1
00:00:00,083 --> 00:00:01,366
And so we're good to be.

2
00:00:01,366 --> 00:00:02,483
It's good to be back with you.

3
00:00:02,483 --> 00:00:04,500
And glad to have you with us.

4
00:00:04,500 --> 00:00:08,116
Jumping back in John eight, verse 18.

5
00:00:08,416 --> 00:00:09,800
No, I'm sorry, verse.

6
00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:12,800
48, 38, 48

7
00:00:12,833 --> 00:00:15,483
and, I'll go ahead and read this quickly.

8
00:00:15,483 --> 00:00:17,516
Go through the end of the chapter.

9
00:00:17,516 --> 00:00:20,516
This is the pinnacle kind of the mountain

10
00:00:20,516 --> 00:00:24,450
top of an argument slash discussion
Jesus has been having.

11
00:00:24,450 --> 00:00:27,450
And it gets continues to kind of heat up
here.

12
00:00:27,450 --> 00:00:31,516
So verse 48, the Jews answered him,
where are we

13
00:00:31,516 --> 00:00:34,516
not right in saying,
you are a Samaritan and have a demon?

14
00:00:35,033 --> 00:00:37,466
Jesus answered, I do not have a demon.

15
00:00:37,466 --> 00:00:41,700
I have my father, and you dishonor me, yet
I do not seek my own glory.

16
00:00:41,716 --> 00:00:44,450
There's one who seeks
it, and he is the judge.

17
00:00:45,683 --> 00:00:46,583
I tell you the truth.

18
00:00:46,583 --> 00:00:49,583
Whoever keeps my word will not see death.

19
00:00:50,150 --> 00:00:53,066
The Jews said to him,
now we know you have a demon.

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00:00:53,066 --> 00:00:55,216
Abraham died, and so did the prophets.

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00:00:55,216 --> 00:00:58,216
You say, whoever keeps
my word will not taste death.

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00:00:58,550 --> 00:01:01,433
Are you greater than our father Abraham
who died?

23
00:01:01,433 --> 00:01:03,533
The prophets who also died?

24
00:01:03,533 --> 00:01:05,550
Who do you claim to be?

25
00:01:05,550 --> 00:01:09,000
Jesus answered, if I glorify myself,
my glory is nothing.

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00:01:09,533 --> 00:01:13,250
It is my father who glorifies
me, of whom you say, he is our God.

27
00:01:13,666 --> 00:01:16,666
Though
you do not know him, but I know him.

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00:01:16,766 --> 00:01:20,250
If I would say that I do not know him,
I would be a liar like you.

29
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But I do know him, and I keep his word.

30
00:01:23,333 --> 00:01:28,666
Your ancestor
Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.

31
00:01:29,150 --> 00:01:31,350
He saw it and was glad.

32
00:01:31,350 --> 00:01:36,416
Then the Jews said to him, you are not yet
50, and you have seen Abraham.

33
00:01:37,050 --> 00:01:40,100
Jesus said to them, I tell you the truth,

34
00:01:40,466 --> 00:01:43,616
before Abraham was, I am.

35
00:01:44,366 --> 00:01:46,816
So they picked up stones to throw at him.

36
00:01:46,816 --> 00:01:50,216
But Jesus hid himself
and went out of the temple.

37
00:01:51,466 --> 00:01:52,616
So again, the

38
00:01:52,616 --> 00:01:56,100
culmination of a discussion
that's been going on

39
00:01:56,100 --> 00:02:01,133
for most of the chapter here,
or much of the chapter here.

40
00:02:01,133 --> 00:02:05,233
And it very pointed here at the end.

41
00:02:05,250 --> 00:02:09,083
It's interesting,
Michael, how these conversations in John,

42
00:02:09,083 --> 00:02:12,866
these conversations with the Jewish
people, the religious people

43
00:02:13,883 --> 00:02:17,000
always sort of culminate in them
wanting to kill him.

44
00:02:17,150 --> 00:02:17,716
Yep. Yeah.

45
00:02:17,716 --> 00:02:21,300
The, the the anger that is unleashed

46
00:02:21,300 --> 00:02:24,300
toward Jesus, as here he says,

47
00:02:24,650 --> 00:02:27,616
Abraham being your father, isn't it?

