The idea of freedom, or the principle of being free, is one that is particularly indigenous to Americans.  It’s not limited to Americans, of course, but much of our history is based on the premise that man is designed to be free.  Our country was founded on that principle.  As the Constitution declares, “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  Liberty means the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. 

So the American Revolution was fought over those truths, that we had a right to be free from tyranny.  And to some extent the Civil War continued that fight, eventually taking on the context of freedom from slavery.  Then in the 1960’s, we experienced a cultural revolution called the Hippie Movement, which espoused the idea of freedom from social mores. However, not all the freedoms that generation sought were necessarily based on truth, as history has made evident. But nonetheless, the entire history of the United States has this search for freedom interwoven in it’s story, from generation to generation.

Yet after 300 years, I would suggest that we are still trying to come to grips as a nation with the notion of freedom.  We are still trying  to obtain it. For that matter, we are still trying to define it.  And so it is to that question that we come to today.  What is freedom, and how does one really achieve it?

Well, I believe that this passage teaches us the answer to that question.  The blueprint for freedom was written long before the Constitution of the United States.  And it’s author was no less than Jesus Christ.  I believe that this passage before us today is one of the most important in the gospel.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that this is the heart of the gospel.  

Making freedom a reality was the purpose of Jesus Christ’s visitation to Earth.  In His first message that He preached, He quoted from Isaiah concerning Himself, saying that this prophecy  was fulfilled that day in their presence.  This is what He read from the scriptures prophesying about Himself.  He read from Isaiah 61:1 which says, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”

The obvious question then is how was that freedom realized?  What does it look like?  Is He talking about social freedom, or political freedom, or freedom from slavery, or spiritual freedom?  Because there are people that have interpreted these statements in all those various ways.  But remember, Jesus said that they that worship God must worship Him in Spirit and in truth.  So we cannot just apply any template we want to these statements.  We must apply them according to the truth.  

Well, I suggest that Jesus is speaking primarily about spiritual freedom.  But I will add to that the caveat that the spiritual is the fountain from which all other freedoms flow.  You can attempt to find freedom outside of the spiritual, but I would suggest that if you do that, then you are being deceived.  You are still held captive, still enslaved.  Jesus says  that in our text in vs. 34, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”  So until you take care of the spiritual issue of sin and become free in that regard, you cannot know any other freedom.  You are still in your sins, and as such, you are still held captive by the devil, and are a slave of sin.

That is why three times in the previous passage we looked at last week, three times Jesus says to the Jews, that they would die in their sins.  Because they had rejected the truth, and as a result, they were still in their sins, still enslaved. 

So what is the solution then?  Jesus said if you are going to know freedom, then you must first know the truth.  Jesus said in vs.32, that when you know the truth, then the truth will make you free.  So knowing the truth is paramount to becoming free.  You cannot be free and live a lie. As became evident in the Hippy Movement, things that they thought provided freedom, like drugs and sex, only served to further enslave them, because they were not founded on the truth.  And I would suggest that many of the new social mores which are being expounded today are simply more of the same kind of deceit; they promise freedom, but they only will produce greater bondage. 

And that was the scheme of Satan from the beginning wasn’t it? To lie against the truth and as such enslave men to sin.  Satan appeared in the Garden of Eden to seduce mankind to sin by telling a lie, by selling Eve an untruth.  As Jesus says in our text in vs. 44, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

So Satan, in his rage against God – his rage that God would choose to shower His affection on man, and make man in God’s image, according to God’s likeness, when Satan himself had desired to be like the Most High and was rejected – so Satan came to man disguised as a creature of God, and he deceived the woman by making her think something evil was good, and he invoked her to pride because she desired to be autonomous like God, and as such mankind fell from their sinless state in God’s presence just as Satan had also fallen.  And mankind has been in bondage to that lie all throughout the history of the world.

That is why Jesus calls him the father of lies. And he did not stop with that lie, but he has sold the world a lie ever since.  Satan, who controls the world system, has so engineered the world so that according to 2Peter 2:19, he is “promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.”  What he means is that they are being promised freedom but instead they end up becoming slaves of sin.

So what is truth?  Well, to start with, God is truth.  Truth is defined in God and by God and there is no truth apart from God. In Isaiah 45:19 God says, “I the Lord speak the truth; I declare what is right.” Psalm 119:160 says, “The sum of Your word is truth, and every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”  And vs. 142 of the same Psalm says “your law is truth.”  And one more, Numbers 23:19 says “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

Now I cannot overstate this doctrine.  God is the source of all truth.  His word establishes the standard of truth.  All philosophy, all science, all the wisdom of man must be examined in the light of God’s truth, and only when it conforms to God’s truth, is it true.  As Paul said in Romans 3:4, “Let God be found true, though everyman found a liar.”

So as God is truth, Jesus also is truth.  As we have seen in our studies in recent weeks, Jesus speaks the things of God, He does the works of God, He does nothing that the Father isn’t doing.  So if God is truth, then HIs Son is truth.  In fact, Jesus says that He is the personification of truth in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Notice in that verse, that Jesus doesn’t say He sometimes speaks the truth, but that He is the  truth.  That means nothing less than perfect truth comes from God.  And as Jesus personifies the Word of God, then He is the truth of God, and no one can come to God except through Him.  One must come to accept Christ’s word, in order to come to God.  God has chosen to reveal Himself in His Son.  And what God has revealed is truth.  So coming to know the truth, will make you truly free. 

Now we saw that in vs.30, many people listening to Him had come to believe in Him.  That simply means that they believed that He was speaking the truth.  They believed that He had come from the Father.  Vs.26 Jesus had said, “He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.”  So some people listening to that believed in Him.  Some did not, as we see in the later verses.  But some did believe Him. And I think that means that they became Christians at that point.  Some commentators think that these people were superficial believers.  They didn’t really want to follow Christ, but they just acknowledged that what He said was true.  I don’t buy that.  I think that what Jesus was saying was so radical, so outrageous, that they had to either acknowledge Him as a lunatic, or acknowledge Him as God come in the flesh.  So when John says twice that some believed in Him, I think they truly had their eyes opened to the truth, and they believed in Him and they were saved. That is the way that we are saved, we are justified by faith in Christ. Romans 5:1 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So then now that some have been justified by faith, then in vs.31, Jesus speaks of the next step in salvation, and that is sanctification.  There are three phases in salvation; there is justification, then sanctification, and finally glorification.  All must exist for salvation to exist.  If you are justified, and then you are sanctified, but there is no glorification, no eternal life, no heaven, then your salvation is worthless, isn’t it? Paul said in 1Cor. 15:19 “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”  And the same thing is true of the other two phases in our salvation.  If we are not justified, then our attempts at  sanctification through works can never save us, can they?  Because Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  So if you skip over justification by grace, and try to become sanctified by works, then you cannot be saved.  And by the same measure, justification without sanctification is worthless. As James said, “faith without works is dead.”  And Hebrews 12:14 warns us that without sanctification, no one will see the Lord. All three then are necessary for salvation. 

That’s why Jesus turns to those people, the people that had believed in Him, who believed that He was the Son of God, who were justified by faith, and to them Jesus said, ““If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”  Now I believe that these people were saved by faith in Him, as I said.  And so Jesus now is instructing them how to be His true disciples.  That is the consequence of truly being saved.  We not only believe, but we follow.  We join Him, fellowship with Him, allow Him to teach us as we go through each day and every circumstance.  It’s not just “I have faith, so I’m saved, and now I can go on with my life and do what I want to do, live like I want to live.”  It’s not like Jesus is now my genie and so He’s going to make sure that everything I do works out.  He’s going to keep me safe as I go about my business.  

No, that’s not discipleship.  A true disciple recognizes that Jesus is the source of life, the source of truth, the way to God, and so he follows Jesus wherever He leads us.  Most Christians today have it backwards.  They think salvation entitles them to have God follow me around and work out any difficulties I might encounter, but stay far enough behind me so as to not hinder my freedom to do what I want to do.  That’s not biblical discipleship.  Christ doesn’t follow me, but I need to follow Christ.  

How do we do that practically speaking?  Well, Jesus says how, He says you do it by continuing in His word.  He’s talking about relying on the word of God for your day to day situations.  This is the way of sanctification.  Read the word, and apply the word.  That’s called wisdom by the way. Wisdom is the application of knowledge.  So we don’t just become hearers of the word, but doers of it.  

Jesus said in His high priestly prayer to God in John 17:17, speaking of His disciples, He prayed, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”  That’s a tremendous doctrine.  The word then is the sanctifying agent in my life. It’s like the old adage, “sin will keep you from the Bible, or the Bible will keep you from sin.”  David in Psalm 119:11 says, “Your word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

Here is the thing that Jesus is teaching at this point.  Justification is taking away the penalty of sin.  Sanctification is taking away the power of sin.  And one day, glorification will take away the presence of sin.  But let’s just focus on sanctification for a moment.  Sanctification is deliverance from the power of sin.  This is the true freedom that Christ brings.  It’s not just taking away the penalty of sin but leaving us to live in sin.  That would not be true freedom.  Christ gives us the power over sin, the power to be delivered from sin.  That is the hope of Christianity in this life.  That we have victory over sin.

Now the reality is that as long as we are in the body and living in a fallen world we are going to feel some of the effects of occasional sin. No one is going to achieve sinless perfection this side of glorification.  But as a Christian we can be delivered from continual sin.  That is the meaning of the word used there for sin. It is continual, habitual sin.  That’s the good news that Isaiah prophesied in Isaiah 61 which we quoted earlier; “the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and freedom to prisoners.”

That’s the same thing that the old hymn Rock of Ages is talking about when it says, that the blood of Christ will “be of sin the double cure, save from wrath, and make me pure.”  That double cure is speaking of being saved from the wrath of God, and then the sanctification that produces purity towards God.  Justification and sanctification.  

So that is the path of sanctification.  Sanctification is progressive, by the way.  There is a sense in which we are sanctified, consecrated, and set apart at salvation by the blood of Christ.  That is positional sanctification whereby we have been set apart from the world for good works.  But there is also practical sanctification, and that comes from continuing in the word.  As God reveals truth to you through His word, then you apply that truth and it becomes a sanctifying agent that works to conform you to the image of Jesus Christ. That is why the text doesn’t just say the truth sets you free.  That’s true, but it’s not once and done.  It’s continually making you free.  Each day continuing to apply the word, and that continuance working in us that which is pleasing to God.  That’s discipleship.  Sanctification is discipleship.  

And that’s God’s goal for His church. When Christ commissioned the church, He said go into all the world and make disciples.  Not just believers.  But followers of Christ in conduct and in truth which is doctrine.

Well the Jews answered Jesus back by saying, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”  Now first of all, I don’t believe that this “they”  who John refers to are the same people that became saved.  I think these people are the Jewish religious leaders who have been having this running debate with Christ all throughout this whole passage.  Because these people obviously do not believe in Him.  They accuse Him of being a liar, and in vs.41 they even accuse Him of being born of fornication, of being illegitimate.  So obviously these cannot be those who believed that He was the Son of God.

But the really confusing part was what they said.  They said they had never been enslaved to anyone, when in fact, they had been enslaved numerous times, starting with Egypt and then in Babylon and they were under a form of bondage even then to the Romans.  So it is difficult to know what they were talking about. Except for to note the irony that when you are enslaved to a lie, the lie is that you are not enslaved. Many times I meet people who are obviously weighted down under the bondage of sin, and yet they extol the virtues of their freedom.  I suppose there is no lie like the lie you tell yourself.  

