Getting the Labels Straight

Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." (John 8:34-36)

As I read through the last part of this chapter I feel challenged to graphically position these statements in such as way as to make them more clear to my dull mind. I sense that the main issue here besides real belief is the issue of identity. Jesus, in the face of stubborn unbelief and constant contradictions, is trying to convey some vital truths about salvation. Unless we come to rightly understand our true condition and the real truth about Jesus and the God He came to reveal to us, we also will be unable to come into right relation to God or experience saving belief.

I took primarily the statements of Jesus here and sorted them according to who they applied to. As I did so I felt this arrangement was already helping to clarify some connections in my mind and is helping me to better grasp some of the implications that Jesus is trying to convey to me personally here.

I am the Light of the world		he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life
Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true	"You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true."
I know where I came from and where I am going	you do not know where I come from or where I am going
I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true	You judge according to the flesh
I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me		Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true
I AM [He] who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me	“Where is Your Father?” You know neither Me nor My Father	if you knew Me, you would know My Father also
I go away, where I am going, you cannot come	you will seek Me, and will die in your sin
I am from above	You are from below
I am not of this world	you are of this world
	you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins	if anyone keeps My word he will never see death
What have I been saying to you from the beginning? ...know that I AM	“Who are You?” When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM	When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM
I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world. I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me	They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father	As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him
He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone	you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you	Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine
I always do the things that are pleasing to Him	everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin	you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free
I know that you are Abraham's descendants	We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?	Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad
the Son does remain forever	The slave does not remain in the house forever
the Son makes you free		if the Son makes you free you will be free indeed
I speak the things which I have seen with My Father	you also do the things which you heard from your father – You are doing the deeds of your father
	“Abraham is our father.”	If you are Abraham's children, do the deeds of Abraham
a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God	as it is, you are seeking to kill Me – this Abraham did not do
I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me	“We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.”	If God were your Father, you would love Me
	Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word
	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
Which one of you convicts Me of sin?
Because I speak the truth	you do not believe Me
If I speak truth	why do you not believe Me?
I proceeded forth and have come from God	for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God	He who is of God hears the words of God
I do not have a demon	“You are a Samaritan and have a demon.”
I honor My Father	you dishonor Me
before Abraham was born, I AM	The Jews said to Him, "Now we know that You have a demon. Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died, and the prophets also"
I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges. If I glorify Myself, My glory is nothing; it is My Father who glorifies Me, of whom you say, 'He is our God'	whom do You make Yourself out to be?
I know Him	You have not come to know Him
if I say that I do not know Him	I will be a liar like you
I do know Him and keep His word		if anyone keeps My word he will never see death

Toward the Cross

So Jesus said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him." (John 8:28-29)

As Jesus grew and matured it became more clear to Him what His true destiny and purpose was here on this earth. His awareness was growing of the reality of the coming cross and all its surrounding circumstances that were destined to reveal the immensity of the love of God to all the universe. His real identity and purpose for human existence was coming into sharper clarity in His mind.

Throughout His childhood Jesus' education was primarily from the Scriptures, the tutelage of His mother and the promptings of the Holy Spirit from His true Father in heaven. The Scriptures were His main lesson book and nature was its supplement which all helped to reinforce the Spirit's impressions concerning His true identity. By the age of twelve His awareness of His divine origin had become clear enough to Him that He was ready to make a bold statement to His parents about His own identity, His mission and His willingness to step into His role of Messiah at any time. But He was also humble and willing to submit to them for another eighteen years until the Holy Spirit would prompt Him to step up to the task.

During all of that intervening time Jesus' mind and heart were being instructed by all of the teachings and symbols and lessons both from the written word and what had been embedded into nature that He Himself had placed there before His incarnation. Before He came to this earth He knew explicitly what was happening in all eternity, both past and future. But now as a human He had to learn about His role, His identity and His mission the way that each of us must learn, through teachings, training, mentoring and with faith by learning to listen to that same still small voice of the Spirit that is speaking to each one of us who are also willing to listen.

What Jesus was learning from all these sources was the true meaning behind the whole sacrificial system and all the other symbols connected with the sanctuary system He had given to the Jewish people centuries before. As He studied the prophecies of those whom He Himself had inspired previously, His mind was stirred with recognition of the real truths about God that had been buried by counterfeit beliefs and distortions about God. His own natural desires for righteousness and His spontaneous revulsion of sin were strong clues as to His unique identity. Coupled with the Holy Spirit's linking of all these things to reveal to Him His true identity as prophesied in the Old Testament writings, He began to realize distinctly that He was the one who was to fulfill all that had been predicted.