48
00:02:27,616 --> 00:02:30,616
Yeah. That, God wants you to know me.

49
00:02:30,916 --> 00:02:32,066
I don't have a demon.

50
00:02:32,066 --> 00:02:35,000
They accuse him of being possessed.

51
00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:38,000
Jesus answers those things,

52
00:02:38,183 --> 00:02:41,550
and and again, John uses misunderstanding.

53
00:02:41,550 --> 00:02:43,800
We've seen that consistently
in this gospel.

54
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:46,800
I don't know that that's exactly
what's happening here, though.

55
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:48,650
There is some misunderstood ending.

56
00:02:48,650 --> 00:02:53,516
But ultimately, it comes down to this idea
that that Jesus is saying,

57
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as he has, he has seen God.

58
00:02:57,050 --> 00:02:58,166
He is from God.

59
00:02:58,166 --> 00:03:04,066
He presents the truth about God
and that the people are not only unable,

60
00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:07,650
but more importantly,
are unwilling, unable

61
00:03:07,666 --> 00:03:10,666
because they're unwilling
to listen to him.

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00:03:10,733 --> 00:03:10,950
Yeah.

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00:03:10,950 --> 00:03:13,766
This is a moment in the Jesus story.

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00:03:13,766 --> 00:03:17,600
Clint, in John,
that I think we are intended

65
00:03:17,933 --> 00:03:22,500
to see the seams beginning to split.

66
00:03:22,950 --> 00:03:25,950
Some of the arguments that Jesus has had

67
00:03:26,150 --> 00:03:29,700
have been, vigorous, of course.

68
00:03:30,266 --> 00:03:35,450
Jesus has already escaped
from some really edgy situations.

69
00:03:36,050 --> 00:03:38,850
But here, as this story

70
00:03:38,850 --> 00:03:42,000
sort of continues to ramp up
and comes to a conclusion,

71
00:03:42,300 --> 00:03:47,716
I think that we are supposed
to see in this that Jesus is

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very clearly, explicitly

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00:03:51,683 --> 00:03:54,533
making connections to the founder,

74
00:03:54,533 --> 00:03:58,850
the father being a son of Abraham,
a daughter of Abraham,

75
00:03:59,183 --> 00:04:02,483
is central
to the identity of the Jewish people.

76
00:04:02,850 --> 00:04:07,100
So here Jesus is targeting
the very center of identity

77
00:04:07,400 --> 00:04:10,400
of these religious Jews.

78
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And he is saying to them, not only

79
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that he

80
00:04:16,766 --> 00:04:19,366
supersedes Abraham, but

81
00:04:19,366 --> 00:04:22,366
he is making this claim at the end

82
00:04:22,400 --> 00:04:27,350
that he is I am he is claiming explicitly

83
00:04:27,350 --> 00:04:31,350
the very same
that God claims in his address to Moses.

84
00:04:31,633 --> 00:04:33,616
That is Clint.

85
00:04:33,616 --> 00:04:38,150
I don't think any there would be
any debate from a biblical scholar.

86
00:04:38,366 --> 00:04:41,050
That is clear,

87
00:04:41,050 --> 00:04:44,566
an unarguable theological heresy.

88
00:04:45,083 --> 00:04:48,116
This is in the presence of a Jewish
audience.

89
00:04:48,116 --> 00:04:51,650
A statement like this, is rightly

90
00:04:52,250 --> 00:04:55,400
the consequence is rightly applied
when one is stoned.

91
00:04:55,400 --> 00:05:01,050
I mean, this is the Old Testament
law writ large, and Jesus is making

92
00:05:01,050 --> 00:05:06,083
this sort of claim to say that if you knew
God, then you would understand me.

93
00:05:06,316 --> 00:05:10,316
And if you understand me, that that would
give you access to knowledge of God.

94
00:05:10,316 --> 00:05:12,916
And and that has been tumultuous.

95
00:05:12,916 --> 00:05:16,066
But now, to say that not only that Jesus

96
00:05:16,366 --> 00:05:20,816
is representing God,
but that he is before Abraham,

97
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,316
the people, the lights have come on
in a substantial way here.

98
00:05:24,316 --> 00:05:27,383
And the reaction, though short, is

99
00:05:27,383 --> 00:05:30,383
clearly identifying
that the crowd gets it.

