John 8.48-59

48 The people retorted, “You Samaritan devil! Didn’t we say all along that you were possessed by a demon?”

49 “No,” Jesus said, “I have no demon in me. For I honor my Father — and you dishonor me. 50 And though I have no wish to glorify myself, God is going to glorify me. He is the true judge. 51 I tell you the truth, anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!”

52 The people said, “Now we know you are possessed by a demon. Even Abraham and the prophets died, but you say, ‘Anyone who obeys my teaching will never die!’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”

54 Jesus answered, “If I want glory for myself, it doesn’t count. But it is my Father who will glorify me. You say, ‘He is our God,’ 55 but you don’t even know him. I know him. If I said otherwise, I would be as great a liar as you! But I do know him and obey him. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.”

57 The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?”

58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I Am!” 59 At that point they picked up stones to throw at him. But Jesus was hidden from them and left the Temple.

Comments

Because of how today’s reading begins, it bears repeating that Jesus was having a lively discussion here with people who had accepted his teaching and placed faith in him. Or so they thought. It becomes quite clear in v.48 that they are rethinking that. One thing I really like here is that Jesus refutes their accusation that he has a demon, but he doesn’t refute the racial epithet they brand him with. He wasn’t technically a Samaritan, but in accepting what they meant as an insult, Jesus showed further solidarity with the Samaritans (sort of like JKK’s “Ich bin ein Berliner“).

We should also pay attention to the last thing Jesus says here. He makes a blatant reference to what God said to Moses at the burning bush, where the divine name is revealed as “I am.” (Exodus 3.14) More clearly than at any point in the Gospels, Jesus self-identifies with God in this statement. This is the basis for the teaching that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. It took the church a few centuries to sort out the implications and limitations of this paradox. Not least among those was the implication it holds for the nature of God. If we accept Jesus’ claim to be God, but we already have the Father, and Jesus is about to introduce the Holy Spirit, then what? Do we have three Gods? That would run contrary to one of the foundational teachings of Hebrew Scripture: there is only one God. Do we have a God who takes different forms at different times, like an actor playing many roles in the same play and changing costumes for each? That seems more than a little disingenuous. Subterfuge is not a trait becoming of God, is it?

The early church ran through a series of answers to this conundrum that proved unsatisfactory (usually because they wound up messing up the balance of the God-human paradox with regard to Jesus). The church eventually settled (for the most part) on the teaching that God exists in Trinity, which literally means three-in-one, or Triunity. Three-one became an accepted paradox just like God-human. All because of how the Gospels portray Jesus, at times very human, at times making audacious claims. The crowd here reached for stones because that is what they did to people who blasphemed. And that’s the point, Jesus was either telling the truth or he was blaspheming. There is no in between. John wanted this to be as clear as possible so his readers would stop being led away into the Ebionite heresy that rejected the idea that Jesus was God and wanted everyone to follow all Jewish customs. In this passage, Jesus asserts his preeminence over Abraham (and thus relativizes the importance of Jewish religious custom), while at the same time claiming the identity of Israel’s God.

Sometimes it seems like we have the opposite problem from the Ebionites, like it’s easier for us to accept the idea that Jesus is God, and more difficult to keep in mind that he is fully human (and all that means for the rest of us humans). But I have been making the case that we have strong Ebionite tendencies of our own and I think this passage can help us see that. Notice what Jesus says about not seeking his own glory. Twice (v. 50, 54) Jesus specifically rejects the idea of seeking to promote or glorify himself (remember he said the same sort of thing to his brothers in 7.6-8). Instead, he works to glorify the Father, and the Father in turn glorifies the Son. This becomes an essential part of the concept of the Trinity (but one often overlooked): the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist in a state of complete self-giving love toward each other and toward creation. This essential divine trait is most fully revealed on the cross, where God gives as completely as possible of God’s own self in love for us. But the cross is not an exception. It is a picture that is true of God’s nature at all times in all ways. The cross is who God is. This is what Jesus is trying to get his would-be followers to understand in this discourse. He tells them at last, “I am,” not for his own sake (he’s not self-promoting right after claiming not to), but for theirs. Jesus risked their anger for the chance that they might accept the truth.

But I think they had much the same trouble that the later Ebionites had and the even later us still have: a God who is completely self-giving and in no way self-promoting seems ridiculous to us. We think we can accept the idea of Jesus being God easier, but we typically think of Jesus as some sort of powerful demi-god, subordinate to the Father, but still able to kick butt (as Mark Driscoll would say). But that isn’t the God Jesus reveals himself to be at all. Kicking butt and self-promoting are the sort of things the false gods of our age specialize in and so we project the traits of our idols onto who we think God is. When Jesus reveals to us that God is something altogether different from what we value (i.e., worship), then we start picking up stones too.

And in that moment we see all of the God-human nature of Jesus: the one who declares “I AM!” and then hides from the angry mob. And that’s the point here. The God of the universe has become human and stands in solidarity, not just with Samaritans, but with all of us.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

John 8.39-47

39 “Our father is Abraham!” they declared.

