John 10:22-42
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Handout
John is ramping up his account of Jesus’ life. Since August we have been looking at the start of Jesus’ ministry, His first miracles, how He called His disciples. We have seen Jesus’ ministry grow as He taught and ministered to people like the Samaritan woman, the man born blind, and countless other people. Tonight we are in the winter months leading up to Jesus death and resurrection. Even though we have 11 chapters left, John is going to slow the pace of the book way down. We’ve covered 3 years worth of Jesus’ ministry in the first 10 chapters. In these last 11 chapters we will cover about 2 months with the last 9 chapters taking place over the course of a week.
At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. The Jews then gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
John gives us a when, where, and who for this story. The time of year was probably December based on the fact the Jews were celebrating the Feast of Dedication. The Feast of Dedication was also known as the Feast of the Maccabees or as it is known today, Hanukkah. We know it is sometime in December, the last time we saw Jesus He was in Jerusalem during the Festival of Booths around October, but here is Jesus back in Jerusalem again for another festival. He is walking around the Temple when some people come up around Him asking for Him to tell them plainly who He is.
What’s funny about this interaction is that Jesus has been telling them plainly for several months. Jesus isn’t hiding who He is. In fact He is performing miracles as evidence of who He is. If Jesus was trying to hide His identity He wouldn’t be preaching publicly, He wouldn’t be performing miracles, and He probably would have stayed in Nazareth being a carpenter.
I finished Deuteronomy as part of our church reading plan this last week and I read this verse that I think is interesting to think about in context of this situation.
“For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
Paul quotes this verse later in Romans.
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
Salvation is here. He is standing before them but they do not see it because they are blind in their sin. Forgiveness and grace have never been more accessible than they are now but they choose to die under the weight of the law and their sin.
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
Jesus has spoken plainly the truths about Himself. He has said on multiple occasions that He was God. That He does everything according to the will of God. That His miracles are evidence of His identity. He has told them that He is the Bread of Life, the He is the Light of the World, that He is the Door of the Sheep, that He is the Good Shepherd. Jesus has proven any doubt as to who He might be and they just don’t believe.
What was Jesus’ reasoning for their unbelief?
They were not among His sheep. We talked about that last week. Jesus’ followers, His sheep hear the voice of Jesus and recognize it in their lives. He has sealed us with His Holy Spirit and it is He who speaks truth and wisdom into our lives. I don’t mean an audible voice. God has spoken in an audible voice before. But the voice of God is spoken directly from the Spirit into the hearts of His people. His sheep hear and know His voice. These people questioning Jesus didn’t really care who Jesus was. These weren’t people desperate for salvation from their sins. They weren’t looking for the Lord of Lords to rule in their lives. They wanted to refute Jesus’ claims and continue to be masters in their lives and authorities over their communities.
Jesus lays out in verse 27-30 this new identity we as believers have stepped into.
Relational Intimacy
We hear His voice
Not just a hearing like when your parents tell you to empty the trash and you ignore it because you don’t care. When we hear God’s voice we are moved/inspired to action. Being not just hearers of the word but doers also.
He knows us
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
We follow Him
Our identity has become Christ living through us. We follow the example Christ has set for us.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Eternal Security
We have eternal life
Jesus told us in John 3 that we have eternal life with Him through faith in Him. It is a free gift of grace that we can live forever with Him in a new heaven and new earth.
Death has no sting
“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
We are held in our Father’s hand
We can have confidence knowing that our salvation and eternity are held securely in God’s hands. We didn’t do anything to earn salvation and there is nothing we will do that can cause us to lose our salvation. It is a free gift of grace from God that is protected and held by God. Nothing can take us away from His hands.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Triune Exaltation
Jesus and the Father are one
Our God is triune. That means He is three in one. He is three in persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) yet He is one in being (God). The three persons are 100% God. They are not parts of God, personalities of God or pieces. They are God in full. The persons act uniquely from each other but are one in everything they do.
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Because Jesus is God we have relational intimacy and eternal security. I have an identity because of who Jesus is not because of what I can do.
The people who heard what Jesus said will not respond well to this teaching. It makes sense. They don’t really want to know who Jesus is, they just want a reason to get rid of Him.
The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
The people’s response to hearing that Jesus and the Father are one was to pick up stones and try to kill Jesus.
Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?” The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
Jesus didn’t just talk the talk. He walked the walk. Jesus was the truth when it came to backing up what He taught. He is the only teacher of morality to back up entirely everything He said. If they should be listening to anyone it should be Him. Jesus is going to bring up an interesting point about the way we seek out and interpret truth.
