John 8:48-59

00:00:00:05 – 00:00:24:27
Clint Loveall
And so we’re good to be. It’s good to be back with you. And glad to have you with us. Jumping back in John eight, verse 18. No, I’m sorry, verse. 48, 38, 48 and, I’ll go ahead and read this quickly. Go through the end of the chapter. This is the pinnacle kind of the mountain top of an argument slash discussion Jesus has been having.

00:00:24:27 – 00:00:45:36
Clint Loveall
And it gets continues to kind of heat up here. So verse 48, the Jews answered him, where are we not right in saying, you are a Samaritan and have a demon? Jesus answered, I do not have a demon. I have my father, and you dishonor me, yet I do not seek my own glory. There’s one who seeks it, and he is the judge.

00:00:45:41 – 00:01:05:28
Clint Loveall
I tell you the truth. Whoever keeps my word will not see death. The Jews said to him, now we know you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets. You say, whoever keeps my word will not taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham who died? The prophets who also died? Who do you claim to be?

00:01:05:33 – 00:01:23:15
Clint Loveall
Jesus answered, if I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my father who glorifies me, of whom you say, he is our God. Though you do not know him, but I know him. If I would say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I keep his word.

00:01:23:20 – 00:01:51:24
Clint Loveall
Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50, and you have seen Abraham. Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

00:01:51:28 – 00:02:17:43
Clint Loveall
So again, the culmination of a discussion that’s been going on for most of the chapter here, or much of the chapter here. And it very pointed here at the end. It’s interesting, Michael, how these conversations in John, these conversations with the Jewish people, the religious people always sort of culminate in them wanting to kill him. Yep. Yeah.

00:02:17:43 – 00:02:46:48
Clint Loveall
The, the the anger that is unleashed toward Jesus, as here he says, Abraham being your father, isn’t it? Yeah. That, God wants you to know me. I don’t have a demon. They accuse him of being possessed. Jesus answers those things, and and again, John uses misunderstanding. We’ve seen that consistently in this gospel. I don’t know that that’s exactly what’s happening here, though.

00:02:46:48 – 00:03:10:39
Clint Loveall
There is some misunderstood ending. But ultimately, it comes down to this idea that that Jesus is saying, as he has, he has seen God. He is from God. He presents the truth about God and that the people are not only unable, but more importantly, are unwilling, unable because they’re unwilling to listen to him.

00:03:10:44 – 00:04:02:46
Michael Gewecke
Yeah. This is a moment in the Jesus story. Clint, in John, that I think we are intended to see the seams beginning to split. Some of the arguments that Jesus has had have been, vigorous, of course. Jesus has already escaped from some really edgy situations. But here, as this story sort of continues to ramp up and comes to a conclusion, I think that we are supposed to see in this that Jesus is very clearly, explicitly making connections to the founder, the father being a son of Abraham, a daughter of Abraham, is central to the identity of the Jewish people.

00:04:02:51 – 00:04:38:09
Michael Gewecke
So here Jesus is targeting the very center of identity of these religious Jews. And he is saying to them, not only that he supersedes Abraham, but he is making this claim at the end that he is I am he is claiming explicitly the very same that God claims in his address to Moses. That is Clint. I don’t think any there would be any debate from a biblical scholar.

00:04:38:22 – 00:05:06:05
Michael Gewecke
That is clear, an unarguable theological heresy. This is in the presence of a Jewish audience. A statement like this, is rightly the consequence is rightly applied when one is stoned. I mean, this is the Old Testament law writ large, and Jesus is making this sort of claim to say that if you knew God, then you would understand me.

00:05:06:19 – 00:05:30:24
Michael Gewecke
And if you understand me, that that would give you access to knowledge of God. And and that has been tumultuous. But now, to say that not only that Jesus is representing God, but that he is before Abraham, the people, the lights have come on in a substantial way here. And the reaction, though short, is clearly identifying that the crowd gets it.

