The Options of Believing

Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? (John 8:46)

This last question suddenly grabbed my attention this morning and made me begin to think about the various potential answers to it. If one was asked this question and actually tried to respond to it, what might be offered?

One possible answer to this question would be to say they did not want to believe Him. This itself was actually true but it was incriminating truth that would seriously diminish their influence over the people so they certainly didn't want to go with that option. Along this same line they could have offered any number of reasons why they didn't want to believe Him. These reasons would have exposed their own agendas that were in conflict with God's government but would have actually been true if they were willing to admit them. Primarily they didn't want to believe Him because of the implications that would follow. It would have forced them to radically challenge their whole system of governance and all their relationships. They would have been in danger of losing control, losing face, losing wealth and many other things that were far more important to them than being in alignment with God. So they simply could not bring themselves to admit that it was their own hearts that refused to accept that Jesus' words and claims were true.

Jesus stated this question prefaced with an if. That left open the option for them to counter with explanations of why they might think what He was saying was not true; it was an open invitation to dialog about the veracity of what He was saying. If Jesus' words were not true then their claims might be justified that it was He who was a child of the father of lies and not them as He had just stated. In the context of which father they followed, God or the devil, the source of all truth or the source of all lies, this conversation was really a duel between two versions of reality. Either Jesus was telling the truth and all who refused to believe Him were aligned with the opposer of truth, or else Jesus was the one using deceptions which would automatically align Him with Satan's side and they would then have had reason to reject His claims.

But the response that most likely would have surfaced in their minds when Jesus asked this question would have been (though they certainly did not want to say it openly), “It threatens us too much to believe He is telling the truth. That's why we don't believe Him.”

The problem with this answer is that they knew deep in their hearts that Jesus was speaking truth. They were under constant conviction of the Spirit of God that Jesus' words and claims were unavoidably true. The real issue was that they didn't want to believe Him, not that they honestly believed He was telling falsehoods. Jesus knew this was the case which is precisely why He had just told them that they were of their father the devil who is the father of lying. By refusing to admit that and by resisting coming into alignment with the person who was speaking truth to them they were aligning themselves with God's opposition, the father of all falsehoods which is the only other option in life.

What does this have to do with me today? How often do I find myself in conflict with others over truth and deceptions?

I see it taking place on different scales and different levels of intensity. Whenever I dig in my heels to defend my own position rather than desire to know what is really true, the more I become sucked into the realm of deception and lies. Very quickly there develops layers of lies upon lies that not only seek to obscure and distort truth for other people but immediately have the effect of obscuring what is true in my own mind and heart. This choice to enter into the world of deception in order to defend my own position causes my own opinions to reinforce my fallen nature and blinds me to the light of truth. I then subject myself to being a slave to the father of lies, the great tyrant who might offer me satisfaction in going down this path of self-defensiveness. But he is really a bait-and-switch master that traps me in his prison of lies and then tortures me with condemnation, guilt and fear. Then he scandalously leads me to believe that it is God who is condemning me rather than my own heart as he immerses me in ever increasing lies about God. This is the dark pit these religious leaders were in and is the one we are ever in danger of slipping into if we do not remain firmly in the truth.

If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?

This is really an invitation to move from living in the prison of lies into the freedom of submitting to the authority of the One who is always true. It simply makes no sense, if one is willing to be truthful and honest about all the options, to choose to not believe Jesus. Either Jesus is a liar and thus cannot be trusted, or else He is truthful and trustworthy, and the only safe option is to believe that and risk everything on trusting in Him. For the claims and example of Jesus while on this earth are so radical that there is no room for waffling or compromising about His words. If I accept what Jesus says and demonstrates about His Father and the way God relates to His universe and fallen sinners, then it requires that I surrender my previous opinions and beliefs and notions that are out of harmony with the life of Jesus.

That is precisely what God intended when He sent His Son to this earth to reveal to us the truth about Himself. Either we are the liars or God is the liar – there is simply no other possibility. And if we decide that Jesus may not be telling the whole truth we set ourselves up as a judge over God instead of accepting that God is greater than us and is the only one qualified to make valid judgments.

To reject the claims and invitations of Jesus to change our alignment from agreeing with the father of lies is to choose death instead of life.

To embrace the words of Jesus and accept that He is speaking the truth opens me up to receiving real life. I am the one confused and who has been deceived by the father of lies, it is my opinions, feelings and beliefs that need adjusting to enter into life, to accept the option of eternal life and to be rescued from the sin of attempting to live independent from the only Source of life that exists.

In this question I am faced with the choice of who is going to be my father. It seems a bit strange at first for we have always assumed that we had no options as to who our real father would be. But in this whole passage Jesus is challenging that assumption and invites all of us to choose who will be our father. The characteristics of the one we choose to be our father, the authority we choose to embrace and respect and surrender our souls to will determine the kind of reflection that will emanate from our life as a result of that choice.