“Who Do You Think He Is?”, Pastor Bob Leroe, Cliftondale Congregational Church, Saugus, Massachusetts
Author Salman Rushdie authored a book critical of Islam, back in the 80’s, The Satanic Verses, and has been under a death sentence for blasphemy ever since, a judgment imposed by the Ayatola Khomenie of Iran. Our Scripture passage shows a similar conflict. In a confrontation with the Pharisees, the religious authorities of the day, Jesus reveals Who He is, which they condemned as blasphemy. Jesus draws a line in the sand, one the Pharisees couldn’t miss, and one which forces us to commit ourselves as to who we think Jesus is.
Jesus is debating the Pharisees concerning the nature of true religion. He says in vs. 42, “If God were your father, you would love Me.” We’re all biological children of God, but not everyone is a true spiritual child of God. Jesus uses the terms “father” and “children” in an ethical sense—true children are those who reflect the Father’s qualities. If these critics had been true children of God they would have recognized Jesus as their Messiah, and responded to Him with love. If they loved the Father they would love the Son. Our level of holiness is gauged by how much we love Jesus. That love controls us; it stirs us to live moral lives. As we surrender to the Lordship of Christ, we surrender our priorities to Him. The Pharisees refused to even recognize Jesus as the Messiah.
In vss 43-45 Jesus uncovers their blindness and identity. The Pharisees are unable to understand Jesus’ Message and that He was sent by the Father. His was not a self-initiated mission. They were so convinced by their preconceptions that they couldn’t hear what Jesus was saying. One translator puts it this way: “Why do you not understand My language? Because you cannot comprehend My thought.” They are so wrapped up in their biased thinking that they can’t catch the truth of Jesus’ teachings. They are likewise clueless as to His origin, identity, and redemptive purpose. Paul says that people apart from Christ are spiritually deaf; he explains that the words of life are spiritually appraised (I Cor 2:12, 14). This means a non-believer can read the Bible and be unable to make any sense of it. This is why many refuse to accept God’s authoritative word. It’s not a lack of education but an inability to grasp what the Holy Spirit is saying.
Next Jesus accuses these self-righteous men that they don’t belong to God but the devil, the one who brought death into the world. Keep in mind that the public regarded the Pharisees as saintly individuals, the ones closest to God. But actions reveal the condition of the heart. Elsewhere, John writes, “When people keep on sinning, it shows they belong to the Devil, who has been sinning from the beginning” (I Jn 3:8). By opposing Jesus the Pharisees reflect their kinship with the devil. (By the way, this is why it’s important to marry within the household of faith; non-believers, according to Jesus, are of the devil; he’s their father. So if you marry an unbeliever, you get the devil as your father-in-law!)
Jesus rebuts them in vs 45, “When I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t believe Me” (NLT). The nature of unbelief is to reject the Truth. If we’re not open to the words of God we’re susceptible to the devil’s lies. The devil uses stubbornness, prejudice and pride to keep people from believing in Jesus. If we fill our lives with distracting and conflicting messages from the people we admire, the books we read, the songs we listen to, and the movies we watch, we may discover that it is harder to hear God speaking at all. We may be tempted to believe the world’s lies. God has not stopped communicating, but many people are listening to other voices.
Jesus then challenges the Pharisees to prove that He is guilty of sin, vs 46. These are powerful words—about Himself, and about His accusers. The only one without sin is God…and that’s the point. The author of Hebrews points out that Jesus “was tempted in every way, yet was without sin” (4:15). Sinlessness is an attribute of God. The Pharisees were speaking the devil’s language of lies, and were his tools in carrying out his evil plans…but Jesus spoke only the Truth. He is the Truth. His question, “Can any of you prove Me guilty of sin?” was a prime opportunity for them to discredit and destroy Him. But no one could. They had scrutinized His life and could find no fault in Him.
