Liar, Lunatic or Lord

Who is Jesus?  I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again:  Coming to grips with the identity of Jesus is the most important decision you will ever make. For what you believe about Jesus will have a profound impact not just on your eternal destiny, but on how you will live your everyday life.  It will make a difference on whether you will live with fear or with peace.  It will make a difference on whether you live for the applause of man or the applause of heaven.  And it will make a difference on how you understand the depth of God’s love for you and how much He wants you to know Him.

So, who is Jesus?  For eight chapters in the story of Jesus, John has attempted to show us just who Jesus is.  He’s told us that Jesus is the eternal Word of God who became one of us to show us what the Father is like.  He’s shown us how Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  He shown us how Jesus includes the least likely, how He awakens the skeptical, and how He worked a miracle to save the reputation of a family friend. He’s revealed for us Jesus’ passion for His Father’s House and His love for the whole world. He’s shown us that there’s really no one quite like Jesus, for He is incomparable in origin, incomparable in truth and incomparable in authority. But he’s also shown us His compassionate side when he loved the unlovable woman at the well, when he healed the man who’d been lame for 38 years and gave mercy to the woman caught in adultery.  He’s shown us the power of His word to give us life. And how as the giver of life, he has revealed Jesus as bread of life, the rock of living water, and the light of the world. And through all these stunning revelations of Jesus, we’ve seen how some believed and followed Jesus.  But we also saw that many turned their back on Jesus and walked away.  And now we’ve come to the place in Jesus’ story where there are many who are openly opposing and arguing with Jesus, all because of what He has revealed about himself as the Messiah.

In fact, today as we come to the close of John, chapter 8, the opposition toward Jesus has reached a fever pitch. Many are now angry with Jesus because he has called them children of the devil.  So out of their anger they’re going to accuse Jesus of being a Samaritan (a hated heretic) and being demon-possessed (basically calling him a madman) as they attempt to discredit his teaching in the eyes of the Jews.  But as they do, as Jesus has done before, He show us who He really is. So, if you have your Bible with you today, let me encourage you to open it to John 8:48-59 where Jesus handles their anger and shows them grace in ways we’d never expect.

So, if you’ve found John 8, let’s pick up the story in verse 48, where the Jews are now so angry with Jesus that they have resort to name calling and slander and by so doing, make us question: Did Jesus really speak the truth?  Let’s read the text:  The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”  John 8:48   Now, if you recall from last week, Jesus had just given these Jews quite a damning spiritual diagnosis.  He called them children of the devil because they had the characteristics of their father, the devil.  They were liars and murderers just like their father.  On top of that, he called into question their spiritual heritage revealing that they were trusting in their religion to save them, and not God.  You could say, he knew what hot buttons to push.  And now they were hot under the collar.  They were as angry as hornets, and so in their anger they called Jesus’ heritage into question: calling him a Samaritan. Samaritans were considered traitors to Judaism and spiritually impure – they were heretics to Judaism.  So, if you call us liars, we’re going to call you a heretic.  We’re going to associate you with people who’ve distorted the truth. We’re going to call you a liar. And on top of this, we want you to know that we consider you to be crazy, a lunatic. To say the things you say, and claim the things you claim, you must have a demon.  You can literally hear the malice and hatred in their accusations.  It’s not pretty.

So, how does Jesus respond?  Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor the Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and He is the judge. John 8:49-50  Now, the first thing I want us to note here, is that Jesus refuses to dignify their racial slur with any kind of answer.  Instead, he accuses them of dishonoring him because He always honors the Father.  He tells them that he has never sought to make a name for himself but has only ever sought to bring glory to the Father.  So, it didn’t matter what they think.  The only person’s opinion that matters to Jesus was His Father’s opinion.  For His Father is the judge. You can make all the accusations you want, but in the end it’s only the Father’s opinion that matters to Jesus.

Now, I think we can learn something here from Jesus.  Here he shows us how to handle anger and intimidation that can come your way when you follow Jesus.  Jesus’ motive for living was not about making a name for himself but about making a name for God. Jesus lived to bring glory to God in everything he said and did. He didn’t live for the applause of man, but for the applause of heaven.  As such, these accusations didn’t stick. Jesus wasn’t intimidated by lies or attacks on his character, because these men were not His judge.  His Father was the only judge that matters.

