Verses 1-59
Chapter 8
8:1-11 And each of
them went to his own house; but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early
in the morning he was again in the Temple precincts, and all the people
came to him. He sat down and went on teaching them. The scribes and
Pharisees brought a woman arrested for adultery. They set her in the
midst and said to him: "Teacher, this woman was arrested as she was
committing adultery--in the very act. In the law Moses enjoined us to
stone women like this. What do you say about her?" They were testing him
when they said this, so that they might have some ground on which to
accuse him. Jesus stooped down and wrote with his finger on the ground.
When they went on asking him their question, he straightened himself and
said to them: "Let the man among you who is without sin be the first to
cast a stone at her." And again he bent down and wrote with his finger
on the ground. One by one those who had heard what he said went out,
beginning from the eldest down to the youngest. So Jesus was left alone,
and the woman was still there in the midst. Jesus straightened himself
and said to her: "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" She
said: "No one, sir." Jesus said: "I am not going to pass judgment on you
either. Go, and from now on, sin no more."
[This incident is not included in all the ancient manuscripts
and appears only in a footnote in the Revised Standard
Version; see: NOTE ON THE STORY OF THE WOMAN TAKEN
IN ADULTERY]
The scribes and Pharisees were out to get some charge on which
they could discredit Jesus; and here they thought they had impaled him
inescapably on the horns of a dilemma. When a difficult legal question
arose, the natural and routine thing was to take it to a Rabbi for a
decision. So the scribes and Pharisees approached Jesus as a Rabbi with a
woman taken in adultery.
In the eyes of the Jewish law adultery was a serious crime. The
Rabbis said: "Every Jew must die before he will commit idolatry, murder
or adultery." Adultery was, in fact one of the three gravest sins and it
was punishable by, death, although there were certain differences in
respect of the way in which the death penalty was to be carried out. Leviticus 20:10
lays it down: "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his
neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death."
There the method of death is not specified. Deuteronomy 22:13-24
lays down the penalty in the case of a girl who is already betrothed.
In a case like that she and the man who seduced her are to be brought
outside the city gates, "and you shall stone them to death with stones."
The Mishnah, that is, the Jewish codified law, states that the penalty
for adultery is strangulation, and even the method of strangulation is
laid down. "The man is to be enclosed in dung up to his knees, and a
soft towel set within a rough towel is to be placed around his neck (in
order that no mark may be made, for the punishment is God's punishment).
Then one man draws in one direction and another in the other direction,
until he be dead." The Mishnah reiterates that death by stoning is the
penalty for a girl who is betrothed and who then commits adultery. From
the purely legal point of view the scribes and Pharisees were perfectly
correct. This woman was liable to death by stoning.
The dilemma into which they sought to put Jesus was this: If he
said that the woman ought to be stoned to death, two things followed.
First, he would lose the name he had gained for love and for mercy and
never again would be called the friend of sinners. Second, he would come
into collision with the Roman law, for the Jews had no power to pass or
carry out the death sentence on anyone. If he said that the woman
should be pardoned, it could immediately be said that he was teaching
men to break the law of Moses, and that he was condoning and even
encouraging people to commit adultery. That was the trap in which the
scribes and Pharisees sought to entrap Jesus. But he turned their attack
in such a way that it recoiled against themselves.
At first Jesus stooped down and wrote with his finger on the
ground. Why did he do that? There may be four possible reasons.
(i) He may quite simply have wished to gain time and not be
rushed into a decision. In that brief moment he may have been both
thinking the thing out and taking it to God.
(ii) Certain manuscripts add, "As though he did not hear them."
Jesus may well have deliberately forced the scribes and Pharisees to
repeat their charges, so that, in repeating them, they might possibly
realize the sadistic cruelty which lay behind them.
(iii) Seeley in Ecce Homo makes an interesting suggestion.
"Jesus was seized with an intolerable sense of shame. He could not meet
the eye of the crowd, or of the accusers, and perhaps at that moment
least of all of the woman.... In his burning embarrassment and confusion
he stooped down so as to hide his face, and began writing with his
fingers upon the ground." It may well be that the leering, lustful look
on the faces of the scribes and Pharisees, the bleak cruelty in their
eyes, the prurient curiosity of the crowd, the shame of the woman, all
combined to twist the very heart of Jesus in agony and pity, so that he
hid his eyes.
(iv) By far the most interesting suggestion emerges from certain
of the later manuscripts. The Armenian translates the passage this way:
"He himself, bowing his head, was writing with his finger on the earth
to declare their sins; and they were seeing their several sins on the
stones." The suggestion is that Jesus was writing in the dust the sins
of the very men who were accusing the woman. There may be something in
that. The normal Greek word for to write is graphein (Greek #1125); but here the word used is katagraphein, which can mean to write down a record against someone. (One of the meanings of kata (Greek #2596) is against). So in Job 13:26
Job says: "Thou writest (katagraphein) bitter things against me." It
may be that Jesus was confronting those self-confident sadists with the
record of their own sins.
However that may be, the scribes and Pharisees continued to
insist on an answer--and they got it. Jesus said in effect: "All right!
Stone her! But let the man that is without sin be the first to cast a
stone." It may well be that the word for without sin (anamartetos, Greek #361)
means not only without sin, but even without a sinful desire. Jesus was
saying: "Yes, you may stone her--but only if you never wanted to do the
same thing yourselves." There was a silence--and then slowly the
accusers drifted away.
So Jesus and the woman were left alone. As Augustine put it:
"There remained a great misery (miseria) and a great pity
(misericordia)." Jesus said to the woman: "Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, sir," she said. Jesus said: "I am not for the moment going to
pass judgment on you either. Go, and make a new start, and don't sin any
more."
This passage shows us two things about the attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees.
(i) It shows us their conception of authority. The scribes and
the Pharisees were the legal experts of the day; to them problems were
taken for decision. It is clear that to them authority was
characteristically critical, censorious and condemnatory. That authority
should be based on sympathy, that its aim should be to reclaim the
criminal and the sinner, never entered their heads. They conceived of
their function as giving them the right to stand over others like grim
invigilators, to watch for every mistake and every deviation from the
law, and to descend on them with savage and unforgiving punishment; they
never dreamed that it might lay upon them the obligation to cure the
wrongdoer.
There are still those who regard a position of authority as
giving them the right to condemn and the duty to punish. They think that
such authority as they have has given them the right to be moral
watch-dogs trained to tear the sinner to pieces; but all true authority
is founded on sympathy. When George Whitefield saw the criminal on the
way to the gallows, he uttered the famous sentence: "There, but for the
grace of God, go I."
The first duty of authority is to try to understand the force of
the temptations which drove the sinner to sin and the seductiveness of
the circumstances in which sin became so attractive. No man can pass
judgment on another unless he at least tries to understand what the
other has come through. The second duty of authority is to seek to
reclaim the wrongdoer. Any authority which is solely concerned with
punishment is wrong; any authority, which, in its exercise, drives a
wrongdoer either to despair or to resentment, is a failure. The function
of authority is not to banish the sinner from all decent society, still
less to wipe him out; it is to make him into a good man. The man set in
authority must be like a wise physician; his one desire must be to
heal.
(ii) This incident shows vividly and cruelly the attitude of the
scribes and Pharisees to people. They were not looking on this woman as
a person at all; they were looking on her only as a thing, an
instrument whereby they could formulate a charge against Jesus. They
were using her, as a man might use a tool, for their own purposes. To
them she had no name, no personality, no feelings; she was simply a pawn
in the game whereby they sought to destroy Jesus.
