- This is a difficult passage that needs to be unpacked carefully. And so we are going to walk through it step-by-step and verse-by-verse to see if we can make it all add up.
- Also, bonus question as we start: can anyone name the gospel passage that happens at Hanukkah? No? Well, let’s see what we can learn tonight.
HINTS IN THE SET-UP: They were focused on the temple.
- John 10:22-23.
- It’s easy to overlook the set-up to this passage, but the set-up gives us significant clues about what is ahead.
a. It happens at the Feast of Dedication.
- In general in John, when a particular occasion for an event is mentioned, it’s not a random thing, but the site or time has weight and meaning to it.
- Here it’s the Feast of Dedication that is the setting. What is that? Well, it’s not one of the Old Testament festivals prescribed in the Law. It comes from a time when Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria, tried to impose all things Greek on the Jewish people. It started with trying to get them to buy into Greek ideas. In 170 B.C. he attacked Jerusalem, killed tens of thousands of Jews and selling more into slavery. It was made illegal to have a copy of the Jewish Law. Finally, he turned the Temple altar into an altar for Zeus and offered pig flesh there to pagan gods. Judas Maccabaeus fought for freedom and deliverance and won in 167 B.C. In the wake of that victory, this feast was instituted. If you haven’t heard of the Feast of Dedication, you may have heard of it by its other name: Hanukkah.
- The importance thing for our purposes this evening is simply this: this was a feast focused on a celebration of the Temple.
b. It mentions that the scene happens when Jesus is in the temple area.
c. It mentions that He is at Solomon’s Colonnade, which reminds us of the person who built the temple.
- All told, even in the setup to the actual story, everything is pointing us to the temple as the focus.
THEIR QUESTION: Are you the Christ?
- John 10:24.
- They were focused on the Temple. They thought it would continue to be the centerpiece of the faith. (We’ll discuss later how Jesus intends to redirect it.)
- They had a traditional view of the Messiah. They thought the Christ would come and liberate them from their oppressors. They thought he would be a source of power and strength. And they certainly thought that he would agree with everything they believed!
- It had to be frustrating for Jesus to hear them pose this question. There was abundant evidence that He was giving them. There were numerous miracles. Their question speaks to their stubborn refusal to see what is unhidden.
JESUS' RESPONSE: You don’t understand what new life looks like.
- John 10:25-30.
- They are focused on the Temple and the old way of doing things. Jesus instead conveys a vision of what the new life that He is offering looks like.
- He tells them that He has told them that He is the Messiah (v. 25a). He notes that the miracles were clear evidence (v. 25b). He tells them that they are not His sheep (v. 26). (This is taken by some to point to Calvinist teaching on limited atonement. I think it simply points out what Jesus taught in John 7:17 that obedience precedes deeper understanding.)
- What the new life looks like:
a. We listen to His voice.
- v. 27a.
b. We are known by Him.
- v. 27b.
c. We follow Him.
- v. 27c.
d. We have eternal life.
- v. 28a.
e. We are safe in Jesus’ hand.
- v. 28b.
THEIR REBUTTAL: You are not Christ because you claim to be God.
- John 10:31-33.
- Now, give them credit for one thing amid all the hardheartedness and denseness that seems to plague the Jewish leaders: they knew what Jesus meant when He said this. They accuse Him of believing that He is equal with God. And they are right. Jesus does believe that because that is the truth.
- Of course, they can’t conceive of the Incarnation.
- The ironic thing is that they cannot correctly parse the Old Testament predictions about the Messiah being God Himself. In their defense, that’s not something that others were able to discern either. It was “hidden in plain sight,” only obvious in retrospect.
JESUS' ANSWER: Let’s talk about embodying God.
- John 10:34-38.
- Now we get into the part of the passage that no doubt jumped out to you when we were reading it at the beginning of the sermon. It is provocative and attention-getting. And it poses the question: what do we do with that?
- Many just try to avoid this, but I want to take a moment to try to unpack it.
- This is where I think our approach to the sermon this evening is helpful. Understanding the larger passage opens the door for us being able to comprehend what Jesus is going for here. Because it’s not just important to explain v. 34 but also to make sense of the larger point that Jesus is trying to make in bringing it up at all.
- First, let’s first out why the Old Testament says, “You are gods.”
- vv. 34-35.
- That quote is from Psalm 82:6.
- This is where it’s important to read passages in context and to read Scripture in conversation with other Scripture.
- What is the Psalm 82 verse about? Is it about the idea that we will all become gods and that the ultimate end of the Bible is a polytheistic Deity because we are all gods along with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? No.
- This should not be blithely dismissed because there are some cults claiming to be Christian who argue along these lines: that we become divine.
- So what do we see in Psalm 82? The passage is about judges of that day. They were serving the role in that day of being the judge. This is, of course, intended to be a reflection of being fair and just the way that God is.
- You might think of it in the same way that we would describe a person as a “lord.” They have some of the characteristics of the Lord, but they obviously aren’t the same thing. (A lesser example would be me as a pastor calling myself the congregation’s “shepherd.” I hopefully reflect the care of the Great Shepherd.)
- To put it in the language we are using: they were to embody God.
- As judges, they were to embody the justice and truth of the Judge. They were to embody God.
- It’s worth looking back at Exodus 21:6. The word used here to refer to “judges” is “Elohim,” which you may know is a word that is also used to refer to God. See also Exodus 22:8. With that, Jesus is employing a “much more” argument here.
- Second, let’s go back to this part of John 10.
- Jesus continues in v. 36.
- His argument is from the lesser to the greater. Basically something like, “If the Bible could call human judges ‘gods’ in one sense because they embodied that role from God, how much more could I be called ‘God’s son’ because I embody God Himself?”
- Jesus embodies God.
- In what ways? Look at the following verses.
- Jesus embodies God in what He does (v. 37).
- Also, Jesus embodies God in having God’s power flowing through Him (v. 38).
- Third, this isn’t in the passage, but it’s worth highlighting: the end result of what Jesus is doing is us literally embodying God.
- Because of the salvation that Jesus brought into our lives, we now have the Holy Spirit within us. What’s another way to say that? We are embodying God in a very real way.
- This also points us back to the starting point of this passage. Remember: it was the temple. And now, what does the New Testament tell us the temple of God is? It’s us! We are now the temple of God. This is another way that this passage points us to what Jesus intends to do.
A BETTER FOCUS: The focus shifts from the temple of Law to the river of repentance.
- John 10:39-42.
- At the beginning of this message we discussed how the setting was not incidental, but was in fact a clue to the point that John wanted to make. We see something similar here at the end of the passage.
- After Jesus escapes their grasp, He leaves the temple area and goes instead to the Jordan, where John the Baptist had baptized. It’s a physical shift from the temple that represented the Law to the river where baptisms for repentance had taken place.
- That is a physical reminder of the spiritual shift that Jesus is causing. We are shifting from the Law system to salvation through repentance.
- And this passage ends with some believing in Jesus.
