Bible Study Notes - Joh 8:21-30

Bible Study Notes - John 8:21-30

In this brief passage, the evangelist portrays the Lord Jesus Christ as “The Father’s Ambassador.”  Jesus perseveres in His claims about being the Son of God.  He expands His teachings as He states that He is the ambassador of the Heavenly Father on Earth.  As all ambassadors leave their home countries and travel to foreign and other lands to represent the interests of their nations, they eventually return home.  Blinded by their longstanding presuppositions about God and their disdain toward Jesus, the Pharisees are unable to comprehend anything that Jesus says about His heavenly origins. Nevertheless, Jesus continues His teachings to reveal the Father’s perfect love.

Like an ambassador who has been given a clear directive to pronounce in the country to which he has been sent, Jesus straightforwardly share the Father’s message about love, holiness and Law within relationships with other persons.  The indescribable love that the Father and Son share as they are One is the message Jesus shares with His audience.  The Father sends the Son into the world to simply the Law, the heart of which is love.  Contrary to the heavy laden millstone upon the necks of Jesus’ listeners of which the Pharisees make of the Law, the Father gave the Law to Moses during the wilderness period to enable the people to relate rightly and lovingly to a holy God.  Essentially, the Law depicts God’s holy character; more specifically, the Ten Commandments characterize God as a jealous God who will not tolerate any displacement from the number one place in anyone’s heart.  God demands unequivocal allegiance and unwavering love from each daughter and son because He covenant with Israel means that Almighty God must extend love with the same quality that He requires.  In complete contradiction of Jesus’ teachings, the Pharisees defile the Law and offend God’s holy character as they use the Law to exploit the people.  As they are unable to understand God’s original intent in delivering the Law which the Pharisees spend their lives studying, assuredly, they are unable to comprehend Jesus’ delivery of the “new Law of Love.”  As it conflicts with their religious racketeering and seemingly incalculable profits from demanding ill-gotten but lucrative sacrifices from common people, the Pharisees summarily dismiss Jesus’ teachings and portray Him as a dangerous and blaspheming lunatic who deserves death as a means of relieving His misery.

Consider the following thoughts and questions as you more fully explore this brief passage.

·         To where is Jesus going?  If you respond heaven, please offer a vivid description.  Perhaps, Jesus means Calvary instead.  Compare these two possibilities.

·         What exactly does Jesus mean when He tells the Pharisees, “you will die in your sin.”

·         He tells them that they cannot join Him where He is going. 

·         They do not understand His heavenly origins and thus could not return to his celestial space.

·         Within the original context and chronology of this teaching, Jesus’ words probably sound like the ravings of a lunatic.  The Pharisees would not have any point of reference with which to appreciate anything Jesus says.  Quite possibly, we too suffer with the same scientific and faith challenges that they had.  Discuss the similarities between their hurdles to faith relative to their period in history and the hurdles before us as we live in a world that uncritically accepts the scientific method as the surest means to verify truth.

·         In the next verse, Jesus distinguishes between heavenly and earthly realms.  Were we to emphasize the natural and scientific dimensions of these two worlds, we miss the opportunity to apply the evangelist’s allegorical writings to our personal spirituality.  John emphasizes the necessity of a relationship with Jesus, Emmanuel who is God with us, rather than strict adherence to religiosity and personal piety.  Higher realms allude to communion with God.  Lower spheres revolve around human self-reliance and methods self-justification before Almighty God.  Colloquially, it is said that religion is an effort to reach God and spirituality is a genuine attempt to relate to God.

·         Dwelling in this world ends in physical death and thus death in one’s sin.  However, faith in the great “I AM” whom God sends enables anyone to transcend final termination, decomposition and ultimate annihilation.  Jesus who defeats death thereby empowers anyone who believes in Him equally to overcome death. 

·         Jesus’ use of the characterization, “I AM,” particularly infuriates the Pharisees who consider Jesus’ words as repugnant blasphemy as those words are the very Name of God.

·         Thus, they question Him about His origins.  He rebuffs them as He insist that He condemns their lack of faith.

·         They do not understand that Jesus means the Father when He speaks about the One who sent Him. 

·         To assist them in understanding His teaching, mission and destiny, Jesus predicts His forthcoming crucifixion.  His cross will prove Jesus is the Son of God and One with “I AM.”  His resurrection from the dead will seal the authority of Jesus’ teachings and provide the surest evidence and validation of everything that Jesus says.

·         You will recall that many Israelites ignited God’s wrath during the wilderness years with their obstinacy, complaining and faithlessness.  He sends a plague of scorpion s to bite, poison and kill them.  After interceding in their behalf, Moses lifts up a snake in a cross.  Anyone who goes to that cross and looks upon the snake receives immediate healing and a new life. 

·         For John, similarly, anyone who looks to Jesus and the cross finds healing and new life.

·         Jesus submission to the cross proves that He does whatever the Father instructs Him to do.

·         Jesus humility and obedience means that He is the Father’s ideal ambassador as Jesus willingly lays down His life to offer abundant and eternal life to anyone who believes the Father sent Him to reflect God’s unconditional and covenantal love for humankind.

·         John does not include the Garden of Gethsemane episode in his gospel.  However, in the twenty-ninth verse, Jesus appears to allude to that fateful experience in which He began to sweat drops of blood as the synoptic gospel writers record.

·         That very graphic image of anxiety reassures us that Almighty God is always with us in the midst of every trial and tribulation regardless of how palatable and power our anxiety may become.

·         It helps disciples to retain permanent mental images of the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane and Christ’s cross on Mt. Calvary.  John depicts a very human Savior who walks beside us on the journey of life. As the well-known poem, Footprints, teaches, if we fall He will pick us up and carry us until we are able to walk again.  Christ’s example of redemptive and even unjust suffering infuses us with divine strength when challenges spontaneously arise. 

·         Utterly debilitated by domestic abuse inclusive of emotional, verbal and physical violence, a professor of Religion at a Southern research university could not function vocationally.  For a year and a half, she could not read and write which are non-negotiable functions for an academic.  Mercifully, she was able to listen to music to avert lapsing further into a clinical and paralyzing depression.  Within that period, she freshly recalled the imagery of the cross.  She substituted herself for Christ realizing that the resurrection of the Easter dawn always follows the death and finality of crucifixion on Good Friday.  Fortunately, Jesus’ example empowered this suffering with divine strength to surmount her most regrettable experience.

·         The passion narratives offer reassurance that Almighty God intervenes in human messiness and intervenes in accord with His sovereign will to empathize with myriad human pain and suffering.

·         In the twenty-ninth verse, Jesus reminds His listeners that the Father never leaves Him and in turn them.

·         John concludes this brief passage with an affirmative note of belief.  “Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.”  To evade condemnation, a person must believe in Jesus and the One who sent Him.  Earlier in the gospel John declares, “Anyone who does not believe in the Son stands condemned already.”  It is important to note that a person must believe in Jesus and the One who sent Him.  Belief in Jesus practically means that a person crosses over from existential death to abundant and eternal life.