Continued Conflict In Jerusalem

Gospel. I want to invite your attention to John chapter 8. In our study of the life of Christ, we are in study number 50, I believe. Tonight of the life of Christ, and we're looking at Jesus in the last six months of his ministry in life. And there's a three-month period of time that we're looking at called conflict and instruction. That's what is typically referred to, or the title that's typically given to this three-month period. And certainly, Jesus has gone right into the teeth of the opposition to his ministry in Jerusalem. He walks right into the hotbed of opposition to everything that he has been doing. He has maintained distance from Jerusalem for over two years. And now he is right in the center of the city, in the temple, teaching as we saw in John chapter 7, and also in John chapter 8. Let's pick up where we left off just to remind you where we were last week. Jesus is making some claims about himself and his ministry. And so there is conflict over the person of Christ in John chapter 8. And we saw three different claims that Jesus makes, first of all, his claim to be the life of the world in verses 12 through 29. And basically, what he's saying to the people who are listening, and especially the Jewish leaders, that they are in darkness. They are in spiritual darkness. And so because of that, Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. And you can find the light for spiritual darkness in me. And then Jesus makes a second claim. And by the way, all of the claims he makes in this passage are thoughtfully disputed by the religious leaders of the Jewish people, the Pharisees and other religious leaders. So he makes a second claim that is to be the liberator from bondage in verses 30 to 47, which Jesus says, you are in bondage. Remember he said, you're in bondage to sin, whoever sins is the slave of sin, he says. And so they're in bondage to sin. But they're also in bondage to a religious system. And you remember the religious system they were in bondage to, they claimed because they were children of Abraham, because they were children of Abraham, that they were okay. In other words, just because we are Jews, just because we are descendants of Abraham makes us part of the special chosen people of God. So we're automatically in. I mean, we get to heaven just on Abraham's coat fails is what they were saying, basically. And Jesus debated that point with them. Remember who did Jesus say, well, first of all, remember he said, I know you are descendants of Abraham, but not what? Not children. Yeah, I remember that distinction that we saw last week. He said, you are descendants of Abraham, but you're not children. In other words, you are racial ethnic descendants. He is your father in that sense, but you are not the children of Abraham. And Paul will pick up on that theme later in Galatians. Remember we talked about that a little bit that true children of Abraham are those who have faith in Christ. And so Jesus is saying, you may be descendants, but you're not children. And then he said, you actually do have a father, spiritually, who did he say it was? The devil, John 844, Jesus said, you are of your father, the devil. He was a liar from the beginning and you're just liking. You're showing the characteristics of being in his family. So he is your father. And so again, they are very adamant against what our Lord is saying in this passage about that for sure. So we pick it up in verse 48 with Jesus third claim. And this is the claim to be the life giving God. He claims to be the life giving God. Actually, Jesus claims that in three different ways in the rest of this chapter, and we'll see that all, well, the first two of them are misunderstood and debated by the Jews. And the last claim that Jesus makes in this chapter, they understand very clearly. Okay, notice what Jesus claims. Verse 48, the Jews answered him, aren't we right in saying you are a Samaritan and demon possessed? Can you tell they're a little bit angry with Jesus here? What do you think they meant by saying you're a Samaritan? What do you think they meant by that? Okay. All right. Gentile didn't come from married parents. Okay. Maybe both of those things in there. Yeah. Putting Jesus down. Yeah. Okay. He was false. Okay. How could you be the Messiah if you're a Samaritan? Yeah. There's part of that in there too. I mean, there's a whole lot. This is a racially charged epithet against the Lord. This is a racially charged accusation against the Lord. And it carries a lot of weight and a lot of baggage with it. By saying you're a Samaritan, they were saying he's he's half-breed. He's not a full blood of Jew. So how could he claim to be the Messiah anyway? Now they knew he was not from Samaria. They knew he was not. But that was just an accusation thrown at him to say basically or half-breed. It may have been a comment on his origin. Remember last time we saw that in this same passage, they said to him, we're not