Lent 5 Service
John 8:46-59
[Jesus said,] “Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”
The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” 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.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” 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.’ 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. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
Whoever is of God hears the words of God. We can hear God’s Words and not hear the Words of God; we can ignore what they really mean (or misinterpret them). There are two great things that God is doing for us with His Word: He
Condemns us as sinners; He makes us see we’ve failed to meet the requirements of His Law, and He
Comforts us with additional news. He has, through a blood sacrifice, met our Law requirements that had condemned us, so that we are free and clear.
That’s what everyone should be hearing who hears God’s Word—the Law and the Gospel. That’s what it is. That’s the message.
You might get hung up on that word: condemn, right? It’s NEGATIVE! It’s another way of saying we deserve hell. Ouch! Could it really be all that serious?
The men in our text certainly had that perspective. The Jews here are really the Scribes and Pharisees from earlier in the chapter. The conversation they have with Jesus gets a little complicated (talking past each other). What’s really important to them is that they’re ancestors of Abraham’s. He’s what comes to their mind first when Jesus says, “…if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” Ah!—they think. Now, we’ve got Him. If there was some way to keep from dying, Abraham would have known it. But he died like everybody else. So much for this wi-i-ize teacher, Jesus.
It was hard for them to accept these certain words of God, the ones that say they’re condemned as sinners. It was hard because they felt safe as Abraham’s descendants. Jesus had said to them one time, Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham (Matthew 3:9). They tended to diminish the significance of their sins, and to figure that God would consider them to be good enough people—especially because Abraham was their forefather. They were refusing to hear the condemnation God wanted them to hear in His Words, for their good.
It’s interesting how Jesus handles that in our text. What He does, is, He gets real about Abraham—not criticizing him—but demonstrating that he’s really just another human being like them. He’s stained by the same sinfulness that everyone else has inherited from Adam and Eve. He doesn’t have any righteousness to lend to them. In fact, the thing that is truly great about Abraham is his acknowledgement that he’s a condemned sinner whose salvation is in the One God has promised—the Messiah or Christ. Jesus says it like this: Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” He was seeing it through faith. He was absolutely convinced that God’s promise of a Savior in his family was real. In that faith, he went to the land God showed him (as talked about in our Old Testament lesson), though there wasn’t anything there in that time to demonstrate the promise’s fulfillment. He simply believed. He trusted in Christ purely on the basis of God’s promise. He was a man who was truly hearing the Words of God.
The people in our text were refusing to hear in God’s Word the condemnation of the Law. And here’s the thing: then the Gospel meant nothing to them (what good is it to be saved if you’re not condemned in the first place? Why’d they need Jesus when they didn’t really think they were that bad of sinners?).
We tend not to like this idea that we’re condemned. We don’t like seeing ourselves that way. With all the way-worse people around, we have to be ahead in some way, we think. How can God look at me in the same way He looks at…(and then we think of this person and that person). He must be seeing my goodness, isn’t He? I’m a respectable person! We alternatively interpret God’s Words about condemnation. We rearrange them so their bite isn’t quite so painful. God requires that I forgive people? But even He knows that there are some people I’m just not going to be able to forgive. He understands. We have refused to hear in God’s Word the full condemnation of the Law, too, haven’t we? It irritates us to hear about it. We’ve side-stepped it, given it a friendly interpretation for ourselves.
Not truly hearing God’s Words can be done a different way, too. Maybe you have refused to believe for yourself the comfort of the Gospel. You have continued to feel hopelessly condemned for your sins, even though you’ve faithfully and sincerely confessed them, and even though God has spoken to you His forgiveness in Christ. And that’s the way you have refused to hear the Words of God. He has presented Jesus to you, as He does in our text—as the one for Whom Abraham longed, He Who is one with the Father—saying, I AM, like in the Old Testament. He has shown you this Great High Priest from our epistle lesson, the Lamb of God without blemish, Whose blood purifies your conscience, redeeming you from sin and death. But you have refused these Words of God. You have continued to feel the weight of guilt. You have taken no joy in God’s mercy. Then the Gospel is meaningless to you because you have excluded yourself on the basis of not keeping God’s Law. You have refused to hear the comfort that God intends for you in His Words. But there isn’t any further revelation to come. He has already said what you need to hear—that every sin is accounted for in Christ’s sacrifice.
The sins of refusing to hear in God’s Word the Law’s condemnation and the Gospel’s comfort are accounted for in the One Who was made to endure that condemnation’s full weight for every sinner, who Himself perfectly fulfilled its requirements, but upon Whom all of its punishment landed. You can’t justify yourself according your works and the Law; that’s just a deception that leaves you condemned. There isn’t any point in pursuing that. If that’s your plan, then plan on feeling the full weight of God’s wrath and punishment. But if you have recognized the futility of that plan and instead want God’s mercy, it’s available to you in Christ, Who already endured the law’s condemnation for you.
If you’re hesitant to believe that God could really forgive even your sins, then look upon Christ in our text. Listen to His Words, really hearing them for what they are. Consider the meaning of His statement: if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. Another way of saying it might be: If anyone holds on tightly to the promises about Me—about God’s grace established in Me as the One Who makes real what the Old Testament sacrifices foreshadowed, he will never bear the burden of his or her guilt before God. It has been fully accomplished.
That’s the message that’s present for you in God’s Word. Nothing more is required of you, because it has been fully accomplished in Christ. Your forgiveness is fully accomplished. God be praised. Amen.