That is the curse of sin which brings condemnation.  To refuse to acknowledge it and thus refuse to repent of it.  For instance, to be an alcoholic and deny it is obvious folly to everyone but the alcoholic.  But that is very often the case.  They say, “I can take it or leave it.”  But in actuality, they only take it.   Perhaps that unwillingness to face their sin caused them to deny their enslavement and to blind themselves to their reality.

So Jesus gave an answer designed to prove HIs point.  He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.”  Again, this is speaking of habitual, continual sin.  In other words, if you are living in sin, then you are obviously a slave of sin, and you have not been set free.  You may tell yourself you are free, you may tell others that you are free, but your actions say otherwise.  You are still in your sins, and you will die in your sins, unless you believe in Him, which Jesus said meant to continue in His word and follow Him.

And then Jesus says, “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.”  What Jesus is saying was in response to their claim as Abraham’s children.  He is saying that their actions demonstrate that they are not Abraham’s children, because Abraham’s children are the children of faith.  They believe God and He counts it to them as righteousness.  But these men demonstrate that they are not Abraham’s children because they are not children of faith.  So Jesus says that they are slaves.  And like Ishmael in the house of Abraham, they will not inherit the blessing of the son Isaac.  They will not stay in the house forever, because they are not true sons.  These men had a temporary stay in the household of God in the sense that they belonged to the tribe of Israel.  But when they were judged according to their works, they were found to be doers of wickedness, and thus slaves of wickedness, and not sons of righteousness.  

That was the judgment.  But thank God Jesus doesn’t stop with the judgment.  He offers once again salvation.  He says in vs.36, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”  This is the reality of salvation, that we are truly free if Christ has made us free.  If the spirit of man has been freed, then he is free inwardly, in a way that no earthly chains can contain.  Because if Christ has made us free, then we have fellowship with God in a realm that cannot be ascertained by those who are not free in Christ.  

In a simplified way of looking at slavery and freedom, we might say that those who are slaves have someone else take advantage of their labors.  If they make money, it’s not really theirs to enjoy, it’s their masters.  If they have possessions, they are not really theirs to keep, for they are their masters.  The master owns everything that the slave has.  Such is the reality of the lie that Satan has foisted upon the world.  He has promised that you can enjoy the fruits of a sinful life.  but the fact is, that he owns all that you do.  All that you do in that world ends up being left behind when you die in your sins and face an eternity in hell.  

But if the Son shall make you free, then not only are you made free, but you receive the adoption as sons, and consequently you receive an inheritance that will never fade away, reserved in heaven for you.  As a result of that hope, we know that our labor is not in vain. That what we do in this world will be used for the glory of God.  So we find our freedom in service to God, knowing that He keeps track of our works, and will reward us in the day of our glorification.  

Listen, today is the favorable year of the Lord.  Today the Lord offers freedom from the captivity of sin that has kept you hostage.  The Lord is ready to save all that call upon Him.  Believe in the truth and be saved.  That is the offer extended to you today.  Receive all that God has prepared for those that love Him.  Or continue to believe the lie of this world and you will die in your sins.  There is a very clear choice, and the choice is yours.  There are two paths, two possibilities before you today; the truth and the lie.  God is the author of truth, and Satan is the author of lies. One path leads to freedom, and the other path leads to further enslavement. I pray you will believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. May today be the day that you are made free indeed.

As I get older, it seems that my eyesight has gotten a lot weaker. But I have read somewhere that it is not that your eyesight necessarily gets weaker, which makes it difficult to read, or see clearly.  But as you age, your eyes do not receive light as well.  And I know that by experience.  I can hardly read with my glasses on when I am inside and don’t have a good light to read by.  But on a bright sunny day, I can read outside without my glasses on.  

Light then, is a great metaphor for the Christian life.  Because as Jesus says in vs.12, He is the Light.  And as we receive that Light, we have the clarity to see the truth, and then to follow, or obey the truth.  And so we see that this idea of divine light is a common metaphor in the scriptures, particularly in regards to the Messiah.

The Apostle John has already introduced this idea in chapter one, in his introductory theological statement.  He says in vs.4, speaking of Christ, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”  And in vs.9 he says, “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”

So as we read, Jesus confirms this idea that He is the Light by saying, “I am the Light of the world.”  And so I want to just focus on this one statement today in an effort to glean all that we can from this important principle.  

First of all, let’s consider the setting in which Jesus has made this claim.  As you will recall, the Feast of Tabernacles is going on during this time.  This was a week long celebration in Jerusalem during which everyone would live outdoors in huts that they had constructed out of leafy branches.  This was to commemorate the time when the Jews were wandering in the wilderness after God had delivered them from slavery in Egypt.  It was a time of festivities and song and ceremonies that lasted 8 days.  

In particular, there were numerous ceremonies during this feast that occurred in the temple in Jerusalem.  One such ceremony we looked at a couple of weeks ago, when the priests poured water from the pool of Siloam into a basin which ran down upon the altar, symbolizing the water which came from the rock during their sojourn.  And you will remember that at that time, Jesus stood up in the midst of that ceremony, after the trumpets had sounded and the water was gushing out upon the altar and He cried out with a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

Then the next day, Jesus is teaching again in the temple, early in the morning, and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.  We looked at that text last Sunday.  In today’s text, it is probably now the evening of that same day.  And as it neared dark, the priests would light these great candelabras, raising them up on pedestals and illuminate the temple court.  The white marble and gold plated walls of the  temple  would reflect this light and as the darkness settled down over the city, the temple became a shining beacon seen throughout the city in which people would gather and celebrate the feast.  From historical accounts, it was a magnificent sight, and thousands of people would be gathered there in the court celebrating together their deliverance as a nation by God.

Now the significance of lighting the candelabras around the temple was to remind them that during their time of sojourning in the wilderness, God had provided a pillar of smoke to guide them by day, and a pillar of fire to watch over them by night, for all the years that they were in the wilderness.  

The account is found in Exodus 13:21-22 “The LORD was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.  He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.” And in the next chapter it says, in Exodus 14:19-20 “The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them.  So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night.”

And then in Numbers 9, I won’t read it due to time limitations, but it says that the cloud covered the tabernacle, and during the evening a pillar of fire over it, so that when it moved, then the camp of the Israelites moved, but when it stayed in place, then the Israelites stayed where they were. The Lord directed their movements by the cloud and by the pillar of fire. 

Now that is the historical context of the ceremony for the lighting of the candelabras during the evening.  And it was at this point, perhaps at the very moment that the priests lit all the lights and the temple and courtyard were set ablaze by their glory, that Jesus stands up and declares; “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

Now there are a number of things that can be understood from that stunning proclamation.  The first thing we should point out is that this is the second “I AM” statement that the Lord makes. He has already said, “I am the bread of life.” He will say in chapter 10  that “I AM the Good Shepherd” and that He gives life to the sheep. He will later on say “I AM the door, and that if men enter through him they will have everlasting life. And then He will say “I AM the resurrection and the life.” He will also say “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” And finally he will say “I AM the true vine.” 

All seven of those “I AM” statements would have been recognized by the Jews as a statement of deity.  It would remind them of the meeting Moses had with God at the burning bush, and when Moses asked God for His name, He said, “I AM THAT I AM.”   What that meant was that God would not allow Moses to put Him in a box.  A name in Old Testament times defined you.  But God would not allow Himself to be limited to a name.  He has many names because it takes many names to speak of the multifaceted nature of God.  

There is I think a disturbing trend among Christians today, especially in the music industry, to call God by the name of Love.  God is love.  But that is not all that God is.  And so we do Him a disservice if we limit Him by naming Him according to one characteristic while denying His other attributes. We must recognize and worship God for who He is, and not who we want Him to be.

But among the Jews, they would have recognized that “I AM” was a reference to God who spoke to Moses from the burning bush.  So it is a reference to deity.  It is interesting that the first words recorded in the Bible that God spoke was “let their be light” in Genesis 1:3.  It says in Genesis that in the beginning there was darkness, and chaos ruled over the earth.  What a picture of the world without God.  But then it says the Spirit of God moved upon the waters, and God said, “let there be light.”  That is a picture of the gospel, is it not?  The Light became the light of the world.  It’s interesting that before the sun was created, Light was given to the world.  

1John 1:5 says that God is light.  So in effect, Jesus is declaring Himself as God.  He is the Light that existed in the beginning with God and who was God.  He is the source of life which is characterized as light.  And He came down to a world in darkness and chaos and brought the light of truth.  I don’t think I should have to tell you folks here today that the world is in darkness.  The world is an evil place.  You only need to pick up a newspaper, or spend a few minutes looking at the news on television or the internet and it becomes apparent that the world is in darkness. Jesus said in John 3:19 that even though Light came into the world, men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.   

And that illustrates what John was saying in chapter 1 vs.5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”  Actually the word translated “comprehend” could have two meanings: 1)comprehend as in understanding the Light, or 2) comprehend might be translated as overcome.  The darkness could not overcome the Light.  In fact, we know that Light has triumphed over darkness.  We haven’t yet seen the culmination of that triumph, but the battle has already been won.  Darkness may look like it’s winning if you watch the news, but we have seen the headlines of the newspaper of the future.  God wins.  Darkness loses.  In fact, the forces of darkness are already vanquished foes.  But we still are called to stand firm and fight the good fight of faith until the Lord comes back.

Also, in His statement, Jesus is referring to the fact that He was the Light which led the Israelites out of bondage.  He was the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, and they that followed Him were led out of enslavement in Egypt to the freedom of the Promised Land.

Now the Messianic metaphor of light is readily apparent in the prophecies, found particularly in Isaiah.  In Isaiah 60:1-2 for example, speaking of the coming of the Messiah;  “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you.”  Notice how that prophecy echoes the Genesis creation account.

And though there are many others, let’s look at Isaiah 9:1-2, which also is quoted from in Matthew 4, “ But there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish; in earlier times He treated the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali with contempt, but later on He shall make it glorious, by the way of the sea, on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.  The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.”  

All of these and many more speak of the coming of the Messiah as the appearance of light shining in a dark world.  I can’t help but think in this context of the Apostle Paul, who before his conversion was known as Saul, the persecutor of Christians.  And the reason that Saul was arresting Christians and even putting them to death was because they taught that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah.  To him this was blasphemy and worthy of death.  

So it’s ironic that when God chose to reveal Himself to Saul on the road to Damascus, He did so as a flash of blinding light.  It was a light so bright that Saul became blind for three days.  God showed Saul that though he thought that he knew the truth, the fact was that he was spiritually blind.  The Lord said to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”  And Saul said, “Who are you Lord?” And the voice out of the light said, “I am Jesus who you are persecuting.” 

That conversion really illustrates the principle of the Lord as light.  The world is in darkness, the world is blind to the reality of who Jesus is, and what He came to do.  But when the light of God shines in our hearts, it illuminates the truth about Christ, that He came to save us from our sins, and it illuminates the depravity of our sins so that we recognize our need of forgiveness and our need of a Savior.

I just want to reiterate that this illumination is a sovereign act of God by which we see the truth and we see our condition.  Without God specifically shining the light in our heart, we will not be able to recognize the truth, or to know that we need to repent.  So there is a need in the new creation as it was in the old creation, for the Spirit of God to move upon the darkness and void of our souls, and shine light to illuminate the eyes of our heart, so that we might see the truth.

So Jesus is the Messianic Light of the world, the very Light of God, sent by God, so that the world might have life. And then notice the second phrase; “He who follows Me will not walk in darkness.”  Now that symbolically was represented by the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire that the Israelites followed as they wandered in the wilderness.  

