WHO IS THIS JESUS? Part 3 (John 8:13-32 September 5, 2004)

WHO IS THIS JESUS? Part 3 (John 8:13-32 September 5, 2004) Those of you who are old enough will remember the TV show I ve Got a Secret. Well I have a secret, one I don t think many of you know and it is a doozy. We don t have time for you to guess it so I will just tell you. I just happen to be a direct descendant of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. Pretty impressive huh? Let me say that again. I, Craig Lloyd, am a direct descendant of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. Now that this is out there, I have a couple of questions for you. Do you believe me? How will you decide whether or not to believe such an out there claim? And does it matter at all whether you believe me or not? Now before I get a ton of emails let me say right up front as far as I am aware I have absolutely no relationship to Edward or Wallis Simpson I used this only as an illustration. The point I want you to think about is this. What if I did make this claim in all seriousness? How would you decide whether or not to believe me? I ll talk about this a little later but I used this out there kind of illustration because I want you to start thinking about how you decide whether or not to believe claims like this and whether it matters or not. This type of thinking is crucial when we come to the claims that Jesus made about Himself. Let me remind you that in John chapter 7 and John chapter 8 Jesus clearly declared that He was God. A flesh and blood man, a carpenter from Nazareth, who ate and bled and slept, who walked the streets of this world said I am God! I am the uncreated Creator of all things. Our text this morning comes immediately after Jesus made such a claim. Let me remind you of how this happened. For centuries, the Jews had waited for the day Messiah would come. He was the subject of prayers and teaching and expectation. And one of the most prominent times Messianic expectation reached a peak was at the yearly Feast of Tabernacles. 1

This feast was built around two great ceremonies the water-libation ceremony and the Temple-lighting ceremony. And this expectation of Messiah s coming reached its peak on the final day of the feast. In our study of John 7 and 8, we have already begun to look at what happened on the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles in the year 29 AD. In this midst of this ceremony pleading for Messiah to come a voice broke forth: If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. I have shown you that in these words, Jesus was claiming to be God, to be the Messiah, to be the One who poured out the Holy Spirit. He was saying the One you long for is here. It is Me! And later, in the midst of this Temple-Lighting Ceremony a ceremony which by its very nature anticipated the coming of the true Light the Messiah Jesus again cries out and this time He says: I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life. Make no mistake about what Jesus was saying and make no mistake everyone there knew what He was saying. He was saying: I am God; I show the true state of men; I illuminate the blind and I am salvation. Jesus claimed to be the One the Jews were waiting for God Himself come to this world as the Messiah, the Saviour of the world. But what did men make of His claim? We have seen that many dismissed Him outright. Others were willing to think He might be a human Messiah or a Prophet. But no one was willing to accept that He was God. We pick up the account in John 8:13: So the Pharisees said to Him, You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true. Jesus testified that He was the source of living water, that He was the Light, that He was God, that He was Messiah. 2

He was not the Messiah they expected and they certainly never anticipated God in human flesh. So the Pharisees replied that just claiming to be God doesn t make you God. And in one sense they are right. I well remember when I did a psychiatry term. In the one ward there was a man who claimed to be God, one who claimed to be Jesus and one who claimed to be Moses. I am sure they had some interesting mealtime chats, but my point is that claiming it didn t make it true. But Jesus knew that. He did more than just claim to be God. Back in chapter 5 verse 31 He said this: If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true. There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true. If all I come with is My testimony then on one level it might be understandable that you reject My testimony and say that My testimony is not true. But I come with the testimony of another. I come with the testimony of My Father God the Father through miracles and the Holy Scriptures. To reject Me is to reject the testimony of God Himself. BUT, even if Jesus only came with His testimony it is not invalid. Verses 14-15: Jesus answered and said to them, Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. His claim to be God is validated by who He is. He is God who cannot lie who needs no attestation by men and as such His testimony is true. God is the self-existent One. God testifies about Himself. But He goes on to make a further point here. The Jews were judging Him according to the flesh. They were judging Him as a mere man. They had dismissed His testimony simply because reason states that obviously no man can be God. But Jesus is no mere man. He is God. They don t know where He comes from He comes from heaven. They don t know where He is going He is going to heaven. As God no man can judge Him by the standards and rules of this world. Verses 15-18: I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me. 3