His own parents had possibly shared with Him stories of the circumstances surrounding His birth which would have confirmed all the other evidence of His divinity accumulating in His heart. Given this background we can see that it was not an act of impudence when He stated so bluntly to His parents that His earthly father was not His real dad when they discovered Him in the temple at the age of twelve. If He had experienced a Bar Mitzvahs around that time which is typical for a boy of His age, it would have been quite clear in how it had occured that His earthly father could not claim that he was Jesus' real father. For in the Bar Mitzvahs ritual only the real father could exclaim the traditional phrase, “This is my beloved son and I am well pleased with him.” To not have that spoken over a child at a Bar Mitzvahs was a public admission that the real father was not present, and that would be an intense public humiliation for obvious reasons.

For Jesus, it was not until His baptism at age thirty that He finally heard those confirming words, and this time they came not from an earthly father but from His real biological Father who had Fathered Him with His real mother Mary thirty one years previous. Jesus had spent thirty years learning about His true identity, as the Son of His parents God and Mary; but only at His baptism were His beliefs confirmed supernaturally. That confirmation though was much needed for in the immediately ensuing temptations in the wilderness His belief in His true identity was fiercely challenged to the breaking point.

Now in this passage from John, Jesus finds Himself again being repeatedly challenged as to His true identity by the religious leaders who find His views about God and religion reprehensible and incompatible with their teachings and views. For years they sought to discredit Jesus in every way possible and to undermine His influence with the people, for His teachings and personal influence continued to undermine their whole system of control and governance. This was really a battle between two very different views of reality and of God, and it always came down to the issue of the true identity of Jesus Christ and what He stood for in His claimed relationship to God.

The great climax of Jesus' revelation of the real truth about God would come later when these very men would turn Him over to be crucified publicly in order to attempt to silence and stop His insurrection and threat against their influence and control. But unknown to them this very act would be the tipping point for all history that would work to actually do the exact opposite of what they intended – it would bring about the greatest revelation of God to the entire universe that could ever be accomplished. Jesus knew all of this from the prophecies that He had immersed Himself in growing up and He was looking forward to this climactic event that was the context for this statement above.

Unfortunately, because we still miss the main reason for Jesus coming to this earth and for His public crucifixion, I'm afraid we largely miss the true impact of this statement ourselves. But there actually are strong clues in these verses that reveal much to us about the true reasons for all of these events if we are willing to listen and challenge our own paradigms of religion.

Jesus came to reveal the very unpopular idea that sin is a problem of our false assumptions about God that is entirely on our side of the great divide, not a problem where God's mind or heart must be changed. This vital point is one that is almost entirely missed by mainstream religion of every stripe. Almost all religions teach in some way or another that God must be appeased in some way in order for Him to be willing to forgive and for us to come into some sort of alignment with Him. This is the legal view and has been largely embraced and endorsed more or less by all religions on the planet. But it misses the much larger issues that emerged when Lucifer first initiated the rebellion up in heaven and launched a massive smear campaign to destroy trust in God. Ever since that time the great war has been going on primarily over one issue alone: Can God really be trusted? Parallel to that is the question that is yet to be proven: Can the government of heaven can safely operate on love alone?

When we view everything in the context of these much larger questions that lay at the foundation of the whole controversy between good and evil, it become much easier to see how each subordinate issue fits into its proper place. We can also begin to grasp much better the true mission of Jesus to this earth, the center of the ongoing conflict between truth and deceptions. Jesus did not come here to pay some sort of debt obligation demanded by an offended God as His enemies have convinced so many of us to believe. Jesus came to this earth to reveal that the breakdown in trust between us and God is totally a problem in our hearts and has nothing to do with some sense of offense in God's heart that must be subdued. When this issue starts to become clearer for us then we are prepared to better grasp the true meaning of the cross of Jesus Christ, its far greater implications and its power to transform, not just lost sinners captured by its amazing revelations but even for unfallen worlds who somehow long entertained questions about the government of God from ages past. It was not until the cross that the last remaining doubts about God's character and government were resolved outside this planet.

When this context is seen for the cross, it is easier to appreciate the growing apprehension and anticipation of that event that was growing in the mind of Jesus as He came closer and closer to that great climax. On the one hand His humanity would naturally shrink from such a horrific task, to allow sinners and demons to vent all of the hatred, rage and violence resulting from all the sin that would ever occur to be heaped upon Jesus without His resorting to any trace of resistance against it. That would be totally against the natural survival instincts wired into His humanity and would require supernatural strength to endure.

