A Humbling Thought from God's Word (John 8).

I was reading today in John 8. I recommend it to you :-) No but seriously, this is one powerful discourse that Jesus has with the Pharisees. It never ceases to amaze me how Jesus can say such harsh things so bluntly and honestly. And yet, I never doubt that He is love! For example, in John 8 Jesus tells the Pharisees:

They are ignorant (v. 14)
They judge wrongly (v.15)
They do not know God (v.19) and thus,
They are liars (v.55)
They will die in sin (v. 21)
They are slaves to sin (v. 34)
They do not believe nor love the Word of God (v.37)
They are not Jews (v.39)
They are murderers in their hearts (v. 40)
They do not love God nor His Messiah (v.42)
They deceive themselves and reject God’s Word (v.43)
They are children of the Devil (v.44)
They’re will (free-will?) is bound to do the Devil’s desire (.44)
They are not God’s children (v. 47)

When we think of Jesus does this list come to mind of things he said to people (mind you this is taken from just one chapter of one of the four Gospels). We often have a unbalanced view of Jesus going around only saying kind things and healing everybody and never judging anyone and telling everyone to not judge but just love, love, love. John speaks of Jesus as the Word in flesh who was full of “grace and truth.”

But here’s the interesting thing that stuck out to me this morning when reading John 7+8. Jesus throughout His ministry commands people to “hear” and “perceive” and understand. And yet here in John 8, Jesus makes it crystal clear that no one can: hear,see,understand, or believe unless the Father gives special grace. In fact, Jesus even tells the Pharisees that their will is bound by their father (the Devil) to do his desires (v.44). In other words Jesus gives commands to mankind that they cannot do! No wonder Jesus told them they were in slavery (v.34).

So, if you are a child of Satan, which everyone is born into this world as, then you are: blinded, deaf, deceived, and therefore unbelieving. Everyone needs to believe to see, hear, and understand. But only God’s children can do this.

So, salvation depends not on the man who runs nor the man who wills, but on God who chooses to show mercy. Salvation belongs to the LORD! In essence Jesus was telling the Pharisees, “you do not believe because you are not my children, and you are not my children because I have not made you my children!” (read John 3)

John 1:13 says, “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of flesh nor the will of man, but of God.”

So finally my point of humbling is this. I am saved simply because God showed me unique and peculiar mercy and grace, that He has not given to all. There is nothing I did to earn this favor from God! and yet I receive the blessings! And because of the magnitude of this salvation and the weightiness of judgment others will experience (that I deserve), I have an eternal reason to be infinitely humbled! Who would have thought that the gospel would be the source of our salvation from pride?!