# commentaries

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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:34'>Joh 6:34</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They replied to him: Lord, always give us this bread</em>-</p><p> "Always" or 'for ever' could mean that they simply wanted an eternal bread making machine to ease their material burden in their hand to mouth existence. But the sense of 'eternity' in their words leads us to wonder whether they were beginning to grasp His point. The Samaritan woman likewise starts off talking about literal water, and then comes to perceive that the Lord is offering an altogether different kind of water. It could be that the same shift in understanding, from the literal to the spiritual, is happening here too.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:35'>Joh 6:35</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall not hunger, and he that believes on me shall never thirst</em>-</p><p> "The bread of life" was a Messianic term, and the Lord here makes one of His most direct claims to actually be Messiah. Several times the Lord stresses His personal identification with the manna / bread. But this was His flesh, which He gave for the life of the world. The cross epitomised the man Jesus. Thus He could take the bread and deftly insist: “This is my body". There and then, He was to be identified with the slain body that hung upon the cross. In death, in life, this was and is and will be Him. But He was right then the bread of life. The essence of the cross was lived out in His daily life. And He was certain that He would be obedient to the final crisis of crucifixion, and would then and thereby become the ultimate "bread of life".</p><p>"He that comes to me shall never hunger" is a reference to men and women ‘coming to’ the cross to behold “that sight" of the cross, just as men came to the lifted up snake. But the Lord clearly has in mind how the believer in Him would be regularly fed, filled up with water so that "he that believes on me shall never thirst". The Spirit is given not just once, but in an ongoing sense we are filled up with it, if we are open to it. Only in a personal appropriation of the cross to ourselves can we find an inspiration that is utterly endless. No wonder the Lord insists we remember His cross at least weekly in the breaking of bread.</p><p>The Lord challenged us that if we truly eat His words, we'll never hunger or thirst; but 30 years or so later, He said that in the Kingdom, He will stop us hungering and thirsting (<em><a href='B:730 7:16-17'>Rev 7:16-17</a></em>). He realizes that although we have it within our potential to live this kind of fulfilled spiritual life, in practice we will only get there in the Kingdom:&nbsp;The idea may be that we shall hunger and thirst for righteousness and spirituality now, but we are filled in this life by being incrementally filled up by the Spirit, as it is poured out in an ongoing sense. But the final ending of all such hunger is in the Kingdom, when we shall have Spirit nature, and our spiritual deficiency and need shall be no more:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:36'>Joh 6:36</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But I say to you: That you have seen me, and still you do not believe</em>-</p><p> "Seeing" may be being used here as it is often in John- to refer to understanding. The Jews saw the Son coming to them and said "Come let us kill Him". They knew Him, and His relationship to the Father (<em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>). But still they refused to believe. They wanted to be given the bread of life, Messiah, and He was standing before them. They had seen Him, and seen His creation of manna / bread, but still did not believe. Miracles do not produce lasting faith- that is one of the subtexts of John, especially relevant as he was preaching and ministering to converts in days when the miraculous gifts were disappearing.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:37'>Joh 6:37</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:480 6:36'>Mar 6:36</a></em>.</p><p><em>All that the Father gives me shall come to me, and him that comes to me I will in no way reject</em>-</p><p> The language of 'coming to Jesus' is appropriate in the context to the Jews having made great efforts to come to Jesus, walking around the lake or getting shipping in order to hopefully see another food miracle. The Lord is saying that those who truly came to Him in faith, as the Messianic bread of life, would in no way be rejected, never ever the Greek is insistent upon this. He will reject some at the last day, indeed Judaism generally would be cast out s:w. "reject" at that day (<em><a href='B:490 13:28'>Luk 13:28</a></em>), and His death would cast out the prince of the Jewish world (<em><a href='B:500 12:31'>Joh 12:31</a></em>). But those who came to Him in faith He would not reject.</p><p>The Father has given all things of the new creation to the Son (<em><a href='B:500 3:35'>Joh 3:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:3'>Joh 13:3</a></em>), He gives the sheep to the Son (<em><a href='B:500 10:29'>Joh 10:29</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:11'>Joh 17:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:24'>Joh 17:24</a></em>); the Lord was very aware of how the believers had been given to Him. In practice, this works out through how the Father gives individuals the ability to come to the Son (:65). The Father's gift is supremely the Spirit, the Comforter given by the Father (<em><a href='B:500 14:16'>Joh 14:16</a></em>); through this we come to the Son, and are finally given the ultimate gift of eternity. If we ask why one person comes to the Son and another doesn't, the answer is of course multi factorial, and includes issues of human freewill. But one element in the final algorithm of salvation is the gift / grace of God's calling. Paul uses this in Romans as a parade example of how salvation is of grace and not works.</p><p>The parable of the fig tree appears to show the Lord Jesus as more gracious and patient than His Father- the owner of the vineyard (God) tells the dresser (Jesus) to cut it down, but the dresser asks for another year’s grace to be shown to the miserable fig tree, and then, he says, the owner God Himself would have to cut it down (<em><a href='B:490 13:7-9'>Luk 13:7-9</a></em>). But in <em><a href='B:500 6:37-39'>Joh 6:37-39</a></em> we seem to have the Lord’s recognition that the Father was more gracious to some than He would naturally be; for He says that He Himself will not cast any out, exactly because it was the Father’s will that He should lose nothing but achieve a resurrection to life eternal for all given to Him. And the Lord observed, both here and elsewhere, that He was not going to do His own will, but rather the will of the Father (:38). And that will was to totally save all who wish. But that, by implication, was not necessarily the natural will of the Son. For He says in this context that He does not His will, but the Father's. Now this is exactly the sort of thing we would expect in a truly dynamic relationship- on some points the Father is more generous than the Son, and in other cases- vice versa. And yet Father and Son were, are and will be joined together in the same judgment and will, despite Father and Son having differing wills from one viewpoint. But this is the result of process, of differing perspectives coming together, of a mutuality we can scarcely enter into comprehending, of some sort of learning together, of a Son struggling to do the will of a superior Father rather than His own will, of conclusions jointly reached through experience, time and process- rather than an automatic, robot-like imposition of the Father’s will and judgment upon the Son. And the awesome thing is, that the Lord invites us to know the Father, in the same way as He knows the Father. His relationship with the Father is a pattern for ours too.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:38'>Joh 6:38</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For I came down from Heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me</em>-</p><p> As noted on :37, the implication appears to be that the Father's will is to save, and so the Son will therefore not do His will, but the Father's- and never therefore reject any who come to Him in faith. This is huge assurance. The Father's will for our salvation is even stronger than that of His dear Son.</p><p>The Lord accomplished the will of God on the cross (see on <em><a href='B:500 4:32-34'>Joh 4:32-34</a></em>). On the cross He came down from Heaven, there He manifested Yahweh in the greatest theophany of all time. The darkness over Him is to be read in the context of the OT theophanies which involved darkness at the time of the Lord's 'coming down'. But the Lord here speaks in the past tense. The essence of His cross was right then, before their eyes. In Him and His offer of free salvation, there was the assurance for all time to all men. He knew He would pass through the crucifixion experience, and that therefore the offer of life on account of His work was real right then and there.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:39'>Joh 6:39</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 3:13'>Joh 3:13</a></em>.</p><p><em>And this is the will of Him that sent me, that of all which He has given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day</em>-</p><p> The Father's will for our salvation was perhaps stronger than the Lord's, for it is in this context that He says that He was doing not His will but the Father's (:38). But human dysfunction and love of materialism is such that even the strength of God's will can be resisted by us. For in <em><a href='B:500 17:12'>Joh 17:12</a></em> the Lord speaks as if He has succeeded in spiritually keeping all those given to him, except Judas: "I kept them in Your Name which You have given me, and I guarded them; and not one of them perished except the son of perdition". We have been given by the Father to the Son, with the express will that we should not be lost, and the end point of His care would be our resurrection to life at the last day.</p><p>"Lose nothing" is the phrase which has just been used about the gathering of the fragments, that none be lost (:12). The Lord's will that not one be lost is manifest through our gathering of them. And He died so that none might perish (<em><a href='B:500 3:15-16'>Joh 3:15-16</a></em>). He 'loses' none of His people in that He give us right now the life, the eternal life, which shall never 'perish' s:w. or 'be lost' (<em><a href='B:500 10:28'>Joh 10:28</a></em>). Those who live that life now are assured of being raised up at the last day. The outcome of the last day is therefore no unknown question; if we are living the eternal life now, then we shall be immortalized in order to continue doing so. But it is the nature of the life lived, rather than immortality of itself, which is of the essence.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:40'>Joh 6:40</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For this is the will of my Father-</em></p><p>&nbsp;The will of the Father is a major theme in John, perhaps to counter erroneous notions about this term in the communities to whom John was preaching and pastoring. The connection is again back to the prologue, where we learn that all in the new creation are spiritually born by the Father's will (<em><a href='B:500 1:13'>Joh 1:13</a></em>). This will was His desire for our salvation, and it meant the Lord's death in order to bring it to reality (<em><a href='B:500 4:34'>Joh 4:34</a></em>). The will of God is for our salvation; if we ask anything according to that will, with the end of salvation in view, then we shall be heard (<em><a href='B:690 5:14'>1Jn 5:14</a></em>). Doing that will, living according to the eternal life, is living according to the will of God (<em><a href='B:690 2:17'>1Jn 2:17</a></em>).</p><p><em>That every one that sees the Son and believes in him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day</em>-</p><p> This is similar language to that concerning the lifted up snake. God’s will is that we should look upon the cross, with the faith that comes from a true understanding, and accept that great salvation. This is why the cross must be central to our whole living and thinking and conception of our faith and doctrine:The comment that “Every one that beholdeth the Son and believeth on him shall have eternal life" (<em><a href='B:500 6:40'>Joh 6:40</a></em>) is another allusion to the serpent lifted up on the pole, where everyone who “looked upon the serpent of brass… lived" (<em><a href='B:40 21:9'>Num 21:9</a></em>). The 'having eternal life' is different to being 'raised up at the last day'. We are given the gift of life now, through the gift of His Spirit in our hearts whereby we live and think as He did and does. That is the essence of the life we shall eternally live in the Kingdom; and so we shall be changed into immortality to enable that life to be eternally lived.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:41'>Joh 6:41</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said: I am the bread which came down out of Heaven</em>-</p><p> They understood the Heavenly bread as a reference to Messiah; and they doubted as to how a man they knew could in fact be Messiah. Israel continually "murmured" against Moses (<em><a href='B:20 15:24'>Exo 15:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 16:2'>Exo 16:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 16:7-8'>Exo 16:7-8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 17:3'>Exo 17:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 14:2'>Num 14:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 14:27'>Num 14:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 14:29'>Num 14:29</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:50 1:27'>Deu 1:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 106:25'>Psa 106:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 10:10'>1Co 10:10</a></em>). Nearly all these murmurings were related to Israel's disbelief that Moses really could bring them into the land. Likewise Israel disbelieved that eating Christ's words (<em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>) really could lead them to salvation; and their temptation to murmur in this way is ours too, especially in the last days (<em><a href='B:530 10:10-12'>1Co 10:10-12</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:42'>Joh 6:42</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And they said: Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, I came down out of Heaven?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :41, they perceived clearly enough that the Lord was claiming to be Messiah. The crowd knew Him, and Joseph and Mary. Galilee was small, both in population and geography. The folks who lived around the lake would have all known each other, and would have also known the carpenter from Nazareth. That He should now miraculously feed them, and claim to be Messiah and Son of God... was all so hard for them to grasp. It is a window onto the Lord's artless perfection that He could live amongst them for so long, never sinning neither by omission nor commission, and yet not be perceived as anything more than the son of a carpenter.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:43'>Joh 6:43</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered and said to them: Murmur not among yourselves</em>-</p><p> The record of the disciples' murmuring in John 6 reflects how influenced they were by the Jews around them. "The Jews then murmured at him", and the Lord rebukes them: "Murmur not among yourselves". But then we read of how "Jesus knew in himself that his disciples were murmuring" (<em><a href='B:500 6:40'>Joh 6:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:43'>Joh 6:43</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:61'>Joh 6:61</a></em>). And again, remember that these gospel records were written by the repentant disciples, and they were using the example of their own weakness in order to appeal to others. The disciples appeared to share Judaism's idea that Moses never sinned. When the Lord challenges them to find food for the crowd in the desert, they quote Moses' hasty words: "Whence shall I have flesh to give unto all this people?"; and note Moses almost mocks God by saying that all the fish of the sea wouldn't be enough to feed the people (<em><a href='B:40 11:13'>Num 11:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 11:22'>Num 11:22</a></em>). Faced with the same need for bread and fish, the disciples justified their lack of faith by quoting Moses, apparently unwilling to accept that Moses' words at that time were not of faith. The way everything worked out, they doubtless learnt that Moses, like them, was of imperfect faith and spirituality.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:44'>Joh 6:44</a></em>&nbsp;<em>No one can come to me, except the Father that sent me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day</em>-</p><p> See on :40- the drawing power is surely in the cross itself, for this is what draws all men unto the lifted up Christ (<em><a href='B:500 12:32'>Joh 12:32</a></em> s:w:). There was and is a magnetism about Him there. And yet the Lord said this before His death, to people who had walked and sailed in order to 'come to Him'. Now He says that the real coming to Him requires the Father's drawing, or dragging, as the Greek means. Paul in Romans cites this idea of calling, of one called and another not, as a parade example of how salvation is by grace and not works. Yet the Father's work of drawing or dragging people to Himself is still effected through human agency. John uses the same word in describing how the disciples "drew" the net containing 153 fishes to shore (<em><a href='B:500 21:6'>Joh 21:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 21:11'>Joh 21:11</a></em>), clearly symbolic of the great catch of the Gospel.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:45'>Joh 6:45</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:470 12:18'>Mat 12:18</a></em>.</p><p><em>It is written in the prophets: And they shall all be taught by God. Everyone therefore who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me</em>-</p><p> The drawing of the Father is through hearing and learning from Him, about His Son. "The prophets" who spoke of how all shall be "taught by God" do so in the context of prophesying about the Messianic Kingdom on earth (<em><a href='B:290 54:13'>Isa 54:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 31:34'>Jer 31:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:400 4:2'>Mic 4:2</a></em>). But the Lord applies these clearly future Messianic prophecies to the essential spiritual experience of the believer today; for we are now living the eternal life, the Kingdom life, the kind of life we shall then live.</p><p>The Lord Jesus often stressed that He was the only way to the Father; that only through knowing and seeing / perceiving Him can men come to know God. And yet in <em><a href='B:500 6:45'>Joh 6:45</a></em> He puts it the other way around: “Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me”. And He says that only the Father can bring men to the Son (<em><a href='B:500 6:44'>Joh 6:44</a></em>). Yet it is equally true that only the Son of God can lead men to God the Father. In this we see something exquisitely beautiful about these two persons, if I as a non-Trinitarian may use that word about the Father and Son. The more we know the Son, the more we come to know the Father; and the more we know the Father, the more we know the Son. This is how close they are to each other. And yet they are quite evidently distinctly different persons. But like any father and son, getting to know one leads us to know more of the other, which in turn reveals yet more to us about the other, which leads to more insight again into the other… and so the wondrous spiral of knowing the Father and Son continues. If Father and Son were one and the same person, the surpassing beauty of this is lost and spoilt and becomes impossible. The experience of any true Christian, one who has come to ‘see’ and know the Father and Son, will bear out this truth. Which is why correct understanding about their nature and relationship is vital to knowing them. The wonder of it all is that the Son didn’t automatically reflect the Father to us, as if He were just a piece of theological machinery; He made a supreme effort to do so, culminating in the cross. He explains that He didn’t do&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;will, but that of the Father; He didn’t do the works&nbsp;<em>He&nbsp;</em>wanted to do, but those which the Father wanted. He had many things to say and judge of the Jewish world, He could have given them ‘a piece of His mind’, but instead He commented: “<em>But…</em>&nbsp;I speak to the world those things which I have heard of the Father” (<em><a href='B:500 8:26'>Joh 8:26</a></em>). I submit that this sort of language is impossible to adequately understand within the Trinitarian paradigm. Yet the wonder of it all goes yet further. The Father is spoken of as ‘getting to know’ note aorist tense the Son, as the Son gets to know the Father; and the same verb form is used about the Good Shepherd ‘getting to know’ us His sheep. This wonderful, dynamic family relationship is what “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit”, true walking and living with the Father and Son, is all about. It is into this family and wonderful nexus of relationships that Trinitarians apparently choose not to enter.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:46'>Joh 6:46</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Not that anyone has seen the Father, save he that is from God, he has seen the Father</em>-</p><p> The Lord adds this as a foil or caveat to His teaching in :45 that the one who has learned of God comes to His Son. He means to say that total knowledge of Him is not possible, just as Moses could not 'see' the Father, neither can anyone claim to have fully 'seen' or perceived Him, except the Son. The point is to guard against the Jewish idea of justification by knowledge, as if 'learning' of the Father meant totally 'seeing' him. Such total, perfect knowledge is not necessary nor even attainable; what is of the essence is to allow ourselves to be drawn by the Father towards His Son.</p><p>The fact the Lord&nbsp;<em>had&nbsp;</em>seen God, as the One "from God", contrasts powerfully with how Moses could&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;see Him.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:47'>Joh 6:47</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Truly, truly, I say to you: He that believes has eternal life</em>-</p><p> The utter truthfulness of the Lord's promise to give us right now the life eternal is on the basis of the fact that He alone has "seen", completely perceived and understood, the Father (:46). The Father's will was totally about our salvation (:39,40). It was because the Son knew His Father's will that He could so solemnly protest that He was able and willingly eager to give eternal life to believers.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:48'>Joh 6:48</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I am the bread of life</em>-</p><p> The emphasis is now placed upon "bread of life" rather than the Messianic term "bread of Heaven" because He wanted to explain how the believer has eternal life (:47). Bread must be eaten regularly; the idea is that we are regularly filled up with His life, His Spirit. But our spiritual life comes from eating Him. He is the source of life, rather than the entire text of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation including the Chronicles genealogies.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:49'>Joh 6:49</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died</em>-</p><p> Judaism had the idea that Moses created manna and this was the ultimate miracle. But the Lord's bread gave life, eternal life, rather than just temporarily making life more bearable on a daily basis. We must ask ourselves whether we are using Christianity in the same way- a temporary boost in the daily grind, rather than perceiving the wonder of the life offered both now and eternally.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:50'>Joh 6:50</a></em>&nbsp;<em>This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die</em>-</p><p> The idea is not that a man eats once and never hungers again. The gift of the Spirit, of the Lord's life, is ongoing, but is predicated upon eating of Him.</p><p>The Lord spoke of the manna as being a symbol of His body, which He would give on the cross. He described the gift of that bread, that figure of His sacrifice, as not only bread that would come from Heaven but more accurately as bread that&nbsp;<em>is coming down</em>, and had been throughout His life (<em><a href='B:500 6:50-51'>Joh 6:50-51</a></em> Gk:). The spirit of life-giving which there was in His death was shown all through His life. He could take the bread and say that “this&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;my body which&nbsp;<em>is being given</em>&nbsp;Gk. for you"; He saw His sacrifice as already ongoing even before He left the upper room. The cross therefore manifested the real Christ, the One who had been giving of Himself throughout His life.</p><p>As the manna was regularly eaten of, so the Lord’s cross should be our daily inspiration and food. We must ask whether we personally and collectively have appreciated this. We obtain eternal life from the cross in the sense that we see there the definition of the true life; the life of crucifying self, slowly and painfully, for others; of enduring injustice and lack of appreciation to the very end, of holding on in the life of forgiveness and care for others in the face of their bitterest rejection... we see there the life we must lead, indeed the only true life. For all else is ultimately only death. And it is “eternal" in its quality more than in its length, in that this is the type of life which will be lived eternally in the Kingdom. It is in this sense that John later comments that eternal life is “in" Christ (<em><a href='B:690 5:11'>1Jn 5:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 5:20'>1Jn 5:20</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:500 3:14-15'>Joh 3:14-15</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:51'>Joh 6:51</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I am the living bread which came down out of Heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever. Yes The bread which I will give is my flesh – given for the life of the world</em>-</p><p> John’s Gospel points out how the Lord often changed tenses so strangely- to the extent that many have concluded that some of the strange combinations of tenses are a result of John’s later editing. But it could be that the Lord used past, present and future tenses in close proximity in order to show His manifestation of the Name. He is the bread which was, is and will be on the cross. He came, is coming down, and will come (<em><a href='B:500 6:50-51'>Joh 6:50-51</a></em>). The hour was coming and yet “now is” (<em><a href='B:500 4:23'>Joh 4:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:25'>Joh 5:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:31-32'>Joh 16:31-32</a></em>). These mixing of tenses must have seemed strange to the hearers, and they read strangely in the tense-conscious Greek language. About 50 times in John’s Gospel&nbsp;we read the phrase “I am” as having been on the lips of Jesus. And it gets more and more frequent as He nears the cross, as if He was aware of an ongoing manifestation of the Name which reached its climax there.</p><p>Not for nothing do some Rabbis speak of 'eating Messiah' as an expression of the fellowship they hope to have with Him at His coming. The sacrificial animals are spoken of as "the bread of your God" (<em><a href='B:30 21:6'>Lev 21:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 21:8'>Lev 21:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 21:21'>Lev 21:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 22:25'>Lev 22:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:330 44:7'>Eze 44:7</a></em> etc:), pointing forward to the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition to alluding to the manna, the Lord must have been consciously making this connection when He spoke about himself as the bread of God. The only time "the bread of God" could be eaten by the Israelite was at the peace offering. When in this context the Lord invites us to eat the bread of God, to eat His flesh and drink His blood (<em><a href='B:500 6:51-52'>Joh 6:51-52</a></em>), He is looking back to the peace offering. But this is also an evident prophecy of the breaking of bread service. Many of the Jews just could not cope with what Christ was offering them when He said this. They turned back, physically and intellectually. They just could not grapple with the idea that Christ was that peace offering sacrifice, and He was inviting them to sit down with God, as it were, and in fellowship with the Almighty, partake of the sacrificed body of His Son. But this is just what Christ is inviting each of us to do in the memorial meeting and in life generally lived in Him, to sit down in fellowship with Him, and eat of His bread. God really is here with us now. He is intensely watching us. He is intensely with us, He really is going to save us, if only we can have the faith to believe how much He loves us, how much He wants us to share His fellowship and know His presence.</p><p>The Lord taught the crowds to focus more on the gift of Him as a person and His sacrifice, than on the literal achievement of the Kingdom there and then. The Jews understood the coming of manna to be a sign that the Messianic Kingdom had come. Their writings are full of this idea:</p><p>- “You shall not find manna in this age, but you shall find it in the age that is coming” (Midrash Mekilta on <em><a href='B:20 16:25'>Exo 16:25</a></em>)-</p><p> “As the first redeemer caused manna to descend…so will the latter redeemer cause manna to descend” (Midrash Rabbah on <em><a href='B:250 1:9'>Ecc 1:9</a></em>)-</p><p> “The manna has been prepared for…the age to come” (Midrash Tanhuma,&nbsp;<em>Beshallah</em>&nbsp;21:66).</p><p>Yet the Lord told them in John 6 that the true manna was His flesh, which He was to give for the life of the world. Some have supposed from <em><a href='B:60 5:10-12'>Jos 5:10-12</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:20 16:35'>Exo 16:35</a></em> that the manna fell for the first time on the eve of the Passover, thus adding even more poignancy to the Lord’s equation of the manna with His death. Yet all this painstaking attempt to re-focus the crowds on the spiritual rather than the literal, salvation through His death rather than an immediate benefit for them, patient eating / sharing in His sufferings rather than eternity here and now…all this went so tragically unheeded. And it does to this day:&nbsp;</p><p>There are evident parallels between Paul’s account of the breaking of bread, and the Lord’s words about the giving of His body. There is no record of the great preaching commission in John, but he does in fact record it in more spiritual and indirect ways. And likewise there is no account of the breaking of bread, but in fact he has already recorded the essence of it in the discourse about the bread and wine of life in John 6 :</p><p><table border="1"><tr><td></p><p><em><a href='B:500 6:51'>Joh 6:51</a></em></td><td><em><a href='B:530 11:24'>1Co 11:24</a></em></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The bread which I will give</td><td>This</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Is my flesh</td><td>Is my body</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>For the life of the world</td><td>Which is for you</td><td></td></tr></table><p>Note in passing how ‘we’ are ‘the world’ to Jesus. And He likewise should be our world, as we are to Him. The word of interpretation which the Lord Jesus spoke over the emblems was a reflection of the way the head of the family explained the meaning of the Passover lamb and unleavened bread to the participants during the Passover meal. But before His death, during His life, the Lord Jesus as it were proclaimed this word of interpretation over His own body. The conclusion is clearly that He saw Himself even during His life as the slain Passover lamb. This explains why so much stress is made upon His “blood" saving us, when crucifixion was in fact a relatively bloodless death. It wasn’t as if the Lord was killed by His blood being poured out. But it was the life which the blood represented which was the essential basis of our redemption. And that life was lived out over 33 years, not just in the 6 hours of crucifixion. All this means that the spirit of the cross must be lived out in daily life; not merely in occasional acts of heroism, nor only in occasional acts of commitment or religious duty, such as attending ecclesial meetings. The cross was and is a life lived.</p><p>The link between the Lord’s death and the true word / voice of God is made in <em><a href='B:500 6:51'>Joh 6:51</a></em> cp. 63: the words of the Lord give life, whereas also His flesh “which I will give for the life of the world" on the cross would also be the source of life. The giving of His flesh was in essence His word to man; the word made flesh. This phrase, we have suggested elsewhere, also refers to the Lord’s death rather than His birth. See on <em><a href='B:650 12:25'>Heb 12:25</a></em>.</p><p>The Lord died so that the world may have life (<em><a href='B:500 6:51'>Joh 6:51</a></em>); but only those who eat His words and assimilate the true meaning of His cross will share this life; therefore "the world" refers to all who would believe. It is for them (us, by His grace), not even for those who respond but ultimately fall away, that the Lord gave His all. We are "the world" to Him. Let's not dilute the specialness of His love and the wonder of our calling to these things. We ought to be deeply, deeply moved by the fact that we have been called into God's world, into His sphere of vision. He even created the different types of meats "to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth" (<em><a href='B:610 4:3'>1Ti 4:3</a></em>); they were made for us, not the world, and therefore we ought to give thanks for our food with this realization.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:52'>Joh 6:52</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews therefore argued with each other, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?</em>-</p><p> The argument being "with each other" suggests that some of the crowd correctly understood the Lord's sense, whereas others still read Him on a literal level, recoiling at the idea of cannibalism, eating raw flesh, which was so disgusting to the Jewish mindset. I suggest the Lord intentionally framed His words in this way in order to provoke, in order to deepen the rift between those who insisted on reading Him literally, and those who grasped the spiritual sense of His words. And that is perhaps an explanation of why there are so many 'difficult passages' in the Bible; those who want to read them literally, without spiritual discernment, end up thinking that His flesh literally came down from Heaven. Those who read with a spiritual sense have no problem grasping His intended meaning.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:53'>Joh 6:53</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus replied to them: Truly, truly, I say to you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves</em>-</p><p> There is nothing else of meaning in human experience. His life, as shown in His death, is the only true and lasting sustenance for the believer. As noted on :52, the Lord chose images which He knew would provoke the divide between the literalists, the unspiritual, and those with spiritual discernment. To drink blood was deeply obnoxious to Jews. But unless they would see He referred to His life, and allow that life or spirit to displace their own, then they would have no life in themselves. The life He offers, like the gift of the Spirit, is "in" or 'within' the heart and mind.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:54'>Joh 6:54</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day</em>-</p><p> The assimilation of His life and person is to take over our lives, so that our life is his. And His life is eternal, and therefore we shall be raised at the last day to continue living it.</p><p>There is also evident reference here to the breaking of bread. In our absorption of the bread and wine into our bodies, we symbolise our desire to appropriate His life and death into the very fabric of our lives. It is a symbol of our total commitment to living life as He did, and as it was epitomised in His time of dying. The breaking of bread is therefore not something which can be separated from the rest of our lives; it is a physical statement of how our whole lives are devoted to assimilating the spirit of this Man.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:55'>Joh 6:55</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For my flesh is the true food, and my blood is the true drink</em>-</p><p> "The true" contrasts with that which is not the real thing but only masquerades as such; the contrast is with the Mosaic symbols which could not give life. And that Mosaic system was perhaps spoken of by the temporal gift of bread the Lord had given the crowds the day before.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:56'>Joh 6:56</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him</em>-</p><p> This mutual 'abiding' is at the utter heart of what it means to be in Christ, a Christian. We assimilate His life into ours, especially appreciating that the cross was the epitome and intensest summation of that life. It may be expressed in physical symbol by the breaking of bread, but the essence is of mental life lived in a way that has absorbed Him into us. This requires conscious effort on our part. Habits like prayer, reflection, meditation, Bible reading become a vital part of our daily experience. But allowing His life to be in us is responded to by Him abiding in us. He abides in us through the gift of His Spirit in our hearts, the Comforter, the anointing abiding within us (<em><a href='B:500 14:17'>Joh 14:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 2:27'>1Jn 2:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 3:24'>1Jn 3:24</a></em> "He abides in us by the Spirit which he has given us"; <em><a href='B:500 4:13'>Joh 4:13</a></em>).</p><p>One of the common Aramaic Passover sayings at the time of Jesus was: “Behold this is the bread of affliction which our fathers did eat as they came out of Egypt. Whoever hungers, let him come and eat, and whoever is in need, let him come and keep the Passover". The Passover Haggadah of today includes virtually the same words. It is evident that the Lord Jesus several times in the course of His life alluded to these words. He spoke of how all who were hungry, who were heavy burdened, should “come" unto Him. And the bread which He gave would constantly satisfy. The conclusion surely is that He saw Himself even during His life as the slain Passover lamb. He lived out the essence of the cross in His life. Our carrying of His cross likewise speaks of life daily lived, rather than occasional heights of devotion or self-sacrifice.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:57'>Joh 6:57</a></em>&nbsp;<em>As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he that eats me, he also shall live because of me</em>-</p><p> The Lord likens His relationship with the Father to our relationship with Him. The metaphor of eating suggests something regular and not simply a one time act. The Lord was regularly receiving the life or spirit of the Father as He progressed in daily relationship with Him, praying alone, meditating on His word. And we can have the same relationship with the Lord Jesus, receiving the same Spirit. The Father is "living" and not passive; His ongoing, outgiving relationship with His Son is to be reflected in our relationship with the Son.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:58'>Joh 6:58</a></em>&nbsp;<em>This is the bread which came down out of Heaven. Not as the fathers ate and died; he that eats this bread shall live forever</em>-</p><p> "This is the bread" may have been spoken with the Lord pointing to Himself, or with some sign that He referred to Himself. Or He may have had in view the "life" of which He has just spoken in :57. The coming down out of Heaven is not to be taken literally, just as the manna didn't float down through the sky, but was of Divine origin. The life we can now live is that of God, that lived by the Lord Jesus in His mortal life; it is out of Heaven in that there is direct connection between that life we can live, and the life or Spirit of God in Heaven itself.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:59'>Joh 6:59</a></em>&nbsp;<em>These things said he in the synagogue, while teaching in Capernaum</em>-</p><p> A synagogue has been unearthed in Capernaum which was called "the house of bread". He purposefully used such challenging language right there in the seat of Orthodox Jewish learning, in order to accelerate the process of choice in His hearers- to accept what He was offering, or remain 'safe' within a literal hearing of His words which would result in their utter rejection of Him. And the subsequent revolt against Him, and the protestation of the disciples' loyalty to His words, shows that He succeeded.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:60'>Joh 6:60</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Many therefore of his disciples, when they heard this, said: This is a hard saying; who can hear it?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :59 and earlier, the Lord phrased Himself in such a way as to provoke a choice in the hearts of those who heard Him. They had just witnessed the miracle of the bread; but the claim He really was Messiah, and they could live for ever, with the life and spirit of God, was too much for them. For all time, the idea that miracles lead to faith is demonstrated as false. John 6 shows how John seeks to present Jesus Himself as the words which give eternal life if eaten / digested (<em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>). And some commented: “This is a hard saying, who can hear him?” (<em><a href='B:500 6:60'>Joh 6:60</a></em> RVmg:), as if to present Jesus the person as the embodiment of His sayings / words.</p><p>There's something in our nature which shies away from the true Gospel because it's too good to believe. Paul had this struggle with the Jews, both in and outside of the church. They heard the offer of life from the Lord Himself, and rejected it: "This is an hard saying: who can hear it?" (<em><a href='B:500 6:60'>Joh 6:60</a></em>). It was just too good to believe. There is something in our natures which is diametrically opposed to the concept of&nbsp;<em>pure</em>&nbsp;grace. We feel we must&nbsp;<em>do</em>&nbsp;something before we can expect anything from God. And yet in condescension to this, the Father sometimes almost goes along with us in this. See on <em><a href='B:470 8:34'>Mat 8:34</a></em>.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:61'>Joh 6:61</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples murmured at this, said to them: Does this cause you to stumble?</em>-</p><p> The talk of :60 was therefore carefully out of the Lord's earshot. But He perceived that many were now stumbling; and I have suggested that He intentionally phrased Himself in such ways as to provoke such a decision. The murmuring of the disciples was influenced by the murmuring of the Pharisees; see on :41. It was the equivalent of Israel's murmuring against Moses (<em><a href='B:530 10:10'>1Co 10:10</a></em> s:w:).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:62'>Joh 6:62</a></em>&nbsp;<em>What then if you should see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?</em>-</p><p> I have suggested that the Lord spoke of eating His blood and body in order to deliberately provoke the audience to accept Him and His Spirit; or to remain on the level of the literal, meaning they would reject Him as heretical and weird. And so He now utters another such saying, which the unspiritual to this day also stumble over, thinking that He speaks of a literal ascent to literal Heaven where He had literally been before. But as noted earlier, literal pre-existence in a personal form in Heaven is not at all what He meant, nor what the Bible teaches. He was "with the Father" just as John the Baptist had been with the Father. He is rhetorically asking whether they would wish for this whole wondrous offer of salvation, this theophany of God coming down before them, to just abruptly end. For 'coming down' is the language of theophany. "Where he was before" may refer to how He had been before age 30, when He gave no hint of His Divine origins. This point becomes more probable when we recall as noted on :42 that this crowd of people personally knew Him and His family, and felt He could not be God's Son nor Messiah exactly because they had known Him "before", in His life before His ministry. He would then be asking them: 'So do you want the wonderful offer and theophany to end, and me to just go back to being the Nazareth carpenter? Would you then feel better and less challenged?'.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>&nbsp;<em>It is the spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing-&nbsp;</em>I suggested on :62 that their problem was with the fact that they had known Him after the flesh, as He was "before"; for they had earlier known Him and His apparent family of origin (see on :42). They were not a crowd of anonymous people; they knew Him personally from His life before His ministry had&nbsp;begun. He may be saying to the effect: 'I as you knew me after the flesh will not save you. Nor will the bread I gave you physically. It is my words, my spirit, which is now available, which will give you eternal life'.</p><p><em>The words that I have spoken to you are spirit, and are life</em>-</p><p> The Lord in John 6 taught parallels between belief in Him leading to eternal life, and His words, blood and body having the same effect. The word of Christ is in that sense His body and blood; it speaks to us in “the preaching (word) of the cross". There are parallels between the manna and the word of Christ; yet also between the manna and His death. His words give life as the manna did (:63), and yet the manna is specifically defined as His flesh, which He gave to bring life (:51). In this context He speaks of gaining life by eating His bread and drinking His blood, in evident anticipation of the memorial meal He was to institute (compare ‘the bread which I&nbsp;<em>give</em>&nbsp;is my flesh’ with ‘this is my body,&nbsp;<em>given</em>&nbsp;for you’). Eating / absorbing His manna, the sacrifice of the cross, is vital to the experience of eternal life now and the future physical receipt of it.</p><p>Assimilating the spirit and life of His cross into our lives is the vital essence of eternal life; and He foresaw that one of the ways of doing this would be through remembering that cross in the breaking of bread service. And yet notice how the Lord took that bread of life and gave it to the disciples as His guests at the last supper. To take the bread is to show our acceptance of the gift of life which is in Jesus. The Lord stated that when He had been lifted up on the cross,&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;the Jews would realize the truth and integrity of the words that He had spoken (<em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em>). Again, the cross is presented as a confirmation of all the words / verbal teaching of the Lord.</p><p>“Bread” or manna was a phrase the Rabbis commonly applied to the Torah- e.g. they interpreted <em><a href='B:240 9:5'>Pro 9:5</a></em> (“Come, eat ye of my bread”) as referring to the Law. And the Lord was clearly playing on and extending this idea in John 6. The Lord taught that in the same way as Moses gave Israel manna, so He was giving them Himself, and His word. He defines the meaning of the manna in <em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em> as His words. He is inviting us to eat Him in the sense of His words; He is the word of God. Remember how Jeremiah says that he found God's word and ate it, God's word was unto him the joy and rejoicing of his heart. Think too of the words of Job in <em><a href='B:220 23:12'>Job 23:12</a></em>, speaking as a type of Christ on this occasion: “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more&nbsp;than my necessary food". We tend to think that as we eat physically, so we should eat spiritually. The point is often made amongst us that as we always find time to eat physically, so we should to eat God's word. But this is not quite what Job is saying. He says that we should relate to our spiritual food even&nbsp;<em>more</em>&nbsp;importantly than to our natural need for food. It's second nature for us to eat regularly, every day; we don't have to schedule time to eat, it flows naturally into our daily organization of life.</p><p>There are a number of similarities between the record of the gathering of the manna and that of the Passover. They could seethe the manna, as the Paschal lamb could be seethed. They were to gather the manna according to the size of their families, and the collection was to be organized by the head of the house. This is all the language of the Passover. The lamb represented Jesus, and so did the manna. The saving work of the lamb of God is further mediated to us through the medium of His word:&nbsp; In John 6 the Lord says that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life; and He says the same about eating His words (v:63). So often the Lord says that we have got eternal life, here and now. He keeps on saying it in John 6.</p><p>The parallel between the Lord's word and His Spirit should not be taken as justification for believing in a so-called 'spirit word', and assuming that He is here exhorting us to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, including the Chronicles genealogies, in order to get His Spirit; as if Bible reading somehow equals getting the Spirit. The words spoken by the Lord refer specifically to His words, and not the whole Bible. This is not to in any sense decry study of the Bible. But here, the Lord is saying that the abiding of&nbsp;<em>His&nbsp;</em>words within us is associated with His Spirit abiding with us. Those words are the message of Him. We can understand why early Christian converts were required to memorize the Gospels, Mark especially. The word of Him, which John is teaching in this Gospel of John, was to abide in them. There may even be a suggestion that they were to repeat His words as recorded in the Gospels, for most converts would have been illiterate and without access to written versions of the Gospels. Having Him, His manner of life and being, ever before us... this is having His Spirit, eating Him, abiding in Him.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:64'>Joh 6:64</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:70 16:13'>Jdg 16:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:11'>Joh 13:11</a></em>.</p><p><em>But there are some of you that do not believe. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that did not believe, and who it was that would betray him</em>-</p><p> Many of the crowd had now walked away in disgust. But lest those who remained now thought that they were the chosen ones, the Lord warns that there were even some of them who did not.</p><p>The impression of a close spiritual relationship and subsequent shock on appreciating that Judas was a traitor that we see expressed in the Psalms is hard to reconcile with our Lord knowing Judas' motives from the beginning. Jesus knew from the beginning that some would betray him: "There are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him... Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto me of my Father" (<em><a href='B:500 6:64-65'>Joh 6:64-65</a></em>). Our Lord knew that not all were called by God to be able to come to Him- He knew who would not believe. And yet He suppressed this knowledge in his love and hope for Judas- just as it could be that God limits His omnipotence and omniscience in His dealings with us hence His sense of hurt, shock and genuine disappointment with human behaviour. If this passage does imply Christ's knowledge of Judas' intentions (as <em><a href='B:500 6:70'>Joh 6:70</a></em> seems to), these words were spoken in the final year of the Lord's ministry, when Christ's sensitive spirit would have noticed the tell-tale signs in Judas. Or is "He spake of Judas... that should betray him" (<em><a href='B:500 6:70'>Joh 6:70</a></em>) a comment added by John, which would mean that Jesus was not necessarily thinking of Judas when he said "One of you is a devil"?:&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord was human, and there is a capacity within human nature to know something on one level and yet deny it in practice. Samson surely knew what Delilah was going to do to him, yet his love for her made him blind. And so it could be that on one level the Lord knew Judas' apostasy; and One of His sensitivity would likely have perceived anyway the man's dishonesty and wrong motivations. But His love and hope for him was such that He acted and felt with genuine surprise and shock when Judas actually did what the Lord foreknew he was going to do. We have here a profound window onto the Lord's humanity.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:65'>Joh 6:65</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And he said: For this cause have I said to you, that no one can came to me, except it be given to him of the Father</em>-</p><p> As noted on :44, we must be "drawn" to the Father. But as Paul develops at length in Romans, the very existence of such things as calling and predestination indicate that the final algorithm of human salvation includes God's grace at a personal level. For not all are called. The calling is itself a gift, a term often used about the gift of the Spirit.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:66'>Joh 6:66</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Upon this many of his disciples withdrew, and no longer walked with him</em>-</p><p> Just as today, the teaching that some are called and some are not (:65) makes some turn back. Already, many had turned away, and the Lord was left with a smaller crowd; and now many of them "withdrew". But "withdrew" is literally 'to go back from', 'to go behind', and is also used of men following the Lord, behind Him. The same word is used of turning back, going behind; and also of going behind in the sense of following. This is intentional. The idea may be that it is not a question of literally following after Him, behind Him; but of following Him in the heart. Peter was taught this when he walked behind the Lord physically, but was told that if he were to really follow Him, he must take up the cross daily and follow. And John's Gospel ends with a play on the same theme, of following behind. The same word is used of how the Jews perceived that the whole Jewish world had gone behind Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 12:19'>Joh 12:19</a></em>); but in fact very few were really following Him. To not walk with Him, the light of the world, was to walk in darkness (<em><a href='B:500 12:35'>Joh 12:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 1:6-7'>1Jn 1:6-7</a></em>). And they did so because they thought it unreasonable that some are called and others are not (:65). They played God, and thus turned away from the greatest grace- of having been called to see and know Him.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:67'>Joh 6:67</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus asked the twelve: Would you also go away?</em>-</p><p> The large crowd had diminished twice, as the Lord purposefully provoked them with His language and ideas. Perhaps now only the twelve and a few others were left. And He asks them if they will also "go away", using the term used for their 'going away' from Him and seeking to return to their home area in Capernaum (see on :21).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:68'>Joh 6:68</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life</em>-</p><p> It was the Lord's "words", His use of language about drinking blood, ascending where He had been before, and about not all being called... which had caused the majority to go away into the darkness. Hence the significance of Peter's comment that His words were those of life eternal. His life was His words, and Peter was abiding with those words and that life. Peter was one of the few who really grasped the meaning of the Lord's miraculous provision of bread, and the discourse which followed. The Lord had said that He was the living bread, of which a man could eat and live forever. Peter's comment that only the Lord had the words of eternal life showed that he quite appreciated that it was the&nbsp;<em>words</em>&nbsp;of the Lord Jesus which were the essential thing, not the physicality of the miracle (fascinating as it must have been to a fisherman; <em><a href='B:500 6:51'>Joh 6:51</a></em> cp. 68). &nbsp;</p><p>The Spirit of Jesus, His disposition, His mindset, His way of thinking and being, is paralleled with His words and His person. They both ‘quicken’ or give eternal life, right now. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth present tense… the words that I speak unto you, they are right now spirit, and they are life… thou hast right now the words of eternal life” (<em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:68'>Joh 6:68</a></em>). Yet at the last day, God will quicken the dead and physically give them eternal life (<em><a href='B:520 4:17'>Rom 4:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 15:22'>1Co 15:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 15:36'>1Co 15:36</a></em>). But this will be because in this life we had the ‘Spirit’ of the eternal life in us: “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by on account of his spirit that dwelleth in you” (<em><a href='B:520 8:11'>Rom 8:11</a></em>). Again we have the same words, ‘quicken’ and ‘his spirit’. And Paul says that our resurrection will have some similarities with that of our Lord- who was “put to death in the flesh but quickened by on account of the spirit” (<em><a href='B:670 3:18'>1Pe 3:18</a></em>). It was according to the spirit of holiness, of a holy life, that Jesus was raised and given eternal life (<em><a href='B:520 1:4'>Rom 1:4</a></em>). What all this means in practice is that if we live a ‘quickened’ spiritual life now, a life modelled around what Jesus would have done or said in any given situation, then we have the guarantee that we will be ‘quickened’ in the Kingdom. Thus <em><a href='B:520 8:2'>Rom 8:2</a></em> speaks of “the law of the spirit of life in Christ”. Having “the spirit” in our hearts is therefore the seal, the guarantee, of our future salvation (<em><a href='B:540 1:22'>2Co 1:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 5:5'>2Co 5:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:560 1:14'>Eph 1:14</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:69'>Joh 6:69</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:590 1:3'>1Th 1:3</a></em>.</p><p><em>And we have believed and know that you are the Holy One of God</em>-</p><p> The people's real problem was that they could not accept a man well known to them as Messiah. Out of all the range of Messianic titles which Peter could have chosen, he chooses one which implies the Lord was God's "One", His begotten Son. The Lord must have been greatly encouraged, but He instead takes issue with Peter's statement that "<em>we&nbsp;</em>have believed and know...". For one of them did not. The implication could be that Judas did what he did not simply for money, but from a disbelief that Jesus was in fact Messiah and Son of God.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:70'>Joh 6:70</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 6:64'>Joh 6:64</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em>.</p><p><em>Jesus answered them: Did not I choose you the twelve, and one of you is a devil?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :64, the crowd had progressively diminished as they all became offended at the Lord's words. Perhaps only the twelve remained, and the Lord didn't want them to think that even they were all going to abide. Even one of them was an opponent, a false accuser. Judas was 'chosen'; but being chosen is not of itself enough. We must make our choosing or election "sure" (<em><a href='B:680 1:10'>2Pe 1:10</a></em> - perhaps written by Peter with his mind on Judas).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 6:71'>Joh 6:71</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now he spoke of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot; for he was the one of those twelve who would betray him</em>-</p><p> Clearly the term "devil" doesn't refer to an Angelic being who fell off the 99th floor in Eden. The term is here applied to Judas, just as "satan" is to Peter. Perhaps this is another of the points of similarity between Peter and Judas, who in essence did the same thing in denying the Lord; and yet Peter's core faith triumphed and he repented, whereas Judas could not believe in the Lord's grace as Peter did.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:1'>Joh 7:1</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him</em>-</p><p> This is an exemplification in practice of how the Lord's life was not taken from Him, but He gave it at the time and in the manner which He Himself wished. He knew that if He went to Judea and walked openly, He would be killed. And He wished to die at Passover, not tabernacles (:2). This conscious self-giving of the Lord is hard to plumb, but it remains our constant pattern. Yet we note that the Lord did in fact teach openly at the feast of tabernacles. He did go into Judea. His reasoning may have been that He could be killed on the way, but He judged rightly that public opinion was sufficiently for Him that He would not be killed by the Jews within Jerusalem at the time of the tabernacles feast. This could have all been beamed into Him by the Father, but I prefer to imagine His own sensitivity and spiritual reasoning leading Him to these conclusions.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:2'>Joh 7:2</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand</em>-</p><p> Again, what the Old Testament describes as "the feasts of Yahweh" are spoken of as the feasts of the Jews; the law of God through Moses became "their law", and the temple of Yahweh became the temple of the Jews. They had hijacked God's ways and turned them into their own mere religion.