1 Corinthians 10:1-13 John 8:30-47
Incorrigible and Irredeemable
One of the most frustrating and exasperating things in life is attempting to reason with someone who will not listen and who refuses to understand. Sometimes you can actually see the moment they realise the flaw in their argument and then they either get louder (as if shouting will make a difference), or they get angry (and this can sometimes manifest itself in tears), or they shift and deny that they said what they said earlier, or they simply turn around and storm off in a huff – preferably banging a door or two on the way out. Be honest, I’ve just described you at some or other point in your life…
When my mother found herself in a place where she could no longer defend her argument, she would simply toss her head and say, “A woman convinced against her will is of the same opinion still.” And you wonder why I no longer have any hair left. But the bottom line is that people only listen when they are predisposed to do so. Like in our Gospel passage for today, we see that only those who have ears to hear do, in fact, hear.
We are told in verse 30 that as Jesus debated with the leaders in the Temple, some folks believed in him. But what follows shows that this did not mean that their faith was based on truth. You see, it is not the initial agreement with the Lord’s words that makes one a follower of the light…no, rather it is the consistent and persistent walking in the light that proves the reality of our faith. “If you hold to my Word (teaching),” Jesus said to those who had believed in him, “you are really my followers (disciples). Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Jesus repeated this statement later in John as well. “If anyone loves me, he will obey my Word (teaching),” (John 14:23) or, stated negatively, “He who does not love me will not obey my Word (teaching).” (John 14:23). The wordplay here is brilliant.
John had already told us that Jesus is the Word we must hold to, and he is the Truth we must know, and he is the one who has come to set us free – to deliver from slavery to sin (or darkness) those who follow him in the light. In a nutshell, Jesus was telling them and us that he embodies everything that made them and us the people of God. As we saw two weeks ago, by the time Jesus was born, the “light” of Israel had become little more than a memory remembered in the Festivals of Israel, recalled in psalms of lament, and rehearsed in stories of the past. At this time, Israel was ruled by a puppet king and wealthy aristocrats who were controlled and manipulated by a powerful pagan empire, the last in a line of several oppressors since their Exile in Babylon.
As we saw earlier, this teaching of Jesus took place the day after the final day of the Feast of Tabernacles. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jews celebrated not only their miraculous deliverance from Egypt and their survival throughout the wilderness wanderings, but they also recalled both the time when Solomon’s Temple was dedicated to the Lord (1 Kings 8:2) as well as their return from Exile under the leadership of Joshua and Zerubbabel (Ezra 3). At the time of their return, as Ezra read the Word of God to them during the Feast of Tabernacles (Nehemiah 8), a great revival broke out as the returnees confessed and repented of their sins.
As such, the Feast of Tabernacles served to remind the Israelites in every generation of their deliverance by God in the past and it also served as a reminder for them to look forward to the expected future deliverance by the coming Messiah.
But the cracks in the faith of those in the Temple began to show immediately as they responded with probably one of the most curious statements in the Gospels. “We are Abraham’s descendants,” they said. True enough, but then they added, “And we have never been slaves of anyone.” This statement borders on the delusional. What about their 400-year-long slavery under the Egyptians, the various periods of enslavement under different near eastern nations during the time of the Judges, their 70-year-long exile under the Babylonians, their servile vassal status under Persia, Greece, and at that present moment, Rome?
However, some commentators try to explain this otherwise ludicrous statement by referring to an ancient saying that confidently declared, “Circumcised men do not descend into Gehenna (hell).” (see C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark Ltd., 1975), p. 172.) In other words, they believed that as their forefather Abraham was the eternal protector of all Jews, whether pious or sinful, they were subject to no one in a spiritual sense. They were basically claiming freedom and eternal security through covenantal inclusion, an Old Testament equivalent to a form of “once saved always saved”.
If this is what they were referring to, then Jesus' reply makes perfect sense. “I tell you the truth,” he said, “everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” The Scriptures are clear on the subject of bondage to sin…there is none that does good, no not one…we were all conceived and brought forth in iniquity…our heart is deceitful and desperately wicked, and so on. This is what Jesus meant when using the word “slavery”. But the freedom Jesus was speaking about is not just freedom from sin or the effects of sin, but also freedom to obedience. To have the light of life, there must be a following and a walking in the light. It involves holding to the Word and abiding in the Truth. In other words, it is not enough for you to begin well. You must persevere and end well too.
As Paul said to the Corinthians regarding Israel: “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they all drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”
We could say they were all members of the covenant community delivered or saved by God from slavery in Egypt, right?
“Nevertheless,” Paul continued, “God was not pleased with most of them, for they were struck down in the wilderness…Now.” Paul concluded, “these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come. So, the one who thinks he is standing firm should be careful not to fall.” (1 Corinthians 10:1-5, 11-12 Berean)
Heritage counts for nothing when you are enslaved to sin.
For this reason, after having defined the kind of slavery he was speaking about, he picked up on the language of familial or covenant legacy. While it was possible for slaves to inherit upon the death of their master (such as the case of Eleazar and Abraham in Genesis 15:2-3), it was not considered normal practice, nor was it enshrined in the law. Inheritance, which would include the father’s slaves (Lev. 25:39–40), always went to the sons (chiefly the oldest son), or in some rare cases, to the daughters like with the daughters of Zelophehad (Numbers 27:1-11). So, following Jesus’ argument, if everyone was enslaved to sin, then no one could be free. Only the Son, who (in the case of Jesus) had no sin and was, therefore, not enslaved by sin, would have the power to release his inherited slaves…those given to him by his Father.
