JESUS: His Claims                                                                        10-30-05

John 8:31-59 (53)      Audio

Jesus was not always nice.  He was not the sweet, effeminate, “gentle Jesus meek and mild” that some have tried to make Him out to be. He said things that upset people at times, said things that offended them.  We sometimes think that being nice and being holy are the same thing.  They are not.  Jesus was always holy, but He was not always nice.

The Bible passage that we are about to read shows Jesus in conflict with some of the religious leaders of His day.  He did not feel it was necessary to say only the things that would please them so He would not “ruffle their feathers”.  He said some pretty harsh things to them at times.  And they did not like it when He spoke to them that way.  They were used to people trying to please them; Jesus wasn’t like the others.

Jesus was committed to speaking truth, and if truth upset people, He still spoke truth.  Let’s listen in.  (read John 8:31-59).

Look again at v.53.  The Williams translation says: “Who do you claim to be?”  That’s what this whole passage is about: “Who do you think you are?  Who do you claim to be?”

Jesus knew Who He really was; none of the rest of them did.  For the next several weeks we are going to be looking at Who Jesus claimed to be, and how that all relates to us today.

In the last few verses of this chapter, Jesus talks about Abraham – talks as if He knew Abraham personally.  That did not at all compute with these religious leaders.  How could Jesus have known Abraham?  Then come the words that sent them over the top:

“Before Abraham was born, I AM.”

They pick up stones to stone Him.  Why?  What is there in that phrase that so infuriated them?

We have to go back to the book of Exodus, chapter 3.  Moses is living as a shepherd, tending his father-in-law’s sheep.  He comes to a mountain named Horeb, called “The Mountain of God”.  And there God appears to him in the flames of a burning bush, a bush that burned but was not consumed.

God says to Moses some of the most wonderful words in the Bible.  He says: “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, & I am concerned about their suffering.  So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey…And I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

Moses reply was: “Me?  Why me?  I’m just a stuttering shepherd out here in the wilderness minding my own business.  Who am I?”

“Just tell them that God has sent you.”  “But what if the people ask me what is His name?  What shall I tell them?”

“God said to Moses: I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent you.”  (Exodus 3:14)

The Lord, Jehovah, calls Himself “I AM”.  For centuries the Jews had been told the stories of Moses and of their deliverance from Egypt.  They were taught the stories as children.  They heard them repeated every year as they celebrated the Passover – the story of their ancestors’ deliverance from Egypt as Moses led them in response to the One Who had spoken to him there at the burning bush, the One Who called Himself “I AM”.

A man who would call himself “I AM” would be blaspheming.  He would be claiming himself to be Jehovah God.  Such a man should be stoned to death.  So they took up stones to stone Jesus.

Seven times in the Gospel of John, Jesus says “I am” and then He uses a metaphor to describe Himself.  And we will look at each of these and what they mean for us today during the next 7 weeks:

I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.

I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

I AM THE DOOR.

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.

I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

I AM THE TRUE VINE.

In each of these, Jesus is making a claim about Himself, a claim that still has application to us today.

This morning I want us to look at another of His claims, and it’s also in the book of John.

In John 19:7, when Jesus is on trial prior to His crucifixion, here is what it says: The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

Had they misunderstood Him?  Had He really claimed to be the Son of God?  And if He had, what does that phrase mean?  What did it mean to the people who originally heard it, and what does it mean to us today?

Others claimed that Jesus was the Son of God.  Mark starts his gospel with these words: The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  He could not be more clear.

When the angel appears to Mary, he says to her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35).

When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, he said: The One Who sent me to baptize with water told me, The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.” (John 1:33-34).

Jesus Himself, when being questioned prior to His crucifixion: They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?” He replied, “You are right in saying I am.”  Then they said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips.” (Luke 22:70-71).  Jesus claimed…

I AM THE SON OF GOD.

One thing I find interesting is that even the demons knew Who Jesus was.  Mark 3:11 says Whenever the evil spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” But he gave them strict orders not to tell who he was.

The Son of God – not just A son of God, but THE Son of God.  There is no one else like Him.  He is not One among many who can be called sons.  He is not in a long line of human individuals upon whom the Spirit of the Christ has come to rest, like some teach – equal to, but not superior to Buddha and Krishna and Abraham and Mohammed and others.  The Bible paints Jesus as unique.  There had been none like Him before, and there has been none like Him since.

In the Jewish mind, the term “Son of God” was equated with
”The Messiah”, “The Christ”, “The Anointed One of God.”

Matthew’s record of Jesus questioning by the religious leaders before His crucifixion is recorded in chapter 26:63-68.