But fortunately, we have a paraphrase of that statement made by Jesus Himself in chapter 12 vs 46:  Jesus says, “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.”  So we can understand that Jesus is saying that to believe in Him is to follow Him.  You believe that He is the Light of the world, that He was in the beginning with God, and that He was God and all things were made by Him.  And if you believe that He came to the world to save the world by His atonement on the cross for our sins, then you simply follow Him, you obey Him, you cling to Him, you worship Him.  You don’t add a little Jesus to an already full life.  If you really believe He is the source of all life, the source of abundant life, then you forsake everything to follow Him.  He is the pearl of great price which you will pay anything to have.  He is the treasure in a field which finding you sell everything to buy.

It’s like the story of the fountain of youth which Ponce de Leon risked everything to find.  If you really found the fountain of youth, then nothing else is important.  You move there and live there and drink of it constantly.  As Jesus said in chapter 7, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”

I think that the problem with most people today is that they don’t really believe that Jesus is the source of life.  They may think that Jesus is an important part of life, but not the only source of life.  They see Christianity as somewhere on the lower part of the priority list.  It’s important, but not as important as my marriage, or my fiancé, or my career, or money, or sports, or whatever.  Not really.  We say He is, but our lives say otherwise. Unfortunately, we are not fooling God, but only ourselves.

And not only is He the source of life, He is the guide of life.  I think to follow Christ means to become a disciple of Christ.  The disciples left everything and followed Him.  When Jesus asked them if they too would leave Him, when the great crowd had left Him after one of His messages, Peter said, “where are we to go Lord?  For you have the words of life.”  

Jesus said in Matthew 4:4, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”  If we truly believe that He is the source of life, then we follow Him so that we may continually eat of that spiritual food and live.  To not follow Him would be to wither away from spiritual hunger.  We follow Him because we live by His word.  His word feeds us, so that we may grow in maturity to be like Him.

But going back to the metaphor of light, we follow Him because as Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”  We will walk in the light because we walk according to the word.  We follow the light of God’s word, step by step, day by day.  This is how the Holy Spirit leads us in the paths of righteousness.  This is how we do not walk in darkness.  First of all we have the light of the Spirit of God to shine in our hearts.  And then we have the light of the Word to guide us in the truth.  As Psalm 36:9 says, “In your light we see light.”

This is the path of sanctification.  Like I have said so many times, as you are obedient to the light God has shown you, He will reveal to you more light.  You cannot understand truth and be conformed to the truth, by standing still or sitting in a monastery somewhere.  You comprehend the truth by following, obeying the truth, step by step, each flagstone of your journey another truth of God proven and made manifest by your life, by your discipleship.  

I wonder sometimes at so called Christians who I have known for 15 years or so, and they don’t seem to have matured at all.  They still hold onto weird prophesies or spiritual fantasies that they held to years before.  I wonder why they haven’t grown in their faith.  And the answer must be because they have not been obedient to the light God has shown them. They have not allowed the word of God to guide them in the truth. You cannot not grow without discipleship.  

The last phrase of Jesus’ statement we have already alluded to, but we will look at it briefly in closing; “But will have the Light of life.”  First, as I’ve already pointed out, when you believe in Christ and follow Christ, you receive Christ. Christ is the Light.  So when we believe in Him then we have the Light of Christ within us.  Then, in turn we become lights in the world.  As the moon reflects the light of the sun, so we reflect the light of Christ.  That’s what Isaiah 60 said, “Arise, shine, for your light has come.”  We shine because His Light is in us.

But having that Light in us, and then following the Light, also means that we can see clearly.  We can have discernment.  We have understanding of the word of God. John 16:13 says, ”But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”  And in 1John 4:6 we read, “We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”  So we do not walk in darkness if in truth the Spirit of Christ lives in us. As we walk in obedience to the truth, He illumines our hearts so that we know the truth and have discernment. 

And notice He correlates that to have Light is life. “The Light of life.” The word “life” is “zoe” in the Greek.  It means animated life, abundant life, the absolute fullness of life.  It means eternal life, everlasting life.  It doesn’t say you will one day get life, but you will have the Light of life, present tense.  Zoe life is a present reality, not just a future one.  

Jesus said in John 10:10 “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  I know that a lot of people want to take out the charge card at that statement and run to Macy’s with it.  But we should all know that is not the correct interpretation of an abundant life.  What He is promising is eternal life, fruitful life, meaningful life, a blessed life, Those that have been in our church awhile should know what I am talking about when I speak of the beatific vision.  It refers to the ultimate source of blessing, to be in the light of God’s countenance.  In that place is fullness of life, for He is the pure source of life, abundant life, even eternal life.  And you can have that life now, if you will just receive Him and follow Him. 

We sometimes hear someone use the expression, “it was like a light bulb went on” to describe an “a ha” moment.  A more sophisticated  word is  an epiphany, which means a sudden revelation of truth.  I wonder if someone here today has perhaps heard the gospel for years, and suddenly today a light has shone upon their hearts.  Suddenly they had an epiphany, perhaps like Paul had on the road to Damascus,  a realization of who Christ is, and what He came to do, and what our response must be if we are to have the Light of Christ in us.  

If that person is you, then I pray that you will accept Him today.  As His light has shone in your heart, I trust that the depravity of your heart has been revealed, and you know your need of a Savior, and of forgiveness.  You can be cleansed from sin and know the abundant life that God has provided through Jesus Christ through repentance of your sins and faith in who Christ is and what He accomplished.  Then commit to follow Him, leaving all the darkness of this world behind and simply follow Him, and He will lead you and guide you in the truth.  

Let me close with the words of John found in 1John 1:5-7. “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;  but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Last week we studied the first miracle presented in this chapter, that which is known as the feeding of the 5000.  Actually I said last week that another gospel account said that only the men totaled 5000, so we might assume that as many as 15000 people were present, including women and children.  So it was a tremendous miracle that Jesus did, as the multitudes had followed Him and they had no place in which to buy food, and hardly anyone had bothered to bring food.

But I also told you last week something which I say often, and that is that every physical miracle presented in the gospel is  given to illustrate a spiritual principle. And we determined that the principle that Jesus was teaching in the feeding of the 5000 was that He was the bread of life, by which man might receive spiritual life. Jesus gave a living illustration that He is the source of life.  At the end of the chapter we are going to be looking at a rather long discourse given by Christ in which He talks about how He is the bread of life, by which we receive and are made alive spiritually.  But in the first half of this chapter we have two miracles which serve as illustrations of life in and by the Spirit.  The feeding of the 5000, and then Jesus walking on the water.  

So in the first miracle, as Jesus supernaturally manufactured bread and fish from HIs hands, He powerfully demonstrates that He is the source of life.  But if you look at vs.15, Jesus knew that the people weren’t interested in spiritual life, but only in how He could benefit their physical life.  They wanted to make Him King. Everyone who follows politics recognizes that whoever can give the masses free food and free health care has the people’s vote.  Jesus seemed to be healing everyone of their diseases, and now He’s providing free food, so “hey, let’s make Him King!”  They wanted a King to deliver them from Rome and Jesus seemed at that point like the deliverer that Moses had been from their captivity to the Egyptians.

But that isn’t what Jesus wanted.  He did not come to earth to set up a physical kingdom at this time.  He said in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”   So Jesus did not come to enact a physical kingdom but to establish a spiritual kingdom.  He came to make men spiritually alive, and once the spiritual aspect of the kingdom comes to completion, then He will come again physically to Earth and bring His physical kingdom into existence.  So the principle we see there is that the spiritual empowers the physical.  That is an important principle of the Christian life.  The spiritual empowers the physical.  That effect is what occurred in the garden of Eden.  When the spiritual died, the physical died.  

And that is the operative principle for the life of a Christian.  The spiritual gives life to the physical.  This principle is going to be preached by Christ later on in this very passage; Jesus said in vs.63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”  

What Jesus did by feeding 15000 people was one of the greatest miracles in the Bible. And what I mean by that is the magnitude of the miracle.  It wasn’t just one person being healed; but 15000 people eating food that He created.  But what does that miracle teach us?  It teaches us that the physical food that Jesus created and gave them to eat, may have sustained them physically, but it did not do anything for them spiritually.  They were not saved as a result of eating the food that He provided.  They would have been saved by responding in faith to what that taught; that He was the source of life, God incarnate.  That’s the message that He was preaching, the message concerning the nature of the spiritual kingdom of God.  If they had responded in faith to that message, they would have been saved.  But the eating of fish and bread did not save them.

And folks, that’s a good example that eating the elements of communion, or taking the mass, will not, cannot, save you. It does not, it cannot impute righteousness to your account. Eph.2:8,9 says “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast.”

So though the feeding of the 5000 did not provide salvation, it illustrated that faith in Christ is the source of life, and that spiritual life as well as physical life comes through Him.  But not all who heard Him that day, nor ate  the miraculous food He provided were saved. Only by receiving the spiritual food He offered could they be saved and receive spiritual life.

Now then what is the meaning of the second miracle?  Well because the people wanted to make Him king, we see Jesus sending the multitude away, according to the parallel passage in Mark 6, and then telling the disciples to get into the boat and sending them across the Sea of Galilee.  So note first of all, this is not a miracle for the mixed multitude, but it’s a miracle for the saved, the believers, for the church if you will.  So that’s going to give us a context for how to understand it.  It’s for His followers, those that already have believed in Christ, and consequently are made spiritually alive.

I believe in some respects that this event is a foreshadowing of what to expect in the Christian life, as we live the spiritual life that we have been given – particularly for these disciples, but also for us in the church as well.  And that is illustrated by the fact that Jesus is separated from His disciples.  They don’t want to go away from Him, but He has to send them away.  And I think that this prefigures the ascension of Christ after His resurrection.  He offers Himself as the bread of life which was broken for us on the cross, and soon after His resurrection He is taken up into heaven and His followers are left alone.  In this event we notice that Christ is alone on the mountain praying or interceding with the Father on behalf of the disciples. In Mark 6:48 it says that Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars, and yet at that point He was on the mountain and they were several miles away on the sea in the darkness.  This is a picture of the separation from Christ that both the disciples and the church would experience after His resurrection.

Now there are several things we can learn from this event.  First of all, that trials are part of the predetermined, sovereign plan of God.  Jesus, in His divine omnipotence,  knows that a severe storm is coming, and yet He deliberately sends the disciples into the sea.  You know, a lot of people expect that the Christian life is going to be a trouble free existence.  That somehow, being a Christian is insurance that life is going to be smooth sailing. Come to Jesus and all your troubles will go away.  But the Bible doesn’t promise that at all.

In fact, if we had the time I could show you scores of texts that show that we are promised tribulation in the Christian life.  We  are promised persecution.  We are promised hardships.  That’s not to say that Christians are necessarily going to experience more difficulties than the unsaved.  On the contrary, I think the Bible teaches us that by following God’s way we are delivered from many hardships that the world encounters.  But the primary difference between believers and unbelievers is that as Christians, God uses trials and tribulations to teach us and refine us, to enable us to be stronger spiritually,  and to conform us to the image of Christ.  That’s why James says in James 1:2, that we are to “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,  knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.  And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

So Jesus makes the disciples go on without Him, and notice that though the disciples don’t really want to go, or necessarily understand why, they are obedient to the Lord’s commands. In fact, they continue to be obedient even though all the circumstances seem to be against them.  It should have only been a short trip by boat of about 7 miles, but the wind started to pick up against them.  The wind of course produces waves which makes it almost impossible to row the boat with any forward speed.  And then it gets dark.  So there is a lot going against the disciples, even though they are being obedient.  In fact, the trip seems to take forever.  They leave Jesus on the shore before sunset and start rowing.  And Mark says that it was the fourth watch of the night when Jesus came walking on the water towards them.  That’s between 3am and 6am.  Can you imagine rowing a boat against a gale force wind, with waves crashing over the front of the boat for perhaps as long as 8 hours?  Those disciples could never have imagined that the trip would have lasted so long.