00:05:30:28 – 00:05:38:44
Michael Gewecke
And they’re they’re seeking to take Jesus’s life because he’s claiming for himself, are saying you, the human, are humans not supposed to claim?

00:05:38:49 – 00:06:10:33
Clint Loveall
I think we’ve made this point before, but just quickly in the other gospels, we have this unfolding sense of who is Jesus. And there’s these question marks and sort of challenge the reader. We have said consistently or tried to, that John comes from a different place. With John. The reality of Jesus is laid out on nearly every page, and the reader gets this increasing witness to who and what Jesus is.

00:06:10:33 – 00:06:39:47
Clint Loveall
And so the claim here Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day and again, if you’re going to say there’s misunderstanding in this text, it’s misunderstanding that they think Jesus is talking chronologically. They say, you’re not even 50. What do you mean you were before Abraham. It actually gets worse because then when Jesus explains it, he says, oh no, I don’t mean chronologically, I mean theologically.

00:06:39:52 – 00:07:12:59
Clint Loveall
I am before Abraham. I was before whatever Abraham did. My purpose is even fuller and deeper and more related to the covenant than that. And Abraham, your ancestor, wished that he would see me. He wished that he would have the privilege that you do. And he rejoiced when it happens. And then you have this this linchpin statement.

00:07:12:59 – 00:07:43:18
Clint Loveall
I tell you the truth, before Abraham was, I am now. This is two things, as you said, Michael, that are deeply offensive to his hearers. First is the implication that he is before Abraham, and again, not just chronologically, but that Jesus seems to be saying he’s more important than Abraham. That would of course, be grounds for deep unhappiness from any Jewish listener.

00:07:43:22 – 00:08:11:15
Clint Loveall
But then as a kind of, to add to that, a kind of additional insult, he says, I am, which we’ve talked about in John, the I am statements hearkening back to Moses at the Bush. A Jewish person would understand that in doing this, what seems to be happening is that Jesus is equating himself with God.

00:08:11:20 – 00:08:39:34
Clint Loveall
So he’s claiming a sort of prior place and maybe even a preeminence. To Abraham, the founder of Judaism, and then saying, I am, he’s claiming the title of God. Now, the I think it’s there’s nothing shocking about the next part of that story. They picked up stones to throw. I mean, it.

00:08:39:39 – 00:08:41:01
Michael Gewecke
Now.

00:08:41:06 – 00:09:08:16
Clint Loveall
What Jesus does there is it is it just dials the volume up to 50. I mean, this is the culmination, but John is comfortable with this language because John wants the reader to know this. This isn’t John isn’t unpacking little clues along the way. John is saying, here’s the big whole incredible truth. What do you make of it?

00:09:08:16 – 00:09:18:39
Clint Loveall
And so, I, I think. Again, I think sometimes we can read past these texts and maybe not get all the depth that’s in them.

00:09:18:50 – 00:09:52:21
Michael Gewecke
I think that you’re right, Clint. I think that part of the struggle of this is not the impact that it would have had on those first hearers, these Jews who are responding viscerally to what Jesus is claiming. They understand exactly what he’s claiming here. I think the struggle is with us. I think that we, especially Christians, if you’ve grown up in the church, in Sunday School, if you’ve, you know, read John before, then, this kind of language of Jesus being the I am is probably language that you have heard before that you’re comfortable with.

00:09:52:35 – 00:10:14:28
Michael Gewecke
And so it’s not going to raise your emotion. It’s certainly not going to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. And I think that maybe we need a little bit of translation into our experience of it. Clint. And I think that there is kind of a modern example that I was holding this back. I want to share with you here today.

00:10:14:33 – 00:10:44:22
Michael Gewecke
C.S. Lewis has this very famous quote where he’s responding to people who were claiming that Jesus is a great teacher. He was a good exemplar for, maybe even a good leader, but that’s all that Jesus was. And C.S. Lewis has a really interesting take about this, and I will read it really, really briefly here. I’m trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Jesus, I’m ready to accept him as a great moral teacher, and I don’t accept his claim to be God.

