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Sermon for Judica – Lent 5
Hebrews 9:11-15 + John 8:46-59
About a month ago, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, claimed in an interview that those who practice Judaism, the Jewish religion, the one that rejects Jesus as the Christ, are the “spiritual descendants of Abraham,” and that, on that basis, they have a right to live in the land called “Israel.” I bring this up today only because that very question—who are the spiritual descendants of Abraham?—comes up in today’s Gospel and is answered definitively by Jesus. And, yes, His answer exposes Huckabee, and all who teach as he does, as dangerous and blasphemous false teachers. But much more importantly, Jesus’ answer calls all men to turn away from all their false gods and to seek eternal life through Him and through Him alone, because Jesus is the God of Abraham, which means that only those who believe in Jesus as their God are the spiritual descendants of Abraham.
The Jews were in a standoff with Jesus when our Gospel takes place. Jesus had been telling them very plainly that He had been sent to earth by God the Father, and that, because they didn’t believe in Him, they were wrong to call God their Father, even though they were physical descendants of Abraham. In fact, in the verses right before our text begins, He went so far as to tell them, to their faces, that, in truth, they were neither children of Abraham, nor children of God, but children of the devil himself, because they didn’t believe in Him, as Abraham did, and they were trying to kill Him, which Abraham never would have done.
“Which one of you convicts me of sin?” Jesus asked. And none of them could. And if I am telling the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears God’s words. That is why you do not hear, because you are not of God. What truth was Jesus telling that the Jews refused to believe? He told them the truth that He had been sent directly by God the Father. He told them the truth that He was the Light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. He told them the truth that He had the power to free them from the slavery to sin and to make them into true children of God, through faith Him, the true Son of God. The truth Jesus told was a gracious invitation to be saved through Him. But their unbelief revealed the truth about them: that, for as much as they claimed to be children of God, they weren’t.
And that upset them, to hear that from Jesus. Who in their right mind could claim that these religious Jews were not acceptable to God? The only conclusion they could come to was, “Do we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and that you have a demon?” Jesus doesn’t react to their racial slur—something people often resort to when they have no actual argument—but He does respond to their charge that He has a demon, because that was outright blasphemy against Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and who judges.”
People often think they can dishonor Jesus and get away with it, disparage Him and get away with it, fail to listen to Him and get away with it. Because He lets them get away with it for a while. As He said back in John 3, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. But ultimately, no one will get away with dishonoring Jesus, disparaging Him, or failing to listen to His teaching. God the Father’s patience will run out, and when that happens, if a person hasn’t repented of dishonoring the Father’s beloved Son, that person will wish he had never been born. Because death is not the end. It’s something that’s experienced forever.
But for now, there is still real hope for those who do repent. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. What a claim!
But first, what does it mean to keep Jesus’ word? What had He just said? He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. To keep His word is to follow Him. And to follow Him is, first, to leave behind the place where you were—living in sin, living for yourself, living for this life, hostile to God and His Word and His commandments. You leave that behind by repenting of it, recognizing the ugliness of your sinful heart, and by turning to God for forgiveness through His Son. That’s what faith is. Believing in God for forgiveness for Christ’s sake. At that point, according to Jesus, a person goes from dead to alive, from condemned to justified, from enemy of God to child of God. Such a person, living in the light of Christ, will then go on to live as a child of the light, struggling against sin and the deeds of darkness, being a light in the world, hearing the word of Christ, gathering with fellow believers, and doing all these things all the way through this life, until the end. That’s what it means to follow Jesus, and to keep His word.
Those who do that will never see death. What does He mean? Everyone knows that believers in Christ still die! Well, if you mean the temporary separation of body and soul, then, yes, believers still die. But to “see” death (or to “taste” death, as the Jews put the question back to Jesus) is much worse than that. To see death is for the soul to suffer in hell after that temporary separation of body and soul, a suffering which the one who keeps Jesus’ word will never see. To see death is to suffer it forever, to be raised from the dead on the Last Day only to be cast out of God’s presence into eternal condemnation and death. The one who keeps Jesus’ word will never see that. As He says a few chapters earlier, He who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.And on the Last Day, Jesus says, the one who fell asleep in Him will hear His voice and come forth from the grave into the resurrection of life.
Of course, the unbelieving Jews were oblivious, as usual, to Jesus’ true meaning. They never were able to see the spiritual meaning behind His words, because they rejected the working of the Spirit of God. As the Apostle Paul wrote, The natural man, that is, the man without the Spirit of God, does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. So they said to Jesus, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, and so did the prophets. And you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died. Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Even though they were wrong in their interpretation of Jesus’ words, they were right in their conclusion, that He was claiming to be greater than Abraham, and greater than all the prophets.
But before presenting His boldest claim of all, Jesus challenges them one more time. Jesus answered, “If I honor myself, my honor is nothing.” In other words, I’m not claiming this honor for Myself, this honor of being greater than Abraham and the prophets, this honor of being able to keep a person from seeing death. It is my Father who honors me, of whom you say that he is your God. You do not know him; but I know him. If I were to say, ‘I do not know him,’ I would be a liar, like you. But I do know him and keep his word.” Jesus, the Son of God, isn’t boasting when He claims that the Father honors Him. He isn’t boasting when He claims to know the Father. He’s simply speaking the truth. He’s also speaking the truth when He accuses those who do not believe in Him of not knowing God. And, if they claim to know Him, He is simply speaking the truth when He calls them “liars.” Whenever anyone claims to know God, you have to test that claim. Now, Jesus says elsewhere that not even everyone who calls Him Lord, or who calls himself a Christian, is actually a child of God, because there are many hypocrites who bear the Christian name without truly believing in the Lord Jesus. But of this you can be absolutely sure: Anyone who claims to know God, but who does not acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, most certainly is a liar.
Finally, Jesus made His boldest claim—for which they took up stones and were ready to kill Him on the spot. Your father Abraham was glad that he would see my day, and he saw it and rejoiced. These Jews who claimed Abraham as their father, but who hated and rejected Jesus, must have been livid to hear Jesus claiming that their father Abraham, who lived 2,000 years before any of them were born, loved Jesus and rejoiced in Jesus. How so? By believing and rejoicing in God’s promise that, one day, an offspring would be born to Abraham in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Jesus was that promised Offspring, the true Son of Abraham, the Savior of the world, to whose coming Abraham looked forward with all his being.
But Jesus was more than just the Son of Abraham. Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old! And you have seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Not only the promised Son of Abraham, but the God of Abraham, who existed before Abraham was born, who was there interacting with Abraham during His earthly life, who will be there on the Last Day to call Abraham out of his grave, just as He will call all men forth from their graves. “I AM,” Jehovah God, or Yahweh. That’s who Jesus claimed to be.
So remember, dear Christians. Either Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, the only true God, through whom alone salvation and eternal life come, who ought to be worshiped by everyone, or He was a kook, a blasphemer, a liar, and a fraud who doesn’t deserve to be followed by anyone. There is no middle path.
By the grace of God, you are among those who confess Jesus as the God of Abraham, and who hope in Him for this life and for the next, which means that you Christians are the true spiritual descendants of Abraham, who have been given the right to live, not on an earthly piece of land, but in the heavenly country, which is far better. Hold fast to Jesus as your God. Be among those who keep His word and do not turn away from it. And knowing His greatness, prepare to stand in awe, again next week, of the lowliness to which your God once stooped for us men and for our salvation. Amen.
