Judica, the 5th Sunday in Lent + John 8:46-59

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

“Which of you convicts me of sin?” None of them can do this. Jesus had lived among the Jews His entire earthly life. For several years He had taught amongst them, performed miracles, when they thought they had caught Him in sin, violating the Sabbath, He taught them the true meaning of the commandment. They can’t convict Him of any wrongdoing. Neither did He teach anything discordant with the Scriptures. Earlier in this chapter He told the Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). Before that He said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12). But now they reject Him and refuse to hear Him. And while we might imagine all sort of reasons for their rejection; false expectations for the Messiah, spiritual elitism, and the like, there is only one simple reason for their rejection: they are not “of God.” “He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

Their rejection isn’t ambivalence, either. It’s all out hatred. They call Him a Samaritan and accuse Him of having a demon. To call a Jew a Samaritan would be to call him a half-breed because the Samaritans were the descendants of poor Jews and other peoples who had been imported to Northern Israel after the fall of the Northern Kingdom. It means He’s not a true son of Israel and outside God’s kingdom. To accuse Him of having a demon is worse. The call Him a child of the devil, much as they did in the Gospel lesson from two weeks ago when they said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons” (Luke 11:15). But this is how unbelief goes. If you aren’t “of God” then God’s words are repulsive and they must be attacked and maligned, although most today simply ignore God’s word in order to appear civil.

But Jesus keeps to His point. “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death,” and they ridicule it. “How can your word keep men alive?” they snort. They assume Jesus is talking about physical death. It would make no sense for Jesus’ word to keep men from physical death. What about Abraham? What about the prophets? They’re all dead. The Jews hear something in Jesus’ words that many today willfully ignore: that Jesus is saying He is God. “He who is of God hears God's words.” If I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?” He word IS the word of life because He is the only-begotten Son of God, God Himself. God of God. Light of Light. Very God of Very God. Abraham was saved from death by keeping Christ’s word, but not physical death. Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day and he saw it because he believe God’s promise, “in you all families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), which was a promise of the Messiah. Christ, the descendant of Abraham according to the flesh, is the way in which in all families of the earth are blessed in Abraham. Abraham kept God’s word of promise. He believed it and held that it was true over against all experience to the contrary. He was born again through the impermissible seed of the Word. Because of that faith, Abraham was justified, declared righteous, so that from him, physical death was just a doorway into everlasting life. How could Abraham have kept Christ’s word of promise even though he lived centuries before Christ? “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

The Jews’ unbelief can’t take any more of this talk. The pick up stones to kill Him. And while the hatred and unbelief of the Jews will eventually lead to His death, it will not at this moment. His hour has not yet come, nor was this the way to fulfill what the Scriptures said about His suffering and death. He uses His divine power, conceals Himself, and passes through the midst of them. The world still does this today. Those who reject Christ’s promise, those who aren’t “of God” will ignore God’s word. But once unbelief is exposed it will attack Christ’s word. It attacks Christ, saying, like the Jews, that He is not true God, but a demoniac at best or a “good teacher” whose followers turned His simple religion of morality into something He never intended. But Christ is God and says so explicitly in this text. He calls Himself “I AM,” the name He revealed to Moses in the burning bush. Others will attack Christianity as a whole, or Christians individually, heaping up all sorts of blasphemies and insults and lies. In this, our only recourse isn’t retaliation, but to commend ourselves and the church to God. “Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man!” (Psalm 43;1-2), and then do what St. Peter tells us to do, “Rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings” (1 Peter 4:13).

But let us not miss Christ’s promise over the noise of the Jew’s hatred for Jesus. In the midst of this assault, Christ presents us with a great and precious promise. Those who are “of God” hear God’s word, which is Christ’s word. The word which we hear is not the word of the Law, although that too, is God’s word, but specifically here the word of Gospel because it is the word of eternal life. “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” He isn’t speaking of physical death. Even Christ had to endure that. He speaks of eternal death which is the everlasting punishment of Hell. He says in John 5:24, “he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” This means that when we believe the promise of the gospel, Christ rebirths us into everlasting life. We “who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), He made alive through faith. That spiritual life is what brought you here today to hear God’s Word. You are “of God” so you want to hear God’s word, knowing that Christ’s words are spirit and life. As Abraham believed and his faith was counted for righteousness, so is your faith, which God has worked in your hearts, counted as righteousness, so that your sins are forgiven and you live eternally. You will most certainly die, unless, that is, Christ returns during our lifetime. But your physical death will be for you what it was for Abraham, a doorway into everlasting life. For Christ your Lord has said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).

Those who aren’t “of God” will mock, spurn, and reject our Christian hope because they mock, spurn, and reject the Lord Jesus Christ. They judge themselves unworthy of everlasting life, on the Last Day that judgment will be executed. But those who are “of God” will be vindicated, just as the Father vindicated Christ by raising Him from the dead, proving Him to be the Son of God and showing that His sacrifice for your sins was acceptable in His sight. Like your Lord Jesus, though you taste death, you will not see everlasting death. That is why He goes to the cross, to His appointed suffering, and to His shameless death. Not because of the hatred of the Jews. But because He loves you and willingly gives Himself for you so that He might give you everlasting life.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.