“You Will Know”
[John
8:21-30]
February 14/21, 2016 Second Reformed
Church
Jesus continued to teach in the
Temple after telling the Pharisees that He is God the Savior and anyone who
does not believe that He is God the Savior does not know God the Father.
In this passage we see the profound
blindness – the spiritual deadness of those who have not believed in Jesus as
God the Savior. And Jesus continued to
teach and address the Pharisees, explaining to them the hopelessness of their
spiritual condition.
First, He explains that the death of
the unbeliever is a death of despair.
“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.’”
Jesus had explained to the Pharisees
that He knew where He came from and where He was going. He knew that He is God the Son and Savior
incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ.
He came to earth to obey His Father – to make the Way of salvation for
all those who would believe in Him through His life, death, and physical
resurrection. And after He physically
rose from the dead, He was going to return to His throne at the Right Hand of
the Father until the time was fulfilled, and then He would return to judge
humanity and then restore the Creation.
So, Jesus told them that He was going
away – He was going to be put to death, and physically rise, and return to
Heaven where He had come from – with His physical body.
And Jesus told them that they would
seek Him.
Jesus did not mean that they would
seek Jesus. They knew Jesus and they
rejected His claim to be the Messiah – the Savior. No, the one they would continue to seek would
be another savior – another messiah.
They rejected Jesus, so they would continue to look for someone else –
in their blindness and spiritual death and hardness of heart – they rejected Jesus
but were zealous to continue to look for the savior that they would accept.
What would be the result of their
search?
Jesus told them they would die in
their sin. If they did not receive Jesus
as God the Son and Savior, they would die in their sin – they would bear the
full wrath of God’s Anger against them for their sin.
And Jesus, being God, knew their hearts,
and passed the judgment that where Jesus was going – to the Father – into the
Blessed Kingdom – they “cannot come.”
Notice the finality of it – Jesus did not say they may not come, or they
would only come if they believed – He said the “cannot come” – as a matter of
ability. It was done, they were damned,
they would never believe, they would remain dead in their sin, they would be
eternally sent away from God, only to receive His Anger.
Is anyone here still looking for the
savior? Is anyone here not convinced
that the Savior is Jesus? Is anyone
looking for another yet to come?
I have Jewish friends who are still
looking for the Messiah. I have Mormon
friends who are looking for the Mormon incarnation.
I can’t tell anyone’s heart. Neither can you. We cannot say as Jesus did – that there was
no hope for those Pharisees.
If you don’t believe, what’s holding
you back?
If you have friends who don’t
believe, does your heart ache for them?
Do you pray for them? Do you tell
them about Jesus or bring them to where they can hear about Jesus?
These Jews had already speculated
that Jesus would run and hide with the exiles throughout the Empire, but now,
with no little sarcasm, we see them ask Jesus if He is going to commit
suicide. They did not realize, second,
that Jesus would give His life for all those who would believe.
“So the Jews said, ‘Will he kill
himself, since he says, “Where I am going, you cannot come”?’”
Jesus said, “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”
(John
10:17-18, ESV).
Yes, the Jews plotted against Jesus,
and the Jews got the Romans to crucify Jesus, but Jesus was not suicidal,
things did not get out of hand for Him, this was all a part of God’s plan from
the beginning – human sin and evil was to lead to Jesus’ being put to death
that He would bear the Wrath of God for the sin of all those who would ever
believe – that we would be saved – it was the very plan that God had from
before the Creation and for which God the Son came to earth in the person of
Jesus. He what Peter said:
“Men of Israel, hear these words:
Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders
and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—this
Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God,
you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:22-23, ESV).
And so Jesus told them again,
thirdly, belief in Jesus as God the Son and Savior is the Only Way to salvation
– it is the Only Way to be made right with God – it is the Only Way to be set
free from sin and have your sins forgiven.
“He said to them, ‘You are from below; I
am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that
you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in
your sins.’”
You are merely human – each one of us is
merely human. Jesus is God Who became a
human while remaining God to save all we who will believe. You are made from the dust of the earth – as
we said on Ash Wednesday – each one of us came from the dust and will return to
the dust – unless Jesus returns before we die.
All of us are sinners. All of us
are liable to the Judgment and Wrath of God for our sins. And we will die in our sin unless – and only
if – we have believed savingly in Jesus as God and Savior.
This is more important that who will win
in the primaries.
This is more important that who is elected
our next president.
Do we believe that?
Do we spend more time promoting our
candidate or the One Savior Who Alone saves us – the only One Who can save us from
dying in our sins?
The Pharisees responded by mockingly
asking Who Jesus is, and He tells them, fourthly, He is Who the prophets said
He is from the beginning:
“So they said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus
said to them, ‘Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have
much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I
declare to the world what I have heard from him.’”
Peter wrote:
“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord
as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a
reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,
having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile
your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:15-16, ESV).
We are called to be prepared – to always
be able to offer reasons – arguments – facts and truths that add up to what we
believe – for anyone who will ask of us.
We are to be able – to the best of our ability and by the Power of God
the Holy Spirit – to be able to tell people why we believe that Jesus is God
the Son and Savior – and to lead others to people and resources that will help
them understand that truth of Jesus.
And still, many will turn away and say
it’s not good enough. Many will laugh
and say it doesn’t apply to them – that they are good enough. Our heart of darkness holds myriad reasons
not to believe. And there are times – I
have been there – when we present everything well and think there is no way
around what we have said, and the person we have talked with still does not
believe.
Jesus told the Pharisees that He was Who
He always claimed to be – the Savior that they looked for in the Scriptures –
the Savior that the Scriptures point to – the Only One Who fulfills every word
of the Law and the Prophets. But they
did not believe – and Jesus warned them – He had much to say about them and
their disbelief – He had much sin to judge them for – but for now – in his
First Advent – He was doing the will of the Father and preaching the Gospel to
the world.