And there are so many things we can learn from that. The main thing I would emphasize is that the walk of faith, or the spiritual life is not easy.  It’s not easy because it’s not natural.  As a Christian, you are figuratively running against the wind.  You are swimming against the current.  The world is described in Ephesians 2:2  as a current, as a river course in which life rushes along. And that verse goes on to say that the course of this world is designed by the devil to keep you enslaved to it, to sweep you along to eventual destruction.  So when salvation comes to us, and we are given new life in Christ, in which we walk in the Spirit, we are in effect striving against the current of this world which is opposed to us.  And that is a battle.  It’s so tempting sometimes to just give in to the current, to allow yourself to get swept along by the things of this world.  

And in Mark 6:48 it says that Jesus sees them straining at the oars.  I hope you can picture that.  These guys were straining to make progress.  The Christian life can sometimes require a battle that tests all your resolve.  I’ll give those disciples something.  They persevered.  They kept at it.  Eight hours after saying goodbye to Jesus on the shore they were still rowing with all their might.  And they were still only in the middle of the lake.  Listen, sometimes our trials last a lot longer than we think they should.  Sometimes we think that there is no way that God could be in this situation.  It’s gone on too long.  There are too many things working against us.  

I’ve been guilty of thinking that far too many times.  I start counting all the things working against me, all the things which have gone wrong.  I start thinking about how long I’ve been rowing and have made so little progress to show for it.  And I sometimes get pretty discouraged.  And then there is the darkness.  How depressing is the darkness.  The nights when you seem to wake up every hour and it’s still only the middle of the night.  When you pray and doze off, and then wake up a few minutes later and do it again.  And those nights seem to go on forever, and God seems so far away.  Sometimes, we soldier on in obedience, but we have long since run out of joy and our hope is almost completely gone.  

There is an old sermon which was written many years ago by an African American Baptist pastor by the name of S. M. Lockridge  that I’ve heard a few times, which says, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a coming.”  The idea of the sermon being that when it’s dark and things look hopeless, hang on, Sunday’s coming. The power of darkness was overwhelming on the Friday of crucifixion, but on Sunday, when the sun came up, it revealed that the Son of God has risen up victorious from the grave.  

Well, the disciples still had a few hours to go before the sun would come up, and it was dark, it was raining, waves were threatening to sink their boat, they had made practically no progress, the wind was pushing them backwards for every foot forward they made, and it had gone on far too long. But what they didn’t realize was that Jesus was watching and praying for them on that mountain. Oh, if they could have only known that truth, how much more encouraged they might have been.  I want you to know something this morning, ladies and gentlemen.  No matter how difficult your long night of trial, no matter how long you have been straining against the oars, no matter how long the wind has been against you, or how big the waves are breaking against your boat, Jesus is watching over you, and He is praying for you.  

I want you to know that you are not alone on that dark night of your trial.  Jesus is watching you and praying for you.  If you are HIs child, then He has promised to watch over you and to intercede on your behalf to God.  Hebrews speaks of our great High Priest who is Jesus Christ, who has been seated at the right hand of the Father as our mediator, and intercessor.  It says in Heb 4:13-16 “There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.  Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.  Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Now that should be a great comfort to us all.  But notice that Jesus doesn’t just pray and leave them there to deal with it alone, but He comes to help them. However, I want to point out that Jesus delays coming until the disciples are completely worn out and the night is almost gone.  You know, my biggest problem sometimes in the spiritual life is understanding the timing of God.  Why does He so often delay?  Why does He let us reach the end of our resources, the end of ourselves before coming to help us?  I think it is to teach us that the end of our extremity is God’s opportunity.  God wants us to reach the end of our strength so that we might  look to His strength.  Paul said in 2Cor. 12:10 “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  The Lord’s strength is made perfect in my weakness, but I must recognize my weakness for His strength to be completed in me.

So Jesus finally comes to them, walking on the water in the midst of the storm.  There is an interesting principle there.  When you pray for someone, there is a good chance that God will appoint you to be the answer to your prayer.  And Jesus illustrates that principle right there.  I appreciate it when someone says I will pray for you.  But sometimes, I think if they really prayed, perhaps they would find that God has appointed them to be the means by which that prayer is answered. God choses to use people to minister to His people.  But  sometimes I believe people try to get off the hook by saying they are praying and not doing anything.  James said in James 2:16  if you say to someone in need, “’Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,’ and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?”

So Jesus comes to them, and the disciples see what they think is a ghost on the water walking towards them.  Now a lot of people give the disciples a hard time about being frightened, but I think that when you have been in the middle of a fierce gale for 8 hours, and rowing yourself to exhaustion, probably haven’t eaten or drank anything because of the severity of the storm, you obviously haven’t been able to sleep either, and suddenly you see a figure walking on water through this storm in the middle of the night, you would probably freak out too.

Jesus says to them, “Take courage, it is I, be not afraid.” I don’t know for sure what fear Jesus was referring to.  Was it the fear of the waves, the fear of the wind, the fear of the night, or the fear of Him?  I sometimes think that we fear complete surrender to the Lord almost more than we do the terrors of tribulation.  I’m amazed sometimes to talk to someone who is caught up in some destructive sin, to the point that it has almost completely destroyed their life.  They have lost everything or are about to.  And yet when you tell them that the only hope that they have is to surrender to the Lord and ask Him to help them you would think that you just asked them to do something terrifying.  People are so afraid to surrender completely to Jesus, to ask Him to be their Savior and Lord.  And I can only guess it’s because they are afraid that they will have to let go of the steering wheel of their lives and let God have control.  We are so conditioned to try to control our lives.  And the devil’s lie is that we still have control even when our lives are clearly out of control.  

But I suppose at it’s simplest Jesus is saying that if we are God’s children, and we are doing what He tells us to do, we are living in obedience, then He is in control over the events of our life and we don’t need to be afraid.  I’ve said it before and I will say it again; there is no safer place on earth than to be in the will of God, and there is no safe place outside of the will of God.  If you are doing what God has told you to do, then you need not fear what man or nature can do to you.  Rom. 8:31 “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?”

This miracle illustrates that not only is God for us, but He is with us.  Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  In the storms of our Christian life, we can be certain that not only does God superintend the trials we go through, but He has promised that Jesus would pray for us and watch over us as we go through them, and that He will be with us when we go through them.  He says, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  He says in Isaiah 43:1-2 “But now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel,”Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;I have called you by name; you are Mine!  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,Nor will the flame burn you.”  We can be unafraid of life’s trials when we know that the Source of life is with us.

As David says in Psalm 23, “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear, for Thou art with me.”

And there is one more application that I want to make today which is that He is the strength and the supply we need, to do what He tells us to do.  The disciples had rowed all night and made practically no progress.  But John tells us that when Jesus got into the boat with them, they were immediately at the other side of the lake.  It says in vs.21, “So they were willing to receive Him into the boat.”  Listen, that’s not a picture of salvation, but sanctification.  Jesus gives you new life at justification, but He empowers your life through sanctification.  You get the power to overcome sin, and the power to get through temptation and trials when you let Jesus take command of your boat.  When the Spirit of Christ dwells within us and leads us and guides us. That’s the secret of sanctification.  We have been given the power to triumph over sin and temptation, but it’s not in our strength, it’s not by straining at the oars, it’s in giving Jesus permission to captain our vessel.  When we look to Him for wisdom in every decision, for guidance in every action and then let Him direct our lives according to His will, then we will find ourselves arriving safely at our destination.

But the destination for a Christian isn’t just heaven, ladies and gentlemen.  The goal for a Christian is to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.  To be remade in the image of God.  To reflect the light of Christ in our lives.  And to do that in our own power and strength is not possible.  The only way it’s possible is to be filled with the Spirit of God, in accordance with the truth of God, and in obedience to the word of God, and in the power of God, we then walk as Jesus walked.  

To be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ is to be sanctified here on earth, and then one day to be glorified with Him in heaven.  That’s the purpose of the trials of life, to sanctify us for His purposes. Paul said in Rom. 8:28-30  “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;  and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

That’s the lesson we need to learn from this passage; that Christ is the source of life because He is the author and finisher of our faith. He is the beginning and the end.  What He has called us to do, He is able to make possible.  But in doing so He often brings us through times of difficulty and trial, and though sometimes it seems to take forever, He is working in us that which is pleasing to Him, to bring about conformity to His Son, that we might be His representatives here on earth.  

In closing, let me remind you of what I said at the beginning.  The physical cannot produce the spiritual. In your natural state you cannot ascertain the things of God.  You must be born of the Spirit of God to have spiritual life within you.  Then once you are spiritual, the physical is empowered by the Spirit of God, so that we might do the works of God.  The question I have for you is do you have life in the Spirit?  Have you been born again by the Spirit of God?  If not, then today I offer you the Bread of Life.  Believe in Him and receive life. 

And if you are saved, then I hope that you have come to know more completely the process of our spiritual life.  That our purpose is to be conformed to the image of Christ, and to do the works of God, so that others may see our good works and glorify God.  It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to mean swimming against the current, but God has a plan for you, Jesus is praying for you and interceding on your behalf, and He will come to you and help you if you will look to Him as captain of your soul.  He is the source of our life, and the source of our strength, and He is ever ready to help us in time of need.  

This miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is probably one of the best known miracles in the Bible.  Perhaps that’s because it is the only miracle that is presented in all four gospels. And as such it is perhaps difficult to provide new insight that hasn’t already been presented elsewhere at some point in the past.  But that’s not really my job anyway.  A preacher’s job is not to try to find out new information, or a new perspective and show everyone how clever he is because he has something different.  But the preacher’s job is just to present the old, old story – to a new audience.  So I probably won’t have anything new to say this morning, but I do hope that God will provide the impetus of the Holy Spirit through the Word, so that it will become real to you in a practical way.

The danger of familiarity is that we can lose sight of the practicality and the purpose, and think we already know the answers. It’s like the little boy who was asked what his favorite Bible story was. He said, “I like the one where everyone loafs and fishes.”  He was familiar with the story, but he misunderstood the meaning.  Maybe some of you may have that kind of familiarity. I know I do.  I grew up in the church. Literally.  My dad was a pastor.  I was born while he was at Bible college.  I grew up attending church about 4 times a week.  Back in those days, they used to give you a little pin for attending Sunday School if you attended every Sunday during the year without missing one.  And each year thereafter you got another pin that hung off the bottom of the primary pin.  It was like a medal, that had a ribbon added every year that you were in attendance every Sunday.  By the time I was a teenager, I had about 13 little ribbons on my pin.  I was like a Sunday School hero.

But growing up in the church has it’s downside.  One was I knew all the songs in the hymnbook by heart.  But the downside was I learned them before I could read.  So in later years I discovered that some of the lyrics to songs were quite a bit different than what I thought they were. For instance, it was a few years before I realized it was “blessed assurance, Jesus is mine” and not “blessed insurance, Jesus is mine.” I had heard what I thought were the words, but turns out I was substituting another word that sounded like it, but had a different meaning.

Maybe that illustrates the difficulty in coming to familiar passages of scripture.  We are familiar with the words, but we may have missed the meaning.  So rather than give you some new geography insights, or historical insights, or even theological insights, I want to just focus on the purpose of the miracle this morning, and make sure that we all have the right message.

