1. What if you found out you were not who you thought you were?
Who are you? Who were your parents? Who are your people? What if you discovered you were not who you thought you were?
1.1 Jack Nicholson
This happened to the American actor Jack Nicholson. He was regarded as one of the great actors of the 20th century. I always remember him in his role as US Colonel Jessup who ordered thing called a Code Red that resulted in the death of Santiago shouting back at Tom Cruise the classic line, “You can’t handle the truth.” In real life Nicholson at the age of 37 found out the truth himself – he wasn’t who he thought he was.
Nicholson had grown up in New Jersey in the US and it was only after becoming a movie star that he found out that the people that he’d believed to be his parents were actually his grandparents and the person that he had always known as his older sister was actually his mother. The interesting thing was that no one in the family told him this. The truth was uncovered by a journalist preparing an article on the movie star for Time magazine. He discovered the truth and revealed it to him.
Who his real father was could never really be established with any certainty because by the time Nicholson found out both his grandmother and mother had passed away. Nicholson said that while finding out was a pretty dramatic experience it wasn’t what he would call traumatizing.
1.2 How would you react?
What if you found out that you were not who you thought you were? What if someone were to come and reveal the truth to you? How would you react? Would you be able to handle the truth? Would it be just dramatic or more of a traumatic experience for you, something that you might not handle well? This is the kind of drama that we see happening today in the second part of chapter 8 of John’s gospel when Jesus revealed to the Jews in Jerusalem that they were not who they thought they were.
1.3 The Jews who believed Jesus at the festival
This happened on the last great day of the Festival of Tabernacles after Jesus declared to the crowd gathered at the temple that he is the light of the world and that it is those who follow him who will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life (8:12). A fortnight ago, we looked at the first half of chapter 8 and saw that despite the stubborn unbelief and wilful opposition of the Pharisees that many in the crowd that day believed him.
But we also saw that Jesus gave those who did a warning. He told them that they would only prove to be his disciples (v31) if they held on to his word (his teaching). If they did then they would know the truth and the truth would set them free. It was this statement of Jesus that many found a hard truth to accept and that led to Jesus revealing the truth about their real father (verses 34 to 47) and then the truth about who he was and why they needed to believe him (verses 49 to 59).
2. Uncovering the truth
The Jews were not who they thought they were. They thought that as descendants of Abraham, they weren’t slaves of anyone and didn’t need to be set free because not only was Abraham their father but so too was the Lord, their God. He had been like a father to the nation of Israel (see Exodus 4:22-23; Jeremiah 31:9).
2.1 The truth about them
But what Jesus does in verses 34 to 47 is he first uncovers four uncomfortable truths about them and reveals that they were not who they thought they were.
They were slaves to sin
The first thing he explained was that far from being free they were actually slaves to sin.
John 8: 34-38
Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.’
Jesus didn’t dispute that the Jews were descendants of Abraham. He said that he knew that they were. But being so wasn’t enough to free them from sin. They were still slaves to sin. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin whether we realise it or not. We are all born into this slavery. And the only way to break free from the bondage to sin permanently and have a permanent place in God’s family and belong to it forever was for the Son to set them free.
They could not handle the truth
But they could not handle the truth. They were not willing to believe the truth about themselves or Jesus. Jesus said that they had no room for his word (v37) and were even looking for a way to kill him because he was telling them the truth. Earlier he told them that they would die in their sin and here we find out that they would do so in the end because they were unwilling for the truth to set them free.
We don’t naturally handle uncomfortable truths well. The truth that many can’t handle is the fact that we are truly slaves to sin and that we can’t do anything ourselves to free ourselves from the chains that bind us. We need the Son of God to set us free. But that doesn’t fit with the way that we want to think about ourselves.
The age-old problem is that we like to think of ourselves more highly than we ought. We like to think that we are something that we aren’t. It was sinful pride that led the first parents eating the fruit and doing what God had told them not to do thinking that they knew better than their Creator. It is sinful pride that then keeps us in bondage to sin, believing that we can do what God tells us that only he can do. Only the Son of God can set us free.
The Jews listening to Jesus thought that having Abraham as their father meant that they weren’t slaves to sin. But the fact that they had no room for the word of Jesus and wanted to get rid of him highlighted not only that they were slaves to sin, but it indicated who their real father was.
But, before we look at who their real father was, we need to realise that there is something worse than being enslaved and that is not recognising the fact that you are enslaved. The first step that an alcoholic needs to take is to recognise and acknowledge that they are one and that they need help. The first step in breaking free from sin is to recognise that we are slaves to it and can’t free ourselves from it. We are helpless, hopeless, and powerless. We have fallen into a hole that we cannot climb our way out of no matter how much we try. The only way to be free is for the Son of God to set us free.
Their true father was revealed by what they were doing
But it is hard truth to swallow. The Jews at the festival continued to object to what Jesus was saying on the grounds that Abraham was their Father.
John 8:39-41
39 ‘Abraham is our father,’ they answered.
‘If you were Abraham’s children,’ said Jesus, ‘then you would do what Abraham did. 40 As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. 41 You are doing the works of your own father.’
If today you wanted to establish who your father truly is then what you can do is you can get a DNA test. They take a cheek swab from the father and then one from the child. And then in the laboratory they look at the DNA markers. When the results come back, they can tell you with a high degree of certainty whether someone is really your father or not.
What Jesus told them was that the evidence of whether Abraham was truly their father was whether they did what Abraham did (literally = doing the works of Abraham). In their case Jesus said that they failed the paternity test because instead of doing what Abraham did, they were looking for a way to kill him because he told them the truth that he had heard from God. Abraham was different to this. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteous (Genesis 15:6). They might have been children of Abraham by birth, but because of their unwillingness to believe they were not his spiritual heirs, heirs of the promise. Jesus said that they were not doing what Abraham did, but the works of their own father.
