John 10:19-39
Introduction
What do you do with a person who claims to be God? Investigate!
Christians claim Jesus is God- always has been, always will be.
Questions about Jesus’ identity constantly swirl around his ministry. No doubt that accounts for the question raised in v.24:
How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.
Jesus finds this question important enough to answer. Here’s how he does it:
1. v. 25 Challenge your expectations or presuppositions that distort your interpretation of the data.
a. how he should appear
b. philosophical presuppositions
c. Jewish expectation of Messiah
2. What he claimed to do (his works) v.25
Jesus did things ONLY God can do. They fall out into two main categories:
A. The miraculous/supernatural
(unparalleled suspension of the laws of nature)
B. The Authoritative
Jesus claimed to do things that are only to be claimed by God:
Forgive sins (Mk2:1-12; Luke 7:36-50) Bestow life (Jn. 6:47) Teach the truth (Jn.8:31, 7:15,46) Judge the world (Matt.25:31-46) Receive worship (Jn.9:38; 20:28) Share God’s glory (Jn.17:5; Is42:8, 48:11) Be the only means of access to life (zoe)
Jesus so closely identified himself with the Father that to know/see/believe in/love/hate/receive and honor him was to do the same to the father.That’s why the NT throughout equates God and Jesus by attributing the same names, titles or activities to both. Both are called:
redeemer, savior, Lord, one coming again, the one whom we serve,the one whose grace we receive, the one whose word we have, hear and obey, the one in whom we trust, whose fullness we have, who dwells in our hearts, who we are in, who possesses us for himself, whom we love and obey, whose joy is in us, from whose hand we cannot be snatched, who will judge the world, whose way is prepared in the wilderness, who is the good shepherd, who is our light, to whom every knee shall bow, who purchased us with his blood (Acts 20:28), who is coming with his reward with him, the first and the last Is.48:12—Rev.1:17, 2:8, the alpha and omega Rev.1:8, 22;13), whose face we’ll see when he comes.
3. What he claimed to give v.28
Two spiritual blessings in v.28
A. Jesus said he gave eternal life to his sheep.
B. Jesus said he protects or preserves his sheep v.28-29
And they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
4. What he claimed to be
v.30 Jesus said, I and the Father are one.
The Jews hearing it clearly understood that to be a claim to deity:
v.31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him.
Notice the word again: already tried this before in 8:59:
Therefore they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself.
5:18 For this cause therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but was also calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.
8:58 Before Abraham was, I am. The eternal self-existent one. Yahweh.
Jn.14:7 If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.
Jesus makes claims that can only be attributed to God:
The NT writers, those Jesus commissioned to interpret the meaning of his life and ministry, got the picture:
Jn.1:1 and the word was God
Col.1:15 He is the image of the invisible God…by him all things were created
Col.1:19 for it was the Father’s pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him
Col.2:9 for in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form
Phil.2:6 who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped..
Heb.1:3 And he is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature
Heb.1:8 But of the Son God says, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever..
1 Jn.5:20 and we are in Him who is true, in his son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life
5. What he claimed to fulfill
a. he claimed to fulfill the feasts of Israel
b. he claimed to fulfill the promises and prophesies
Is. 6 Is.9:6 Is.59:20
The end of the matter is, Jesus is no one to be trifled with. He cannot merely be a wonderful moral teacher. Why? His teachings are laced with claims to deity. He irrefutably claimed to be God and to do what only God can do. Therefore, he is either a liar for claiming that if he is not that; a lunatic for thinking it, if he is not it, or he is who he claimed to be, and you must worship him as God.
