Sermon Series: AN EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

John 8:13-24
"The Pharisees therefore said to Him; "You bear witness of Yourself: Your witness is not true."
Jesus answered and said to them; "Even if I bear witness of Myself; My witness is true; for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I came from and where I am going.
"You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one.
"And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me.
"It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.
"I am One who bears witness of Myself; and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me."
Then they said to Him; "Where is Your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me; you would have known My Father also."
These words Jesus spoke in the treasury; as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come.
Then Jesus said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come."
So the Jews said; "Will He kill Himself; because He says; "Where I go you cannot come?"
And He said to them; "You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
"Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He; you will die in your sins."

Message:
Did Jesus Christ ever lie? Did He ever misstate a fact about Himself and His relationship with His Father? This was the suggestion or the accusation that the Pharisees were making when they said that Jesus' testimony was not true! They said: "YOU BEAR WITNESS OF YOURSELF; YOUR WITNESS IS NOT TRUE."
Jesus considered who men believed Him to be of fundamental importance... in fact so important that if they didn't believe what He said about Himself; they would die in their sins.
It is critical! The implication affects our position and destiny...or eternity. WHO DO YOU SAY JESUS CHRIST IS?
C. S. Lewis; who was a professor at Cambridge University and once an agnostic, wrote: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]: "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 a 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."

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C. S. Lewis adds: "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 up 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 Christ claimed to be God! He did not leave any other options. His claim to be God must be either true or false and is something that should be given serious consideration.
Jesus' question to His disciples, "But who do you say that I am?" (Mark 8:29) is also asked of us today.
Philip Schaff, the Christian historian, said: This testimony if not true, must be downright blasphemy or madness. The former hypothesis cannot stand a moment before the moral purity and dignity of Jesus, revealed in His every word and work, and acknowledged by universal consent.
Self-deception in a matter so momentous, and with an intellect in all respects so clear and so sound, is equally out of the question. How could He be an enthusiast or a madman who never lost the even balance of His mind, who sailed serenely over all the troubles and persecutions, as the sun above the clouds, who always returned the wisest answer to tempting questions, who calmly and deliberately predicted His death on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the founding of His Church, the destruction of Jerusalem-predictions which have been literally fulfilled?
A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human and yet so high above all human greatness, can be neither a fraud nor a fiction. The poet as has been well said, would in case be a greater hero. It would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus "
NAPOLEON, the great French General, said: "I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires, and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and whatever other religions the distance of infinity...Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and His will confounds me. Between Him and whoever else in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by Himself."
Who you decide Jesus Christ is must not be an idle intellectual exercise. You cannot put Him on a shelf as a great moral teacher. This is not a valid option. The evidence is clearly in favor of Jesus as Lord!
THIS CONCLUSION WAS TOTALLY REJECTED BY THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS OF CHRIST’S DAY! They said that His witness about Himself was untrue.
Jesus has made His claim to be the LIGHT OF THE WORLD...and the scribes and the Pharisees reacted with hostility. His claim was that He was the Messiah! And even more, he claimed to do the work that only God could do.
The word LIGHT was specially associated in Jewish thought and language with God. "The Lord is my LIGHT" (Psalm 27:l).
"The Lord will be your everlasting LIGHT (Isaiah 60:19).
By His LIGHT, I walked through darkness" (Job 29:3).
"When I sit in darkness the Lord will be a LIGHT to me" (Micah 7:8)
When Jesus claimed to be the LIGHT of the world, He was making a claim than which none could possibly be higher.