We need to remember this in the age we live.  Right now, we live in a very judgmental time.  There are elements in our culture that want to condemn you if you don’t agree with them.  They will try to slander you, intimidate you, and shout over you, as if by their shouting they are right, and you are in the wrong.  But if you are living to please the Father, if your core motive is to bring glory to God, you won’t be moved by any intimidation or accusations of man, because you know there is only One judge, and you seek to honor Him.

That’s Jesus’ response to the slander of these Jews. He’s not moved by their accusations, because He knows who He serves. Jesus doesn’t back down. Instead, he doubles down, saying:  Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” John 8:51 Now this is a remarkable claim. Jesus has just diagnosed their spiritual bankruptcy, telling them that they don’t know the Father, and are in danger of judgment: for since they’ve rejected Him, they’re rejecting the Father.  But even as they try to take him down, Jesus offers them grace.  Jesus slips in the gospel.  Jesus tells these angry religious men that there is a way for them to escape eternal judgment.  There’s a way for them to never see death: All you have to do is keep my word, and you will never see death.

To keep Jesus’s word means to hear His words and obey them.  It means trusting that His Word is true and then proving your faith by putting His word into practice. And when you do this, when you obey His Word, you will never see death, you will never experience judgment, you will never experience eternal separation from God.  You will be saved.

What Jesus is speaking to here, is the fear of every man and woman living today:  The fear of death.  Not just physical death, but spiritual death.  The Bible speaks of spiritual death as separation.  It’s a separation from God.  It’s separation from life with God. It’s an estrangement from the One who loves you with an everlasting love.  And this estrangement, this alienation from God, takes place when you choose to turn away from God and disregard His will.  This rebellion and alienation are what the Bible calls sin.  As Isaiah wrote: We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way. Isaiah 53:6  What God’s Word is saying is this:  Each one of us break our relationship with God by turning away from Him and living as if He doesn’t exist; living as if He doesn’t matter; living as our own gods. We refuse to submit to His truth, and create our own truth, trust our own feelings, our own thoughts and ideas, and turn away from God altogether.

And now, since we all sin, we all fear death.  We fear death’s uncertainty because we know deep down that we’ll live on somewhere after we die.  For God has placed eternity in our hearts.  And we fear death’s significance, for we know deep down that unless there is some way of reconciling with God, that once we die physically, this separation becomes permanent.  And we will be left to experience eternal torment, living separated from anything that is good, and living with the eternal regret that we rejected the One who sent His Son to save us.

That’s what was happening in this encounter between the Jews and Jesus.  They were rejecting the only One who could save them.  But Jesus in His amazing love for these angry rebels, offers them grace one more time. He offers them a way to turn back to God – a way to be reconciled with the One who will judge every man, woman and child.  So, what do they do with Jesus’ offer of grace?  Sadly, they reject it, because they’ve convinced themselves that Jesus doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  They’re convinced themselves that Jesus is out of his mind.  Which leads to our second question about Jesus today:

Was Jesus out of His mind? Let’s look at how they described their rejection of Jesus: The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” John 8:52-53  The Jews refuse to listen. The Jews are now convinced Jesus has a demon.  This is their way of saying that Jesus was out of his mind – that he’s a lunatic.  For no one in their right mind would say they are greater than Abraham.  In fact, now they are not just angry; they’re livid.  And their final question proves this. For when they ask, “Who do you make yourself out to be?” This question is openly hostile: “Who do you think you are making another claim about your truth?”  But again, they’re so blind to who Jesus is, they cannot recognize that Jesus is not trying to make anything of Himself, He’s only trying to make much of the Father.