But at the same time He also instinctively knew because of His perspective from heaven's viewpoint, that this was the only way in which the truth about God's love and grace and righteousness could ever be effectively exposed. Allowing sin to display its malignity on Him would provide the breakthrough needed to win the great war with evil and blow open all the lies about God. Given this perspective Jesus had an eagerness about Him to reach that grand climax, that overwhelming demonstration of love in action under the worst possible conditions so as to once and for all provide a demonstration where every lie about God would be shattered and every deception and excuse would be exposed as fraudulent.

In passing through this traumatic series of events in which evil would be fully exposed by the light of the real truth about God acted out in direct conflict with evil, Jesus would show conclusively that love really is more powerful than force, that humility really is more powerful than desires for vengeance, that the ways of God are the only ways that will guarantee a universe free of sin and yet totally free of all coercion or intimidation at the same time.

The two phrases highlighted in these verses lie at the foundation of Jesus' secret to navigating the experience of the cross successfully. Jesus came as our example to show us that the only way to be salvaged back into a right relationship with God is to live a life completely free of all self-initiative when it comes to our salvation. That is not to say we have no choices to make; indeed, there are going to be some very difficult choices just as Jesus had to face dying to self and leaving everything up to His Father. But Jesus showed us by clear example that it is not up to us to make ourselves good enough for God to accept us but that the real issue is to believe that God is really good and that He already accepts us and wants us to come into a relationship of trust so implicitly with Him that we will allow Him total access to our hearts and our affections. God desires loyalty even above obedience as strange as that sounds to many religious people.

Secondly, Jesus provides the only solution as to how that can ever be accomplished, again by His own example. The only way that we can live a life of complete trust and dependence on our heavenly Father is by making Him our constant companion and intimate friend. He promises to never leave us or forsake us and Jesus demonstrated the truth of this by telling us that His Father never left Him alone. And although on the cross His emotions and pain led Him feel like God may have forsaken Him, the real truth was that God was in Christ at that very moment, sharing all of His pain and in the process reconciling the entire universe to Himself – just the opposite of what His feelings were telling Him.

Review and Intervention

"Who are You?" Jesus says, "What have I been saying to you from the beginning? (John 8:25)

My heart is starting to warm up to this verse, this important set of questions. I have been learning for a number of years the importance of steering my attention more toward knowing God than on trying to change myself, to get rid of sin from my life and get my act together. I have wasted countless years diverted by the false compulsion of perfectionism while all the time the only way real change could occur was to get to know the only One who is perfect – perfect in love, in compassion, in kindness, in power, in fairness, in mercy and forgiveness.

As this truth slowly begins to seep into my soul I more and more find myself asking this question of Jesus, “Who are You, really?” I have a deepening desire to really know Him intimately, to know what makes Him tick inside, to experience His presence, to know at the deepest level that I am really accepted and loved and cherished and wanted. The problem is that after my head begins to realize these things are true it takes so much longer for my heart to come to believe. And that is part of the reason, no, most of the reason why I am so immersed in my study of the book of John. I want to not just understand what real belief means but much more I need to be experiencing and practicing it all the time.

One of my favorite songs is, “I want to know You more”. I like the unique bass progression in that song that makes a beautiful counterpart to the tune, but most of all the lyrics express so well the deep longing of my own soul that is nearly inexpressible in language. I really do want to know Him more and part of that is imploring Him to reveal to me, especially to my heart, who He really is.

Over the last few days I found myself face to face again with an outrageous dragon living in my basement. I am not talking about an imaginary fear like a child might deal with, I am talking about an all too real monster far more powerful than me that was created in my childhood and took up residence inside a cavern deep in my soul and has largely remained out of sight but very much alive for most of my life. It has far too much influence over many of my decisions and is the root of most of my fears. It threatens to dethrone any contenders that I try to place in control of my life and is constantly undermining all that Jesus is doing to transform me into His image.

I cannot say very much about the effects that this internal dragon has on me for to even speak of it seems to empower it or to infect others with suspicions about me which only adds to its effectiveness. But its presence is very real and my ability to keep it contained does not dislodge it from its hideout. I only manage to repress it and keep it largely out of sight from others and pray that God will deliver me from this threat to my peace, happiness and even my eternal welfare.