This is the fourth miracle that John presents in his gospel.  And yet at this point in Christ’s life, Jesus has been in public ministry about 2 years. So John leaves a lot out.  In fact, since the end of chapter five, it’s probably been at least 6 months to a year that has elapsed.  But the miracles that John does give us are strategically presented in order to illustrate his stated purpose found in the 20th chapter, verses 30-31 “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book;  but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

So that’s the purpose of this miracle.  It’s to teach us that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.  And that if you believe in Him, receive Him, then you will have life though Him.  That is the summary of John’s opening thesis of chapter one where he sets forth the theology and doctrine of Christ whom he calls the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.  And then he says that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

You should know by now the principle that I state almost every week – that every physical miracle presented in the gospel is  given to illustrate a spiritual principle.  And that is especially true of this event.  There have been many misinterpretations of this miracle over the centuries.  Not the least of which is that it teaches a social gospel – the idea that this presents a template for what the church is to be about; feeding the hungry.  Or another favorite interpretation of Sunday school teachers,  that it teaches little boys that we need to share, and if we share, then we contribute to the accomplishment of the purpose for which Christ came; to make us nicer, more gentle, loving people, and to make the world a better place.

But the fact is, that Jesus took care of natural needs only as a means to take care of spiritual needs.  I have to be constantly reminded of this myself as I go through life.  I tend to focus on the physical, on the immediate, and I lose sight of the spiritual.  But what this miracle illustrates is that Jesus did not come to set up a physical kingdom on earth, where peace and goodwill would prevail.  That is exactly what He took great pains to avoid, as you can see in the last section of this passage.  Look at vs.15, “So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”  

Jesus didn’t come to set up a physical kingdom, where He would provide universal health care, and universal welfare.  People will vote for that kind of king.  But Jesus didn’t come to establish an earthly kingdom, or overthrow a tyrannical empire.  Jesus came to establish a spiritual kingdom.  So whatever He did in the physical realm, was designed to serve that purpose, and no other.  

And as Christians, we need to be reminded of that.  Christ always sought to expound the spiritual principle through the physical illustration, and not vice a versa.  So when Christ works in  our lives, it’s to promote spiritual growth, not physical growth.  There may be times when He works in the physical, but it’s to bring about a spiritual transformation.  It’s not just for physical comfort or success or profit, or just to make life more enjoyable.  That’s how we get the cart before the horse.

But the fact that Jesus is also compassionate towards our physical needs goes without saying.  These people were hungry and so Jesus is concerned about that and wants to provide for their needs.  But there is a big difference between God supplying our needs and supplying our wants.  Our wants never get satisfied.  And God will not serve our wants.  But He does promise to provide for our needs.  

John says the multitude were only following Jesus because of the miracles He was doing, but He was still compassionate towards them, and so He feeds them physically, but as a means of feeding them spiritually.  That’s what we really see going on here.  It says in Luke 9:11, that when Jesus saw the crowds following Him, “He began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing.”  In effect, His miracles were designed to teach them that He was the source of all life, even the Son of God. That’s what it means to teach them about the nature of the kingdom of God. But as is often the case, the people were a little short sighted.  Most of them really only cared about the immediacy of the miracles and the signs that He was doing.  

But it shows the mercy and compassion of God towards sinners that Christ does not rebuke them, knowing their lack of spiritual insight.  But rather He continues to be gracious to sinners, in order to open their eyes to the truth.  Romans 2:4 says that the kindness of God is designed to lead us to repentance.  God is gracious and compassionate and kind, even towards sinners who are selfish, or motivated by self serving reasons.  Paul said in Titus 3:4 “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared,  He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

So Jesus has already determined that He is going to feed the multitude, but He’s going to do it in such a way as to teach some important spiritual lessons.  And so He turns His attention first to His disciples.  That’s the first principle.  That if we are going to change the world, it starts with us that are saved.  It starts with the church.  God wants to employ us in the building of the kingdom of God. 

Jesus turns to Philip in vs.5 and says, “‘Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?’ This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.”  Now when it says that Jesus said this to test him, it doesn’t mean He was trying to trick him, or to embarrass him by asking him a question that he knew he would get wrong.  Jesus isn’t like our old school teachers who liked to ask us questions when they knew we hadn’t done our homework.  The idea of testing is to prove something.  To prove that something works as it was designed to work.  David, you will remember, said about Saul’s armor that he had not tested it, or proven it.  That means he had not tried it out and knew that he could depend on it in a fight.  Jesus wants to prove or test Philip’s faith.  And maybe sometimes that means He has to stretch our faith.  He presents an obstacle, and gives us the leeway to tackle that obstacle, not to watch us fail, but to show us the way that He wants us to overcome it.  At the time, it may seem impossible, and we might not handle it right, but the divine purpose is to teach us to be overcomers, and that nothing is impossible with God, when it is God’s will. 

Philip though pulls out his calculator.  He is a practical guy.  Maybe he was an accountant in his previous life.  But irregardless, he is practical.  He does the math, and says, “Listen Lord, if we had 200 days worth of wages, we couldn’t buy enough bread to give everyone here even a snack.”  By the way, Matthew says in Matt.14:19, that there were 5000 men, not including women and children.  So there were probably 15000 people in attendance.  And a denarius was a day’s wage for a Roman soldier, so we could estimate that equates to about $20,000 by today’s standards.  Philip says we don’t have nearly enough money to feed these people.  He was practical, but he was missing the point.

But that’s exactly the point Jesus wanted to make – that it was impossible!  Not practical, nor possible, but impossible.  That’s the whole point of the gospel.  It’s impossible for us to be reconciled to Christ.  Our sins have created a chasm between us and God that cannot be jumped across. God gave us the law to show us that it was impossible to achieve God’s standard of righteousness. So God made the impossible possible through the impractical; holy, righteous God became sin for us, that we might be made righteous through Him.

Now in Mark’s gospel, chapter 6 we read that Jesus tells the disciples to go into the crowd and see if they could find some food. And when they come back Andrew reports that there is only one boy’s lunch, which is five barley loaves and two fish.  But that only further emphasizes the impossibility of the situation.  “What is that for so many people?”

Now a lot of commentators want to disparage the disciples for their lack of spiritual comprehension.  Personally, I cringe whenever I hear preachers disparage the disciples, as if to say if they were there, they would have had all spiritual discernment.  They wouldn’t have been like those knucklehead disciples who couldn’t see the forest for the trees.  But I  think we should give the disciples the benefit of the doubt.  If Andrew didn’t have any faith, then I don’t think that he would have offered Jesus the boy’s lunch.  I think he would have looked at that lunch and said, “there is no point to bring this to Jesus.”  But I think there is a hint of a little faith here.  

And let me tell you some good news.  God can use even a little faith.  In Zechariah 4, God tells Zerubbabel that the rebuilding of the temple will not be accomplished by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord.  And then the Lord goes on to say that he is not to despise the day of small things, but He will make this great mountain into a plain.  Now I don’t want to go off on a tangent on that passage, but the point that I want to make is that God doesn’t despise small things, and He can use small things to move impossible mountains.  Not by might, not by power, but by His Spirit.

In Matthew 17:20, the disciples wanted to know why they could not cast out a demon, and Jesus said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.”  The point is, a mustard seed is the smallest seed in the garden, and yet even faith of that small size, when it is faith in the right source, can move mountains.  And nothing will be impossible with God.  

Andrew had a little bit of faith. And the little boy had a little bit of lunch.  But it was still an impossible situation.  And Jesus wants to illustrate that even more.  So He says, “have the people sit down.”  It was a grassy knoll there, and the other gospels tell us that Jesus said to make the people sit in groups of 50 or 100.  I like that.  It shows that Jesus had a sense of humor.  Tell 12 disciples to go into a crowd of 15000 people and get them to sit down in groups of 50 on the ground. That’s 300 blocks of 50 people.  That’s like a miracle in of itself to get that many people organized and quieted down and seated in rows.  I think that was another test of faith.  But the disciples didn’t object, they didn’t complain, and they got it done.  They had enough faith to be obedient, even when it didn’t make sense or they didn’t understand it or it wasn’t easy.

And that’s another important principle.  When you are faced with an impossible situation, don’t start running around in circles like a chicken crying that the sky is falling.  Go to God with what little faith you have, trust God to deal with the impossibility, and then just do what He tells you to do.  Do what you know you are to do.  Let me put that in practical terms for you.  When your life is in crisis, don’t stop coming to church.  Find your place in the congregation, sit down, and put yourself under subjection to God in spite of your fear.  Be obedient to what God has already told you to do.  Don’t stop praying, don’t stop reading your Bible. Order your life under the authority of God and make yourself ready to trust in God’s providence.

So Jesus takes the food in His hands and blesses it and breaks it and gives it to the disciples to distribute to the crowd.  John doesn’t say that He gave it to the disciples, but the other gospels do.  Again and again, you see Jesus using the disciples.  But notice that He blesses the food, He gives thanks.  He is giving thanks to illustrate that God is providing the miracle of feeding the multitude.  Jesus isn’t doing this for His sake.  If He were hungry He would not have created food for Himself.  Satan tempted Him with that in the wilderness and Jesus rebuked him by saying, “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”  Jesus is doing this to glorify God, and to feed these people spiritually. 

By the way, I hope you are in the habit of blessing your food before you eat.  Jesus did it as an example to us, that we should give thanks in all things.  Give thanks when you have but a little and God will multiply His blessings unto you.  And don’t be ashamed to do it publicly as a testimony to others.  That’s what Jesus was doing.

So how did Jesus feed 15000 people from 5 loaves and two fish? Well, he obviously created food already cooked and ready to be eaten. That’s what they call in the military MRE’s.  Meals Ready to Eat.  But I bet you Jesus’ meal tasted a whole lot better than the military version.  Anyhow, the Bible doesn’t tell us exactly how the miracle happened.  But what it does tells us is the result of the miracle.  Everyone ate until they were full.  And the disciples gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers.  John 1 told us that Jesus made everything in creation.  So that is exactly what is being illustrated here.  Jesus is supplying cooked fish and baked bread out of His hands, and giving to the disciples and they give it to the people.  

But the how of the miracle is not as important as the why of the miracle.  One thing that was being taught was that someone greater than Moses was here. That is what they meant in  vs.14 which says, “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.’”  What they are referring to is the prophecy made by Moses in Deut. 18:15  who said, ”The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.”  Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and fed them with manna and quail for 40 years.  But of course, Moses didn’t feed them himself, God rained down manna from heaven.  Now they see Jesus, manufacturing bread and fish out of His hands to feed 15000 people.  The parallel was apparent.  This was the prophet that Moses spoke of.  This was the Messiah.  So their impulse was to make Him their king, thinking that He would overthrow their oppressors the same way that Moses did.

But that was not God’s purpose in doing the miracle.  Yes, it was to confirm that someone greater than Moses was here. The Messiah was here. The kingdom of God was at hand.  But not a physical kingdom, but a spiritual kingdom. Jesus told Pilate in John 18:36  “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” 

So if Jesus did not come to establish a physical kingdom, then what was He coming to do? Jesus will say later in chapter 6 vs.35  “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” The real significance of the miracle is to illustrate that Jesus is the bread of life, the source of spiritual life. That is how He establishes a spiritual kingdom, by transferring sinners from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God through the forgiveness of their sins.  He is the bread of life that was given for us.

My wife is the baker around our house, I am not. But I do know that to make bread there are certain things you have to do. The grain that grows in the field must be cut down.  The grain must be crushed under the grinding stone to make flour. And then that flour is mixed with oil, and then baked in an oven. And all of that pictures the life and suffering of our Lord Jesus.  So when the Lord says, “I am the bread of God that comes down from heaven,” or “I am the bread of life,” we need to remember the process by which bread becomes bread. And Jesus becomes bread by virtue of the fact that he gives his life for us. So it is a lesson in the sufficiency of our Lord for salvation. In order for him to become bread He must be cut down and crushed, He had to be filled with the Spirit of God, and He also bore the punishment of God for sin — the fire of God’s wrath on sin. He must be baked in the oven of God’s wrath, executing penalty upon Him  for our sins.