God wasn’t their father, the devil was
The Jews, of course, took umbrage with the implication that their father might have been someone other than Abraham. They protested that they weren’t illegitimate children and that the only Father they had was God. But Jesus told them an even more shocking truth, that God wasn’t really their father, but the devil, the father of lies was. He didn’t hold on to the truth and like him, neither were they.
John 8:42-44
42 Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. 43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Finally, the mystery of who their real father had been revealed by Jesus. God wasn’t their father for they didn’t belong to God. If that had then they would have loved and welcomed Jesus, the one whom God had sent with the truth. They would have listened to Jesus, the Son of God and heard what he had to say and believed it and been set free by the Son.
But they hadn’t because, in reality, they belonged to the Devil and were carrying out his desires. The devil has been a liar since the very beginning. It was his lies that led the first parents to reject their creator. It was believing his lies that brought death into this world. And now instead of believing the truth that would set them free, they would not believe Jesus (v45). They preferred to believe the lies of the evil one and like their true father, promulgate a few lies of their own, rather than believe the truth that would set them free.
John 8:48
The Jews answered him, ‘Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?’
The truth about Jesus
Having revealed the truth about who they really were in verses 34 to 47 the focus moves in verses 49 to 58 to Jesus and the truth about him and his Father and the implications for us.
Jesus honours the Father
John 8:49-51
49 ‘I am not possessed by a demon,’ said Jesus, ‘but I honour my Father and you dishonour me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 Very truly I tell you, whoever obeys my word will never see death.’
Jesus said that he wasn’t demon possessed. He honours his Father. And he doesn’t seek his own glory, but that there is one who does and he is the judge. Jesus states this plainly in verses 54 after his opponents mockingly asked whether he was greater than Abraham?
John 8:54-56
Jesus replied, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.’
Jesus is greater than Abraham. He is greater than the prophets. He is the one who gives life and raises the dead. Whoever believes his word will not see death. Later in chapter 11 he told Marth that the one who believe in him will live, even though they die (11:25). He wasn’t glorifying himself as they probably were suggestion with their impertinent question, “Who do you think you are?” If he was seeking his own glory, it would mean nothing but that wasn’t what he was on about. It would be his Father who they were claiming to be their God who would glorify him. To reject Jesus to reject the Father.
Jesus knows the Father (they didn’t)
Secondly, Jesus said that they don’t know the Father but that he does. We can only know the Father through him. They thought they knew God. They read about him, studied the Scripture, taught him, but they didn’t know him. While they referred to the Father as their God, it wasn’t true. It was a lie. They didn’t really know him.
Jesus is one with God – he is the Son of God
Finally, in verse 58 Jesus claimed to not only know God the Father but to be one with him.
John 8:58
58 ‘Very truly I tell you,’ Jesus answered, ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’
In this verse the Lord Jesus not only claimed to have existed before Abraham, his words suggested more than this. By saying “before Abraham was born, I am!” he was claiming to be more than just a man. The Greek words that have been translated, “I am” in our English translation are the same two Greek words that were used in the Greek version of the OT when God revealed himself to Moses. Moses asked God to tell him his name so that the Israelites might believe that he had come from God and God said to Moses…
Exodus 3:14
‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I AM has sent me to you.” ’
The words “I am” don’t only indicate that before Abraham, the Son of God existed. If that was all Jesus was seeking to do, he might have just said that before Abraham “he was”. But the words echo the Greek text of Exodus because John wants us to understand and believe that Jesus is the Son of God. As he said in the first verse of the book, In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1). Jesus is the Word become flesh (1:14). He is one with the Father. Clearly those who picked up the stones to stone Jesus in verse 59 saw it as a blasphemous claim. They believed that Jesus was identifying himself with God. And that is probably the truth that John wants his readers to understand.
Towards the end of the gospel, he wrote that the reason that he wrote what he had written was so that you may “believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name (20:31). He is the truth that sets people free.
3. Handling the truth
But lots of people can’t handle the truth.
Firstly, we don’t like what Jesus says about us. We are too proud to admit that we are slaves to sin. But Jesus says that this is who we are. We all need to be free because everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Not even having Abraham as your father changes that. You doing a few good things doesn’t change that. We must ask ourselves, “Have we honestly recognised the truth about ourselves – that we are sinners, slaves to sin and that we can do nothing to save ourselves?
Don’t believe the evil one’s lies – he’d have you think that you are OK when you aren’t. Like those at the Festival we might think we know God but only Jesus does and we don’t know God the Father without him. We might believe that we know God and that we belong to him, but if we don’t hold on to the truth, the Word of Jesus, then we haven’t been set free and are still slaves to sin and the devil whose lie we prefer rather than the truth.
Believe the truth about ourselves
The first step that we need to take is to believe the truth about ourselves. Like an alcoholic at an AA meeting that introduces themselves. “Hi, I’m Steve and I’m an alcoholic”. We need to do the same thing, “Hi, my name Philip and I’m a sinner – a slave to sin”. Until you are willing to admit the ugly truth about ourselves you won’t see the need to believe the truth about Jesus.
Believe in the Son of God – he will set you free
That he is the Son of God and God calls you to believe in him so that you might live. You need to acknowledge him and that only he can set you free. He is not just a prophet. He’s not just a teacher. And he definitely is greater than Abraham. And he is certainly not demon possessed. He is before Abraham. He was there at the beginning of creation – with God and was God. He is the great “I am”. He is the Son of God, the one who makes him known. He is the truth that we need to believe so that we can have life in his name. If you really are his disciples, you will hold on to the word of Jesus, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