100
00:05:30,466 --> 00:05:33,116
And they're
they're seeking to take Jesus's life

101
00:05:33,116 --> 00:05:35,566
because he's
claiming for himself, are saying you,

102
00:05:35,566 --> 00:05:38,566
the human, are humans
not supposed to claim?

103
00:05:38,816 --> 00:05:42,866
I think we've made this point
before, but just quickly

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00:05:44,300 --> 00:05:44,816
in the

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other gospels, we
have this unfolding sense of who is Jesus.

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And there's these question
marks and sort of challenge the reader.

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00:05:52,966 --> 00:05:57,766
We have said consistently or tried to,
that John comes from a different place.

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With John.

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The reality of Jesus is laid out on nearly
every page,

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and the reader gets this increasing

111
00:06:07,216 --> 00:06:10,550
witness to who and what Jesus is.

112
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And so the claim here Abraham

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00:06:14,366 --> 00:06:19,050
rejoiced that he would see my day
and again,

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00:06:19,050 --> 00:06:21,866
if you're going to say there's
misunderstanding in this text, it's

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00:06:21,866 --> 00:06:25,766
misunderstanding that they think Jesus
is talking chronologically.

116
00:06:26,183 --> 00:06:28,133
They say, you're not even 50.

117
00:06:28,133 --> 00:06:30,833
What do you mean you were before Abraham.

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00:06:30,833 --> 00:06:35,750
It actually gets worse because then when
Jesus explains it, he says,

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00:06:35,900 --> 00:06:39,533
oh no, I don't mean chronologically,
I mean theologically.

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00:06:39,866 --> 00:06:43,200
I am before Abraham.

121
00:06:43,433 --> 00:06:46,516
I was before whatever Abraham did.

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00:06:46,666 --> 00:06:52,216
My purpose is even fuller and deeper and
more related to the covenant than that.

123
00:06:53,366 --> 00:06:56,366
And Abraham, your ancestor,

124
00:06:57,266 --> 00:07:00,150
wished that he would see me.

125
00:07:00,150 --> 00:07:04,050
He wished that he would have the privilege
that you do.

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00:07:04,366 --> 00:07:07,433
And he rejoiced when it happens.

127
00:07:07,950 --> 00:07:10,733
And then you have this

128
00:07:10,733 --> 00:07:12,983
this linchpin statement.

129
00:07:12,983 --> 00:07:18,750
I tell you the truth, before Abraham was,
I am now.

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00:07:19,350 --> 00:07:23,600
This is two things, as you said, Michael,
that are deeply offensive to his hearers.

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First is the implication that he is before
Abraham, and again,

132
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not just chronologically,

133
00:07:29,966 --> 00:07:34,250
but that Jesus seems to be saying he's
more important than Abraham.

134
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That would of course,

135
00:07:38,250 --> 00:07:42,983
be grounds for deep unhappiness
from any Jewish listener.

136
00:07:43,366 --> 00:07:46,350
But then as a kind of, to add

137
00:07:46,350 --> 00:07:49,350
to that, a kind of

138
00:07:49,616 --> 00:07:54,650
additional insult, he says, I am, which

139
00:07:55,766 --> 00:07:58,766
we've talked about in John, the
I am statements

140
00:07:58,766 --> 00:08:01,766
hearkening back to Moses at the Bush.

141
00:08:02,033 --> 00:08:06,450
A Jewish person would understand that
in doing this,

142
00:08:06,450 --> 00:08:10,850
what seems to be happening is that
Jesus is equating himself with God.

143
00:08:11,333 --> 00:08:18,150
So he's claiming a sort of prior place
and maybe even a preeminence.

144
00:08:18,150 --> 00:08:25,350
To Abraham, the founder of Judaism,
and then saying,

145
00:08:25,800 --> 00:08:29,966
I am, he's claiming the title of God.

146
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:32,600
Now, the I think it's

147
00:08:33,566 --> 00:08:33,900
there's

148
00:08:33,900 --> 00:08:37,016
nothing shocking
about the next part of that story.

149
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They picked up stones to throw.

150
00:08:38,816 --> 00:08:41,100
I mean, it. Now.

151
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What Jesus does there is it is

152
00:08:46,583 --> 00:08:49,583
it just dials the volume up to 50.