Isaiah 53 records the beautiful prophecy concerning Jesus doing just that.  It says “For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, And like a root out of parched ground….Surely our griefs He Himself bore,And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions,He was crushed for our iniquities;The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,And by His scourging we are healed.”

So the significance of the miracle was to show  the impossibility of man’s situation; that man was without hope, cut off from God, cut off from the source of life, and unable to accomplish his own deliverance.  There was no way to provide for what was lacking.  Spiritually speaking, we were starving, facing an impossible barrier, an impossible mountain that we could not overcome.  But God in His compassion and mercy sent Jesus to offer Himself as the bread of life, as our substitute, that by faith in Him, even a little faith, by believing in Him; believing what the Bible said about Him and what He was claiming to be, believing His teaching and His works, by even a little faith, we are able to partake of that bread and receive life.

Salvation, as I’ve said over and over again, is by repentance and faith.  Repentance is simply acknowledging your sin, your inability to attain the righteousness that God requires.  Repentance is coming face to face with the impossibility of your situation, and recognizing that Jesus is your only hope.  And then the second step is faith.  Your faith is just a willingness to believe that He is sufficient to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  That He is God and the source of life eternal.  By simple faith and repentance you receive Him, just as the multitude ate of the meal and were satisfied, Jesus is the bread of life that satisfies forever.  You will never hunger for righteousness again.  Because Jesus is the source of spiritual life. 

Listen, there are a lot more applications that I could make from this miraculous event.  Most of which I’m sure you probably have heard before.  But what I want to express to you today above all else is that the gospel is for lost people.  It is for broken people.  The gospel is for destitute people, hopeless people.  Jesus did a lot of things in that miracle to emphasize the hopelessness of their situation.  I think He even planned it so that they would be far away from every source of food so that they would realize the hopelessness of the situation.  Jesus came to save sinners.  He came to seek and to save those that are lost.  He did not come to make good people better.  He came to make sinners righteous by the grace of God, because of the compassion of God towards man.  

And that primary application demands a response from you.  Have you received the bread of life?  Have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good?  Have you received the forgiveness of your sins and been clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ?  Listen, no amount of money could purchase the bread that was needed to feed that multitude.  Jesus gave it without charge, without cost, so that whoever would receive it might receive life, and be filled abundantly.

There is one other obvious application as well which must be made and that is the involvement of the disciples.  When Jesus had witnessed to the woman at Samaria in chapter 4, He sent the disciples away to buy food in town.  And when they came back, urging Him to eat, He told them that He had food to eat that they did not know about.  He said in vs. 54, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.”

And that principle is laid out for us here in this passage through the disciples.  He wants them to do even as He did in Samaria.  He wants them to find spiritual food in feeding others.  And when they do that, they end up with 12 baskets left over. Twelve baskets for 12 disciples. That was the disciples’ spiritual food.  In doing the will of God, God provided more than enough for their own needs.  Each of them ended up with their own basket filled with provisions.  So for us that are Christians, our job is to be obedient, even as the disciples were, and feed His sheep.  And when we do that, we will find food for our souls, and life for our spirit.  

I want to close this service today by asking you once again, have you eaten of the bread of life? Jesus was broken for you.  God loved you so much that He sent Jesus to be broken and crushed, to bear your sins upon the cross so that you might know the forgiveness of sins and receive eternal life.  Have your received Jesus as your Savior?  He says, “eat, drink, this is My body, which is broken for you.”  You can’t do anything to earn salvation, or buy it, or try to find it on your own.  But what you can do is come in faith to Christ as your Savior and the source of all life, and you will find spiritual life in Him.  Do it today.  It’s already bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ, and He offers it to you as a free gift today.  Receive Him, eat the bread of life that you might have eternal life.

As we continue in this study of the fifth chapter of John, I would remind you of the claims that Jesus made concerning Himself in the second half of this chapter which we studied last time.  They really are amazing.  Jesus claims to be the Son of God, equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life,  the one in perfect unity with the Father,  the judge of all the world, and that He would raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or that He would give them eternal life.  Now those are exceptional claims.  No man in history has ever made such extraordinary claims.  

As I said last week, Jesus was either the Son of God as He claimed, or He was a lunatic and a blasphemer deserving of being locked up or executed. But there is no middle ground.  He could not be just a good teacher, or a good man, or just a prophet.  He was either God incarnate, or a complete fraud. Jesus doesn’t give us any other choice.

It’s no wonder really, that the Jews were skeptical of Christ’s claims.  When you consider His claims in spite of lacking a religious position or priestly pedigree,  you can almost understand the animosity towards Jesus by the Jewish establishment.  But I say almost understand because in reality there were many accompanying signs which should have validated who He claimed to be.  The fact is, that the evidence that He was the Messiah was overwhelming, but they choose not to believe in Him, because He did not fit into their template for how they wanted the Messiah to operate.  It’s almost as if God sent Jesus the Messiah to the Jews, and they looked Him over pretty good, examined His resume, and said, “No thanks.  He’s not what we’re looking for right now.”  

So John says in vs.18, that the Jews were already conspiring to kill Him.  Not only did they not accept Him, but they believed the best way to get rid of Him was to murder Him.  Pretty amazing really.  They hated Him without a cause.  Without  justification.  They hated Him simply because He did not fit into their agenda. 

The first part of the chapter illustrates their attitude perfectly.  Jesus healed a paralyzed man who had been sick for 38 years and all they seemed to care about was that Jesus healed him on the Sabbath Day.  They really didn’t care about the sick man or the Sabbath Day.  They just wanted to exercise their power and position over Jesus and the traditions of the Sabbath served their purpose.  They really wanted Jesus to have to submit to them instead of them submitting to the Messiah.

And that’s not just an attitude exclusive to the first century, by the way.  That’s a common 21st century attitude as well.  We still have people who want Christ to serve them, rather than to submit to serve Christ.  People may be willing to believe in Christ to some degree, but they see Him as a means to achieve their agenda, to get Him to help them achieve their goals, their happiness, their success.  What they need to realize is that the crux of the gospel is the cross of the gospel.  And as Jesus went to the cross for us, so we are to go to the cross for Jesus, sacrificing our glory, our goals, our priorities for the sake of Christ.  So we have the same problem today that the religious Jews had in that day.  A convoluted, self serving sense of entitlement at the expense of Christ.

So Jesus made these outrageous claims, in effect saying that He was equal with God, and now in verses 31-47 He is going to present validation for His claims.  And to do so, to establish His deity, He is going to put forth five witnesses.  That was in keeping with the law, by the way.  The law said in Deuteronomy 19:15, that every fact was to be corroborated by 2 or 3 witnesses.  In other words, in a court of law, in order to establish truth, there must be at least 2, or better yet 3 witnesses to validate one’s statement as truth.  So Jesus is upholding the law here and actually exceeding the requirements of the law by offering multiple testimonies to His deity.

I have to say as I have studied John’s writings over the years, I’ve often struggled with his writing style.  I get the sense sometimes that he is overlapping things or being repetitive in laying out certain principles.  And I have to admit sometimes I am almost frustrated by it.  I kind of want him to step up the pace a little bit.  But as I was thinking about this writing style that John seems to have, I remembered something which is called in engineering terms, redundancy.  According to Wikipedia, in the field of engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system.  So redundancy is very important in engineering things like airplanes.  When you are 30,000 feet in the air in a tin can going 600 miles an hour, it is comforting to know that the essential hydraulics and components of the engine have redundant features.  So if one system should fail, there is at least one or two more that are designed to sustain the aircraft.  Redundancy may produce a more complicated system, but it generally produces a more reliable system.

And perhaps that is what John does with His gospel.  He takes the essential doctrines of the gospel, and overlaps principles or evidences or witnesses in such a way as to provide a fail safe gospel.  It provides for a faith that will prove to be reliable, no matter how great the stress that is placed upon it.  And that should be a comfort to us as we go forward in his gospel.  Sometimes as we study it, it may seem overly complicated, but I hope when you feel that way you will remember that the principle of redundancy is there for your safe keeping.

So John is going to be somewhat redundant in this passage in order to verify the claims of Christ, upon which we base our faith, and thus our salvation.  And so he records  several testimonies or witnesses of Christ.  And the first witness that Jesus mentions is that of His own testimony.  He gave witness of Himself as we read in vs.19-30 last week. In them He makes the claims that we stated at the beginning which are all statements reserved for deity.  But Jesus says that they don’t accept them as true.  And so Jesus sets His own testimony aside, because He knows that they will not accept His testimony alone as legal proof.  However, of course we know that His testimony is true, just as we know His words are true, because the Spirit says amen in our hearts.  But these men who don’t know God, do not have the Spirit of God, and so they do not know the truth, nor recognize the truth.  They were blind to the truth, even as Paul said in 2 Cor. 4:3-4 “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

The second witness that Jesus presents is that of the Father.  In vs.32, Jesus says, “There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true.”  Now He is going to go on in the next verse and speak of the witness of John the Baptist.  But in vs.32, He is speaking of  His Father.  And he picks up this testimony of the Father again in vs. 37, “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form.”

Now how did God bear testify of Jesus? Well, through multiple dispensations.  There were several instances at His birth when angels who are the messengers of God spoke concerning Him as being born of the Spirit of God, as the Son of God and as the Savior of the world. And God appointed a special star to shine out of heaven to guide the wise men to birth of the King of the Jews so that they could worship Him.  Then there was the Spirit of God in the form of a dove descending upon Him at His baptism in fulfillment of prophecy.  And there was the voice of God declaring “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.” So God the Father bore witness of Christ’s deity.

The third witness Jesus brings forth was that of John the Baptist. Vs.33, “You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.”  Now John was an important witness, and yet Jesus says in the next verse that He did not receive the testimony of man.  What does He mean by that?  He means that God is self sufficient. Jesus does not need the testimony of man to validate Himself. Christ needs no letters of recommendation from man – He is able to establish His own credentials.  But He includes John’s testimony because it was important for our salvation.  So then, He brings up John not to prove Himself, but as a benefit for our salvation.  God has ordained that by the foolishness of preaching men are saved.  And God has chosen to use men to preach the gospel to other men, so that they might believe.  So He includes John’s testimony for our sake, and not for His own.

He goes on to say that John was a lamp that was burning, and they were able to rejoice for a while in that light. They received for a while the ministry of John. It was a novelty in their minds, he was popular for a while.  But because they did not truly believe his testimony concerning Jesus as the Christ, they eventually discarded him.  But Christ says that His own testimony was greater than the lamp of John, because He was the light.  John was a lamp in which the light was reflected.  But Jesus is the Light of the world, that sets ablaze the lamps of men. Jesus’ testimony is greater than John’s testimony even as the light is greater than the lamp.  But nevertheless, God uses lamps to draw men to Himself so that they might be saved.  God has designed you to be a lamp as well.  You are to reflect the light of Christ in your life that men might see your light and be drawn to Christ.  We are told not to hide our lamp under a bushel, but set it on a hill that men might see the light of salvation and the result of that salvation reflected in us.

The fourth witness then which is greater than the witness of John was the works of Christ. Vs. 36 “But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish–the very works that I do–testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.”

Now we know that the religious leaders knew that Jesus did the works of God, by the testimony of one of their own and that was Nicodemus whom we were introduced to in chapter 3.  Remember Nicodemus said in 3:2, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”  They knew that He did miracles that only God could do, and so He had to be of God.  And yet they still planned to kill Him.  That’s why I said last week that I am convinced that the Jews knew that He was the Son of God, and yet they still wanted to kill Him because He did not fit into their religious agenda which was designed to promote themselves.  That is a damning accusation, and as such it is more than enough justification for God’s judgment to fall upon Israel which it did in AD 70.

