Day 8, John 8

“I must be an acrobat, to talk like this and act like that.” U2

All the tensions come to a head here. Jesus is teaching at the temple. The Jews test Jesus with an immoral woman. The more Jesus teaches, the more they get angry. Jesus throws down the gauntlet with them declaring that He is the Light of the world (a term which was supposed to identify the nation of Israel, (Isa 42:6, 49:6, Lu 2:32, Ac 13:47, 26:23).

In response to this, the Pharisees challenge his authority. The only one who could genuinely testify to his previous place in heaven would have been the Father. So those who listen are forced to respond to Him, not based upon the testimony of an eye witness, but rather based upon his own words about himself. To those who believe in Him, the truth sets them free (32). Yet the Jews insisted that they were accepted because they were united to Abraham through bloodline. They were family, and their blessing would come through being a part of the family.

8:39-40 "Abraham is our father," they answered.
"If you were Abraham's children," said Jesus, "then you would do the things Abraham did. As it is, you are determined to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things.

Jesus leaves them no room. Either he is from heaven and speaks the truth from heaven, or he is a Samaritan and is demon-possessed as they say he is (or something else very strange). Why can’t they understand him and just receive the truth? It is because they have no room for his word (37). They know that if they accept that what he says is true, they will have to radically reorient their lives. It is easier for them to make Jesus into something else than to accept the truth for who he really is.

Yet, the truth is the one thing that can set them free.

That moment comes at the end of the chapter. Jesus is speaking out of an overflow of the union he has with the Father. From the sense of that union and in a certain understanding of his deity he pushes the patience of the Pharisees to the brink with the statement, “Before Abraham was born, I AM”

I AM is another way of saying Yahweh. It was a double entendre both pointing to his own eternal existence and his divine nature and provoking the Pharisees to respond in the only way their law could for the greatest of blasphemies--by stoning him.

This is true for us. It is hard to accept the truth sometimes. The truth might be that we need to change, submit, rest, or obey. It is easier to do the mental gymnastics of rewriting reality than to do the plain things we know we need to do. Jesus does not allow the Pharisees to play those games with him and he will not allow us to either.