Very few people around me are aware of this internal threat but remain baffled as to how to relate to it or what to do to help me. I long for a reliable, safe counselor who might be able to help me find deliverance from this power but my suspicions and fears always warn me that people will betray my trust in them sooner or later and I have to deal with this alone between God and myself. I know that this dragon is a direct affront to God's position in my heart and it was implanted in me ironically by religious people with good intentions for me from a very early age. And unfortunately I think I may have created similar dragons in my own children that they now have to contend with or be dominated by throughout their lives until they too find freedom through the power of God.

So when I ask Jesus, “Who are You?” I have very strong reasons to want to know. My heart needs to know that He is big enough and strong enough to take out this dragon. I also need to know that He really wants to do this for me, and if so, I would like it to happen sooner rather than later. Too often certain events can trigger the activation of this monster into fury and at those times I feel very little control over my thoughts. I can restrain my outward expressions and actions largely through fear of retribution and retaliation from others, but that does nothing to resolve or free me from the deep internal control that this dragon still sometimes has over my soul. I need to know God much better, to have a much deeper trust in His power to deliver me like He did for people when He walked on this earth. I need direct intervention and deliverance and freedom so I too may live in love, peace and joy at levels that like I have never known before.

As I look at this verse I remember that Jesus tends to not often answer questions directly but often goes deeper by asking questions of His own. “What have I been telling you over the past few years? Don't forget all the insights I have given you and all the experiences we have shared together, the times I have already rescued you from the power of this dragon and the vital principles that must be followed if you are to live in safety. Look back and pay attention to what you already have learned from me so that I can build on it instead of having to repeat myself over and over and make less progress.”

One of the most influential authors in my life wrote something that relates to this rather directly. It goes like this.

In reviewing our past history, having traveled over every step of advance to our present standing, I can say, Praise God! As I see what the Lord has wrought, I am filled with astonishment, and with confidence in Christ as leader. We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.

We are debtors to God to use every advantage He has entrusted to us to beautify the truth by holiness of character, and to send the messages of warning, and of comfort, of hope and love, to those who are in the darkness of error and sin. {LS 196}

I recall a number of stories in the Old Testament where the people of God faced overwhelming odds from their enemies and almost certain annihilation. It was at those times that someone decided to place all of their hopes on God, to cry out to Him, to cling to Him as their only hope and to explicitly obey Him in every detail in spite of their overwhelming feelings of fear. These examples that resulted in some of God's surprising and glorious deliverances are written for our benefit, for my benefit to apply to just such problems as I am facing right now. It is not just external threats that God wants to deliver His children from but the internal ones that are less obvious but much more threatening to eternal life.

I need to take time to ponder back about my life and to remind myself of the many times that God has intervened and revealed Himself and delivered me from danger, from ignorance, from fears and from oppression. God is not impotent or unable to save me, but my picture of God still has serious flaws and inadequacies that need remediation. My heart's beliefs about God and His love and power always seem to lag far behind what my head is willing to believe. But even this is to a large extent is a problem that I have to put into God's hands as He is the one in charge of my whole recovery, not me.

Father, You know all about this internal dragon that threatens the very existence of my life and defies Your authority. I rather suspect that most if not all of the humans here on earth have to contend with something similar though most people may not be aware of or willing to admit it. I do know that this threat is far beyond my ability to resolve and that You are the only hope I have for deliverance. If You don't rescue me from this sabotaging force then I am doomed. But when You do rescue me I will be much more aware of how totally obligated I am to You to live in complete loyalty and devotion to You.

I don't know the plans You have for delivering me, but I seek to know You so that my faith and trust in You will grow stronger and will undermine this dragon's control over my heart. I ask for Your protection from the fierce surprise attacks of this enemy of my soul who not only seeks to take me out but wants to defame Your reputation as much as possible in the process. So You see, Your honor is at stake here too so You have even more incentive (if that is possible) to deliver me from this mortal threat.

Continue to transform my heart and mind and mentor me in Your ways. You know intimately the agonies and fears of my heart in regards to this and I ask that You intervene in my life and mind and heart and bring me much more fully under Your authority and protection. I choose to live in covenant relationship with You but I need to know much better what that looks like and how to remain properly aligned with You in that relationship. I claim the blood of Jesus and all that it represents to protect me from this mortal enemy and to bond me securely to Your heart no matter what happens around me. Do all of this for Your name's sake, for Your reputation, Amen.

Who Are You?

