Challenging Christ’s Deity (John 10:31–42)

Series: “John: Life in Christ’s Name”Text: John 10:31–42

By: Shaun Marksbury Date: December 3, 2023

Venue: Living Water Baptist ChurchOccasion: AM Service

Introduction

As we enter the Advent season, we begin to see many Christmas decorations. One of the traditional decorations, of course, to see amongst Christians is the nativity scene. It’s a reminder to us of the birth of our Savior and a testimony to the lost world of the true meaning of the holiday.

Yet, we sometimes wonder how accurate our displays are, for we must make assumptions. One of the greatest, of course, is what the baby looked like. We understand that Mary and Joseph were Jewish, and that Jesus was born to the tribe of Judah, yet we’ve seen many images which reflect more of a European ancestry. Those were not intentional misinterpretations — many people in the Renaissance painted what they saw in their immediate vicinity, and they used their neighbors as models. Still, the effects of that are still present today, with many nativities depicting a blond-haired, blue-eyed newborn in the manger.

I’m not saying you should throw away any nativity scenes you have which don’t depict Christ as ethnically Jewish. That is, unless you are tempted to imagine the image before you as you pray — in that case, the problem is idolatry. Images can become a hinderance to us at times, so we must keep the proper perspective.

Of course, we don’t need paintings and statues to throw off our thinking, for our hearts may craft idols without hands. The Jewish leadership at the time of Christ had a mental image of what the Messiah would be. As such, they rejected Jesus because He didn’t align with what they imagined.

Because of their wrong thinking, they could not accept any messianic claim from Jesus, including the claim that He is the Son of God. As such, we see them again challenge Him in a lethal manner this morning. What does He do? In this passage, we’ll see Jesus answer their challenge in a three-fold way. We’ll then see Jesus apply His control. Finally, we’ll see Him attract many converts. Let’s consider the first of these.

Jesus Answers to Their Challenge (vv. 31–38)

The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.

In this opening verse, we see the trial before our Lord. Just as they did back in John 8:59, they again pick up stones with the intent of ending His life. In fact, the state of the verb suggests that they may have brought the stones in “from a distance.” As one commentary notes, it is as if they “were preparing things for his execution without any judicial process.” Jesus may have silently allowed them a chance to gather their stones before responding.

Why do they do this? As we see in v. 33, they say He made Himself out to be God. This is the same reason they’ve had for wanting to murder Him since John 5:18 — because He “was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” Why did Jesus’s words warrant such an action?

On the surface, their argument has merit. According to Leviticus 24:16, blasphemy (irreverence toward God) was a capital offense. A mere man claiming to be God would depreciate the glory of God in the minds of those who believe him. Yet, Jesus is no mere man.

There were other problems with their action. As the Jewish leadership confesses in John 18:31, the Roman government disallowed them from conducting capital punishment. This was usually through crucifixion, a much more horrendous death than stoning (which may have involved large stones, rendering the convicted unconscious and providing a swifter death by comparison). Yet, the Romans did not have perfect control over the region, and there were periodic mob killings. One commentary calls this “lynch law,” which accounts the later stoning of Stephen in Acts 7 as well as the attacks against Christ in the Gospels.

Surprisingly, Jesus seems to give them time. He doesn’t flee because He is in complete control. He instead answers their challenge to His claim of deity. First, Jesus calls them to question their actions. Second, Jesus calls them to consider their Law. Third, Jesus calls them to consider His works. Let’s consider the first of these.

First, Jesus calls them to question their actions (vv. 32–33)

Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”

We see Jesus answering them with a question stating a clear fact. He has been doing good works, specifically, the good works of the Father. Since the confrontation in John 8, they understand now that He has been speaking of God when He tells them of the Father. So, He’s not just asking them a question; He’s telling them to consider how incongruous, how ludicrous it is that God’s people would stone someone for doing God’s work.

They will not accept this view, though. When they reply, though, it’s interesting that they don’t say anything about Him doing God’s work. That’s a glaring omission, because they were debating whether His works were indeed the work of God.

Yet, they do seem to concede, at least for the moment, that He’s performed good works. They were, of course, upset that He had healed on the Sabbath. Still, they could not deny that the healing of diseases, restoration of sight and mobility, and the casting out of demons were all beneficial acts to the recipients. One wonders why they wouldn’t take that extra step and consider His to be the good works of the Father Himself!