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:3'>Joh 7:3</a></em>&nbsp;<em>His brothers said to him: Depart from here and go into Judea, so your disciples may also see the works you do</em>-</p><p> The disciples in view were presumably the Lord's sympathizers in Judea. "The works" refer to miracles. The Lord had been rejected by many exactly because the Galilean audience knew Him before His ministry began, and now He was claiming to be Son of God and Messiah, unwelcome public attention would be focused upon His family of origin. They therefore wanted Him to go to Judea, and taunted Him as to why He didn't do His miracles there too. Both his family and the men of Israel generally rejected David's claims to be able to save Israel (<em><a href='B:90 17:28-30'>1Sa 17:28-30</a></em>), and this pointed forward to the Lord's rejection by His brothers. Eliab's "Why camest thou down hither?" matches the Lord's brothers telling Him "depart from here":&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:4'>Joh 7:4</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For no one does anything in secret while he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, manifest yourself to the world</em>-</p><p> This was another form of the temptation to "come down from the cross" and the wilderness temptations, to persuade the Jewish world by visible miracle. But the Lord's experience in chapter 6 had prepared Him for this; the miracle of the feeding had only led to men turning away from Him once it was explained to them. As explained on :3, the Lord's family didn't want all the public attention now given to them because of His claims to be God's Son and Messiah. They taunted Him that doing miracles in backwater Galilee was effectively being secretive; if He were indeed Messiah then He surely would want to be "known openly", and so they urged Him to leave them and go to Jerusalem and manifest Himself openly to the Jewish world there. Just as the Lord's synagogue-influenced brothers wanted Him to show Himself openly to the world (<em><a href='B:500 7:4'>Joh 7:4</a></em>), so did the disciples (<em><a href='B:500 14:22'>Joh 14:22</a></em>). There was that hankering for Him to openly display Himself as the Messiah which Judaism had created within its own mind. This was all a repeat of the wilderness temptation.</p><p>Perhaps they were alluding to the Rabbinic idea that as Moses hid himself and then re-emerged from obscurity, so Messiah would. Rabbi Berekiah said: “As the first deliverer Moses was revealed, then hidden and afterwards appeared again, so will it also be with the last deliverer Messiah”. John’s record is clearly presenting the Lord as Moses in this sense.</p><p>In collective societies, where life was totally lived in the public realm and anything done 'in private' is seen as deviant (cp. <em><a href='B:500 7:4'>Joh 7:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 18:20'>Joh 18:20</a></em>), shame was related to how&nbsp;<em>others</em>&nbsp;saw you, not your internal reflections and assessment of your guilt or innocence for things like private thoughts and unknown deeds. And there's every reason to think that the global village of the 21st century is an equally conscience-less place, where so long as you talk in nice speak and don't get caught actually&nbsp;<em>doing</em>&nbsp;anything society thinks is wrong, you can exist with no internal, personal conscience at all. Indeed, the word "conscience" originated from words which literally mean 'common / with others / knowledge'- conscience was collective, whereas the Biblical understanding of it is more on a personal level.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:5'>Joh 7:5</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For even his brothers did not believe in him</em>-</p><p> The later New Testament records that they did later believe in Him. This would have required fair humility on their part. His behaviour in family life would have been perfect before God; no sins of omission nor commission. But the beauty of it all was that nobody perceived that. And it was His very humanity which stopped them believing in Him, just as it is His humanity which has been such a barrier to faith for so many, leading them to create false doctrines such as the Trinity in order to try to get over the problem, and thereby make Him the less challenging to we who share His same nature.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:6'>Joh 7:6</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus replied to them: My time is not yet come; but your time is always read</em>y- "My time" surely refers to the time for Him to die on the cross. The phrase is only used elsewhere by Paul about "my time of departure" (<em><a href='B:620 4:6'>2Ti 4:6</a></em>), reflecting how he saw the Lord's death in his death, and thereby was confident in sharing in His resurrection. We need to have the same attitude. The word&nbsp;<em>kairos</em>, "time", can also refer to a specific time, i:e. a Jewish feast. It is used like this in <em><a href='B:490 13:1'>Luk 13:1</a></em> AV: "There were present at that season some...", the idea being that there is reference to some who were present in Jerusalem at that feast. So the Lord may mean that<em>&nbsp;His</em>&nbsp;feast, the one at which He was to die, Passover, had not yet come. For the debate was about going up to the feast of Tabernacles, not Passover. But their feast was always prepared NEV "ready", for they were participating in the feast in a literal manner. The idea seems to be that the Lord's feast, the Passover when He was to die, was not yet prepared. He, and other factors, were not yet prepared. But for their feast of tabernacles, everything was ready for them and they might as well go to it at any time.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:7'>Joh 7:7</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify of it, that its works are evil</em>-</p><p> The Lord's brothers were on the side of the Jewish world. They feared they would be hated by Jewish society because of their connection with the Lord, but He assures them that they have nothing to fear. Because it was His testimony against their evil works which was the basis for hate. The Lord did not specifically state that the works of the Jewish world were evil; but the phrase issued in <em><a href='B:500 3:19'>Joh 3:19</a></em> of how the Lord's life was such a light that the Jews shrunk back from it, preferring the darkness, lest His light reveal their works as evil. His life lived was therefore a testimony. Just as our most powerful witness is our life lived rather than words spoken or theology preached. The Jewish world hated the Lord's true disciples because they were not "of" that world (<em><a href='B:500 15:18-19'>Joh 15:18-19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:14'>Joh 17:14</a></em>). Separation from the world elicits hatred from the world simply because we are different. This is basic human group psychology, to hate any outside the group or who leave the group. It has to be, therefore, that the true believer is hated by the world; we should not marvel at it (<em><a href='B:690 3:13'>1Jn 3:13</a></em>). Our positions are an implicit criticism and rebuke of them, which they 'hear' and respond to with hatred rather than indifference or the 'religious tolerance' which is the talk of the West at this time.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:8'>Joh 7:8</a></em>&nbsp;<em>You go up to the feast. I will not be going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled</em>-</p><p> The AV adds "I go not up&nbsp;<em>yet</em>". Perhaps He is using spiritual language in order to confuse those who did not wish to spiritually perceive Him. He was going to the feast of tabernacles; but He means that He is not 'going up' to it in the sense of making His self-offering there at that feast, because His hour has not yet come for that. He knew He must wait until Passover for that. He may simply have meant that He perceived that He could be killed on the way to the feast, and so He was not going to go up at that time, because that was not the intended time for His death.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:9'>Joh 7:9</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee</em>-</p><p> Perhaps He did not want to join the caravan of travellers going to the feast from Galilee, for this would have involved Him camping out with His family. They did not want association with Him, and He did not wish to force the issue. It was perhaps this gentle, sensitive policy which led to many of them coming to believe in Him after His death.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:10'>Joh 7:10</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But when his brothers had gone to the feast, then he also went to it, not publicly but as it were in secret</em>-</p><p> The caravans descending upon Jerusalem for the feast were strictly organized according to families and towns of origin. The Lord did not wish to have to raise His earthly background because this would distract from His self-presentation as the One "from Heaven", of Divine origin, as emphasized in chapter 6. He therefore "in secret" joined the caravans, disguising His identity. There were many who would have been eager to use His presence amongst the pilgrims as an opportunity for staging a revolution and enthroning Him as king. Remember that this was one of His wilderness temptations, which returned to Him at times like this. His wisdom in avoiding such a situation is a mark of His recognition of His own frailty. He avoided temptation.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:11'>Joh 7:11</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews searched for him at the feast, and asked: Where is he?</em>-</p><p> This question "Where is he?" is recorded three times in John, and nowhere else in the New Testament (<em><a href='B:500 9:12'>Joh 9:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:15'>Joh 20:15</a></em>). The Lord's apparent absence was in order to elicit that question and a seeking for Him. His apparent absence and silence in the traumas of life is to likewise provoke in us the same question. I suggest in John's context this is all to add background to the momentous statements we have in the promise of the Comforter- that the Lord who was physically absent is present through His Spirit. His physical absence is not critical. And those who seek for Him shall find Him.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:12'>Joh 7:12</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And there was much murmuring among the crowds concerning him. Some said: He is a good man. Others said: Not so. He deceives the people</em>-</p><p> The miracles done were clear enough, but still some thought He was a deceiver. Again John is making the point that miracles do not play a great role in eliciting faith. And this was a necessary point to be made, seeing John was writing at the time when the miraculous gifts were being withdrawn and phased out.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:13'>Joh 7:13</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Yet no one spoke openly about him for fear of the Jews</em>-</p><p> Another theme of John is that belief in Jesus as Messiah and Lord must be openly stated. He records the examples of the healed blind man, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who 'came out' for the Lord. The Greek word for "openly" is used around 30 times in the New Testament for the 'openness' of the Lord's witness and that of the disciples. It is a characteristic of those who believe they are living the eternal life and have been filled with the love and Spirit of the Father and Son. But it is fear of our image before others which stymies that boldness. The same word is used of how the Lord spoke openly or boldly (:26); seeking those who heard Him to likewise be open and bold in coming out for Him. Joseph of Arimathea is presented as a secret disciple who "for fear of the Jews" did not come out openly for the Lord (<em><a href='B:500 19:38'>Joh 19:38</a></em> s:w:), and John uses the same term to describe how they the disciples were likewise living "in fear of the Jews" (<em><a href='B:500 20:19'>Joh 20:19</a></em>). It was the experience of the Lord's death and resurrection which results in the Acts record so often describing how they "spoke openly" of the Lord, now fearless of the Jews. The Lord's crucifixion and rising again should have a similar impact upon us.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:14'>Joh 7:14</a></em>&nbsp;<em>When the feast was half way through, Jesus went into the temple and taught</em>-</p><p> "Half way through" is "in the midst", and the term is usually used not of time but of being in the midst of persons. His entry into the temple in the midst of Israel could have been seen as a triumphal entry, in preparation for what He planned to do at the next Passover feast. If the reference is to waiting half way through the eight days of the feast, then we see how the Lord was carefully calculating His impact. He knew that if He were to openly preach for eight days, He could be arrested or provoke a revolution. So He timed His appearance at the optimal time- to get His message over to as many as possible without provoking the events which would lead to His death. He of course planned His Passover appearances to lead to His death. We see here something of the degree to which the Lord gave His life, it was not taken from Him; He Himself carefully planned things rather than being a mute puppet in the Divine hand.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:15'>Joh 7:15</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews marvelled, saying: How is it that this man has learning, when he has never had an education?</em>-</p><p> As the Son of God, the Lord would or could have been an intellectual without compare. The fact He had not been educated would have been revealed in all the background checks they had run on Him. And His lack of education speaks of the abject poverty in which He had grown up- out working from a child rather than studying. But in the Lord we see a challenge for all time to the effect that lack of time, long hours, little cash, demanding domestic situations... are no ultimate barrier to developing God's mind and growing spiritually.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:16'>Joh 7:16</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered them and said: My teaching is not mine, but His that sent me</em>-</p><p> The Lord says nothing of how He had figured out Hebrew and Aramaic letters because of His own intelligence. Rather He says that His ability to teach when He was uneducated was yet another sign that He was sent from God with God's message. The differentiation made by the Lord here between Himself and the Father is yet another problem for the Trinitarian paradigm.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:17'>Joh 7:17</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>.</p><p><em>If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know of this teaching, whether it is of God, or I speak from myself</em>-</p><p> Most of the audience were illiterate and had no access to the Hebrew scrolls of the Old Testament in order to check out whether the Lord's doctrine was of God or simply from Himself, His own philosophy. The will of God is of our salvation and sanctification; this has been developed so far throughout John's Gospel. He who wishes above all things to live God's life, to have His Spirit, to live the life eternal with Him... they will intuitively know whether the Lord's doctrine is right or not. This intuitive element is in fact what leads to faith in the first place. There is a strong tendency to talk this down, and assume that it is by intellectual process that a person decides what is true or otherwise. But all appeal to intellectual process alone to decide 'truth' is flawed. For we are talking of spiritual things and not material. And legitimate intellectual process varies between persons. They may come to different conclusions about the same teaching which they analyse. And some are far more capable of intellectual analysis than others. There has to be something beyond intellectual process to decide truth. Here the Lord expresses this as a willing to do God's will, a heart for God, a desire for eternity. In a word, we must be open to the things of the Spirit. And then, the teachings make sense and there is an intuitive congruence between them and our own spirit.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:18'>Joh 7:18</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He that speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but he that seeks the glory of Him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him</em>-</p><p> The Lord here discerns that all public teaching tends towards self-glorification. If a teacher is totally concerned with God's glory and not at all for his own glory, then he is of God. Indeed, the Lord here defines having "no unrighteousness" with not seeking one’s own glory. He sees this principle as so fundamental that He considers that a person who seeks totally God's glory is therefore from God. This is a sober warning to all who teach publicly. Only the perfect, in whom is no unrighteousness, can say that they totally seek God's glory and not at all their own. There is in all of us for none are without unrighteousness a tendency towards our own self glory. This must be accepted, and struggled against. Nor should we seek to give glory to teachers. We must remember the principle here- that the Lord Jesus alone had no unrighteousness in Him, and therefore He sought only and totally God's glory in His teaching; and thereby He was validated as a teacher from God:&nbsp;</p><p>Seeking His glory is to be the essential issue in our lives. If we seek God's glory- i:e. the development of the attributes and characteristics of His Name- He will seek ours (<em><a href='B:500 8:50'>Joh 8:50</a></em>), and our glory is His glory. The Lord sought the Father's glory as the Father sought His glory (<em><a href='B:500 8:50'>Joh 8:50</a></em>). The word for 'seek' used here can imply 'worship'- we must worship this concept of giving glory to God in our lives. God's glory is His essential self (<em><a href='B:500 17:5'>Joh 17:5</a></em>), yet He is willing to give us His glory. He will not give His glory to anyone apart from His people (<em><a href='B:290 48:11'>Isa 48:11</a></em>). What higher honours can be revealed to us?</p><p>Fear of false teachers, even paranoia about them, is what has led to so much division in practice. The Lord Jesus tackled the issue of whether a person is a true or a false teacher. He didn't make the division so much on the&nbsp;<em>content</em>&nbsp;of their teaching, as we usually do, but rather says that the true teacher is motivated by seeking the Father's glory, whereas the false teacher seeks only his own glory (<em><a href='B:500 7:18'>Joh 7:18</a></em>). Yet it is the endless fear of 'false teachers' in terms of the&nbsp;<em>content</em>&nbsp;of their teaching which has led to so much division- and often the process of it seems to have led to self-glorifying individuals establishing their own followings. It is by their&nbsp;<em>fruits</em>&nbsp;that they are known / discerned, rather than the analysis of their&nbsp;<em>content</em>&nbsp;by intellectual process alone.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:19'>Joh 7:19</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Did not Moses give you the law and yet none of you does the law? Why do you seek to kill me?</em>-</p><p> Jews sought the death penalty for a person who broke the Mosaic law; yet the Lord points out that they were not obedient to that law themselves. He had taught in <em><a href='B:500 5:45'>Joh 5:45</a></em> that Moses actually condemned them.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:20'>Joh 7:20</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The crowd answered: You are crazy Who seeks to kill you?</em>-</p><p> The crowd surely knew the Jews were plotting to kill the Lord; hence their fear of speaking openly about Him (:13). But the Lord did not get engaged in trying to persuade them of a different version of events and history. Instead He focused on the essence, which was their marvel instead of true faith (:21). "You are crazy" is literally 'you have a demon'. Unexplained illnesses, especially mental conditions, were understood as demon possession. And the Lord went along with that misunderstanding. Here too He doesn't stop to argue with them about their false theology of demons; His concern is with their deeper unbelief (:21).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:21'>Joh 7:21</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered and said to them: I did one work and you all marvel because of it</em>-</p><p> The Lord said this in response to their denial that anyone was out to murder Him. He could have responded by giving quotations of words and statements both heard and reported. But He rarely answers questions on their own terms. Such point for point debating, striving to enforce one version of events upon another, virtually never succeeds in bring about understanding. Instead He comments further on how just one miracle had led to "marvel", to disbelief rather than belief; and had led some to plan to kill Him. He doesn't say 'I did a miracle, and some got so jealous they tried to kill Me'. Instead He argued that 'I did a miracle and&nbsp;<em>you</em>&nbsp;didn't believe as you should, you just marvelled'.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:22'>Joh 7:22</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Moses has given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses but of the fathers) and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man</em>-</p><p> The crowd had not responded to the Lord's accusation that they broke the Law. But He knew that they were angry about that, filling their minds with lists of their own righteousness and legalistic obedience to laws. But again He rises above the temptation to comment upon their major disobedience in other areas. Rather does He seek to demonstrate that within the very legal structure of the Mosaic law, there was the requirement to break one law in order to keep another. The reason for that was to drive the thoughtful Israelite to throw themselves upon grace, and to realize that justification could not be achieved by obedience to law.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:23'>Joh 7:23</a></em>&nbsp;<em>If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me, because I made a man completely whole on the Sabbath?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :22, the structure of the Mosaic law was in order to make legalistic obedience impossible if one insisted upon a casuistic, literalistic reading of it. For one command resulted in another being broken. And the Lord is pointing the contrast between their cutting off a piece of flesh, and Him making a man completely whole- implying His cure of the lame man was a total cure of every part of the man's wasted body. The Lord rightly perceived their 'anger' with Him for doing a good work. The reference is back to how the healing of the impotent man led to the Jews seeking to kill the Lord (<em><a href='B:500 5:18'>Joh 5:18</a></em>). The implication is that on His current visit to Jerusalem, He had done no miracles. They were still remembering with indignation that previous incident. We see here how the Lord worked with an economy of miracle.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:24'>Joh 7:24</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment</em>-</p><p> The Lord is still alluding to the incident in chapter 5, where He cured the impotent man on the Sabbath and the Jews plotted to kill Him. He had explained that He had done so because "My judgment is just" (<em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em>). These are the same words as used here in inviting the crowd to "judge righteous "just" judgment". John will later again emphasize how God's judgments are just (<em><a href='B:730 16:7'>Rev 16:7</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 19:2'>Rev 19:2</a></em>). We are not to judge in the sense of condemning, pre-judging in an ultimate sense; but rather is the invitation to see things from God's perspective.</p><p>As recipients of God's grace through the experience of His way of working with us reflecting His character, we too must reflect those same characteristics to others. This is why we&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;judge- for in doing so, we have the opportunity to reflect God's character. We must judge righteous judgment (<em><a href='B:500 7:24'>Joh 7:24</a></em>) in reflection of that of "the Lord, the righteous judge" (<em><a href='B:620 4:8'>2Ti 4:8</a></em>). David was almost eager to replicate the principles of God's judgments in how he judged issues (<em><a href='B:230 75:10'>Psa 75:10</a></em> cp. 7; <em><a href='B:230 75:7'>Psa 75:7</a></em> cp. 2). And therefore Asaph poses the question to Israel's judges: 'Because God judges justly, why don't you?' (<em><a href='B:230 82:1-3'>Psa 82:1-3</a></em>). As we judge, we will be judged; even Babylon will be judged as she judged others (<em><a href='B:730 18:20'>Rev 18:20</a></em> RV), and Edom's judgments in <em><a href='B:300 49:9'>Jer 49:9</a></em> are an exact reflection of how she judged Israel (<em><a href='B:380 1:5'>Oba 1:5</a></em>). And therefore we should almost jump at the opportunity to judge:&nbsp; "Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the... fatherless and widow" (<em><a href='B:50 27:19'>Deu 27:19</a></em>) because "A father of the fatherless and a judge of the widow is God in his holy habitation" (<em><a href='B:230 68:5'>Psa 68:5</a></em>). Israel were to reflect God's judgments in their judgments.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:25'>Joh 7:25</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore, some of those from Jerusalem asked: Is this not he whom they seek to kill?</em>-</p><p> "Those from Jerusalem" knew that indeed the Jewish leadership wanted to kill the Lord. It was the crowd of visiting pilgrims from the provinces who seemed quite unaware of this (:20). The Lord could so easily have responded to the mocking claim that nobody sought to kill Him by arguing that yes, indeed there are such people here in Jerusalem, and you provincial folk are ignorant of that fact. But that is not His style, and such point blank confrontation should likewise be avoided by us. Instead as ever He cut to the essential spiritual point and issue.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:26'>Joh 7:26</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And lo, he speaks openly and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ?</em>-</p><p> They wondered whether the rulers had abandoned their well-known plans to kill the Lord because actually they now recognized Him as Messiah. The Lord's openness of 'boldness' of speaking was emulated by the disciples- the same word is used throughout Acts of their witness. He wished that His hearers would come out as openly as He had; for we learnt in :13 that His hearers feared to speak openly of Him as He did of Himself.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:27'>Joh 7:27</a></em>&nbsp;<em>However we know from where this man is; but when the Christ comes, no one knows from where he is</em>-</p><p> The Lord's claims had been researched, and it had been discovered that He was the son of a questionable woman called Maryam who had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and the whole thing had been covered up. We note Mary and the Lord did not publicize His real history, His birth in Bethlehem, the visit of the wise men etc. Perhaps this was news indeed for those who first read or heard it in the accounts of Matthew and Luke. Thirty years earlier, the Jews had known full well the answer to the question 'Where does the Christ come from?'. They had given the correct answer- from Bethlehem, as stated in Micah. But now, their theology had changed and veered into mysticism, claiming that the origins of Messiah would be unknown. We see here a classic example of how theology changes in order to cope with inconvenient truths. The mysticism of the Trinity would be a parade example; it is an attempt to cope with the human Christ whose achievement of perfection within human nature requires much faith, and is a challenge to all of us who bear the same nature. And so the height of the challenge was blunted, the height of the demand minimized, by a slide into mysticism, abstracting the amazing concrete achievement into mere theological terms which are words with no weight in practice.</p><p>If He were really like us, then this demands an awful lot of us. It rids us of so many excuses for our unspirituality. And this, I’m bold enough to say, is likely the psychological reason for the growth of the Jesus = God ideology, and the ‘trinity’ concept. The idea of a personally pre-existent Jesus likewise arose out of the same psychological bind. The Jews wanted a Messiah whose origins they wouldn’t know (<em><a href='B:500 7:27'>Joh 7:27</a></em>), some inaccessible heavenly figure, of which their writings frequently speak- and when faced with the very human Jesus, whose mother and brothers they knew, they couldn’t cope with it. I suggest those Jews had the same basic mindset as those who believe in a personal pre-existence of the Lord. The trinity and pre-existence doctrines place a respectable gap between us and the Son of God. As John Knox concluded: “We can have the humanity of Jesus without the pre-existence and we can have the pre-existence without the humanity. There is absolutely no way of having both”. His person and example aren’t so much of an imperative to us, because He was God and not man. But if this perfect man was indeed one of us, a man amongst men, with our very same flesh, blood, sperm and plasm… we start to feel uncomfortable. It’s perhaps why so many of us find prolonged contemplation of His crucifixion- where He was at His most naked and most human- something we find distinctly uncomfortable, and impossible to deeply sustain for long. But only if we properly have in balance the awesome reality of Christ’s humanity, can we understand how one man’s death 2,000 years ago can radically alter our lives today. We make excuses for ourselves: our parents were imperfect, society around us is so sinful. But the Lord Jesus was perfect- and dear Mary did her best, but all the same failed to give Him a perfect upbringing; she wasn’t a perfect mother; and He didn’t live in a perfect environment. And yet, He was perfect. And bids us quit our excuses and follow Him. According to the Talmud, Mary was a hairdresser&nbsp;<em>Shabbath&nbsp;</em>104b, whose husband left her with the children because he thought she’d had an affair with a Roman soldier. True or not, she was all the same an ordinary woman, living a poor life in a tough time in a backward land. And the holy, harmless, undefiled Son of God and Son of Man… was, let’s say, the son of a divorcee hairdresser from a dirt poor, peripheral village, got a job working construction when He was still a teenager. There’s a wonder in all this. And an endless challenge. For none of us can now blame our lack of spiritual endeavour upon a tough background, family dysfunction, hard times, bad environment. We can rise above it, because in Him we are a new creation, the old has passed away, and in Him, all things have become new (<em><a href='B:540 5:17'>2Co 5:17</a></em>). Precisely because He blazed the trail, blazed it out of all the limitations which normal human life appears to impress upon us, undeflected and undefeated by whatever distractions both His and our humanity placed in His path. And He’s given us the power to follow Him. &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying: You both know me, and know from where I am, and that I have not come of myself. But He that sent me is true, whom you do not know</em>-</p><p> The Lord's appeal was so emotional and direct because He knew that subconsciously, they recognized Him for who He was. They were in denial. They were so near to salvation, but so far. The leaders of first century Israel initially recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah (<em><a href='B:470 21:38'>Mat 21:38</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:10 37:20'>Gen 37:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>). They saw (i:e. understood, recognized) him, but then they were made blind by Christ (<em><a href='B:500 9:39'>Joh 9:39</a></em>). It was because they "saw" Jesus as the Messiah that the sin of rejecting him was counted to them (<em><a href='B:500 9:41'>Joh 9:41</a></em>). This explains why the Roman / Italian nation was not held guilty for crucifying Him, although they did it, whereas the Jewish nation was. And yet there is ample Biblical evidence to suggest that these same people who "saw" / recognized Jesus as the Christ were also ignorant of his Messiahship. "Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am... Ye neither know me, nor my Father... when ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he" (<em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:19'>Joh 8:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em>) were all addressed to the same group of Jews. Did they know / recognize Jesus as Messiah, or not? As they jeered at him on the cross, and asked Pilate to change the nameplate from "Jesus, King of the Jews", did they see Him as their Messiah? It seems to me that they didn't. In ignorance the Jewish leaders and people crucified their Messiah (<em><a href='B:510 3:17'>Act 3:17</a></em> RV). And yet they knew Him for who He was, they saw Him coming as the heir. I would suggest the resolution to all this is that they did recognize Him first of all, but because they didn't want to accept Him, their eyes were blinded, so that they honestly thought that He was an impostor, and therefore in ignorance they crucified Him. And yet, it must be noted, what they did in this ignorance, they were seriously accountable for before God.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:29'>Joh 7:29</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent me</em>-</p><p> The Son's knowledge of / relationship with the Father was partly because of His being God's Son, "from Him". He had a natural aptitude for the things of the Father. For all their searching of the Scriptures, they did not know God (:28). The Hebrew sense of 'knowing' is of relationship, rather than academic knowledge.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:30'>Joh 7:30</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore they sought to take him, but no one laid his hand on him- because his hour had not yet come</em>-</p><p> The upsurge of hatred against Him was not just because He claimed to be Messiah; for there were many who claimed to be Messiah and who were greeted with jovial scepticism. The anger was because as explained on :28, they did actually realize in their subconscious that He was both Messiah and Son of God. Their desire to catch and kill Him at that feast was somehow frustrated; He had an intended time to die, and it was not yet. The details are not given, but the overall picture is that the Lord's death was not achieved by the Jews just wanting Him out of the way, murdering Him. It was orchestrated by the Father, in response to the Son's desire to give His life.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:31'>Joh 7:31</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But of the crowd many believed in him; and they said: When the Christ comes, will he do more signs than those which this man has done?</em>-</p><p> John is generous in crediting them with belief, because he goes on to explain that they were not completely sure if He were Messiah or not. And they also predicated His Messiahship upon the number of miracles performed, whereas John's theme is that the Lord used an economy of miracle, and that the miracles in any case did not elicit lasting faith. Our view of others' immature faith ought to be similarly positive. For often our own faith is not actually much more mature.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:32'>Joh 7:32</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to take him</em>-</p><p> There is fair emphasis upon the 'murmuring'. It was all very undercover. We may well ask, why the Jewish leadership minded so much that a claimant to Messiahship was so popular? Was it not that subconsciously, they felt it took away their power? They were playing Messiah, as men play God today. They didn't actually want Him to come because they had too much vested interest in Him actually not coming. Likewise there were those in <em><a href='B:370 5:18-19'>Amo 5:18-19</a></em> who desired the day of the Lord, in words at least, and yet not really. We have to ask whether our desire for the Lord's coming is more than a matter of words, a respectably expressed public dissatisfaction with things as they are... when in real spiritual and psychological terms, we actually prefer all things to continue as they are.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:33'>Joh 7:33</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus replied: Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go to Him that sent me</em>-</p><p> The Lord's ministry was incredibly short. Three and a half years within the entire span of human history, and indeed, all existence and time as we know it.</p><p>The disciples were all too influenced by Judaism, the “generation” or world around them. The disciples and Judaism / the Jewish world are paralleled in <em><a href='B:500 7:3-4'>Joh 7:3-4</a></em>: “Let your disciples see your work… shew yourself to the world”:&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord Jesus has to say the same words to the Jews as He does to the disciples:&nbsp;</p><p><table border="1"><tr><td></p><p>Phrase</td><td>To the Jews</td><td>To the disciples</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>“I am to be with you only a little longer”</td><td><em><a href='B:500 7:33'>Joh 7:33</a></em></td><td><em><a href='B:500 13:33'>Joh 13:33</a></em></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>“You will look for me”</td><td><em><a href='B:500 7:34'>Joh 7:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:21'>Joh 8:21</a></em></td><td><em><a href='B:500 13:33'>Joh 13:33</a></em></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>“Where I am going, you cannot come”</td><td><em><a href='B:500 7:34'>Joh 7:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:21'>Joh 8:21</a></em></td><td><em><a href='B:500 13:33'>Joh 13:33</a></em></td><td></td></tr></table><p>Greek (unlike Hebrew) uses tenses in a very precise way. There are some real problems in understanding exactly why the Lord changes tenses so often, e.g. in <em><a href='B:500 7:33-34'>Joh 7:33-34</a></em>: "Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am we would expect: 'Where I will go / be', thither ye cannot not 'will not be able to' come". He saw Himself as both with the Father, already glorified, and yet also still in mortal life. Another example is in the way He speaks of how the faithful&nbsp;<em>are&nbsp;</em>equal to the Angels,&nbsp;<em>being&nbsp;</em>the children of the resurrection (<em><a href='B:490 20:35-36'>Luk 20:35-36</a></em> - in the context of explaining how 'all live' unto God)- we would rather expect Him to speak of how the faithful&nbsp;<em>will be&nbsp;</em>equal to Angels,&nbsp;<em>will be&nbsp;</em>resurrected etc. But He pointedly speaks in the present tense. He realized that He had not yet made the required sacrifice and broken the power of death in resurrection. But He also was confident in faith that He would achieve these things, and He looked at things from outside of time as we know it- from His Father's perspective.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:34'>Joh 7:34</a></em>&nbsp;<em>You shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am, you cannot come</em>-</p><p> This sounds like Moses ascending the Mount, leaving Israel behind him. Yet "Where I am" refers to the Lord's unity with God; the heights of His relationship with God connect with the physical ascent of Moses into the mount to hear God's words. “I will that they also... be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me" (<em><a href='B:500 17:24'>Joh 17:24</a></em>) alludes to the 70 elders sharing Moses' experience in the Mount (<em><a href='B:20 24:1'>Exo 24:1</a></em>); it is as if&nbsp;the Lord is saying that His disciples really can enter into His relationship with God, we can be where He was spiritually in His mortal life. The Jews would seek that, and not find it. Their window of opportunity was incredibly brief. There is no evidence that they sought the Lord and didn't find Him in their mortal lives; I suggest the reference is to the awful time of condemnation at the last day, when they shall seek Him too late but not find Him. The window of opportunity we have in this life is very small. Every moment is of intense, eternal significance. This motivated the Lord to shout out and appeal for them to respond (:28,37); and we must likewise see our witness as having the same urgency.</p><p><em><a href='B:500 7:33-34'>Joh 7:33-34</a></em>: “Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come". He then went on to foretell how that out of His pierced side there would come the water of the Spirit. “Where I am" is parallel with “I am going...". He was going to the cross, but He speaks as if He was there right then at that moment. The cross was ongoing in His life. His going unto the Father was how He understood going to the cross (<em><a href='B:500 13:1'>Joh 13:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:3'>Joh 13:3</a></em> make the connection clear). Later, the Jews would recollect Golgotha’s scene and seek Him, but not find Him. There was a time for them to accept the cross, but there would come a time when they would not be able to accept it. This surely cannot refer to their mortal lives; for whoever comes to the Son, He will in no wise cast out. So it presumably means that at the judgment, as they wallow in the wretchedness of their condemnation, they will recall the cross and wish desperately to appropriate that salvation for themselves. They will seek Him, but be unable then to find Him:&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:35'>Joh 7:35</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews queried among themselves: Where will this man go that we shall not find him? Will he go to the diaspora among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?</em>-</p><p> Where He was going, as noted above, was to the cross, to the Father, and to His "I am" relationship with Him. As noted earlier, they actually understood on one level what He meant. The possibilities they offered as to His intended meaning were really a smokescreen to cover over their own bad conscience. For they both knew Him and from where He had come (:28). So they knew where He was going to, for He had said He was going to where He came from. And again we see the Bible revealing core human psychology to us. Misunderstanding is so often psychologically motivated. It wasn't that they simply failed to make the right intellectual connections in order to accept Him. Accepting Him is not therefore something which some 'get' and some 'don't get' with no further culpability. The apparent misunderstandings and misconnections are all a reflection of a determined desire within, not to accept Jesus of Nazareth as Lord of our lives.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:36'>Joh 7:36</a></em>&nbsp;<em>What is his meaning when he said: You shall seek me and shall not find me; and, Where I am, you cannot come?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :35, they knew His meaning. This is why there is no recorded response of the Lord to their questions. Instead we read of the Lord's impassioned plea to come to Him (:37). He had spoken of their condemnation at the last day, how there would come a time when they would seek and not find Him, and not be able to come "Where I am", with the Father- even though they would then dearly wish to. And people today likewise pretend they do not see the possibility of future condemnation, the reality of their answerability at the last day... they may shrug it all off with nonchalance and raise various questions, as if to say that the interpretation of all these things is far from clear and who can be sure... But this is all a smokescreen for their own bad conscience, their own realization well beneath the realms of conscious awareness that in fact these things are true.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:37'>Joh 7:37</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying: If anyone thirsts, let him came to me and drink</em>-</p><p> "The last day" suggests the Lord saw this as a preview of judgment day; and they could even now come to Him and drink. The invitation to drink from Him is to be connected with the Lord's words to the Samaritan woman, where the water offered was of the Spirit. The gift was for all those who realized their Spiritual thirst. The self-satisfied religionists were not those who hungered and thirsted to be righteous. This is John's equivalent of the Lord's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, that those who long to be righteous would be filled. Those who thirst for the Spirit will be given it. And the water given, the spirit of life given, was "eternal life" in that this is how we shall eternally live.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:38'>Joh 7:38</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em>.</p><p><em>He that believes on me, as the scripture has said: From within him shall flow rivers of living water</em>-</p><p> The connection is again with the teaching to the Samaritan woman at the well. The water given was of the Spirit, and would provide springs of living water of the Spirit in an ongoing sense to the believer.</p><p>But clearly the idea is also that those who receive the Spirit become a source of Spirit life to others: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly ("innermost being", NIV) shall flow rivers of living (Gk. spring) water". What "scripture" did the Lord have in mind? Surely <em><a href='B:330 47:1'>Eze 47:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:330 47:9'>Eze 47:9</a></em>, the prophecy of how in the Messianic Kingdom, rivers of spring water will come out from Zion and bring life to the world; and perhaps too the references to spring water being used to cleanse men from leprosy and death (<em><a href='B:30 14:5'>Lev 14:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:30 15:13'>Lev 15:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 19:16'>Num 19:16</a></em>). Out of the innermost being of the true believer, the spring(ing) water of the Gospel will<em>&nbsp;naturally</em>spring up and go out to heal men, both now and more fully in the Kingdom. The believer,&nbsp;<em>every</em>&nbsp;believer,&nbsp;<em>whoever</em>&nbsp;believes, will preach the word to others&nbsp;<em>from his innermost being</em>, both now and in the Kingdom - without the need for preaching committees or special preaching campaigns (not that in themselves I'm decrying them). The tendency is to delegate our responsibilities for evangelism to others. But here the Lord speaks as if we have no option but to bubble out the water of the Spirit to others.</p><p>There is no essential difference between faith and works. If we believe, we will do the works of witness, quite spontaneously. And note how the water that sprung out of the Lord’s smitten side is to be compared with the bride that came out of the smitten side of Adam. We, the bride, are the water; thanks to the inspiration of the cross, we go forth in witness, the water of life to this hard land in which we walk.</p><p>Living water was to come out of the smitten rock. When He was glorified on the cross, then the water literally flowed from His side on His death. He paralleled His ‘smiting’ on the cross with His glorification (<em><a href='B:500 7:38'>Joh 7:38</a></em>). And He elsewhere seems to link ‘glory’ with His death rather than His ascension (<em><a href='B:500 12:28'>Joh 12:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:41'>Joh 12:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:32'>Joh 13:32</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:1'>Joh 17:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:5'>Joh 17:5</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:500 21:19'>Joh 21:19</a></em>). The Hebrew idea of ‘glory’ means that which is lifted up; and thus His references to His death as a lifting up suggested that He saw His death as His glory. And we with Isaiah and with John and the Lord Himself should find in the glory and terror of the cross the vision which will endlessly inspire our ministry. <em><a href='B:230 96:10'>Psa 96:10</a></em> in some LXX versions reads: “Say among the nations, The Lord reigned from the tree". What would have looked like the utter, pathetic humiliation of the Man from Nazareth was in fact His glorification, His moment of triumph and victory; just as the pathetic death of a poor saint may be their glorious triumph over their mortality. And He there was and is our King. And this has implications for us; we were constituted a people over whom God reigns by the cross (<em><a href='B:730 1:5'>Rev 1:5</a></em> Gk:). Because of His utter victory there, He becomes our all controlling Lord, King and Master. We are no longer free to do what we want. This is why baptism into His death is an acceptance of His Lordship, of His will being the command of our lives.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:39'>Joh 7:39</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 12:24'>Joh 12:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:28'>Joh 12:28</a></em>.</p><p><em>He spoke of the Spirit, which they that believed in him were to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been received, as Jesus had not yet been glorified</em>-</p><p> Some manuscripts read "The Holy Spirit had not yet been received". This parallels the Spirit and the Holy Spirit- once the emphasis upon the word "yet" is appreciated. "Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (<em><a href='B:530 3:16'>1Co 3:16</a></em>) is matched later in the same epistle by "Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you" (<em><a href='B:530 6:19'>1Co 6:19</a></em>). See on <em><a href='B:520 8:26'>Rom 8:26</a></em>. No great difference can be argued between "Spirit" and "Holy Spirit".</p><p>The Lord invites His audience right then to receive the water of the Spirit, and yet John notes that the Spirit was not then given. Clearly the Lord was speaking of future realities as if they already were. The gift of the Spirit in view was that within the human heart, within the "innermost being" (:38 NIV). This gift is not therefore referring to miraculous gifts. The power of internal transformation was therefore the gift of the Spirit given at the Lord's glorification. And the activity of the Spirit in transforming human minds into His mind is therefore His glorification.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:40'>Joh 7:40</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore some of the crowd, when they heard these words, said: This is truly the prophet</em>-</p><p> “The prophet” (also in :52) is clearly a reference to “the prophet” like Moses, i:e. Messiah:&nbsp; There are many other allusions by John’s record to the <em><a href='B:50 18:18'>Deu 18:18</a></em> passage: “I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command him”. References to the Son only speaking what the Father commanded Him are to be found in <em><a href='B:500 4:25'>Joh 4:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:49'>Joh 12:49</a></em>. John perhaps emphasizes that at this time, the Lord did no miracle. It was by hearing "these words" that they were persuaded He was a prophet. There was something about His claims which was intuitively attractive and credible; see on :17.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:41'>Joh 7:41</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Others said: This is the Christ. But some said: What Does the Christ come out of Galilee?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :27, the Jews had changed their theology over the last 30 years regarding the origin of Messiah. In any case, some were sold on the idea that geographical origin must produce people of a certain character- a common source of prejudice in first century Mediterranean society. No matter what else was done by the Lord, if He were from Galilee- then they would not accept Him. Their prejudices were stronger than the argument of miracles. Their predispositions were so strong that they were not open to any spiritual argument.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:42'>Joh 7:42</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes of the seed of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was born?</em>-</p><p> It seems that the Lord, along with Mary and Joseph, had somehow kept His origins from Bethlehem a secret. One would expect to read Him making a big point about His origins from there, in order to back up His claims to Messiahship and in order to answer the objections to His Messiahship on the basis that He was from Galilee. But He doesn't. It was not His style to get involved in horns-locked debate in this manner, overpowering arguments by dismantling them. He hardly appeals to Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled. The Gospel writers do at times, but the Lord does not. He as He was, His personality, His lack of sin... this was who&nbsp;He was and it was persuasive enough to those who were spiritually minded. He could so easily have made capital out of the fact He was born in Bethlehem, and Messiah was prophesied as coming from there. But He doesn't, and I find profound the way He doesn't even rise up to the opportunity now offered Him to do so. Fulfilment of Bible prophecy on some point or other was not His style. Instead He asks those who were thirsting for spirituality to come to Him, and have springs of the Spirit open up within their innermost being. And there was a powerful credibility about Him which did not depend upon argumentation about His Bethlehem origins.</p><p>There are very few direct statements from Jesus about Himself- e.g. He never actually says He had a virgin birth, nor does He explain that He was born in Bethlehem as required by <em><a href='B:400 5:2'>Mic 5:2</a></em>. He left people assuming He was born in Nazareth (<em><a href='B:500 7:42'>Joh 7:42</a></em>):&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:43'>Joh 7:43</a></em>&nbsp;<em>So there arose a division in the crowd because of him</em>-</p><p> Division over the Lord's origin and credibility has always been. John emphasizes this (s:w. <em><a href='B:500 9:16'>Joh 9:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:19'>Joh 10:19</a></em>). He is not a source of unity amongst people generally; only those who are of His Spirit find themselves united with each other. All others find themselves bitterly divided over Him. This is why a divided church is not the Lord's church, at least on a collective level. The net which caught the 153 fishes was not 'divided' despite the large number (<em><a href='B:500 21:11'>Joh 21:11</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:44'>Joh 7:44</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And some of them would have taken him; but no one laid hands on him</em>-</p><p> Again we sense that those who wanted to kill Him could not do so because His death was a function of His self-giving, and the Father's empowerment of the process. It was not yet time, and so somehow, all the plans didn't come to anything. And further, when His arresters came close to Him, there was clearly something unusual about Him to the extreme. The "some" refers to the officers sent by the priests and Pharisees to arrest Him (:45). The implication is that as they pushed through the crowds to arrest Him, the power of His words somehow repelled them and made them retreat.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:45'>Joh 7:45</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The officers went to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them: Why did you not bring him?</em>-</p><p> This was surely the only time they had been sent to arrest someone but had felt stopped from doing so by the power of His words, so that they had to beat a shamefaced retreat back through the crowd and thence back to those who had sent them.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:46'>Joh 7:46</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The officers answered: Never has a man spoken like this man</em>-</p><p> As noted on :44 and :45, it was the power of the Lord's words alone which stopped these officers from arresting Him. This is a theme we have noted in John- the power of the Lord's word and personality, even when no miracles were being done by Him. This was necessary for John to underline seeing he was writing at around the time when the miraculous gifts were fading. The repetition of "man" suggests that they perceived Him as unique amongst men, whilst being man, because of His words. He was a man, with a message which was clearly from God- somehow fused with the texture of His personality in a way and to an extent that no other messenger of God had ever been.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:47'>Joh 7:47</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Pharisees therefore answered them: Are you also led astray?</em>-</p><p> The officers could have given any number of reasons why they had not managed to arrest the Lord. But they spoke the truth. The Pharisees considered Him a deceiver (s:w. :12) and yet the Lord and John often warn that it was the Jews who were the great deceivers, leading astray the converts. John's language allows no middle ground between Judaism and Christianity. One is a deceiver, the other is the truth; and both consider the other to be deceitful.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:48'>Joh 7:48</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Have any of the rulers believed in him, or any of the Pharisees?</em>-</p><p> Truth, and the true identity of Messiah, was posited by them on who else had believed in Jesus as Christ. If no rulers or Pharisees had done, then whatever miracles were done or words spoken, He could not be Messiah. And this is the problem with so many to this day- they will only believe, or claim to believe, if others do; and if those others are suitably respectable. They judge the person of Christ by those who follow Him. And whilst that is understandable on a secular level, the idea of John's Gospel is that we are to be impressed by personal encounter with the Lord, and respond to Him regardless of whether others have, or which others have. This is how the Gospel ends, with the idea that we are to personally follow the Lord whether or not others do.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:49'>Joh 7:49</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But this rabble, which does not know the law, are accursed</em>-</p><p> "Rabble" was a technical term used by the Pharisees for the mass of Israel, whom they considered apostate. "Accursed" is their allusion to the cursing promised for all who were not completely obedient to the law. The same word is used by Paul when he quotes that cursing, probably alluding to this incident, which he may well have been present at: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. For it is written: Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do all things that are written in the book of the law". The Pharisees were implying that they were completely obedient to the law; but the Lord has just demonstrated that the law is structured in such a way that to obey one commandment, e.g. to circumcise a child on the eighth day, could break a legalistic interpretation of another, e.g. to not work on the Sabbath.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:50'>Joh 7:50</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Nicodemus (he that had earlier come to him by night, being one of them)</em>-</p><p> This continues the theme noted on :13 of the secret believers slowly coming out in the open. He was "one of them" at this stage.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:51'>Joh 7:51</a></em><em>&nbsp;Said to them: Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and knowing what he is doing?</em>-</p><p> He is alluding to how the Jews proudly considered that the provision of Roman law to only judge / condemn after giving the accused a hearing was in fact based upon Jewish law. He appeals to their national pride in order to save the Lord's life. However, there is no specific statement in the Law of Moses requiring this principle to be followed. Nicodemus may well be alluding to rabbinic law which required that a death sentence using "judge" in the sense of condemning to death could only be asked for after a man had appeared before the Sanhedrin and been condemned by them.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:52'>Joh 7:52</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 1:46'>Joh 1:46</a></em>.</p><p><em>They answered and said to him: Are you also of Galilee? Search the scrolls and you will see, that no prophet is to rise from Galilee</em>-</p><p> They were in fact wrong, for Jonah a great type of the Lord Jesus was from Galilee. But the record has more spiritual culture than to point out this obvious error. We are left to perceive it, and the silence regarding their ignorance becomes the more powerfully deafening exactly because the obvious point is not made. The Jewish leadership were trying to paint the Lord as supported only by some of the Galilean pilgrims who had come up to that feast of tabernacles. Their damaged consciences are revealed in their over sensitivity to merely being asked to apply their own law to the case of Jesus of Nazareth. They jump to the conclusion that Nicodemus is also on the Lord's side and must therefore also be Galilean. Recall how Peter is unmasked as one of the Lord's followers because of his Galilean accent.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 7:53'>Joh 7:53</a></em>&nbsp;<em>At that, each of them went home</em>-</p><p> As noted on :52, the glaring error in claiming that no prophet is from Galilee, when Jonah was from there, is left without comment. The implication is that alone at home, away from the group mentality, they would have reflected upon that error. And thought about Jonah, who the Lord had said was a sign to them about His own death and resurrection (<em><a href='B:470 12:39'>Mat 12:39</a></em>). The Sanhedrin now broke up; the members returned to their own homes in the various towns of Palestine, without having made a formal conclusion about how to proceed with the case of Jesus of Nazareth.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:1'>Joh 8:1</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus went to the Mount of Olives</em>-</p><p> This may be in contrast to the Sanhedrin members going back to their own homes (<em><a href='B:500 7:53'>Joh 7:53</a></em>); the Lord by contrast slept rough on Olivet.