It is always wrong to regard people as things; it is always
unchristian to regard people as cases. It was said of Beatrice Webb,
afterwards Lady Passfield, the famous economist, that "she saw men as
specimens walking." Dr. Paul Tournier in A Doctor's Casebook talks of
what he calls "the personalism of the Bible." He points out how fond the
Bible is of names. God says to Moses: "I know you by name" (Exodus 33:17). God said to Cyrus; "It is I, the God of Israel, who call you by your name" (Isaiah 45:3).
There are whole pages of names in the Bible. Dr. Tournier insists that
this is proof that the Bible thinks of people first and foremost, not as
fractions of the mass, or abstractions, or ideas, or cases, but as
persons. "The proper name," Dr. Tournier writes, "is the symbol of the
person. If I forget my patients' names, if I say to myself, 'Ah! There's
that gall-bladder type or that consumptive that I saw the other day,' I
am interesting myself more in their gall-bladders or in their lungs
than in themselves as persons." He insists that a patient must be always
a person, and never a case.
It is extremely unlikely that the scribes and the Pharisees even
knew this woman's name. To them she was nothing but a case of shameless
adultery that could now be used as an instrument to suit their
purposes. The minute people become things the spirit of Christianity is
dead.
God uses his authority to love men into goodness; to God no
person ever becomes a thing. We must use such authority as we have
always to understand and always at least to try to mend the person who
has made the mistake; and we will never even begin to do that unless we
remember that every man and woman is a person, not a thing.
Further, this incident tells us a great deal about Jesus and his attitude to the sinner.
(i) It was a first principle of Jesus that only the man
who himself is without fault has the right to express judgment on the
fault of others. "Judge not," said Jesus, "that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1).
He said that the man who attempted to judge his brother was like a man
with a plank in his own eye trying to take a speck of dust out of
someone else's eye (Matthew 7:3-5).
One of the commonest faults in life is that so many of us demand
standards from others that we never even try to meet ourselves; and so
many of us condemn faults in others which are glaringly obvious in our
own lives. The qualification for judging is not knowledge--we all
possess that; it is achievement in goodness--none of us is perfect
there. The very facts of the human situation mean that only God has the
right to judge, for the simple reason that no man is good enough to
judge any other.
(ii) It was also a first principle with Jesus that our
first emotion towards anyone who has made a mistake should be pity. It
has been said that the duty of the doctor is "sometimes to heal, often
to afford relief and always to bring consolation." When a person
suffering from some ailment is brought to a doctor, he does not regard
him with loathing even if he is suffering from a loathsome disease. In
fact the physical revulsion which is sometimes inevitable is swallowed
up by the great desire to help and to heal. When we are confronted with
someone who has made a mistake, our first feeling ought to be, not,
"I'll have nothing more to do with someone who could act like that,"
but, "What can I do to help? What can I do to undo the consequences of
this mistake?" Quite simply, we must always extend to others the same
compassionate pity we would wish to be extended to ourselves if we were
involved in a like situation.
(iii) It is very important that we should understand
just how Jesus did treat this woman. It is easy to draw the wrong lesson
altogether and to gain the impression that Jesus forgave lightly and
easily, as if the sin did not matter. What he said was: "I am not going
to condemn you just now; go, and sin no more." In effect what he was
doing was not to abandon judgment and say, "Don't worry; it's quite all
right." What he did was, as it were, to defer sentence. He said, "I am
not going to pass a final judgment now; go and prove that you can do
better. You have sinned; go and sin no more and I'll help you all the
time. At the end of the day we will see how you have lived." Jesus'
attitude to the sinner involved a number of things.
(a) It involved the second chance. It is as if Jesus
said to the woman: "I know you have made a mess of things; but life is
not finished yet; I am giving you another chance, the chance to redeem
yourself." Someone has written the lines:
"How I wish that there was some wonderful place
Called the Land of Beginning Again,
Where all our mistakes and all out heartaches
And all our poor selfish grief
Could be dropped like a shabby old coat at the door,
And never put on again."
In Jesus there is the gospel of the second chance. He was always
intensely interested, not only in what a person had been, but also in
what a person could be. He did not say that what they had done did not
matter; broken laws and broken hearts always matter; but he was sure
that every man has a future as well as a past.
(b) It involved pity. The basic difference between Jesus and the
scribes and Pharisees was that they wished to condemn; he wished to
forgive. If we read between the lines of this story it is quite clear
that they wished to stone this woman to death and were going to take
pleasure in doing so. They knew the thrill of exercising the power to
condemn; Jesus knew the thrill of exercising the power to forgive. Jesus
regarded the sinner with pity born of love; the scribes and Pharisees
regarded him with disgust born of self-righteousness.
(c) It involved challenge. Jesus confronted this woman with the
challenge of the sinless life. He did not say: "It's all right; don't
worry; just go on as you are doing." He said: "It's all wrong; go out
and fight; change your life from top to bottom; go, and sin no more."
Here was no easy forgiveness; here was a challenge which pointed a
sinner to heights of goodness of which she had never dreamed. Jesus
confronts the bad life with the challenge of the good.
(d) It involved belief in human nature. When we come to think of
it, it is a staggering thing that Jesus should say to a woman of loose
morals: "Go, and sin no more." The amazing, heart-uplifting thing about
him was his belief in men and women. When he was confronted with someone
who had gone wrong, he did not say: "You are a wretched and a hopeless
creature." He said: "Go, and sin no more." He believed that with his
help the sinner has it in him to become the saint. His method was not to
blast men with the knowledge--which they already possessed--that they
were miserable sinners, but to inspire them with the unglimpsed
discovery that they were potential saints.
(e) It involved warning, clearly unspoken but implied. Here we
are face to face with the eternal choice. Jesus confronted the woman
with a choice that day--either to go back to her old ways or to reach
out to the new way with him. This story is unfinished, for every life is
unfinished until it stands before God.
[As we noted at the beginning, this story does not appear in all
the ancient manuscripts. See the Note on the Story of the Woman Taken
in Adultery (John 8:2-11).]
Note On The Story Of The Woman Taken In Adultery (John 8:2-11)
To many this is one of the loveliest and the most precious stories in
the gospels; and yet it has great difficulties attaching to it.
The older the manuscripts of the New Testament are, the more
valuable they are. They were all copied by hand, and obviously the
nearer they are to the original writings the more likely they are to be
correct. We call these very early manuscripts the Uncial manuscripts,
because they are written in capital letters; and we base the text of
the, New Testament on the earliest ones, which date from the fourth to
the sixth century. The fact is that of all these early manuscripts this
story occurs only in one, and that is not one of the best. Six of them
omit it completely. Two leave a blank space where it should come. It is
not till we come to the late Greek manuscripts and the medieval
manuscripts that we find this story, and even then it is often marked to
show that it is doubtful.
Another source of our knowledge of the text of the New Testament
is what are called the versions; that is, the translations into
languages other than Greek. This story is not included in the early
Syriac version, nor in the Coptic or Egyptian version, nor in some of
the early Latin versions.
Again, none of the early fathers seems to know anything about
it. Certainly they never mention it or comment on it. Origen,
Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Cyril of Alexandria on the Greek
side do not mention it. The first Greek commentator to remark on it is
Euthymius Zigabenus whose date is A.D. 11 18, and even he says that it
is not in the best manuscripts.
Where, then, did this incident come from? Jerome certainly knew
it in the fourth century, for he included it in the Vulgate. We know
that Augustine and Ambrose both knew it, for they comment on it. We know
that it is in all the later manuscripts. It is to be noted that its
position varies a great deal. In some manuscripts it is put at the end
of the fourth gospel; and in some it is inserted after Luke 21:38.
