48 The Jews answered Him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” 49 Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me. 50 Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge. 51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my Word, he will never see death.” 52 The Jews said to Him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” 54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ 55 But you have not known Him. I know Him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep His word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.
We have spent quite a while in the 8th chapter of John’s Gospel, and throughout it you have probably noticed how the animosity towards Jesus from the Pharisees has grown, and at the end we have now reached the point where they openly accused Him of lying, and Jesus responds with a justified, yet harsh criticism.
The Pharisees had been challenging Jesus ever since He proclaimed back in verse 12 that He was the light of the world. You’ll remember from last week that their response to Jesus’ claim that the truth would set them free, was to claim that they had never been enslaved to anyone, and we ended with verse 47. “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
This statement, along with Jesus’ claim that they were children of the devil and not God as they believed, sets the scene for the final confrontation in chapter 8. If you can’t win the argument, you can always attack your opponent, which is exactly what the Pharisees did. Verse 48: “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
Jesus and His Word continues to challenge those who oppose Him. The lesson to us as Christians is to continue to abide in Him and His Word. Challenge Him and you will lose, but if we keep His Word we have His promise of eternal life. The Pharisees openly challenged and accused Jesus, but there are more subtle and equally dangerous ways of opposing the truth of who Jesus is.
The Pharisees simply resorted to name-calling and blasphemy when they said in verse 48 that Jesus was a Samaritan and demon-possessed. For a Jew to call someone a Samaritan was a huge insult, because it was both a racial and a religious slur. The Jews despised the Samaritans, whom they considered half-breeds and heretics. Interestingly enough, Jesus did not even respond to that accusation. They knew He was a Jew, and He couldn’t be bothered to argue the point. Some accusations need to be treated with the contempt they deserve.
But He did respond to their blasphemy by saying He was demon-possessed in verse 49. “I do not have a demon; but I honour my Father, and you dishonour me.” Dishonouring Jesus is a serious matter. He said in John 5:22-23, “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honour the Son, just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father who sent Him.”
To dishonour Jesus Christ, and to deny who He is, is the ultimate blasphemy. He said in John 3:18, “Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” To dishonour and deny Christ is to dishonour the one before whom you will stand one day for eternal judgment. The world continues to blaspheme and ridicule the name of Christ, and one day those who deny Him now will have no answer for their unbelief.
Jesus replies to the Pharisees with both a warning and an invitation. The warning is in verse 50. “I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge.” What Jesus is saying here is that God the Father seeks Jesus’ glory and He will ultimately judge all who reject His Son. But then in the following verse, despite the arrogance and hatred of those who accuse Him, He gives them a gracious invitation. “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my Word, he will never see death.”
What a remarkable picture of God’s grace. He would have been fully justified in striking dead on the spot those who blasphemed Jesus that day, just as He would be today as the name of Christ is ridiculed at every opportunity. I don’t think we will ever fully comprehend the gracious patience and long-suffering nature of God.
Of all people, the Pharisees that Jesus was talking to in John 8 should have been the first to recognise Him as the promised Messiah, but what do they do? They respond with more blasphemy. “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my Word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” (John 8:52-53) In other words, “I beg your pardon? Just who do you think you are?”
It never occurred to them that His claims might be true, but because they challenged Jesus rather than believed in Him, they would die in their sins. The great tragedy is that those who boldly shake their fists in defiance at God often die in their sins. There are exceptions, like the apostle Paul, so there is hope, but denying and dishonouring the name of Christ is the greatest sin. As Jesus said in John 3:18, unbelief in Him is the seal of condemnation into which we are born. Unbelief is part of our sinful nature, and this is why we need to be born again.
There are others who dishonour Jesus by just ignoring Him and His invitation to come to Him for salvation. This is the most common response to Jesus and His claims. So many ignore Him and go on about their lives as if He didn’t exist and as if He had not died so that they could have eternal life. Their response to the name of Jesus is to shrug their shoulders with a “whatever” attitude. Most of these people would say they don’t really have much to say against Him. Some will readily agree that He was probably a good man who helped a lot of people, but they just don’t have the time or see the need to believe in Him.
Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 which gives a stern warning to those who just shrug their shoulders at His invitation to come to Him to be saved.