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:2'>Joh 8:2</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And early in the morning he again went into the temple, and all the people came to him; and he sat down and taught them</em>-</p><p> "Jesus went unto the mount of Olives... he came again into the temple, and all the people (i:e. the leaders and the crowd, see context) came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them" (<em><a href='B:500 8:1-2'>Joh 8:1-2</a></em>). This is framed to recall Moses coming down from Sinai: "The Lord came (down) from Sinai (manifest in Moses)... yea, he (God) loved the people (in the fact that) all his saints (Israel) are in thy (Moses') hand (as we are in the hand of Christ, <em><a href='B:500 10:28-30'>Joh 10:28-30</a></em>): and they sat down at thy feet; every one shall receive of thy words... the heads of the people and the tribes of Israel (i:e. both leaders and ordinary people) were gathered together (to Moses)" (<em><a href='B:50 33:2-5'>Deu 33:2-5</a></em>).</p><p>Sitting down and teaching may simply be stating the obvious, for many rabbis taught sitting down. But given the large crowd and the need to project His voice, we wonder why it is so stressed. Surely given the situation and size of the crowd, most teachers would have stood. But the Lord was totally focused upon seeking the Father's glory (see on <em><a href='B:500 7:18'>Joh 7:18</a></em>) and totally not upon His own glory as a teacher; and this may have been reflected in His choice at this point to teach sitting, on the level of His immediate audience, rather than standing.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:3'>Joh 8:3</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery; and having placed her before him</em>-</p><p> This was surely a set up. The Lord was apparently obligated to agree that she should be stoned. But this was against Roman law, which only considered recommendations from the Sanhedrin for death sentences in the case of desecration of the temple. The woman was used as a pawn; her feelings were unimportant to these men, bent as they were upon finding a case against the Lord. And of course the guilty male was not brought to Him for judgment.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:4'>Joh 8:4</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They said to him: Teacher. This woman has been caught in the very act of adultery</em>-</p><p> Seeing it was early morning at the end of the Tabernacles festival (:2), we assume she had been dragged fresh from her sin into the temple.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:5'>Joh 8:5</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now, in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?</em>-</p><p> They were seeking to set the Lord either against Moses or against Rome (see on :2).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:6'>Joh 8:6</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And this they said to test him, so they might have some reason to accuse him</em>-</p><p> I have explained in&nbsp;<em>The Real Devil</em>&nbsp;that the Jewish opposition to the Lord and His church is often described as "the devil" or "Satan". They were quite literally false accusers and were ever looking for false accusations to make, seeking to spin situations so that they could accuse the Christians to the local authorities and get them shut down.</p><p><em>But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground</em>-</p><p> He could have been doodling, or have done so just from plain male awkwardness before a naked woman. In these suggestions we see so clearly His humanity. If this is so, then there would have been an artless mix of His Divinity, His utter personal moral perfection, and His utter humanity. Embarrassed in front of a naked woman, crouching down on His haunches, doodling in the dust... that, it seems to me, would've been the ultimate conviction of sin for those who watched. It would've been surpassingly beautiful and yet so challenging at the same time. And it is that same mixture of utter humanity and profound, Divine perfection within the person of Jesus which, it seems to me, is what convicts us of sin and leads us devotedly to Him. Maybe I'm wrong in my imagination and reconstruction of this incident- but if we love the Lord, surely we'll be ever seeking to reconstruct and imagine how He would or might have been.</p><p>But the way He challenges them with their personal sins (:7) suggests He was writing their sins in the dust, or perhaps their names: "They that depart from me shall be written in the earth" (<em><a href='B:300 17:13'>Jer 17:13</a></em>). Or He could have been using a well known way of communicating deafness. Hence AV adds, with Codex Beza: "As though he heard them not". He would have been thereby saying that He was deaf to the accusations, possibly alluding to Messiah as the deaf servant who was morally perfect (<em><a href='B:290 42:19'>Isa 42:19</a></em>). Just as we are commanded not to be interested in hearing about others' sins, neither is the Lord Jesus. Or perhaps He meant that He was deaf to their accusations, because they too were sinners. If He wrote their sins, then they were written in the dust, only temporarily. They too could be brushed out by the Lord with ease; and they too were but dust.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:7'>Joh 8:7</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But when they continued asking him, he stood up and said to them: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her</em>-</p><p> The trick of the question had been to get the Lord to agree to what the Romans would have called extra-judicial murder. Here, the Lord asks them to be obedient to the Mosaic law and stone her- but adding the rider that only if they were "without sin". He is introducing a dimension not found in the Law of Moses- that we cannot actually judge with integrity because we too are sinners and deserve death. He was of course also addressing Himself, for He was the only one "among you" who was "without sin". He could have thrown the first stone, leading others into condemning the woman; but He would not, because He sought to save not to condemn. The Lord viewed obedience to such laws as voluntary. The fact there was a command to do something doesn't mean that we must do it; there are other factors. This is and was impossible for the legalistic mind to get around. The way to the Father is not by such casuistic obedience, but through the Spirit.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:8'>Joh 8:8</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And again he stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground</em>-</p><p> The second writing on the ground may have been of their sins, perhaps writing them next to the names of the men which He had written earlier (:6). The record seems to imply that it was the way Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust which convicted the accusers of the adulteress in their consciences. As He kept on writing, they one by one walked away. It's been speculated that He was writing their deeds or names there, fulfilling Jeremiah's prophecy of how the names of the wicked would be written in the dust (<em><a href='B:300 17:13'>Jer 17:13</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:9'>Joh 8:9</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:470 27:5'>Mat 27:5</a></em>.</p><p><em>And they, when they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, to the last; and Jesus was left alone with the woman, with her still standing in the middle</em>-</p><p> It can be no coincidence that the Lord Jesus is described as being “left alone” only twice in the New Testament, and they are both within a few verses of each other: “They which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was&nbsp;<em>left alone</em>, and the woman standing in the midst” (<em><a href='B:500 8:9'>Joh 8:9</a></em>)... “Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not&nbsp;<em>left me alone</em>; for I do always those things that please him” (<em><a href='B:500 8:28-29'>Joh 8:28-29</a></em>). He was not alone because the Father confirmed Him in the judgments He made (<em><a href='B:500 8:16'>Joh 8:16</a></em>). What is the meaning of this connection? As the peerless Son of God stood before the repentant sinner, with all others convicted by their consciences to one by one slink away from His presence, He was left alone with His perfect Father as well as the repentant woman. Jesus saw in that scene a prefiguring of His death on the cross. There, lifted up from the earth, He was left alone with the Father, a repentant sinner the thief, and again, one by one, the condemning onlookers smote their breasts in conviction of their sin and walked away. The cross was “the judgment of this world” (<em><a href='B:500 12:31'>Joh 12:31</a></em>). There men and women are convicted of their sin and either walk away, or take the place of the humbled woman or desperately repentant thief. This alone should impart an urgency and intensity to our memorial services, when through bread and wine we come as it were before Him there once again, facing up to the piercing reality of our situation as sinners kneeling before the crucified Son of God. One aspect of the loneliness of the cross was that simply the Lord’s righteousness set Himself apart from humanity- and He so intensely felt it: “Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (<em><a href='B:500 16:32'>Joh 16:32</a></em>). Yet it was the loneliness which drew Him to the Father. For the isolated believer, the loneliness of being in some sense more righteous living that e.g. your alcoholic husband, your atheist daughter, the materialistic women at work…is a burden hard to live with. Yet in this, we are sharing something of the cross of our Lord. And if we suffer with Him, we shall also share in the life eternal which He was given. Being “left alone” with the Father and your humbled, repentant brethren is a sharing in the cross of the Son of God. This is the gripping logic, the promise of ultimate hope, which is bound up with the sense of spiritual loneliness which is in some ways inevitably part of the believing life.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:10'>Joh 8:10</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And Jesus stood up and said to her: Woman Where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?</em>-</p><p> There are many links between Romans and John's Gospel; when Paul asks where is anyone to condemn us (<em><a href='B:520 8:34'>Rom 8:34</a></em>), we are surely intended to make the connection&nbsp;here to <em><a href='B:500 8:10'>Joh 8:10</a></em>, where the Lord asks the condemned woman the very same question. It's as if she, there, alone with the Lord, face down, is every one of us. His question "Did no one condemn you?" was rhetorical, in order to help the point be underlined to her- that all are sinners, and she should not feel nor fear the condemnation of men, for they too are sinners, equally condemned. The healing she needed was partly to do with this; for the shame of condemnation at the hands of her religious elders was utterly traumatic. And the Lord removed that, as well as assuring her of her acceptability before God.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:11'>Joh 8:11</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And she said: No one, Lord. And Jesus said: Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From this time forward, sin no more</em>-</p><p> He was the only one without sin who could stone her; but He chose not to, He chose to not obey the Mosaic commandment to stone her. Thus by obeying the spirit of the law He broke the letter, at least in the legalistic, casuistic understanding of the Pharisees. To judge sin is not absolutely essential, as many legalistic Christians today seem to think. Not walking in darkness in the next verse 12 connects with the "sin no more" spoken to the woman. We are each in her position:&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:12'>Joh 8:12</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Again Jesus spoke to the crowd, saying: I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life</em>-</p><p> The Lord's subsequent teaching in this chapter is allusive to the incident with the woman taken in adultery, so I would not be supportive of any attempt to exclude that section as uninspired. "I am the light of the world" alludes back to the prologue; the life the Lord lived is to be our light, which we live by and understand life according to. Hence here we read of the "light of life". Life lived any other way is lived in darkness. John's letters develop the thought in practice by saying that if we live in hatred towards our brother, we walk in darkness. Such a hateful life is lived because the heart is focused upon the life of Jesus, His Spirit, His life, doesn't live within us. Having the light of life may be another way of saying what we read in <em><a href='B:470 5:14'>Mat 5:14</a></em>: "You are the light of the world". In His light we become light to others.</p><p>The teaching of Jesus was very much centred around Himself. Other religious teachers tend to say ‘This is the truth, these are the ideas I have put together: follow them’. But Jesus says: “I am the truth; follow&nbsp;<em>me</em>”. His formula was not “Thus saith the Lord”, but rather “Truly, truly&nbsp;<em>I&nbsp;</em>say unto you…”. The personal pronoun forces itself upon our attention as we read His words:</p><p>“I am the bread of life; he who comes to&nbsp;<em>me</em>&nbsp;shall not hunger”</p><p>“I am the light of the world; he who follows&nbsp;<em>me…</em>”</p><p>“I am the resurrection and the life… whoever lives and believes in me shall never die”</p><p>“I am the way and the truth”</p><p>“Come to&nbsp;<em>me</em>&nbsp;… learn of&nbsp;<em>me</em>”.</p><p>He called people to Himself- to come to Him, learn of Him, follow Him. He knew, too, that the example and achievement of His death would exert a certain magnetism upon men and women: “I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto myself”. He is drawing them not primarily to a church, to a statement of faith, to a ‘truth’…but to Himself.</p><p>The “light" was a lifted up torch of fire, exactly as He was to be lifted up on the cross (see on <em><a href='B:500 3:19-21'>Joh 3:19-21</a></em>). But He saw Himself as there and then lifted up as the light of the world. The principles of the cross must be the light, the only light, of our lives. When the Lord speaks of Himself as the light / burning torch of the Jewish world, He continues: “He that follows me shall not walk in darkness" (<em><a href='B:500 8:12'>Joh 8:12</a></em>). Nobody follows the sun when they walk- so the “light" referred to is hardly the sun. Surely the reference is back to the fiery pillar in the wilderness, which gave light by night so that the Jews could walk in the light even when darkness surrounded them. And there's an upward spiral in all this. If "the light" is specifically a reference to God's glory manifested through the crucifixion, then this must provide the background for our understanding of <em><a href='B:500 12:35-50'>Joh 12:35-50</a></em>. Here the Lord teaches that only those who walk in the light can perceive who He really is, and "the work" which was to be "finished" on the cross. It is the light of the cross which reveals to us the essence of who the Lord really is... and this in turn leads us to a keener perception of the light of the cross. Which in turn enables us to see clearer the path in which we are to daily walk.</p><p><em><a href='B:290 42:16'>Isa 42:16</a></em>, amidst many exodus / Red Sea allusions, speaks of how God makes the darkness light before His exiting people. The many Johannine references to the Lord Jesus being a light in the darkness for His followers would then be yet more elaborations of the idea that the Lord Jesus is the antitype of the Angel that led Israel out of Egypt (<em><a href='B:500 8:12'>Joh 8:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:35'>Joh 12:35</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:46'>Joh 12:46</a></em>)</p><p>The light of the Gospel is not just light which we behold and admire for its beauty; it is a light which by its very nature opens the eyes of blind people (<em><a href='B:500 8:12'>Joh 8:12</a></em>)</p><p>Many passages in John speak of the believer as being in a state of constant spiritual strength; e.g. "he that followeth me shall never (Gk:) walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (<em><a href='B:500 8:12'>Joh 8:12</a></em>). These kind of passages surely teach that God does not see us on the basis of our individual sins or acts of righteousness; He sees our overall path in life, and thereby sees us as totally righteous or totally evil. Thus Proverbs contains many verses which give two alternative ways of behaviour, good and evil; there is no third way. Thus, e.g., we&nbsp;<em>either</em>&nbsp;guard our tongue,&nbsp;<em>or&nbsp;</em>we speak rashly (<em><a href='B:240 13:3'>Pro 13:3</a></em>). At baptism, we changed masters, from 'sin' to 'obedience'. It may seem that we flick back and forth between them. In a sense, we do, but from God's perspective (and <em><a href='B:520 6:16-20'>Rom 6:16-20</a></em> describes how&nbsp;<em>God</em>&nbsp;sees our baptism), we don't. The recurring weakness of natural Israel was to serve Yahweh&nbsp;<em>and</em>&nbsp;the idols (<em><a href='B:90 7:3'>1Sa 7:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:120 17:41'>2Ki 17:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:430 1:5'>Zep 1:5</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:13'>Joh 8:13</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Pharisees replied to him: You testify of yourself. Your witness is not true</em>-</p><p> As noted on :12, the Lord did indeed focus heavily upon presenting Himself as the life to be lived, the light to be followed. The Pharisees were judging the Lord, and they claimed that He had no witnesses to testify for Him apart from Himself. See on :17</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:14'>Joh 8:14</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:690 5:9'>1Jn 5:9</a></em>.</p><p><em>Jesus answered and said to them: Even if I testify of myself, my witness is true. For I know from where I came and where I go; but you do not know where I come from, nor where I go to</em>-</p><p> This appears to contradict His statement in <em><a href='B:500 5:31'>Joh 5:31</a></em> "If I testify of myself, my witness is not true" (the same words are used in the Greek). Likewise "You do not know where I come from" contradicts <em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em> "You both know me, and know from where I am, and that I have not come of myself". Few commentators have engaged with these intentional paradoxes. I suggest the Lord is probing the fact that in their consciences, they knew He came from God. Their confidently proclaimed, quasi logical legalistic arguments were but a smokescreen to disguise their inner voice of conscience. So I suggest His sense is: 'Even if I am My own witness, My witness is true because both I and you know from where I came- from God'. "You do not know where I come from" is allusive to their own position expressed in <em><a href='B:500 7:27'>Joh 7:27</a></em>: "When Messiah comes, nobody knows from where He comes". Their claim to not know where He came from was in fact an admission that they accepted He was Messiah.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:15'>Joh 8:15</a></em>&nbsp;<em>You judge after the flesh. I judge no one</em>-</p><p> Their legal language of 'witnesses' reflects how they were judging Him in the sense of condemning Him. He condemned nobody- and the context is His refusal to condemn the woman taken in adultery. This connection further strengthens the case that the incident with the woman is the basis of His later teaching here, and should not be removed from the text.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:16'>Joh 8:16</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone that judge, but I and He who sent me</em>-</p><p> "I judge no one, yet even if I do judge..." recalls His argument that He did not testify of Himself (<em><a href='B:500 5:31'>Joh 5:31</a></em>), and yet even if He did... (:14). 'Not A, but sometimes A' is a common construction in Semitic languages as it is in several Eastern European languages to this day. "Not A" doesn't mean 'Never ever A'. Their judgment "after the flesh" (:15) is contrasted with how He judges with God's judgment, i:e. 'after the Spirit'. His judgment "is true" because He seeks the Father's will, which is of human salvation (<em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em> and context). Any condemnation uttered by the Son is made having done God's will to the full, i:e. to save men rather than condemn them. Condemnation is therefore only for those who have refused the will of God for them, His will for their salvation.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:17'>Joh 8:17</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Even in your law it is written, that the witness of two men is true</em>-</p><p> "Your law" could mean that He considered that God's law had now been hijacked by them, just as the house of Yahweh had become the temple of the Jews, the feasts of Yahweh had become the feasts of the Jews. The requirement of two witnesses is to be found in <em><a href='B:50 17:6'>Deu 17:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 19:15'>Deu 19:15</a></em>; but the Lord carefully changes "two witnesses" to "two men". His point is that the witnesses to Himself are more than men; He has God Himself, and Himself as Son of God.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:18'>Joh 8:18</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I am he that testifies of myself; and the Father that sent me testifies of me</em>-</p><p> If the witness of two&nbsp;<em>men</em>&nbsp;was acceptable, then the Lord argues that the testimony of God Himself and of Himself as God's Son was far more conclusive.</p><p>The Lord's sense of authority helps explain His mysterious logic in <em><a href='B:500 8:17-18'>Joh 8:17-18</a></em>. The Jews accuse Him of bearing witness of Himself, and that therefore His witness is untrue. The Lord replies that under the Law, two witnesses were required in addition to the accused person. And He argues that He is a witness to Himself, and His Father is too: "I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness". But this was exactly their point- He was bearing witness of Himself, and therefore "thy witness is not true" (<em><a href='B:500 8:13'>Joh 8:13</a></em> RV). Yet His reply seems to have silenced them. Clearly the authority attached to Him was so great that effectively His bearing witness of Himself&nbsp;<em>was&nbsp;</em>adequate witness.</p><p>The Lord often began His statements with the word "Amen" - 'truly', 'certainly', 'surely... I say unto you…'. Yet it was usual to&nbsp;<em>conclude</em>&nbsp;a sentence, prayer or statement with that word. But the Lord&nbsp;<em>began</em>&nbsp;His statements with it. And this feature of His style evidently caught the attention of all the Gospel writers. Mark mentions it 13 times, Matthew 9 times, Luke 3 times and John 25 times. And it should stand out to us, too. Joachim Jeremias mentions that "according to idiomatic Jewish usage the word&nbsp;<em>amen&nbsp;</em>is used to affirm, endorse or appropriate the words of another person whereas in the words of Jesus it is used to introduce and endorse Jesus' own words... to end one's own prayer with&nbsp;<em>amen&nbsp;</em>was considered a sign of ignorance". Thus Jesus was introducing a radically new type of speaking. The Lord's extraordinary sense of authority was not laughed off as the ravings of a self-deluded 'holy man'. For the crowds flocked to Him, and even hardened guards sent to arrest Him had to give up on the job for the humanly-flimsy excuse that "never man spake like this man". And it is that very sense of ultimate authority which amazingly comes through to us today, who have never met Him nor heard His words with our own ears. This is the power of the inspired Gospel records, yet it is also testimony to the extraordinary, compelling power of the Personality which is transmitted through them.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:19'>Joh 8:19</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They replied to him: Where is your Father? Jesus answered: You know neither me, nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also</em>-</p><p> There seems to be a verbal connection at least between the Jews' mocking question of Christ "Where is your father?" (<em><a href='B:500 8:19'>Joh 8:19</a></em>) and Saul's "whose son is this youth?" (<em><a href='B:90 17:55'>1Sa 17:55</a></em>); David was indeed a type of the Lord:&nbsp;On one hand they did know Him and His Father: "You both know me, and know from where I am, and that I have not come of myself" (<em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>). But it is a theme of John's Gospel that one can see and not see, hear and not hear, know and not know. The appeal is to actualize that knowledge, to follow the likes of Nicodemus in allowing our encounter with the Lord to take over our lives, so that we know Him not theoretically, as propositions, but in the Hebrew sense of 'knowing', i:e. being in an ongoing relationship with. We can note here that knowing the Father is predicated upon knowing the Son. It is encounter, experience and relationship with Him which leads us to know the Father; He is the way to the Father. Archaeology, creationism, science, arguments from nature and logic... will not provide lasting relationship with the Father. All is predicated upon the Son.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:20'>Joh 8:20</a></em>&nbsp;<em>These words spoke he in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; and no one took him- because his hour had not yet come</em>-</p><p> Again we see that the Lord only died because the Father and Himself allowed it to happen; His life was not taken from Him against His will, He gave it freely. "The treasury" was in the Court of the Women, the busiest and most public place in the temple (hence the public show of giving money at that place), with the Hall Gazith where the Sanhedrin met right next to it. Yet even there, in the busiest thoroughfare, "no one took him". It was here where it seems the Lord often sat and taught (<em><a href='B:480 12:41'>Mar 12:41</a></em>, note the Greek tense there). We might perceive from this choice too that He was eager to get His message to the women; for the treasury was within the Court of the Women.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:21'>Joh 8:21</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 7:33'>Joh 7:33</a></em>.</p><p><em>He replied again to them: I go away, and you shall seek me, and shall die in your sins. Where I go, you cannot come</em>-</p><p> There is never a time in mortal life when a man cannot seek the Lord and find Him; indeed, many of the Pharisees were later baptized, according to Acts. So this time of seeking and not finding must refer to the last day. They could not come to the relationship He had with the Father because He was going away, they were going to kill Him on the cross, and would never after that find the humility to repent. For they need not die in their sins, if they accepted that "I am He" (:24).</p><p>“I go my way" was to the cross. He was and is the way, the cross is the only way to the true life, both now and eternally. “Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know" (<em><a href='B:500 14:4'>Joh 14:4</a></em>) further cements the connection between His “way" and the cross. From here up to :25, the Lord twice seeks to confront them with their sin, and yet they ignore this matter and get lost in speculation about His more cryptic statements. And this is why a man can spend hours or even a lifetime in 'Bible study' and come out with a conscience untouched as to his personal sin. Because humanity has a terrible way of footnoting the Lord's conviction of our sins and getting endlessly lost in striving about words and their interpretations:&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:22'>Joh 8:22</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews replied: Will he kill himself? Because he said: Where I go, you cannot come</em>-</p><p> The Lord's death was not suicide, but it was also not a cessation of life as a result of murder. For He gave His life, and it was not taken from Him. I have argued throughout that subconsciously, they knew the truth about Him; of His origin and upcoming death and ascension to the Father. Here they come very close to stating that truth, even cloaked in apparent jest and scepticism.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:23'>Joh 8:23</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And he said to them: You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world</em>-</p><p> "Not of this world" cannot mean that He personally pre-existed in Heaven before His birth, for He uses the same phrase as to how His followers were not of this world as He was not (<em><a href='B:500 17:14'>Joh 17:14</a></em>). His Kingdom was "not of this world" (<em><a href='B:500 18:36'>Joh 18:36</a></em>). He was very much "in" this world, as He states often in <em><a href='B:500 17:11-13'>Joh 17:11-13</a></em> etc. His being "from above" referred to how He was in relation to the world, rather than His literal origins. It was this which meant that they did not perceive His language correctly.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:24'>Joh 8:24</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I replied to you, that you shall die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins</em>-</p><p> As explained on :21, this dying in sins refers to their final destruction in "the second death" at the last judgment. But they could avoid it, by accepting Him as the "I am". Just as He so often uses the term,&nbsp;<em>ego eimi</em>, "I am..." (e.g. :23). In :21 He seems to say that because they would crucify Him, they would die in their sins. But they could still have repented of that. His sense was therefore that by doing such a huge sin, they were going to find repentance hard, and He knew many of them would not come to it, for it would require too much sacrifice of vested personal interest and standing. And thus at the last day, they would die in their sins, seeking Him all too late at that day (:21).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:25'>Joh 8:25</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They replied to him: Who are you? Jesus said to them: Even that which I have spoken to you from the beginning</em>-</p><p> Most of His messages are hidden in His lifestyle and in the way He treated people. He left it to those who watched Him to see how the word was being made flesh in Him. In this sense Jesus' words really were eminently deeds. He was the word made flesh. When the Jews asked Him “Who art you?”, He replied: “How is it that I even speak to you at all? I have many things to say…When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he” (<em><a href='B:500 8:25'>Joh 8:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em> RVmg:). Jesus didn’t have to speak anything about Himself; He was the word made flesh, His deeds and above all His death would declare who He was. This self-proclamation that didn’t require any self-advertisement or even self-explanation was so wonderfully unique to Jesus. Thus Peter says that a wife should convert her husband without needing to speak a word- and there we have something of the same idea:&nbsp;</p><p>We have here yet another allusion to the prologue. The word spoken from "the beginning" was the person of the Lord Jesus as exhibited and spoken from the beginning of His ministry- not of the present creation.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:26'>Joh 8:26</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 6:44'>Joh 6:44</a></em>.</p><p><em>I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. However, He that sent me is true, and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world</em>-</p><p> Even when making the profoundest claims to be God's Son, sent from God and destined to ascend to Heaven, the Lord in the same context emphasizes His humanity- e.g. in <em><a href='B:500 8:26'>Joh 8:26</a></em>, having spoken of His origins, Father, and destiny, He stresses that&nbsp;<em>He</em>&nbsp;has much He'd like to say and judge of His generation, but He could only share what His Father had taught Him to speak. This was a very pointed presentation of His humanity, and He made it lest His hearers think that He was altogether other-worldly.</p><p>How the Lord heard things from the Father is not defined. It could have been from His own study of the Father's word mixed with direct revelation. <em><a href='B:290 50:4'>Isa 50:4</a></em> may suggest early morning teaching sessions in communion with the Father: "The Lord Yahweh has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with words him who is weary: He wakens me morning by morning, He wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught". <em><a href='B:500 15:15'>Joh 15:15</a></em> states that all He heard from the Father, He declared to the disciples. The things He heard were therefore nothing more than what He told them during His ministry, and which we can read in the Gospels. It was not that He had huge revelations of material which remained private between Him and the Father. What He was told, He told them. It was enough to motivate them, as it was to motivate Him. And it should be enough for us too. This of course heightens our need to apply ourselves to His words as found in the Gospels.</p><p>Consider how here and in <em><a href='B:500 12:49-50'>Joh 12:49-50</a></em> He says that He&nbsp;<em>says</em>&nbsp;only what the Father taught Him to say; whereas here He says He&nbsp;<em>does</em>&nbsp;nothing of Himself but only what the Father taught Him. His words and His doings are thereby paralleled. See on <em><a href='B:490 9:44'>Luk 9:44</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:10'>Joh 14:10</a></em>. Again in allusion to the prologue, the word was made flesh, completely actualized in a person and a life lived (<em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:27'>Joh 8:27</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father</em>-</p><p> On one hand they did know Him and His Father: "You both know me, and know from where I am, and that I have not come of myself" (<em><a href='B:500 7:28'>Joh 7:28</a></em>). But again we see the difference between knowledge on a theoretical level, and on the level of true understanding and relationship.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 5:36'>Joh 5:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:28'>Joh 20:28</a></em>.</p><p><em>Jesus continued: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me</em>-</p><p> The Jewish conscience about the cross is predicted by the Lord here. But the Jews generally were not subsequently persuaded that Jesus was indeed Messiah, bearer of the “I am” Name of God. Potentially, in their consciences, they&nbsp;<em>did know</em>&nbsp;that He was, once they crucified Him. The words of Jesus were of course true. But they didn’t confess that faith, because they suppressed it in their conscience. This is why to this day there is this Jewish conscience about the cross. And it’s why conversion to the Lord Jesus cannot be far from the heart of every Jew. They perceived the manifestation of the great “I am" there, Yahweh Himself, but unless they gave themselves to it in total commitment, they would die eternally. Eternal life therefore depends upon an appreciation of the cross. For this reason, the atonement must be the central doctrine of the Gospel, and those who believe it must feel it and know it personally if they are to be saved in the end. This is why <em><a href='B:500 20:27-29'>Joh 20:27-29</a></em> seems to show that the Lord understood the essence of faith in all His people as meaning that they would discern and believe the marks in His hands where the nails were:The cross would confirm all He had spoken. There the words of Jesus were made flesh (<em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em>). In the lifted up Jesus, we see all His words, God’s words, brought together in that body.</p><p>He predicted that when He was crucified, then His people would believe on Him; yet “As he spake these things, many believed on him", there and then (:30). There was such congruence between His message of crucifixion and His actual life, that people believed there and then, even before seeing the actual crucifixion. His life was a crucified life, and it elicited faith in those who perceived this.</p><p>In many discussions with Trinitarians, I came to observe how very often, a verse I would quote supporting the humanity of Jesus would be found very near passages which speak of His Divine side. For example, most 'proof texts' for both the 'Jesus=God' position and the 'Jesus was human' position- are all from the same Gospel of John. Instead of just trading proof texts, e.g. 'I and my father are one' verses 'the Father is greater than I', we need to understand them as speaking of one and the same Jesus. So many 'debates' about the nature of Jesus miss this point; the sheer wonder of this man, this more than man, was that He was so genuinely human, and yet perfectly manifested God. This was and is the compelling wonder of this Man. These two aspects of the Lord, the exaltation and the humanity, are spoken of together in the Old Testament too. A classic example would be <em><a href='B:230 45:6-7'>Psa 45:6-7</a></em>: “Thy throne, O God, is for ever this is quoted in the New Testament about Jesus… God, thy God, hath anointed thee made you Christ”. It was exactly because of and through His humanity that His glory, His ‘Divine side’, was and is manifested. His glory was ‘achieved’, if you like, not because He had it by nature in Heaven before His birth; but exactly because He as a human of our nature reflected the righteousness of God to perfection in human flesh. Thus “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He” (<em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em>)- the ‘I am’ aspect of Jesus was manifested at the point of His maximum humanity. Thus He was ‘made sin for us’ so that we might have the righteousness of God (<em><a href='B:540 5:21'>2Co 5:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 8:9'>2Co 8:9</a></em>). It was only because the Word was made&nbsp;<em>flesh</em>&nbsp;that the glory of God was revealed (<em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em>).</p><p>“I do nothing of myself, but as the Father taught me” (<em><a href='B:500 8:28'>Joh 8:28</a></em>). “The Lord hath sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of myself” (<em><a href='B:40 16:28'>Num 16:28</a></em> LXX).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:29'>Joh 8:29</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And He that sent me is with me. He has not left me alone. For I always do the things that are pleasing to Him</em>-</p><p> This idea of not leaving but present with is repeated by the Lord in His promise of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. The Father's presence was by the Spirit, and the Lord wishes to share His relationship with the Father with us. His presence however was due to always pleasing the Father. The Lord's sense of being forsaken on the cross (<em><a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a></em>) was therefore because He so identified with our sins that He was identified with those who were not pleasing to the Father, and so felt the lack of His presence. "Pleasing" is a reference to doing the Father's pleasure or will. That will is explained in chapter 5 as being for our salvation. All the Lord did was for the end of our salvation. And to that end He had the Father's presence through the Spirit always with Him; just as we will, if human salvation is our constant focus.</p><p>We are the witnesses in the same way as the Lord Jesus was the word made flesh- in His very person, He was the essential witness and message. When He said “I do always those things that please God”, it is recorded that “As he spake these words, many believed on him” (<em><a href='B:500 8:29-30'>Joh 8:29-30</a></em>). There was something real and credible. He was His words made flesh.</p><p>When the Jews lifted up Christ in crucifixion, then they would know that the words He spoke were the words of God, that the Father had not left Him at all, and that Jesus had done “always those things that please Him" (<em><a href='B:500 8:28-29'>Joh 8:28-29</a></em>). Surely this implies that His death, His dead body motionless there, was in fact some sort of word of testimony, a voice from God. Note too that when He looked as if He was forsaken by God, it was apparent that He was not. The Jews had jeered at Him as He still clung on to life, implying that God and the prophet Elijah had now abandoned Him- clearly, they mocked, He was not the Son of God. But when He was lifted up by them- i:e. in death- the lifeless body must have spoken to them of something. Somehow and the earthquake and darkness doubtless confirmed this, there was the very real presence of God evident in the scene once He had died. The Centurion realized that “truly, this was the Son of God"- and from these prophetic words of the Lord, it appears that the Jews generally had to face the same conviction. This is the sort of paradox God delights to use- the humanly hopeless and God forsaken, the lost cause, becomes the very convicting proof of just the opposite- that we are&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;forsaken. In all this there was the word of the cross.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:30'>Joh 8:30</a></em>&nbsp;<em>As he spoke these things, many believed in him</em>-</p><p> Many of the Jews believed on Jesus as Christ- but He rebukes them for not being His " disciples indeed", not really having the freedom which a true acceptance of this Truth will bring, not really being children of Abraham, still living in sin, not really hearing His word, and passively wanting to kill Him (<em><a href='B:500 8:33-44'>Joh 8:33-44</a></em>). Yet He spoke all these criticisms to those whom the record itself describes as believing in Him (<em><a href='B:500 8:31'>Joh 8:31</a></em>). It's as if the Spirit wants to show us that belief in Christ can exist on a completely surface level. Earlier on this chapter I have noted that one can know Him but not really know Him; and here, one can believe but not really believe. He says they were Abraham’s seed (<em><a href='B:500 8:37'>Joh 8:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:56'>Joh 8:56</a></em>); but almost in the same breath, He says they weren’t anything of the sort in spiritual reality (<em><a href='B:500 8:39'>Joh 8:39</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:31'>Joh 8:31</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus replied to those Jews that had believed him: If you abide in my word, then are you truly my disciples</em>-</p><p> This credits some of the Jews with believing on Jesus- and yet the Lord goes on to show how they didn’t ‘continue in His word’, weren’t truly confirmed as His disciples, and were still not true children of Abraham. Yet it would appear God is so eager to recognize any level of faith in His Son that they are credited with being ‘believers’ when they still had a very long way to go.</p><p>The idea that the Gospels are transcripts of the early preaching of the Gospel becomes more obvious when we start to probe how the Gospels would have originated. As accounts and rumours about Jesus and His teaching began to spread around, some would have been sceptical. Those who had met Jesus would have wished to persuade their neighbours and friends that really, what they had seen and heard was really so. People who had met Jesus would share their impressions together and reflect upon the striking things He had said and done. The beginnings of the Gospels were therefore rooted in preaching the good news about Jesus. The Lord speaks of us abiding in His word (<em><a href='B:500 8:31'>Joh 8:31</a></em>) and yet also of His word abiding in us, and us abiding in Him (<em><a href='B:500 15:7'>Joh 15:7</a></em>). I suggest this refers in the first instance to the new Christian converts reciting over and over in their minds the Gospel accounts. In all situations they were to have the ‘word of Jesus’ hovering in their minds. To abide in Christ was and is to have His words abiding in us. Paul’s evident familiarity with the Lord’s words is an example of how one of our brethren lived this out in practice. We have to ask how frequently in the daily grind the words of the Master come to mind, how close they are to the surface in our subconscious… for this is the essence of Christianity. It’s not so much a question of consciously memorizing His words, but so loving Him that quite naturally His words are never far from our consciousness, and frequently come out in our thinking and words. No wonder it seems the early church made new converts memorize the Gospels. See on <em><a href='B:690 2:24'>1Jn 2:24</a></em>.</p><p><em><a href='B:500 8:30-31'>Joh 8:30-31</a></em> records how He spoke about how the Father was with Him, “that I am he”, with full reference to the Yahweh Name. As He spoke the words, it was evident that they were more than words, they were an expression of the truth that was in this Man. He was the word made into flesh. People are tired of words, of language… which in any case doesn’t convey as well as we may think any lasting impression. People need to see what we believe lived out. They need to see, e.g., that our understanding of the representative nature of Jesus issues forth in our praying and in our feeling for this man “whom having not seen ye love”. And perhaps this is why it can be observed that Jesus almost never “went out of his way” to help people but rather walked along and helped the people He met in His path.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:32'>Joh 8:32</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:590 1:3'>1Th 1:3</a></em>.</p><p><em>And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free</em>-</p><p> The Lord and the Gospel writers seem to have recognized that a person may believe in Christ, and be labelled a 'believer' in Him, whilst still not knowing the fullness of "the truth": "Then said Jesus to those Jews which had believed on him, If you continue in my word, then are you truly my disciples; and you shall know the truth" (<em><a href='B:500 8:31-32'>Joh 8:31-32</a></em>). Clearly the Lord saw stages and levels to discipleship and 'knowing the truth'. The truth makes free; and yet it is Jesus who makes free (<em><a href='B:500 8:32'>Joh 8:32</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:36'>Joh 8:36</a></em>). The Truth in the person of Jesus, not just in our perception of doctrines in intellectual purity, is what liberates our personhood. "The truth" is defined in :34 as meaning being made free from sin. Following Him, as His followers / disciples (:31), means that we are made free from sin as we walk in the light of His life. Freedom from sin is no longer attempted by steel-willed struggle against hot temptation; but as part of a way of life in the Spirit of the life the Lord Jesus lived. We will 'do the truth' in that we begin to live the only ultimately true and free life- the life He lived. Truth and freedom are popular ideas in religion, everyone aspires to them; but the ultimate truth is the life of the Lord Jesus, and freedom from sin.</p><p>Therefore the Lord Jesus told the truth to this world in the sense that He was sinless (<em><a href='B:500 8:47'>Joh 8:47</a></em>). Likewise in <em><a href='B:500 17:19'>Joh 17:19</a></em> He says that He sanctifies Himself, so that “the truth”, i:e. His perfect life and death, might sanctify us; so that His freedom from sin might become ours. This was His telling of truth to men. By continuing in the word of Jesus we will know the truth (<em><a href='B:500 8:31-32'>Joh 8:31-32</a></em>)- not so much that we will attain greater doctrinal knowledge, but that our lives will reflect our knowledge of Jesus who is “the truth”. The truth sets us free; the Son sets us free (<em><a href='B:500 8:32'>Joh 8:32</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:36'>Joh 8:36</a></em>). “The truth” is therefore a title for Jesus. Mere academic knowledge alone cannot set anyone free from sin; but the living presence and example and spirit of life of another Man can, and does. And so in <em><a href='B:500 14:6'>Joh 14:6</a></em> the way, truth and life are all parallel- truth is a way of life; “truth is in Jesus” (<em><a href='B:560 4:21'>Eph 4:21</a></em> RV), we are to "do the truth", to walk in it (<em><a href='B:500 3:21'>Joh 3:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 1:6'>1Jn 1:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 1:8'>1Jn 1:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 2:4'>1Jn 2:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:700 1:4'>2Jn 1:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:710 1:3'>3Jn 1:3</a></em>). This is all empowered by the gift of the Spirit of Jesus, the Comforter, "the spirit of truth" (<em><a href='B:500 14:17'>Joh 14:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 15:26'>Joh 15:26</a></em>), which guides us into truth (<em><a href='B:500 16:13'>Joh 16:13</a></em>)- not in an intellectual sense, but guiding us into the way of life and being which is "truth", which is freedom from sin. For the Spirit is the truth (<em><a href='B:690 5:6'>1Jn 5:6</a></em>); the gift of the Spirit empowers us to live "in truth", according to the life and spirit of Jesus.</p><p>The naturalness which Jesus had with people reflects His respect for the freedom which God has given His people to chose for themselves. He was Himself supremely free, due to His pure conscience before the Father. He was the red heifer “upon which never came yoke” (<em><a href='B:40 19:2'>Num 19:2</a></em>). We were set free from sin by Christ through “freedom” (<em><a href='B:550 5:1'>Gal 5:1</a></em> RV). But we were set free by Him as a person. His freedom, His freedom from sin and the freedom that must have characterized His person, is what liberates us too. And it is the experience of that freedom, the freedom from sin that comes through forgiveness (<em><a href='B:500 8:32'>Joh 8:32</a></em>), which can be ‘used’ to love others (<em><a href='B:550 5:13'>Gal 5:13</a></em>). He didn't spell things out to His followers in the detailed way many religious leaders do. And yet it is surely related to a sense one gets from re-reading the Gospels that Jesus was in tune with nature. He so often uses examples and parables grounded in a perceptive reflection upon the natural creation. He spoke of the carefreeness of birds and other animals; and yet He had the shadow of the cross hanging over Him. The way He was evidently so relaxed with people is a tremendous testimony to Him, bearing in mind the agony ahead. All this is what makes and made Jesus so compelling. On one hand, an almost impossible standard- to be perfect, as the Father is. And yet on the other, an almost unbelievable acceptance of fallen men and women. He didn't criticize those who came to Him. He Himself was the standard by which their consciences were pricked, and yet not in such a way that they were scared away from Him. This mixture of high standards and yet acceptance of people wherever they were is what we all find so elusive. The fact none of us get it right is what turns so many away from our preaching. How compelling He was is shown by how He polarized people- He sought to provoke a final decision in people for or against Him personally- not a yes or no to a particular dogma, rite or law. His compelling power is associated with the sense of urgency which there was in His teaching. The Lord repeatedly spoke of His return as being imminent- and surely His intention was to inspire in us&nbsp;a sense of urgency&nbsp;about His return, a living for His kingdom today rather than delaying till tomorrow. &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:33'>Joh 8:33</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They answered him: We are Abraham's seed, and have never yet been in bondage to anyone. What do you mean, you shall be made free?</em>-</p><p> The life of freedom from sin is predicated upon living with the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, and not physical descent. "Truth" came by Jesus Christ, as the prologue states (<em><a href='B:500 1:17'>Joh 1:17</a></em>); and that truth is defined here as the life in the spirit of the Lord Jesus, free from sin.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:34'>Joh 8:34</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered them: Truly, truly, I say to you: Everyone who commits sin is the servant of sin</em>-</p><p> For all their detailed Bible study, they were servants of sin. To habitually live in sin "commits" in the ongoing sense is because we serve sin and have not been set free. Not sinning is not therefore just a question of white-knuckled struggle against temptation; it is more about an allowing of the Lord Jesus to free us from sin by His Spirit.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:35'>Joh 8:35</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And the servant does not stay in the house for ever. The son stays forever</em>-</p><p> The Lord tweaks the metaphor a little, to argue that sinners are servants of sin; but the Lord is making us free from that servitude, turning us into freedmen, permanent members of the actual household. This metaphor of freedom from slavery is used heavily by Paul in his later explanations of the meaning of the Lord's death. A slave might spend his life in slavery within a household, but could never actually enter the family. The Son is master of the household, for ever.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:36'>Joh 8:36</a></em>&nbsp;<em>If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed</em>-</p><p> As noted on :34, Paul also uses this metaphor of redeeming us from slavery to sin into free and actual members of the household family. But he sees this as an outcome of the crucifixion and resurrection. The Lord at this stage was confident as to the outcome of His mission.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:37'>Joh 8:37</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I know that you are Abraham's seed. Yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you</em>-</p><p> The Jews could be described as both Abraham’s seed (<em><a href='B:500 8:37'>Joh 8:37</a></em>) and not Abraham’s seed (<em><a href='B:500 8:39'>Joh 8:39</a></em>); as having Abraham as their father (<em><a href='B:500 8:56'>Joh 8:56</a></em>), and yet also having the devil as their father (<em><a href='B:500 8:39-41'>Joh 8:39-41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em>). This connects with the theme that the Jews on one level knew who the Lord was, and on another, did not. In John, one can see but not really see; believe but not really believe. The Lord Jesus described the unbelieving Jews as having Abraham as their father, and yet He also said that they weren’t the real children of Abraham. They appeared to believe in Him, but effectively denied Him (<em><a href='B:500 8:37'>Joh 8:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:39'>Joh 8:39</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:56'>Joh 8:56</a></em>). Like Israel, we can have an appearance of faith, an assumption that we believe because we are through baptism the children of faithful Abraham, when the real, house-on-the-rock faith is unknown to us.</p><p>The Jews thought that they were righteous because they were the descendants of Abraham. The Lord Jesus therefore addressed them as “the righteous” (<em><a href='B:470 9:12-13'>Mat 9:12-13</a></em>), and said “I know that you are Abraham’s seed” (<em><a href='B:500 8:37'>Joh 8:37</a></em>). But He did not believe that they were righteous, as He so often made clear; and He plainly showed by His reasoning in <em><a href='B:500 8:39-44'>Joh 8:39-44</a></em> that they were&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;Abraham’s seed. So He took people’s beliefs at face value, without immediately contradicting them, but demonstrated the truth instead. We have shown that this was God’s approach in dealing with the pagan beliefs which were common in the Old Testament times. His attitude to demons in New Testament times was the same; His God–provided miracles made it abundantly plain that illnesses were caused by God, not any other force, seeing that it was God who had the mighty power to heal them.</p><p>The argument was that if they were Abraham's seed they would not be seeking to kill the pre-eminent seed of Abraham, Messiah. "My word" had no place in them; and that word was therefore His self-proclamation of Himself as the seed of Abraham, a proclamation made through His life and character rather than any specific statement that "I am Messiah". "My word" therefore refers not to the whole Bible, nor to any specific spoken words of the Lord; but to His whole life and being, which was His word to men. His word was the Father's word (<em><a href='B:500 14:24'>Joh 14:24</a></em>), just as the prologue had declared the word, which was all about Jesus, to be God. His word was Him, His spirit, His life, His spoken words- which were to abide within them (:31).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:38'>Joh 8:38</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I speak the things which I have seen with my Father, and you also do the things which you heard from your father</em>-</p><p> The parallel indicates that being 'with the Father' was not to be understood in a literal sense. It was not that He heard words from God in Heaven which He then transported to earth, just as they did not hear words from a literal being called the devil in some underworld. He spoke not only what He heard, but what He 'saw' with the Father. His life and teaching was a reflection, an articulation in words, of what it meant to see the Father. Moses had been denied that honour, but the Son 'saw' the Father and reflected it to us in the 'word' or&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;which was His life.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:39'>Joh 8:39</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They answered and said to him: Our father is Abraham. Jesus said to them: If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham</em>-</p><p> When the Jews proudly said “Abraham is our father” (<em><a href='B:500 8:39'>Joh 8:39</a></em>) they were showing the very same spirit as Ishmael- in persecuting Isaac / Jesus. They were proclaiming themselves to be the seed by the flesh but not of the Spirit nor according to the promise in Isaac. See on <em><a href='B:500 12:31'>Joh 12:31</a></em>. Intentionally, the Lord was saying that in one sense they were the seed of Abraham (:37) but in another sense they were not. Likewise they knew Him, but in another sense didn't know Him. The work of God is to believe in His Son (<em><a href='B:500 6:39'>Joh 6:39</a></em>), and it seems the Lord had that idea in view here. He appealed for them to be like Abraham in his belief in his Messianic seed.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:40'>Joh 8:40</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I heard from God. This Abraham did not do</em>-</p><p> "The truth" has been defined earlier as a way of life free from sin, the life of the Lord Jesus, His Spirit, living now the eternal life; see on :32. "The truth" that the Lord "told" them was not in learned lectures of courses of dissertations, but in the life lived which was a reflection of all He had heard and seen with the Father.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:41'>Joh 8:41</a></em>&nbsp;<em>You do the works of your father. They said to him: We were not born of fornication. We have one Father, even God</em>-</p><p> They insisted that God and not "the devil" (:44) was their father. By insisting upon this, they were condemning themselves. For they sought to kill the Lord because He claimed to be God's Son. And now He had cleverly led them to make the same claim about themselves. He didn't do this to score debating points; He really wanted them to realize that in condemning Him, they were condemning themselves. They were furious that He should imply they were not full Israelites, of Abraham. "Born of fornication" was how the Jews referred to the descendants of Abraham through his other partners apart from Sarah, such as Hagar and Keturah:&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:42'>Joh 8:42</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to them: If God were your Father, you would love me. For I came forth and am come from God. For neither have I come of myself, but He sent me</em>-</p><p> It is impossible to love God without loving His Son, Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 8:42'>Joh 8:42</a></em>); and <em><a href='B:690 5:1-2'>1Jn 5:1-2</a></em> is alluding to this, saying that this principle means that we can't love God without loving&nbsp;<em>all&nbsp;His</em>&nbsp;sons, those who are in Christ, the Son of God. Christian disillusion with Christianity&nbsp;is disobedience to this. If we think we can love God while disregarding His sons, we are making the same mistake as the Jews; they confidently thought they could love God and disregard His Son. And this faulty logic led them to crucify the Son of God.</p><p>The fact that Jesus was humanly fatherless has been extensively commented upon by Andries van Aarde. He points out that: “Against the background of the marriage arrangements within the patriarchal mind-set of Israelites in the Second Temple period, a fatherless Jesus would have been without social identity. He would have been excluded from being called a child of Abraham, that is, a child of God. Access to the court of the Israelites in the temple, where mediators could facilitate forgiveness for sin, would have been denied to him. He would have been excluded from the privilege of being given a daughter in marriage”. Behold the paradox. Because He was the Son of God, He was written off by Israel as not being a child of God; because He was&nbsp;<em>the</em>&nbsp;seed of Abraham, He was rubbished as not being a son of Abraham. We can now understand better how He could attract other social outcasts to Him; we have another window into the fact He never married; we appreciate more deeply the significance of His offering forgiveness and fellowship with God to those who were outside of the temple system. He could offer a new social identity to people on the basis that He knew what it was like to be without it. All this is confirmed in the Biblical record. This is why the Jews accused the Lord of being both not a “child of Abraham” and also illegitimate” (<em><a href='B:500 8:42'>Joh 8:42</a></em>), a “sinner” (<em><a href='B:500 9:16'>Joh 9:16</a></em>). And He was also called a “Samaritan” (<em><a href='B:500 8:48'>Joh 8:48</a></em>). According to the Mishnah, “… they are the people of uncertain condition, with whom one may not marry: those of uncertain parentage, foundlings and Samaritans”. Refusing to declare Joseph as His father meant that the Lord would’ve been unable to marry, at least not any girl from a religious family:&nbsp;See on <em><a href='B:500 19:9'>Joh 19:9</a></em>.