But we can trace it even further back. It is quoted in a third
century book called The Apostolic Constitutions, where it is given as a
warning to bishops who are too strict. Eusebius, the Church historian,
says that Papias tells a story "of a woman who was accused of many sins
before the Lord," and Papias lived not very long after A.D. 100.
Here, then, are the facts. This story can be traced as far back
as very early in the second century. When Jerome produced the Vulgate
he, without question, included it. The later manuscripts and the
medieval manuscripts all have it. And yet none of the great manuscripts
includes it. None of the great Greek fathers of the Church ever mentions
it. But some of the great Latin fathers did know it, and speak of it.
What is the explanation? We need not be afraid that we shall
have to let this lovely story go; for it is guarantee enough of its
genuineness that we can trace it back to almost A.D. 100. But we do need
some explanation of the fact that none of the great manuscripts
includes it. Moffatt, Weymouth and Rieu print it in brackets; and the
Revised Standard Version prints it in small type at the foot of the
page.
Augustine gives us a hint. He says that this story was removed
from the text of the gospel because "some were of slight faith," and "to
avoid scandal." We cannot tell for certain, but it would seem that in
the very early days the people who edited the text of the New Testament
thought that this was a dangerous story, a justification for a light
view of adultery, and therefore omitted it. After all, the Christian
Church was a little island in a sea of paganism. Its members were so apt
to relapse into a way of life where chastity was unknown; and were for
ever open to pagan infection. But as time went on the danger grew less,
or was less feared, and the story, which had always circulated by word
of mouth and which one manuscript retained, came back.
It is not likely that it is now in the place where it ought to
be. It was probably inserted here to illustrate Jesus' saying in John 8:15
: "I judge no man." In spite of the doubt that the modern translations
cast on it, and in spite of the fact that the early manuscripts do not
include it, we may be sure that this is a real story about Jesus,
although one so gracious that for long men were afraid to tell it.
8:12-20 So Jesus again
continued to speak to them. "I am the Light of the World," he said. "He
who follows me will not walk in darkness, but he will have the light of
life." So the Pharisees said to him: "You are bearing witness about
yourself. Your witness is not true." Jesus answered: "Even if I do bear
witness about myself, my witness is true, because I know where I came
from and where I am going to. You do not know where I came from and
where I am going to. You form your judgments on purely human grounds. I
do not judge anyone. But if I do form a judgment, my judgment is true,
because I am not alone in my judgment, but I and the Father who sent me
join in such a judgment. It stands written in your law, that the witness
of two persons is to be accepted as true. It is I who witness about
myself, and the Father who sent me also witnesses about me." They said
to him: "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered: "You know neither me nor
my Father. If you had known me you would know my Father too." He spoke
these words in the treasury while he was teaching in the Temple
precincts; and no one laid violent hands upon him, because his hour had
not yet come.
The scene of this argument with the Jewish authorities was in
the Temple treasury, which was in the Court of the Women. The first
Temple court was the Court of the Gentiles; the second was the Court of
the Women. It was so called because women might not pass beyond it
unless they were actually about to offer sacrifice on the altar which
was in the Court of the Priests. Round the Court of the Women there was a
colonnade or porch; and, in that porch, set against the wall, there
were thirteen treasure chests into which people dropped their offerings.
These were called The Trumpets because they were shaped like trumpets,
narrow at the top and swelling out towards the foot.
The thirteen treasure chests all had their allotted offering.
Into the first two were dropped the half shekels which every Jew had to
pay towards the upkeep of the Temple. Into the third and fourth were
dropped sums which would purchase the two pigeons which a woman had to
offer for her purification after the birth of a child (Leviticus 12:8).
Into the fifth were put contributions towards the cost of the wood
which was needed to keep the altar fire alight. Into the sixth were
dropped contributions towards the cost of the incense which was used at
the Temple services. Into the seventh went contributions towards the
upkeep of the golden vessels which were used at these services.
Sometimes a man or a family set apart a certain sum to make some
trespass- or thank-offering; into the remaining six trumpets people
dropped any money which remained after such an offering had been made,
or anything extra which they wished to offer.
Clearly the Temple treasury would be a busy place, with a
constant flow of worshippers coming and going. There would be no better
place to collect an audience of devout people and to teach them than the
Temple treasury.
In this passage Jesus makes the great claim: "I am the Light of
the World." It is very likely that the background against which he made
it made it doubly vivid and impressive. The festival with which John
connects these discourses is the Festival of Tabernacles (John 7:2). We have already seen (John 7:37)
how its ceremonies lent drama to Jesus' claim to give to men the living
water. But there was another ceremony connected with this festival.
On the evening of its first day there was a ceremony called The
Illumination of the Temple. It took place in the Court of the Women. The
court was surrounded with deep galleries, erected to hold the
spectators. In the centre four great candelabra were prepared. When the
dark came the four great candelabra were lit and, it was said, they sent
such a blaze of light throughout Jerusalem that every courtyard was lit
up with their brilliance. Then all night long, until cock-crow the next
morning, the greatest and the wisest and the holiest men in Israel
danced before the Lord and sang psalms of joy and praise while the
people watched. Jesus is saying: "You have seen the blaze of the Temple
illuminations piercing the darkness of the night. I am the Light of the
World, and, for the man who follows me there will be light, not only for
one exciting night, but for all the pathway of his life. The light in
the Temple is a brilliant light, but in the end it flickers and dies. I
am the Light which lasts for ever."
Jesus said: "He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will
have the light of life." The light of life means two things. The Greek
can mean either the light which issues from the source of life or the
light which gives life. In this passage it means both. Jesus is the very
light of God come among men; and he is the light which gives men life.
Just as the flower can never blossom when it never sees the sunlight, so
our lives can never flower with the grace and beauty they ought to have
until they are irradiated with the light of the presence of Jesus.
In this passage Jesus talks of following himself. We often speak
of following Jesus; we often urge men to do so. What do we mean? The
Greek for to follow is akolouthein (Greek #190); and its meanings combine to shed a flood of light on what it means to follow Jesus. Akolouthein (Greek #190) has five different but closely connected meanings.
(i) It is often used of a soldier following his captain. On the
long route marches, into battle, in campaigns in strange lands, the
soldier follows wherever the captain may lead. The Christian is the
soldier whose commander is Christ.
(ii) It is often used of a slave accompanying his master.
Wherever the master goes the slave is in attendance upon him, always
ready to spring to his service and to carry out the tasks he gives him
to do. He is literally at his master's beck and call. The Christian is
the slave whose joy it is always to serve Christ.
(iii) It is often used of accepting a wise counsellor's opinion.
When a man is in doubt he goes to the expert, and if he is wise he
accepts the judgment he receives. The Christian is the man who guides
his life and conduct by the counsel of Christ.
(iv) It is often used of giving obedience to the laws of a city
or a state. If a man is to be a useful member of any society or citizen
of any community, he must agree to abide by its laws. The Christian,
being a citizen of the kingdom of heaven, accepts the law of the kingdom
and of Christ as the law which governs his life.
(v) It is often used of following a teacher's line of argument,
or of following the gist of someone's speech. The Christian is the man
who has understood the meaning of the teaching of Christ. He has not
listened in dull incomprehension or with slack inattention. He takes the
message into his mind and understands, receives the words into his
memory and remembers, and hides them in his heart and obeys.
To be a follower of Christ is to give oneself body, soul and
spirit into the obedience of the Master; and to enter upon that
following is to walk in the light. When we walk alone we are bound to
stumble and grope, for so many of life's problems are beyond our
solution. When we walk alone we are bound to take the wrong way, because
we have no secure map of life. We need the heavenly wisdom to walk the
earthly way. The man who has a sure guide and an accurate map is the man
who is bound to come in safety to his journey's end. Jesus Christ is
that guide; he alone possesses the map to life. To follow him is to walk
in safety through life and afterwards to enter into glory.