“A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” (Luke 14:16-24) Dishonour the host by rejecting His invitation, and you will miss out on the banquet.
Any rejection of Jesus and His claims, whether a defiant, blasphemous challenge or a quiet, polite excuse from those who ignore Him and just want to get on with their own lives is a serious matter, and the reason is very simple. The result of rejecting and dishonouring Christ is that He leaves you to die in your sins to face judgment for that blasphemy.
John 8:59 says, “They picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” Jesus had revealed Himself and offered His promise of life. The Jews picked up stones, but when they looked up they couldn’t see Him. God’s plan did not yet call for Jesus to die. So in the end, Jesus defended Himself simply by walking away. This is the dreadful result for those who are faced with the truth about Jesus but will not receive Him. St Augustine said of the last verse in John 8, “As man, He fled from the stones; but woe to those from whose stony hearts God has fled.”
In Romans 1:18 Paul writes about how the wicked suppress the truth by their unrighteousness, and in the following verses he writes about how God will treat those who continue to reject the truth, and it is a chilling warning. “Although they knew God, they did not honour Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonouring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.” (Romans 1:21-28)
We are still living in the age of grace. There is still an opportunity to repent and be saved, but time is running out.
In John 8, Jesus left the temple, the place where the Pharisees falsely believed they were worshipping God. They had their religion, but they didn’t have God’s glory because they rejected His Son. To have religion without Christ is to have nothing. Whether you openly blaspheme Him or subtly ignore Him, the result will be the same. He will leave you to die in your sins and face judgment.
But there is hope. Even to the Pharisees in John 8, the people who should have known better, Jesus gives a gracious invitation, and He continues to do so today. Respond to Him in faith and repentance, and you will be saved. Verse 51 again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my Word, he will never see death.”
If the Pharisees had been genuinely seeking to know if Jesus was who He claimed to be, they would have asked Him to explain just what He meant, but instead they simply said in verse 52, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my Word, he will never see death.’”
They had no understanding of the second death. To them, all died. Even Abraham and all of the prophets died, but they had no concept of the resurrection life that Jesus promised. At no time did Jesus promise that His followers would never die in a physical sense. Even He died, but those who trust in Him will be free from eternal death because of the promise of resurrection to eternal life. When Lazarus died, He said to Lazarus’ sister Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25)
The Dutch theologian Herman Ridderbos explained how believers will never see death by saying, “Those who believe in Jesus’ word already have eternal life. Death is no longer facing them but behind them. When they pass away, they will not be handed over to death.”
Now of course, as Christians, we will never face the same level of hatred and hostility that Jesus did, but our message stands so clearly opposed to worldly thinking that we are often held personally responsible for the offensive nature of the Gospel. The world wants to shoot the messenger as well as the message. The world hates Christians because it hates the Gospel message, and it hates the Gospel message because it hates Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to His disciples in John 15:18 and 20, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
How do we react when we face persecution and ridicule for our faith? What do we do when we are persecuted and ridiculed for our faith?
We should follow the example of Jesus, by standing on the truth. He said in verse 55, “I do know Him and I keep His Word.” We are to stand on God’s Word. No matter what His critics said, Jesus kept His Word, and we should do the same. When people accuse us of being bigoted, and that the Bible is no longer relevant in our progressive, enlightened world, our response is simple. “God has revealed His truth to us in the Bible. We know it is His Word, and He calls us to continue telling the truth.”
In other words, don’t take it personally. When people hate you because of your faith in Christ, it is really Him that they hate. You are just caught in the crossfire. If they are going to reject us, it is because they are rejecting God’s message. By making our message a simple presentation of God’s Word, we can help people to see how their lives stand opposed to God’s holiness. Help them to see their great need for forgiveness, which is always the first step in coming to faith.
This is exactly how the apostle Paul dealt with the hatred and ridicule. He laid out his approach in 2 Corinthians 4:2. “We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s Word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” And in 1 Thessalonians 2:4, “Just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.”
It is not our responsibility to defend God or to defend the Bible. Our task is to faithfully proclaim the simple truths of the Word, and God, by His Spirit, is the one who will convict repentant hearts. Charles Spurgeon once famously said, “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.”