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Why do you not understand my speech? Because you cannot hear my word</em>-</p><p> They could not, it was not in their power Gk. to hear His&nbsp;<em>logos,</em>&nbsp;and so how He spoke, the language He used, was as it were foreign to them. They were not empowered to hear His<em>&nbsp;logos</em>, which according to the prologue was Him, His life and spirit, because they did not allow the movement of the Spirit in their hearts. And this is why people today cannot understand the Lord's teaching; it is because they refuse to accept His<em>&nbsp;logos</em>, His life and person coming into their lives as the light of their thinking and practice. And so His words / speech remain a jumble to them. Interpretation fails them, because they were refusing to hear Him as a person, His<em>&nbsp;logos</em>:&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;</em></p><p>Intellectual failure to understand the teaching of Jesus is rooted in a resistance to having our lives disturbed in a moral sense. How many have started studying true doctrine, only to draw back, perhaps unconsciously even, because they sense that this stuff is life-changing, and altogether too demanding for them to handle in practice? This inextricable link between doctrine and practice is brought out by the Lord in <em><a href='B:500 7:17'>Joh 7:17</a></em>: “If any man willeth to&nbsp;<em>do</em>&nbsp;his will, he shall know of the doctrine…”. My expanded paraphrase of this would be: ‘If you want to do right before God in practice, then you will discern between right and wrong doctrine, because true doctrine leads to true practice. If you really want to be&nbsp;<em>doing</em>&nbsp;the right thing, then God will lead you to true doctrine’. And not long afterwards, the Lord hammers home His point: “Why do you not understand my speech teaching? Even because you cannot hear i:e. accept my word” (<em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>).</p><p>That refusing to believe or understand truth has a moral basis is brought out by the Lord's comment in <em><a href='B:500 8:46'>Joh 8:46</a></em>: "If I say the truth, why do you not believe me?". He surely implies that it's not hard in itself to believe and accept His words as true- but He explains that the Jews didn't believe because they preferred to believe the words of the "devil". The "devil" speaks his own language (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em> NIV), the Lord says, and the Jews preferred to hear&nbsp;<em>that</em>&nbsp;language because it was actually their own language. They did not "understand my word" because they preferred to do 'their own lusts' (<em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>). Those 'lusts' are paralleled with the language of the devil- which is exactly what 'the devil' refers to in so many Biblical contexts. The point of all this is that misunderstanding God's word is because we prefer to hear the language of our own self talk, our own lusts, the Biblical 'devil'. "The lusts of the devil it is your will to do", the Lord commented (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em> RV). This was their "language", and therefore any other language which was not of their own self talk was 'foreign' to them. And in this we have the essential basis for why people misunderstand the Lord's words today.</p><p>The Lord's cryptic manner of speaking at times yielded "hard sayings"; and yet He utters most of them in conversation with His critics. Thus having said that "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death", and the Jews predictably responded with misunderstanding and confusion, He goes straight on to utter an even harder saying: "Your father Abraham... saw my day, and was glad". And they again come back at Him with the anger born of misunderstanding. And so He rounds off the episode with a yet harder saying: "Before Abraham was, I am" (<em><a href='B:500 8:51-58'>Joh 8:51-58</a></em>). In all this He was using "hard sayings"- which have come down to us as 'wrested scriptures, 'difficult passages'- in order to drive the unbelievers further down the downward spiral. And He does the same today, with the same passages. Because the Jews didn't "hear my word / logos", therefore they couldn't understand His speech, i:e. the words as individual words which He spoke (<em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>). They stumbled over each word, as a child struggling to read a text way too advanced for her. Because they didn't hear His logos, the essence of Him. This is why the simplest minds which firmly understand the logos, the essential idea, the bigger picture, don't find the "hard sayings" to be hard for them, they aren't stumbled by them. But the word-by-word theologian does stumble at them, if he doesn't believe the simple logos of Jesus.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:350 6:7'>Hos 6:7</a></em>.</p><p><em>You are of your father the Devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies</em>-</p><p> The Jewish religious leaders were “of your father the Devil” (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em>). This would explain the Lord’s description of Judas as a Devil (<em><a href='B:500 6:70'>Joh 6:70</a></em>) because the Jewish Devil had entered him and conceived, making him a ‘Devil’ also. In the space of a few verses, we read the Lord Jesus saying that “the Devil” is a “liar” – and then stating that His Jewish opponents were “liars” (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:55'>Joh 8:55</a></em>). These are the only places where the Lord uses the word “liar” – clearly enough He identified those Jews with “the Devil”. If the Jews’ father was the Devil, then ‘the Devil’ was a fitting description of them too. They were a “generation of (gendered by) vipers”, alluding back to the serpent in Eden, which epitomized “the Devil”; “that old serpent, called (i:e. being similar to) the Devil and Satan” (<em><a href='B:730 12:9'>Rev 12:9</a></em>). In the same way as Judas became a Devil, the “false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus” is called a “child of the Devil” (<em><a href='B:510 13:6'>Act 13:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:510 13:10'>Act 13:10</a></em>), which description makes him an embodiment of the Jewish opposition to the Gospel. There are many other connections between the serpent and the Jews; clearest is <em><a href='B:290 1:4'>Isa 1:4</a></em> “A people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters”. This is describing Israel in the language of <em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em> concerning the serpent. Thus the Messianic <em><a href='B:230 140:3'>Psa 140:3</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 140:10'>Psa 140:10</a></em> describes Christ reflecting that His Jewish persecutors “have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adders’ poison is under their lips... let burning coals fall upon them: let them be cast into the fire” (referring to the falling masonry of Jerusalem in A:D. 70?). It is quite possible that Christ’s encouragement to the seventy that “I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy” (<em><a href='B:490 10:19'>Luk 10:19</a></em>) has a primary reference to their ability to overcome Jewish opposition during their preaching tour.</p><p>We all personally struggle to accept basic Bible teaching about generosity, materialism and money. Think of what the Hebrew word “Cain” means- for he is alluded to by the Lord as the epitome of the “devil”, the “murderer from the beginning”, the archetypical sinner (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em> - perhaps because Adam and Eve’s sin was forgiven, whereas Cain was the first impenitent sinner). “Cain is defined on the basis of a double Hebrew etymology, as ‘possession’ (from&nbsp;<em>qana</em>&nbsp;= acquire) and ‘envy’ (from&nbsp;<em>qana</em>&nbsp;= be envious)”. Personal possession is almost- almost- inextricably linked with envy, and led to the lies and murder for which Cain was noted by the Lord. To have a strong sense of our personal ‘possessions’ will lead us into the same sins. Indeed, it’s the epitome of ‘the devil’. The concept of ‘private property’ is indeed a myth. For we die, and leave it all behind.</p><p>Ensure that all you are saying to yourself, even if it’s not about spiritual things, is at least truthful. This is where this great theme of truth starts and ends. Ideally, our self-talk should be of Jesus, of the Father, of the things of His Kingdom. Of anything that is just, true, of good report... Yet our self-talk is closely linked to what Scripture would call the devil- the constant fountain of wrong suggestions and unspiritual perspectives that seem to bubble up so constantly within us. The devil- the Biblical one- is “the father of lies” (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em>). And untruthfulness seems to begin within our own self-talk. I would even go so far as to almost define the devil as our own self-talk. And it’s likened to a roaring, dangerous lion; a cunning snake. And it’s there within each of us. The control of self-talk is vital. And the Biblical guidance is to make sure it is truthful; for lack of truthfulness is the root of all sin. The account of the wilderness temptations is in my opinion a wonderful window into the self-talk of the Lord Jesus. He set the example there, of dealing with internal temptation by a self-talk based solidly on the truth of God's word. Sin is normally committed by believers not as an act of conscious rebellion, but rather through a complex process of self-justification; which on repentance we recognize was the mere sophistry of our own self-talk. This is why truthfulness is the epitome of the spiritual life. To deny ever being untruthful is to deny ever sinning. We all have this problem. It’s why the assertion of Jesus that He was “the truth” was tantamount to saying that He was sinless. Only thus is He thereby the way to eternal life.</p><p>For those who believe in an orthodox devil, bear in mind that the use of the pronoun “he” does not indicate that the Devil is a person. “Wisdom” is personified as a woman house–builder (<em><a href='B:240 9:1'>Pro 9:1</a></em>) and sin as a paymaster paying wages (<em><a href='B:520 6:23'>Rom 6:23</a></em>). Human lust is personified as a man who drags us away to enticement. If it is accepted that sin and sinful tendencies are personified, there should be no problem in imagining that persona being given a name – “Satan”, the adversary. There is no specific reference here to the serpent in Eden. We sin because of the lusts that begin inside us (<em><a href='B:480 7:21-23'>Mar 7:21-23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:660 1:14'>Jas 1:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 17:9'>Jer 17:9</a></em>). Our evil heart – the real Devil – is the father of our lusts and sins. “The lusts of your father” the Devil, are thus the same as the lusts of our evil heart – the Devil. The Devil is a murderer. But “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (<em><a href='B:690 3:15'>1Jn 3:15</a></em>). The Devil must, therefore, die – but as angels cannot die (<em><a href='B:490 20:35-36'>Luk 20:35-36</a></em>) they are therefore immortal, and have eternal life abiding in them. As noted on <em><a href='B:480 4:15'>Mar 4:15</a></em>, the children of the Devil are those who obey their evil desires – the real Devil. The Jews had not literally seen a person called the Devil; the Lord was clearly using figurative language. They were&nbsp;<em>of</em>&nbsp;the Devil in the sense that “you do the deeds of your father” (:41), i:e. they continued the family likeness. If the Devil is a murderer then he isn’t immortal, for in commentary on this verse John later explained as if there had already arisen misunderstandings in the time between John’s Gospel and epistles: “No murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (<em><a href='B:690 3:15'>1Jn 3:15</a></em>). Angels are immortal (<em><a href='B:490 20:36'>Luk 20:36</a></em>), so therefore this “murderer” wasn’t a ‘fallen Angel’.</p><p>The Devil, the desires which are in our heart forming and stimulating an evil inclination, has the characteristics of the serpent, but it does not mean that the serpent was the Devil itself. The serpent was “subtil” (<em><a href='B:10 3:1'>Gen 3:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:540 11:3'>2Co 11:3</a></em>); this may well be behind the description of the Jews consulting “that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him” (<em><a href='B:470 26:4'>Mat 26:4</a></em>). The serpent in Eden was the prototype of the Jewish system; their killing of Jesus was the fulfilment of the prophecy that the seed of the serpent (sin manifested in the Jews, <em><a href='B:470 12:34'>Mat 12:34</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 3:7'>Luk 3:7</a></em>, in its primary meaning) would wound the seed of the woman, Christ, in the heel (<em><a href='B:10 3:15'>Gen 3:15</a></em>).</p><p><em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em> is also a reference to Cain, the first murderer – “he was a murderer from the beginning” (<em><a href='B:10 4:8-9'>Gen 4:8-9</a></em>). He “abode not in the truth” as he was the father of the seed of the serpent who corrupted the true way of worshipping God. The letter of John often alludes to the Gospel of John, and <em><a href='B:690 3:12'>1Jn 3:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 3:15'>1Jn 3:15</a></em>, is an example; it confirms this interpretation: “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one (i:e. the Devil – <em><a href='B:470 13:19'>Mat 13:19</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:480 4:15'>Mar 4:15</a></em>) and slew his brother…Whosoever hateth his brother (as Cain did) is a murderer”. However, it is also true that <em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em> alludes to the serpent as well. The serpent told the first lie, “Ye shall not surely die” (<em><a href='B:10 3:4'>Gen 3:4</a></em>); he did not abide in the truth; he was a murderer in the sense that he brought about the death of Adam and Eve. “He is a liar, and the father of it”. Cain was not a super–human person called the Devil, but an ordinary man. He characterized sin, the Devil. The way in which the fire consumed Abel’s offering but not Cain’s is paralleled by the fire burning up Elijah’s offering but leaving those of the apostate Jewish Baal worshippers (<em><a href='B:110 18:19-40'>1Ki 18:19-40</a></em>). This would associate Cain with apostate Jews, i:e. the Jewish Devil.</p><p>Note: “…he is a liar, and the father of it”. The Lord Jesus does not say “he was a liar”. If we tell a lie, it is a result of the Devil, in the sense of our evil desires prompting us – not due to any force outside of us. Lying is one of those things that Jesus lists in <em><a href='B:480 7:15'>Mar 7:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 7:21-23'>Mar 7:21-23</a></em> as not entering a man from outside him, but originating from within him. The Devil is the ‘father’ of lies in the sense that they originate from within us – which is where the Biblical Devil is located.</p><p>“When he speaks a lie” – when someone lies, it is not a super–human person called the Devil standing in front of him, it is the Devil, in the sense of the man’s evil desires speaking to him. “Deceit” – i:e. lies – proceed “from within, out of the heart of men” (<em><a href='B:480 7:21-22'>Mar 7:21-22</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:45'>Joh 8:45</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me</em>-</p><p> Truth is what makes a person believe the speaker. But the Jews did not believe exactly because the Lord told them "the truth". The "truth" in view is not therefore intellectually pure exposition. They did not believe because they were dominated by sin, "the devil", and sin is essentially a lie. So their sense of truth and error was inverted. "The truth" as explained on :32 was the Lord's sinless life, His Spirit; hence He challenges them in :46 as to who could convict Him of sin. "The truth" He told was that He was sinless. They did not want to believe that; it demanded too much, that a man of their nature could be sinless, and that His Spirit could enter them and transform their lives so as not to be servants of sin.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:46'>Joh 8:46</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :45, "the truth" was the Lord's sinlessness. They could not accept that, because it demanded too much of them. So much of the Trinitarian theological fog cast over the person of the Lord Jesus is psychologically rooted in a refusal to be so challenged; that our nature is capable of far more than we like to think; and that His spirit can be our spirit.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:47'>Joh 8:47</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He that is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you do not hear them, because you are not of God</em>-</p><p> If they were the children of God, then the Father's words would be naturally discernible. There would be an intuitive sense toward them. In this we see the upward spiral of spirituality which belief in God’s word creates. In the same discourse the Lord reasoned "If you continue in my word... you shall know the truth (the word- <em><a href='B:500 17:17'>Joh 17:17</a></em>)" (<em><a href='B:500 8:31-32'>Joh 8:31-32</a></em>). Note that believers in the Lord Jesus are here called "of God", just as the Son was "of God"; not in that they literally descended from Heaven, as required by the pre-existence idea; but in that they were His children rather than the children of this world.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:48'>Joh 8:48</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 8:42'>Joh 8:42</a></em>.</p><p><em>The Jews answered and said to him: Say we not well that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?</em>-</p><p> Perhaps the emphasis was upon "<em>you</em>". They complained that the Lord was casting aspersions about their purity of descent from Abraham (see on :41). Now they suggested that&nbsp;<em>He</em>&nbsp;was in fact the one of questionable descent from Abraham. Their 'research' of His family of origin had led to this aspersion- that Mary and / or Joseph had Samaritan connections. The Lord purposefully framed Himself as a Samaritan in the parable of the good Samaritan; perhaps they wilfully misinterpreted that as meaning that He was in fact a Samaritan.</p><p>It has been widely recognized that John’s Gospel often refers to the same themes found in the Synoptics, but in different language and from a different perspective. The account of the virgin birth as the word being made flesh is one such example. Another would be the effective repeating of the great commission in different terms. Yet another would be the description of water baptism as being born of water (<em><a href='B:500 3:3-5'>Joh 3:3-5</a></em>). The accounts of casting out demons which we have in the Synoptic Gospels are not found in John – not in so many words. But I suggest that the essence of it all is there in John, too. The battle between Jesus and the ‘Devil’ is referred to there frequently. He is accused of being in league with the Devil (<em><a href='B:500 7:20'>Joh 7:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:48'>Joh 8:48</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:20'>Joh 10:20</a></em>); but He labels His critics as being of the Devil (<em><a href='B:500 8:44'>Joh 8:44</a></em>). And in that same passage He redefines their view of “the Devil” as being a question of doing sinful “desires”. Judas is portrayed as being “of the Devil” (<em><a href='B:500 6:70-71'>Joh 6:70-71</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:2'>Joh 13:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:27'>Joh 13:27</a></em>). John speaks of an epic struggle between life and death, light and darkness, truth and error, faith and unbelief, God and evil / sin. In this struggle, the forces of evil have no real power over the Lord Jesus; He is greater than them and overcomes them to such an extent that they are effectively non-existent for those in Him. The Synoptics speak of the opposition to Jesus as being from Scribes, Pharisees etc. John describes this opposition as the Jewish ‘Satan’ or adversary to the Lord. John presents the opposition to Jesus from the Jews as being symbolic of evil and sin itself. Effectively, the more literal accounts of the Synoptics are saying the same thing – that the Lord showed that the power of God is so great that effectively, demons don’t exist as any realistic force in the lives of both Jesus and His people. John puts this in more epic and symbolic language – the forces of evil were overcome and revealed to be powerless by the Lord Jesus, ultimately expressing this through His death. And perhaps that’s why John’s Gospel doesn’t speak of the Lord casting out demons – because his record has made it clear enough that effectively, those things don’t exist.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:49'>Joh 8:49</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered: I do not have a demon. I honour my Father, and you dishonour me</em>-</p><p> When He was wrongly accused of being a Samaritan, Jesus did not deny it (<em><a href='B:500 8:48-49'>Joh 8:48-49</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:500 4:7-9'>Joh 4:7-9</a></em>) even though his Jewishness, as the seed of Abraham, was vital within God’s plan of salvation (<em><a href='B:500 4:22'>Joh 4:22</a></em>). Even when the Jews drew the wrong conclusion (wilfully) that Jesus was “making himself equal with God” (<em><a href='B:500 5:18'>Joh 5:18</a></em>), Jesus did not explicitly deny it; instead He powerfully argued that His miracles showed Him to be a man acting on God’s behalf, and therefore he was&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;equal with God. The miracles of Jesus likewise showed the error of believing in demons. But here He does baldly deny the accusation that He 'had a demon' and was mad; because such dishonour of Him personally was a dishonouring of God. Attitudes to the Son were a statement about the Father. He therefore implies that by dishonouring Him, they were not honouring the Father; whereas He was all about honouring the Father. He is explicit in <em><a href='B:500 5:23'>Joh 5:23</a></em> that honour of the Son is honour of the Father, and vice versa. One cannot therefore claim to be honouring God when they are not honouring His Son. This means that all non-Christian religions are not offering any legitimate relationship with God the Father; for they do not honour His Son.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:50'>Joh 8:50</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I do not seek my own glory. There is One that seeks and judges</em>-</p><p> God is seeking our salvation, and our glory in the true sense. If we believe this, we will not seek our own glory. The Father loves us, and is seeking out an eternal future for us, optimal for us personally. He is not simply passively prepared to grant us eternity; but is seeking our glory. The wonder of this means that like the Lord, we shall not seek glory of men, because it is God who wants to give us glory (<em><a href='B:500 5:41'>Joh 5:41</a></em>). This amazing Father who seeks our glory is also our judge; His judgment will be in accordance with His seeking out of glory for us. We need not therefore fear Him and His judgment.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:51'>Joh 8:51</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Truly, truly, I say to you: If a man keeps my word, he shall never see death</em>-</p><p> <em><a href='B:690 2:4-6'>1Jn 2:4-6</a></em> defines keeping the Lord's word as keeping His commandments, walking as He walked, abiding in Him, living with His Spirit. We shall therefore live the kind of life we shall eternally live; we live the eternal life now, and in this sense we shall never see death in the sense of eternal death. We shall die, but not rise again. Death itself will be perceived differently by us, if our hearts are ever with Him who conquered death, and is the resurrection and the life. If our view of death itself, the unspoken deepest personal fear of all humanity, is different… we will be radically different from our fellows.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:52'>Joh 8:52</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews said to him: Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets, but you say: If a man keep my word, he shall never taste of death</em>-</p><p> Again, they misunderstand His use of language. By "death" He refers to eternal death; there is "death" and "the second death"; but they did not perceive that difference. Just as unspiritual people can read God's words in the Bible and find it all a haze of contradiction and uncertainty, because they are not reading in a spiritual way. The Lord had promised that those who kept His word would never "see death"; but they misquote Him as saying that they would never "taste of death".</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:53'>Joh 8:53</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died, and the prophets who died? Whom do you make yourself?</em>-</p><p> The Lord was not making Himself anything, because it was the Father who was glorifying Him (:54). The Jews perceived that offering eternal life was making those who received it greater than the prophets and Abraham who had died. The Sadducees disbelieved any resurrection; the Pharisees, according to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, believed in existence as an immortal soul. Their views of immortality and "eternal life" were deeply wrong; they considered Abraham to be permanently dead. They didn't understand that he must rise again to inherit the land promised to him for an eternal possession. The Lord was teaching a resurrection of the body to eternal life, for those who lived that eternal life now in that they had His Spirit and lived His life.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:54'>Joh 8:54</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered: If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father that glorifies me, whom you say is your God</em>-</p><p> As the Father glorified the Lord, so He seeks out the glory of all his children (:50). If the Father was truly their Father, then they would perceive that the Lord was already being glorified by the Father. Again, there is an appeal to an intuitive sense which was lacking amongst the Lord's critics. These appeals to intuitive sense all reference the work of the Spirit and a person's acceptance or rejection of it.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:55'>Joh 8:55</a></em>&nbsp;<em>You have not known Him, but I know Him-&nbsp;</em>There are two different words used here. They did not know God, but the Lord had seen Him. The allusion is to Moses who desired to see God and could not. And the Lord implies that He all the time was seeing God, not just for a passing moment, but walking in the light of knowing Him.</p><p><em>And if I should say I know Him not, I shall be like you, a liar; but I know Him and keep His word</em>-</p><p> The statement that He 'saw' God was deeply blasphemous to the Jews. He was tempted not to make it, knowing the persecution and anger it would create. But to do so would be to lie. To see / know God was to keep His word, living according to God's word.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:56'>Joh 8:56</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it, and rejoiced</em>-</p><p> This is surely an allusion to how he laughed for joy at the promise of Isaac. He "gladly received the promises" (<em><a href='B:650 11:17'>Heb 11:17</a></em> RV). And realizing that through baptism the promises are made to us ought to inspire a deep seated joy too. The only time Abraham is recorded to have laughed and been glad was when he was given the promise that he would have a seed; he understood that ultimately that promise had reference to Jesus (<em><a href='B:10 17:17'>Gen 17:17</a></em>). Abraham “saw” ahead to Christ through the promises made to him concerning Jesus. He cryptically commented about the future sacrifice of Jesus: “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen” (<em><a href='B:10 22:14'>Gen 22:14</a></em>). It was in this sense that Jesus speaks of Abraham as having seen him. It is in this context of speaking about the promises that Jesus could say “Before Abraham was, I am”. He appreciated that God’s promises to Abraham were revealing the plan about Jesus which God had known from the beginning of the world. That purpose, which had been “before Abraham was”, had been revealed to Abraham in the promises to him, and was now being fulfilled in the eyes of the Jews of the first century, as they stood in a ring around Jesus, “the word (of promise) made flesh”.</p><p>It seems reasonable to conclude that Isaac was offered on or near the hill of Calvary, one of the hills (Heb:) near Jerusalem, in the ancient “land of Moriah" (cp. <em><a href='B:140 3:1'>2Ch 3:1</a></em>). The name given to the place, Yahweh-Yireh, means ‘in this mount I have seen Yahweh’. The events of the death and resurrection of the Lord which Isaac’s experience pointed forward to were therefore the prophesied ‘seeing’ of Yahweh. When Abraham ‘<em>saw</em>&nbsp;the place of Isaac’s intended sacrifice afar off" (<em><a href='B:10 22:4'>Gen 22:4</a></em>), there is more to those words than a literal description. <em><a href='B:650 11:13'>Heb 11:13</a></em> alludes here in saying that Abraham&nbsp;<em>saw</em>&nbsp;the fulfilment of “the promises" “afar off". The Lord in <em><a href='B:500 8:56'>Joh 8:56</a></em> says that Abraham&nbsp;<em>saw</em>&nbsp;His day or time usually a reference to His sacrifice. And yet that place of offering was called by Abraham ‘Jehovah Jireh’, ‘Jehovah will be&nbsp;<em>seen</em>’. Note the theme of&nbsp;<em>seeing</em>. In some shadowy way, Abraham understood something of the future sacrifice of the Lord Jesus; and yet he speaks of it as the time when Yahweh Himself will be ‘seen’, so intense would the manifestation of God be in the death of His Son. See on <em><a href='B:500 19:19'>Joh 19:19</a></em>.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:57'>Joh 8:57</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews replied to him: You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?</em>-</p><p> Again they did not follow His reasoning. The Lord had said that Abraham had seen Him, not that He had seen Abraham. He was not saying that He was older than Abraham- obviously He was not older than Abraham. We observe that their guess at the Lord's age placed Him somewhat older than He was. Days and nights spent in prayer and focus upon the Father and others would have been reflected in His face and body; such was His humanity.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:58'>Joh 8:58</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to them: Truly, truly, I say to you: I am of higher status than Abraham ever was</em>-</p><p> When the Jews mocked Him for saying that He had seen Abraham, the Lord didn’t respond that of course that wasn’t what He meant; instead He elevated the conversation with “before Abraham was I am” (AV). These words are often misapplied to teach that the Lord Jesus existed before Abraham did. However, closer investigation reveals the opposite to be true. He did not say ‘Before Abraham was, I was”. He was the promised descendant of Abraham; we make a nonsense of God’s promises to Abraham if we say that the Lord Jesus physically existed before the time of Abraham. The context is the discourse with the Jews concerning Abraham. As far as they were concerned, Abraham was the greatest man who would ever live. The Lord Jesus is saying “I am now, as I stand here, more important than Abraham”. As they stood there, He was the one to be honoured rather than Abraham. He is saying ‘I am now, more important than Abraham ever was’. It is possible to understand “before” in <em><a href='B:500 8:58'>Joh 8:58</a></em> with some reference to time, in the sense that before Abraham existed, Christ had been in God’s plan right from the beginning of the world. It was because Jesus was “before” Abraham in this sense that he was “before” him in terms of importance. But the more comfortable reading is to understand "before" as referring to importance rather than time. In <em><a href='B:100 6:21'>2Sa 6:21</a></em> there’s a good example of “before” meaning ‘before’ in importance rather than time. David tells his wife: “The Lord chose me&nbsp;<em>before</em>&nbsp;your father Saul”. Actually, in terms of&nbsp;<em>time</em>, God chose Saul well before He chose David. But God chose David&nbsp;<em>above</em>&nbsp;Saul in terms of importance and honour.</p><p>"I am" may indeed be a reference to the Divine Name which Jesus, as the Father's Son, carried (<em><a href='B:500 5:43'>Joh 5:43</a></em>). But "I am" is also used by the healed blind man in <em><a href='B:500 9:9'>Joh 9:9</a></em> with no apparent reference to the Name. The same Greek words are also used by Asahel in the LXX of <em><a href='B:100 2:20'>2Sa 2:20</a></em>. Jesus and the Father were "one" and so for Jesus to bear the Father's Name is no reason to think that 'Jesus = God". Note however that the unity between Father and Son spoken of e.g. in <em><a href='B:500 10:30'>Joh 10:30</a></em> is the same kind of unity possible between the Father and all His children (John 17). The use of the neuter form for "one" (<em>hen esmen</em>) in <em><a href='B:500 10:30'>Joh 10:30</a></em> shows that the Father and Son aren't interchangeable- they are at one with each other, not one and the same. And sharing such unity it is quite appropriate for them to share the same Name. A related misunderstanding is often applied to the comment of John the Baptist about Jesus- that “He was before me” (<em><a href='B:500 1:30'>Joh 1:30</a></em>). John the Baptist was actually older than the Lord Jesus; he therefore meant that Jesus was “before” him in the sense of being more important than him. C:H. Dodd interprets this passage as meaning: “There is a man in my following who has taken precedence over me, because he is… essentially my superior” (C:H. Dodd,&nbsp;<em>Historical Tradition In The Fourth Gospel&nbsp;</em>(Cambridge: CUP, 1976) p. 274).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 8:59'>Joh 8:59</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore they took up stones to cast at him; but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple</em>-</p><p> They wanted to kill Him for blasphemy, as in <em><a href='B:500 10:31'>Joh 10:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:33'>Joh 10:33</a></em>; for He had just alluded to the "I am" Name of Yahweh. Perhaps He miraculously avoided them (as in <em><a href='B:490 4:30'>Luk 4:30</a></em>), or maybe as in:20 the very public spotlight upon them somehow held them back from stoning Him to death. It has been suggested that the stones were the stones left around as a result of the temple construction project. Again we see that the Lord gave His life, and it was not taken from Him.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:1'>Joh 9:1</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth</em>-</p><p> The same terms for "passed by" is used in the preceding <em><a href='B:500 8:59'>Joh 8:59</a></em>. As the Lord was ‘passing by’, more like quickly rushing away from His persecutors and would-be murderers, He takes time to heal a blind man, with quite a lengthy process. He didn’t allow His own fears and self-preservation instinct to make Him so self-centred that He didn’t notice and engage with others’ physical and spiritual needs.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:2'>Joh 9:2</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And his disciples asked him: Rabbi, who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?</em>-</p><p> The section begins with the issue of sin and blindness, and ends with it (:41). D:A. Carson’s commentary on John lists Talmudic citations which show that the Jews considered each disability to be the result of specific sin; to be born blind was listed as the result of the mother committing adultery (hence their claim he was born in sin, <em><a href='B:500 9:34'>Joh 9:34</a></em>). This connects the incident with the previous chapter, as does the phrase “passed by” in <em><a href='B:500 8:59'>Joh 8:59</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:1'>Joh 9:1</a></em>. The Lord is consciously seeking to challenge the Jews’ false theology at the points in which it was devaluing to the human person- He wasn’t seeking theological controversy for the sake of it. See on <em><a href='B:500 9:6'>Joh 9:6</a></em>. Their question assumes that being born blind was an outcome of sin- their question was 'whose sin?'. As ever, the Lord attacks the terms of the question and lifts the issue far higher. He now dismantles the connection between sin and blindness.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:3'>Joh 9:3</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered: Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be revealed in him</em>-</p><p> The Lord isn't saying that they were not sinners, but that the issue of how a person got in the situation they were in wasn't the essential issue. We can learn a lesson from that, for so often, we like to focus on past behaviour as being so significant in present suffering. But the Lord urges us not to have that perspective, but rather to see the present suffering as an opportunity for God's works to be revealed within a person. "The works of God" is a phrase previously used in John's Gospel for miracles. The Lord is saying that the unleashing of power within the man was as great as the performance of any miracle, including healing from literal blindness. “<em>In</em>&nbsp;him”, rather than on or through him, suggests that the manifestation of God was to begin&nbsp;<em>within&nbsp;</em>the man, and the essential miracle was to be on his internal spiritual vision, through the work of the Spirit within him.</p><p>The Lord refused to get caught up in the philosophical questions about ‘Why suffering?’. Instead He saw the simple reality of human suffering as a call to do God’s work; the disciples like so many were caught up on the ‘fairness of suffering’ question to the extent that they didn’t perceive the extent of human need and try to do something about it.</p><p>“But that the works of God should be manifest in him, I must work..." (Gk:) would suggest that God has prepared potential ‘works’ but we must do them; if we don’t, they will not be done. This is perhaps the sense of <em><a href='B:500 9:4'>Joh 9:4</a></em> - we only have limited opportunity to do this, life is brief, the night comes when no man can work. If we don’t use those opportunities, they are gone forever, and the works God potentially enabled will not be performed. Yet time can be frittered away today as never before.</p><p>'Revealed or "manifested" within him' may mean that the whole drama of blindness and healing happened so that God's work could be revealed within the man's heart. In this sense the Lord manifested God's Name to His disciples (<em><a href='B:500 17:6'>Joh 17:6</a></em>), His life,&nbsp;<em>the&nbsp;</em>life, was manifested in the hearts of His followers (<em><a href='B:690 1:2'>1Jn 1:2</a></em>). All that happens physically, externally in our lives is so that internally we might perceive spiritual things.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:4'>Joh 9:4</a></em>&nbsp;<em>We must work-&nbsp;</em>We are lights in the dark world (<em><a href='B:470 5:14'>Mat 5:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:570 2:15'>Phi 2:15</a></em>), because we are in Christ, the light of the world (<em><a href='B:500 9:5'>Joh 9:5</a></em>). Notice how in the preceding verse, Jesus said spoke of how “I must work the works of him that sent me” (<em><a href='B:500 9:4'>Joh 9:4</a></em> AV), yet the RV reflects the manuscript difficulties by giving “We must work”. Could it be that the Lord said: ‘I must work, we you in me must work’? The Lord Jesus was the light of the world on account of His resurrection: “He first by the resurrection from the dead should proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles” (<em><a href='B:510 26:23'>Act 26:23</a></em> RV). If we are baptized into His death and resurrection, we too are the light of this world in that the light of His life breaks forth in us. And this is exactly why belief in His resurrection is an imperative to preach it. And it’s why the great commission flows straight out of the resurrection narrative.</p><p><em>The works of Him that sent me, while it is day. The night comes, when no one can work</em>-</p><p> In the prologue, the night is the darkness of Jewish unbelief, and the light is that of the person of the Lord Jesus and His life. The coming of the night therefore refers to the Lord's death, the temporary extinguishing of the light by the darkness. There would be no works / miracles doable then, so the Lord was keen to bring light to people whilst He could. And likewise people only had a very short frame of opportunity to be in the light. Perhaps the Lord was speaking in a kind of soliloquy when He mused that "the night comes, when no man can work", and therefore man should walk and work while he has the light (<em><a href='B:500 9:4'>Joh 9:4</a></em>, quoting <em><a href='B:250 9:10'>Ecc 9:10</a></em>). He was speaking, in the context, not only of His own zeal to 'work' while He had life, but also applying this to His followers.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:5'>Joh 9:5</a></em>&nbsp;<em>While I am in the world, I am the light of the world</em>-</p><p> The Jewish world only had the chance to see the light whilst the Lord was with them. His presence, His light, would continue for the believers in Him, but as the prologue puts it, the light shone briefly in darkness but they did not accept it. The Lord Jesus calls both Himself and us "the light of the world". He is "the light of the world" whenever we, who are in the world, are His light to people.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:6'>Joh 9:6</a></em>&nbsp;<em>When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spittle, and anointed his eyes with the clay</em>-</p><p>D:A. Carson’s commentary on John cites Talmudic evidence that there were specific regulations against ploughing (cp. rolling spittle in the dirt), kneading (the clay), anointing and curing on the Sabbath. In this case, the Lord was purposefully seeking to provoke issues with the Jews regarding their false theology- see on <em><a href='B:500 9:2'>Joh 9:2</a></em>. The paradox was that the man was made yet further blind in order to have his sight restored. Commentators note that putting saliva on weak eyes was common in the first century; the Lord's point was that&nbsp;<em>His</em>saliva, Him, His word, the word that was Him, His Spirit (for His words were His Spirit, <em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>) mixed with human flesh, the dust of humanity, could achieve permanent cure. The anointing with saliva was usually accompanied by some imprecation, cursing Satan or appealing to the gods. The Lord did none of that; instead, He mixed His saliva with the dust of humanity and there was permanent cure.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:7'>Joh 9:7</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And said to him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). He went away therefore and washed, and went home seeing</em>-</p><p> In John’s Gospel, the Lord Jesus is the one “sent” from God- He has just stated this in <em><a href='B:500 9:4'>Joh 9:4</a></em>. The Siloam pool therefore represented washing / baptism in Him, becoming the 'sent one' just as He was. The cure was not immediate; it required washing. This speaks of how baptism was to be the requirement for the giving of the Spirit, the new psychology, the new vision, the new worldview.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:8'>Joh 9:8</a></em>&nbsp;<em>His neighbours and those that had seen him previously, as a beggar, said: Is this not he that sat and begged?</em>-</p><p> He "went home" (:7) but perhaps he had not been home for a long time, hence the difficulty in recognizing him. "Neighbours" may well imply 'relatives'. His blindness had cut him off from his family, a situation made worse by all the myths about blindness being a punishment for sin. His cure therefore potentially enabled the re-establishment of relationships within his family, just as it can mean in lives today.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:9'>Joh 9:9</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 9:27'>Joh 9:27</a></em>.</p><p><em>Others said: It is he. Others said: No, but he is like him. He said: I am he</em>-</p><p> He repeated the “I am” used by Jesus in <em><a href='B:500 8:58'>Joh 8:58</a></em>, because God's Name was now being manifested in him. As Jesus was the light of the world, so should we be. His usage of "I am" is perhaps recorded intentionally, in order to demonstrate that usage of the term did not make a man God Himself, but rather spoke of the manifestation of God's Name through him. Trinitarian apologists need to accept this point more readily.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:10'>Joh 9:10</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They replied to him: How then were your eyes opened?</em>-</p><p> Perhaps they wondered whose saliva and with what incantation his eyes had been opened. They were clearly struggling to believe that such a miracle could have been done.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:11'>Joh 9:11</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He answered: The man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes, and said to me: Go to Siloam and wash. So I went away and washed, and I received sight</em>-</p><p> "The man" is yet another indication of the Lord's humanity. He was well known- He was a public figure in Jerusalem. He was known as "the man called Jesus"; He never gave any encouragement to see Him as anything other than a man, and certainly not as God. But consider how the healed blind man grew in his appreciation of the Lord: a man (<em><a href='B:500 9:11'>Joh 9:11</a></em>), a prophet (:17), the leader of disciples (:27), a man sent from God (:33), and finally, one to be worshipped as God is worshipped (:38). Because we've gone up one level in our appreciation of the Lord, don't think that we're there. Progressive growth in appreciation of Him should be true of us too. This experience of a growing appreciation of the Lord is in fact a foretaste of the Kingdom; for this will feature an everlasting growth in appreciation of the Lord's excellence (<em><a href='B:290 9:7'>Isa 9:7</a></em>). For us, that process has already begun. When Christ comes, we will say in that day "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us:&nbsp;<em>this is the Lord</em>; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation" (<em><a href='B:290 25:9'>Isa 25:9</a></em>). It doesn't mean we'll turn into Trinitarians. It means we will behold and marvel at the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ, to an extent hidden from mortal eyes:&nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:12'>Joh 9:12</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And they said to him: Where is he? He said: I do not know</em>-</p><p> The questions 'Who is He?' and 'Where is He?' are commonly provoked in John's Gospel. The first hearers of the Gospel were encouraged to see themselves as these unbelievers, asking these same questions, and coming to faith. We are invited to enter into the feelings of all present then- that the Lord was not physically present, but clearly He was somewhere, and had power and authority beyond the level of any human miracle worker or quack doctor.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:13'>Joh 9:13</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They took him that was previously blind to the Pharisees</em>-</p><p> "They took" may imply they marched him off, whether he wanted it or not. They considered the Pharisees as the judges of truth in these matters; the evidence before their eyes they didn't want to see nor judge. They, like many today, based their judgments upon what others thought.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:14'>Joh 9:14</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Now it was the Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes</em>-</p><p> The man's relatives and neighbours knew that the Pharisees would consider such healing to be working on the Sabbath. Even quack doctors were not allowed to work on the Sabbath, and they thought they had a great opportunity to get the Lord in trouble- One who had clearly done nothing but good to this man. No good deed goes unpunished, in our experience; and in those moments when we lament that fact, we find fellowship with our Lord's experiences.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:15'>Joh 9:15</a></em>&nbsp;<em>So the Pharisees asked him how he received his sight. And he said to them: He put clay upon my eyes, and I washed and I could see</em>-</p><p> Perhaps the man was at pains to point out that this was no quack doctor miracle involving putting saliva on weak eyes; because he actually had to wash to remove the Lord's saliva before he could see. The further shutting of his eyes with clay was to underscore the point that he had to become yet more blinded before he could properly see.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:16'>Joh 9:16</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore, some of the Pharisees said-&nbsp;</em>We notice it was only "some" of them who said this. Some Pharisees later believed and became Christians, and it is a theme of John that there was a significant sense amongst the Jews that the Lord was Messiah. His crucifixion was a result of the suppression of conscience, and of an embittered minority leading a majority to do the unthinkable, as so often happens in human societies.</p><p><em>This man is not from God, because he keeps not the Sabbath. But others said: How can a man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was division among them</em>-</p><p> This division amongst the Pharisees even at this stage, relatively near to the Lord's crucifixion, shows how His destruction was the result of a weak minded majority, overly sensitive to their image, being lead to do the unthinkably evil. For the Pharisees as a group numbered no more than 5000 throughout the Roman empire. And even they were divided about the Lord. In :18 the language of 'belief' is even credited to them; but they still crucified the Lord. And so often this sad scenario plays out amongst religious people; fear of image and possible corollaries leads a majority to do evil which they would not otherwise have done.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:17'>Joh 9:17</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore they said to the man born blind: What do you say concerning him, in that he opened your eyes? And he said: He is a prophet</em>-</p><p> The Gospel records are full of questions posed about the person and nature of the Lord Jesus. "What do you think about the Christ?... What do you think? Is He worthy of death?... What do you think... about the portrayal of the Father and son in various parables..." (<em><a href='B:470 21:28'>Mat 21:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 22:42'>Mat 22:42</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 26:66'>Mat 26:66</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 11:56'>Joh 11:56</a></em>). And we have another example here. In teaching his Gospel, John would have laboured these questions- 'What do&nbsp;<em>you</em>&nbsp;say concerning Him?'. It is hard for some of us to get a second naiveté and enter into the feelings of a secular person, or a Moslem or Buddhist, as they read the Gospels for the very first time. These questions are powerful, and they would have been powerful to the audiences to which the Gospel records were first read or recited.</p><p>"He is a prophet" was the response of the Samaritan woman (<em><a href='B:500 4:19'>Joh 4:19</a></em>). Miracles were understood as the validation of a prophet (<em><a href='B:500 6:14'>Joh 6:14</a></em>). There was no doubt the man considered that this miracle marked out the Lord as one sent from God. The Pharisees were seeking to elicit the answer "I think He is Messiah" so they could excommunicate him (:22). But the man didn't think that, at this stage. He had no knowledge about the Lord Jesus beyond the fact that He had done a miracle. We see here grace- that the Lord took the initiative to work in a man's life to bring him to faith, before the man had any faith or the knowledge upon which to base faith.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:18'>Joh 9:18</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews did not believe him, that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called his parents</em>-</p><p> The implication is that they did believe once they were satisfied that he had indeed been born blind. See on :16.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:19'>Joh 9:19</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And asked them: Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?</em>-</p><p> The implication was that the parents were lying. They asked the questions in a legal style, pressuring the parents to disown their son. This is so often the outcome of legalistic religion, when religious leaders have a point to make and have no thought for the collateral damage to human relationships caused by their obsession in proving someone else wrong.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:20'>Joh 9:20</a></em>&nbsp;<em>His parents answered and said: We know that this is our son and that he was born blind</em>-</p><p> We sense their nervousness in answering up before this kangaroo court. They feared more than anything the social exclusion which would come as a result of excommunication.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:21'>Joh 9:21</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But how he now sees, we do not know. Or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him He is of age. He shall speak for himself</em>-</p><p> The Jews considered that any over 13 years of age were "of age" to answer for themselves in such cases. Surely they had been present at his "home" when he first returned with the amazing information about "the man called Jesus" and how his eyes had been opened by saliva and washing. They surely were aware of this information, and likely believed it in their hearts. But unlike their son, they feared excommunication. They would not come out openly in confessing faith, or even in accepting the simple reality that the Lord had performed a miracle. This theme of open confession rather than secret acceptance is significant in John, for he was probably using his Gospel record to preach to other Jews who were likewise cowed by the synagogue system into not openly confessing their faith.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:22'>Joh 9:22</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 12:42'>Joh 12:42</a></em>.</p><p><em>These things said his parents, because they feared the Jews. For the Jews had agreed already, that if anyone should confess him to be Christ, he should be thrown out of the synagogue</em>-</p><p> The fear of excommunication has stymied so much spirituality and faith over the centuries. John's initial audience were facing the same problem. "The Jews had agreed already" on this policy, but it was only some of them who forced it through; see on :16 and :18. This policy was apparently dropped when thousands of Jews were baptized into Christ at Pentecost, and remained within the synagogue system. The Lord however predicted that the time would come when this policy would again be enforced, and His followers would be excommunicated from the synagogues (<em><a href='B:500 16:2'>Joh 16:2</a></em>). And so it happened. Hebrews was apparently written to the last remnants of the Christians in Jerusalem, the majority of whom had caved in and returned to Judaism because of this policy.</p><p>Excommunication from the synagogue meant total social isolation; such a person could not buy from or sell anything to another Jew. The language of the mark of the beast in <em><a href='B:730 13:17'>Rev 13:17</a></em> is virtually quoting from Jewish synagogue excommunication language. Whatever later applications the beast has, John saw it in terms of the evil system of Judaism, based upon Jerusalem, the city spiritually called Sodom and Egypt, persecuting the saints and having its total destruction in the events of AD70:&nbsp;</p><p>The "man born blind" in John 9 was an eloquent type of the believers: the unclean one had the spittle (word / spirit) of the Lord Jesus mixed with dust (flesh) and placed on his eyes. Then he had to go and baptize himself at Siloam, and then his blindness was lifted. It is stressed, really stressed (12 times in 32 verses) that the man was "blind"; as if to emphasize how totally blind we are before our "washing", and how blind the unsaved world is. The result was that the man was “put out of the synagogue” (<em><a href='B:500 9:22'>Joh 9:22</a></em>)- and the very same phrase is used about all the other first century Jewish believers (<em><a href='B:500 16:2'>Joh 16:2</a></em>). They were to go through exactly what he did. The Lord Jesus was well known for His many miracles of curing blind people (<em><a href='B:490 7:21-22'>Luk 7:21-22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:21'>Joh 10:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 11:37'>Joh 11:37</a></em>); it was as if he healed this affliction especially. All these miracles were surely acted parables of His work in saving men from the spiritual blindness of their earlier life. The figure of blindness being lifted is truly a powerful picture of what happened at our conversion. From then on, we began to see (i:e. understand) for the first time. We began to understand something properly for the first time. We were&nbsp;<em>blind</em>&nbsp;beforehand:&nbsp; Previously, all our 'knowledge' was just perception, passing through paradigms.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:23'>Joh 9:23</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Therefore his parents replied: He is of age, ask him</em>-</p><p> Despite knowing the facts about their son's healing and the association of "the man called Jesus" with it, they refused to openly testify to what they knew. Fear of religious excommunication has led many over the centuries to put religious acceptance by others far before truth and basic family relationships.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:24'>Joh 9:24</a></em>&nbsp;<em>So they questioned the man that was born blind a second time, and said to him: Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner</em>-</p><p> The demand to “Give God the glory” was an admonition to repent and tell the truth (<em><a href='B:60 7:19'>Jos 7:19</a></em>). But the man refused to take false guilt, piled onto him by his religious elders. There is true guilt, the guilt we should feel for actual sin; and false guilt, which is placed upon us by others. The man refused to take this, as we should. To receive grace is no crime.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:25'>Joh 9:25</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He answered: Whether he is a sinner, I do not know. One thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see</em>-</p><p> We see here how little the man knew about the Lord. Yet the Lord worked in his life to bring him to faith, before he believed. This is grace itself. It also puts a stop to all Pentecostal claims that faith is required before miracles can happen. The Lord's cures were by the power of the Spirit, and were not some form of faith healing, which requires the healed person to focus their minds in faith.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:26'>Joh 9:26</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They replied to him: What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?</em>-</p><p> Playing the role of prosecutors, they asked him the same questions, hoping his answers would contradict themselves. But truth was on the man's side and his account was consistent. He refused to be brow beaten by them, unlike his parents.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:27'>Joh 9:27</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He answered them: I told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Would you also become his disciples?</em>-</p><p> His styled was copied by the Lord Jesus- <em><a href='B:500 10:25'>Joh 10:25</a></em>. As Jesus was the “I am”, so this man too manifested God and uses the same phrase&nbsp;<em>ego eimi,&nbsp;</em><em><a href='B:500 9:9'>Joh 9:9</a></em>. They would have considered his attitude to be some form of contempt of court. He rightly perceived that they had been told the truth but did not 'hear' it. He is unconsciously repeating the Lord's own comment that they could not understand His speech because they did not hear His word (<em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>). We can only respect the man; for he appeals to them to "become His disciples". If they would wish to become disciples, then he would repeat his testimony. But he wouldn't waste his breath for any other reason. As noted on :17, these questions are recorded in the way they are because they are the questions a person is being asked as they first hear the Gospel of Jesus. 'Will&nbsp;<em>you</em>&nbsp;also be His disciple?'.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:28'>Joh 9:28</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And they reviled him and said: You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses</em>-</p><p> The man could hardly be described as a disciple of the Lord as he knew so little about Him. And yet his challenge to them to become the Lord's disciples (:27) was understandably read by them as meaning that he was a disciple of the Lord. Just as 'belief' is credited to people in John's Gospel when they still have major problems in their faith, so this man is presented as a disciple when he knew hardly anything. It was by their questioning of him that he came to articulate his own understanding and faith.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:29'>Joh 9:29</a></em>&nbsp;<em>We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know from where he came</em>-</p><p> Yet they were claiming that nobody would know from where Messiah came; their position here flatly contradicts the statement in <em><a href='B:500 7:27'>Joh 7:27</a></em>: "However we know from where this man is; but when the Christ comes, no one knows from where he is". The sensitive reader is left to perceive this; neither the Lord, nor John the narrator, makes big capital of this glaring contradiction in their position. That is not the way of the Spirit, and it will not be fruitful for us to use this style either- even though religious debate is full of this kind of thing.