the ones around here who are illegitimate. So they were they were referring to Jesus' birth and what they understood to be his birth outside of marriage. That's the way that they understood it, obviously. That was not true, of course, as we know. I mean, it was outside of marriage, but they did not believe that he was the Son of God. So it could be they were saying, well, for all we know, your father may have been a Samaritan. Who knows who your father was? Truly. So this is a really highly charged atmosphere of hatred and animosity. Of course, they say demon possessed. Look at Jesus answered in verse 49, I am not possessed by a demon, said Jesus, but I honor my father. Jesus makes it clear who his father is. His father is God. I honor my father. And you dishonor me. I am not seeking glory for myself, but there is one who seeks it and he is the judge. I tell you the truth and here's Jesus' claim. I tell you the truth. If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. If anyone keeps Jesus' word, he will never see death. That is a claim to being the life-giving God. The only one who can give the kind of life that is eternal so that people do not die is God. So Jesus is making a very clear claim to deity. And notice their response verse 52, at this, the Jews explain, now we know that you are demon possessed. Abraham died and so did all the prophets. Yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are? You just hear the hatred in their voices. They think he is making claims that obviously cannot be substantiated. Wild claims. You think you're greater than Abraham? You think that someone believing your word will never die? Abraham died? Are you think you're greater than him? So they are incensed and obviously misunderstand his claim to being the life-giving God. So Jesus continues on verse 54, Jesus replied, if I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My father whom you claim as your God is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. Jesus is countering their accusations with the truth. They do not know God, but Jesus does. And he says, if I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Now here's the second claim of Jesus, which is misunderstood. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was going ahead. What do you think Jesus meant by my day? Abraham rejoiced to see my day. What's he talking about there? Anybody have an idea? He rejoiced to see my day. And he saw it. Okay, so it's something that's already happened. What do you think he was talking about? That Abraham saw about Jesus. He's coming. Yeah, I think that's it. He's coming. When Jesus came to this earth, he's not talking yet about his death because Jesus hasn't died. Abraham hasn't seen that yet. But what did every Old Testament saint look forward to? The Messiah's coming. Yes, the coming of Messiah. Abraham was looking for the Messiah to come. All the Old Testament saints, prophets, all of them were looking for the Messiah to come. That was their hope. That was their promise. And so they were looking for the Messiah and Abraham saw him come and rejoiced. Okay, now they're going to misunderstand that statement too. Look at verse 57. You are not yet 50 years old, the Jews said to him and you have seen Abraham again, they're accusing him of making an outlandish statement. Jesus says, Abraham saw my day and rejoiced. Abraham was looking for me. He saw it. And so they're thinking, you mean you you're claiming to live back in the time of Abraham? You're not even 50 years old yet. So obviously they misunderstand his claim. So they misunderstood the first two claims that I can give eternal life and that that Abraham rejoiced to see me because I'm the Messiah and the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophecies. So Jesus makes a claim that they will not miss. They cannot miss. Look at what he says in verse 58. I tell you the truth, Jesus answered before Abraham was born, I am. Now wait a second. That's grammatically incorrect, isn't it? Should they have said before Abraham was, I was if he's trying to date himself as being older than Abraham? It's a title. Okay, what title is what title are we talking about here? That he is God? What title does he use that would indicate he's God? I am. I am. Where does that title come from? Do you remember? It goes back to Moses. Do you remember where? There? There? Yes. When God was ready to send Moses to deliver the people of Israel and Moses is giving all these objections, you remember in Exodus chapter 3 and he says who will I say send me? If they ask me, who will I say send me? In Exodus 3, 14, God says, tell them I am that I am. I am has sent you. Okay, now that becomes the covenant name for God actually spelled out in the Hebrew letters without the vowels in Hebrew is YWHYH or YWHYH and Fendel leave out the vowels. YWH is the way it's spelled. Take the consonants out of that letter and that's what he said. I am that I am. It's a Hebrew verb that means I am the