Let me remind you about my claim to be a direct descendant of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson. If I put it out there in all seriousness then some of you might say wacky as it sounds I know Craig, I accept Craig s integrity so until proven otherwise, I ll take his word for it. I also suspect a number of you might wonder about my sanity. And others might say look it sounds weird, I m unsure, so give me some proof. What if I then produced documents that demonstrated my lineage back to Edward? A few more might say wow I didn t think it could be true but there is the proof. Others might think I m sure these have to be fake documents. Was Craig duped or is he doing the duping? My point is this. If I made an outrageous claim like that at the end of the day you would weigh all the evidence and decide if you believe my claim or not. But even in terms of something so earthy as a claim to be royal the burden of proof would differ from person to person. For some of you no amount of proof would suffice for such a weird claim. For others, given the right proof you might accept it. But even more importantly, there is a world of difference between a claim such as I am related to a King and a claim that says I am God. Unfortunately, we often forget this when we present the gospel. We tell someone that the crucial issue is believing that Jesus is God. And they say all right you want me to believe that then prove it. What we often do is we defend this statement by earthy means. We end up spending hours answering questions such as: Did Jesus exist? Was He just a good man? Was He a prophet? Did He claim to be God? Were there miracles and do they prove He is God? Did He rise from the dead and does this prove He is God? We present proof just like we do for earthy claims such as being related to a King. Don t get me wrong. In some cases such questions and answers are important. But, if it is almost impossible to prove something as earthy as our relationship to a King how much more impossible is it to prove that a man is God? Instead what is crucial to declare is to say this: 4

My friend you either accept that Jesus is God and live or you reject this and die. Jesus said He is God. How do you prove or disprove this by human standards human judgments human measures? You can t! What human testimony, what objective measures, what evidence would prove that Jesus was God? There is no scientific test for deity no deity detector. Jesus says this. He says that He never judged by these worldly standards and did not come to be judged by these worldly standards. Jesus came declaring that He was God. Yes there are testimonies such as miracles, and the Scriptures and genealogies but these are not proof. At the end of the day, it is the Spirit of God who allows men to believe that Jesus is God not the rational weighing of evidence. If proving His deity becomes our focus, we can detract from the sheer power of declaring to a lost world Jesus is God believe this and live reject this and perish! Jesus never presented Himself to be weighed by the standards of this world. He declared He was God and allowed the Spirit of God to convict those who were His. But this is not to say that there is no testimony. Jesus says that even if the Pharisees insist on judging this way He urges them to judge by the standard of the Law. The testimony of two witnesses is sufficient. And Jesus comes with His own testimony and the testimony of God the Father. But the crucial issue is that Jesus is God and men believe that or reject it. Last year, Dena and I went to an exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery called Belle-Île Monet, Russell and Matisse in Brittany. I am no great art aficionado. All I knew was I didn t like Russell and Matisse but I loved Monet even though they are all impressionists who were contemporaries on the island of Belle-Île. But for me, there was one painting of Monet s that stood out the water the rocks the sky the colours it was magnificent. If I had a spare $150 million I would want it on my wall. But some might ask me if you are going to spend that much money, how do you know it is a genuine Monet? I could assemble a team of art historians and scientists. Those who know Monet his pallet and brushstrokes and eccentricities. Those who can attest to the 5

authenticity of the painting s provenance. Scientists who can date the canvas and oils. And some might say yes it s a Monet and some might surprise me and say it is a pretty good fake. But in another sense I don t need that. I loved the painting. It was testimony enough. In a similar sense we don t stand in judgment of Jesus. We don t test Him to see if He is genuine. His life, His words, His sacrifice, His works, His love are a testimony but the crucial voice is the inward witness of the Holy Spirit who speaks to us and declares Yes this testimony is true Jesus is God. Verse 19: So they were saying to Him, Where is Your Father? Jesus answered, You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also. Again they think in human terms. We don t accept Your testimony. Tell this father who will testify to step forward and we will judge his testimony. Jesus says you don t know My Father. He has testified and you haven t accepted His testimony. You have rejected the testimony of God. Brothers and sisters before we simply move on, there is a crucial truth in these verses. No one comes to faith by weighing the evidence rationally. You come to faith only one way. By the power of the Holy Spirit you accept the testimony of Jesus and His Father that He is God. It is the Holy Spirit who makes the testimony of Jesus live. This is not a truth that can be tested by science or logic. It is not something CSI can examine forensically. It is a truth men accept by the power of the Spirit or they reject. Be careful when you share the gospel that you don t make the issue does the evidence stack up? Without the working of the Spirit no human evidence is enough. Make the issue Jesus is God believe it and live reject this and die! Verse 20: These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come. 6

