not let up His attack.  He rebuked the people for their grumbling.  And He maintained His position.  He said no one could come to Him unless the Father drew them, only He had seen the Father, and whoever believed in Him would receive eternal life.

Then, Jesus layered additional doctrine on top of what He had already covered.  This extra doctrine was intended to communicate the all satisfying sufficiency of a relationship with Christ.  He likened it to bread.  But, this bread is unlike all material bread.  It gives life forever.  The image that emerges here from Jesus’s teaching is of a wonderful unity and symbiosis that is produced through faith in Christ.  Bread, or really any food, is an excellent metaphor.  Material food passes into a person’s body through the mouth.  It is then assimilated by the body and literally becomes a part of that person.  The nutrients provide fuel to maintain the body and keep it running. 

So, Jesus taught, believing in Him is like that in a spiritual sense.  A person who “feeds” upon Jesus takes His teaching, His words, and His example deep inside their soul.  Jesus becomes a part of them and becomes inseparable.  The Messiah provides the spiritual nourishment to maintain an inner life that is dedicated to God rather than self.

APPLICATION

This teaching by the Lord Jesus was and is profound.  Unfortunately, people today often still do not really understand it.  Even Christians sometimes intellectualize or legalize the Christian life.  We make our walk with God into an external behavioral system devoid of any experiential, inward witness, presence, and interaction with God and His Christ.  This is a perversion of the gospel that Jesus taught to the Jewish crowds here in Capernaum.  When God is pleased to draw us to Himself and build a relationship with us, that relationship begins in the heart.  And, it never leaves the heart.  Although it may and should be manifested externally, we must never lose sight of the internal unity with God that is absolutely essential to a profitable, productive, and all satisfying union with Him.

The Gospel of John - Outline Part 15 - Acting Like Children

TITLE

John 6:22-40 – Acting Like Children

EXPLANATION

Jesus had left the crowds the day before.  The disciples were observed getting into their boat without Him.  So, the people were not sure where He had gone.  Having had their materialistic needs met they were quite interested in continuing this beneficial association with Jesus.  Finally, the crowd located Him on the other side of the sea, and they inquired about how and when He had arrived.  Jesus, as usual perceiving the true thoughts and intentions of people, bluntly told them that they were only seeking Him for more food and miracles.  He encouraged them to stop working for material food that does not last.  Rather, He said they should work for eternal food that never fades.

Showing typical human dullness of mind, the people did not understand what Jesus was talking about.  Furthermore, they avoided the issue by asking what they should be doing in order to accomplish God’s will.  This was a ridiculous question for Jews, because they out of all nations in the world had access to an entire Torah where God had clearly outlined exactly what they should and should not be doing.  Jesus, knowing their hearts, did not bother to point this out, but He chose a line of reasoning that He knew would cause them to backpedal; namely, that they must believe in Him.

In what can only be described as a statement of sheer idiocy and blindness, the people responded by inquiring as to what sign or work Jesus was going to perform to prove that they should listen to Him.  This was coming from people who had just witnessed a clear demonstration of supernatural power the day before and had had their stomachs filled because of it.  The issue was not that they needed a sign.  The issue was that they did not want to believe, and therefore they stalled for time so as to not have to admit it.

Jesus of course knew all of this.  But He chose to, rather than directly confront the peoples’ stubbornness, instead keep drilling down on the point that they must believe in Him.  He layered the doctrine on thick here by telling them that He was the bread of life who gives life to the world, that those who come to Him will never hunger or thirst, that the Father will give people to Him and He will never cast them out, that He was there to accomplish the Father’s will by losing none of the people the Father would give to Him, and that the only way to have eternal life is to believe in Him.

APPLICATION

These people were clearly stubborn and thick headed.  They did not need any additional proofs of Jesus’s authority.  They had already been given plenty of evidence of His power at work.  And they had greatly benefited from it as well, with bellies full of food.  Yet, they stubbornly refused to acknowledge their basic need to believe. 

This reminds me of children.  When you catch a child in the act of wrongdoing, often they will try to avoid or shift blame.  Sometimes they go to such extremes that they flee from all rules of logic and reasonableness, pretending to misunderstand basic truths that their parents are confronting them with.  In these circumstances, it is sometimes better to postpone the conversation until the child is ready to talk sensibly.

The Jews in this account make me think of that scenario.  And I think they stand as a clear warning to us to avoid such infantile behavior.