Pray regularly that you would have the right
words to speak to those you come in contact with. Pray that God the Holy Spirit will guide what
you say and prepare the hearts of those you come in contact with. Pray that God would have mercy on all those
you come in contact with – that God would open their eyes and hearts that they
would see in you and me – in our words and acts – the Image of Jesus shining
through us – that they might believe to the Glory of God.
As long as someone is alive, we have
opportunity to preach the Gospel to them.
We don’t know a person’s heart – we only know that God has called us to
proclaim the Gospel to every creature – and if someone has not believed, we are
to continue to tell them and tell them.
That’s why I proclaimed Jesus to my grandmother while she was in a
coma. That’s why I proclaimed Jesus to
Martha Bronner as she died after her stroke.
Don’t give up – tell others till the end.
Fifth, as we emphasized last week: Jesus and the Father are the same One God with
the Holy Spirit.
“They did not understand that he had been
speaking to them about the Father.”
The
Athanasian Creed explains that there is One God, and the
Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, yet They are distinct
persons: the Father is not the Son is
not the Holy Spirit yet there are not three gods, there is only One God.
We can understand that this is what the
Scripture teaches without a perfect understanding of it. The Pharisees should have understood. They did not.
We have heresies and cults that refuse to take the plain holistic
teaching of the Scripture:
Mormonism teaches there are three gods.
Jehovah’s Witness teaches that the Father
is God, but Jesus is not God and the Holy Spirit is not God.
Believing in the Trinity is central to the
Christian faith.
Sixth, Jesus said that when He was
crucified they would know that He is the Savior, God the Son.
“So Jesus said to them, ‘When you have
lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do
nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.’
We have looked at the idea of Jesus being
lifted up before – and we trace the imagery back to Moses and the people of Israel
in the Wilderness:
“From Mount Hor they set out by the way to
the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on
the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you
brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and
no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’ Then the LORD sent fiery serpents
among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.
And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we have spoken
against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take away the
serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Make
a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees
it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a
serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Numbers
21:4-9, ESV).
The people of Israel sinned against God,
and when they called out for salvation, God provided a savior in the form of a
bronze serpent – crucified on a pole.
Jesus told Nicodemus that this sin and
salvation episode was a foreshadowing of what He would do:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him
may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15, ESV).
The crucifixion was necessary for the full
curse of all believing humanity’s sin to come upon Jesus for God’s Wrath to
come against.
And Jesus told the Pharisees that when He
was lifted up, they would know Who He really is – but notice Jesus did not say
that they would know and believe!
They will not be like the centurion and
his friends of whom we read: “When the centurion and those who were with him,
keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were
filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’” (Matthew 27:54,
ESV).
No, they will be like the demons who
screamed and came out during Jesus’ exorcisms; they would be one who saw the
truth, but so despised it – as Jesus said:
“For behold, the days are coming when they
will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts
that never nursed!’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’
and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ For if they do these things when the wood is green,
what will happen when it is dry?’” (Luke 23:29-31, ESV).
They would respond to the signs and
wonders of the crucifixion, but it would be with wails of “No! Take me now!
Just kill me now!” They would hate
and condemn God’s ways. “It can’t be
true! This can’t be God’s way! If this is what God always meant – I want
nothing to do with Him or His salvation!”
They would understand, but not believe, but hate God so much that they
pursue the Hell they earned rather than desiring to be with God.
Billy Joel sings, “They say there's a
heaven for those who will wait.
Some say it's better, but I say it ain't.
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry
with the saints,
the sinners are much more fun” (http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Only-The-Good-Die-Young-lyrics-Billy-Joel/956D520953E906A248256870001B64DD).
That is the kind of hideous logic they and
all those who never believe will have as they are finally confronted with Jesus
and His Truth – “send me to Hell, I’d rather be in Hell than worship You.”
Finally, the Father is always with Jesus.
“‘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.’”
This comes into question as Jesus cries
out on the cross that He is forsaken by the Father, but the answer is not to
deny that Jesus was forsaken – He was.
We must understand this as Jesus in some way being cut off from the comfort
of the Father that He had experienced throughout eternity past. Jesus did not come apart from being God; God
did not make Jesus less than God, but Jesus had to suffer all of Hell in that
moment on the cross – the greatest, most extreme suffering for all of us who
would believe – an eternity of pain at once – that we would be forgiven.
And yet, the Father remained the Father of
Jesus, and the Father remained pleased with Jesus, because He always did what
the Father put to Him. Even though we
cannot comprehend all that happened on the cross, God was pleased and
accomplished all that He set out to do in Trinity for the sake of our
salvation.
Besides the despair and hatred of the
Pharisees, we read:
“As he was saying these things, many
believed in him.”
You see, brothers and sisters, God has
saved a people for Himself, and they will all come to believe savingly in
Jesus. God has chosen to delivered the
message of the Gospel through the lips of we who believe. If you believe, you are sent to tell others,
and God the Holy Spirit will enable each of us to speak, and He will apply it
when and how it most glorifies Him.
As we begin this season of Lent, let us
contemplate the horror of being so hardened in sin that someone would choose
Hell over Jesus. And let us prayerfully
let everyone know that God has made the Way to be right with Him.
Let us pray:
Almighty God, our Father, You sent Jesus
to secure salvation for Your people and send us now to tell the world. Fill us with the Holy Spirit and help us to
speak Your Gospel and tell others about Your Son. Keep us from fear, and help us to trust that
the Holy Spirit will guide us and bring fruit to be borne as You have planned
to Your Glory. Open our eyes and soften
our hearts and compel us our that we would have joy with You as each on
believes. For it is in Jesus’ Name we
pray, Amen.
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