00:10:44:27 – 00:10:58:55
Michael Gewecke
That’s one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sorts of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on the level with the man who says he’s a poached egg, or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice.

00:10:58:55 – 00:11:15:09
Michael Gewecke
Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a bad man or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool. You can spit at him and kill him as a demon, or you can fold his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher.

00:11:15:23 – 00:11:40:40
Michael Gewecke
He’s not left out open to us. He did not intend to. And I think what Lewis is saying is very much rooted in this kind of Johannine theme, that Jesus was clear about who he was to these Jews. So the question was not about the clarity of the revelation, the the discourse, the words. The question is how will they respond to it?

00:11:40:40 – 00:12:02:29
Michael Gewecke
And I think that is exactly the same kind of force that John intends to land on us, that we stand at the threshold of our very own forced decision in light of who Jesus claims to be. Jesus claims to be this, and there are many people who consider him to be someone who might as well claim to be a poached egg.

00:12:02:38 – 00:12:11:19
Michael Gewecke
And that is that is fine. A lot of people have come to that explanation, but John is forcing the hand, by the way, that the story is told.

00:12:11:24 – 00:12:36:29
Clint Loveall
I think that’s really good. Michael, if you wanted to hold that the idea of the incarnation and the idea of divinity and the idea of Jesus as God’s Son and and co-equal sources, so to speak, to use some church jargon, if you wanted to say that those were things attributed to Jesus later, you have to skip the Gospel of John right now.

00:12:36:34 – 00:13:04:06
Clint Loveall
There’s problems with that in the other gospels as well, but there’s just no way you read the Gospel of John at its face value and think that Jesus thought anything other about himself than he is the divine saving Messiah of God. There’s there’s no way around that in this gospel. Now, if you wanted to argue that that’s written into John later, you could have those arguments.

00:13:04:06 – 00:13:15:36
Clint Loveall
But as you read the text, this text is not going to let you go there. I think. I think that’s actually really helpful insight. And it it says something about the character of John as well.

00:13:15:41 – 00:13:44:58
Michael Gewecke
There’s this ever present question that comes along with the faith, and I think that it’s mirrored by the crowd here in verse 52. Jesus, Abraham died and so did the prophets. Yet you say, whoever keeps my word will never taste death. You know, Clint, you and I have experienced this now, over our time of doing this Bible study, you know, we we get the privilege of having lots of people from even around the world engage in conversation.

00:13:45:03 – 00:14:08:49
Michael Gewecke
And later coming into the comments and, you know, sharing thoughts and ideas and, and we’ve talked about before how many people really do get tripped up and hung up on language like this, the language of that we will never taste death. Well, what are you talking about? All of these prophets that the truly the, patron saints of Judaism, all of them died.

00:14:08:49 – 00:14:31:37
Michael Gewecke
Jesus. What in the world are you talking about? If they die, how is it that we are going to never die? And if you read the Gospel of John Clement and tell me if you disagree with this, but if you read the Gospel of John and you want to force it into one specific sense, you want to say, everything I read is going to be simple and literal.

00:14:31:42 – 00:14:57:55
Michael Gewecke
Or if you say everything I read in John is always allegorical or always metaphor it, you’re always making a mistake because John is not being confined. Jesus is not confined to one of those categories. Jesus is always yeah, because he is God in flesh. Revelation is reorienting. I don’t even say disorient thing. So when humans start looking for weight, what do you literally mean by this death?

00:14:57:55 – 00:15:24:18
Michael Gewecke
Saying they are thinking about bodies and graves while Jesus is talking about an eternal holding in the saving, providential work of God? When they’re thinking about human action, Jesus is thinking about the Spirit of God at work as comforter, as first foretaste of eternal life right there. There’s this kind of miscommunication that happens because of a God in breaking into the created order.

00:15:24:18 – 00:15:51:34
Michael Gewecke
And John is, I think of all the Gospels, all the Gospels have miracle stories. John, the teaching of Jesus itself, the teaching itself, sort of functions to serve the same kind of disorienting purpose that we will naturally have, if indeed Jesus is, as he claims to be the creator, becoming created the one from before time, taking on time, right?

