John 8.21-39

  • Mark Hakso
  • Dec 30, 2007
  • Series: Gospel According to John

John 8: 21-38

 

Introduction

 

This passage which we'll be studying today is very full of truth about Jesus and the way of salvation.  Jesus is continuing his conversation with the Jews about who he is and absolute necessity of trusting in him alone for salvation.  In this passage we learn:

 

    1.  That it is possible to seek after Christ in vain

    2.  The great difference between Christ and sinners

    3.  Dying in your sins = hell

    4.  The importance of persevering in the faith

    5.  The nature of true slavery and,

    6.  What true liberty is.

 

Read text

 

Seeking Christ in Vain

 

We know that Jesus is speaking to a group of unbelieving Jews.  He had just finished with his declaration that he is the true light of the world and that by following him one could have the light of life, and no longer walk in darkness.  This he taught to the Pharisees who never missed an opportunity to question his teachings and his character. 

 

Now Jesus tells them that he will be going away and that they will seek him and that they would die in their sin.  While Jesus is here speaking about his impending crucifixion and subsequent resurrection and ascension to his father in heaven, his listeners think he is talking about suicide for they ask the question, "Will he kill himself, since he says, Where I am going, you cannot come?"  In Jewish culture and according to Jewish teaching and tradition, suicide carried with it the eternal consequence of separation from God.  So because they thought they were certainly not hell bound it made sense that they would not be following Jesus to where he was going if he was going to be taking his own life.  Ironically, he was to die soon, but not as a result of suicide.  Rather he would die at their hands, as a result of their thirst for his blood. 

 

So what does Jesus mean when he says that they will seek him and not find him and that they will die in their sin?  I believe he is warning them that if they deny him as their messiah and savior that they have missed their one opportunity.  After he is gone from their midst, no matter how much they seek for the messiah, they shall never find him for he is come and gone.  So the result is that they will die in their sin.  By the use of the singular sin he is speaking of their unbelief which is the chief sin which keeps one from ever having a relationship with God.  It is only by repenting of ones unbelief and receiving Jesus by faith and trusting in him for complete remission of sin and the sins that so naturally flowed out of unbelief, that one can have eternal life. 

The message is clear to us today as well.  Do not wait to receive Jesus as the Lord and Savior of your life.  If you are still resisting the call of the gospel to lay down your sin at the foot of the cross, and to run to Jesus who calls out to you now with outstretched arms desiring to forgive you and give you grace, mercy, joy, and life eternal, none of which you deserve, then I have to warn you, no, Jesus in this passage warns you, that someday you may seek him in vain.  Listen to the warning found in Proverbs 1: 28-31: 

 

 

Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but not find me.  Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices. 

 

Yes, there are those who say they believe but don't have salvation.  They believe that Christ was born of a virgin, lived a perfectly sinless life, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected on the third day.  They believe but their hearts remain cold and indifferent toward God.  Often times these are people who while they accepts the facts of Christ don't give their lives to him because they don't want to change how they are living their lives.   I believe ones who are in  danger of this also are those of us who grew up in the church.  Maybe you remember that at age 6 or 7 you prayed the sinners prayer with your mom or dad and think that you're safe.  Or maybe you grew up in a church like I did where the teaching was that all children were born in a saved condition and that as long as you kept believing and didn't allow sin to go unconfessed in your life you were all right with God.  Never mind the fact that Jesus said that "You must be born again."  The bottom line is this that you don't ever want to rely on anything that you have done or any goodness in yourself or social or family position as the reason why you are acceptable in the sight of God.  If you have a said faith instead of a real faith and desire to have salvation or if you're a believer and have sinned against God and want to have a restored relationship with him, the only gift that you can give God is a broken and contrite heart.  Listen in on David's prayer of repentance after his great fall into sin in Psalm 51: 16-17:

 

For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering.  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

 

There is no safety except to call upon Jesus when he is near and to seek him while he can be found.  If you come to Jesus with a humble heart and a contrite and honest spirit, he will not turn you away.  Rather, he will take your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, and give you a place in his family forever.  This we know because the bible promises this over and over.  If today you are carrying a heavy burden and would love to be able to get rid of it but don't know how, then listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 11: 28-30:

 

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

 

 

The Great Difference Between Christ and Sinners

 

In verse 23 Christ tells these unbelieving Jews that they are from below and that he is from above.  Because Christ existed before the creation of the universe and is himself the creator of all things, together with his father, he is the only one who can make this claim in the most literal sense.  He truly is from above, he came from heaven where he existed in perfect relationship with his father lacking nothing.  We are from below.  We are his creation, created by him, declared to be good, but then defiled by sin because of the fall by Adam in the garden of Eden.

 

There is another sense though where we as followers of Jesus are also from above.  If we have been saved by the death of Jesus on the cross and justified by his resurrection from the dead, if our hearts have been cleansed by his blood and if we have been given a new nature to combat the sinfulness of our old nature, then we should be living our lives in a different way than that of the average garden variety pagan living in Marysville.  Our lives ought to reflect the fact that our souls have been transformed.  That we are no longer living for ourselves and to ourselves, but rather for the glory of the one who bought us at the cross. 

 

At DRC, we aren't going to tell you do this by abstaining from smoke, drink, cards, R rated movies, rock and roll music, make up,  or any of the long list of "sins" that you might get from some folks.  But the bible teaches us that getting drunk is a sin, that shacking up with your girlfriend or boyfriend is a sin, that porn is a sin, that greed is a sin, that gossip is a sin,  and that idolatry, whatever form it takes is also a sin.  The unsaved person is full of this world, it's cares and pleasures absorb his thinking.  I'm sure that any of you who's heart has been changed can attest to the fact that your thinking changed.  Instead of your thinking being primarily self focused, it is now Jesus focused as well as others focused. 