So the miracles and works that Jesus did were testimony to the fact that He was God incarnate. You know, John the Baptist didn’t do any miracles.  Did you ever think of that?  God ordained that John would simply preach the gospel of repentance.  The miracles Jesus did were evidence that He was the Son of God. The miracles that the apostles did were evidence that they were spokesmen for the Son of God, appointed for the foundation of the gospel.  Paul said in 2Cor. 12:12 “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”  Are there true apostles today?  I would say there are not.  The apostles were specially commissioned men who had been with Christ that were given attesting miracles to show the veracity of the word of Christ that they were speaking.  

So then we might wonder if God is doing miracles today?  I would say yes He does, according to His will and purpose.  But I would add the caveat that God does not work through apostles any more, and He has not appointed certain people to be healers.  God may heal as He sees fit, but the purpose of that healing is not to validate the word of God, nor to validate a person as a spokesman of God.  God has sufficiently done that through Christ and the apostles and so His word is established and verified and sealed as being true.  It does not need continual verification by miraculous means.  But yet God may still heal as He sees fit.  

I remember a service we had on the beach a few years ago, and afterwards a woman came up to me and said that she had recently been diagnosed with stage four cancer.  She was a believer, yet she wasn’t coming to me for healing, but simply to ask for prayer and to let me know that she desired to live out her remaining days for the glory of God.  I prayed with her there on the beach, and I asked that God would grant her wish that her life would bring glory to God, and that if it was His will, that He would heal her.   Well, that lady’s name is Pat Nordstrom.  And I can tell you that today that Pat is cancer free.  I don’t know how or claim to have anything to do with it.  I am not a healer.  Lot’s of people besides me I’m sure were praying for this lady.  But I will tell you that God healed this woman, and all the glory goes to God.  And today she is very involved in a Christian ministry.  So God heals as He sees fit.  

But I also will tell you another story. I had a brother in law that was a pastor/missionary in Australia.  He was a godly man who spent decades living in Australia starting churches and training pastors.  And after decades on the field he got a respiratory disease that caused him to be unable to preach or teach or even to fly back to the United States.  After about a year or so he was finally came back to the States, and after another year or so of intense struggling to breathe, he succumbed to the illness and passed away.  I can assure you that his family was praying fervently for his healing, I was praying, and many other Christian churches were praying for him to be delivered from his illness.  But God chose not to heal him but to take him home.  God heals as He wills.  Not according to how much faith we have, but according to His eternal purposes which we are not able to comprehend.  Even Jesus, as we discussed when we talked a couple of weeks ago about His healing of the paralytic, did not heal everyone. But the miracles that He did testified to His divinity.

The fifth witness that Christ brings forth is the testimony of scripture. Vs. 38 “You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;  and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”  What was amazing about this statement was that the Jews were the custodians of the scriptures.  They of all the people in the earth had been given the word of God and were supposed to be stewards of it.  Yet  though they physically possessed the scriptures, they did not spiritually possess it.  God wrote the law upon tablets of stone, but He desired to write it upon the tablets of their hearts.  

That is speaking of salvation by the way. Jesus will say in the next chapter in John 6:63  “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”  When the word of God is combined with the quickening power of the Spirit of God, then it brings about spiritual life.  Jesus gave a parable concerning the soils, and He said that the seed was the word of God and some fell on good soil and some fell on bad soil.  That soil which was good caused the seed to spring up into life, producing fruit, which was spiritual life.  These men were those who were illustrative of bad soil, on which the seed fell but did not remain.  So that Jesus says they didn’t have the word abiding in them.  And they didn’t have spiritual life because they did not receive Jesus whom God had sent.

Ironically, they searched the scriptures, they memorized the scriptures, they knew the scriptures backwards and forwards.  And because they knew them, they thought that they had eternal life.  They saw the rules and the laws and read ordinances between the lines and found symbolism in every syllable, and they thought that they could keep the law and find righteousness, thereby earning eternal life.  But they missed the point of all the scriptures.  The scriptures present Jesus Christ from Genesis to Malachi, and yet they did not see Him.  They saw only themselves as being more righteous and honorable and deserving than others, and so they missed the entire point of the scriptures.  So in vs.40 Jesus says that “you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”  You missed out on eternal life, because you do not come to Him who is the source of eternal life.  He is not talking so much about ignorance, as about their will.  There was ample evidence, but the problem was that they were not willing.  

I think that is true of all men that reject Christ.  It is not because there is not enough evidence of God that men and women become atheists. It is because they do not want to have this Man rule over them.  People today champion independence as a virtue.  While that may be true of nations, it is fatal for individuals.  Our total salvation is dependent upon being dependent upon Christ.  That is one of the reasons we go to church by the way.  We go to church to declare publicly our dependence upon God.  Those that claim to believe in God and yet will not bow to depend upon God, and declare that dependence in the congregation must still be intractable in their independence from God.

Note that is what Jesus continually asserts He cannot nor will not do.  He is never independent from God.  What God does, He does.  What God says, He says.  They are unified, but never acting independently.  And by the way, that is the purpose of the Holy Spirit as well.  So many Christians today seem to think that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath, and that was replaced and done away with by Jesus Christ, who is the God of love.  And now that Christ has gone into heaven, He has given us the Holy Spirit, who is the God of experience.  So when some spiritual experience happens in the Christian realm, whether at church or a concert or crusade or whatever, they attribute such things to the Holy Spirit.  

Folks, that is poppy cock.  That is borderline heresy.  The Trinity is One God.  There is one faith, and one baptism.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  And furthermore, listen to the unity of the Trinity as Jesus describes it in John 14 an 16. John 14:9-11 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”  So everything Jesus did was mirrored in the Father.  He was the exact representation of the Father.  

Now consider what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in John 16:13-14  “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”  So then, Jesus is the perfect representation of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the perfect representation of Jesus Christ, so that all three are One. One nature, One essence, and one voice, but separate in persons. And that is a good way to test the spirits, by the way. If something is occurring in the church and you want to know if it is of the Spirit or not, then ask yourself is it something Jesus did. If Jesus didn’t do it, then the Holy Spirit isn’t doing it. The Holy Spirit will not act on His own initiative.  He is not glorifying Himself. He glorifies Christ, who glorifies the Father.

So in vs.41, Jesus says that He does not receive glory from men.  He does not need glory from men because He  receives glory from God.  But Jesus is rebuking them because they should have been glorifying Him, but they were not.  He says that they don’t glorify Him because they don’t have the love of God in them.  That means that they don’t love God.  Instead, they love the glory of men.  They love receiving honor from men.  That’s the condemnation of mankind, that they are lovers of self, and lovers of men, lovers of ungodliness, and rejecters of righteousness.  That is our nature.  We love darkness rather than light.  We love the applause of men.  We love the glory of men.  And as such we dishonor God who made man for His glory.

That is why repentance is a constant staple in the diet of a Christian.  We must constantly be renouncing the pride which is such a part of the fabric of our lives that we hardly even recognize it.  Pride of life seems normal, and perhaps it is.  But normal means natural and therefore it is not spiritual.  That’s why God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  God hates pride.

So because men love the honor and glory of men more than God, then God will give them over to a deluding spirit.  Jesus says that they will receive those that come in their own name, that seek after their own glory, and in accepting those false prophets they condemn themselves.

Jesus says in vs. 44 “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?”  Paul classified such men this way in 2Cor. 10:12 “For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding.”  

The point is that they used religion to compare themselves among themselves and even to commend themselves, and as such they did not seek to glorify God nor the glory of God.  And so they are unbelievers.  And as such they will deserve the judgment due them for rejecting Him.  Vs. 45  Jesus said, “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope.”  Moses wrote the Penteteuch, the law.  The very scriptures in which they professed to know, will be the thing that accuses them and judges them.  

But, Jesus says in vs.46, if you truly believed Moses, you would have believed in Me, for He wrote about Me.  But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

I think that Jesus is indicating there that the greatest witness of all is the Word of God.  Not the miracles, though God did use miracles.  Not some experience, though God may use experience.  But the great expression of God is the Word of God.  John says in chapter one vs one, that Jesus is the Word of God manifested in the flesh.  To reject the Word of God is to reject Jesus Christ.  To believe the Word of God is to believe in Jesus Christ. It is the testimony of God, the testimony of Jesus, and the testimony of the Spirit all in One.  That is a greater testimony than miraculous works, that is a greater testimony than John the Baptist, and it is a testimony that will endure forever.  1Peter 1:25 “BUT THE WORD OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER.”And this is the word which was preached to you.”

I hope that you do not reject the testimony of God’s Word concerning His Son.  If you believe in Him, in all that He claimed to be, then you will receive life, and His word will abide in you, and you will be fruitful.  But if reject His Word, then you are rejecting the solemn testimony of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and as such you will enter into judgment.  And that judgment will be merciless.  Because you have rejected Mercy and lived independently.  

When I am judged, thank God I will not be judged independently.  I will be judged as dependent upon the righteousness of Jesus Christ.  Because I have trusted in Christ as my Savior, and my substitute.  2 Cor. 5:21 “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”  When I come before God I will stand dependent upon Christ’s righteousness alone, and not my own.

You can either be found righteous in Him on that day, or you will stand alone in your independence, and have no answer when you are asked why you rejected the gift of God’s Son’s righteousness.  You want to remain in your sins and face that judgment?  That is your choice.  But I pray that you choose to come to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the One equal with God, the One sent by the Father, the source of eternal life,  the One in perfect unity with the Father,  the Judge of all the world, and the One who will raise all the dead in the earth either to stand in judgment before Him, or choose Him, and believe in Him and be saved.

This is a difficult passage to deal with, especially for 8am on a Sunday morning.  It would be  perhaps easier on everybody to give a sermon that is more energizing, uplifting, or empowering rather than heavy theology.  But if our faith is going to really and truly be those things, if our faith is going to have any power, or any energy, or any ability to lift us up out of darkness, then it has to be grounded in truth.  Jesus said in the previous chapter (4:23) that they that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. He would later declare that He was the way, the truth and the life, and that no man comes to the Father except through Him. So foundational to our theology then, Jesus has to be God in the flesh, or our faith is in vain, and our worship is worthless.

Now that is the question that Jesus has found Himself dealing with after healing the man at the pool of Bethesda. The Pharisee’s asked, “by what authority did Jesus do  these things?”  Jesus had told the paralyzed man to get up, take up his pallet and walk.  And so the man was immediately made well and obediently picked up his pallet and headed to the temple, presumably to give thanks to God for healing him.  But the Jewish religious leaders see him coming and say, “You aren’t allowed to carry your pallet because it’s the Sabbath day.” But he said, ““He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.’”. Well of course they wanted to know who that was.  But he didn’t know who had healed him. However, later Jesus discloses Himself  to him in the temple and so afterwards he tells the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

The Jews then, it says in vs.16, began plotting to persecute Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.  John reveals here by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the reason these religious leaders persecuted Jesus was that He was disrupting their religious system.  They had developed a system of religion, and they had learned to manipulate that system to their advantage.  Jesus would later accuse them of being hypocrites, because, according to Matt. 23:4, “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”  

This is the thing about false religion or false doctrine that is so damning, and which I believe will justly bring the judgment of God upon it one day.  And that is that men find a way to manipulate religion to serve their own interests, while at the same time keeping the naive under bondage.  That’s why I get so angry over false teachers.  Because they are manipulating what should be liberating, in order to  feather their own nests, and at the expense of naive people. Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.  But when it’s not truth, then it leaves people in captivity.  And so false teachers and false doctrine has to be exposed.