00:15:51:39 – 00:16:07:37
Michael Gewecke
This is the kind of upsetting turn of reality that happens with Jesus. The crowd in this story gets it. John is, I think, as John always does, inviting us to see if we also understand that implication.

00:16:07:42 – 00:16:40:33
Clint Loveall
I think it would be difficult to read the rest of the gospel, particularly to see Jesus die and then come back and ask literal questions of those who who believe in me will never see death. John understands life and death to mean more than physically being alive or physically experiencing death. Those are those are much deeper concepts, much bigger words in this gospel.

00:16:40:33 – 00:17:11:31
Clint Loveall
To live is to know and believe in Christ and to die is to forfeit that life by rejecting Jesus. And so those who believe can’t die in that sense, because they embody the very meaning of life, as I think John is trying to communicate it. I want to just end with it. Maybe this is a little, even possibly a little flippant, Michael, but, one of my frustrations of the Gospel of John.

00:17:11:36 – 00:17:48:15
Clint Loveall
Yeah. So we get to the end here. We have this great sentence. They picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of this temple like it just. John has built this crescendo and we get to this. And then he says, And Jesus got away from them. And, the challenge and I say that a little tongue in cheek, but the challenge of that is that that a sentence like that, when, when John does that sort of just snap ending, it can raise enough questions that it becomes the focus instead.

00:17:48:19 – 00:18:18:52
Clint Loveall
And I think, you know, John is just saying, look how Jesus got away. Isn’t that sound important? All of this stuff that came to that point, that’s what you want to focus on. And so these moments where John just says, and then something else happened. It the those are, those are jarring moments. And the danger in them, I think, is that they can make it harder to go back and really try to mine the depth of what came before them.

00:18:18:57 – 00:18:41:54
Michael Gewecke
I don’t want to over press this, but there’s a sense in which John is not interested in telling a narrative story that has side ups and arcs, that what when Jesus determines it’s time to get away from the crowd who wants to stone him? That’s what Jesus does, and any other interpretation of that action would be for John.

00:18:41:54 – 00:19:08:15
Michael Gewecke
It. Listen, either you believe Jesus because of his revelation of His Word. By the way, there’s no it’s not an accident. That word shows up at the beginning of this book. If you either believe that he’s that his word reveals the order of the cosmos or you don’t. And if you don’t, then he’s just going to. Yeah, just sneak out of the temple and, you know, that’s fine, because you’re not going to believe because of his miracles.

00:19:08:20 – 00:19:20:39
Michael Gewecke
If you don’t believe the word spoken, there’s no miracle that’s going to somehow I push you over, I think, is that the consistent case portrayed by the way John tells this story?

00:19:20:43 – 00:19:42:45
Clint Loveall
As a person who likes to dive into narrative, John frustrates me in that regard. Like, well, how did he get away? It doesn’t matter. Well, how did they not get him? It wasn’t his time yet. Those aren’t answers. Come on, John, give us a little something to work with. And John says, look, I just gave you 40 verses of the deepest theology about Jesus you can find.

00:19:42:50 – 00:19:47:47
Clint Loveall
And you’re asking how he got away. And I appreciate that about John, but it frustrates me. Yeah.

00:19:47:47 – 00:20:04:03
Michael Gewecke
And as a guy who reads nonfiction for fun and doesn’t get fiction, I think that’s where probably I land on the other side, because I think John speaks my language and I get to Matthew and I’m like, are we done yet? Thanks for being with us here today, friends. Certainly give us a like if this video has been helpful.

00:20:04:03 – 00:20:11:47
Michael Gewecke
Subscribe so you can stick with us on the rest of the study of John as we continue in chapter nine next week. Glad that you’re with us today and we look forward to seeing you soon.

00:20:12:01 – 00:20:12:41
Clint Loveall
Have a good weekend.