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Jesus Christ was God in human flesh! Here is the issue that the religious leaders of Christ’s day wrestled with...Did Jesus possess the attributes of God? Let's think about this very important question.
Here is another question...Why would God become man? The writer to the Hebrews answers the question with these words: "Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood; He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. For indeed He does not give aid to angels, but He does give aid to the seed of Abraham. Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted." (Hebrews 3:14-18)
THE ONLY WAY GOD COULD MEET THE NEED OF MANKIND WAS TO TAKE UPON THE LIKENESS OF OUR FLESH.
In Josh McDowell's book, THE EVIDENCE DEMANDS A VERDICT, he makes the following argument:
If God became man, then we would expect Him to:
(1) Have an unusual entrance into human existence.
(2) Be without sin.
(3) Manifest the supernatural in the form of miracles.
(4) Have an acute sense of difference from other men.
(5) Speak the greatest words ever spoken.
(6) Have a lasting and universal influence.
(7) Satisfy the spiritual hunger in man.
(8) Exercise power over death.
When all these factors are considered extensively, we can only conclude the Jesus Christ fulfilled them all. He was not a liar...HE IS LORD!
In the text that we are studying from John 8, it is obvious that the opponents of Christ were in total disagreement. Jesus had just told them that He was the LIGHT of the world. They changed the subject. They do not concern themselves with light and darkness; indeed, these two great concepts are not mentioned again in the rest of the chapter.
Instead the Pharisees turn immediately to the question of the rules of evidence. They said that Jesus is not to be believed because He is talking about Himself. Of course, when a man talks about himself, his detractors will always think that he is biased and that what he says must be weighed carefully. But these Pharisees go further than that. They simply reject Jesus' whole testimony because it came from Him personally! "Your testimony is not true," they say. By "true" they seem to mean "valid"; it is testimony that does not conform to the rules and therefore is not to be accepted. Their point is that self-testimony is not valid testimony and cannot be accepted when anyone is trying to establish a point in a court of law. It was Jewish law that any statement must be founded on the evidence of two witnesses before it could be regarded as true. "A single witness shall not prevail against a man for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed; only on the evidence of two witnesses, or of three witnesses, shall a charge be sustained" (Deut. 19:15)

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Jesus answered that His own witness was enough. He was so conscious of His own authority that no other witness was necessary. Jesus points out that He is qualified to talk about Himself whereas they are not. Jesus is aware of His heavenly origin and destiny, but these Pharisees know neither.
The testimony of Jesus is grounded in His unity with the Father, from whom His revelation is derived. In answering the charge that His testimony concerning Himself was invalid, Jesus makes three points, the first being that in terms of the kind of matter to which He is testifying, only a person with a superior source of knowledge can qualify, and that He and only He possesses such knowledge. In His own words the reply was, "Even if I testify on My own behalf, My testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. You have no idea where I came from and where I am going."
Second, Jesus defended His right to give testimony about God and man on the basis that His testimony is impartial. This is what He means in verses 15 and 16, where He says, "You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge. My decisions are right." The human standards in this verse stand for all that is human in man as opposed to that which is of God; it involves the limitations of being human.
Jesus declares that His judgment is not limited as theirs is, moreover it is also sinless. For being of "human standards" in biblical language also implies being sinful; and this, too, Jesus is denying. He is the sinless One. So the distortions of sin do not enter to invalidate His testimony.
Thirdly, the Lord Jesus Christ also pointed out, as He had done earlier in His ministry, that in the final analysis His testimony did not stand alone but actually was supported by the Word of God the Father, thereby satisfying the rabbinical requirement that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word should be established.
Jesus did not disagree with the Jewish requirement for two witnesses. He simply replied that His testimony was true even if no one else bore witness, but there was another One bearing witness—His Heavenly Father. The Father who sent Jesus was with Jesus, so that the Son was not alone. Because they did not know Jesus' divine origin and considered Him to be no more than a pretender to the Messiahship from Galilee (that is, they judged Him according to human standards), they were unenlightened. They did not understand that the Father and Son lived in each other (in what theologians call co-inherence) and were with one another.
Therefore, even though the Son came from the Father and was sent to earth by the Father, He was not separate from the Father: "The Father who sent the Son came with Him and provided testimony to Him!"
John 14, verses 9 through 11 state: "...He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. I am One who bears witness of Myself,