153
00:08:49,600 --> 00:08:54,283
I mean, this is the culmination,
but John is comfortable with this language

154
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because John wants the reader to know
this.

155
00:08:57,916 --> 00:09:01,916
This isn't John isn't unpacking
little clues along the way.

156
00:09:02,816 --> 00:09:06,900
John is saying, here's
the big whole incredible truth.

157
00:09:07,166 --> 00:09:10,066
What do you make of it? And so,

158
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I, I think.

159
00:09:13,100 --> 00:09:14,783
Again, I think sometimes

160
00:09:14,783 --> 00:09:18,650
we can read past these texts and maybe not
get all the depth that's in them.

161
00:09:18,833 --> 00:09:20,400
I think that you're right, Clint.

162
00:09:20,400 --> 00:09:23,716
I think that part of the struggle of
this is not

163
00:09:24,450 --> 00:09:28,366
the impact that it would have had on those
first hearers,

164
00:09:28,366 --> 00:09:32,183
these Jews who are responding
viscerally to what Jesus is claiming.

165
00:09:32,450 --> 00:09:35,566
They understand exactly what
he's claiming here.

166
00:09:35,816 --> 00:09:37,250
I think the struggle is with us.

167
00:09:37,250 --> 00:09:41,066
I think that we, especially Christians,
if you've grown up in the church,

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00:09:41,066 --> 00:09:44,850
in Sunday School,
if you've, you know, read John before,

169
00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:49,433
then, this kind of language of Jesus
being the I am is probably language

170
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that you have heard
before that you're comfortable with.

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00:09:52,583 --> 00:09:55,966
And so it's not going to raise
your emotion.

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It's certainly not going to make the hair
stand up on the back of your neck.

173
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And I think that maybe

174
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we need a little bit of translation
into our experience of it.

175
00:10:06,266 --> 00:10:06,600
Clint.

176
00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:10,916
And I think that there is kind of a modern
example that I was holding this back.

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00:10:10,916 --> 00:10:12,800
I want to share with you here today.

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00:10:14,550 --> 00:10:15,466
C.S. Lewis has

179
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this very famous quote
where he's responding to people

180
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who were claiming that
Jesus is a great teacher.

181
00:10:22,733 --> 00:10:24,950
He was a good exemplar for,

182
00:10:24,950 --> 00:10:28,166
maybe even a good leader,
but that's all that Jesus was.

183
00:10:28,166 --> 00:10:28,700
And C.S.

184
00:10:28,700 --> 00:10:29,900
Lewis has a really interesting

185
00:10:29,900 --> 00:10:33,466
take about this, and I will read it
really, really briefly here.

186
00:10:33,950 --> 00:10:36,616
I'm trying here to prevent anyone saying

187
00:10:36,616 --> 00:10:40,700
the really foolish thing that people often
say about Jesus, I'm ready to accept him

188
00:10:40,700 --> 00:10:44,150
as a great moral teacher,
and I don't accept his claim to be God.

189
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That's one thing we must not say.

190
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A man who was merely a man
and said the sorts of things

191
00:10:49,250 --> 00:10:51,533
Jesus said
would not be a great moral teacher.

192
00:10:51,533 --> 00:10:55,550
He would either be a lunatic on the level
with the man who says he's a poached egg,

193
00:10:55,883 --> 00:10:57,466
or else he would be the devil of hell.

194
00:10:57,466 --> 00:10:58,916
You must make your choice.

195
00:10:58,916 --> 00:11:03,416
Either this man was and is the Son of God,
or else a bad man or something worse.

196
00:11:03,650 --> 00:11:05,250
You can shut him up for a fool.

197
00:11:05,250 --> 00:11:07,400
You can spit at him
and kill him as a demon,

198
00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:10,250
or you can fold his feet
and call him Lord and God.

199
00:11:10,250 --> 00:11:11,400
But let us not come

200
00:11:11,400 --> 00:11:15,150
with any patronizing nonsense
about his being a great human teacher.

201
00:11:15,383 --> 00:11:17,400
He's not left out open to us.

202
00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:18,916
He did not intend to.