So they were saying to Him, "Who are You?" Jesus said to them, "What have I been saying to you from the beginning? (John 8:25)

This question, though thrown out as an excuse by these leaders for their unbelief, is one of the most important questions that each one of us needs to ask from the deepest level of our heart. Until we come to the place where we honestly begin to wonder about who Jesus is and what He is all about, we have not yet even become aware that we are living in the wrong reality and that everything we think is so is mostly a mirage, a carefully orchestrated system of deception designed to keep us in darkness until our lives are permanently molded for ruin.

When this question was posed to Jesus He immediately began to review and remind them of the statements that He had already given them. In addition He again began to focus on the Father as the one who sent Jesus to this earth to reveal the real truth about God in sharp contrast to the concepts of God that they had believed in all of their lives. Most religions claim to have some systematic view of reality and of supernatural powers that explains life and its followers seek to get others to subscribe to their beliefs. But religion almost always ends up devolving into a self-focused system that seeks to maintain and perpetuate itself instead of directing people to connect personally with God for themselves. But in doing so the religion itself ends up becoming the god instead of directing each person into a personal dependence on God in a personal relationship of accountability.

Jesus' primary purpose for coming to this world from heaven, unlike any other human being who ever lived here, was to reveal the true character of God to a planet, even to a whole universe of intelligent beings, that were living in confusion about what God was really like. The accusations against God, the insinuations about His integrity and character and trustworthiness that have been circulated by the father of lies, God's archenemy Satan, have been so persuasive and effective that God needed to send His own Son into the very heart of the seat of deception, this sinful planet, to live out a life as a human being weakened by 4,000 years of the debilitation of sin on the human body and psyche, a demonstration of the real truth about God. He came as a weak human being who did not look any different than anyone else so that all of the attention would be focused on the contrast between His way of living and relating to sinners and all the other counterfeit representations of God.

Jesus came to show humanity and even unfallen beings elsewhere how to life is supposed to be in proper relationship and total dependence on God. He came to demonstrate what it looks like to live as a reflection of a higher power rather than trying to live from our own efforts independent of God. In the following verses Jesus explained how that everything He did and said was simply a reflection of the Father and that He Himself was choosing not to initiate anything of Himself even though He could have easily done so. For the greatest temptation that faced Jesus much of His life was to tap into His own inherent power as God to save Himself from discomfort or danger. But Jesus did not come to show us how to overcome sin through extreme effort on our part to overcome the symptoms of sin, but Jesus came to show us that the only way to overcome sin is to direct our efforts and attention constantly toward staying with God in a totally dependent, humble, trusting relationship of growing intimacy.

These men tragically missed the most wonderful opportunity of a lifetime without even realizing what they had done. If they had only opened their minds and hearts to really hear the answer to their question about Jesus' identity instead of fighting Him every step of the way and refusing to give His words any credibility, they could have been blessed with some of the most precious revelations about God that could have rocked the world and would have blessed their own lives beyond their wildest imagination.

Playing Dumb

So they were saying to Him, "Who are You?" Jesus said to them, "What have I been saying to you from the beginning? (John 8:25)

I notice something interesting here in this verse. Repeatedly people kept plying Jesus with questions about His identity and many times Jesus either gave clues or sometimes even plainly stated who He was and where He was from. Yet it is apparent that many times His answers were totally ignored. In this verse Jesus calls them into account to begin acting like reasonable people and to begin to remember what He already had just said a number of times instead of acting like He had not said anything relevant to their questions.

One of the tricks people play when they want to advance deception and distort what someone else is attempting to convey is to play dumb and act as if the other person had not actually said something when in fact they had. It is part of having a conclusion firmly in place long before any evidence is ever evaluated and then forcing all evidence and statements to only support the foregone decision. That is what appears to have happened many times in people involved in the life of Jesus. Those who did not want to admit who He really was tried to make it appear that He was the one who was confused about His identity rather than to admit that they were simply being stubborn and were refusing to admit anything He was saying was true.

Throughout this whole period of discussion with these people Jesus kept amping up the tension by plainly stating things about Himself and His divine origin that incensed those whose picture of God was so distorted that they simply could not reconcile what Jesus represented God to be with their version of an austere, vengeful deity who played favorites and was eager to punish His enemies. Jesus' teachings about love, compassion, forgiveness and His constant example of humility was in direct conflict with the concepts of God that had been developed and were firmly in place to manipulate and control those under their influence. To acknowledge in any way that Jesus' picture of God might be right would be to seriously undermine their own ability to dominate and control others through their abusive religious and political systems and they simply could not start down that road.