Listen to Jesus’ response: Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’  But you have not known Him. I know Him. If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” John 8:54-56 Jesus refutes any suggestion that he was promoting himself.  He says, “If I promote myself, if I try to make a name for myself, then my glory is nothing.”  It’s empty. It has no value.  But at the same time, when he says he does nothing to bring himself glory, he points to the Father, as the One who gives Him glory.  And he backs this up by referring to His relationship with the Father, saying, “I know Him.  If I were to say that I do not know Him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and I keep His word.”

In other words, Jesus says that the reason He doesn’t glorify Himself is that His submission to the Father’s will is total.  He’s been saying this all along.  And he’s been proving this all along. “I only do what the Father shows me to do, and I only teach what the Father teaches me to say.” And because I submit to His will, because I obey everything my Father commands, this not only proves that I know the Father, but it proves the Father sent me, and shows that I am indeed greater than Abraham.  For Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.  He saw it and was glad.

Jesus has just laid out a well-reasoned and exhaustive response as to who He is.  He’s not out of His mind.  Rather He is the one who has come to glorify God.  He is the one who knows the Father.  For He obeys the Father in everything.  His words and works have proved this.  Now, the only conclusion that the Jews could make from this, is that He must be the One Abraham was looking for.  He must be the Messiah – the promised One through whom God would bless the world.

But the Jews refuse to hear.  Instead, they are incredulous and unwilling to believe anything Jesus says at this point.  But they do have one last question for Jesus: Does Jesus claim to be God?  Because only God could have seen Abraham. So, in a most assuredly mocking tone, the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”  Now Jesus never said he had seen Abraham; but that Abraham had seen his day.  But Jesus isn’t fazed.  Instead, He answers their flippant question with an absolutely stunner of an answer:  Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”  John 8:58

At that moment, every Jew in the place knew what Jesus was claiming. He we claiming to be Yahweh, the self-existing God who was, is, and is to come.  He was claiming to be the Covenant God of the Jews who promised to be with them, to bless them and make them into a great nation.  He was claiming to be God in the flesh.  The same God who revealed Himself to Moses, saying “I am who I am,” (Exodus 3:14), the same God who spoke to Isaiah, saying, “I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:18), and the same God who existed prior to Abraham’s birth, and who continues to exist today. And now, there was only one way to take this claim.  Either these are the words of God incarnate or the most impudent blasphemer who’s ever lived.  Either Jesus is LORD of all, who deserves our all; or He’s a madman who must be punished or put away.  But one thing about Jesus claiming to the be great “I am” is this:  His claim to be the eternal self-existing God of the universe demands a response.  His claim cannot be ignored.

The Jewish leaders didn’t ignore it.  For John records their response, we see their rejection of Jesus as complete. For At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. John 8:59

Jesus had just claimed to be God. The very God who called these Jews his treasured possession.  The very God who gave them all the promises of Abraham.  But rather bow down and worship Him, in that He had come to be with them and save them, they would rather pick up stones and destroy him.

And all I can say to this is, wow. The Jews, God’s chosen and beloved people, considered Jesus to be a liar and a lunatic, but refused to worship Him as LORD.

What about you?  Who is Jesus to you?  I’ve shared this with you before, but it bears repeating today.  It’s from the pen of C.S. Lewis.  He says, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [that is, Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg–or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Who is Jesus?  If what Jesus claims here is true, and He says it is true, then Jesus is the great “I am?”  Jesus is divine.  He is God in the flesh.  He is the eternal God who has always existed – the eternal God who reigns over all creation, and Almighty God who will one day return and to judge the living and the dead.  But He is also the God of grace who has made it possible for you to never see death.  For He is the One who has made a way for you to be reconciled to God.  He made that way possible when He laid down His life for your life on the bloody cross of Calvary.  For it was on that cross that He shed His blood to defeat sin and death forever.

And today, Jesus still offers His grace to anyone who hears His Word and trusts that His Word is true.  Jesus still offers a way for rebels to return to the love and goodness of God.

All you have to do is turn from your sin and turn to Jesus, and He will not only forgive all your sin, but He will bring you safely home to the Father who loves you. This is who Jesus is.  He is the great “I am” who came to be one of us, to bring you back to God.

The only question that remains is this:  Do you want to be reconciled to God?  Do you want to trust in Jesus?