Humanly speaking Jesus should have been arrested and tried for blasphemy there and then. But it was not yet time for that so no one laid a hand on Him. This brings us to verses 21-32. These are crucial verses. As we work through these verses, there are two things I want you to notice. First, Jesus doesn t try and defend His declaration. He doesn t say watch Me perform a miracle or two to prove I am God. He doesn t say tell me how I can make you believe. No look at verse 24. He says: Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. Believe and live reject and die. But there is a second thing I want you to notice. Jesus shows us why this issue of who He is is so crucial. If I did claim to be a direct descendant of King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson whether you accept or reject my statement won t affect your life at all. But in these verses, Jesus says that accepting or rejecting His statement means eternal life or eternal death. Whether you believe the words of Jesus or not is the most crucial decision you ever make. Look at verse 21: Then He said again to them, I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come. I will die and return to heaven. But, you cannot come to heaven. Why? because of your sin. This is pretty basic stuff. God is in heaven. God is too pure to look upon sin. You are sinners. You can t go to heaven. Verse 22: So the Jews were saying, Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, Where I am going, you cannot come? They understood that He was speaking of His death. But they misunderstood His point. He would die not by selfish suicide but by selfless laying down of His life and then He would go to heaven. Their sin meant they could not follow. Verses 23-24: 7

And He was saying to them, You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins. I am God. I come from heaven. You are men. You come from earth. You have no part of heaven because of your sin. That is the bad news folks. We are of this world. We all sin. And even one sin means we are excluded from heaven forever. But that is why Jesus God Himself came to this world. Look at the end of verse 24: For unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Throughout this Gospel Jesus repeatedly refers to Himself as I am! To any biblically literate Jew this term would take them back to Isaiah 40-55 where God repeatedly refers to Himself as I Am. Just listen to two of these occurrences. Isaiah 41:4: I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am. I am timeless. I am before the first and after the last. I am. I have always existed I will always exist. I am God. Isaiah 43:13: Even from eternity I am. I exist outside of time. I am God. I have no beginning and no end. I am God. Jesus is claiming to be God and He says that faith in Him as God is the only way of salvation. Here is the gospel you are lost and without hope unless you believe that Jesus is God. Unless you trust Him as the only way you cannot live. There is no other way to live eternally than by faith in Christ as the Saviour God. It is unfortunate that most English translations fail to give the full sense of this verse. Literally this verse reads: Unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. You must believe that I am. It doesn t read so well in English so we add a bit. 8

You must believe that I am He. You must believe that I am the One I claim to be. But I am is a title a title for God. This title I AM is used twice more in this section. Verse 28: Verse 58: When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am. Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. To any biblically literate Jew this term would take them back to Isaiah 40-55 where God repeatedly refers to Himself as I Am. Here are just three examples. Isaiah 41:4: I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am. Isaiah 43:10-11: You are My witnesses, declares the Lord, And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, And there is no Saviour besides Me. Isaiah 43:13: Even from eternity I am. God is the one who has always existed. He has no beginning and no end. He is the only God. This language may also echo back to Exodus 3:14 where God said to Moses: I AM WHO I AM ; and He said, Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I AM has sent me to you. God is the self-existent one, the One who has always been. No wonder Jesus can say before Abraham was born, I am. 9

And no wonder the Jews took up rocks to stone Him. Jesus took a title of God Himself. He claimed to be God. And He linked the salvation of men to faith in this claim. Unless you believe that I am. Unless you believe that I am God you will die in your sins. I am is a title of God. For a man to say this was so shocking that the Jews wanted to make sure that they understood that this was what Jesus was claiming. Verse 25: So they were saying to Him, Who are You? Did we understand right just what you are claiming. Jesus said to them, What have I been saying to you from the beginning? Who am I? I am God. And this is what I have said from the beginning of my ministry. This is nothing new. Verse 26: I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world. While who Jesus is is the most important thing He has come to say there is more that Jesus has come to declare. He has been sent by God the Father to judge men and declare to the world that they are sinners. Verse 27: They did not realise that He had been speaking to them about the Father. This becomes crucial in the passage we will look at next time. In verse 33 the Jews say: We are Abraham s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone. We are the chosen people. We are the descendant s of Abraham. How can sin enslave us? But the God of Abraham Himself Jesus Father He is the One who sent Jesus to judge them and announce their sin to them. They stand condemned by the very One they think will protect them. 10