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and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me."
How the Father bore witness to the Son was before us in the fifth chapter of this Gospel. He bore witness in Him in the prophecies of the Old Testament, which were now so gloriously fulfilled in His character, teaching, actions, and even in His very rejection by men. The Father had borne witness to the Son through the testimony of His servant, John the Baptist. He had borne witness to Him at the Jordan, on the occasion of His baptism. Thus by the principles of their own law these Pharisees were condemned! Two witnesses established the truth, but here were two witnesses, the Father and the Son, and yet they rejected the truth!
It was not, as some have taught, that Christ was here appealing to the law in order to vindicate Himself. His manifest purpose was to condemn them and that is why He says, "your law" rather than "the law."
Then said they unto Him, Where is your Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know Me, nor My Father: if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also (8:19).
How the Light revealed the hidden things of darkness!
Christ had appealed to the testimony of the Father, but so obtuse were these Pharisees, they asked, "Where is Thy Father?" In our Lord’s answer to them we are shown once more how that none can know the Father save through the Son. As He declared on another occasion, "Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him (Matt. 11:27)
"Where is Thy Father?" In raising the question the Pharisees are assuming a formal legal position: if a person appeals to the testimony of a witness, that person should be able to produce the witness! Again, therefore, they are presenting a demand for legitimation and an indirect challenge: if the Father is going to be your witness, bring Him forward.
Jesus’ reply is direct and radical. It is not a simple misunderstanding needing to be cleared up that is at issue.
What prevents them from accepting Jesus’ word as true and legally valid is that they know neither Me nor My Father.
For John, "knowing God" was a key theme of Jesus’ ministry. Understanding the nature of God is not something we can do on our own. Each individual must be given the ability to recognize Jesus as God. Once given, we must grow in our knowledge of God by knowing Christ better.
Paul writes these words in Romans 2:7-14:
"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him."
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wis

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dom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man 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."
Verse 20 in our text today says: "These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come."
Those whom Jesus thus addressed saw what He said as grounds for getting rid of Him. This absoluteness of His claims was what made His conduct in the temple intolerable and made their decision to kill Him as blasphemer irrevocable.
It is clearly not human beings who determine His lot. For despite all their scheming they are kept from striking out at Him. For all sorts of reasons not mentioned here, they could not act! But the real reason they could not was that the divinely appointed "hour," the hour of Jesus' suffering and death, had not yet come. His lot did not lie in human hands but was determined by the progress of God's counsel.
Verse 21: "Then Jesus said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come."
It was a solemn word of warning! Christ here addressed these Pharisees as the representatives of the nation, and looked forward to the sore trials before it. In but a few years, Israel would suffer an affliction far heavier than any they had experienced before; and when that time came, they would seek the delivering help of their promised Messiah, but it would be in vain. Having refused the Saviour, they should "die in their sins." Having refused the Light, they would continue on in darkness. Having rejected the Son of God, it would be impossible for them to come whither He had gone.
Listen to the prayer of Jesus, "0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!" (Luke 13:34-35)
YE SHALL SEEK ME, AND SHALL DIE IN YOUR SINS. It is unspeakably solemn that these words have a present application. How dreadful! that the Saviour may be sought, but sought in vain. A man may have religious feelings about Christ, even weep at the thought of His Cross, and yet have no saving acquaintance with Him.
TO DIE IN OUR SINS is to face that death that is the due reward of sin. To die in our sins is the ultimate disaster! Sin cuts us off from that life that is life indeed and shuts us up the full horror of death. "He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him" (John 3:36).
To die in our sins is to spend eternity in hell with the devil and his angels! To die forgiven by the mercy and grace of Christ is to spend eternity forever in the presence of God, His angels, and the saints of all the ages!
MAY GOD GRANT THAT WE DIE...FORGIVEN!