In vs. 47 Jesus makes perfectly clear the distinction between His attackers and true followers of God: “Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God” (NRSV). Their hearts were hardened. This is why some people aren’t even open to consider spiritual things. They are in no way interested because they are not God’s children.
The Pharisees couldn’t attack Jesus’ words so they launch a personal attack; they respond by saying Jesus is a Samaritan and demon-possessed, vs 48. This is an angry verbal attack, “mud-slinging” as we would call it today. Samaritans were regarded as outside of the community of true faith because inter-married with Gentiles. It’s like accusing Jesus of being a heretic. The Pharisees reasoned that only a demon would dare claim to be sinless. Upon making these statements, Jesus would have to be either deluded, demon-possessed, a deceiver, or Who He claimed to be. We’re not left with many options—we either accept the claims of Christ, or reject Him outright.
Jesus responds in vss 49-51. He was not trying to proclaim His greatness; He was simply preaching the word of the Father. He had the right to assert Himself before the religious leaders. Jesus then astounds His audience by saying that those who keep His word “will never see death”. He uses a double-negative, which in Greek is grammatically correct, for emphasis. The words “see death” could be rendered “notice death”, implying a believer would take little notice of death—it is irrelevant. People who don’t know their eternal destiny often deny or obsess over death. The promises of Jesus make physical death a non-issue for believers. Those who hear and obey the word of Christ will not suffer spiritual death. They will be raised to life eternal.
The Pharisees can see that Jesus is on dangerous ground. It sounds like He is saying that He is greater than Abraham! The patriarch of Israel, the father of the Jewish nation, was the most revered person who ever lived, yet he saw death. For Jesus to claim that He can prevent death was to claim to be greater than anyone—and very close to claiming to be divine. Then in vs. 56 Jesus elaborates, saying, “Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing My day.”
Again, they don’t get it, and scoff, vs. 57: “You are not yet fifty years old, and you have seen Abraham!” They are incredulous. Jesus was a young man—He could not even claim to be one of the elders. Lacking spiritual insight, they think Jesus is claiming to be ancient. What Jesus is saying is that He is the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, which promises that through the Jewish lineage all nations of the world would be blessed. When Abraham was kept from sacrificing his son Isaac, he was told that “God would provide a lamb.” Jesus is the Lamb of God! What Abraham was asked to do, God has done—He has offered His only Son. And Abraham rejoiced to see that day.
Jesus then astounds them with His startling, climactic statement: “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I AM.” This is one of the strongest statements ever made by Jesus. First, Jesus is saying that He existed before Abraham, a proclamation of divinity. He is claiming to be eternal. He then applies to Himself the Holy Name of God, the title I AM, the Name God revealed to Moses when he was to appear before Pharaoh. This Name was also disclosed to the prophet Isaiah: “I AM the Lord, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:18). No other religious figure in history has made such a claim.
In essence the Pharisees were saying, “Who do you think you are—God?” And Jesus responded, “Yes—I AM.” The Pharisees were horrified and incensed. This time they correctly interpreted His words—words which only God would use. They saw clearly that Jesus was claiming deity. They charged Him with blasphemy, and were ready to take the law into their own hands and stone Him. He dared to say within the very Temple grounds that He was God. Earlier in John’s Gospel, chapter 5, we read that the religious leaders wanted to kill Jesus because, “He called God His father, making Himself equal with God” (5:18). Blasphemy is the creature claiming to be the Creator. It is the height of irreverence and impiety…except that Jesus’ claims were true. Jesus then escaped their evil intents, because His “hour had not yet come.”
We need a vital awareness of the Person and work of Christ. We need to study diligently so that we can tell others about Who Jesus is and why He came to this world. We need to take the risk of engaging in dialogue with non-believers about the most important One who ever lived, Jesus, God-the-Son.
Church bulletin insert>
Christological Perspective:
1. Christ in the Old Testament—Preparation
2. Christ in the Gospels—Manifestation
3. Christ in the Acts—Propagation
4. Christ in the Epistles—Explanation
5. Christ in the Revelation--Consummation