Now, it is possible that Jesus may have been alluding to the story of Abraham, Ishmael, and Isaac. Ishmael, the son of the Egyptian slave Hagar, was not the son of the promise and was therefore not to be an heir with Isaac (cf. also Paul’s argument in Galatians 4:28-31). Be that as it may, the bottom-line is that the slave could not partake of the inheritance…only a legitimate son had such privileges. So, as the sinless Son of God, Jesus has the power and the authority to set free all who are enslaved to sin. “He whom the Son sets free,” Jesus said, “shall be free indeed.” A freedom far greater than that of the Exodus.
Now while Jesus did not dispute their physical heritage as Abraham’s descendants, he did dispute their spiritual heritage. “If you were Abraham’s children,” he said, “you would do the works of Abraham.” In other words, their behaviour blatantly contradicted their claimed status.
Abraham’s life was characterised by faith in God’s word as well as obedience to God’s word. Whatever God said, he believed, and he did, without question or argument. As we’ve already seen, the leaders had already displaced God’s Word with their tradition. But this was nothing new. Throughout the Old Testament, we see how the people of God were constantly being led astray by wanting to be like the other nations around them…not unlike the modern revisionist church.
Now from this point on, the discussion began to get nasty. That’s often what happens when folks find themselves in a corner. Attack and ridicule are used as a method of self-defence. “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. Is it possible that this was a snide remark about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth? This was such a small tight-knit community and the scandal surrounding Mary’s pregnancy may not have stayed in Nazareth.
Be that as it may, their claim was that they were part of the theocracy…that they were legitimate members of the covenant community of God. “The only Father we have is God himself,” they said. But Jesus exploded this claim using the same argument as with their claim to being descendants of Abraham.
“If God were your father, you would love me, for I am from God, and now I am here.” Now, if his detractors were, in fact, alluding to his birth in their remark about legitimacy, then here Jesus may have been defending his mother’s claim to virginity and the exceptional divine nature of his conception and incarnation. Nevertheless, Jesus clearly indicated here that his coming to earth was by his Father’s design and therefore they should have welcomed him.
I believe that there’s an echo here of what John said in the opening chapter of his Gospel. “He (Jesus, the Light) came to his own and yet his own did not receive him. But to all who did receive him and who believed in his name, he (the Son) gave the right (the freedom) to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.” (John 1:11-13)
Their inability to hear and their refusal to obey was because they were not children of Abraham nor of God…a sad reality revealed by their attitude and their behaviour. Their desire to accuse, sentence, and execute Jesus mirrored the actions of the devil. “He was a murderer from the beginning,” Jesus said, “not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.”
I believe the imagery here is that of the third chapter of Genesis. The first Adam brought death into the world because he believed the lies of Satan whose object was to activate the death penalty for sin through Adam and Eve’s rejection of God’s Word. So, there is a major contrast here. Satan is the originator of lies. Jesus is the embodiment of truth. Those who reject Jesus (the Word), reject the truth and embrace the lie…just like Adam and Eve.
To clinch the matter in his favour, Jesus asked them two basic rhetorical questions, “Can you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” If they thought he was not telling the truth, it ought to have been easy to convict him of lying. But, as we know, they eventually had to resort to hiring false witnesses to condemn him to death at a mockery of a trial…and even then, they could not agree but brought conflicting evidence against him because you can’t support lies with lies.
As John later reported: even when the pagan governor asked them, “What charges are you bringing against this man?” they did not have a ready reply. They simply said, “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.” (John 18:29-30) Several times Pilate stated, “I find no basis for a charge against him.” And yet, those who knew the law are taught the law called for the lawless murder of an innocent law-abiding man. That is the power of the lies of the devil…all you need for a lie to succeed is an unprincipled mob and a few instigators and agitators.
The problem here is quite basic. Jesus spelled it out in verse 47. “He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” It really is a shocking tragedy…the people of God did not know their God.
You see it all boils down to whether we hold to His Word or not.
After all, that was the first temptation, wasn’t it? “Did God really say?” In fact, I believe every temptation is a variation of this one…“did God really say”…and then add whatever sin is desired.
“If you hold to my Word (teaching),” Jesus said to those who had believed in him, “you are really my followers (disciples). Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
Dearest beloved brethren, we are the people who have God’s Word. We have it, but do we know it…know it well enough to be able to live by it The Word of God is the only offensive weapon we have in our spiritual arsenal. It is the sharp, two-edged sword of the Spirit. Take away the Word of God, or change God’s Word, or dilute God’s Word and the Church will retreat…we cannot advance with a dull weapon or no weapon at all for that matter. God’s Word is also a lamp to our feet, showing us the way in which we ought to walk. But if we do not know it, how can we hold to it? If we do not know God’s Word, “how then shall we live?”, to quote Francis Shaeffer. If we do not know it and live by it, how can we say we know God?
If you hold to the Word, you are truly followers of Jesus. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Shall we pray?
© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2023
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