self-existent God. I do not need anything to maintain my existence. I did not come into existence like men did, like people did and I don't need anything to maintain my existence. I am self-sustaining self-existent. I am. I am. And so when Jesus says before Abraham was, not I was, that would have been a claim to deity because he would have been saying I lived before Abraham. He didn't say that. He pulled out of the Old Testament one of the greatest names for God, YAHWYH or Jehovah. The name that would be used for his covenant with Israel and he said, that's who I am. I am. Now they could not miss that claim and they didn't miss it. Look at how they responded. For 59, at this they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself slipping away from the temple grounds. So they realized he was claiming to be God. Now he's been claiming that all through chapter 8. I am the light. I am the reader from bondage. I can release you from the bondage to sin. I can release you from the bondage to religion and tradition. He was claiming deity all along. His relationship with his father, the father glorifies him. All of those claims are deity. I am the light giving God. That's deity. He makes a claim to to be able to release them from from all of their bondage and he knows the father and all of those claims are deity. But this is the greatest one. I am. I am. And so at that point they believe he is guilty of blasphemy and they pick up stones in rage to kill him, but he slips out. Again, I'd like to see how that happened. Wouldn't you like to have just been there and seen what happened there? Jesus slipped away from the temple grounds. Any question or comment about this great chapter, chapter 8 on Jesus claims and debate with the religious leaders? These are the most clear claims of Jesus to being God. These are the most clear claims of his deity to this point in his ministry. The tragic part is those clear claims to being God are matched with clear denials and resistance and stubbornness on the part of the Jewish leaders, the religious leaders who deny him and reject him. So there's conflict over the person of Christ. Okay, now we move on into chapter 9. There's conflict over the healing of a blind man. Conflict over the healing of a blind man. So the conflict continues to escalate. Conflict continues to go on in chapter 9. By the way, Jesus' healing comes in many different forms in the gospels, but the most common is the recovery of sight to the blind. I don't know if all of you would answer this question the same way I would, but if I were to ask, if I were to be asked, what sense would you least like to give up if you had to give up one? I think it would be my sight. You know, none of them would be easy to give up, but to lose your sight is just, I think, a terrible, terrible condition to be in. And so maybe that accounts for Jesus in compassion, having more instances than any other ailment that he dealt with, the recovery of sight to the blind, even more than healing lepers. Jesus gave sight to the blind. So here's a great example of that in chapter 9. Notice the miracle performed in verses 1 through 7. As he went along, I remember chapter 8 has ended with he slipped out of the temple grounds and the very next phrase is as he went along, you get the impression that this immediately happens. It's not necessarily so. There are sometimes those expressions that there's a gap of time, but it could well be that as Jesus is walking away from the temple, this happens. He saw a man blind from birth. Verse 2, his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind? Why, what do you think they asked that? They believed sin caused disease. Okay. Pardon me? They thought they were stung. Okay. You know, the rabbis, the Jewish rabbis religious teachers actually taught that in Jesus' day, that every physical ailment was the direct result of personal sin. That was the teaching of the Pharisees. That if you had a physical ailment, it was a direct result of personal sin. Does that sound very familiar to anybody today? Yeah. Charismatics may not be quite as direct or quite as bold, but they tie disease or illness to spiritual causes. Okay. And that's a very dangerous thing to do. Now, is it ever true that disease or sickness may be tied to sin? Okay. That can be true. Can it? Does the Bible talk about that ever? Do you remember an instance maybe where that was the case? For Paul actually says, some of you are weak, some of you are sick, some of you have died because of sin. The Corinthian church for Corinthians 11, right? So there can be a relationship, but there is not necessarily a relationship. And there is certainly not always a relationship. So for that reason, it is wrong for us to make that assumption about other people. Now, I think whenever we feel that we may be being chastened of God in a physical way, then we need to deal with that and get right with God, make sure sin is confessed. That's what James Spive is talking about. Someone