Their charge was that of blasphemy. As one commentary notes, “Jesus did not walk around Palestine saying ‘I am God,’ but His interpretation of the Sabbath and His words about His union with the Father revealed His claim of oneness in nature with God.” The leaders knew what Jesus was claiming, and Jesus never refuted this notion — which one might expect in an act of self-preservation. Jesus was indeed claiming to be divine, and they would not accept this nor His claims to be the Messiah.

Yet, if He is performing the works of the Father, then the conclusion should be clear. Before He gets there, though, Jesus takes them to an interesting text of Scripture. He wants them to consider what God has already revealed, which is where we turn next.

Second, Jesus calls them to consider their Law (vv. 34–36)

Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”

The religious leaders thought Jesus to be merely a man making Himself God. Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t directly deny this. Sadly, some try to twist the meaning of His response in these verses to be a subtle denial. That’s not only a misreading, but it doesn’t fit the tension in the moment. If Jesus were not claiming to be God, He would certainly seek to clear up such a supposed misunderstanding under the threat of stoning! Jesus instead engages in an argument crafted on logic that only the religious elite could understand.

I say that because, first, Jesus references a very difficult portion of Scripture. Scripture is certainly the place we should go when we have theological disagreements. Yet, some questions require more thought, and Jesus often challenged the thinking of the religious elite of His day because they can take harder questions.

He calls their attention to Psalm 82. (He calls it “Law” in v. 34, but He’s using the term in the generic sense that all of God’s Word is Law — cf. John 12:34; 15:25.) In this psalm, we see God taking a stand in an assembly. The New American Standard Version there translates that God “judges in the midst of the rulers,” but the Hebrew is elohim, “gods.” So, this has led to a variety of interpretations, including human rulers, angels, demons, false gods, or even the people of Israel themselves.

Whoever is being addressed in this psalm, it’s clear that the Lord is condemning their actions. They have engaged in unjust judgments, injustice, oppression, and other acts. They not only had the power to do this, they have the power even now to correct it. The Lord says in v. 6, “I said, ‘You are gods (elohim), and all of you are sons of the Most High.’ ” Yet, He warns in the next verse, “Nevertheless you will die like men and fall like any one of the princes.” That seems to support the option that these are human beings who have been called forth by God as His children. If they are people with power to correct the wrongs happening around them, then they are rulers who need to know that they are there by God’s decree and can be removed with the same. That makes this a mocking psalm, referencing human rulers as “gods” in an ironic sense.

Jesus’s interpretation in this verse seems to support that reading. The recipients of God’s Word needed to hear the warnings of His Law and correct their ways. The rabbis debated the meaning of the psalm, but the understanding that these could be their own rulers was there.

This means that God called human beings “gods” and “sons of the Most High.” If God is perfect, He cannot engage in blasphemy. If God calls human rulers elohim, then it must not be blasphemous to have certain individuals referred to as gods.

This is not an argument for anyone to appropriate a divine designation, however. If a mentally ill person claims to be God, that doesn’t make it true. Jesus is not supporting falsehoods, nor is He saying it’s okay for a mere person to self-declare godhood like a Shirley MacLaine or Deepak Chopra. Jesus is, instead, creating a concrete logical syllogism.

A syllogism is where someone takes two or more individual statements, places them together like puzzle pieces, and then uses them together to show a greater picture. If the individual statements are true and can be shown to be connected, then the greater picture should also be true. In this case, Jesus says that 1) Scripture calls lesser beings “gods” and 2) Jesus is sent by the Father with greater works. The conclusion, then, is that Jesus has a much better reason for being called “the Son of God” than the human rulers.

He’s arguing from the lesser to the greater. They are the ones to whom the word of God came (v. 35), while He is the one the Father sanctified and sent into the world (v. 36). He has power over death, laying down and even taking up His own life again, and granting to others eternal life, all qualities of God. If it’s not wrong to call them the sons of God, then it certainly isn’t wrong to call such a one as He God’s Son.

It’s again interesting that He refers to this as a citation from “your Law.” The Law is for the lawless, and He is righteous. If they reject Him and His Word, then Psalm 82:7 applies to them: “Nevertheless you will die like men.”

Jesus is right to call them to reconsider their actions and their Scripture. They have no basis to judge Him as blaspheming. That is underscored with this final point:

Third, Jesus calls them to consider His works (vv. 37–38)

If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.