When Jesus made his claim to be the Light of the World the scribes
and Pharisees reacted with hostility. That claim would sound even more
astonishing to them than to us. To them it would sound like a claim--as
indeed it was--to be the Messiah, and, even more, to do the work that
only God could do. The word light was specially associated in Jewish
thought and language with God. "The Lord is my light" (Psalms 27:1). "The Lord will be your everlasting light" (Isaiah 60:19). "By his light I walked through darkness" (Job 29:3). "When I sit in darkness the Lord will be a light to me" (Micah 7:8).
The Rabbis declared that the name of the Messiah was Light. When Jesus
claimed to be the Light of the World, he was making a claim than which
none could possibly be higher.
The argument of this passage is difficult and complicated, but it involves three strands.
(i) The Jews first insisted that a statement such as Jesus made
could not be regarded as accurate because it was backed by insufficient
witness. It was, as they saw it, backed by his word alone; and it was
Jewish law that any statement must be founded on the evidence of two
witnesses before it could be regarded as true. "A single witness shall
not prevail against a man for any crime or for any wrong in connection
with any offence that he has committed; only on the evidence of two
witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall a charge be sustained" (Deuteronomy 19:15).
"On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses he that is to
die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the
evidence of one witness" (Deuteronomy 17:6). "No person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness" (Numbers 35:30). Jesus' answer was twofold.
First, he answered that his own witness was enough. He was so
conscious of his own authority that no other witness was necessary. This
was not pride or self-confidence. It was simply the supreme instance of
the kind of thing which happens every day. A great surgeon is confident
in his own verdict; he does not need anyone to support him; his witness
is his own skill. A great lawyer or judge is sure of his own
interpretation and application of the law. It is not that he is proud of
his own knowledge; it is simply that he knows that he knows. Jesus was
so aware of his closeness to God that he needed no other authority for
his claims than his own relationship to God.
Second, Jesus said that in point of fact he had a second
witness, and that second witness was God. How does God bear witness to
the supreme authority of Jesus? (a) The witness of God is in Jesus'
words. No man could speak with such wisdom unless God had given him
knowledge. (b) The witness of God is in Jesus' deeds. No man could do
such things unless God was acting through him. (c) The witness of God is
in the effect of Jesus upon men. He works changes in men which are
obviously beyond human power to work. The very fact that Jesus can make
bad men good is proof that his power is not simply a man's power, but
God's. (d) The witness of God is in the reaction of men to Jesus.
Wherever and whenever Jesus has been full displayed, wherever and
whenever the Cross has been preached in all its grandeur and its
splendour, there has been an immediate and overwhelming response in the
hearts of men. That response is the Holy Spirit of God working and
witnessing in the hearts of men. It is God in our hearts who enables us
to see God in Jesus.
Jesus dealt in this way with the argument of the scribes and
Pharisees that his words could not be accepted because of inadequate
witness. His words were in fact backed by a double witness, that of his
own consciousness of authority and that of God.
(ii) Second, Jesus dealt with his right to judge. His coming
into the world was not primarily for judgment; it was for love. At the
same time a man's reaction to Jesus is in itself a judgment; if he sees
no beauty in him, he condemns himself. Here Jesus draws a contrast
between two kinds of judgment.
(a) There is the judgment that is based on human knowledge and
human standards and which never sees below the surface. That was the
judgment of the scribes and Pharisees; and, in the last analysis, that
is any human judgment, for in the nature of things men can never see
below the surface of things.
(b) There is the judgment that is based on knowledge of all the
facts, even the hidden facts, and that can belong only to God. Jesus
claims that any judgment he passes is not a human one; it is
God's--because He is so one with God. Therein lies at once our comfort
and our warning. Only Jesus knows all the facts. That makes him merciful
as none other can ever be; but it also enables him to see the sins in
us which are hidden from the eyes of men. The judgment of Jesus is
perfect because it is made with the knowledge which belongs to God.
(iii) Lastly, Jesus bluntly told the scribes and Pharisees that
they had no real knowledge of God. The fact that they did not recognize
him for who and what he was was the proof that they did not. The tragedy
was that the whole history of Israel had been designed so that the Jews
should recognize the Son of God when he came; but they had become so
involved with their own ideas, so intent on their own way, so sure of
their own conception of what religion was that they had become blind to
God.
8:21-30 So he said to
them again: "I am going away, and you will search for me, and you will
die in your sin. You cannot come where I am going." So the Jews said:
"Surely he is not going to kill himself, because he is saying: 'You
cannot come where I am going'?" He said to them: "You are from below,
but I am from above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to
this world. I said to you that you will die in your sins. For if you
will not believe that I am who I am, you will die in your sins." They
said to him: "Who are you?" Jesus said to them: "Anything I am saying to
you is only the beginning. I have many things to say about you, and
many judgments to deliver on you; but he who sent me is true, and I
speak to the world what I have heard from him." They did not know that
it was about the Father that he was speaking to them. So Jesus said to
them: "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am who
I am, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but that I speak these
things as the Father has taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He
has not left me alone, because I always do the things that are pleasing
to him." As he said these things, many believed in him.
This is one of the passages of argument and debate so
characteristic of the Fourth Gospel and so difficult to elucidate and to
understand. In it various strands of argument are all woven together.
Jesus begins by telling his opponents that he is going away; and
that, after he is gone, they will realize what they have missed, and
will search for him and not find him. This is the true prophetic note.
It reminds us of three things: (i) There are certain opportunities which
come and which do not return. To every man is given the opportunity to
accept Christ as Saviour and Lord; but that opportunity can be refused
and lost. (ii) Implicit in this argument is the truth that life and time
are limited. It is within an allotted span that we must make our
decision for Christ. The time we have to make that decision is
limited--and none of us knows what his limit is. There is therefore
every reason for making it now. (iii) Just because there is opportunity
in life there is also judgment. The greater the opportunity, the more
clearly it beckons, the oftener it comes, the greater the judgment if it
be refused or missed. This passage brings us face to face with the
glory of our opportunity, and the limitation of time in which to seize
it.
When Jesus spoke about going away, he was speaking about his
return to his Father and to his glory. That was precisely where his
opponents could not follow him, because by their continuous disobedience
and their refusal to accept him, they had shut themselves off from God.
His opponents met his words with a grim and mocking jest. Jesus said
that they could not follow where he went; and they suggested that
perhaps he was going to kill himself. The point is that, according to
Jewish thought, the depths of hell were reserved for those who took
their own lives. With a kind of grim blasphemy, they were saying: "Maybe
he will take his own life; maybe he is on the way to the depths of
Hell"; it is true that we cannot and will not follow him there.
Jesus said that if they continued to refuse him they would die in their sins. That is a prophetic phrase (compare Ezekiel 3:18; Ezekiel 18:18).
There are two things involved there: (i) The word for sin is hamartia,
which originally had to do with shooting and literally means a missing
of the target. The man who refuses to accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord
has missed the target in life. He dies with life unrealized; and he
therefore dies unfitted to enter into the higher life with God. (ii) The
essence of sin is that it separates a man from God. When Adam, in the
old story, committed the first sin, his first instinct was to hide
himself from God (Genesis 3:8-10).
The man who dies in sin dies at enmity with God; the man who accepts
Christ already walks with God, and death only opens the way to a closer
walk. To refuse Christ is to be a stranger to God; to accept him is to
be the friend of God, and in that friendship the fear of death is for
ever banished.
Jesus goes on to draw a series of contrasts. His opponents belong to
earth, he is from heaven; they are of the world; he is not of the world.