believes that an illness is due to chastening, then there are provisions made for confessing sin and having that taken care. But the Bible never teaches that there's a direct relationship between sin and sickness. Okay. Bible never teaches that. There may be a relationship, but there's not necessarily a relationship. But the disciples asking, I mean, they just have accepted all their life. This, what the Pharisees have taught, what the religious teachers have always taught, that if there is an ailment, if there is an illness, then there's a direct relationship, some personal sin. So they ask, well, I mean, it's a given to them that this is caused by sin. They just ask who sin was it? Was it his parents sin? Because this boy was born blind. This man was born blind, or was it his sin? Now, that's an even more interesting question, isn't it? If he was born blind, and maybe they didn't know that, but if it was born blind, what sin could he have committed that would have brought blindness? But anyway, we'll let that go for now. Yes. In Luke 13, the disciples ask about the power of Psylon, the fell and killed 18 people. And Jesus, you know, they asked, why did that happen? And Jesus said, you're asking the wrong question. You're asking the wrong question. The question is, unless you also repent, you will all like was dying. The real question is not, what caused this? The real question is, make sure you're right, look God, make sure you know the Lord. So the disciples ask this question, by the way, there's just a hint of the disciples doing what the Pharisees had done before. And that was the Pharisees not caring about the condition of a person as much as they try to figure out why it's happened. Remember them Pharisees brought a man to Jesus, put him in the synagogue, so knowing Jesus would heal him, would have compassion on him, they really didn't care for the man, they just wanted to trap Jesus. Well, there may be something like that here, even in the disciples heart. Do they really care about this man, or are they just using him as a theological football, trying to figure out why it happened? I want to come back to that point in just a moment. Jesus responds to these men in this way, verse 3, neither this man nor his parents sinned said Jesus, but this happens so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Jesus basically clearly says this is not tied to sin. You're asking which sin caused it? I'm telling you, neither, neither the parents nor the man. It's not tied to sin. This happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Now, what does that teach us? If illness or physical ailments are not directly tied to sin necessarily, what does Jesus statement tell us about illness or disease or whatever? God can get glory. Now, we have to be real careful with that. That can come across making God look like a cruel person who wants glory for himself out of making people suffer. We have to be very careful with that. What I think Jesus is talking about is that God can take tragedy and turn it into triumph, turn it into glory. Don't ever forget that we have disease and illness because we live in a world that's under the curse, because the cause of man's sin. It's not like God throws these things at us and says, I want you to be sick, I want you to have a disease, I want you to die or whatever. That's not the case. We live in a world that is under the curse and thus sin, disease, death, all of that is a natural part of the fallen condition of mankind. We're not exempt from that just because we're believers. What Jesus is saying is that God can take that normal course of events and turn it into something that is a triumph, something that will bring him glory and we have to have that perspective on life. But there's another perspective that Jesus gives here in verses four and five. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Might as coming when no one can work while I am in the world, I am the light of the world. The other perspective Jesus gives is that we've got to work while there's still time. Now put that together with what Jesus has said about it. It's not sin that calls this and I think what Jesus is telling us is that rather than laying blame, just get to work doing what God wants you to do. We're real good at laying blame. We're really good at trying to figure out whose fault is this, who is to blame or why is this happening. What Jesus is saying is rather than trying to blame the sinner and figure out whose wrong wrong. Get the gospel to the sinner. Do the work that needs to be done. Don't sit around trying to blame the sinner and you know a lot of folks are good at blaming sinners, blaming unsaved people for their sins. Rather than doing that, why don't we light, take the gospel to them. Do the work of dispelling the darkness Jesus is saying. You know, I think that about our culture. We can be very good as Christians in playing the blame game. This person is to blame. That person is to