 

Now, while some things change immediately about yourself, some things take longer and change over time.  This is the process referred to as sanctification, which simply means that as Christians we are always changing the longer we live as we become more and more like Jesus. 

 

 

 

Dying in your sins = Hell

 

Third, heed the warning Christ gives to these Pharisees in verse 24, "for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins."  Again, though he was talking to a crowd that existed 2000 years ago, he is still speaking these same words to us today.  And he's not talking about soul sleep or any other such gibberish that cults have invented to soften the teaching about hell.  He is in fact speaking about an eternal conscience existence apart from God where there will be eternal torment.  This is not the only place where Jesus warned about the danger of hell.  Many times he warns those who wouldn't believe in him that they faced the reality of hell.  In Mark 9:48 he describes hell as a place "where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched."

 

It's true that today people don't want to hear about hell.  Even many Christians don't want to speak about it or hear about it.  Now I'm not saying that you should go around and tell every person you meet whom you suspect is not saved that they're going to hell, but I do believe that we (myself included) need to be more honest with people who don't believe in Jesus what their destiny without him is, especially when the subject comes up.  I think that for sinners to desire a savior they need to know what they need to be saved from, namely the wrath of God.

 

Read verses 25-30.  Jesus says that there will come a time when they will know him.  It will be when they have lifted him up.  He's talking about the time in the near future when they would crucify him on a Roman cross.  It was this point, the pinnacle of his work on earth that they see him for who is, the messiah prophesied by countless prophets, dying a horrible death for the sins of the world.  But even though they knew at this point who he was I'm sure that many still resisted entrusting their life to him.

 

 

The Importance of Persevering in the Faith

 

Read 31-32

We learn from this passage also the importance of steady perseverance.  Throughout the ministry of Jesus there were many people who professed faith in him.  Often times it was after seeing his mighty works and miracles that they believed.  Other times it was after teaching such as he does here.  But often times these folks lacked true saving faith.  They lacked an important fruit of real faith or salvation which is perseverance.  We see this in chapter 2:23-25:

 

Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.  But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

 

 

The fact of the matter is that while the bible teaches and I believe in the doctrine of eternal security,  this only applies to sinners who have been genuinely been converted by the holy spirit and who have become new creations in Christ.  There always have been and continue to be those who profess faith in Jesus for a short while before abandoning it for something else.  Which is one reason why we don't do altar calls at DRC.  There tends to be a higher degree of false conversions when people whose hearts aren't ready are pressured to respond to an altar call.  Two components that I believe are necessary to receive Jesus:  An accurate view of oneself.  The fact that you are a sinner totally at odds with God, totally unable to do anything yourself to better your condition.  Secondly, you need to have a right understanding of who Jesus is and what he did for you on the cross, and that he offers you complete forgiveness of all your sins by his grace alone through faith alone.

 

 

The Nature of True Slavery

 

Read 34-38

 

The Jews prided themselves as being a free people.  Even though their history as a people included many episodes of slavery including to Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Syria, and Rome, they thought of themselves as being a free people. Certainly they had much independence under their present situation in Rome, especially religious freedom, but the fact remained that they were in service to Caesar.  So they were probably speaking more of a spiritual, inward freedom and privilege. That since Abraham their father they have been able to maintain their religious beliefs. 

 

But our Lord was speaking to them about spiritual slavery that they were under and that all unregenerate people are under though often times they will not acknowledge it.  These folks are led captive by the wants and desires of their own flesh and corruption and weakness and seem to have no power to be free.  Think about the vices you see in our own community;  drugs, alcohol abuse, gambling addiction, gluttony, greed.  These are habits which tend to totally enslave their subjects to where they really are not free to stop.  Sin is a hard taskmaster.  Think about the crumby wages it pays its servants.  Misery and disappointment along the way, despair and hell at the end.  There is no slavery quite like this!  We preach the gospel of Christ to free people from these chains.  In fact the great aim of the gospel is to awaken people to the real knowledge of their depravity, to show them their chains, and point them to Jesus. 

 

 

What True Liberty Is

 

As Americans we appreciate liberty.  Many of our forefathers died so that we can enjoy the freedoms that we have today.  Many still die in Iraq and elsewhere so that those who would wish to take it away from us are stopped from doing so.  The freedoms that we so much enjoy are certainly gifts from God himself and we should always be thankful for them.  But these, as important as they are, pale in comparison to true spiritual liberty.   So what does this liberty look like?   

 

- It frees a sinner from the guilt and the consequences of sin by the blood of                                                  Christ.

 

-They are justified, pardoned and forgiven and can look boldly to the day of judgment.

 

-They are freed from the power of sin by the grace of the spirit of Christ.

 

-Sin no longer has dominion over them.

 

-Because they have been renewed by the spirit of Christ they now have an earnest, ongoing desire to do the will of God and to resist sin. 

 

-No longer led captive by sin.

 

All people who have fled to Christ by faith and committed their souls to his care own this liberty and are free people.  This liberty is theirs forever and nothing can stop it, not even death.  Even the grave won't be able to hold their bodies down for more than a little while.  Those who have been freed by Christ are free for all eternity.

 

In conclusion may I say that none of us should rest until we have personally experienced this freedom and liberty.  For without this liberty all other liberty is but useless privilege. All the liberties that as Americans we hold sacred; freedom of speech, press, religion, to bear arms, assemble, etc, etc, cannot give comfort to a soul that is about to pass from this life to the next.  Only the liberty that comes from knowing Jesus can do that.   

 

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