</p><p>Guilt by association is deeply ingrained in the human psyche- it's one of the most obstinate parts of our nature with which we have to do battle. We tend to assume that people are like those with whom they associate. The association of God's Son with us just shows how totally untrue that assumption is- and He went out of His way to turn it on its head by associating with whores and gamblers. You can see an example of the guilt by association mentality in the incident of the healed blind man here. The Jews accused Jesus of being illegitimate- they mocked the former blind man about his healer: "as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is" (<em><a href='B:500 9:29'>Joh 9:29</a></em>). When the healed man stands up for Jesus, the Jews get really mad with him: "You were completely born in sin"- i:e. 'you're illegitimate' (<em><a href='B:500 9:34'>Joh 9:34</a></em>). But the record reveals that the Jews knew the man's parents and had just spoken with them (<em><a href='B:500 9:20'>Joh 9:20</a></em>). Clearly the mentality of these learned men was: 'You follow a bastard; so,&nbsp;<em>you</em>&nbsp;are a bastard'. Simple as that.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:30'>Joh 9:30</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The man answered and said to them: This is the marvel You do not know from where he came, even though he opened my eyes</em>-</p><p> The man may be alluding to their position that none would know from whence Messiah comes (<em><a href='B:500 7:27'>Joh 7:27</a></em>). But his reasoning was that since they accepted a miracle had been done, why then did they not perceive that this man was from God? Even Nicodemus thought as much, although he would not at that time confess it (<em><a href='B:500 3:2'>Joh 3:2</a></em>). The years of blindness had not been wasted on this man. He had thought things through and displays a fine command of logic and spiritual insight, although he knew nothing of the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:31'>Joh 9:31</a></em>&nbsp;<em>We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone be a worshiper of God and does His will, him He hears</em>-</p><p> Paul Tournier in&nbsp;<em>The Meaning Of Persons</em>&nbsp;perceptively comments: “We become fully conscious only of what we are able to express to someone else. We may already have had a certain intuition about it, but it must remain vague so long as it is unformulated”. This is why anyone involved in preaching, public speaking, writing or personal explanation of the Gospel to someone else will know that&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;have gained so much from having to state in so many words what they already ‘know’. And in the course of making the expression, our own understanding is deepened, our personal consciousness of what we believe is strengthened, and thereby our potential for a real faith is enhanced. Tournier’s observation is validated by considering the record of the healed blind man in John 9. Initially he says that he doesn’t know whether or not Jesus is a sinner, all he knows is that Jesus healed him. But the Jews force him to testify further, and in the course of his witness, the man explains to them that God doesn’t hear sinners, and so for Jesus to have asked God for his healing and been heard… surely proved that Jesus wasn’t a sinner. He was sinless. The man was as it were thinking out loud, coming to conclusions himself, as he made his bold witness (<em><a href='B:500 9:31'>Joh 9:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:33'>Joh 9:33</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:32'>Joh 9:32</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Since the world began it has never been heard of a man born blind having his eyes opened</em>-</p><p> There are no O:T. accounts of a born blind person being healed; this was specifically the work of God (<em><a href='B:230 146:8'>Psa 146:8</a></em>) and His Messiah (<em><a href='B:290 35:5'>Isa 35:5</a></em>). The healed man seems to have been aware of this and therefore came to the conclusion that his healer must be Messiah. It wasn’t that he believed and therefore was given the benefit of healing; by grace, God first of all healed him and this grace, reflected on and believed, led him to faith in Christ. The man was coming to see that his healing, of a man born blind, was an indication that the Kingdom of God was breaking in amongst men.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:33'>Joh 9:33</a></em>&nbsp;<em>If this man were not from God, he could do nothing</em>-</p><p> Truth is arrived at by different paths. The Lord had clearly stated that He could "do nothing" apart from the fact He was empowered by the Father (<em><a href='B:500 5:30'>Joh 5:30</a></em>). The man arrived by reflection at the very positions which the Lord had Himself taught, although it seems he had never heard the Lord's teaching. Or perhaps he had heard some garbled versions of the Lord's message, and now he was joining the dots and all was making perfect sense.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:34'>Joh 9:34</a></em>&nbsp;<em>They answered and said to him: You were altogether born in sins, and you teach us And they excommunicated him</em>-</p><p> By saying he was born in sin, they were admitting that he had indeed been born blind- for they believed blindness was a result of the mother’s sin (see on <em><a href='B:500 9:2'>Joh 9:2</a></em>). Yet they had refused to believe that he had been born blind (<em><a href='B:500 9:18'>Joh 9:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:20'>Joh 9:20</a></em>). Thus the Lord worked to even move them onwards in their faith; He gave up on nobody (cp. His efforts to witness to the priests by asking the cleansed leper to offer a sacrifice for cleansing). They had insinuated that the Lord was illegitimate because His family origins were unclear, and their 'guilt by association' mindset led them to assume that as the Lord was, so was anyone who openly stood up for Him. We can make this same basic human psychological error so easily, especially when it comes to religious issues. They excommunicated for believing Jesus was the Messiah (:22). The man did not believe that, but they took his criticism of them as meaning he did. Their logic is continually exposed as false- to those who join the dots. The contradictions are not explicitly exposed. They claimed he was illegitimate, when his parents had just given sober legal testimony that he was their legitimate son. But the way of the Spirit is not to make capital out of the contradictions in others' positions. Such contradictions are left to work on the conscience.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:35'>Joh 9:35</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus heard that they had excommunicated him; and on finding him, he said: Do you believe on the Son of God?</em>-</p><p> Perhaps the Lord wondered whether the man's logical and spiritual process had led him to conclude that "the man called Jesus" was in fact Son of God. As noted on :17 and :27, John's Gospel is full of questions which would have jumped out at the initial hearers- 'Do&nbsp;<em>you</em>&nbsp;believe on the Son of God?'. The man is clearly set up as representative of all who would afterwards believe. John's Gospel was written, and the "signs" such as the healing of the blind man were recorded, so that others would make this very same confession of faith in the Son of God (<em><a href='B:500 20:31'>Joh 20:31</a></em>). John urges his converts to continue their 'belief in the Son of God' (<em><a href='B:690 5:13'>1Jn 5:13</a></em>). Surely he is alluding to this man as the prototype of all the Christian converts.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:36'>Joh 9:36</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He answered and said: Who is he, Lord, that I may believe in him?</em>-</p><p> When the blind man asks Jesus to tell him who the Son of God is, I don't think it was because he didn't recognize Jesus to be Messiah. He was surely saying 'Tell me more about Him / you, that I may believe properly' (<em><a href='B:500 9:36'>Joh 9:36</a></em>). The Lord Jesus didn't give a doctrinal exposition. But instead He just tells the man to keep looking at Him and hearing Him. And in the next chapter, the Lord says that His sayings and His works are the same thing (<em><a href='B:500 10:32-33'>Joh 10:32-33</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:38'>Joh 10:38</a></em>)- whereas the Jews kept making a distinction between them. They said that His words, not His works, were the problem. His works, they said, were OK. But not His words. And Jesus tells them to "<em>believe&nbsp;</em>the works" - for they are His words to men. Thus the Lord showed that His actions were His words made flesh.</p><p>The blind man asked about Jesus: “Who is he, that I may believe on him?”. True belief depends upon having the true image of Jesus. The goal of conversion to Him is love from a pure heart (<em><a href='B:670 1:22'>1Pe 1:22</a></em>). To know Him properly leads to love within us. <em><a href='B:690 3:22'>1Jn 3:22</a></em> brackets together believing in His Name and loving one another. Again and again we say: images and understanding of Jesus matter.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:37'>Joh 9:37</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to him: You have both seen him, and he it is that speaks with you</em>-</p><p> 'Seeing' in John means 'understanding in faith'. The Lord is saying that the man has indeed figured things out correctly. In literal terms, the man had to be first given the gift of sight in order to see the Lord. And there was a spiritual equivalent. There is an element of calling, of enlightenment by the Spirit (<em><a href='B:560 1:18'>Eph 1:18</a></em>); so that within the final algorithm of human salvation, there is the factor of God's grace. This is why Paul starts talking about predestination and calling in Romans; they are parade examples of how salvation is by grace and not of works nor of human tenacity or correctness of Biblical interpretation. These things are not outside of the algorithm, but they are not the only factors, lest salvation be of works and human ability.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:38'>Joh 9:38</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And he said: Lord, I believe. And he worshiped him</em>-</p><p> This is a climactic moment. The once blind man realizes that this man standing before him is in fact God's Son. These are the very words of the man of <em><a href='B:480 9:24'>Mar 9:24</a></em>, of Martha in Jn. 1127 and effectively of Thomas in <em><a href='B:500 20:25'>Joh 20:25</a></em>. The whole incident is definitely set up to present the man as a prototype of all who come to faith in the Lord. The significance of the man's confession is that it was made in the presence of the Pharisees (:40); he openly confessed his faith before the Jewish world, which again was intended to be a pattern for all.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:39'>Joh 9:39</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And Jesus said: For judgment I came into this world, that they that cannot see may see, and that they that see may become blind</em>-</p><p> Remember the Lord had cured the man by first making him more blind. His judgment of the world, in blinding them, was still done in the hope that they would come to sight. Saul's blindness leading to his conversion and washing in baptism was surely allusive to the Lord's teaching here. Receiving sight was a result of judgment. The man was made to realize that his blindness was symbolic of judgment for sin, although the Lord had no interest in the history of or guilt for that sin. It was through that judgment that the man came to see.</p><p>"They that see" may require an ellipsis to be read in, to the effect 'those who think that they see'. Or the Lord may be alluding to the way that on one level, they did 'see' that He was from God, but because they had refused to follow the Spirit's leading, they were blinded so that they could not further perceive Him.</p><p>The Lord's very existence among men was their judgment- for judgment He came into this world, the light of His moral excellence blinded the immoral (this is again alluding to the prologue's description of the Lord as light). Bright light shows up every shadow. Whenever men were in Christ's presence, they were judged. The very presence of His light amongst men was their condemnation (<em><a href='B:500 3:19'>Joh 3:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:27'>Joh 5:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:31'>Joh 12:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:8'>Joh 16:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:11'>Joh 16:11</a></em>). In this sense He could say that for judgment He came into this world (<em><a href='B:500 9:39'>Joh 9:39</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:40'>Joh 9:40</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Those of the Pharisees who were with him heard these things, and said to him: Are we also blind?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :39, they considered that they 'saw' and were not spiritually blind. The Lord had said that they were blinded- not from birth, but blinded by Him, as a result of the process of refusing to believe what on one level they had 'seen'. They sensed they were the ones being referred to as blind- and yet they considered themselves the most spiritually perceptive in Israel.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 9:41'>Joh 9:41</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to them: If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say: We see, therefore your sin remains</em>-</p><p>There was a difference between being born blind, and being blinded. The Lord has said that they were in the category of those who had been blinded, because they had seen but not believed (:39). It was because they refused to accept this that their sin remained. The implication was that being cured of blindness, receiving spiritual sight, meant forgiveness of sin; but blindness meant that sin remained. It is only by walking in the light of the Lord Jesus, with the eyes of the Spirit, that sin no longer remains in our lives. John develops this point in his later pastoral appeals to his converts to not remain in sin if they were really in the light. Living in the light of His presence and with His life ever before us as our life... means that we will not remain in sin. Blindness in the sense of genuine ignorance is not therefore reckoned as sin by the Lord. It is refusal to 'see' what we have 'seen' that makes us culpable for sin; it is this kind of blindness that is associated with condemnation (<em><a href='B:680 1:9'>2Pe 1:9</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:1'>Joh 10:1</a></em> -see on <em><a href='B:480 13:34'>Mar 13:34</a></em>.</p><p><em>Truly, truly, I say to you: He that enters not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber</em>-</p><p> The good shepherd searches for the sheep until He finds it. John 10 is full of reference to Ezekiel 34, which describes God’s people as perishing on the mountains, eaten by wolves. But the Lord Jesus set Himself to do that which was impossible- to search&nbsp;<em>until He found</em>, even though He knew that some were already lost. Our attitude to those lost from the ecclesia and to those yet out in the world must be similar. The material in John 10 follows straight on from the incident in chapter 9, where the Lord had sought out the healed blind man and brought him into the fold, in the teeth of the terrible behaviour from Israel's false shepherds.</p><p>The Lord will go on to define Himself as the only door into the fold. He is speaking in the context of the healed blind man being excommunicated from the synagogue in <em><a href='B:500 9:34'>Joh 9:34</a></em> and the threat of excommunication for any who believed in Him in <em><a href='B:500 9:22'>Joh 9:22</a></em>. This was a major issue at the time and also for the communities to whom John was preaching his Gospel.</p><p>The Lord is saying that He is the only way into the fold, and therefore the threats of excommunication are irrelevant; especially as they were made by unbelievers in Him, who were only apparently within the fold by illegitimate means. This is all comfort to those who are excommunicated for whatever reason. So many lose their faith or spirituality because of it, but the Lord is saying that the definition of who is within the fold is not in the hands of the men who practice this evil. For He is the door, and whoever enters by Him shall be saved and is within the fold. Those who excommunicate have not really known the spirit of Christ, and so their claims to authority are illegitimate. They were thieves and robbers- in that the Jewish leadership were covetous and were using religion as a source of money. Elsewhere the Lord speaks of "the thief" coming to rob the master's household (<em><a href='B:470 24:43'>Mat 24:43</a></em>) and in the first instance He may have had in view the Jewish attempt to take over the Christian movement. He had labelled the temple "a den of thieves" (<em><a href='B:470 21:13'>Mat 21:13</a></em>). And Israel chose a robber rather than the Lord Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 18:40'>Joh 18:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:38'>Mat 27:38</a></em>). The "thieves" who robbed the man in the Samaritan parable may well refer to this same category of Jewish religious leaders (<em><a href='B:490 10:30'>Luk 10:30</a></em>).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:2'>Joh 10:2</a></em>&nbsp;<em>But he that enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep</em>-</p><p> The Lord was both the door and the shepherd. But the context in chapter 9 is of people the parents of the blind man being so fearful of the religious leaders. The Lord is perhaps saying that any spiritual shepherd will have entered the fold through the door, which is Him. Only those who have become in Christ are shepherds; the Jewish converts need not fear nor respect any others who claimed to be shepherds, and that included the entire Jewish religious leadership at that time.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:3'>Joh 10:3</a></em>&nbsp;<em>To him the gatekeeper opens the gate, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his sheep by name and leads them out-&nbsp;</em>As noted on :2, the Lord is speaking in the context of the excommunication of the blind man by the Jewish religious leaders. He is teaching that the only legitimate shepherds in God's flock are those who have passed through Him, the door. "The gatekeeper" may be another reference to the Lord; He is the One who allows the legitimate shepherd access to the flock. They need not therefore fear excommunication, because those practicing it were not legitimate shepherds, and instead were the incarnations of the false shepherds of Israel which the Old Testament condemns. But we could also understand the gatekeeper as representing John the Baptist, who responded to the voice of the Lord Jesus (<em><a href='B:500 3:29'>Joh 3:29</a></em>), and who opened the way for the flock to enter through the Christ-door into the new fold.</p><p>The sheep hear the voice of the shepherd, whereas the Jewish leadership had shown many times over that they did not understand the Lord's speech because they did not hear His word (<em><a href='B:500 8:43'>Joh 8:43</a></em>); they were continually misunderstanding His language. The events and dialogues of chapter 9 were proof enough of this; the flock should not therefore respect the voices of these men, seeing they did not hear the Lord's voice. Indeed, the Lord considered that the flock of Israel at that time were without any shepherds apart from Himself (<em><a href='B:470 9:36'>Mat 9:36</a></em>):&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord knows each of His sheep and has given us a unique name. This is a picture of the very personal relationship between the Lord and each of His sheep. We hear His voice in different ways, for He speaks with a different intonation to each of us. This is not to say that false teaching is not false teaching; but all the same, each sheep has a different, although not contradictory, nuance of understanding the Lord's voice. The idea of being known by name recalls Yahweh's statement to Moses, that He knew him by name (<em><a href='B:20 33:12'>Exo 33:12</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 33:17'>Exo 33:17</a></em>). The Lord is encouraging the flock that each of them could have no less an intimate relationship with the Father and Son as Moses had. No longer should they see Moses as some unreachable climax of spirituality; they could all reach that level of intimacy, through the Lord's work and word.</p><p>If we respond to the Lord's voice, then we are 'led out' by Him; a word used of Israel's being led out of Egypt and through the wilderness. But the word is also used of the leading by the hand of the blind man in <em><a href='B:480 8:23'>Mar 8:23</a></em>, and I have shown that this teaching in chapter 10 is clearly developing the themes of chapter 9 where a blind man was cured. The leading of the sheep is by the Lord's voice. The place of His word can never be underrated.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:4'>Joh 10:4</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:470 16:22-25'>Mat 16:22-25</a></em>.</p><p><em>When he brings out all his sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice</em>-</p><p> The personal knowledge of every sheep (:3) is stressed again by the "all". The connections continue with the preceding chapter, as "brings out" translates the same Greek word translated "excommunicate" in <em><a href='B:500 9:34-35'>Joh 9:34-35</a></em>. Unlike the false shepherds, the Lord doesn't drive out as punishment and leave the sheep alone. He leads His sheep out by going before them, and not by driving from behind or scaring them with sheepdogs. The image of the Lord going ahead with the disciples following Him connects with the idea of the Lord carrying His cross and bidding us follow Him on that last walk. John's Gospel concludes with the disciples following the Lord Jesus, focused upon Him solely. And the same image is used when He says that after His resurrection, He would "go before them into Galilee" (<em><a href='B:470 26:32'>Mat 26:32</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 28:7'>Mat 28:7</a></em>).</p><p>John’s record stresses that the key to following Jesus to the cross is to hear His word, which beckons us onwards (<em><a href='B:500 10:4'>Joh 10:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:27'>Joh 10:27</a></em>). All our Bible study must lead us onwards in the life of self-sacrifice. The Lord Jesus “<em>putteth forth&nbsp;</em>his own sheep by name” (<em><a href='B:500 10:4'>Joh 10:4</a></em>); the same word is used by Him in <em><a href='B:490 10:2'>Luk 10:2</a></em> concerning how He&nbsp;<em>sends forth</em>&nbsp;workers to reap converts in preaching. Each of those He calls has a unique opportunity “by name” to gather others to Him.</p><p>The idea of ‘following’ Jesus is invariably associated with the carrying of the cross. Why do this? Because of the voice / word of Jesus, of who He is, of His Spirit. This must be the ultimate end of our Bible study; a picking up of the cross. For there we see God’s words made flesh.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:5'>Joh 10:5</a></em>&nbsp;<em>A stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him. For they do not know the voice of strangers</em>-</p><p> This is again an appeal to the intuitive sense within those who are of the Spirit; they instinctively discern those whose voice is not of God. The Lord puts it another way in <em><a href='B:500 7:17'>Joh 7:17</a></em>, where see note there He explained that whoever has a heart for God's will can intuitively sense true and false teaching.</p><p>Remember that it was in full knowledge of the disciples' impending collapse of faith and feeling from Him, that the grace of Jesus confidently spoke of how His men would not follow "a stranger... but will flee from him". But the disciples fled from their Lord in Gethsemane, as He knew they would (from <em><a href='B:450 13:7'>Zec 13:7</a></em>, cp. <em><a href='B:470 26:31'>Mat 26:31</a></em>) at the time He said those words. He knew that He must die for the sheep who would scatter each one to His own way (<em><a href='B:290 53:6'>Isa 53:6</a></em>). "The time comes... when you shall be scattered, every man to his own" (<em><a href='B:500 16:32'>Joh 16:32</a></em>); and true enough, they all fled from Him (<em><a href='B:470 26:56'>Mat 26:56</a></em>). But in John 10 He spoke of His followers as calm, obedient sheep who would not scatter if they had a good shepherd (<em><a href='B:500 10:12'>Joh 10:12</a></em>); even though He knew they would. The Lord's way of imputing such righteousness to His followers seems to be brought out in <em><a href='B:500 10:4'>Joh 10:4</a></em> cp. 6: "The sheep follow Him: for they know (understand, appreciate) His voice... this parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things&nbsp;they were which he spake", i:e. they didn't know His voice. &nbsp;</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:6'>Joh 10:6</a></em>&nbsp;<em>This parable spoke Jesus to them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them</em>-</p><p> This 'not understanding' seems an exemplification of His words in :5 that the true sheep will not follow the voice of strangers; and likewise, those who were not the Lord's sheep would not understand His voice. However, there is a purposeful ambiguity about who it was who "did not understand"; for that comment is often made about the disciples. As noted on :5, they did in fact "flee" from the Lord Jesus instead of remaining faithful to Him. Even although they did not understand His voice as they should have done, still He counted them as His sheep. This was grace itself.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:7'>Joh 10:7</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus then said to them: Again, truly, truly, I say to you: I am the door of the sheepfold</em>-</p><p> The statement in :23 that the Lord was teaching in Solomon's Porch appears to apply to all the material in this chapter; for the same themes of sheep and folds continue seamlessly. The ideas of a "fold" and that of the "courts" of the temple are very similar. Solomon's Porch was as a colonnade area that ran along the east side of the court of the Gentiles. There was a sign warning that any Gentile going further into the temple court was liable to death. The Lord surely alludes to these courts as He was standing right next to them- teaching that being in Him was the only source of entry into the fold / court, and that He was creating only one court / fold. The various courts, of the women, of the Gentiles etc. were to all be merged into the one fold / court, into which He alone gave exclusive access.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:8'>Joh 10:8</a></em>&nbsp;<em>All that came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them</em>-</p><p> Messiah was "he that comes", the 'coming one'. These others who 'came before Me' could refer to false Messiahs. It was their teaching which meant they did not persuade the sheep to follow them; and again the Lord appeals to an intuitive sense that the sheep have as to whose is the true voice. And He clearly locates the motives for these false Messiahs and teachers as being materialistic- "thieves and robbers". The false teachers as mentioned both in the Gospels and epistles were teaching as they did for money or personal gain.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:9'>Joh 10:9</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I am the door. By me if anyone enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture</em>-</p><p> The going in and out is hard to interpret. I suggested on :8 that the Lord was standing near the divide between the court of the Gentiles and the further courts; He was alluding to them in His talk about creating one fold, and He being the door of entry into the fold / court. I suggest this is the best understanding of going in and out freely- no longer passing a sign threatening death for going further, if you were a woman or a Gentile. No longer going out, looking at the excluded ones in another court, feeling more righteous than them by reason of ethnicity or gender. But going out and in is also a Hebraism for leadership. Moses sought for a prophet / successor like unto him, who would lead out and bring in the sheep of Israel (<em><a href='B:40 27:17'>Num 27:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:40 27:21'>Num 27:21</a></em>). The descriptions of the good shepherd not losing any sheep (<em><a href='B:500 10:28'>Joh 10:28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:12'>Joh 17:12</a></em>) perhaps allude to the well-known Jewish stories about Moses being such a good shepherd that he never lost a sheep. So the idea may be that true shepherds of the new flock would be believers in Christ, the door, and only through Him would enter in and lead the flock. For the Lord is emphasizing the danger of false shepherds, of the kind who had excommunicated the blind man, the sheep, of chapter 9.</p><p><em><a href='B:20 38:18'>Exo 38:18</a></em> describes the curtain over the door of the tabernacle in similar language to how the veil hiding the Most Holy is described. The Lord Jesus is the door of the tabernacle through which we enter at our conversion. By doing so we also enter, in prospect, through the veil into the Most Holy of eternity and Divine nature.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:10'>Joh 10:10</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The thief only comes so that he may steal and kill and destroy-&nbsp;</em>Again the Lord is stating that the motive of the false shepherds was solely materialistic. And because of that, they ended up spiritually destroying the flock. The allusions are clearly to Ezekiel 34 and the condemnation of Israel's greedy, destructive shepherds.</p><p><em>I came that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly</em>-</p><p> The life more abundant refers to the gift of the Spirit, the gift of His life lived in us, whereby we have His presence. Belief on the Son means that we "have everlasting life" right now (<em><a href='B:500 3:36'>Joh 3:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 5:24'>Joh 5:24</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:47'>Joh 6:47</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:54'>Joh 6:54</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 5:12-13'>1Jn 5:12-13</a></em>). And that life shall eternally endure; it is the kind of life we shall eternally live in the Kingdom. Yet the gift of this life was made available by the Lord's death. It was the smitten rock that gave abundant, springing life. “I am come" seems to refer to His ‘coming down’ on the cross, as if it were already happening. Think for a moment of&nbsp;<em>how</em>&nbsp;the death of a man on a stake, 2000 years ago, on a day in April, on a Friday afternoon, irritated by flies and barking dogs... could actually give us life “more abundantly”? What was the process, what&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;the process, going on here? What’s the connection between that dying man, and a transformed life in you and me today in the 21st century? Surely the connecting power is that the spirit / disposition of the Lord there and then has an inevitable, transforming influence upon those of us who believe in Him; the super-abounding grace and generosity of spirit that was in Him there, which was epitomized in the hours of public, naked exhibition... can’t fail to move our spirits to be likewise. Paul speaks of this when He says that God does for us exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think, by the spirit / power&nbsp;/ disposition that works in is (<em><a href='B:560 3:20'>Eph 3:20</a></em>). That power, that spirit, is surely that of the crucifixion of Christ. For we cannot be passive to it, if we really ‘get it’. It is a power that “works in us”. See on <em><a href='B:540 8:7'>2Co 8:7</a></em>.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:11'>Joh 10:11</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 13:36-38'>Joh 13:36-38</a></em>.</p><p><em>I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep</em>-</p><p> It was through His death that the abundant life was created for the sheep; see on :10. Moses was a shepherd for 40 years, and then for 40 years he put this into practice by leading Israel as God's shepherd for 40 years in the same wilderness (<em><a href='B:40 27:17'>Num 27:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 80:1'>Psa 80:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 63:11'>Isa 63:11</a></em>). As Moses was willing to sacrifice his eternal life for the salvation of the sheep of Israel (<em><a href='B:20 32:30-32'>Exo 32:30-32</a></em>), so the Lord gave His life for us. John's Gospel normally shows the supremacy of Christ over Moses. In this connection of them both being shepherds willing to die for the flock, Moses is not framed as being inferior to Christ- in that in his desire to die for Israel, he truly reached the fullness of the spirit of Christ. "The good shepherd" may well have been a Rabbinical title for Moses; the Lord therefore was saying “I am Moses, in his love for your salvation; not better than him, but exactly like him in this". In a sense, Moses' prayer was heard, in that he was excluded from the land&nbsp;<em>for their sakes</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:50 1:37'>Deu 1:37</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 3:26'>Deu 3:26</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 4:21'>Deu 4:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 106:33'>Psa 106:33</a></em>); they entered after his death. This was to symbolise how the spirit of his love for Israel was typical of the Lord's for us. The Lord Jesus likewise died the death of a sinner; He was "forsaken" in the sense that God forsakes sinners, whilst as God's Son He was never forsaken by the Father.</p><p>The Lord's life was laid down on the cross, and yet in another sense He was laying it down in the process of His mortal life, in which He gave His life to us. Yet in the shepherd metaphor, He laid His life down for the salvation of the sheep from danger. He was temporarily slain by the wolf seeking to attack them; and He was slain by the Jews. They were the wolves attacking the flock just as Paul foresaw the Judaist attacks on the fledgling ecclesia as being the attacks of wolves upon sheep.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:12'>Joh 10:12</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them</em>-</p><p> The disciples were indeed scattered when the shepherd, the Lord Jesus, was smitten. The analogy suggests that He died fighting for their protection. He temporarily died and they were scattered by the wolf of Jewish persecution. But His resurrection led to a gathering together of all His true people, in the face of the wolf's persecution. This general picture is developed in John's later writing, Revelation, where the beasts persecute the sheep; and whatever later application that has, the initial application was to Jewish persecution in the first century.</p><p>All this implies that the Lord, the good shepherd, saw the wolf coming. He didn't flee, but fought with this ferocious beast until the death. He says that if He had not done this, the sheep would be scattered. The struggle between Christ and the devil / flesh was therefore at its most intense on the cross, in His time of dying. The cross was not only a continuation of His struggle with the (Biblical) devil. It was an especially intensified struggle; and the Lord foresaw this fight coming. There is an element of unreality in this story that serves to make two powerful points. Firstly, no normal shepherd would give his life in protecting his sheep. The near fanaticism of this shepherd is also found in <em><a href='B:370 8:4'>Amo 8:4</a></em>, which describes the Lord as taking out of the mouth of the lion the legs or piece of ear which remains of the slain sheep; such is the shepherd's desperate love for the animal that now is not. The love of Christ for us on the cross, the intensity and passion of it, is quite outside any human experience. Hence the command to copy His love is a new commandment. And secondly, wolves don't normally act in the way the story says. They will only fight like this when they are cornered, and they aren't&nbsp;<em>so</em>&nbsp;vicious. But the point the Lord is making is crucial to us: the devil, the power of sin in our natures as manifest in the Jews, was far more powerful than they thought, and the struggle against it on the cross was far harder than we would think. And there's a more tragic point. In the short term, the sheep&nbsp;<em>were</em>&nbsp;scattered by the wolf, even though Christ died so this wouldn't happen. And Christ knew in advance that this would happen (<em><a href='B:290 53:6'>Isa 53:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 14:27'>Mar 14:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:32'>Joh 16:32</a></em>). The Lord faced His final agony with the knowledge that in the short term, what He was dying in order to stop (i:e. the scattering of the sheep) wouldn't work. The sheep would still be scattered, and He knew that throughout the history of His church they would still keep wandering off and getting lost (according to <em><a href='B:490 15:3-6'>Luk 15:3-6</a></em>). Yet He died for us from the motive of ultimately saving us from the effect of doing this. He had clearly thought through the sheep / shepherd symbolism. Unity and holding on to the faith were therefore what He died to achieve (cp. <em><a href='B:500 17:21-23'>Joh 17:21-23</a></em>); our disunity and apostasy, each turning to his own, is a denial of the Lord's sufferings. And this is why it causes Him such pain. Not only is the shepherd unreal. The sheep are, too- once we perceive the link back to <em><a href='B:330 34:17-22'>Eze 34:17-22</a></em>. They tread down the good pasture so others can't eat from it; having drunk clean water themselves, they make the rest of the water dirty by putting their feet in it; and the stronger sheep attack the weaker ones. This isn't how sheep usually behave But these sheep are unusually badly behaved. And they are symbols of us, for whom this unusual shepherd gave His life. See on <em><a href='B:490 15:5'>Luk 15:5</a></em>.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:13'>Joh 10:13</a></em>&nbsp;<em>He flees because he is a hired hand and does not care about the sheep</em>-</p><p> Again the Lord is saying that the Jewish shepherds were motivated solely by money, their "hire". There may be here an allusion to Judas, who "did not care for the poor" (s:w:, <em><a href='B:500 12:6'>Joh 12:6</a></em>).</p><p>The Gospel writers three times bring out the point that people perceived that the Lord Jesus didn't "care" for people. The disciples in the boat thought that He didn't care if they perished (<em><a href='B:480 4:38'>Mar 4:38</a></em>); Martha thought He didn't care that she was left in an impossible domestic situation, doubtless assuming He was a mere victim of common male insensitivity to women (<em><a href='B:490 10:40'>Luk 10:40</a></em>); and twice it is recorded that the people generally had the impression that He cared for nobody (<em><a href='B:470 22:16'>Mat 22:16</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 12:14'>Mar 12:14</a></em>). And yet the Lord uses the very same word here to speak of the hired shepherd who cares not for the sheep- whereas He as the good shepherd cares for them so much that He dies for them. I find this&nbsp;<em>so</em>&nbsp;tragic- that the most caring, self-sacrificial person of all time wasn't perceived as that, wasn't credited for it all. The disciples surely wrote the Gospels with shame over this matter. It points up the loneliness of the Lord's agonizing last hours. And yet it provides comfort for all unappreciated caregivers, as spouses, parents, children, servants of the ecclesia... in their suffering they are sharing something of the Lord's agony. The Lord's "care" for the sheep led Him to lay down His life for them; but&nbsp;people thought that He did not "care" for His sheep. Each time the Lord heard this accusation, He must have reflected that actually He cared so much for them that He was laying down His life. Love unperceived is one of the hardest things to live with, and discourages many from abiding in the life of love. In those moments of discouragement we can remember the Lord, whose love was likewise unperceived, and continues to be in millions of hearts to this day.</p><p>The Lord even saw the unconverted and the unreached as His potential sheep. He criticizes the “hireling” who has “no concern for the sheep” (<em><a href='B:500 10:13'>Joh 10:13</a></em>) with the same expression as is used in <em><a href='B:500 12:6'>Joh 12:6</a></em> to describe how Judas was “not concerned for the poor”. He parallels “the sheep” with the “poor” whom He and His group sought to help materially as best they could; He saw those crowds, whom we would likely have dismissed as just of the “loaves and fishes” mentality, as potential sheep.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:14'>Joh 10:14</a></em>&nbsp;<em>I am the good shepherd, and I know my own and my own know me</em>-</p><p> Again the Lord is imputing righteousness and perception to His followers; for He lamented that although they had been with Him so long, they still apparently did not "know" Him (<em><a href='B:500 14:9'>Joh 14:9</a></em>). And yet 'knowledge' is being used in the Hebraic sense of relationship. His relationship with His sheep is mutual.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:15'>Joh 10:15</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep</em>-</p><p> His mutual relationship with the Father, the Hebrew sense of both sides 'knowing' each other, was to be reflected in His knowing His sheep and them knowing Him (:14- a theme developed at length in chapter 17).</p><p>There is and will be something dynamic in our relationship with the Father and Son. The Lord Jesus spoke of how He ‘knows’ the Father and ‘knows’ us His sheep in the continuous tense (:14,15)- He was ‘getting to know’ the Father, and He ‘gets to know’ us. And this is life eternal, both now and then, that we might&nbsp;<em>get to know</em>the one true God and His Son (<em><a href='B:500 17:3'>Joh 17:3</a></em>). The knowing of God and His Son is not something merely academic, consisting only of facts. It is above all an experience, a thrilling and dynamic one. I am the good shepherd, and know (Gk. 'am getting to know', continuous tense) my sheep, and am known (<em>being known</em>) of mine. As the Father&nbsp;<em>knoweth</em>&nbsp;(is knowing) me, even so know I (I am getting to know) the Father". The relationship between us and our Lord will therefore be one of progressive upward knowledge, as He has with God. Thus a state of ultimate knowledge of God will not be flashed into us at the moment of acceptance at the judgment. For this very reason, the Kingdom cannot be an inactive state. God is dynamic. For us to grow in His knowledge will be a continuously dynamic process. It is pointed out in John's Gospel that those who will truly know God will not fully know Him now, in this life. Thus the blind man in <em><a href='B:500 9:12'>Joh 9:12</a></em> said that he did not know where Jesus was; Thomas likewise said that the disciples did not know where Jesus was going <em><a href='B:500 14:5'>Joh 14:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:7'>Joh 14:7</a></em>); in <em><a href='B:500 4:32'>Joh 4:32</a></em> the Lord Jesus said that He had meat which we do not know of. Those who said (in John's&nbsp;Gospel) that they&nbsp;<em>did</em>&nbsp;know Jesus, often found that they did not. Thus the Lord said that the Samaritans worshipped what they did not know (<em><a href='B:500 4:22'>Joh 4:22</a></em>), although they were convinced that they did. Nicodemus thought that he knew Jesus, when he did not (<em><a href='B:500 3:2'>Joh 3:2</a></em>); the Jews thought that they knew whence Jesus was (<em><a href='B:500 7:26'>Joh 7:26</a></em>);&nbsp;"now we know that you have a demon", they boasted (<em><a href='B:500 8:52'>Joh 8:52</a></em>); "we know that this man is a sinner" (<em><a href='B:500 9:34'>Joh 9:34</a></em>)- and how wrong they were. Those who accepted they did not fully know the Lord Jesus will spend eternity coming to know Him (<em><a href='B:500 17:3'>Joh 17:3</a></em>).</p><p>It was due to His&nbsp;<em>knowing</em>&nbsp;that the Lord gave His life. Knowledge, in its active and true sense of relationship, does have a vital part to play. Otherwise spirituality becomes pure emotion alone. To "follow after righteousness" is paralleled with "to know righteousness" (<em><a href='B:290 51:1'>Isa 51:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:290 51:7'>Isa 51:7</a></em>). To know it properly is to follow after it.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:16'>Joh 10:16</a></em> - see on <em><a href='B:500 17:23'>Joh 17:23</a></em>.</p><p><em>And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and they shall become one flock with one shepherd</em>-</p><p> I suggested earlier that the Lord was saying these things standing by the court of the Gentiles, and the idea of the 'fold' is associated with that of the 'courts', for Jews, Gentiles and women. The Greek for "fold" is translated "court" in <em><a href='B:500 18:15'>Joh 18:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:730 11:2'>Rev 11:2</a></em>. The true fold or court was only one, and entered into through the Lord Jesus. Instead of threatening death to those who crossed into the wrong courts, the Lord was the door through which&nbsp;<em>life</em>&nbsp;was offered:&nbsp;<em>This</em>&nbsp;fold may have been said with a motion toward the inner court. The women, Gentiles, the unclean and outcasts were to be brought, in obedience to His voice, and moulded into one flock with only one shepherd. The 'bringing' preceded the 'hearing My voice'. It's not that the Lord has given us His written word and whoever figures it out becomes part of the flock. He brings people, called by grace; and then it is over to them whether they further 'hear His voice'. Revelation develops the idea where we have a vision of the Lord as a shepherd leading His flock, on account of being Himself a lamb. But that vision refers to the Kingdom age. It could be argued from the force of "they shall&nbsp;<em>become</em>..." that the Lord is working to bring together His sheep into one fold, but that final unity will only be achieved at His return. The present divided state of the flock is therefore envisaged, although the Lord works to bring down the barriers between sheep and sheep.</p><p>Time and again the Lord Jesus reapplies the language of the restoration from Babylon to what He is doing to all men and women who heed His call to come out from the world and follow Him. The ideas of bringing His sheep, "other sheep of mine", who will hear His voice and form one flock under one shepherd- all these are rooted in the restoration prophecies (Ezekiel 34; <em><a href='B:330 37:21-28'>Eze 37:21-28</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 23:1-8'>Jer 23:1-8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:300 31:1-10'>Jer 31:1-10</a></em>). When the Lord spoke of His people as being raised up put of the stones, as living stones, He surely had <em><a href='B:160 4:2'>Neh 4:2</a></em> in mind- where the stones of Zion are described as reviving, coming alive, at the restoration. The second coming is to be the restoration&nbsp;<em>again</em>&nbsp;of the Kingdom to Israel (<em><a href='B:510 1:6'>Act 1:6</a></em>), as if the first restoration is to be understood as a type of that to come.</p><p>The way in which we are seen by God as if we are already saved on account of our being in Christ is also explicable by appreciating His timelessness. <em><a href='B:520 8:29'>Rom 8:29</a></em> says that the whole process of our calling, justification and glorification all occurred at the foundation of the world. In God's eyes, those of us in Christ are already saved and glorified. The Lord spoke of "other sheep I have" (<em><a href='B:500 10:16'>Joh 10:16</a></em>) when at that time we never existed. Likewise in God's eyes there was only one resurrection, that of the Lord Jesus. The resurrected Lord is compared to the sheaf of first fruits (<em><a href='B:530 15:20'>1Co 15:20</a></em>), as if those in him rose with him and were glorified together, in God's eyes. Perhaps the Lord Jesus had this in mind when he said: "I&nbsp;<em>am</em>&nbsp;the resurrection".</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:17'>Joh 10:17</a></em>&nbsp;<em>For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it again</em>-</p><p>The idea of Christ&nbsp;<em>giving</em>&nbsp;Himself for us refers to that final moment of giving up, yielding, laying down His breath for us. He did not die, as most men do, against their will, fighting for the continuation of life at all costs; in the words of Dylan Thomas, dying men “Go not gentle into that good night / But rage, rage against the dying of the light”. The Lord died by breathing out the last breath in His lungs, His spirit, toward His disciples. Paul was evidently moved by this; he marvelled at how Christ "<em>gave himself</em>&nbsp;for me" (<em><a href='B:550 2:20'>Gal 2:20</a></em>), using the same word as in <em><a href='B:500 19:30'>Joh 19:30</a></em> concerning him giving up His spirit. And we can enter into that sense or marvel and wonder. Paul again alludes to this in <em><a href='B:560 5:2'>Eph 5:2</a></em>: "Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath&nbsp;<em>given himself</em>&nbsp;for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour". That wondrous moment when Christ reached such self-control as to give His life for us, to breathe out His last breath for us as an act of the will, that moment was evidently deep within the mind of Paul. Because of it we should find ample inspiration to "walk in love" towards each other, to be so full of praise for this that we have no time to even speak about the sins to which are earthly nature is so prone. These are high ideals indeed, yet in Paul (another sin-stricken human) they began to be realized. They&nbsp;<em>really can</em>&nbsp;be realized in our lives, we truly can begin to appreciate the intensity of that yielding up, that laying down of the life spirit of our Lord Jesus- and therefore and thereby we will find the inspiration to respond in a life of true love for each other.</p><p>The same word crops up later: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and&nbsp;<em>gave himself</em>&nbsp;for it" (<em><a href='B:560 5:25'>Eph 5:25</a></em>). Now this is high, heavenly, indeed. Husbands are asked to consider the intensity of that moment when Christ, rigid with self-control, gave up His life for us, breathing His last as a controlled act of the will. And the Spirit through Paul asks husbands to reflect this in their daily lives, in the petty day by day situation of life. No wonder he asks wives to deeply respect their husbands if they at least try to rise up to this spirit (<em><a href='B:560 5:33'>Eph 5:33</a></em>). Real meditation upon the implications of all this, the very height of the challenge, will surely do more good to a marriage than any amount of counselling and reading of human words.</p><p>The Father loved the Son&nbsp;<em>because</em>&nbsp;He laid down His life in this way; there was an upwelling of love within the soul of Almighty God as He beheld it (<em><a href='B:500 10:17'>Joh 10:17</a></em>). And ditto for all those who try to enter into the spirit of laying down their lives after the pattern of our Lord's final moment. But well before His death, our Lord could speak of how "I lay down my life" (<em><a href='B:500 10:17'>Joh 10:17</a></em>); His whole life was a laying down of His innermost spirit, His final out breathing was a summation of His daily attitude. He saw His death as the baptism with which He must be baptized (<em><a href='B:490 12:50'>Luk 12:50</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:520 6:3-4'>Rom 6:3-4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:580 2:10-12'>Col 2:10-12</a></em>, His 'baptism-unto-death' Gk:); and yet He spoke of the baptism with which He was being baptized in an ongoing sense (<em><a href='B:470 20:22'>Mat 20:22</a></em>). In this same vein, <em><a href='B:230 69:8-9'>Psa 69:8-9</a></em> is a prophecy about the final sufferings of the Lord in crucifixion, and yet these verses are elsewhere quoted about the experiences of His ministry. And “they hated me without a cause" (<em><a href='B:230 69:4'>Psa 69:4</a></em>) was true throughout the Lord’s life (<em><a href='B:500 15:25'>Joh 15:25</a></em>) as well as particularly in His death. The Lord spoke of the manna as being a symbol of His body, which He would give on the cross. He described the gift of that bread, that figure of His sacrifice, as not only bread that would come from Heaven but more accurately as bread that&nbsp;<em>is coming down</em>, and had been throughout His life (<em><a href='B:500 6:50-51'>Joh 6:50-51</a></em> Gk:). The spirit of life-giving which there was in His death was shown all through His life.</p><p>The fact the Lord died not just because events overtook Him and happened to Him is perhaps reflected in Paul’s speaking in Romans 6 of “the death that he died…the life that he liveth". He died a death; he Himself died it; and yet just as truly, He lived a life. He didn’t just let events happen to Him. He was not mastered in His life by human lusts and selfish desires; He was in that sense the only ultimately free person. When He “bowed his head", the same Greek is used as in <em><a href='B:470 8:20'>Mat 8:20</a></em>: “The Son of man has no place to lay / bow his head". It was as if He only lay His head down, giving out His life, when He knew it was time to rest from a day’s work well done. He lived a surpassingly free life, and freely gave that life up; it was not taken from Him.</p><p>That we should be called to imitate our Lord in this should truly fill us with a sense of highness, that we should be called to such a high challenge. <em><a href='B:690 3:16'>1Jn 3:16</a></em> takes us even further in this wondrous story, alluding to <em><a href='B:500 10:17'>Joh 10:17</a></em>: " Hereby perceive we the love of God (cp. “For this reason the Father loves me”, because he&nbsp;<em>laid down</em>&nbsp;His life for us: and we ought to&nbsp;<em>lay down</em>&nbsp;our lives for the brethren". So intensely was God in Christ on the cross that in a sense He too laid down His life for us, He bowed down for us, laid Himself before our feet as that palsied man was laid before (same word) Jesus. In that final cry from the cross we perceive God's love for us. We too, therefore, should not be put off from laying down our lives for each other because we feel our brethren are spiritually weak. This is the very essence of laying down our lives for each other; we are to replicate the laying down of the life of Christ for us&nbsp;<em>while we were weak</em>&nbsp;in our giving of our innermost being for our weak brethren. We are truly at the very boundary of human words to express these things. We must, we&nbsp;<em>must</em>&nbsp;respond in practice. And the wonder of it all is that in this final, supreme moment of self-giving, the Lord was identifying with apostate Israel, of whom it had been prophesied: “She hath given up the spirit; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed" (<em><a href='B:300 15:9'>Jer 15:9</a></em> - all crucifixion language).</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:18'>Joh 10:18</a></em>&nbsp;<em>No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down myself. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again. This command I received from my Father</em>-</p><p> See on :17. He had the right "authority" to receive His life again, from the Father, for the Father raised the Son. The resurrection process means that the life we had before resurrection, in our mortal life, is that same life we shall live eternally. And the Lord was our pattern. In this sense we live the eternal life now, living the kind of life, spiritually, which we shall eternally live. Note that He spoke with arresting continuous tenses of how ‘The good shepherd&nbsp;<em>is laying&nbsp;</em>down his life for the sheep... I&nbsp;<em>am laying down&nbsp;</em>my life of myself’ (<em><a href='B:500 10:11'>Joh 10:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:18'>Joh 10:18</a></em>). He&nbsp;<em>would be</em>&nbsp;delivered up, but in principle He went through it in His daily life beforehand.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:19'>Joh 10:19</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Because of these words, again a division arose among the Jews</em>-</p><p> The Lord's presence amongst men does cause division; that is quite a theme of the New Testament. Families divide, and even amongst the Jews there was division over Him. And yet as the New Testament clearly teaches and historically testifies, His presence amongst believers forges a unity of a unique nature, powerful enough to convert the world. This is all foreseen in the prologue, where the separation between light and darkness which occurred at creation is used as representative of the fundamental division which must occur between believers and disbelievers in the light. This principle affects who we marry, what we watch and think about, our associations on absolutely every level of thought and practical existence.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:20'>Joh 10:20</a></em>&nbsp;<em>And many of them said: He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to him?</em>-</p><p> Madness was attributed to demon possession, and the language of casting out demons often effectively refers to curing mental illness. But "has a demon and is mad" suggests two separate, if related, things. This group of accusers were not simply saying that the Lord was mad. They were implying that His supposed possession by a demon meant that He was on the side of the cosmic enemies they supposed existed- and therefore, His words were madness. "Listen" here implies listening favourably. Clearly amongst the Jewish leadership there were some like Nicodemus and Joseph with some level of belief in Him; but it is a theme of John's Gospel that men must come out for the Lord, and not simply hold a level of quiet, positive view of Him somewhere deep within their hearts.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:21'>Joh 10:21</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Others said: These are not the sayings of one possessed with a demon. Can a demon possessed person open the eyes of the blind?</em>-</p><p> The Lord's miracles were used with economy, but they were necessary in order to demonstrate beyond doubt that the Lord was from God. This was especially necessary in a society where only a few % were literate, and there was no easy access to the Old Testament scrolls for personal study. And the miracles were self-evidently good; the suggestion that the Lord was an agent of some supposed 'Satan' or evil empire was absurd if He was using His supernatural powers to do good.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:22'>Joh 10:22</a></em>&nbsp;<em>It was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem</em>-</p><p> John's material almost exclusively records what the Lord did and said around the time of the Jewish feasts.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:23'>Joh 10:23</a></em>&nbsp;<em>It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple along Solomon's porch</em>-</p><p> As noted earlier, the material which follows is seamlessly connected with the theme of shepherd and sheep earlier in this chapter. So I suggest that this is read as a general positioning statement for the material both before and after this point in the chapter. I have earlier pointed out the similarities between the idea of a "fold" and of the 'courts' of the temple, for women, Gentiles and Jews. The Lord was standing at the division between the courts of the Gentiles and Jews, and His language of creating only one fold, entrance to which was only through Him, must be read in this context.</p><p>The Bible does use (at times) the language of the day, contemporary with the time when it was first inspired. <em><a href='B:500 10:23'>Joh 10:23</a></em> speaks of “Solomon’s colonnade”, but as the NIV Study Bible correctly points out, this was “commonly but erroneously thought to date back to Solomon’s time”. But the error isn’t corrected. The language of the day is used, just as it is concerning demons.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:24'>Joh 10:24</a></em>&nbsp;<em>The Jews surrounded him and said to him: How long do you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly</em>-</p><p> A theme of John's Gospel has been that the Jews did know that the Lord was Messiah, but their dislike of the light, and all it demanded, meant they didn't believe in Him. Hence His answer to this apparent desire for plain clarification was that 'You do not believe' (:25). It's basic human psychology that we put off accepting truth under the smokescreen of needing more information. This is why some will apparently 'search for truth' all their lives- because they don't want to accept the truth they have found, as it demands too much of them personally.</p><p>The Lord's response was that their underlying problem was not with His language, but with the simple fact that they did not believe that He, the carpenter from Nazareth, was the Son of God. Is it going too far to suggest that all intellectual failure to understand the teaching of Jesus is rooted in a simple lack of faith and perception of Him as a person? See on <em><a href='B:500 16:30'>Joh 16:30</a></em>.</p><p>He had indeed spoken plainly to them- the crowds use the very word in remarking that the Lord spoke plainly / boldly (<em><a href='B:500 7:26'>Joh 7:26</a></em>). He Himself reflected that He had spoken plainly to the Jewish world (<em><a href='B:500 18:20'>Joh 18:20</a></em>). But the disciples too seem to have felt that the Lord was not "plain" in His speech (<em><a href='B:500 16:25'>Joh 16:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:29'>Joh 16:29</a></em>). The reason for 'not getting it' is not because the information has been presented in a hazy manner, or because the intellectual processing of it is too demanding for the hearer. The message of the Lord was plain. But it was the pre-existing sense of self-preservation, of keeping one’s own way of life and thinking intact, which meant that the hearers complained about lack of clarity. The Lord predicted His death and resurrection in great detail, in language which could never have been plainer. But the disciples were slow of heart to believe it. The simple message of the Lord Jesus, as explained in the prologue, is light compared to darkness; and it demands our all. Every part of life and thought has to be surrendered to it. And so hearers usually choose to misunderstand, or beg off with excuses about 'not enough information'. John alludes to this issue of speaking plainly when he tells his converts that the Lord's plainness, boldness, is to become ours (<em><a href='B:690 5:14'>1Jn 5:14</a></em>). Life becomes so simple once we have surrendered to Him as the light, and wholeheartedly walk in it.</p>