So in vs.17, Jesus has been cornered somewhere in the temple by the religious leaders, and accused of breaking the Sabbath.  And His response is to say, ““My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.”  The Jews knew  that God’s work is to keep all things in existence, all things holding together, working together.  Nothing exists outside of the power of God. If God shut off the power by which He holds the world together, then it would be destroyed.  God has to be working, or nothing works.  What causes the earth to stay in it’s orbit?  What keeps the sun in it’s course through the galaxy?  What keeps the atoms spinning by which all life exists?  It is the power of God. 

1Cor. 8:6  says, “yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.” So God is the Creator, through whom are all things, and yet He shares that responsibility with the Son, so that Jesus can say, God is working, and I too am working.  Specifically, He is working as Col. 1:15-17 declares: “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities–all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”  So Jesus says, “My Father is working until now, and I myself am working.”

But notice how that really infuriates the Jews.  Vs.18, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”  Why does this infuriate them so?  Was it because they honored God so much?  Hardly.  It was because if He was the Son of God, then He was equal with God, and therefore He had the authority to over rule over them and judge their religion by which they had established their livelihood and power base in Israel.  I believe there is evidence to support the idea that the Jews knew for certain by the time of the crucifixion, that Jesus was the Son of God.  And they knew the full implications of that title, as evidenced by this verse. It meant that He was equal with God.  To the western, modern minds the title Son of God seems to be a lessor title.  But in their minds, in a patriarchal society where all the rights and privileges of the father were passed on to the son, they understood the full implication; that He was declaring Himself equal with God.  And yet their response is to want to kill Him.

I mean, these aren’t “sincere, but sincerely wrong” kind of people here.  Their response to the paralyzed man being healed shows that clearly.  There is no interest in the man’s healing. There is no rejoicing that a man paralyzed 38 years has been restored fully to health.  They obviously could care less about that.  They are frothing at the mouth at Jesus in an insane desire to kill this man who could heal the sick.  The only reason for that kind of hatred is that they were demonic, steeped in apostate religion that took advantage of people, and they wanted to protect their position and lifestyle at all costs.  They could care less that people were being healed.  You will see that attitude evidenced by the Pharisees again and again in the gospels.

So Jesus is going to use this as an opportunity to authoritatively declare His unity with God, even though He knows it will be just more fuel for their hatred, and eventually be used against Him in order to put Him to death.  But if we examine His statements, we get one of the most comprehensive perspectives on the deity of Christ, from Christ Himself.

So let’s just look at Christ’s statements in order then and I’ll give a running commentary as needed.  In vs.19, Jesus declares His unity with the Father.  This is one of the greatest mysteries of the gospel.  How Jesus could be fully God and fully man in one body? It is a mystery that we cannot fully understand I think until we get to heaven.  But though we can’t understand it, we believe it, and in fact we must believe it in order to be saved.  Saving faith is believing that Jesus was fully God in the flesh. John has already declared that in his opening prologue in chapter one.  Jesus was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  God in flesh.

So Jesus says to that effect, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”  Now what Jesus is saying is that this is proof that I am God, because I do what the Father does explicitly.  I do the works of the Father.  Jesus says this over and over again in His ministry; that His works, and His words, are of the Father and therefore offer proof that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. In John 14:10 Jesus asked “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”  

Incidentally, that is how we show we are the children of God, is it not?  Because we do the works of God. Jesus said you shall know them by their fruit. And Eph. 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”  Peter says that now that we are saved we are to follow in Christ’s footsteps, according to the pattern which He gave us through His own obedience. 

So Jesus is saying that He cannot, nor will not act independently of the Father. In some mysterious way, He was both separate, yet unified with the Father.  I would suggest that in Spirit He was unified, but the separation was in HIs flesh.  In HIs flesh He was a man, and yet He lived constantly, continuously in the Spirit in unison with the Father.  And that is how we are designed to live now that we are saved.  Though we are in the flesh, we walk by the Spirit and not according to the passions of the flesh.  We put to death the lusts of the flesh, that we might do the works of God through the Spirit. 

Now for us, we are never going to be perfect while in this body, but are progressively being conformed to the image of Christ.  But in Christ it is an absolute unity, something that could only occur in the life of an individual who was equal with the Father. He speaks about the fact that “He can do nothing of himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”  He’s  expressing absolute unity with the Father. Later on he will say even more clearly, “I and the Father are one.”  Meaning not simply one in will, but one in essence.” Literally, He says, we are one thing. So he’s talking about absolute unity only possible for those who truly possess the same nature.

Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature.” That identical nature is the basis for their unity, and that unity is the basis for Christ’s deity.  Now that perfect unity with the Father that Christ claimed is an amazing thing for someone to profess.  C.S. Lewis said, “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic — on the level with a man who says he’s a poached egg — or else he’d be the devil of hell.”  And J. B. Phillips said something similar, “You must take 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 demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But don’t let us come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He hasn’t left that open to us.”

Then Jesus elaborates on that unity in vs.20, saying “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” The word Jesus uses there for love is interesting.  Usually the word for love found in the NT is agape.  But this time the Greek word is phileo.  It’s the word we get brotherly love from.  It speaks of a familial love, the love of family.  Jesus loves His Father, and the Father loves HIs Son, and so the Father reveals all things that He is doing, so that the Son may do them.  They are united not only in nature, but in love.  This is perfect love. There is no independence, no contest, only a perfect mirror of activity because there is perfect love.

And note that He says that because the Father loves Him He will show Him even greater works than these.  There is a progressive nature to Christ’s ministry.  There is a progressive nature to the gospel and it’s revelation.  And there is a progressive nature to our revelation by sanctification as we are obedient to what God shows us, and we do it, then He will show us greater works than these.  And the same was true with Christ.  He would do greater works, greater than the healing of the paralytic, greater than the works which had been witnessed up to this point in His ministry.  

And specifically these greater works that He speaks of are shown in vs.21-23, and they are the work of giving life, and the work of judgment. So many Christians are overly enamored with the idea of a healing miracle of some physical illness, as if that is the highest measure of God’s work on earth. But what Jesus is saying is that the spiritual works that He would accomplish was an even greater miracle.  Vs.21, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.”  Now what Jesus is talking about there is that the Son of God is able to give life to whomever He wishes.  Now He is not talking about giving physical life to a dead person.  He will raise the dead with Lazarus and others.  But He is talking primarily about giving life to spiritually dead people. 

And we know that to be true because He elaborates on that principle in vs.24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.”   Now He is clearly talking about salvation.  The dead He speaks of are not those in the grave.  He will talk about them in a moment.  But for now He is talking about the spiritually dead.  That He has the authority to give life to the dead, sight to the blind, ears to hear the word of God and that by hearing and believing in His word they might be saved.  He says that explicitly in vs.34, “I say these things so that you may be saved.”

Notice that spiritual life, or salvation, eternal life comes through hearing the word of God.  This is such an important principle. Rom.10:17 says, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  That’s why I put such an emphasis on preaching the word.  It’s not that I can’t find some sentimental stories to tell, or that we can’t find a Christian themed videos to watch, or listen to some Christian singers give a concert.  We could do all of those things, but we chose to preach the word because it is how God has ordained that men might be saved. 1Cor. 1:23-25  “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,  but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”  1Cor. 1:18, 21 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. … 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” So we are saved through hearing the word of God.

Now what does it mean to be saved?  Simply speaking, it means to be saved from judgment.  Saved from the wrath of God against sin.  And that is the other greater work that God has given Christ.  The work of judgment. Vs. 22, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”  

So first note that honoring God but not honoring Christ as God is not enough.  Jesus says that you must honor the Son as you honor the Father. He is claiming equality with God.  And secondly, Christ has the authority as the Son of God to give life to whom He wills, and that life results in deliverance from judgment.  He has the authority to deliver from judgment because He also is the judge of the world. Christ has been given the authority as the Son of Man to  judge the whole world.  Vs.27 “and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.” That is an interesting title.  Many times Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man because it is a title of humility, but also because it is a Messianic title. In the Old Testament it is used almost exclusively in the book of Ezekiel. It is a title used in conjunction with the judgment that was coming upon Israel for their rebellion.  But I also think that in this case, it may be that Jesus switches from Son of God to Son of Man because as Son of God He is our Redeemer; only God could redeem mankind by His substitutionary death.  But as the Son of Man He is qualified to be our judge, because He suffered in the flesh as we did, yet without sin.  He knows our frame, He knows our weaknesses.  Because He too was in the flesh, and so He is intimately acquainted with man and thus able to judge man justly.  He says that in vs.30, “My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” His judgment is just, because He is righteous and lived righteously while in the flesh.

But what about that judgment that Jesus will render?  Jesus describes it in vs. 28 “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”  Now notice the difference between this verse and vs.25.  Vs.25 says the hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of God and be saved.  That’s speaking of the spiritually dead. In the present time those that are spiritually dead will hear the voice of God and be saved.  Today is the acceptable day of salvation. 

But vs. 28 speaks of the time to come.  An hour is coming.  It isn’t here now.  It’s in the future, when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth.  The tomb or the grave speaks of physical death.  They are not literally in the tombs, of course.  Their bodies are there, and as such they represent the person who lived in that body.  But the spirits of men are either in Hades or in Paradise.  Both of which I believe is clearly taught  is in the heart of the earth.  Jesus gave a very vivid description of it in Luke 16.  Between Hades and Paradise there is a great gulf fixed, Jesus said, which no man can cross.  I believe this is where Jesus went for three days upon His death, as He told the believing thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  

And Paul, speaking in Ephesians about the resurrection of Jesus said, Eph. 4:9  (Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth?”  And Peter, in 1Pe 3:18-20 says, “For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, (He was laid in the tomb) but made alive in the spirit;  in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,  who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water.” He is speaking of the demonic angels in Hades, in prison because they were disobedient to God’s restrictions upon His creation, when the sons of God went into the daughters of men in Genesis 6.  

Now I don’t say all of that to start an eschatological debate with anyone.  But I say it to illustrate that the tomb or the grave speaks of the abode of the dead which was Hades.  And Jesus says that one day everyone will hear His voice and come out of the tombs.  Everyone.  Christians and non Christians will be raised from the dead and will either go into the resurrection of life, or the resurrection of  judgment under the supreme Judge of the earth, who is King Jesus. 

Rev. 20:4-6 speaks of the resurrection of life, the resurrection from Paradise of the souls that are saved; “And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.  The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.” 

And then it speaks of the second resurrection, which is called in this place the second death, which refers to those that are spiritually dead in Hades; Rev 20:11-14 “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”

So Jesus is One with the Father, and so He will do greater works than the miracles which these men have witnessed, namely the work of giving spiritual life to those who are dead, and the judgement of the world.  By His command all men will be resurrected, either to their reward of eternal life with God, or to the judgment of death for eternity. 

And then finally in vs.30, Jesus basically recaps His unity and authority with God. “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”  It’s amazing how Jesus can state authoritatively His unity with God, His authority as God to be the judge of the whole earth, the source of life for those who believe in Him, and at the same time express His humility. And He also states that HIs judgement is just.  God is a just God, He is holy, and Jesus is just and holy because He does the will of God the Father.

And in the same manner, as we learn through Jesus’s submission to His Father’s will,  that submission is how we are unified with God.  

The best commentary on scripture is scripture.  And so to that point of submission as the means of unity with God I will close by reading Phil. 2:5-11 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,  and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  

May God give you the grace to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords and to submit to Him, to follow His example and do HIs will.