203
00:11:18,916 --> 00:11:23,550
And I think what Lewis is saying
is very much rooted in this kind of

204
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Johannine theme, that Jesus was clear

205
00:11:26,816 --> 00:11:29,866
about who he was to these Jews.

206
00:11:30,083 --> 00:11:34,400
So the question was not about the clarity
of the revelation,

207
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:37,433
the the discourse, the words.

208
00:11:37,433 --> 00:11:40,666
The question is
how will they respond to it?

209
00:11:40,666 --> 00:11:45,083
And I think that is exactly
the same kind of force that John intends

210
00:11:45,083 --> 00:11:50,000
to land on us, that we stand
at the threshold of our very own

211
00:11:50,450 --> 00:11:54,016
forced decision in light of who
Jesus claims to be.

212
00:11:54,116 --> 00:11:59,000
Jesus claims to be this,
and there are many people who consider him

213
00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:02,483
to be someone who might as well
claim to be a poached egg.

214
00:12:02,633 --> 00:12:05,183
And that is that is fine.

215
00:12:05,183 --> 00:12:07,400
A lot of people have come
to that explanation,

216
00:12:07,400 --> 00:12:10,950
but John is forcing the hand, by the way,
that the story is told.

217
00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:12,616
I think that's really good.

218
00:12:12,616 --> 00:12:17,666
Michael, if you wanted to hold
that the idea of the incarnation

219
00:12:17,666 --> 00:12:22,916
and the idea of divinity
and the idea of Jesus as God's Son and and

220
00:12:23,900 --> 00:12:24,800
co-equal

221
00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:27,800
sources,
so to speak, to use some church jargon,

222
00:12:28,250 --> 00:12:32,416
if you wanted to say that those were
things attributed to Jesus later,

223
00:12:33,350 --> 00:12:36,350
you have to skip the Gospel of John
right now.

224
00:12:36,566 --> 00:12:39,750
There's problems
with that in the other gospels as well,

225
00:12:39,866 --> 00:12:42,833
but there's just no way you read

226
00:12:42,833 --> 00:12:48,150
the Gospel of John at its face value
and think that Jesus thought

227
00:12:48,150 --> 00:12:52,316
anything other about himself than he is
the divine

228
00:12:52,466 --> 00:12:55,316
saving Messiah of God.

229
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There's there's
no way around that in this gospel.

230
00:12:58,700 --> 00:13:02,333
Now, if you wanted to argue
that that's written into John later,

231
00:13:02,550 --> 00:13:04,100
you could have those arguments.

232
00:13:04,100 --> 00:13:09,000
But as you read the text, this text
is not going to let you go there.

233
00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:11,866
I think. I think that's
actually really helpful insight.

234
00:13:11,866 --> 00:13:15,083
And it it says something
about the character of John as well.

235
00:13:15,683 --> 00:13:19,166
There's this ever present question
that comes along with the faith,

236
00:13:19,166 --> 00:13:23,850
and I think that it's mirrored
by the crowd here in verse 52.

237
00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:28,850
Jesus,
Abraham died and so did the prophets.

238
00:13:28,850 --> 00:13:33,466
Yet you say, whoever keeps
my word will never taste death.

239
00:13:33,916 --> 00:13:37,050
You know, Clint,
you and I have experienced this now,

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00:13:37,400 --> 00:13:41,266
over our time of doing this Bible study,
you know, we we get the privilege

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00:13:41,266 --> 00:13:44,966
of having lots of people from even around
the world engage in conversation.

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And later coming into the comments and,
you know, sharing thoughts and ideas and,

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and we've talked about before
how many people really do

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get tripped up and hung up on language
like this, the language of that

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we will never taste death. Well,
what are you talking about?

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All of these prophets that the truly the,

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patron saints of Judaism,
all of them died.

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Jesus. What in the world
are you talking about?

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If they die,
how is it that we are going to never die?

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And if you read the Gospel of John Clement

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and tell me if you disagree with this,
but if you read the Gospel of John

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and you want to force it
into one specific sense,

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you want to say, everything
I read is going to be

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simple and literal.

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Or if you say everything I read in
John is always allegorical or always

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metaphor it,

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you're always making a mistake
because John is not being confined.

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Jesus is not confined
to one of those categories.

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Jesus is always yeah,
because he is God in flesh.

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Revelation is reorienting.

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I don't even say disorient thing.