Verses 28-29: So Jesus said, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. The cross has many functions. It is where Jesus died for the sins of the world. It is where holiness and mercy meet. But crucially, it is also the place where Jesus is glorified and shown to be God. Jesus death and resurrection is a testimony to the world that He is God, that He comes in the will of the Father and His ministry is pleasing to the Father. And the cross is a declaration to the world Trust in Jesus and live reject Him and die. Verse 30: As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him. Some there were pierced by Jesus words. And many came to believe in Him. But was this real saving faith? What is crucial to remember is that throughout John believing in Jesus does not necessarily mean true faith. Again and again we see some who believe but their faith is not genuine. So what marks genuine faith? Verses 31-32: So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. There were Jews standing there who believed in Jesus. But this faith is not genuine. How do we know? Jesus addresses these ones who believed Him and in verse 34 he calls them slaves of sin; in verse 37 He says they seek to kill Him and his word has no place in them; in verse 44 He says they are children of the devil; in verse 55 He says they have not come to know God and they are liars and finally in verse 59 these ones who believed in Him finally pick up stones to kill Him. Again and again in John we see this false faith. They believe in the signs. They believe part of the truth. But they won t accept the whole truth. So what marks out true faith? Those who continue in His word. Those who continually abide in and hold to the truth. 11

And those who continually hold to the true truth about Jesus they will be freed from their sin. This verse teaches us two facets of true discipleship. First, true discipleship believes in the true Jesus. They continue in the word of Jesus. They continue to hold to what Jesus said about Himself. This world has always been filled with those who will believe in a certain type of Jesus. Jesus the King, the liberator. Jesus the Saviour, the sin-bearer. Jesus the provider of health and wealth. Jesus the teacher of wisdom. But Jesus consistently refuses to acknowledge any faith that picks and chooses which facets of Him to believe in. You must accept every facet of Jesus including the ones hard to believe and hard to follow. Jesus is God. This is hard to believe but it is part of true faith. Jesus calls us to sacrificial obedience. This is hard to follow but it is part of true faith. You can t create your own Jesus. Jesus the man who is a good teacher but who isn t God. Jesus the provider of wealth who never calls us to sacrifice. Jesus the King who doesn t die for His people. And throughout John Jesus refuses to let men believe just the truths about Him that suit them. And when He insists they take the unpalatable truths they walk away, they seek to kill Him, they turn on Him. There is a second facet of true discipleship. True discipleship perseveres in belief in the true Jesus. Christian history is littered with examples of men and women who seemed to have true faith in the true Jesus. Many were pastors, elders, missionaries. They would declare that Jesus is God, Jesus calls us to sacrifice. But the passage of time led them away from the faith. They did not continually abide in Christ. They became disillusioned. They moved away from a central teaching of Christ. They left the faith. In his first epistle, John says of these fickle disciples: 12

They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19) The fact that they failed to persevere, to finish the fight, to keep the course showed that they were not true disciples. Brothers and sisters true disciples believe in the true Jesus and never forsake that faith. In 1993 when I returned from studying in the US, we were looking for somewhere for the church to meet Sunday mornings. And I thought that the chapel at my former college at the University of Queensland would be ideal. I had spent six years at the college. This college had once been a theological college for training pastors. The master and deputy master were ordained ministers. And the chapel sat unused on Sunday mornings. What an opportunity to reach out to the colleges and the university with the truth of the gospel! I made an appointment to meet with the deputy master to ask if we could rent the chapel on Sundays. We talked for a few minutes and then he asked me this question. Do you believe that faith in Jesus is the only way to heaven? I was surprised he would ask such a question, but told him, Yes, of course! He then said this, I thought you might be one of those fundamentalists. I teach comparative religion at Trinity. Not everyone there agrees with me but I believe that Jesus is but one of many ways to heaven. Since you don t hold to that, you can t rent the chapel. Here is what was so distressing to me. That college was originally established as a theological college to train men in the truth. The college motto is this Veritas Vos Liberabit the truth will set you free. Carved into the stone above the entrance way is the truth will set you free. Once that college boldly proclaimed the truth that Jesus is God, Jesus is the only way that this truth is the only truth that can set men free from the slavery of sin. But now a man who is a minister training other ministers from that very college did not believe in the true Jesus and did not persevere in the truth of Jesus. 13

It happens. It happens to churches, to Bible Colleges, to men and women. Brothers and sisters, we need to draw a line in the sand and declare there is only one truth that can free men. The truth that Jesus is God and died to atone for the sins of men. And only those who cling to this truth are true disciples and free of sin. Sometimes we make our faith more confusing than it needs to be. We get hung up on the peripherals of theological minutia and worship styles and interpersonal relationships. And while not saying these are unimportant what I want to leave you with this morning is a reminder of what true Christianity is. It is a relationship with Christ through faith in Christ. Exalting in Him. Savouring Him. Rejoicing in Him. Abiding in Him. Believe that I am believe that I am God and live now and forever. 14