blame. Why waste our time blaming when we could be taking the light and helping dispel the darkness? If we spent half the energy we spend in blaming this person, that person, whatever for the cultural condition, if we spent half the energy we do with that in getting the gospel out and doing the work Jesus has called us to do, we'd be a lot more effective. So Jesus is saying, don't play the blame game. Do the work that needs to be done to get the gospel to people, to get the light to people in their darkness. I think Jesus is saying don't blame people who are lost. Take the healing gospel to them. Don't try to figure out why someone went to jail. Take the gospel to them. Don't try to figure out why does that person have AIDS. Take the gospel to them. Quit playing the blame game and do the work. That's what Jesus is saying. So Jesus is saying, if you're on the wrong question, guys, the question is not who's to blame. The question is, we've got work to do to take care of this man and while there's still light, let's do the work. We would be much better off to do the work than to sit around and analyze theologically why this happened to this man. That's what Jesus is saying. He goes on to healing, look at verse 6 and 7. Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva and put it on the man's eyes. Go he told him, wash in the pool of Psyloum. This word means scent. So the man went and washed and came home seeing. Do you remember we saw this has happened before or something like it where Jesus used saliva on the eyes of a blind man. Do you remember why? What's that about? Why did he do that? An object lesson? Okay. All right. He could have very well just touched his eye. He could have just spoken. Remember pardon me? A miracle? A miracle certainly happens when he calls us into the world. The real enigma is why he did it in the way that he did it. Remember in the instance before the man was blind and no, no, excuse me. The man was dumb and could not hear mute. It was mute and could not hear his death. I'll get it right here in a minute. You can tell I'm not a doctor. And Jesus touched both his tongue and his ears and in that case he did so because the man could not hear what he was saying. You remember that? He couldn't hear what he was saying. So he makes clear his intentions to healing by touching the two parts of his body that needed help. I think there's something very similar going on here. This man is blind. He can't see what Jesus is doing, but Jesus does something regarding that organ of his body which needs help to help him understand what's happening. Now remember we also saw before that saliva was considered in that day to have healing powers. So it's not that Jesus needed that to heal, but Jesus is in a sense accommodating to the culture for this man who believes that to understand what Jesus is about to do. He's communicating to him. I will heal you with an object lesson really. So it doesn't go to the pool and wash. And by the way there's more motivation to do that if your eyes are kind of caught up with mud, right? So there's more motivation to go to the pool of salam and wash your eyes off. And it's interesting that it's the pool of salam that were other pools in Jerusalem. You remember what just happened with the water, the pool of salam? What did we see? In chapter 7. No, not the water that moves. That's Bethesda, the pool of Bethesda. But remember back in chapter 7, remember the ceremony at the temple? Remember that? And the priest would go down and get the water, got it from where? Pool of salam. And remember he brought it back and there's this ceremony in the temple where he poured the water out to symbolize the God giving water to the people in the wilderness. And remember that's when Jesus stood up and said, if amen first, let him come to me. Drink the water of life. You know, I'll give him rivers of living water coming from within. Jesus is claiming to be the life-giving water of life. And so he sends this man to that very same place where that water is taken from, to the heel of his blindness. Yes. Yeah, good point. The object lesson may well have been as much for the onlookers as it was for the man to whom it was done. How many of them tried it afterwards? Yeah, yeah, it could have happened. We know in the book of Acts there were people who tried to imitate the miracles of the disciples. So it might have happened. Who knows? Well, that's the miracle performed. Then the miracle is debated and we're not going to have time to get into this. So I won't even start into it tonight. But the miracle is debated then. And this is really the crux of the story because it's a beautiful story about how this man who doesn't even know who Jesus is at the time he is healed. But it's a beautiful story of how he eventually comes to full faith in Christ. But there will be several people that will debate this miracle. Kind of kick it back and forth and try to figure out what was going on. So we'll get to that next time.