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So when humans start looking for weight,
what do you literally mean by this death?

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Saying they are thinking about bodies
and graves while Jesus is talking about

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an eternal holding in the saving,
providential work of God?

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When they're thinking about human action,
Jesus is thinking about the Spirit of God

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at work as comforter, as first foretaste
of eternal life right there.

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There's this kind of miscommunication
that happens

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because of a God
in breaking into the created order.

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And John is, I think of all the Gospels,
all the Gospels have miracle stories.

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John, the teaching of Jesus itself,
the teaching itself,

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sort of functions to serve the same kind
of disorienting purpose

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that we will naturally have,
if indeed Jesus is, as he claims to be

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the creator, becoming created

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the one from before time,
taking on time, right?

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This is the kind of upsetting
turn of reality that happens with Jesus.

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The crowd in this story gets it.

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John is,
I think, as John always does, inviting us

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to see
if we also understand that implication.

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I think it would be difficult

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to read the rest of the gospel,
particularly to see Jesus die

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and then come back
and ask literal questions

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of those who who believe in me
will never see death.

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John understands life and death

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to mean more than physically being alive

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or physically experiencing death.

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Those are those are much deeper

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concepts, much bigger words
in this gospel.

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To live is to know and believe in Christ

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and to die is to forfeit
that life by rejecting Jesus.

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And so those who believe can't die
in that sense, because they embody

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the very meaning of life, as I think
John is trying to communicate it.

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I want to just end with it.

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Maybe this is a little, even
possibly a little flippant, Michael, but,

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one of

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my frustrations of the Gospel of John.

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Yeah.

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So we get to the end here.

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We have this great sentence.

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They picked up stones to throw at him,
but Jesus

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hid himself and went out of this
temple like it just.

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John has built this crescendo
and we get to this.

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And then he says,
And Jesus got away from them. And,

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the challenge
and I say that a little tongue in cheek,

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but the challenge of that is

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that that a sentence

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like that, when, when John does
that sort of just snap ending,

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it can raise enough questions
that it becomes the focus instead.

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And I think, you know, John
is just saying, look how Jesus got away.

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Isn't that sound important?

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All of this stuff that came to that point,
that's what you want to focus on.

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And so these moments where John just says,

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and then something else happened.

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It the those are,
those are jarring moments.

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And the danger in them,
I think, is that they can make it harder

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to go back and really try to mine
the depth of what came before them.

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I don't want to over press this,
but there's a sense

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in which John is not interested
in telling a narrative story

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that has side ups and arcs, that what

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when Jesus determines
it's time to get away from the crowd

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who wants to stone him?

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That's what Jesus does,
and any other interpretation

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of that action would be for John.

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It. Listen, either you believe Jesus
because of his revelation of His Word.

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By the way,
there's no it's not an accident.

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That word shows up
at the beginning of this book.

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If you either believe that he's
that his word

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reveals the order of the cosmos
or you don't.

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And if you don't, then he's just going to.

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Yeah, just sneak out of the temple and,
you know, that's fine,

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because you're not going to believe
because of his miracles.

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If you don't believe the word spoken,
there's no miracle that's going to somehow

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I push you over,
I think, is that the consistent case

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portrayed by the way
John tells this story?

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As a person
who likes to dive into narrative,

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John frustrates me in that regard.

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Like, well, how did he get away?

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It doesn't matter. Well,
how did they not get him?

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It wasn't his time yet.

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Those aren't answers.

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Come on, John,
give us a little something to work with.

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And John says, look,

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I just gave you 40 verses of the deepest
theology about Jesus you can find.

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And you're asking how he got away.

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And I appreciate that about John,
but it frustrates me.

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Yeah.

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And as a guy who reads nonfiction for fun
and doesn't get fiction,

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I think that's where probably I land
on the other side, because I think John

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speaks my language and I get to Matthew
and I'm like, are we done yet?

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Thanks for being with us here
today, friends.

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Certainly give us a like
if this video has been helpful.

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00:20:04,050 --> 00:20:05,416
Subscribe so you can stick with us

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00:20:05,416 --> 00:20:08,716
on the rest of the study of John
as we continue in chapter nine next week.

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Glad that you're with us today
and we look forward to seeing you soon.

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Have a good weekend.