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<p><em><a href='B:500 10:25'>Joh 10:25</a></em>&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered them: I told you and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, these testify of me</em>-</p><p> See on :24. There was no unclarity in the Lord's message, and the miracles done were beyond question His authentication as having come from God. Of course, they'd have complained that He had&nbsp;<em>not</em>&nbsp;told them in so many words. His comment was that His "works", His life, His being, showed plainly who He was, His personality was "the plain word" which they were demanding. He was the word made flesh in totality and to perfection. See on <em><a href='B:500 14:10'>Joh 14:10</a></em>. John uses&nbsp;<em>ergon</em>, "works", for far more than miracles; effectively the term means 'way of life' in <em><a href='B:500 3:19-21'>Joh 3:19-21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:29'>Joh 6:29</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:39'>Joh 8:39</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 8:41'>Joh 8:41</a></em>; <em><a href='B:690 3:12'>1Jn 3:12</a></em>). The Lord's being and person, as well as His miracles, was His testimony to men, just as ours should be. It is not publicly performed good works cp. miracles which have lasting power in their testimony, but the works of a life worked or done in the Lord.</p>


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<p>10:26&nbsp;<em>But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep</em>-</p><p> Belief was related to accepting the Lord's words&nbsp;(:27). Those words, His claims, were and are to be accepted without concrete proof and there is no such thing as concrete proof or else faith would not be faith. The claims of His person are presented as they are in the Gospel and clearly in the Gospel records. Once they are accepted, then we are His sheep, and are led further if we wish to follow further. It is not that there is something magic in the words of the book called the Bible which creates faith. For many read it and do not believe. The idea is that the words and salvation promises of the Lord Jesus are heard or read, and accepted. The leap in faith is taken. And then all starts to make sense. The Samaritan woman is a case in point. No miracles were done to back up the Lord's claims. She simply believed them.</p>