The high priest said to him, “I charge you under oath by the living God: Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” “Yes, it is as you say,” Jesus replied. “But I say to all of you: In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

Then the high priest tore his clothes and said, “He has spoken blasphemy! Why do we need any more witnesses? Look, now you have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?” “He is worthy of death,” they answered. Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Christ. Who hit you?”

So in other places where they are asking Jesus if He claimed to be The Christ, they are asking if He claimed to be the Son of God.  And His answer was consistently: “Yes, I am.”

Remember the two questions on my computer? “So what?” and “Now what?”

“So what?”  Why is this even important?  What difference does it make whether or not I believe that Jesus is the Son of God or just a good man or a great prophet?  According to Jesus Himself, it makes an eternal difference.  Listen to His words:

“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” (John 8:23-24).  Some translations say: If you do not believe that I am the Christ, you will die in your sins.  That’s Who He was claiming to be in this passage, the Christ, the Son of God.

But what if I believe in Buddha? But what if I believe in Allah and in his prophet, Mohammed?  Doesn’t that count for something?  Are you saying that if someone sincerely believes in someone else besides Jesus they still are not going to heaven?

What I say is not important.  It’s what Jesus says that is important.  It’s what the Bible says that is important.  Listen to Jesus:

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  John 14:6.

Listen to the Bible: Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.  Acts 4:12. 

We have talked about it before and we will talk about it again.  We live in a society of religious pluralism and tolerance.  And while some say it’s not nice for us to say that Jesus is the only way and that no one goes to heaven except through Him, it’s still the truth.  You need to know that. 

The Bible says that Jesus is the only way to God, the only way to heaven.  Jesus says that people who do not believe that He is Who He says He is, will die in their sins and be forever lost.  And that includes you, if you sit here today with an unbelieving heart, thinking that you know better than Jesus does about how to get to heaven.

Let me take you to one other thought that comes out of this claim by Jesus that He is the Son of God.

In John 14:9 Jesus said: Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.  He had just said a couple of verses before: If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  And then in v.8: Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Some of us were raised with the notion that the God of the Old Testament was stern and vindictive.  He was the God Who punished the Israelites when they stepped out of line, the God of judgment.  And then Jesus came.  He’s nice.  I’m not sure if I like God, but I really like Jesus – merciful, and loving, and forgiving, and kind.

Col. 1:15 in speaking of Jesus says: He is the image of the invisible God. Amplified Bible says: He is the exact likeness of the unseen God.  Jesus is not “Mr. Nice”, and the Father is “Mr. Mean”.  Col. 2:9 says For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.

If we go on down in John 14 and continue Jesus conversation with Philip, He says to him in v.10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.  Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;

If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.  Jesus is God in human flesh. He shows us that God is loving and merciful and forgiving. But He also shows us that God is just.  He shows us that God is demanding; He is intolerant of sin; He will not allow us to continue in our sin and follow Him at the same time.  He confronted people about their hypocrisy; He called them to leave their sinful ways and live a life of holiness.  He talked about hell as well as about heaven.

You will see no fuller picture of God than when you look at Jesus.  When He speaks, it is God speaking.  When He heals, it is God healing.  When He dies on the cross for our sins, it is God dying in our place.  How can God die?  His was not a spiritual death, but the same physical death that all of us will one day face.  His spirit left His body, just as yours and mine will do some day.

Now what?  Let me issue 2 challenges today.

Get to know Jesus better – the Jesus of the Bible, not the Jesus of the Jesus of the televangelist or the popular book author.  Do as I have been doing these past 10 months – begin to read and re-read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life and teachings.  Keep a pen and a notebook handy, and write down the insights the Holy Spirit gives you as you read about Jesus.  If you do that faithfully, I guarantee you that you will begin to see things you have never seen before, no matter how many times you have read your Bible.

And my second challenge is to those of you who still are not yet following Jesus.  You are not living your life in obedience to Him.  Jesus never asked people if they wanted to get saved.  You know what He said?  He said: “Repent”.  And then He said: “Follow Me.”

Repent means that you acknowledge your sin to Him, and you turn away from your sin.  You do a 180 and you face a new direction.  You call it what He called it – sin, and you allow Him to help you see it as He sees it.

And then you follow Him.  You listen to what He says, and depending on the Holy Spirit for His power is your life, you obey what He says.  It’s not about tears; it’s not about emotions; it’s not about the right kind of music and the right kind of atmosphere and about mystical experiences.  It’s about the power of God’s Spirit in your life enabling you to live in obedience to Jesus. 

His Spirit comes to a life that has been cleansed through repentance of sin.  We cannot continue in our sin and expect that the Holy Spirit will take up residence in us and help us to live for Jesus.  He is a HOLY Spirit.  We desperately need Him if we are going to live for Jesus, but He only comes to cleansed hearts.  That’s why Jesus began His ministry saying: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

And then He said to people: “Come, follow Me.  Leave the life you have been living, and follow Me.”