John frequently talks about the world; the word in Greek is kosmos (Greek #2889). He uses it in a way that is all his own.
(i) The kosmos (Greek #2889) is the opposite of heaven. Jesus came from heaven into the world (John 1:9). He was sent by God into the world (John 3:17). He is not of the world; his opponents are of the world (John 8:23). The kosmos (Greek #2889)is the changing, transient life that we live; it is all that is human as opposed to all that is divine.
(ii) Yet the kosmos (Greek #2889) is not separated from God. First and foremost, it is God's creation (John 1:10).
It was through God's word that his world was made. Different as the
world is from heaven, there is yet no unbridgeable gulf between them.
(iii) More than that, the kosmos (Greek #2889) is the object of God's love. God so loved the world that he sent his Son (John 3:16).
However different it may be from all that is divine, God has never
abandoned it; it is the object of his love and the recipient of his
greatest gift.
(iv) But at the same time there is something wrong with the kosmos (Greek #2889). There is a blindness in it; when the Creator came into the world, it did not recognize him (John 1:10). The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth (John 14:17). The world does not know God (John 17:25). There is, too, an hostility to God in the kosmos (Greek #2889) and to his people. The world hates Christ and hates his followers (John 15:18-19). In its hostility Christ's followers can look only for trouble and tribulation (John 16:33).
(v) Here we have a strange sequence of facts. The world is
separate from God; and yet between it and God there is no gulf which
cannot be spanned. God created the world; God loves it; God sent his Son
into it. And yet in it, there is this blindness and hostility to him.
There is only one possible conclusion. G. K. Chesterton once
said that there was only one thing certain about man--that man is not
what he was meant to be. There is only one thing certain about the
kosmos (Greek #2889),
it is not what it was meant to be. Something has gone wrong. That
something is sin. It is sin which separated the world from God; it is
sin which blinds it to God; it is sin which is fundamentally hostile to
God.
Into this world which has gone wrong comes Christ; and Christ
comes with the cure. He brings forgiveness; he brings cleansing; he
brings strength and grace to live as man ought and to make the world
what it ought to be. But a man can refuse a cure. A doctor may tell a
patient that a certain treatment is able to restore him to health; he
may actually tell him that if he does not accept the treatment, death is
inevitable. That is precisely what Jesus is saying: "If you will not
believe that I am who I am you will die in your sins."
There is something wrong with the world--anyone can see that.
Only recognition of Jesus Christ as the Son of God, obedience to his
perfect wisdom and acceptance of him as Saviour and Lord can cure the
individual soul and cure the world.
We are only too well aware of the disease which haunts and
wrecks the world; the cure lies before us. The responsibility is ours if
we refuse to accept it.
There is no verse in all the New Testament more difficult to translate than John 8:25.
No one can really be sure what the Greek means. It could mean: "Even
what I have told you from the beginning," which is the meaning the
Revised Standard Version takes. Other suggested translations are:
"Primarily, essentially, I am what I am telling you." "I declare to you
that I am the beginning." "How is it that I even speak to you at all?"
which is the translation of Moffatt. It is suggested in our translation
that it may mean: "Everything I am saying to you now is only a
beginning." If we take it like that, the passage goes on to say that men
will see the real meaning of Christ in three ways.
(i) They will see it in the Cross. It is when Christ is lifted
up that we really see what he is. It is there we see the love that will
never let men go and which loves them to the end.
(ii) They will see it in the Judgment. He has many judgments
still to pass. At the moment he might look like the outlawed carpenter
of Nazareth; but the day will come when they will see him as judge and
know what he is.
(iii) When that happens they will see in him the embodied will
of God. "I always do the things that are pleasing to him," Jesus said.
Other men however good are spasmodic in their obedience. The obedience
of Jesus is continuous, perfect and complete. The day must come when men
see that in him is the very mind of God.
8:31-32 So Jesus said
to the Jews who had come to believe in him: "If you remain in my word,
you are truly my disciples: and you will know the truth: and the truth
will make you free."
Few New Testament passages have such a complete picture of discipleship as this.
(i) Discipleship begins with belief. Its beginning is the moment
when a man accepts what Jesus says as true, all that he says about the
love of God, all that he says about the terror of sin, all that he says
about the real meaning of life.
(ii) Discipleship means constantly remaining in the word of Jesus and that involves four things.
(a) It involves constant listening to the word of Jesus. It was
said of John Brown of Haddington that when he preached he paused every
now and then as if listening for a voice. The Christian is the man who
all his life listens for the voice of Jesus and will take no decision
until he has first heard what he has to say.
(b) It involves constant learning from Jesus. The disciple (mathetes, Greek #3101)
is literally the learner, for that is what the Greek word means. All
his life a Christian should be learning more and more about Jesus. The
shut mind is the end of discipleship.
(c) It involves constant penetrating into the truth which the
words of Jesus bear. No one can hear or read the words of Jesus once and
then say that he understands their full meaning. The difference between
a great book and an ephemeral one lies in the fact that we read an
ephemeral book once and never wish to go back to it; whereas we read a
great book many times. To remain in the word of Jesus means constantly
to study and think about what he said until more and more of its meaning
becomes ours.
(d) It involves constant obeying of the word of Jesus. We study
it not simply for academic satisfaction or for intellectual
appreciation, but in order to find out what God wishes us to do. The
disciple is the learner who learns in order to do. The truth which Jesus
brought is designed for action.
(iii) Discipleship issues in knowledge of the truth. To learn
from Jesus is to learn the truth. "You will know the truth," said Jesus.
What is that truth? There are many possible answers to that question
but the most comprehensive way to put it is that the truth which Jesus
brings shows us the real values of life. The fundamental question to
which every man has consciously or unconsciously to give an answer is:
"To what am I to give my life? To a career? To the amassing of material
possessions? To pleasure? To the service of God?" In the truth of Jesus
we see what things are really important and what are not.
(iv) Discipleship results in freedom. "The truth will make you
free." "In his service is perfect freedom." Discipleship brings us four
freedoms. (a) It brings us freedom from fear. The man who is a disciple
never again has to walk alone. He walks for ever in the company of
Jesus, and in that company fear is gone. (b) It brings freedom from
self. Many a man fully recognizes that his greatest handicap is his own
self. And he may in despair cry out: "I cannot change myself. I have
tried, but it is impossible." But the power and presence of Jesus can
re-create a man until he is altogether new. (c) It brings freedom from
other people. There are many whose lives are dominated by the fear of
what other people may think and say. H. G. Wells once said that the
voice of our neighbours sounds louder in our ears than the voice of God.
The disciple is the man who has ceased to care what people say, because
he thinks only of what God says. (d) It brings freedom from sin. Many a
man has come to the stage when he sins, not because he wants to, but
because he cannot help it. His sins have so mastered him that, try as he
will, he cannot break away from them. Discipleship breaks the chains
which bind us to them and enables us to be the persons we know we ought
to be.
O that a man may arise in me
That the man I am may cease to be
That is the very prayer which the disciple of Christ will find answered.
8:33-36 They answered
him: "We are the descendants of Abraham and we have never been slaves to
any man. How do you say: 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them:
"This is the truth I tell you--everyone who commits sin is the slave of
sin. The slave is not a permanent resident in the house; the son is a
permanent resident. If the son shall make you free you will be really
free."
Jesus' talk of freedom annoyed the Jews. They claimed that they
had never been slaves to any man. Obviously there was a sense in which
this was simply not true. They had been captives in exile in Babylon;
and at the moment they were subjects of the Romans. But the Jews set a
tremendous value on freedom which they held to be the birthright of
every Jew. In the Law it was laid down that no Jew, however poor, must
descend to the level of being a slave. "And if your brother becomes poor
beside you, and sells himself to you, you shall not make him serve as a
slave: ... For they are my servants, whom I brought forth out of the
land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves" (Leviticus 25:39-42).