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<p>10:27- see on <em><a href='B:470 19:28'>Mat 19:28</a></em>.</p><p><em>My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me</em>-</p><p> The Lord takes the initiative in speaking His word to men, but they must still respond in following; and this is how He 'knows' them, in the Hebraic sense of having a relationship. The "voice" they hear is His words, the essence of Him; not the Bible in its entirety, but "My words". The Lord's references to "My words" in John must be understood as a reference to Him, the news about Him, His Spirit, the essence of Him as a person. Although His words were the words of God, for the word was God as explained in the prologue, that is not to say that "My words" refer to the Bible as a whole. That would be a confusion of category; rather like saying that Mercedes are cars; but not all cars are Mercedes.</p><p>The Hebrew word for ‘hear’ is also translated ‘obey’ (<em><a href='B:10 22:18'>Gen 22:18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:20 19:5'>Exo 19:5</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 30:8'>Deu 30:8</a></em>; <em><a href='B:50 30:20'>Deu 30:20</a></em>; <em><a href='B:230 95:7'>Psa 95:7</a></em>). We can hear God’s word and not obey it. But if we&nbsp;<em>really&nbsp;</em>hear it as we are intended to, we will obey it. If we truly believe God’s word to be His voice personally speaking to us, then we will by the very fact of hearing, obey. The message itself, if heard properly and not just on a surface level, will compel action. We can&nbsp;<em>delight&nbsp;</em>to know God’s laws and pray daily to Him, when at the same time we are forsaking Him and His laws; if we are truly obedient,&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;we will&nbsp;<em>delight</em>&nbsp;in God’s law (<em><a href='B:290 58:2'>Isa 58:2</a></em> cp. 14). We have a tendency to have a&nbsp;love of and delight in God’s law only on the surface. John especially often uses ‘hearing’ to mean ‘believing’ (e.g. <em><a href='B:500 10:4'>Joh 10:4</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:26-27'>Joh 10:26-27</a></em>). And yet the Jews ‘heard’ but didn’t believe. We must, we really must ask ourselves: whether we merely hear, or hear and believe. For we can hear, but not really hear, if we lack the “obedience of faith”.</p><p>The Lord knows His sheep according to whether they follow Him, i:e. whether they take up His cross and follow Him. The question of cross carrying therefore reveals a man to his Lord for what he is. And it also reveals the Lord to His would be followers for who He really is. His words, that which is seen and heard in Him, is a call to follow Him to the cross.</p>


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<p>10:28&nbsp;<em>And I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand</em>-</p><p> The gift of eternal life is in the present tense, in that the Lord gives His spirit to us, the kind of life we can eternally live. "They shall never perish" refers to the condemnation of the last day; if we continue living the Kingdom life now, we shall not be condemned. If the Spirit of the Lord Jesus abides in us now, that same Spirit shall energize our bodies after the power of an endless life (<em><a href='B:520 8:11'>Rom 8:11</a></em>).</p><p>The eternal type of life being given is an ongoing process. Consider the repeated parallelisms in the Lord’s teaching:</p><p><table border="1"><tr><td></p><p>Labour / work, as Israel worked to gather manna, as the crowds walked around the lake to get to Jesus</td><td>For the food that gives eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Believe in me</td><td>Receive eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Eat me daily, eat / absorb my body and blood, the essence of My sacrifice; have this as your real food and drink in life</td><td>Receive eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Come to me, having heard and learnt of the Father</td><td>Never hunger, never perish, receive eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Behold the son, believe on him</td><td>Receive eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>“I am”, God manifested in the person of Jesus</td><td>The bread that gives eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The manna of Christ</td><td>Gives eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Jesus came down from Heaven i:e. manifested the Father</td><td>Gives life unto the world</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>By Jesus doing God’s will</td><td>I get eternal life for you (“the world” of believers)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>By giving His blood to drink and flesh to eat</td><td>Gives eternal life</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>The Spirit and words of Jesus</td><td>Quickens / gives eternal life</td><td></td></tr></table><p>The Spirit of Jesus, His disposition, His mindset, His way of thinking and being, is paralleled with His words and His person. They both ‘quicken’ or give eternal life, right now. “It is the Spirit that quickeneth present tense… the words that I speak unto you, they are right now spirit, and they are life… thou hast right now the words of eternal life” (<em><a href='B:500 6:63'>Joh 6:63</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:68'>Joh 6:68</a></em>). Yet at the last day, God will quicken the dead and physically give them eternal life (<em><a href='B:520 4:17'>Rom 4:17</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 15:22'>1Co 15:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:530 15:36'>1Co 15:36</a></em>). But this will be because in this life we had the ‘Spirit’ of the eternal life in us: “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by on account of his spirit that dwelleth in you” (<em><a href='B:520 8:11'>Rom 8:11</a></em>).</p><p>This unreal shepherd not only dies for the sheep but gives them eternal life, making them eternal sheep (<em><a href='B:500 10:28'>Joh 10:28</a></em>). We’d understand it more comfortably if He spoke of giving His life for people, and then them living for ever. But He speaks of giving eternal life to a sheep, who wouldn’t have a clue what that really entailed. But that’s just how it is with us, who by grace are receiving an eternal Kingdom, the wonderful implications of which are beyond our appreciation, due to the intrinsic limitations of who we are as sheep. See on <em><a href='B:500 15:15'>Joh 15:15</a></em>.</p><p>The context of chapter 10 is the shameful treatment of the blind man by the Jewish shepherds in chapter 9. The Lord is assuring His flock that if they hear His voice, then He will preserve them from any robbers who seek to grab them for themselves.</p>


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<p>10:29&nbsp;<em>My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand</em>-</p><p> The gift of the sheep was before the Lord called the sheep with His voice / word, and they responded. This reference to the gift of the sheep surely speaks of the predestination, foreknowledge and calling which Paul cites in Romans as the parade example of God's grace. The Father being greater than the Son means that the Lord's assurances of&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;protection and eternal salvation are made yet the more sure, because the Father was greater than Him but upholding the same passionate desire for our preservation unto salvation.</p>


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<p>10:30&nbsp;<em>I and the Father are one</em>-</p><p> The protective, saving hand of the Son is that of the Father, for they both have the same will and determination for human salvation. This is the context of their being "one", in purpose and function rather than in person and nature, as wrongly supposed by Trinitarian thinking. In chapter 17, the Lord envisages the unity between the Father and Son being that between all His people, and between themselves and the Father and Himself. Clearly, the unity spoken of is not any support for the confused theology of Trinitarianism.</p>


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<p>10:31&nbsp;<em>Once again the Jews took up stones to stone him-&nbsp;</em>This was anger on the spur of the moment; there had been no trial, no verdict issued; and the Jews could only recommend the death penalty for the Romans to carry out. I suggest that their excuse that He was blaspheming was a cover for the fact that their consciences had been pricked by the Lord's challenge that belief in Him meant they were the Father's sheep and would be protected unto life eternal. And if they didn't believe- they were not the Father's flock at all.</p>


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<p>10:32- see on <em><a href='B:500 9:36'>Joh 9:36</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:20'>Joh 17:20</a></em>.</p><p><em>Jesus said to them: Many good works have I shown you from the Father. For which of those works do you stone me?</em>-</p><p> I noted on :25 that "works" refer not only to the miracles but to the Lord's whole life. But here the reference appears to be to His miracles, and the Lord's logic appeals to those who had likewise concluded that a bad man could simply not do such wonderful miracles unless God was intimately with Him. The Lord's miracles were "shown to the Jews just as the Father had "shown" Him which works to perform (5:20 s:w:). The idea surely is that the Lord did not merely encounter human need and use His power to resolve it; for He offered walked by such need without intervening. Rather He was shown miracles to perform, and did them accordingly, in an attempt to show the Father to the Jews. However in 14:8,9 we see that the disciples had failed to perceive this 'showing' of the Father to them. Their belief and perception was very weak, but the Lord still worked with them to perfect what they had- just as He does with us.</p>


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<p>10:33&nbsp;<em>The Jews answered him: For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself as God-&nbsp;</em>John's Gospel records many interactions between the Lord and the Jews. Every single time they misunderstand Him and wrongly interpret His words and positions, often intentionally in order to make an accusation against Him. And so it is here. Trinitarians have to assume that this time, they got it right- that the Jews correctly interpreted Him; whereas the Lord Himself stated that they did not understand His words (8:43). Not only would such a reading be quite out of step with the emphasis upon the Jews' misunderstandings of the Lord, but He Himself goes on to demonstrate that their claim was inappropriate because men can be called "God", and He was only claiming to be the<em>&nbsp;Son</em>&nbsp;of God.</p>


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<p>10:34&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law: I said, you are gods?</em>-</p><p> "Your law" is another example of how God's law had become their law; His feasts were now "feasts of the Jews". They had hijacked His way and turned it into their own religion. The Lord Jesus is really saying ‘In the Old Testament men are called ‘gods’; I am saying I am the&nbsp;<em>Son</em>&nbsp;of God; so why are you getting so upset?’. The Lord Jesus is actually quoting from Psalms 82, where the judges of Israel were called ‘gods’. And yet the context is critical of those judges; to bear the name of 'God' didn't mean one was acceptable to God. And it is no accident that the Lord chose to quote an example of where Israel's leaders bear God's Name but are apostate. He was turning the tables on the Jewish leadership who were accusing Him of claiming to be God. It was in fact they who bore the name of God- and yet were to be condemned for not responding to the word /&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of God which had come to them.</p>


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<p>10:35&nbsp;<em>If he called those men gods, to whom the word of God came (and the scripture cannot be broken)</em>-</p><p> As noted on :35, the apostate leaders of Israel were the ones who bore the Name of God. The word /&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of God had come to them in that as pictured in the prologue, the&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of God in Jesus of Nazareth had 'come' to Israel and they had rejected it. The word of God came to the Old Testament judges of Israel the context of Psalms 82 in that they were to judge according to His word. The Lord may have in mind the LXX of <em><a href='B:140 19:6'>2Ch 19:6</a></em> where the judges of Israel are warned to judge rightly, because the&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of God is with them, had been given them, to judge rightly. The same idea is found in <em><a href='B:50 1:17'>Deu 1:17</a></em> where again the judges of Israel are warned in the LXX to judge according to the&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of God and not reject it in favour of human sympathies. In this sense perhaps <em><a href='B:650 4:13'>Heb 4:13</a></em> speaks of being judged by the&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;of God. In the person of the Lord Jesus, the&nbsp;<em>logos&nbsp;</em>of God had come to the judges of Israel- and they were refusing to judge rightly because of their own agendas and personal investments.</p><p>The Lord adds that "the scripture cannot be broken" or dissolved / unloosed, quoting a common Rabbinical saying found often in the Talmud. The Lord didn't mean that 'the Bible doesn't contradict itself', because there are contradictory statements in the Bible, and God often teaches through paradox. And the Mosaic law part of Scripture has indeed been unloosed in Christ; the word is used by John of how the Lord unloosed the Sabbath legislation (5:18). The Lord had used the very same word in 7:23, arguing that in order not to break or unloose the Law of Moses, the Jews circumcised boys on the Sabbath- but thereby they broke or unloosed the laws about the Sabbath. So He is using their own misplaced ideals, quoting their own maxim about Scripture not being broken, appealing to their claim that such paradoxes could not be countenanced. If indeed there was to be no possible contradiction between Scripture verses, then they were trounced. Logically, the case was watertight. Bible verses, Scripture, state that men carry the Name of God. And condemn such men, because the&nbsp;<em>logos&nbsp;</em>of God came to them and they did not judge according to it. And so there was no reason to stone a man, even if he claimed to carry God's Name. And further, the Lord was not stating that, rather was He claiming to be God's Son. And further; by not judging according to the word /&nbsp;<em>logos</em>&nbsp;which had come to them, it was they who were breaking or unloosing Scripture, leaving God's word broken by them, in that they judged by the outward appearance rather than by the word which demanded right judgment on their part. And if indeed Scripture could not be broken, they could not walk away from the fact the word had come to them. The passage of time would never take away their responsibility to respond to that word.</p>


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<p>10:36- see on <em><a href='B:500 17:20'>Joh 17:20</a></em>.</p><p><em>Do you say of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world: You blaspheme, because I said: I am the Son of God?</em>-</p><p> As noted on :34 and :35, the Lord was not claiming to be God; the accusation was misplaced and a wilful misinterpretation. His claim was to be the Son of God. However, that claim is nowhere recorded. It was insofar as the word was made flesh that He proclaimed the Father in a way that only the begotten Son could do. His life was therefore effectively the statement that He was God's Son; but He never actually uses those words in any recorded speech in the Gospels.</p><p>We have here a brief and rare window into how the Lord perceived His life before age 30. The Lord Jesus says that He was "consecrated" as a priest or High Priest, and then sent into the world, at age 30. That's how He looked back and understood those 30 years of mundane village life- a process of consecration, of purifying, of preparation. He saw that none of the multitude of daily frustrations was without purpose- it was all part of His preparation. And perhaps we'll look back on these brief years of our humanity in the same way. But the point is that the Lord's mundane life before 30 was actually an active preparation of Him for service.</p>


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<p>10:37&nbsp;<em>If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not</em>-</p><p> Here and in :38 the Lord seems to countenance and encourage a level of belief which was simply an acceptance that the Father was working through Him; even if they disliked Him personally, and His personality and Galilean background, or other trappings of His humanity, were simply too obnoxious to them. John's Gospel positively and generously reports that many "believed" in Him perhaps in this way. And yet John's Gospel also emphasizes the need to ultimately come out for Him, and to accept that He as a person, with all His humanity, was and is the only light of life. So I would conclude that the Lord was eager for them to at least accept His "works" or miracles as being done from God; for He knew that with that level of acceptance, He could go further and work with them towards a higher level of commitment. His work with Nicodemus would be a case in point.</p>


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<p>10:38&nbsp;<em>But if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works; that you may know and understand, that the Father is in me and I in the Father</em>-</p><p> See on :37 for discussion of this apparently lower level of faith being encouraged. The Lord had just quoted Psalms 82 about these men, implying they as the judges of Israel stood condemned. But He didn't want them to stay like that; He urges them toward at least some level of faith that the miracles He was doing were indeed from God.</p><p>This verse parallels knowing and believing, as in 17:8. <em><a href='B:500 10:38'>Joh 10:38</a></em> in the AV has the Lord Jesus beseeching men to "know and&nbsp;<em>believe</em>", whereas the RV/ NEV has "know and&nbsp;<em>understand</em>". Understanding was not therefore related to academic prowess in interpreting Scripture; the Lord was challenging their Jewish supposition that knowledge of itself was so critical. Instead He is saying that the real understanding or knowledge is belief in Him. To know Him is to believe in Him; that is the understanding required. And the illiterate masses could in any case not attain much academic understanding of Scripture at that time; but they could understand / know / believe in the Lord Jesus.</p>


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<p>10:39&nbsp;<em>Again they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands</em>-</p><p> He wished to die at a specific point, at a Passover; and as stated in :17,18, He gave His life and it was not taken from Him. He therefore had the power to avoid arrest and stoning; the fact He used it at times like this underlines the fact that it was indeed His love and self-control which kept Him on the cross, rather than the nails. He could have come down from the cross and avoided it in the form it was. He had that power, and had exercised it at times like this. Truly He gave His life for us; it was not taken from Him.</p>


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<p>10:40&nbsp;<em>He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing at first, and there he remained</em>-</p><p> Perhaps we see here the Lord's sentimentality, which is a legitimate part of human nature. He returned to the place where He was baptized, far from anywhere, to meditate. And again we note that "at the first", the beginning, is used in John for the beginning of the Lord's ministry, as made clear in the prologue.</p>


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<p>10:41- see on <em><a href='B:550 3:5'>Gal 3:5</a></em>.</p><p><em>Many came to him. And they said: John did no miracle, but everything that John said about this man was true</em>-</p><p> Several times during his ministry Elijah did spectacular miracles to confirm the validity of his message:&nbsp;The fact that "John did no miracle" is perhaps recorded in order to show that he was not the supreme fulfilment of the prophet who would come "in the spirit and power of Elias" (<em><a href='B:490 1:17'>Luk 1:17</a></em>), i:e. doing similar miracles to those of Elijah:&nbsp;John could have been the Elijah prophet in fullness, for in a sense he was Elijah; but Israel would not. We see here how potentials are set up, which may never be realized because of our weakness or that of others. The Holy Spirit was upon John from the womb; but he did no miracle. Here we see encouragement for us- that the activity of the Spirit in our lives, which John's Gospel continually alludes to, doesn't require that we perform miracles. It is very wrong to assume as Pentecostalism does that the Spirit = miracles; just as it is so wrong to assume that because the miraculous gifts are no longer available, therefore the Holy Spirit is not given to men today. Perhaps this observation about John doing no miracle is purposefully included in John's Gospel because he was writing at a time when the miraculous gifts were disappearing, but there was an urgent need to accept the Holy Spirit in the sense of the internal strengthening which is critical to the Christian life.</p>


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<p>10:42&nbsp;<em>And many believed in him there</em>-</p><p> The fact many came to Him (:41) and believed is maybe another example of how the Lord went away to seek solitude, but the crowds still followed Him. Perhaps hearing Him speak at the spot where He had been baptized inspired the crowds to also believe and be baptized. This remains the abiding power of the example He set in being baptized Himself.</p>


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<p>11:1&nbsp;<em>Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister Martha</em>-</p><p> The 'sickness' is emphasized (:1,2,3,6). Presumably he had only recently fallen sick (the Lord heard about it at this time, :4,6). Otherwise, the question is raised as to why he had not been cured when so many other "sick" people had been cured by the Lord and His disciples. Lazarus is introduced as a sick man from Bethany, which was also the home town of Martha and Mary. Why not introduce him immediately as the brother of Mary and Martha? Here we have an example of where the Gospel writers operate as a cameraman, focusing on a particular aspect of a person. The focus is hereby placed upon the man Lazarus and his human situation, he stands as an individual in need rather than being presented as someone defined by his family members. This is of course how the Lord looks upon each of us- as independent individuals, even if society looks at us in terms of our being defined by our relatives and social situation.</p>


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<p>11:2&nbsp;<em>And it was that Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick</em>-</p><p> The anointing of John 12 is after this; so presumably it is the anointing by the "woman in the city who was a sinner" of Luke 7 which is in view. And that woman was Mary, a repentant prostitute. The fact the Lord and His men often stayed at her family home in a poor out of town dormitory settlement "Bethany" = 'house of the poor' would surely have elicited all manner of gossip. A very interesting picture of Mary emerges when the pieces of the Biblical jigsaw are put together.</p>


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<p>11:3&nbsp;<em>The sisters therefore sent to him, saying</em>-</p><p> The "therefore" may refer to the fact that it was that Mary who had anointed the Lord (:2). They knew that He knew and recognized her love for Him and total devotion to Him. On that basis they feel confident to ask His action for a third party. For Lazarus himself could not pray to the Lord- but He is open, as today, to the requests of third parties.</p><p><em>Lord, he whom you loves is sick</em>-</p><p> This is&nbsp;<em>phileo,</em>&nbsp;whereas the Lord loved them with&nbsp;<em>agape;</em>&nbsp;see on :5. There was no request for specific action, just a statement of the problem. David's Psalms so often simply inform God of the situation, rather than suggesting specific answers. In this case, the Lord read their unspoken desire- that death would not triumph. Although they had not articulated it, verbalization isn't required. The Lord read their spirit and responded. And this is why the events of John 11 are alluded to in Romans 8, where we read of the Lord's intercession for our groanings and unspoken desires through absorbing them into His own spirit.</p>


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<p>11:4- see on <em><a href='B:500 1:14'>Joh 1:14</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:32'>Joh 13:32</a></em>.</p><p><em>But when Jesus heard it, he said: This sickness is not to death</em>-</p><p> But it obviously was, humanly speaking. Again we see how the Lord is using language and seeing things differently to those around Him. He was trying to get the disciples to perceive a difference between the death of a believer in hope of resurrection, and "death" in the sense of total, permanent loss of existence. For He goes on to say plainly that "Lazarus is dead". Through this apparent contradiction, the Lord was seeking to help them develop a realization that death is not ultimately death for those associated with Him. But as so often, the disciples failed to catch on. Yet later in the discourse, He again seeks to encourage Martha to believe that His promises of life beyond death actually have application in this life too.</p><p><em>But for the glory of God</em>-</p><p> The glory of the Son of God was and is the glory of God. The Lord stated that the sickness of Lazarus “is not unto death, but for the glory of God”. That sounds like a predictive statement. But it seems to have been conditional. For one thing, that sickness did lead to the death of Lazarus. But notice the Lord’s later comment to Martha when her faith wavered in the possibility of immediate resurrection for Lazarus: “Said I not unto you, that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?” (<em><a href='B:500 11:40'>Joh 11:40</a></em>). But the Lord isn’t recorded as actually having said that. What He had said was that the sickness of Lazarus would reveal the glory of God, in a way as dramatic as an Old Testament theophany, when God's glory was literally revealed in visible terms. But He had intended Martha to understand the conditionality of that statement- i:e. ‘If you can believe Martha, Lazarus can be saved from that sickness and its effects, and thus glory will be given to God’. But again, we see the Lord’s grace. She didn’t have that faith. She was concerned that even the taking away of the grave stone would release the odour of her brother’s dead body. But Jesus didn’t say ‘Well Martha, no faith on your part, no resurrection of Lazarus, no glory to God this time’. By grace alone, He raised Lazarus. He overrode the conditionality. And so it must happen so often, and so tragically unperceived, in our lives.</p><p><em>That thereby the Son of God may be glorified</em>-</p><p> This is very much the language of the glorification of God's Son through His death and resurrection (<em><a href='B:500 12:23'>Joh 12:23</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:31'>Joh 13:31</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 17:1'>Joh 17:1</a></em>). But the essence of His experience on the cross was worked out in His life before that time came. Perhaps this was why the Lord specifically waited two days where He was, knowing that the time it took to get to Bethany would occupy another day, so that Lazarus would be resurrected after three days in the grave wrapped in graveclothes, as He was to be. Perhaps His reference to "twelve hours" and walking through a day or night is to be understood as alluding to how far away they literally were from Bethany (:9). The "four days" in the grave of :17 could refer to two full days and two partial days. The Lord wanted to see Himself in Lazarus, and He arranged situations to that end; just as He desires to see Himself in us all, and allows suffering and delays His responses to that end. This is the essence of Christianity- being made into the&nbsp;<em>morphe</em>&nbsp;or form / image of the crucified, resurrected and victorious Christ; being made conformable unto His death, that the power of His new life might be seen in us (<em><a href='B:570 3:10'>Phi 3:10</a></em>).</p>


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<p>11:5&nbsp;<em>Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus</em>-</p><p> This is&nbsp;<em>agape</em>. The sisters had said that Jesus 'loved' Lazarus, using&nbsp;<em>phileo</em>&nbsp;(:3 "He whom you love"). They considered Him a friend with&nbsp;<em>phileo&nbsp;</em>love, but He actually loved them with&nbsp;<em>agape</em>&nbsp;love. We may consider the Lord Jesus to be on our side because He has fellowshipped with us and helped us out in times of need. But the essence of His love is&nbsp;<em>agape</em>, the love of the cross, so far above how we perceive His love for us in more material, earthly terms.</p>


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<p>11:6&nbsp;<em>When he heard that Lazarus was sick, he therefore stayed two days longer in the place where he was-&nbsp;</em>The "therefore" perhaps relates to His&nbsp;<em>agape</em>&nbsp;love for them introduced in :5. It was because of this love that He allowed Lazarus to die; because He had a longer term, loving plan for their ultimate salvation. Spirituality can affect third parties; in this case, Lazarus was raised because of Martha and Mary’s faith. And so it can be that our prayers and intercessions for others can bring about some degree of salvation for them which otherwise wouldn’t happen. We also see that the Lord can delay things, not least His second coming, because He is working along with human freewill in order to achieve a greater glory for the Father. His delay in responding to prayer and entreaty is not because of inattention or deafness; rather is it because He has a far wider purpose, to an even greater glory than providing instant response to our needs.</p>


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<p>11:7&nbsp;<em>Then after this, he said to the disciples: Let us go into Judea again</em>-</p><p> He had specifically withdrawn from Judea because the Jews sought to kill Him, and His game plan was to die not then but at the Passover. Remember that He gave His life of Himself in His own time and of His volition (10:17,18).</p><p>Although the disciples marvelled at His miracles at the time He did them, they seem to have doubted at times whether He was really that super-human. When He said “Let us go up to Judaea again”, they respond like He is crazy: “Goest&nbsp;<em>thou</em>&nbsp;you singular there again?” (AV), they respond. They feared the Jews would kill Him, even though they had seen Him walk through the Nazareth crowd who tried to throw Him over a cliff.</p>


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<p>11:8&nbsp;<em>The disciples said to him: Rabbi, only a few days ago the Jews wanted to stone you; and you want to go there again?</em>-</p><p> The implication of how the disciples reason is that they were unaware that Lazarus was seriously ill. Perhaps the messenger delivered the message to the Lord Jesus alone. He didn't share the news with the disciples. They would've wondered what His game plan was, making them stay two more days where they were. We likewise don't know His full game plan with us, and there are inexplicable delays and sitting around in the same place, in various ways; but one day we shall understand why this was. And even in this life, as in this case, we may come to understand later. Although they had seen the Lord walk through aggressive crowds and lynching situations, they feared that He would die. We see here how they had zoned out to the Lord's frequent predictions of His upcoming death. Rather should they have been wondering whether these words were the sign that the Lord's predicted death was now to happen. But like Peter in Matthew 16, they wish to discourage Him from death.</p>


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<p>11:9&nbsp;<em>Jesus answered: Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world</em>-</p><p> The Lord is replying to the disciples' apparent concern that&nbsp;<em>He</em>&nbsp;is risking His life by going again into Judea. But His response challenges&nbsp;<em>their</em>&nbsp;fears, by assuring them that if they 'walk in the light', "the light of the world", they will 'not stumble'. All these ideas are used elsewhere in John concerning the walk of&nbsp;<em>the disciple</em>&nbsp;in the light of Christ, the light of the world. He thereby perceives that their concern about&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;suffering and death is actually because they are concerned about themselves. Elsewhere, Peter expresses concern about the Lord's prediction of His death, that "this shall not be unto you" (<em><a href='B:470 16:22'>Mat 16:22</a></em>). But again the Lord's response is to encourage Peter to follow Him, carrying His cross. Our barrier in considering the physicalities of the Lord's crucifixion may likewise not simply be because we love Him and fear to see again His sufferings; but because unconsciously, we realize that His death is to be ours. And we would rather not focus upon His death, for it is to be ours. The Lord is encouraging them here that if they are focused upon Him, walking in the light of Himself, then they will not stumble spiritually, and can also confidently walk into Judea, to Jerusalem and even to death itself, knowing that most importantly, they will not spiritually stumble. No test will be so great as to make us fall spiritually: "God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation He will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it" (<em><a href='B:530 10:13'>1Co 10:13</a></em>).</p>


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<p>11:10&nbsp;<em>But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him</em>-</p><p> In John's letters, there are many allusions back to John's Gospel. This is an example. The reason for the connections is because the gospel of John is as it were a transcript of John's preaching of the Gospel; it became written down as a text for the basic instruction of John's converts. Once communities of believers had been baptized and established on this basis, John then wrote letters to them. And it is understandable that he would base his appeals for Christian living on the facts of the Gospel message which the converts had first learnt in the Gospel of John. The allusion to <em><a href='B:500 11:10'>Joh 11:10</a></em> is in <em><a href='B:690 2:10-11'>1Jn 2:10-11</a></em>: "He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he goes, because the darkness has blinded his eyes". The context of <em><a href='B:500 11:10'>Joh 11:10</a></em> is about a beloved brother, Lazarus, brother of sisters Martha and Mary. John is surely making the point that if the Lord and the disciples had not gone to raise Lazarus, because they feared for their own wellbeing, then this would effectively have been hating their brother. Here we see powerfully presented the full extent of sins of omission; to not respond to the need of Lazarus, citing fear of the Jews, would be to effectively hate that brother. And we all likely need such exhortation as to the real import of omitting to do what we could. The Lord walked those 12 hours to Bethany with the disciples following, willing if necessary to "die with Him". And the context in 1 John 2 also alludes to this: "He that says he abides in him, ought also walk even as he walked" (<em><a href='B:690 2:6'>1Jn 2:6</a></em>).</p>


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<p>11:11&nbsp;<em>These things he spoke, and after this he said to them: Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep, but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep</em>-</p><p> I suggest on :19 that the presence of "the Jews" at the funeral suggests Lazarus had not 'come out' for the cause of Jesus as he might have done. But the Lord still considered Lazarus as His "friend", a term used for those He accepted as His disciples (<em><a href='B:500 15:13-15'>Joh 15:13-15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:710 1:14'>3Jn 1:14</a></em>).</p><p>Jesus believed that He had already raised Lazarus back to life and so He was now asking him to come out of the grave. Presumably there were just seconds in it- He raised Lazarus, and then, invited Lazarus to come out. Jesus spoke to Lazarus as a person speaks to another living person. He didn't invite the immortal soul of Lazarus to reunite with the body. He raised Lazarus from the dead- that was the miracle. Jesus said that He 'awoke Lazarus out of sleep'- not reunited a 'soul' with a body.</p>


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<p>11:12&nbsp;<em>The disciples replied to him: Lord, if he is fallen asleep, he will recover</em>-</p><p> The Lord Jesus speaks of sleeping in death, and going to resurrect Lazarus; they understand 'sleep' as literal sleeping, which they think will cure Lazarus. Time and again, we sense how the Lord's thinking was out of step with those closest to Him. His mother asks Him to make more wine, and He replies that His hour of death has not yet come; she thinks of literal wine, whereas His thought is on the blood which wine represented. He tells Nicodemus to be born again, and the man thinks He means entering again into his mother's tubes. He tells the disciples that He has food to eat which they don't know about, referring to the work He was doing with the Samaritan woman- and the disciples think someone has brought Him literal food without their knowledge. As the Son of God, the Lord was of super high intelligence, and this was particularly acutely honed when it came to spiritual things. Those with above average IQ frequently experience frustration, angst and existential loneliness as they have to exist amongst the mass of smaller minded folk who comprise humanity generally. Yet the Lord clearly rose above all that, because despite this spiritual and intellectual distance, He was naturally attractive to children and to the poorest and simplest of society. And in this He sets us an example, if we struggle with a sense of distance between ourselves and others. See on 11:14&nbsp;<em>Then Jesus said to them plainly</em>.</p>


