There are some things we must believe or we really aren’t Jesus-followers. The first is the identity of Jesus. C. S. Lewis made popular the line of argument called “Lunatic, Liar or Lord.” In a nutshell, if we believe the Scriptures, then Jesus can’t be just a good moral teacher. He can’t be someone to model our lives after. He claimed to be more than that. How much more is explained in this passage of Scripture.
Jesus in chapter eight of John is in a long discussion with the Jewish leaders of His day. They are challenging His own claims about His identity. They even get personal in their attacks (v19). Jesus continues to ramp up His claim to being someone more than just a good teacher. He started with claiming He is the light of the world.
The Jews of Jesus’ day hear something in those words that sets them off. They react to what He says. I see this firsthand knowledge as enlightening. We might react to His words very differently, but they knew the culture, context, language and they reacted.
Note also, that Jesus did not back down from His claim. There are repeated times when Jesus could have said, “Hey, wait a minute. I didn’t mean that. What I meant was…” but He didn’t. He could have retracted and corrected, but instead He ramps it up.
And the reaction of the Jews also ramps up to the point where they want to stone Him for blasphemy, claiming to be God. They are pushing for a reason to kill Him, and they find one. They are insulted by what Jesus says, because it is true. They feel the sting of His words. Jesus is pushing for clarity and understanding (v43), and I think he gets it. They just don’t want to believe what He is saying.
Again, I want to emphasize, Jesus had many opportunities to retract what He was saying during this conversation, but He didn’t. Jesus raises His importance above Abraham, the father of the faith. Abraham rejoiced at Jesus’ coming. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s words to Abraham.
But this is not all. Jesus claims to be the “I AM” that spoke to Abraham. If we go back and read Exodus 3:14 we see the God of the burning bush introducing Himself to Abraham and to the people of Israel. He is beginning a covenant relationship with them and introduces Himself as the One who exists independent of anyone or anything else. Jesus claims He is this person, this “I AM”. They want to immediately kill Him.
Christianity is based on the belief that Jesus is God. We will continue to look at this in the coming days. What we believe about Jesus determines our eternal destiny. It is important to know what we believe and why we believe it.
The Arnold Journey 