Today's scripture: John 12:44-50
Have I mentioned how much I love God's word? It answers every question, calms
every fear, encourages every uncertainty. It combats the lies of the enemy,
addresses every argument, silences every disagreement.
We've talked about this before, but one argument that often comes up is that
Jesus never claimed to be God. This is just so blatantly untrue. Many times
(we've seen them in our study of John), Jesus said He and the Father were one.
He makes this claim again in today's verses. When commenting on verse 44, Adam
Clarke (one of my favorite commentators) wrote:
Here
he asserts again his indivisible unity with the Father: he
who believes on the Son believes on the Father; he
who hath seen the Son hath seen the Father; he
who honors the Son honors the Father. Though it was for asserting this (his
oneness with God) that they were going to crucify him, yet he retracts nothing
of what he had spoken, but strongly reasserts it, in the very jaws of death!
Jesus is God the Son. He is part of the triune God. He claimed
it, and anyone who says differently hasn't read God's word.
Jesus goes on to talk about His being light in darkness, a metaphor I discussed
last week. Then, in verse 50, Jesus speaks of His purpose. Again, I look to the
wise words of Clarke for clarity:
This is the record, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this
life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life. God‘s commandment or commission
is, Preach salvation to a lost world, and give thyself a ransom for all; and
whosoever believeth on thee shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Every
word of Christ, properly credited, and carefully applied, leads to peace and
happiness here, and to glory hereafter. What an amiable view of the Gospel of
the grace of God does this give us? It is a system of eternal life, Divinely
calculated to answer every important purpose to dying, miserable man. This
sacred truth Jesus witnessed with his last breath.
God's word, written through the pens of men, is relevant and true. It is, as
the author of Hebrews wrote, "living and active" (4:12). It is
inspired by God to be used to teach, for reproof, to correct, to train (2 Timothy3:16).
It is all we need to live godly lives, serving Him and others, and bringing
glory to Him. Take time in His word today. And every day.
Today's scripture: John 10:40-42
After several days of walking through the desert of the Pharisees' opposition
to Jesus, today's verses offer the respite of the cool spring of truth.
Jesus returned to the Jordan, the place where John had baptized Him, the place
where the Father had affirmed Him as Son (see Matthew 3:16-17). I imagine this
to be a time of reconnection for Jesus. He'd just spend hours affirming His
divinity to the hard-hearted Pharisees, yet they continued to deny His claim.
In fact, yesterday's verses ended with their "seeking again to seize
Him."
So, having "eluded their grasp," Jesus now had some quiet moments to
remember God's voice of affirmation. Perhaps He spent time in prayer. Perhaps
He merely sat and listened to His Father's voice. As He stayed "beyond the
Jordan," performing no miracles—or at least none about which we're told—He
had significant impact. Unlike the closed-eared Pharisees, we're told,
"Many came to Him ... saying ... 'everything John said about the man was
true.'"
They "believed in Him there," not because of what they'd seen, but because of what they'd heard.
This has great impact for us today. We don't see Jesus with our eyes or touch
Him with our hands. We may never even see a miracle. But because of what we
hear of Him, because of the evidence, we can believe that "everything ...
about the man [is] true."
The scriptures affirm Him. Extra-biblical sources acknowledge Him. Changed
lives point to Him.
He was—and is—God the Son, part of the triune God. He is Savior, Redeemer,
Shepherd, and Friend. We can trust Him. We can believe in Him. We can commit
our lives to Him.
Today's scripture: John 10:22-30
I've written in previous devotionals that many people say that Jesus never
claimed to be God, to be divine. Today's verses belie that statement.
Jesus said, very clearly, that He was the giver of eternal life. Only God can
give eternal life. Only He is omnipresent and outside of time.
And if that's not enough, Jesus said, "I and the Father are one." It's
a simple mathematical hypothesis: If A equals B, then B equals C. (Or something
like this ... It's been a very long time since I've taken any math class.) The
Father is God. Jesus is one with the Father. Therefore, Jesus is God.
No reasonable person can say, after reading God's word, that Jesus never
claimed divinity. He absolutely did, and when He rose from the dead, He proved
His claim to be true. And because Jesus did indeed claim to be God, we all need
to make a decision about Him. As C.S. Lewis so eloquently wrote:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the
really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus
as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the
one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of
things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a
lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he
would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and
is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up
for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his
feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing
nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to
us. He did not intend to.
Jesus claimed to be God. He proved that claim. Therefore, He is God.
Today's scripture: John 8:48-59
I'm back from vacation ... and back to John.
Some say that Jesus never claimed to be God. Even a cursory study of the Bible
contradicts this, however. Jesus certainly did declare His divinity in passages
such as today's. He couldn't have been more clear to His listeners when He said,
"... before Abraham was born, I am."
But perhaps those words aren't so clear today. While Jesus' contemporaries would
have understood what "I am" meant, readers today may not understand
these words' impact. In his commentary, Adam Clarke writes (quoting Calmet):
[Jesus is saying,] I am from all eternity. I have existed before all ages. You
consider in me only the person who speaks to you, and who has appeared within a
particular time. But besides this human nature, which ye think ye know, there
is in me a Divine and eternal nature. Both, united, subsist together in my
person. Abraham knew how to distinguish them. He adored me as his God; and
desired me as his Savior. He has seen me in my eternity, and he predicted my
coming into the world.
Jesus was telling the listeners of His day—and us as well—that He was fully
man, and therefore knows human suffering, and fully God, and therefore has the
power to save.
We can trust Him to walk with us in our day-to-day, caring for our every need.
We can also be assured of eternal life with Jesus—our God and Savior.