Again and again Jewish rebellions flared up because some fiery leader
arose who insisted that the Jews could obey no earthly ruler because God
was their only King.
Josephus writes of the followers of Judas of Galilee who led a
famous revolt against the Romans: "They have an inviolable attachment to
liberty, and they say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord"
(Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18: 1, 6). When the Jews said that
they had been no man's slaves they were saying something which was a
fundamental article of their creed of life. And even if it was true that
there had been times when they were subject to other nations, even if
it was true that at that very moment they were subject to Rome, it was
also true that even in servitude they maintained an independence of
spirit which meant that they might be slaves in body but never in soul.
Cyril of Jerusalem wrote of Joseph: "Joseph was sold to be a bond slave,
yet he was free, all radiant in the nobility of his soul." Even to
suggest to a Jew that he might be regarded as a slave was a deadly
insult.
But it was another slavery of which Jesus was speaking.
"Everyone," he said, "who commits sin is the slave of sin." Jesus was
reiterating a principle which the wise Greeks had stated again and
again. The Stoics said: "Only the wise man is free; the foolish man is a
slave." Socrates had demanded: "How can you call a man free when his
pleasures rule over him?" Paul later was to thank God that the Christian
was freed from slavery to sin (Romans 6:17-20).
There is something very interesting and very suggestive here.
Sometimes when a man is rebuked for doing something wrong or warned
against such a thing, his answer is: "Surely I can do what I like with
my own life." But the point is that the man who sins does not do what he
likes; he does what sin likes. A man can let a habit get such a grip of
him that he cannot break it. He can allow a pleasure to master him so
completely that he cannot do without it. He can let some self-indulgence
so dominate him that he is powerless to break away from it. He can get
into such a state that in the end, as Seneca said, he hates and loves
his sins at one and the same time. So far from doing what he likes, the
sinner has lost the power to do what he likes. He is a slave to the
habits, the self-indulgences, the wrong pleasures which have mastered
him. This is precisely Jesus' point. No man who sins can ever be said to
be free.
Then Jesus makes a veiled threat, but one which the listening
Jews would well understand. The word slave reminds him that in any
household there is a difference between the slave and the son. The son
is a permanent dweller in the household, but the slave can be ejected at
any time. In effect Jesus is saying to the Jews: "You think that you
are sons in God's house and that nothing, therefore, can ever banish you
from God. Have a care; by your conduct you are making yourselves
slaves, and the slave can be ejected from the master's presence at any
time." Here is a threat. It is a terrible thing to trade on the mercy of
God--and that is what the Jews were doing. There is warning here for
more than the Jews.
8:37-41a "I know that
you are the descendants of Abraham, but you are trying to find a way to
kill me, because there is no room in you for my word. I speak what I
have seen in the presence of the Father. So you must do what you have
heard from the Father." "Our father is Abraham," they answered. "If,"
answered Jesus, "you are the children of Abraham, act as Abraham acted.
But, as it is, you are trying to find a way to kill me, a man who has
spoken the truth to you, truth which I heard from God. That Abraham did
not do. As for you, you do the works of your father."
In this passage Jesus is dealing a death-blow to a claim which
to the Jews was all-important. For the Jew Abraham was the greatest
figure in all religious history; and the Jew considered himself safe and
secure in the favour of God simply because he was a descendant of
Abraham. The psalmist could address the people as : "O offspring of
Abraham his servant, sons of Jacob, his chosen ones!" (Psalms 105:6).
Isaiah said to the people: "But you, Israel, (are) my servant, Jacob,
whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend" (Isaiah 41:8).
The admiration which the Jews gave to Abraham was perfectly legitimate,
for he is a giant in the religious history of mankind, but the
deductions they drew from his greatness were quite misguided. They
believed that Abraham had gained such merit from his goodness that this
merit was sufficient, not only for himself, but for all his descendants
also. Justin Martyr had a discussion with Trypho the Jew about Jewish
religion and the conclusion was that, "the eternal kingdom will be given
to those who are the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, even
though they be sinners and unbelievers and disobedient to God" (Justin
Martyr, The Dialogue with Trypho, 140). Quite literally the Jew believed
that he was safe because he was a descendant of Abraham.
The attitude of the Jews is not without parallel in modern life.
(a) There are still those who try to live on a pedigree? and a
name. At some time in the history of their family someone performed some
really outstanding service to church or state, and ever since they have
claimed a special place because of that. But a great name should never
be an excuse for comfortable inaction; it should always be an
inspiration to new effort.
(b) There are those who try to live on a history and a
tradition. Many a church has a quite undue sense of its own importance
because at one time it had a famous ministry. There is many a
congregation living on the spiritual capital of the past; but if capital
be always drawn upon and never butt up anew, the day inevitably comes
when it is exhausted.
No man or church or nation can live on the achievements of the past. That is what the Jews were trying to do.
Jesus is quite blunt about this. He declares in effect that the
real descendant of Abraham is the man who acts in the way in which
Abraham acted. That is exactly what John the Baptist had said before. He
had told the people plainly that the day of judgment was on the way and
that it was no good pleading that they were descendants of Abraham, for
God could raise up descendants to Abraham from the very stones, if he
chose to do so (Matthew 3:9; Luke 3:8).
It was the argument which again and again Paul was to use. It was not
flesh and blood which made a man a descendant of Abraham; it was moral
quality and spiritual fidelity.
In this particular matter Jesus ties it down to one thing. They
are seeking a way to kill him; that is precisely the opposite of what
Abraham did. When a messenger from God came to him, Abraham welcomed him
with all eagerness and reverence (Genesis 18:1-8).
Abraham had welcomed God's messenger; the Jews of the present were
trying to kill God's messenger. How could they dare cam themselves
descendants of Abraham, when their conduct was so very different?
By calling to mind the old story in Genesis 18:1-33
, Jesus is implying that he too is the messenger of God. Then he makes
the claim explicit: "I speak what I have seen in the presence of the
Father." The fundamental thing about Jesus is that he brought to men,
not his own opinions, but a message from God. He was not simply a man
telling other men what he thought about things; he was the Son of God
telling men what God thought. He told men the truth as God sees it.
At the end of this passage comes a shattering statement. "You,"
said Jesus, "do the works of your father." He has just said that Abraham
is not their father. Who then is their father? For a moment the full
impact is held back. It comes in John 8:44
--their father is the devil. Those who had gloried in the claim that
they are the children of Abraham are devastatingly confronted with the
charge that they are children of the devil. Their works had revealed
their true sonship, for man can prove his kinship to God only by his
conduct.
8:41b-45 They said to
him: "We were born of no adulterous union. We have one Father--God." "If
God was your Father," said Jesus, "you would love me. For it was from
God that I came forth and have come here. I had nothing to do with my
own coming, but it was he who sent me. Why do you not understand what I
am saying? The reason is that you are unable to hear my word. You belong
to your father, the devil, and it is the evil desires of your father
that you wish to do. He was a murderer from the very beginning, and he
never took his stand in the truth, because the truth is not in him. When
he speaks falsehood it is his characteristic way of speaking, because
he is a liar and the father of falsehood. But because I speak the truth,
you do not believe in me."
Jesus had just told the Jews that by their life and conduct and
by their reaction to him they had made it clear that they were no real
children of Abraham. Their reaction was to make an even greater claim.
They claimed that God was their Father. All over the Old Testament there
is repeated the fact that God was in a special way the Father of his
people Israel. God commanded Moses to say to Pharaoh: "Thus saith the
Lord, Israel is my firstborn son" (Exodus 4:22).
