- How do we size up others?
- How does God size us up?
- How do we size up with God?
John 8:12-20
- 8:14-18—Jesus says that His claims are valid because He knows where He comes from, even if the priests do not. Jesus brings light, not judgment.
a. But the flip side to bringing light into the world is that some will reject the light and thus be judged because of their rejection.
b. It is not that they are ignorant, but that they are not open to the light.
c. 8:19-20—They are still on a biography level and do not see Jesus for who He really is.
John 8:21-29
- 8:21—Again, Jesus says that He is going where they cannot follow.
a. 8:22—They ask if Jesus is going to commit suicide. How does this reflect their misunderstanding of His identity?
b. 8:23-24—Jesus is the Word who has become flesh and exegetes the Father because Jesus is the ego eimi.
c. 8:28-30—We understand this mean the Cross.
i. The Cross is the ultimate display of who God is. The Son, in an act of supreme selflessness, becomes the ego eimi and the very essence of God.
ii. Hans Kung says that the very reason why God even created us is love. God chooses not to be alone solely out of His nature (p. 78).
iii. Everyone wants a God who is big and strong, yet in the Cross we see a God who is selfless. The Resurrection is the defining moment of God’s nature and the Son’s work.
iv. The Incarnation is God taking our humanity into Himself. The scars on the resurrected Jesus seal a permanent relationship between God and His creation (Pannenberg, p. 396-397).
John 8:30-47
- 8:31-32—Jesus says that if they believe in Him, then they will truly be free.
a. 8:30—Is this faith that will stick around?
b. 8:33—The people have forgotten their past and do not truly believe. - 8:34-40—Jesus offers a discourse in response to their reaction in v. 33.
a. 8:34-36—First, Jesus says that anyone “who commits a sin is a slave to sin” (cf., Rom. 6:12-18).
i. Talbert reminds us that sin is both an “orientation” and an “action” (p. 160).
ii. Augustine once wrote, “An evil conscience flees not from itself; it has no place to go to; it follows itself. Yea, he cannot withdraw from himself, for the sin he commits is within...The pleasure passes away; the sin remains. What delighted is gone; the sting has remained behind. Evil bondage” (p. 231 [41.4]).
iii. It is Jesus’ position as “the Son” that affords His the power to provide forgiveness (Morris, p. 407).
b. 8:37-40—Second, Jesus challenges their heritage by saying that they are not acting in a way that honors Abraham.
i. 8:41—The response by the Jews is meant to be an attack on Jesus’ patronage, that He is illegitimate.
ii. Jesus’ response to them, however, is that they are no different than their fathers who failed to listen to the prophets.
iii. Philo once said, “Kinship is not measured only by blood, but by similarity of conduct ad pursuit of the same objects” (On the Virtues 195).
John 8:48-59
- 8:48—The Jewish leaders are attempting to discredit Jesus (Talbert, p. 162).
- 8:51—Jesus, of course is speaking of the spiritual death, although the Jewish leaders assume He is talking about physical death.
- 8:59—Taking His proclamation of divinity in v. 58 as blasphemy, the Jewish leaders seek to purge the world of what they assume is an unholy abomination, thus proving they are no different than their fathers (cf., Leviticus 24:16; Brown, p. 367).
References
Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).
Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1984).
Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977).
Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).
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