“No,” Jesus replied, “for if you were really the children of Abraham, you would follow his example. 40 Instead, you are trying to kill me because I told you the truth, which I heard from God. Abraham never did such a thing. 41 No, you are imitating your real father.”

They replied, “We aren’t illegitimate children! God himself is our true Father.”

42 Jesus told them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God. I am not here on my own, but he sent me. 43 Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It’s because you can’t even hear me! 44 For you are the children of your father the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. 45 So when I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t trust me! 46 Which of you can truthfully accuse me of sin? And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you trust me? 47 Anyone whose life is rooted in God is living a life of listening to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you are not rooted in God.”

Comments

This is a tough passage to read. It seems so out of place in a Gospel where the primary focus is the love of God. Jesus doesn’t sound very loving here. One of the commentaries I’m reading warned to be careful with this passage, saying, “People have been killed here.” That is literally true. Christians have misused this passage for centuries to persecute Jewish people. And by persecute I mean kill. The most egregious example, of course, is the Holocaust, where good German Christians murdered millions of people on theological grounds. But the German interpretation of this passage wasn’t new or novel.

This sort of thing has also been used by Christians to torture and kill other Christians. Any time you can label someone else as a child or agent of Satan, it becomes much easier to wish them dead and then to bring that wish to reality if you have the political means. The whole thing reminds me of a recent book and promotion by John MacArthur, where the influential evangelical leader accused millions of Pentecostals and charismatics of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and doing the work of Satan to destroy the church. This also isn’t new or novel. Pentecostals have faced varied levels of persecution since the movement began in 1906. MacArthur wondered why God hasn’t struck us all dead yet, and the internet response has sounded much like this passage, which each side demonizing the other. (I’m not putting up links on purpose. I encourage you not to search for any of it.) The whole thing stunned me into silence. I wasn’t sure exactly what to say about any of it until I meditated on this passage (of all things).

The first thing to note here is who Jesus is talking to. The adversarial tone would lead us to assume he’s arguing with the Jewish religious leaders again, but that is not the case. Back in v. 30, John wrote: “Then many who heard him say these things believed in him. Jesus said to the people who believed in him…” Everything for the rest of chapter 8 is Jesus having (yes, a heated) discussion with some of his followers (can we take some comfort knowing that not even Jesus was exempt from bad church meetings). Any reading of this passage that villainizes Jews fails to even do the basic interpretive work of making sure who Jesus was addressing. These weren’t religious or political leaders, they were followers of Jesus. Once you realize that, you can begin to see that Jesus is really pleading with these folks, pushing them to understand what he is saying, trying to help them receive his teaching.

The second thing to note here is why John is writing this. Back when we started John, I explained about the Ebionites. Basically, Ebionites were people who trusted Jesus to a point, who accepted him as Messiah – so long as they got to dictate the terms of what that meant. Back in ch. 3, Jesus told Nicodemus that his followers can’t do this. Partial trust in Jesus won’t do because trust on your own terms is really just trust in yourself. To see the kingdom, to follow Jesus, requires a change so radical it can only be described as being born all over again, this time from above, that is, by the Holy Spirit. Things pertaining to the flesh have only to do with the flesh. They have nothing to do with the Spirit (in that they cannot control the Spirit). Jesus did not trust his partial followers. This stands as an indictment on them, the Ebionites John was dealing with, and us with our own Ebionite tendencies.

Americans are accustomed to having things on our own terms. American Christians are no different – even in our relations with our Christ. The American church in all its forms – liberal, conservative, emergent, evangelical, Protestant, Catholic, Pentecostal, what have you – has modeled Jesus after our own image and reduced his way of salvation (the way of the kingdom) to our own self-affirmation. We are Americans first and Christians second. We have a hard time distinguishing the difference between the kingdom of God and the American project. We’re not sure if they are different and even if they are, which one might be better. We are probably more Ebionite than the Ebionites ever were.

John was hoping his first readers would read this passage and think to themselves, “Is that me? Is Jesus talking to me? Am I trusting something else in addition to Jesus (e.g., Abraham, rationality, status, etc.)? Am I modeling Jesus after myself or the other way around? Have I understood what this whole God-man thing means and what implications it has for my life?” As I’ve written many times here, one of our most important interpretive tools is to put ourselves in the place of the bad guy. We don’t get to look over Jesus’ shoulder and say, “Yeah, Jesus, you tell them.” If we use this passage and an approach modeled after it to beat other people up, then we have missed the point entirely. We can only use this for self-examination. As followers of Jesus, we need to be aware that we are always at risk for recasting Jesus in our image, for making what he requires far too easy, for lying, for rejecting the truth, and even for killing people with theological (or at least economic) rationalization. But we can’t turn this awareness into a weapon without those dangers becoming a reality in our lives.

When another Christian accuses you or me of working for the devil or of being demonized, there really isn’t a good response. Any explanation we would give has been discounted at the outset as lies (devil = father of lies) and any tit-for-tat with the demon label lands us right in the crosshairs of our own criticism. What’s the solution to this conundrum? Jesus tells us in v.47: “Anyone whose life is rooted in God is living a life of listening to the words of God.” And what does God say to us? To argue our theological perspective with our accusers? No. God tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.