When Moses was chiding the people for their disobedience, his appeal
was: "Do you thus requite the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is
not he your Father who created you?" (Deuteronomy 32:6).
Isaiah speaks of his trust in God: "For thou art our Father, though
Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; thou, O
Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name" (Isaiah 63:16). "Yet, O Lord, thou art our Father" (Isaiah 64:8). "Have we not all one Father?" demanded Malachi. "Has not one God created us?" (Malachi 2:10). So the Jews claimed that God was their Father.
"We," they said proudly, "were born of no adulterous union."
There may be two things there. In the Old Testament one of the loveliest
descriptions of the nation of Israel is that which sees in her the
Bride of God. Because of that when Israel forsook God, she was said to
go awhoring after strange gods; her infidelity was spiritual adultery.
When the nation was thus faithless, the apostate people were said to be
"children of harlotry" (Hosea 2:4).
So when the Jews said to Jesus that they were not the children of any
adulterous union, they meant that they did not belong to a nation of
idolaters but they had always worshipped the true God. It was a claim
that they had never gone astray from God--a claim that only a people
steeped in self-righteousness would ever have dared make.
But when the Jews spoke like this, there may have been something
much more personal in it. It is certainly true in later times that the
Jews spread abroad a most malicious slander against Jesus. The
Christians very early preached the miraculous birth of Jesus. The Jews
put it about that Mary had been unfaithful to Joseph; that her paramour
had been a Roman soldier called Panthers; and that Jesus was the child
of that adulterous union. It is just possible that the Jews were
flinging at Jesus even then an insult over his birth, as if to say:
"What right have you to speak to the like of us as you do?"
Jesus' answer to the claim of the Jews is that it is false; and
the proof is that if God was really their Father, they would have loved
and welcomed him. Here again is the key thought of the Fourth Gospel;
the test of a man is his reaction to Jesus. To be confronted with Jesus
is to be confronted with judgment; he is the touchstone of God by which
all men are judged.
Jesus' closeknit indictment goes on. He asks "Why do you not
understand what I am saying?" The answer is terrible--not that they are
intellectually stupid, but that they are spiritually deaf. They refuse
to hear and they refuse to understand. A man can stop his ears to any
warning; if he goes on doing that long enough, he becomes spiritually
deaf. In the last analysis, a man will only hear what he wishes to hear;
and if for long enough he attunes his ears to his own desires and to
the wrong voices, in the end he will be unable to tune in at all to the
wavelength of God. That is what the Jews had done.
Then comes the scarifying accusation. The real father of the Jews is the devil. Jesus chooses two characteristics of him.
(i) The devil is characteristically a murderer. There may be two
things in Jesus' mind. He may be thinking back to the old Cain and Abel
story. Cain was the first murderer and he was inspired by the devil. He
may be thinking of something even more serious than that. It was the
devil who first tempted man in the old Genesis story. Through the devil
sin entered into the world; and through sin came death (Romans 5:13).
If there had been no temptation, there would have been no sin; and, if
there had been no sin, there would have been no death; and therefore, in
a sense, the devil is the murderer of the whole human race.
But, even apart from the old stories, the fact remains that
Christ leads to life and the devil to death. The devil murders goodness,
chastity, honour, honesty, beauty, all that makes life lovely; he
murders peace of mind and happiness and even love. Evil
characteristically destroys; Christ characteristically brings life. At
that very moment the Jews were plotting how to kill Christ; they were
taking the devil's way.
(ii) The devil characteristically loves falsehood. Every lie is
inspired by the devil and does the devil's work. Falsehood always hates
the truth, and always tries to destroy it. When the Jews and Jesus met,
the false way met the true, and inevitably the false tried to destroy
the true.
Jesus indicted the Jews as children of the devil because their
thoughts were bent on the destruction of the good and the maintaining of
the false. Every man who tries to destroy the truth is doing the
devil's work.
8:46-50 "Who of you
can convict me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe in
me? He who is from God hears God's words. That is why you do not hear,
because you are not from God." The Jews answered: "Are we not right in
saying that you are a Samaritan, and that you have a devil?" Jesus
answered: "It is not I who have a devil. I honour my Father, but you
dishonour me. I do not seek my own glory. There is One who seeks and
judges."
We must try to see this scene happening before our eyes. There
is drama here, and it is not only in the words, but in the pauses
between them. Jesus began with a tremendous claim. "Is there anyone
here," he demanded, "who can point the finger at any evil in my life?"
Then must have followed a silence during which the eyes of Jesus ranged
round the crowd waiting for anyone to accept the extraordinary challenge
that he had thrown down. The silence went on. Search as they like, none
could formulate a charge against him. When he had given them their
chance, Jesus spoke again. "You admit," he said, "that you can find no
charge against me. Then why do you not accept what I say?" Again there
was an uncomfortable silence. Then Jesus answered his own question. "You
do not accept my words," he said, "because you are not from God."
What did Jesus mean? Think of it this way. No experience can
enter into a man's mind and heart unless there is something there to
answer to it; and a man may lack the something essential which will
enable him to have the experience. A man who is tone deaf cannot
experience the thrill of music. A man who is colour blind cannot fully
appreciate a picture. A man with no sense of time and rhythm cannot
fully appreciate ballet or dancing.
Now the Jews had a very wonderful way of thinking of the Spirit
of God. They believed that he had two great functions. He revealed God's
truth to men; and he enabled men to recognize and grasp that truth when
they saw it. That quite clearly means that unless the Spirit of God is
in a man's heart he cannot recognize God's truth when he sees it. And it
also means that if a man shuts the door of his heart against the Spirit
of God, then, even when the truth is full displayed before his eyes, he
is quite unable to see it and recognize it and grasp it and make it
his.
Jesus was saying to the Jews: "You have gone your own way and
followed your own ideas; the Spirit of God has been unable to gain an
entry into your hearts; that is why you cannot recognize me and that is
why you will not accept my words." The Jews believed they were religious
people; but because they had clung to their idea of religion instead of
to God's idea, they had in the end drifted so far from God that they
had become godless. They were in the terrible position of men who were
godlessly serving God.
To be told that they were strangers to God stung the Jews to the
quick. They hurled their invective against Jesus. As our present form
of the words has it they accused him of being a Samaritan and of being
mad. What did they mean by calling him a Samaritan? They meant that he
was a foe of Israel, for there was deadly enmity between the Jews and
the Samaritans, that he was a law breaker because he did not observe the
law, and above all that he was a heretic, for Samaritan and heretic had
become synonymous. It would be extraordinary that the Son of God should
be branded as a heretic. And beyond a doubt it would happen to him
again if he returned to this world and its churches.
But it is just possible that the word Samaritan is really a
corruption of something else. To begin with, we note that Jesus replied
to the charge that he was mad, but did not reply to the charge that he
was a Samaritan. That makes us wonder if we have the charge of the Jews
rightly stated. In the original Aramaic the word for Samaritan would be
Shomeroni (compare Hebrew #8111).
Shomeron was also a title for the prince of the devils, otherwise
called Ashmedai and Sammael and Satan. In point of fact the Koran, the
Mohammedan bible, actually says that the Jews were seduced into idolatry
by Shomeron, the prince of the devils. So the word Shomeroni could
quite well mean a child of the devil. It is very likely that what the
Jews said to Jesus was: "You are a child of the devil; you have a devil;
you are mad with the madness of the Evil One."
His answer was that, so far from being a servant of the devil,
his one aim was to honour God, while the conduct of the Jews was a
continual dishonouring of God. He says in effect: "It is not I who have a
devil; it is you."