There is nothing emotional in what Jesus’s arguments ask. He doesn’t ask them to pray and see if they experience a burning in their bosoms concerning His character. He doesn’t tell them to take a leap of faith into the dark, providing no evidence of His claims. He doesn’t brush their questions aside and ask them to give Him a thirty-day money-back trial. He, instead, gives them facts and expects them to arrive at reasonable conclusions.

And now, He tells them to consider His works. In a sense, He started this back in v. 32 — “I showed you many good works from the Father;” also calling them to consider His works. When they initially accosted Him, as we noted last week in v. 25, He said His works in His Father’s name testify of Him. Now, He says it differently — “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me.” That is a reasonable standard to employ.

All must come to believe if they are to be saved. So, Jesus even gives them some breathing room in what He says next. They may not like what He looks like as the Messiah, and thus they reject all His related claims. Yet, if they set that aside for a moment and just consider His works, they should be able to determine His true identity on that basis alone.

Belief isn’t without content. He wants them to know the truth concerning Him. The translation here renders His words, “so that you may know and understand.” The King James Version, based on the few manuscripts the translators had available to them, renders this “know and believe,” and belief is the ultimate goal, as the first half of this verse says. Yet, the best reading of the text is, as the footnote reads here, “know and continue knowing.” The knowledge of Jesus’s identity is a knowledge that should be present and that continues filling all who know it.

What should we know about Jesus? As He said in v. 30, we should believe that He “and the Father are one.” As He says here, the Father is in Him and He is in the Father. To His disciples, He later says: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. … In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (John 14:10–11, 20). He then prays along these lines in John 17:21, 23. We are to believe that Jesus is one in mission and in essence with the Father.

As we continue to draw together all the texts related to this topic, a picture of the Trinity emerges, but that will have to be a topic for another day. Unfortunately, the Jewish leadership doesn’t accept this line of argumentation any more than they did before. They’ve already decided what to believe about Him, meaning that they are closed minded to any other perspective. They had their paper-thin justification from God’s Word for their actions, so they decide to move forward with their murderous intent. Yet, this gives Jesus another opportunity to prove just who He is, as we see next.

Second, Jesus Applies His Control (vv. 39–40)

Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp. And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there.

In all of Jesus’s argumentation, all they heard were continued affirmations that He was making divine claims. Because they were already decided against Him, they then seek to arrest and execute Him. It’s almost as though there’s a skip in the record here, and the needle skipped back to their previous error. As one commentator notes, “Daring sinners will throw stones at heaven, though they return upon their own heads; and will strengthen themselves against the Almighty, though none ever hardened themselves against him and prospered.” They are just as unsuccessful as before.

Of course, this is further evidence as to who Jesus is. He allows them to gather their stones. One imagines that this gave them time to surround Him as they conversed with Him. They were commited to this murderous action, but when the moment finally came, Jesus simply left their midst. He “eluded their grasp.” It’s impossible to read this and not see supernatural intervention.

So, Jesus went to where it all began, and we read that He was remaining there. If they wanted Him, they could pursue Him, but they did not. He continued His teaching ministry until He and the Father deemed it time for Him to sacrifice Himself, and these mere men could do nothing about it. That brings us to our final point.

Third, Jesus Attracts Many Converts (vv. 41–42)

Many came to Him and were saying, “While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.” Many believed in Him there.

The very evidence He called others to see is seen by many. It’s become a popular bumper sticker for the season, but it’s no less true — wise men still seek Him. These recognize His works and understand that He is even greater than John the Baptist. They therefore believed.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that they were necessarily more intelligent than their unbelieving Jewish leaders. They simply came because they responded to the drawing of Christ without pretense. They came as children, with open hands, and they received.

This is the vindication of Christ’s ministry. He didn’t need to be believed by the elite of His day to be successful. Scripture — the Word He inspired — already predicted that He would be despised and rejected. Yet, as He will say in John 12:32, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” He has already begun that drawing process here.

Conclusion

He continues that drawing process today. I don’t know what picture of Christ you had in your mind. Perhaps you thought of Him as a good man, or maybe you thought of Him as a vagabond with eccentric ideas. Yet, just like our nativities aren’t always quite right, you don’t have the full picture of Christ.

He is the Messiah, and that means He is also divine. He had to be so to come and save us from our sins. I hope you will study that evidence and come to know Him so you can trust in Him for the salvation of your soul. This is the Jesus we celebrate at Christmas, so don’t repeat the mistake of the elite who reject Him and die in their sins — humble yourself and bow before the one born King of the Jews.