But won’t there be people who will not accept God’s Word? Won’t there be people who will continue to dishonour the name of Jesus? Yes, but you are not responsible for the choices of others. As the Church, we simply proclaim Christ and Him crucified.
Finally, because the Pharisees brought Abraham into this debate, Jesus addressed this issue directly. Verse 56: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” To His listeners, this was further proof that Jesus had no idea what He was talking about. They reply in verse 57, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”
What did Jesus mean by saying that Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing His day, and that in fact he had seen it? In Genesis 18 three angelic figures visited Abraham to tell him that his wife Sarah was to have a child. When Abraham saw them, he bowed before them. Verses 1-3, “The Lord appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth and said, ‘O Lord, if I have found favour in your sight, do not pass by your servant.’”
This event in the Old Testament is what is known as a Christophany, a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. Abraham physically rejoiced to see Jesus two millennia before His birth, even though he didn’t fully understand it at the time.
This makes an important point about the Old Testament and how the faithful born before Jesus are saved. It’s a question which is often asked. The commentator J. C. Ryle wrote, “There never was but one way of salvation, one Saviour, and one hope for sinners, and that Abraham and all the Old Testament saints looked to the same Christ that we look to ourselves.”
But what a tragic contrast between Abraham’s faith in Jesus and the Pharisees’ hatred. What Abraham had longed to see - the coming of God’s Son, the Messiah - was actually happening before their very eyes, yet they rejected Him. This proved that they were not Abraham’s spiritual children, as Jesus had told them in verses 39 and 40.
Of course, all of this was lost on the Pharisees, and so Jesus drives the point home with a remarkable statement in verse 58. “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am”.
Here again He claims His eternal nature. It would’ve been bad enough had He said, “Before Abraham was, I was.” But by claiming the divine name “I am” once more for Himself, He reaffirms His divinity. He is greater than Abraham, and He is greater than the prophets. As the eternally preexistent Lord and Creator, Jesus is able to deliver on His promise to overthrow death for all who keep His Word.
This is the message of hope we have for the world. The Bible tells one grand story of redemption, starting in eternity past. It tells us how God created the world in just six days. It tells of the tragedy of the fall and how sin and the curse of death came into the world. But God promised redemption through a promised Redeemer. He told Adam and Eve of Jesus’ coming. He called Abraham to be the father of His chosen people, through whom the Saviour would come to the world. He used Moses to redeem Israel from slavery as He led His people into the Promised Land.
Through David, He established the throne from which His own Son would one day rule in eternal righteousness. Then, with the angels proclaiming His glory, the Saviour was born into our world, in order to go to the cross to be our Saviour. This is how we understand our lives and the broken world in which we live. Jesus revealed His true nature, but was rejected by the same people that God had called to believe in Him. Through the unbelief of these same Pharisees we meet in John 8, Christ was executed on a cross, but this was all part of God’s eternal plan of salvation.
God the Father, out of His great love for us, and through His great mercy provided a sacrifice sufficient for the salvation of all who would put their faith in Jesus. This is the message we still bring to the world, a message which continues to be rejected and hated, but it is a message which still saves today.
And one day Christ will return for His own. This is the great day which we look forward to in great hope. When Christ returns, like Abraham, we will see the great day of salvation, and we will be glad.
Each of us faces the same decision the Pharisees faced. Either Jesus was a blasphemer or He is God. If you dishonour Him by shrugging off His claims, you will lose your only hope of redemption. Bow before Him as Lord and God, obey His word, and you will see the day of His coming and be glad.
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 8:48-57
What does it mean to dishonour Jesus?
How do Christians dishonour Him?
Most would agree that there is a big difference between open hostility toward and rejection of the truth claims of Jesus, and merely shrugging our shoulders and not really caring either way, yet the eternal consequences are the same.
Is this fair, and why?
Read verse 51 again. We will all die physically, so what does Jesus mean here, and what does this teach us about how Christians should view death?
Throughout chapter 8, hostility towards Jesus has been growing.
How, as Christians, should we react when we face hostility and persecution for our faith?
What did Jesus mean in verse 56, and how does this help us to answer the question as to how those who were born and died before Jesus went to the cross can be saved?