Then comes the radiance of the supreme faith of Jesus. He says:
"I am not looking for honour in this world: I know that I will be
insulted and rejected and dishonoured and crucified. But there is One
who will one day assess things at their true value and assign to men
their true honour; and he will give me the honour which is real because
it is his." Of one thing Jesus was sure--ultimately God will protect the
honour of his own. In time Jesus saw nothing but pain and dishonour and
rejection; in eternity he saw only the glory which he who is obedient
to God will some day receive. In Paracelsus Browning wrote:
"If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God's lamp
Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day."
Jesus had the supreme optimism born of supreme faith, the optimism which is rooted in God.
8:51-55 "This is the
truth I tell you--if anyone keeps my word, he will not see death for
ever." The Jews said to him: "Now we are certain that you are mad.
Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you are saying: 'If anyone
keeps my word, he will not taste of death for ever.' Surely you are not
greater than our father Abraham who did die? And the prophets died too.
Who are you making yourself out to be?" Jesus answered: "It is my Father
who glorifies me, that Father, who, you claim, is your God, and yet you
know nothing about him. But I know him. If I were to say that I do not
know him, I would be a liar, like you. But I know him and I keep his
word."
This chapter passes from lightning flash to lightning flash of
astonishment. Jesus makes claim after claim, each more tremendous than
the one which went before. Here he makes the claim that if anyone keeps
his words, he will never know death. It shocked the Jews. Zechariah had
said: "Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live for
ever?" (Zechariah 1:5).
Abraham was dead; the prophets were dead; and had they not, in their
day and generation, kept the word of God? Who is Jesus to set himself
above the great ones of the faith? It is the literalmindedness of the
Jews which blocks their intelligence. It is not physical life and
physical death of which Jesus is thinking. He means that, for the man
who fully accepts him, death has lost its finality; he has entered into a
relationship with God which neither time nor eternity can sever. He
goes, not from life to death, but from life to life; death is only the
introduction to the nearer presence of God.
From that Jesus goes on to make a great statement--all true
honour must come from God. It is not difficult to honour oneself; it is
easy enough--in fact, fatally easy--to bask in the sunshine of one's own
approval. It is not over difficult to win honour from men; the world
honours the successful man. But the real honour is the honour which only
eternity can reveal; and the verdicts of eternity are not the verdicts
of time.
Then Jesus makes the two claims which are the very foundation of his life.
(i) He claims unique knowledge of God. He claims to know him as
no one else ever has known him or ever will. Nor will he lower that
claim, for to do so would be a lie. The only way to full knowledge of
the heart and mind of God is through Jesus Christ. With our own minds we
can reach fragments of knowledge about God; but only in Jesus Christ is
the full orb of truth, for only in him do we see what God is like.
(ii) He claims unique obedience to God. To look at Jesus is to
be able to say; "This is how God wishes me to live." To look at his life
is to say: "This is serving God."
In Jesus alone we see what God wants us to know and what God wants us to be.
8:56-59 "Abraham your
father rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it and was glad." The Jews
said to him: "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen
Abraham?" Jesus said to them: "This is the truth I tell you--before
Abraham was I am." So they lifted stones to throw them at him, but Jesus
slipped out of their sight, and went out of the Temple precincts.
All the previous lightning flashes pale into significance
before the blaze of this passage. When Jesus said to the Jews that
Abraham rejoiced to see his day, he was talking language that they could
understand. The Jews had many beliefs about Abraham which would enable
them to see what Jesus was implying. There were altogether five
different ways in which they would interpret this passage.
(a) Abraham was living in Paradise and able to see what was
happening on earth. Jesus used that idea in the Parable of Dives and
Lazarus (Luke 16:22-31). That is the simplest way to interpret this saying.
(b) But that is not the correct interpretation. Jesus said
Abraham rejoiced to see my day, the past tense. The Jews interpreted
many passages of scripture in a way that explains this. They took the
great promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3
: "By you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves," and
said that when that promise was made, Abraham knew that it meant that
the Messiah of God was to come from his line and rejoiced at the
magnificence of the promise.
(c) Some of the Rabbis held that in Genesis 15:8-21
Abraham was given a vision of the whole future of the nation of Israel
and therefore had a vision beforehand of the time when the Messiah would
come.
(d) Some of the Rabbis took Genesis 17:17,
which tells how Abraham laughed when he heard that a son would be born
to him, not as a laugh of unbelief, but as a laugh of sheer joy that
from him the Messiah would come.
(e) Some of the Rabbis had a fanciful interpretation of Genesis 24:1.
There the Revised Standard Version has it that Abraham was "well
advanced in years." The margin of the King James Version tells us that
the Hebrew literally means that Abraham had "gone into days." Some of
the Rabbis held that to mean that in a vision given by God Abraham had
entered into the days which lay ahead, and had seen the whole history of
the people and the coming of the Messiah.
From all this we see clearly that the Jews did believe that
somehow Abraham, while he was still alive, had a vision of the history
of Israel and the coming of the Messiah. So when Jesus said that Abraham
had seen his day, he was making a deliberate claim that he was the
Messiah. He was really saying: "I am the Messiah Abraham saw in his
vision."
Immediately Jesus goes on to say of Abraham: "He saw it (my day)
and was glad." Some of the early Christians had a very fanciful
interpretation of that. In 1 Peter 3:18-22 and 1 Peter 4:6
we have the two passages which are the basis of that doctrine which
became imbedded in the creed in the phrase, "He descended into Hell." It
is to be noted that the word Hell gives the wrong idea; it ought to be
Hades. The idea is not that Jesus went to the place of the tortured and
the damned, as the word Hell suggests. Hades was the land of the shadows
where all the dead, good and bad alike, went; in which the Jews
believed before the full belief in immortality came to them. The
apocryphal work called the Gospel of Nicodemus or the Acts of Pilate has
a passage which runs: "O Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection and the
life of the world, give us grace that we may tell of thy resurrection
and of thy marvellous works, which thou didst in Hades. We. then, were
in Hades together with all them that have fallen asleep since the
beginning. And at the hour of midnight there rose upon those dark places
as it were the light of the sun, and shined, and all we were
enlightened and beheld one another. And straightway our father Abraham,
together with the patriarchs and the prophets, were at once filled with
joy and said to one another: 'This light cometh of the great
lightening.'" The dead saw Jesus and were, given the chance to believe
and to repent; and at that sight Abraham rejoiced.
To us these ideas are strange; to a Jew they were quite normal,
for he believed that Abraham had already seen the day when the Messiah
would come.
The Jews, although they knew better, chose to take this
literally. "How," they demanded, "can you have seen Abraham when you are
not yet fifty?" Why fifty? That was the age at which the Levites
retired from their service (Numbers 4:3).
The Jews were saying to Jesus: "You are a young man, still in the prime
of life, not even old enough to retire from service. How can you
possibly have seen Abraham? This is mad talk." It was then that Jesus
made that most staggering statement: "Before Abraham was, I am." We must
note carefully that Jesus did not say: "Before Abraham was, I was,"
but, "Before Abraham was, I am." Here is the claim that Jesus is
timeless. There never was a time when he came into being; there never
will be a time when he is not in being.
What did he mean? Obviously he did not mean that he, the human
figure Jesus, had always existed. We know that Jesus was born into this
world at Bethlehem; there is more than that here. Think of it this way.
There is only one person in the universe who is timeless; and that one
person is God. What Jesus is saying here is nothing less than that the
life in him is the life of God; he is saying, as the writer of the
Hebrews put it more simply, that he is the same yesterday, today and
forever. In Jesus we see, not simply a man who came and lived and died;
we see the timeless God, who was the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of
Jacob, who was before time and who will be after time, who always is. In
Jesus the eternal God showed himself to men.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)