As a result, they had to constantly seek ways of deflecting Jesus' clear statements about Himself and His very disturbing messages about a loving, forgiving Father in heaven who was radically different than the God that perverted religion had foisted on the people. But also, in doing so they ended up asking some rather obviously silly questions at times because of their willing ignorance or avoidance of the truth that was becoming too clear. Those who live in darkness and love darkness are very nervous when light begins to get brighter, and like criminals who prefer to operate at night, they wish that the light would simply not dawn so that they can remain comfortable in the dark.

Jesus calls them to account in this verse to remember what He has been saying all along. And although these men may not be willing to come into agreement with His statements about His true identity, there were some who were listening among the bystanders who were open-minded and willing to reason with integrity and whose hearts were more willing to being drawn into believing the truth about God as revealed in the life and words of Jesus. These ones are briefly mentioned in verse 30.

I have observed both in others and in myself the penchant for wanting to avoid acknowledging certain things someone has said when I don't want to hear those things. When people's statements may expose me or undermine what I want to think, it is a temptation to want to act like I simply never heard them and carry on the conversation accordingly. We do this with each other and we do it even more with God because it is so easy to do. But choosing apparent ignorance over conviction is a very hazardous choice for it is a choice that sears our conscience and sends us further down the road into deeper unbelief. And since sincere belief is a primary prerequisite for experiencing eternal life which begins in the present, violating our conscience for the sake of remaining comfortable is really an act of slow suicide.

Radical I AM

And He was saying to them, "You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 'Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am (He), you will die in your sins." (John 8:23-24)

During this intensifying exchange with the Jewish leaders Jesus divulged rather clearly His claims to absolute divinity more than in most of His teachings. In these verses He clearly contrasts Himself with those He was speaking to declaring plainly that He was not like them and His origin was radically different than theirs. He goes on to claim the greatest name ever pronounced identifying Himself as the great I AM who appeared to Moses. As these Jews who claimed to revere Moses became more and more hostile and resistant to what Jesus was claiming about Himself, it still did not cause Him to soften His assertions but rather He kept stating them more openly and clearly until His listeners were finally so incensed about His apparent blasphemy that they tried to stone Him to death.

Jesus is speaking here of the two realities that we all must at some point encounter and make our own choices about. We have all been born in sin, born into the counterfeit reality system that has trained us largely to view things from an earthly rationale. Through no fault of our own we are stuck with the handicap of only being able to view life from this perspective until we begin to respond to the offer of Jesus to give us new eyes to see things radically different and in the process be transformed into the true reality. But unless we do make that choice and continue to make it we are destined to die in sin; for sin is terminal and all the counterfeit interpretations and systems connected with it are also doomed to failure. Only by moving over to living in the reality revealed by Jesus and living under His governance and dwelling in Him can we live for real without fear of death.

This verse brings me right back to the central theme of belief that is all throughout the book of John. Jesus says here that unless I believe that He is the great I AM that it will be impossible for me to experience true life. I have noticed that this claim of the I AM seems to appear several times in this passage and climaxes at the end of the chapter when the Jews finally are driven to try to stone Jesus to death for making such a claim. These words of Jesus are polarizing, both to those in the times when He walked this earth and to us today. We cannot be honest and yet gloss over the strong, emphatic claims of Jesus as to His true identity and the relationship that we must have with Him in our heart and mind if we desire to follow Him.

I personally have to grapple with the much deeper implications of this idea of the I AM. I have heard this discussed over the years and have been impressed with some who seem to have a better understanding of what this really means than most. But I must continue to immerse myself deeper into the real meaning of this name and how it relates to me personally. It is very helpful to go back to the original appearance of this term in God's conversation with Moses when He identified Himself as the I AM who was sending Moses back to Egypt to facilitate their rescue by God's mighty hand. All that was involved in that story and the ensuing events are implicated in this title of the I AM.

This name of God was one of the most revered names in the Jewish religion of Jesus' day. So when Jesus claimed this most sacred title in front of these religious leaders of God's chosen people they predictably reacted quite violently. They were unlikely to do otherwise unless they were willing to radically alter their assumptions about God and about their own religious traditions which, they were not willing to do. Jesus had come from God to reveal the real truth about what God was like and by contrast how religion had become so mistaken in how it was presenting God to the world. But the message and atmosphere that Jesus brought from heaven was foreign to religion and those steeped in its traditions, so much so that they found His life and teachings completely incompatible with their beliefs. Therefore they refused to accept His claims as God's true representative and instead clung to their traditions. But in doing so it caused them to feel scandalized by the claims and attitudes of Jesus and they felt compelled, from their perspective of what God was like, to eliminate Him by force.