John
8
For
those of us who have seen and experienced something of the risen
Christ let us look at chapter John 8:30-36.
John
8:30 says many believed on him and then in John 8:31-32 Jesus said to
them “if you continue in my word then are you my disciples in deed;
and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
According
to Jesus Christ, to be a disciple we have to continue in Jesus word
and by continuing in his word he says "you shall know the truth and this truth
will make you free".
Immediately the Pharisees tried to justify their freedom saying that they were of the seed of Abraham and therefore did not need to be set free because they believed they were free already. Jesus cuts straight to the point and says anyone who commits sin is the servant of sin, he knows the heart of a man or women, no one else knows that except the man or woman themselves, what insight. When we truly know what we are because we have been exposed by the word of Jesus we can really do business with God on His ground. The ground that is the very depths of our being, the place of the heart, the spiritual place. What I am talking about does not take place in the realm of the natural or the realm of the intellect. If we truly want to know God and His freedom then we have to find the spiritual place in our lives and then endeavor to find God there.
In order for that process to begin we have to let go all of our pre-conceptions and doctrines (both about God and our existence and our origins), that is everything we have accumulated through our lives in order for us to get back to the real issue, the issue of God himself, and when there we need to ask Him to reveal himself to us again in a fresh and living way.
We do this by abiding in “The Word” and “The Word” will set us free. Paul points out in Romans 6: 12-13 where he says “let not sin reign in your body”, “neither yield your members (you as a whole person) as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive....” So what we learn here is that by continuing in “the word”, “the word” will set us free. To 'continue' requires an action on our part, Christ died for Sin once for all but for us to live in that freedom requires us to make daily choices to yield to God in order for us to live in the truth that has set us free.
Immediately the Pharisees tried to justify their freedom saying that they were of the seed of Abraham and therefore did not need to be set free because they believed they were free already. Jesus cuts straight to the point and says anyone who commits sin is the servant of sin, he knows the heart of a man or women, no one else knows that except the man or woman themselves, what insight. When we truly know what we are because we have been exposed by the word of Jesus we can really do business with God on His ground. The ground that is the very depths of our being, the place of the heart, the spiritual place. What I am talking about does not take place in the realm of the natural or the realm of the intellect. If we truly want to know God and His freedom then we have to find the spiritual place in our lives and then endeavor to find God there.
In order for that process to begin we have to let go all of our pre-conceptions and doctrines (both about God and our existence and our origins), that is everything we have accumulated through our lives in order for us to get back to the real issue, the issue of God himself, and when there we need to ask Him to reveal himself to us again in a fresh and living way.
We do this by abiding in “The Word” and “The Word” will set us free. Paul points out in Romans 6: 12-13 where he says “let not sin reign in your body”, “neither yield your members (you as a whole person) as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive....” So what we learn here is that by continuing in “the word”, “the word” will set us free. To 'continue' requires an action on our part, Christ died for Sin once for all but for us to live in that freedom requires us to make daily choices to yield to God in order for us to live in the truth that has set us free.
In
John 8:28 Jesus says “when you have lifted up the son of man then
you shall know that I am (for clarification the word 'he' is not in
the original text). Here in this verse Jesus is talking about his
death, he came into this fallen world, as a man, with the full knowledge and
understanding of His purpose. What he says here, to the
Jews, the people who knew all about the one true God, but who did not
know God, (every Jew would
have been taught this from a very young age and know who God was.
Deuteronomy 6:3 “Hear O Israel and observe to do it...” and more
importantly Deuteronomy 6:4-5) is “then
you shall know that I am”.
At this point let us refresh our memories and go back to Exodus 3:1-14 to the man that God chose to lead His people out of bondage and the slavery of Egypt. When God attracted the attention of Moses by means of a burning bush, a man who had fallen from exceptional grace and privilege from the Pharaohs inner circle to the place of a wandering shepherd in the desert where he was shepherding sheep for his father-in-law.
