This portion of the gospel of St. John is Christ’s last discussion with the Jews before He is arrested and taken to the Sanhedrin for trial, before being taken on to Pilate to be tried again and found guilty. And prior to this reading, St. John earlier in chapter 8 states that some of the Jews, who oppose Jesus, are beginning to believe in Him. And those who would not give in but remained opposed try once again to trap Christ. And this ends with the Jews wanting to stone Him because Christ has publicly shamed them with their false logic, proving that Jesus is who He says He is. Still, Jesus escapes, for He will die by the hands of sinful men, but not in this manner.
The Scribes and the Pharisees want the Lord Jesus dead because His words are true. This fact does not go without insult, because if what Jesus says is the truth, then what they have said and believed are lies. Even they know in their hard-hearted hearts that each and every man is either with Christ or is against him. Someone cannot halfway believe in Jesus—pick and choose what they would like to believe. Since the beginning of His ministry, Jesus has proven them wrong. Therefore, if he has proven them wrong on those points, then everything he says must be true. Even as the most prominent teachers of the people of Israel are schooled by Christ. So, the Jews must come to terms with how they have read the Bible incorrectly. How have they based their favor with God on the fact that they are Abraham’s offspring? Is that wrong? That is why the Scribes and Pharisees want Jesus dead because He continues to make them fools.
There are three things in our reading that all people must come to terms with to believe and be saved by Christ.
The first thing that our Lord mentions is that He is without sin when the Lord says, “Which one of you convicted me of sin?” This question is important because they would like to destroy Jesus, but in order to be condemned, He must have committed a sin against the law of Moses. And they have no response. Their desire to kill Him is unjustified. If Jesus is not the one who has guilt on his hands, then it is the accusers.
What makes Christ’s sinlessness a barrier for people to accept is that it implies we are sinful. For when we live contrary to the words of Jesus, that is sin, as it is a separation from God and His word by our thoughts, words, and actions, we cannot receive God’s approval because of them. We cannot follow Christ, as we take up our own crosses, and say that our transgressions against the word of God are not a big deal. That we cannot live somewhere halfway between repenting of the sins that are easy for us to leave behind and continuing to live without repenting of the sins that we cannot seem to let go. Faith given to us by our Lord is a struggle against sin. This doesn’t mean that to have genuine faith, we cannot sin at all. In this world, our flesh will always remain a slave to sin. Yet this means that genuine faith doesn’t stop us from struggling with our weaknesses. We do this, knowing that Christ has suffered for us on the cross and has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west.
Unwilling to accept the teachings of Christ, the Scribes and Pharisees can only throw insults, calling Him a Samaritan or possessed by a demon. And Jesus responds by saying that he is honoring the Father, which appears to them as if he is possessed. This shows that their problem is not with Jesus, but with themselves.
Second, they must come to terms with what Christ says. They ask him, “Abraham and the prophets are dead, and you say if any man keeps my word he shall never taste death.” This question is a trap because Jesus and his opponents know that Abraham is not dead, but he is alive in the Lord. For God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was not their God, but He is and remains their God. Abraham and the prophet live because they believe in the promise that is fulfilled in Christ. All people who trust in the Lord and His promised Messiah live as God, holy children who have been called to Himself, or we still live upon the Earth. There is no saint of God who is truly dead.
It is only by the words of Christ that we have life. At creation and the beginning of the world, the Lord God spoke everything into existence by His word. We know that word is Jesus, the word made flesh. And it is through the Son that God continues to sustain and create life for in Christ, we live and move and have our being. So we ought to be diligent in what Christ says. The word often opposes what we want or feel, but that doesn’t mean that the word of Christ is less true. It is through the life-giving word that was crucified on the tree of the Cross that we purify our consciences from dead works, works of sin and vice, and to serve the living God.
To say that His word is life also means that Christ is eternal. This is their third opposition to Jesus. Still, as Christ says, ‘Abraham saw His day, and Abraham was glad,’ this means that Jesus is before Abraham. And they ask Him, “You are not 50 years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Christ is not older than Abraham by earthly years, but existed before the world began, as He says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” For the Scribes and Pharisees, this means that the favor of God they seek is not achieved by being Abraham’s offspring. Instead, God’s favor is given by faith in Christ, the same faith of the patriarch from whom they claim their lineage.
For the Lord gave the patriarch for a time, until Christ would come to save all peoples. Jesus is the only way to salvation. Christ is the one who has secured for us the inheritance in the kingdom of heaven, not because we have earned His favor, or because we were born in the right family, or because we have sinned only so much. In the Word of God, He has secured this promise by His sacrifice on the cross. Where His blood was poured out for your sins. The scars and nails and agony are what our sins deserve, and God put it all on the Son that we may have His life. Before God’s grace, we would be lost, but we have been brought in because of Christ and made children of Abraham. The death of Christ is the day of the Lord that our forefather saw and rejoiced because he knew his children were now saved.
It is by faith in the Holy Spirit that you have been made a believer in Christ you accept these things of God. That Jesus is without sin, that he has put on ours to be counted as His own. Jesus’ words are life because in His words, He has given you eternal life. And that the eternal Son of God came into the world by body and blood for our benefit. The realities of God have saved us even as they run counter to our nature. And still, we are saved by Him.
St. John's and Grace Evangelical Lutheran Parish 