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<p>11:13&nbsp;<em>Now Jesus had spoken of Lazarus' death; but they thought that he spoke of Lazarus taking rest in sleep</em>-</p><p> See on :12. Constantly, the figurative is taken literally by them, and they only think of the secular rather than the spiritual. This was just as the Jewish leaders did. So it is not that the disciples understood the Lord better than they did; they had the same misunderstandings as the Jews, but somehow believed in Him. This observation is proof enough that intellectual clarity of understanding is not the same as faith.</p>


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<p>11:14&nbsp;<em>Then Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead</em>-</p><p> See on :12&nbsp;<em>Lord, if he is fallen asleep, he will recover:&nbsp;</em>Was there a sense of frustration in the tone of the Lord, that they hadn't 'got it' when He had spoken of Lazarus sleeping? I like to think not, but rather the gentleness of a parent explaining something a second time but in more simple language. It makes a good exercise to think what tone of voice the Lord spoke in whenever we read His reported speech. We also sense a relief amongst the disciples, that now their Lord was talking to them on their own level. We get the same feeling at <em><a href='B:500 16:25'>Joh 16:25</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:29'>Joh 16:29</a></em>: "These things have I spoken to you in figurative language. The hour comes, when I shall no longer speak to you in figurative language, but shall show you plainly about the Father... His disciples said: Now you speak plainly". John's Gospel records the Lord speaking in "figurative language", to the point that the Jews demanded He tell them "plainly" whether He was Messiah (<em><a href='B:500 10:24'>Joh 10:24</a></em>); the other Gospels tend to focus on His 'plain speaking', and the same word is found in <em><a href='B:480 8:32'>Mar 8:32</a></em> for how Jesus "spoke plainly" (AV "openly"). In this sense, the Lord insisted that He had 'spoken plainly' to the Jewish world (<em><a href='B:500 18:20'>Joh 18:20</a></em>). Higher critics like to imagine that the words of Jesus recorded in John were never spoken by Him because they are so different in tone to those recorded in the Synoptics. It could appear that we are being presented with two different personalities, the Jesus of John and the Jesus of the Synoptics. I don't accept this; rather does the evidence in John suggest that He spoke in two different styles, "figurative" which John tends to record and "plainly", and the disciples struggled to understand the "figurative" parts. Just as we do. But see on :16.</p>


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<p>11:15- see on <em><a href='B:490 8:27'>Luk 8:27</a></em>.</p><p><em>And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe</em>-</p><p> The Lord's joy was that the disciples would believe. So His joy was that He had not been there, because He knew that His resurrection of Lazarus would develop their faith. And He did this even though He wept for the loss of His friend Lazarus which was temporarily required for this.</p><p>So the Lord Jesus seems to have purposefully not gone to Lazarus immediately, knowing that the longer he remained dead, the greater would be the impression made upon the disciples when they saw the miracle He planned to do (<em><a href='B:500 11:15'>Joh 11:15</a></em>). He was even glad that Lazarus died- even though He wept over the loss of His friend. Thus His joy, which He invites us to share, is not mere personal joy- it was the joy for the sake of others’ spiritual growth:&nbsp;</p><p>The Lord knew that His love of Lazarus was such that had He been present, He would have stopped Lazarus from dying. We have here another insight into His humanity. He knew that His emotions would have led Him to do the cure. From a distance He still could have cured Lazarus, for distance was no barrier to His healings, His physical presence wasn't required (<em><a href='B:490 7:7-10'>Luk 7:7-10</a></em>). So the Lord is recognizing that His human senses and emotions would have been such that He would have cured Lazarus, but because they were not exercised so strongly, by reason of His not being physically present, He therefore restrained Himself and allowed Lazarus to die. And He was "glad" about that, because the resurrection of Lazarus would result in their 'believing'. Again we see how there are levels of faith. The disciples already believed; but He saw that their faith would increment to another level on witnessing the resurrection of Lazarus. Martha knew that if Jesus had been physically present, her brother would have been healed: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died" (:21). We can understand this as meaning that she knew Him well enough to know that His pity would have been so deeply aroused by the sight of the terminally ill Lazarus that He would have cured Him. In this we see another insight into His humanity. His followers certainly didn't think He was God Himself. But see another possibility on :21.</p><p><em>Nevertheless let us go to him</em>-</p><p> The meaning of the "nevertheless" is hard to find, unless we follow the reasoning presented above about physical presence; see 11:15&nbsp;<em>I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe</em>. Although the Lord's physical presence wasn't required for the miracle, nevertheless, He wanted to go there and raise Lazarus in front of them all- "so that you may believe". In this case, as often in the Gospels, the Lord was speaking a word more to Himself than to His listeners; the "nevertheless" was relevant to His own deep awareness that He could merely say the word, and Lazarus would rise from the dead. The language of "let us go to him" implies that His dead friend was alive; which is how He looks at all who have fallen asleep in Him. For all live unto God (<em><a href='B:520 4:17-18'>Rom 4:17-18</a></em>).</p>


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<p>11:16&nbsp;<em>Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him</em>-</p><p> See on :14. There is no record that the Lord corrected the disciples’ misunderstanding that He was going to commit suicide in order to “go unto” Lazarus. He let events take their course and allowed the disciples to reflect upon the situation in order to come to a truer understanding of His words. He was willing to accept their simple devotion, despite their lack of understanding. And surely He looks at misunderstanding folk today in the same way; and that includes all of us in some ways.</p><p>When the Lord spoke of going to Lazarus, they thought He was going to commit suicide. They hoped He would redeem Israel in glory, there and then. But such was their devotion to Him as their Saviour, even though they didn't understand how He was going to work it out, that Thomas solemnly ordered them, as they huddled together out of the Lord's earshot: "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (<em><a href='B:500 11:16'>Joh 11:16</a></em>). I imagine dear Peter solemnly nodding in agreement, thinking of his wife and dear children back in that fisherman's cottage. But he was serving for nothing, for sheer love of his Lord. And he was prepared to die for Him, even if it meant receiving nothing of the present benefits he thought Jesus of Nazareth might bring for him. And yet the Lord demands such devotion from all of us. The tired servant can labour all day for Him, but immediately he returns, the Lord expects him to&nbsp;<em>immediately</em>&nbsp;prepare a meal, and doesn't expect to thank us. As it happens, He elsewhere intimated that He will praise us at the judgment, He Himself will serve us (<em><a href='B:490 12:37'>Luk 12:37</a></em>). But the attitude of serving for nothing, for no thanks even, must be with us now, in this life.</p><p><em>"</em>Let us also go, that we may die with him" is yet another example of the disciples being out of step with their Lord, understanding Him on a more human, literal level when He was speaking on another level. But John's Gospel was written, under inspiration, by John. By recording all these examples of the different levels between the Lord and His followers, he is expressing what the Synoptic writers state more directly- that the disciples did not understand. And this was and is a great comfort to those encountering the Gospel for the first time today. Complete understanding is not required of disciples, but rather simple faith. There is no record here that the Lord corrected their misunderstanding, indeed in most of the incidents where they misunderstand, He doesn't specifically correct them, but rather left time and the Father's further leading to clarify the point to those who were thoughtful and reflective. The same can be seen in His attitude to the language of demons.</p>


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<p>11:17&nbsp;<em>So when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in his tomb for four days</em>-</p><p> "He found" could possibly suggest that He was unaware Lazarus had been dead so long. Perhaps He had intended to perform the resurrection three and not four days after the death of Lazarus, in order to encourage them all to believe that He too after three days would rise again. But see on :4&nbsp;<em>That thereby the Son of God may be glorified:&nbsp;</em>The period could refer to two full days and two part days.</p>


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<p>11:18&nbsp;<em>Now Bethany was near to Jerusalem, about three kilometres away</em>-</p><p> This is the reason why many of "the Jews" came to the funeral (:19), and confirms our suggestion under :19 that "the Jews" were the Jewish leadership, specifically the Jerusalem leadership.</p>


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<p>11:19&nbsp;<em>And many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother-&nbsp;</em>"The Jews" refers to the Jewish leadership, and suggests that Lazarus had not been cast out of the Synagogue. Perhaps Lazarus had not stood up for Jesus as he might have done and was therefore still popular amongst the Jewish leadership; yet still the Lord loved him. Remember that the disciples feared going to Judea because "the Jews" sought to kill the Lord, and they only went to Bethany because they were willing to die with the Lord there.</p>


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<p>11:20&nbsp;<em>Martha, when she heard that Jesus was coming, went and met him</em>-</p><p> This is all very much the language of the Lord's second coming especially as described in <em><a href='B:470 25:6'>Mat 25:6</a></em>: "Look The bridegroom Come out to meet him". John's Gospel continually repeats the Synoptic material, but presents it differently. And the similarity of language in this case leads us to think that the connection is intentional. That Mary 'stayed' would therefore appear to reflect badly upon her. The parable of <em><a href='B:470 25:6'>Mat 25:6</a></em> is about the response of different groups of&nbsp;<em>young women</em>, and both Martha and Mary were presumably young, unmarried women. Perhaps Mary simply plays the role of the foolish virgins who didn't respond immediately, but came later. The resurrection of Lazarus was clearly a foretaste of the resurrection at the last day: "Jesus said to her: Your brother shall rise again. Martha said to him: I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life. He that believes on me, though he die, yet shall he live". The similarities with the last day judgment scenario are so many that it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are being consciously referred to.</p><p><em>Jesus was coming</em>-</p><p> Literally, "Jesus is coming". The present tense suggests this is to be read as reported speech. Again, the perspective of the Gospel writers can be seen to change very quickly.</p><p><em>But Mary stayed in the house</em>-</p><p> Luke notes the tension between Martha and Mary over domestic issues. She perhaps remained in the house because she wished to meet the Lord without her dominant sister. Or perhaps the whole incident is being recorded as a foretaste of the Lord's resurrection; some disciples ran out to see the risen Lord whilst some remained in the house.</p>


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<p>11:21&nbsp;<em>Martha said to Jesus: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died</em>-</p><p> This level of faith, which required the literal presence of the Lord in order to perform healing, contrasts unfavourably with the faith of others, even Gentiles, who believed that the Lord's physical presence was not required for His miracles to be performed. But the Gospel records present the key believers as having been weak in faith during the Lord's ministry- surely as encouragement to others to believe.</p>


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<p>11:22&nbsp;<em>And even now, I know that whatever you shall ask of God, God will give you</em>-</p><p>Martha understood the Lord's power to help, and she prayed to Him (<em><a href='B:500 11:22'>Joh 11:22</a></em> cp. 16:23). But she didn't make the obvious, blindingly desperate request which filled her heart: to bring Lazarus back to her. She simply stated that the Lord could do all things. And she knew He would read her spirit, and see what she wanted.</p><p>"Even now" hints that she did wonder if the Lord could even now raise him. Martha's hope that the Lord just might raise Lazarus was not based simply upon a vague whim that the Lord might just do her a favour this time, on this issue. "Even now",&nbsp;<em>kai nun</em>, was a phrase she had previously heard on the lips of the Lord as He sought to explain that the realities of His future Kingdom were also capable of some present experience: "But the hour comes&nbsp;<em>and now is&nbsp;kai nun</em>, when true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit" (<em><a href='B:500 4:23'>Joh 4:23</a></em>). And most significantly <em><a href='B:500 5:25'>Joh 5:25</a></em>: "The hour comes and&nbsp;<em>now is</em>, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live". So her vaguely expressed request was actually a result of her attention to the Spirit words of the Lord Jesus. And thus she was in harmony with the movement of the Spirit, and the Lord's Spirit was therefore aligned with her spirit in intercession before the Father- as Romans 8 makes explicit. The powerful lesson is that prayer is heard not because of how we verbalize things, the word choice we achieve- for that would be some kind of paganism, whereby certain words elicit Divine responses. As we read in this context in Romans 8, "we know not how to pray as we ought". "The Lord the Spirit" (<em><a href='B:540 3:18'>2Co 3:18</a></em> RV) looks upon the spirit, the deepest heart desires, and responds to them rather than to our clumsy attempts to formulate those deep desires as words and sentences.</p><p>She wasn't asking for a resurrection, she left it to the Lord to decide how best to respond; and in doing so reveals a parade example to us all. Clearly it was her unspoken, vaguely conceived and unverbalized desire that the Lord would raise Lazarus immediately. And the Lord (as explained in Romans 8) took this unspoken desire of her spirit and revealed it to the Father. Romans 8 says that He does the same for us today.</p><p>"Whatever you shall ask of God, God will give you" are the very words the Lord elsewhere used urging&nbsp;<em>us</em>&nbsp;that whatever&nbsp;<em>we&nbsp;</em>ask will be&nbsp;<em>given</em>&nbsp;(<em><a href='B:470 21:22'>Mat 21:22</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:23'>Joh 16:23</a></em>). Perhaps her emphasis was upon the word "you". Martha clearly felt an inadequacy in prayer. Like us, she wanted the Lord to do it all for her. The whole story reveals that such feelings of inadequacy are unnecessary. Because her spirit, her deepest heart desires, were what the Lord would raise Lazarus, and this was indeed read by the Lord as prayer.</p>


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<p>11:23&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to her: Your brother shall rise again</em>-</p><p> The Lord is purposefully ambiguous about the timing of the possible resurrection. He could have meant 'right away', or, 'at the last day'. That ambiguity was to elicit a response from Mary, to make her too wonder what His reference was to. And the Lord leaves things hanging at times in our interactions with Him and reading of His word- in order to exercise our own faith and reflection.</p>


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<p>11:24&nbsp;<em>Martha said to him: I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day</em>-</p><p> First century Judaism generally believed in immortal souls, passage to Abraham's bosom etc. The fact Martha didn't believe this was surely due to her attention to the Lord's teaching about the resurrection of the body. She is quoting verbatim the Lord's laboured emphasis upon how He would "raise up" believers in Him "at the last day"- the same Greek words are used (<em><a href='B:500 6:39-40'>Joh 6:39-40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:44'>Joh 6:44</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 6:54'>Joh 6:54</a></em>). Perhaps Martha had been present at the incident in John 6, or probably the Lord repeated His teachings in different places, and she had heard this teaching and absorbed it into her deepest belief system.</p><p>But the Lord was perhaps hoping that His ambiguity would provoke her to state that she believed the Lord could raise Lazarus immediately. But she didn't quite get there, and so the Lord takes here there in :25 by speaking of how He&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;the resurrection.</p>


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<p>11:25&nbsp;<em>Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life</em>-</p><p> Here and in :26, the Lord seeks to develop the idea that the language of latter day resurrection and salvation at "the last day" is in fact applicable to life in Him right now. Under :22&nbsp;<em>Even now</em>&nbsp;I suggested that Martha had heard the Lord's discourses on this theme earlier, and was even quoting from them. But now He asks her whether she really believes it- because if she does, then she may indeed entertain the idea that it was possible to raise Lazarus immediately.</p><p><em>He that believes on me, though he die, yet shall he live</em>-</p><p> A repeat of the Lord's teaching in <em><a href='B:500 6:58'>Joh 6:58</a></em> about how those who eat the Christ manna shall live and not die. Martha had already alluded to His teaching on that occasion in her reference to being raised again at the last day. Now the Lord is trying to take her further, as if to say: 'And what did I go on to say? I spoke later on in that same discourse about 'life' in Me as a present experience... that ought to confirm your hope and faith that I could raise Lazarus even now'. Likewise the Lord's description of Himself in this verse as "the life" uses a phrase only found in <em><a href='B:500 6:51'>Joh 6:51</a></em>, where He speaks of His flesh giving "the life" to the believers. And this is how He seeks to work with us, always leading us on, and so patiently and in such hope that we will 'get it'. We read or hear His word, and then we encounter another part of His word which is Him gently prodding us to reflect upon the word we previously heard or read. This all helps us understand why regular Bible reading and reflection on His word is such an important part of our daily walk with Him.</p>


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<p>11:26&nbsp;<em>And whoever lives and believes on me shall never die-</em></p><p>&nbsp;"Lives" therefore comes before 'believing'. Yet in the preceding verses, the Lord has spoken of 'living' as if He meant 'life at the last day as a result of resurrection': "... he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. But the eternal life, the kind of life we shall eternally live, can be lived right now. "Whoever lives" therefore refers to whoever has His life in them and continues that life of believing.</p><p>He is suggesting that this 'life' can be lived now, and if we have it, and continue to believe in Him, then we will literally "never die". Again, the Lord is encouraging Martha to believe that in some sense the resurrection life can be experienced now. And He is doing this, in the immediate context, to deepen her faith in the Lord's possibility to raise Lazarus to life- so that He could indeed raise Lazarus from the dead in response to her faith, rather than solely from the motive of His own personal compassion. And He works in this same multi-level way with millions of people simultaneously... the extent of His activity is breath-taking.</p><p><em>Do you believe this?</em>-</p><p> Is not the implication that Lazarus was raised partly because of&nbsp;<em>her</em>&nbsp;faith…?</p>


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<p>11:27&nbsp;<em>She said to him: Yes, Lord. I have believed</em>-</p><p> Implying she had taken a one-time specific act of faith; the very specific confession of faith which John's Gospel was seeking to elicit in its audience.</p><p><em>I have believed you are the Christ</em>-</p><p> This is in answer to the question as to whether she believed that "He that believes on me, though he die, yet shall he live" (:25,26). She still dare not make the specific statement that she believes in life after death. On one hand, we could read her answer negatively, as if she fails to make the answer the Lord was trying to elicit- that yes, she believed in Him as the resurrection and the life, both now and at the last day. On another hand, we could read her answer positively, in that instead of saying she believed in a future gift of life, both in this life and the next, she simply says that she believes in Jesus as the Christ, making no presumption about getting any personal blessing out of that belief, and content with whatever He in His wisdom may give her. We noted this when considering how the sisters simply informed the Lord of Lazarus' grave sickness, without presuming to ask for His specific resolution of the issue (:3).</p><p><em>The Son of God, He that is to come into the world</em>-</p><p> Every believer likewise 'comes into the world' (<em><a href='B:500 1:9'>Joh 1:9</a></em> - the same Greek words are used). There is therefore no requirement to interpret this as meaning that the Lord Jesus personally pre-existed and literally came from Heaven to this earth. The Lord had spoken of how He 'came into the world' (<em><a href='B:500 3:19'>Joh 3:19</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 9:39'>Joh 9:39</a></em>), and again Martha is quoting His words. Whilst Mary is framed as the one who loved hearing the Lord's words, clearly Martha likewise loved His words and based her faith upon them.</p>


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<p>11:28&nbsp;<em>And when she had said this, she went away, and called Mary her sister secretly, saying, The Teacher is here</em>-</p><p> Or, the Master. A nice insight into how the earliest disciples spoke of the Lord Jesus to each other when not in His presence.</p><p><em>And calls you</em>-</p><p> The same word is used for how the Lord 'called' Lazarus out of the grave (12:17). This develops the theme that the essence of resurrection happens in the Lord's interactions with those He calls to Himself. See on :25 and :26. The call to Mary was therefore in essence the same call to Lazarus, to come from death to life.</p>


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<p>11:29&nbsp;<em>And she, when she heard it, arose quickly and went to him</em>-</p><p> As noted on :28, the response to the call in this life reflects our response to the call to life in the last day. Hearing the call, quickly responding and coming to the Lord immediately is surely being presented as a template for all John's audience to follow. The hearers would have been challenged by these words to themselves respond- just as we should be.</p>


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<p>11:30&nbsp;<em>(Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still in the place where Martha met him)</em>-</p><p> All the communication being through messengers, privacy would have been hard to achieve. The Lord wanted to meet Martha and Mary alone, as far as possible, because He sought to develop their faith away from "the Jews" who were swamping the home. And He was also aware that "the Jews" sought to kill Him; that may have been another consideration, or at least, He was being sensitive to the fears of the disciples.</p>


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<p>11:31&nbsp;<em>The Jews then who were with her in the house and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there</em>-</p><p> This means that the tomb was located the same side of the village as where the Lord entered. He was therefore left waiting somewhere near the tomb. Therefore the question 'Where have you laid him?' (:34) was likely rhetorical.</p>


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<p>11:32- see on <em><a href='B:490 19:42'>Luk 19:42</a></em>.</p><p><em>Therefore, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him: Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died</em>-</p><p> She repeats the words of Martha, suggesting they had said this to one another in conversation beforehand. And she too displays the limited faith that assumes only the Lord's literal presence could achieve miracles, and that healing from a distance was impossible. The way she repeats the same words as her sister, and with the same understandable anger&nbsp;/ frustration with the Lord that He had not come quicker for the messenger would have returned with the news that the Lord had not followed him back to Bethany immediately... this all adds to the sense that we are indeed reading words actually spoken, and feelings really felt.</p>


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<p>11:33&nbsp;<em>When Jesus saw her weeping</em>-</p><p> This is the same word used for the same? women weeping before the stone which covered the Lord's tomb (<em><a href='B:500 20:11'>Joh 20:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:13'>Joh 20:13</a></em>). Clearly the Lord saw the whole scene as pointing forward to His own death and resurrection, and He sought to use the similarities to inculcate faith in His resurrection:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And the Jews also weeping who had come with her</em>-</p><p> The grief of "the Jews", even though they "sought to kill Him", still stirred parallel emotions within the Lord. For He had our nature, and such sympathetic response to others' grief is natural. And yet the Lord felt this psychological response even for His enemies; and in this we see the core love for them which was at His heart. His ability to respond even now to our emotions and tears, as He did toward Stephen at his time of dying, all makes Him a living Lord and matchless mediator.</p><p><em>He groaned in the spirit and was disturbed</em>-</p><p> Their weeping, just like ours, provokes a reflection deeply within the Lord. He groaned "in Himself" (:38); He took their grief deeply within Himself. This is again a reflection of His humanity; for it is normal to absorb the emotions of those we love deep into ourselves. But He is the Son of God, and <em><a href='B:520 8:26'>Rom 8:26</a></em> clearly alludes to this incident by saying that "the Spirit" (a title of the Lord Jesus, "the Lord the Spirit" of <em><a href='B:540 3:18'>2Co 3:18</a></em>) intercedes even now with groanings which cannot be uttered. He is the same today as yesterday. The Greek translated "disturbed" is twice used in John of the Lord's feelings as He faced the cross (<em><a href='B:500 12:27'>Joh 12:27</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 13:21'>Joh 13:21</a></em>). So clearly did He see the whole incident as pointing forward to His own death and resurrection. And it was an existentially lonely feeling, because He uses the same word to urge His followers: "Let not&nbsp;<em>your</em>&nbsp;and this perhaps is where the emphasis was be troubled" (<em><a href='B:500 14:1'>Joh 14:1</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:27'>Joh 14:27</a></em>). This deep troubling / disturbance was felt uniquely by the Lord. We need to be aware that the Lord knew what He would do- He knew that within maybe as little as ten minutes, the sisters would be ecstatic with joy as they met their resurrected brother. For me, this knowledge would have mitigated against entering into their emotions of grief. But His unity with them, His love, was such that He all the same wept for their tears. With us too, He knows that we shall eternally rejoice, relatively soon. And yet He still enters fully into our grief of the moment. Such is His love. Truly, man is not alone. God is with us, right now, through His Emmanuel.</p>


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<p>11:34&nbsp;<em>And said, Where have you laid him?</em>-</p><p> Was this a rhetorical question, perhaps in order to focus them on the deadness of their brother as a prelude to the wonder of his resurrection? See on :31. Or is it a reflection of how the Lord had limited knowledge? The same word is repeatedly used of how the Lord's body was "laid" in the tomb (<em><a href='B:470 27:60'>Mat 27:60</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 15:47'>Mar 15:47</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 16:6'>Mar 16:6</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:53'>Luk 23:53</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 23:55'>Luk 23:55</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 19:41-42'>Joh 19:41-42</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:2'>Joh 20:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:13'>Joh 20:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:15'>Joh 20:15</a></em>). But the Lord also often uses the same word, at least in John, for how He 'laid down' His life (<em><a href='B:500 10:11'>Joh 10:11</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:15'>Joh 10:15</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 10:17-18'>Joh 10:17-18</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 15:13'>Joh 15:13</a></em>). Again, the Lord is developing the idea that life is laid down both in death and during this mortal life; that the power of new life might break through into our mortal flesh, both now and through the resurrection of the body to the life eternal. Consciously or unconsciously, Mary uses the same original words in enquiring where the Lord's body has been laid (<em><a href='B:500 20:2'>Joh 20:2</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:13'>Joh 20:13</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 20:15'>Joh 20:15</a></em>). Surely she must have seen the similarities, as the Lord intended. He knew she would one day soon be asking where&nbsp;<em>His&nbsp;</em>body had been laid, and He lovingly, gently sets her up for this.</p><p><em>They said to him: Lord, come and see</em>-</p><p> Again, the Lord is setting her up to see the similarities at the time of His resurrection; for in response to the same question, as to where the body had been laid, the same answer would be given by the Angel who represented Jesus: "Come, see the place where the Lord lay" (<em><a href='B:470 28:6'>Mat 28:6</a></em>). But it's all the other way around; the words of Jesus ("Where have you laid him?") become the words of Mary, and the words of the Angel who represented the Lord Jesus become Mary's words ("Come and see"). By so cleverly and profoundly setting this up, the Lord sought to demonstrate the connection between Him and her and all those who seek His body; His words become her words, her words become His words. He would soon make this explicit when speaking of how His words were to abide in His people, so that their will and His were the same, and therefore whatever they asked would be granted without needing His formal intercession (<em><a href='B:500 15:7'>Joh 15:7</a></em>).</p><p>The Greek thinking minds who read the New Testament were sadly divorced from the Hebrew background which is the backdrop for God's revelation in the Bible. In the lead up to the AD381 Decree of Constantinople, which declared Trinitarianism as the only acceptable form of Christian faith, Gregory of Nazianzus preached a series of sermons in defence of the Trinity. He dealt with the two blocks of Biblical evidence as saying that e.g. in <em><a href='B:500 11:34'>Joh 11:34</a></em>, Jesus resurrected Lazarus by His Divine nature, and then wept in His human nature. Gregory utterly failed to appreciate Hebrew thought; he ended up splitting up the Lord Jesus effectively into two persons, rather than seeking to harmonize the two strands which there were within the one person of Jesus.</p>


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<p>11:35&nbsp;<em>Jesus wept-&nbsp;</em>He of all men knew the reality of future resurrection at the last day, and He knew what He was going to do. So why then did He weep? He saw how unnecessary was their grief, how misguided. For He knew what He was going to do. And yet He wept with them because His heart bled for them, because He shared their grief (on whatever basis it was) to the extent that He too wept with them. And the love of Christ will constrain us to have His bleeding heart (<em><a href='B:540 5:14'>2Co 5:14</a></em>). We may be tempted to think that our griefs and sorrows are too petty for the Lord to engage with. Our feelings are reflected in His, quite simply because He loves us.</p>


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<p>11:36&nbsp;<em>The Jews said: Look how he loved him-&nbsp;</em>They perceived His love as&nbsp;<em>phileo&nbsp;</em>love, whereas the inspired record says that the Lord's love was of the&nbsp;<em>agape</em>&nbsp;quality (:5). The misunderstanding of the Lord's love was and is tragic. Some see this as evidence of a parallel between&nbsp;<em>phileo&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>agape</em>, but I would argue against that position. If they are interchangeable terms, then why use them both. Rather I suggest we see His&nbsp;<em>agape</em>&nbsp;as being misunderstood as the far lower level of&nbsp;<em>phileo</em>&nbsp;love.</p>


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<p>11:37<em>&nbsp;But some of them said: Could not this man, who opened the eyes of him that was blind, have also caused that this man should not have died?</em>-</p><p> Here we see yet another point of connection with the Lord's crucifixion; for "the Jews" made similar accusation as justification for their demand that the Lord "come down from the cross". The line of argument they were presenting, introduced by the ominous words "But some of them...", suggests that they may have been sarcastic and cynical in saying that the Lord had opened the eyes of the blind man. But we see again some sort of division amongst "the Jews"; the Lord's grief was evidently genuine, indicating He has a good friend and good man (:36). But others chose to find any excuse to disbelieve Him.</p>


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<p>11:38&nbsp;<em>Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave</em>-</p><p> The whole process of mediation takes place within the Lord's mind, with the sort of groanings He had as He begged the Father to raise Lazarus (<em><a href='B:520 8:26'>Rom 8:26</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:500 11:38'>Joh 11:38</a></em>), and as on the cross He prayed with strong crying and tears for our redemption (<em><a href='B:650 5:5'>Heb 5:5</a></em> cp. <em><a href='B:290 53:12'>Isa 53:12</a></em>). The Lord Jesus is the same yesterday and today. That same passion and intensity of pleading really is there. This is why the state of our mind, our spirit, is so vitally important; because it is this which the Lord Jesus interprets to the Father. The Lord's Spirit struggles in mediation with crying and groaning (<em><a href='B:520 8:26'>Rom 8:26</a></em>), as He did for the raising of Lazarus. There is a further connection with <em><a href='B:650 5:5'>Heb 5:5</a></em>, where we learn that the Lord prayed on the cross with a like intensity. And this Lord is our Lord today. He can be crucified afresh, therefore He has the capacity for struggle and mental effort:&nbsp;</p><p><em>And a stone lay across it</em>-</p><p> The same word used about the stone that lay over the Lord's tomb (<em><a href='B:500 20:1'>Joh 20:1</a></em>). The whole incident was to provoke faith in the Lord's resurrection after three days were fulfilled. But the disciples didn't 'get it', and John may be making that point- that they failed to believe, to take the lesson from the resurrection of Lazarus which was clearly a foretaste of the Lord's. This is part of the wider theme of the Gospel writers emphasizing their own slowness and weakness of faith- which likely made them the more compelling and credible.</p>


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<p>11:39<em>&nbsp;Jesus said: Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, said to him: Lord, by this time the body stinks. For he has been dead four days</em>-</p><p>&nbsp;<em>&nbsp;</em>Female concern about taking the stone away from the tomb was another point of contact with the Lord's resurrection. The Lord's body did not "see corruption" because of the huge amount of expensive spices placed upon it, but with Lazarus, the body was already decomposed. The contrast with the Lord's corpse was perhaps to make the point that&nbsp;<em>His</em>&nbsp;body did not "see corruption". And although our corpses do "see corruption", this is no barrier to resurrection.</p>


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<p>11:40 - see on <em><a href='B:500 11:4'>Joh 11:4</a></em>.</p><p><em>Jesus said to her: Did I not say to you, that if you believed, you should see the glory of God?</em>-</p><p> The Lord Jesus encourages us to see ourselves as Moses. This is without doubt an allusion to Moses' experience of seeing God's glory- an experience which in Jewish eyes marked Moses&nbsp;out as the greatest man who had ever lived. The veneration in which Moses was and is held in the Jewish world is hard for Gentiles to enter into. A glance through rabbinical commentaries on the Pentateuch will illustrate this well. And here was the Lord Jesus saying that through faith in him, we can share the experience of Moses, we can rise to the spiritual heights of the man who spoke to God face to face as a man speaks to his friend:&nbsp;</p><p>We are being invited to be equal to Moses, seeing from the cleft in the rock the awesome majesty of the perfection of Christ's character; the full glory of God. But do we appreciate his righteousness? Paul likewise invites us to behold with unveiled face, as Moses did (<em><a href='B:540 3:18'>2Co 3:18</a></em> RV), and thereby, just from appreciating the glory of Christ's character, be changed into the same glory. Note too how in Romans 11 we are each bidden “behold the goodness and severity of God”- a reference to Moses beholding all the goodness of Yahweh. We are in essence in his position right now (<em><a href='B:20 33:19'>Exo 33:19</a></em>).</p><p>John's Gospel contains several references to the fact that Christ 'shows' the Father to those who believe in him, and that it is possible to "see the Father" and his glory through seeing or accurately believing in him as the Son of the Father (<em><a href='B:500 11:40'>Joh 11:40</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 12:45'>Joh 12:45</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 14:9'>Joh 14:9</a></em>; <em><a href='B:500 16:25'>Joh 16:25</a></em>). Moses earnestly wished to see the Father fully, but was unable to do so. The height which Moses reached as he cowered in that rock cleft and heard God's Name declared is hard to plumb. But we have been enabled to&nbsp;<em>see</em>&nbsp;the Father, through our appreciation of the Lord Jesus. But does an appropriate sense of&nbsp;<em>wonder</em>&nbsp;fill us? Do we really make time to&nbsp;<em>know</em>&nbsp;the Son of God? Or do we see words like “glory" as just cold theology?</p><p>Martha clearly believed Lazarus was now decomposed, and it would make a smell if the stone over his tomb was rolled away. “Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?” was the Lord’s response (<em><a href='B:500 11:40'>Joh 11:40</a></em>). Clearly she didn’t have that faith. So, on one level, she shouldn’t have seen God’s glory revealed in the resurrection of Lazarus (<em><a href='B:500 11:4'>Joh 11:4</a></em>). And yet we read straight away that then, Lazarus was raised- despite Martha’s ‘unworthiness’ of it. Such was the Lord’s love for them all:&nbsp;</p>


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<p>11:41&nbsp;<em>So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said: Father, I thank you that you have heard me</em>-</p><p> The way the Lord characteristically lifted His eyes to Heaven to pray reflects His complete unity of spirit with the Father, with no barriers nor issues of guilty conscience standing between them. Even before the body of Lazarus emerged, the Lord knew that He had been heard. He had earlier spoken of doing the works / miracles which He had seen / been shown by the Father (5:20,36). We get the impression that the Father had shown the Lord this "work", and He was totally confident that it would be performed. It was of course a huge encouragement to the Lord that He too would emerge from the grave.</p>


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<p>11:42&nbsp;<em>And I know you hear me always, but because of the crowd that stands around I said it, that they may believe you did send me</em>-</p><p> Said what? The past tense suggests the reference is not to His word of command to Lazarus to "come forth", for He had not yet spoken that. Was the reference therefore to His command "Take away the stone" (:39)? Was it to His "groaning"? But this was "in the spirit... within Himself", not publicly stated. I suggest that the "it" which He "said" was in prayer to the Father. The Father always heard Him, He did not need to ask for specific things in order to get them, for the Spirit was given to Him without measure. Perhaps He is saying that in this case, He had specifically prayed to the Father, and received a positive response- in order that the crowd might realize that indeed He had been sent by the Father. But there is no record of any prayer prayed publicly by the Lord in front of the watching crowd. Maybe He meant that He had already said "it" in prayer to the Father and been answered, and He was now going to say publicly "Lazarus, come forth"; but that also is hardly a public prayer to the Father. The GNB tries to avoid the problem by offering a more vague interpretation of the tense: "I&nbsp;<em>say this&nbsp;</em>for the sake of the people here". But this seems questionable in terms of the Greek grammar. My conclusion is therefore that the prayer to the Father was private, but the raising of Lazarus would have been seen by the thoughtful amongst the crowd as clearly an answer to the Lord's private prayer. Such resurrection could only come from God, and seeing it was done at the hands and word of Jesus, it followed that He had therefore prayed to the Father for it. In this way, the Lord demonstrated that the essence of prayer was within the heart of the believer, whereas at that time prayer was generally conceived as a matter of public activity, with words spoken out loud. It's the same lesson as taught by Hannah's silent prayer. This is why the Lord&nbsp;<em>says out loud</em>&nbsp;in the audience of the crowd that He "said it" for the sake of the crowd. John's Gospel draws a distinction between "the crowd" and "the Jews", the Jewish leadership. The Lord's intention was that both groups would be converted (recall His desire that the cured leper made a witness to the priests), but the resurrection of Lazarus was aimed at converting the masses- "because of the crowd I said it". The Jewish leadership were not likely to reflect upon what the Lord had said and done, because their hearts were hardened. But "the crowd" contained at least some open minds.</p><p>So it seems to me that Jesus had asked / commanded / said to the Father to resurrect Lazarus. Jesus believed that this had happened. And so, in utter faith, he thanks the Father for raising Lazarus- even though Lazarus was still silent in the grave and there was at that point no actual physical evidence Lazarus had come back to life. But then Jesus says, believing so firmly the prayer had already been answered 'OK Lazarus, well, come out and see us then' my paraphrase. The whole point was to demonstrate that "I am the resurrection and the life", to confirm Martha's faith that indeed there would be a resurrection "at the last day" (<em><a href='B:500 11:24-25'>Joh 11:24-25</a></em>). It wasn't to demonstrate that Jesus could reunite 'soul' and body- it was to prove a resurrection.</p><p><em>I know you hear me always</em>-</p><p> Both David and Christ panicked when they felt their prayers weren't being answered; they felt that this meant they had sinned (<em><a href='B:230 22:1-4'>Psa 22:1-4</a></em>; and consider too 17:15; 24:5; 27:4,8). Clearly they understood answered prayer as a sign of acceptability with God. the Lord knew that God&nbsp;<em>always</em>&nbsp;heard Him. When apparently God didn't hear His prayer for deliverance on the cross, He for a moment supposed that He'd sinned and therefore God had forsaken Him.</p><p>Lazarus had died, and the evident desire of Martha was to see her brother again, there and then. But she didn't go running to the Lord with this desire. She simply and briefly stated her faith in the Lord's limitless power to resurrect, and her knowledge that He could use the Father's power as He wished. He read her spirit, He saw her fervent desire. And He responded to this as if it had been a prayer. He groaned deeply within Himself, and wept- not the tears of grief, as the Jews mistakenly thought (note how throughout the record they misunderstand what is really going on), but the tears which go with the groaning of serious prayer (<em><a href='B:500 11:33-39'>Joh 11:33-39</a></em>). Having done this, He comments: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me&nbsp;<em>always</em>". Because His spirit, His mind, was in constant contact with the Father, His prayers / desires were always communicated to Him, and always being heard. "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me" could almost imply that the Lord prayed for something, and then, after some interval, the answer came. We have an exquisite insight into the Lord's mind and the highly personal relationship between Father and Son in the words that follow: "I knew (not 'I know') that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe". This almost certainly was not spoken out loud; this is a very rare and privileged glimpse into the unspoken communication between the Son and Father. The Lord seems to be adding this almost in half apology, lest it should seem that He prayed for Lazarus' resurrection, the answer came, and He then thanked the Father for it. It seems that this would be too primitive a sequence of events. He says that He&nbsp;<em>knew</em>&nbsp;that His request had been granted, and His utterance of thanks for the answer was for the peoples' benefit: that&nbsp;<em>they</em>&nbsp;might perceive that whatever the Son asked for, He received from God. But in reality, the Lord's thoughts to the Father seem to suggest, it wasn't a question of His prayers being accepted and answered. His Spirit, His thoughts, were one with the Father, and therefore it was not that His thoughts were considered, accepted and then God granted the request. What He thought was the prayer and it was the answer all in one. His 'mediation' for us is in the sense that He is the Lord&nbsp;<em>the Spirit</em>. There is no barrier (and was not any) between His mind and that of the Father.</p>


text:
<p>11:43&nbsp;<em>And when he had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice</em>-</p><p> Yet another connection with the crucifixion; for this was how the Lord ended His mortal life, crying with a loud voice (<em><a href='B:470 27:46'>Mat 27:46</a></em>; <em><a href='B:470 27:50'>Mat 27:50</a></em>).</p><p><em>Lazarus, come out</em>-</p><p> The Greek is only elsewhere used in the Gospels for the Lord calling men to come 'here' to Him and follow Him in service (<em><a href='B:470 19:21'>Mat 19:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:480 10:21'>Mar 10:21</a></em>; <em><a href='B:490 18:22'>Luk 18:22</a></em>). This was also His personal intention for Lazarus. Again we have the hint that Lazarus may not have been a full believer at the time (see on :19). And the miracles were not done simply to meet human need as the Lord encountered it- for He walked past so much of it, without addressing it. The intention was that those cured or assisted would come to Him in faith. Our good works and social welfare outreach should therefore likewise be intimately connected to evangelism and not done for their own sake.</p>


