The Fifth Sunday in Lent

John 8:46-59 (ESV)
Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? [47] Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
[48] The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" [49] Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. [50] Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. [51] Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." [52] The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.' [53] Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?" [54] Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.'
[55] But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. [56] Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." [57] So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" [58] Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." [59] So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."
These are bold words! Jesus utters them in the midst of a very contentious debate with some Jews, most likely here meaning Pharisees. Already, here John a disciple of Christ, himself a Jew by birth, separates himself from the unbelievers who are condemned, by calling them Jews. John will not have anyone believe there is another way for salvation apart from the one Jesus lays out, “if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” If anyone keeps Jesus word, that is hears his word, listens to his word, believes his word, they will never see death.
There are then a couple questions that naturally arise from this statement. The first is, What is his word? And the Second, how is it kept? Really one must answer the first before the second can be answered, because before someone can know how to keep something, one must first know what it is? For instance good cheese is not to be kept in the fridge with last night’s pizza. A word of love is kept differently than a word of admonition, or law, or rule. If by keeping Jesus word we can avoid death, then it seems to be a very important thing to investigate.
So what is this word to be kept, this logos? By word here, Jesus means his teaching. Not just a couple sayings, but his teaching, all of it, but most especially that which sets him apart from those who have come before him. The Jews are right to suspect what he is saying. Jesus was markedly different from the prophets that had come before. Jesus flaunted the law, broke the Sabbath, forgave sin, and spoke as if he was God. He would say things such as:
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. [18] Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:17-18 (ESV)
And this is at the heart of the teaching of Jesus Christ. The world is condemned already. This is where double predestination just doesn’t work. It is the same problem with arminianism, or your Baptist, Ev. Free, Methodist or “non-denominational” theology, that would have you believe you are in some sort of either/or position, that it is just up to you to choose. The world is condemned! The world is condemned through our sin, the sin for which we are all guilty. It is doomed to be destroyed. It is not as if God condemned only part of the world when Adam and Eve Sinned. He condemned all of it, and everyone in it you and I included. Everything and anyone ever to be corrupted by sin are damned by sin, condemned by sin. It is a universal damnation and it takes a universal atonement to be saved from it.
He did not come to condemn the world. He didn’t need to. It was condemned already. H e came to save the world, and this was the work that needed to be done. And it is that work that separates him out, it is that word that makes him distinct from the others. It is to believe that he came to save the world, that he came to die for the world. It is to believe in effect that he is the word that must be kept, he is the word that must be believed.
But we can’t leave it there. God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. If anyone keeps my word he shall not see death. If you believe in him you do not perish but have eternal life. If you keep his word, you do not see death. The result of believing and keeping are the same. They must be the same thing then. Interchangeable words that mean the same thing.
But what does it mean to believe? Too often this is messed up. To often believe becomes synonymous with obeying his commandments, doing something, deciding something. It drives me up the wall. But people are ever won’t to tampering with the gift of faith, and turning it into something they do. Jesus says that even little infants believe in him. And this is the tell tale sign that someones idea of faith is messed up, they don’t baptize the little infants that believe in Jesus, but teach them to despise and hate God’s word and his promises. Oh they don’t say that is what they do, but then they teach them to believe that baptism does nothing, when Jesus and his apostles attribute everything to baptism, not as our work, but the work of Jesus, just as faith is not our work but the gift of the Holy Spirit. Earlier this week I had the conversation with an Ev. Free pastor passing himself off as a non-denominational pastor. Sorry but anymore, when I see this non-denominational stuff being touted, and hear “pastors say they are non-denominational, I just hear Lying lout. If they can’t be honest about who they are, then why should I listen to them. Jesus word is truth. It is not of a lie. But this man confused faith with making a decision he could not make if the Holy Spirit had not already given him the gift of faith. He would not baptize babies because he did not think they could either believe or repent, and if they could not repent they cannot be baptized.
One cannot repent without believing in Jesus, and the flip is also true. One cannot believe without repenting. Because it all goes back to the first commandment, if we sin we sin against that one, in which God tells us not to have any other God. And it was this that insensed the Jews. Jesus wanted them to believe he is God. Not that he would become God, but that he is God, one with the Father. And it is keeping and believing this word that Jesus speaks of here. The Jews understood this, but they pushed till he made it more clear. “Before Abraham was I Am.” At these words they picked up stones to stone him. But he left the temple. God abandoned the temple. Here he harkened back to the name of God used throughout the Old Testament. Yhwh. The name Moses is instructed to use should anyone ask who sent him, the name which means I Am.
The meaning of which is I am the absolute, I am the foundation of all being. I Am. I am existence itself the author of life. I am that from which and in which everything else finds its being. This is the problem with other ideas of God.
Finally even secular philosophy recognizes a need for God, for an absolute. For this world shows itself to be contingent, if through nothing else, the second law of thermodynamics, the world shows that it cannot be eternal, or have existed for all eternity, but just as time corrodes everything we know, time must also corrode the rest of the world. It is apparent that the world is coming to an end. That the sun will eventually burnout, if it is not snuffed out, Just as other stars have come and gone. And here it is Jesus who says he is that absolute, he is the I Am, the personal and yet transcendent God of the Old Testament.
He is not the Father, But he is God, apart from whom the Father would not be the Father. He is eternal with the Father, the object of the Father’s love from all eternity. This is foundational to believing Jesus word, to keeping his word. For without it, there is no salvation. Without the Triune God there is no salvation. That there is one God in three persons, or three persons in one God, who share of the same divine essence, who are each and every one God in and of themselves eternal without beginning or end, there is no salvation. It is not merely a matter of believing rightly about God. But it is about believeing rightly about How Jesus accomplishes our salvation.
It is not enough that a man die for us on the cross. For a man, being perfect is finite, and of finite worth and value, is nothing more than a man. And if he was nothing more than a man, than he would have been condemned already with the rest of the world into which he was born. But this man is God, and being God he is no longer just a man, though he is certainly that, and therefore able to die in our place, but then when he dies it is not just man who dies, but God himself who dies, and then his blood and therefore his death have infinite power to atone for the sins of the whole world, yours and mine, your neighbors and sisters, gives him the power to forgive all sins. And this he does. Forgives even the sins of the little ones who believe in him, forgives even your sins and my sins. It is his word, your sins are forgiven.
Now the peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord Amen.