The people were being hypocritical. They were upset Jesus called Himself God when they had been making their leaders into gods by the way they listened to them. In a way it is human nature to create idols out of people and what they say and do. We all have our favorite celebrities, musicians, or athletes that we admire and look up to. We all have heroes that we put above everyone else in our lives. These people were accumulating teachers that would say the things they wanted to hear, they would make them feel good about themselves, and they would treat them like they were the voice of God in their lives.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Paul says that people will exchange the truth of God for a lie. They will refuse sound teaching and instead find people that suit their passions. Paul is warning Timothy about what is waiting for him as a pastor, and charges Timothy to preach the truth when it is popular and when it is unpopular. Stand on the truth of God’s word even if it leads you to suffer for the name of Christ.
Who do you listen to in your life? Who shapes how you see the world?
As Christians we must have a Biblical world view. The Bible is objective, absolute truth. Our opinions and world view must conform to what the Bible teaches not our opinions of what we want the Bible to say, but what it actually says. There are all kinds of false teachers that call themselves pastors who are ready and willing to twist Scripture and flatter you so that they can have your money or have control over you. The Pharisees were seen by the people as the most righteous people around but their lives didn’t reflect the truth they claimed. Jesus walked in accordance to everything Scripture taught. No human teacher is worthy of being called righteous or good other than Jesus alone.
The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands.
Jesus points out that people had been treated like gods in the past because they were representatives of God Himself. I think of Moses and the prophets who were the mouthpiece of God to Israel. God even said to Moses was afraid of public speaking that Moses would be as God to Aaron speaking the words of God through Aaron to the people.
The people had no problem with the Pharisees speaking on behalf of God and acting in an authority they were unworthy of, but when Jesus, who is God and who is worthy of the name God, speaks and claims to be God they are filled with hatred.
Do you see the hypocrisy?
Don’t get me wrong, human teachers are a helpful tool. I teach the Bible for a living. I love to help people understand God’s word and I am thankful for the people in my life who taught me how to better understand God’s Word. But when human teachers become more important to us than God’s word we have a misalignment of priorities. If Michael and I are the only times you hear God’s word and if you aren’t thinking critically about the truth we speak but are just accepting it flippantly you are in a dangerous position. When I preach I try desperately to speak the words of God and not just my opinion but if I am the voice of God in your life you are putting your hope on someone who is painfully flawed and broken. I have a limited view of the world. The wisdom I can give is finite. I can be selfish, biased, immature. I fail daily, but Jesus is the truth. His wisdom is infinite. He walked perfectly. His truth is without error. He is calling you to follow Him not to follow me. Does that make sense?
So who is Maccabees?
During the years in-between the old and New Testament Alexander the great rose to power. He quickly died and his empire was split into four pieces. Israel was caught between the Ptolemaic empire and the Seleucid empire. These two parts of the empire fought back and forth with Israel being passed between the two of them. While Israel was under the Seleucids there was corruption that took place in the temple. The Seleucid emperor appointed a high priest to rule the people that was outside of the tribe of Levi who taxed the people heavily on behalf of the empire. When the Jews heard the emperor had died in battle they got rid of the high priest in exchange for one of their own. The problem? The emperor wasn’t dead and in response to the Jews rebellion he destroyed the walls of Jerusalem and made the temple of God into a temple to Zeus. He even put a statue to Zeus in the holy of holies. The Maccabees was a family that started a rebellion against the Seleucids. When the Seleucids were going to force the priests to sacrifice a pig to Zeus one of the members of this family actually stabbed the priest so he couldn’t carry out the sacrifice. This let to a war between the Seleucids and Jews. Under the command of Judah Maccabees they were able to actually fight for twenty years and win their independence. Out of this revolt is where the celebration of Hanukkah comes from. Jesus is in Jerusalem in December while the Jewish people are celebrating this great warrior in their history. It has only been about a hundred and eighty years since these events occured and they are looking and hoping for a Messiah who will do the same thing to Rome. They want someone to come in with a sword and conquer the Romans.
The nickname for Judah Maccabees was the hammer. That is the type of Messiah they wanted. They didn’t wan’t a meek and gentle savior, who offers forgiveness to sinners. They want someone to exterminate their enemies not show grace. They had elevated a human to god like status. Judah Maccabees was their hero and Jesus didn’t fit that mold and so they rejected Him. Jesus didn’t come swinging a hammer, but He did have nails pierce His hands and feet. He spent three days in a tomb and in those three days accomplished more for Israel and the worlds freedom than Maccabees did in 20 years of fighting. (fighting by the way that ended with Israel being conquered by the Romans). The victory Jesus won wasn’t over an earthly kingdom but was over sin and death itself. Jesus is our conquering King and as such we must bend our knee to His truth in our lives.
Do you hear the voice of God in your life? Do you follow Jesus and what He teaches in His Word
Who do you listen to in your life? Who shapes how you see the world?
Does what you want to be true influence what you believe is true?