The burning bush in it self was not exceptional, what was exceptional was that the bush was not consumed by the fire. It was this that caught Moses attention and he turned to observe and it was in the 'turning to observe' that God spoke to him. What follows is a dialogue between the two of them that includes the phrase “I AM THAT I AM” part of the phrase that God requires Moses to say to the children of Israel in response to Moses question “who shall I say has sent me?” God says you say “I AM has sent me” Exodus 3:14. God then follows on in verse 15 and says “The Lord God of your fathers......has sent me” and “this is my name forever”. So we see in the passage in John 8 that Jesus is saying you shall know that I AM. It is Jesus saying I and the father are one.
At this point let us refresh our memories and go back to Exodus 3:1-14 to the man that God chose to lead His people out of bondage and the slavery of Egypt. When God attracted the attention of Moses by means of a burning bush, a man who had fallen from exceptional grace and privilege from the Pharaohs inner circle to the place of a wandering shepherd in the desert where he was shepherding sheep for his father-in-law.
The burning bush in it self was not exceptional, what was exceptional was that the bush was not consumed by the fire. It was this that caught Moses attention and he turned to observe and it was in the 'turning to observe' that God spoke to him. What follows is a dialogue between the two of them that includes the phrase “I AM THAT I AM” part of the phrase that God requires Moses to say to the children of Israel in response to Moses question “who shall I say has sent me?” God says you say “I AM has sent me” Exodus 3:14. God then follows on in verse 15 and says “The Lord God of your fathers......has sent me” and “this is my name forever”. So we see in the passage in John 8 that Jesus is saying you shall know that I AM. It is Jesus saying I and the father are one.
It
is when we begin to acknowledge and accept that Christ has been
crucified and has risen that we then begin to understand that He is
the I AM. It is then that Jesus says to those who believe “if you
continue in my word then you are my disciples indeed: and you shall
know the truth and the truth shall make you FREE.” So we see
salvation is first about belief in a crucified and risen Christ then
about continuing in Jesus word. It is about abiding on a daily basis,
minute by minute, hour by hour, always giving God the glory and
praise in everything we do and say so that others might come to see
the crucified and risen Christ. It is not about working out the
theology, it is about accepting that Jesus is I AM and that I AM has
come down in response to the cry of longing that has gone up for truth and freedom.
When God revealed that His name of I AM to Moses was to be His name forever in the meeting at the burning bush God also revealed that He had seen the afflictions of His people which are in Egypt (notice I use the present tense, God always sees the afflictions of His people in Egypt, a place of bondage and slavery), He had heard their cry, He knew their sorrows and that I AM come down to deliver them, to bring them out in order to bring them in to something far greater. This 'I AM come down' is denoted in the original Hebrew as being permanent in the past with certainty and permanency in the future. This 'I AM come down' is important for all of us, it is God with us, IMANUEL.
Do we know and appreciate this Jesus today? Are we one of those who believed into Jesus, into the one who said before Abraham was I AM John 8:58 or are we like those Pharisees just trying to argue away the truth and in so doing blind ourselves and those around us.
Let us purpose in our lives to find this I AM and continue in his word in order that the truth will set us free.
When God revealed that His name of I AM to Moses was to be His name forever in the meeting at the burning bush God also revealed that He had seen the afflictions of His people which are in Egypt (notice I use the present tense, God always sees the afflictions of His people in Egypt, a place of bondage and slavery), He had heard their cry, He knew their sorrows and that I AM come down to deliver them, to bring them out in order to bring them in to something far greater. This 'I AM come down' is denoted in the original Hebrew as being permanent in the past with certainty and permanency in the future. This 'I AM come down' is important for all of us, it is God with us, IMANUEL.
Do we know and appreciate this Jesus today? Are we one of those who believed into Jesus, into the one who said before Abraham was I AM John 8:58 or are we like those Pharisees just trying to argue away the truth and in so doing blind ourselves and those around us.
Let us purpose in our lives to find this I AM and continue in his word in order that the truth will set us free.
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