John 8:30-44 - Who's Your Father?
- Chad Werkhoven
- Jul 1
- 4 min read
Are you a true believer or a poser?
John 8:30-44 (NIV)
CONTEXT: Jesus has been talking to a somewhat hostile group of people in the temple courts, including Pharisees. But as He describes His identity and relationship to the Father, we read:
30 Even as he spoke, many believed in him.
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 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 forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that 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.”
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.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
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."
Canons of Dordt
Article 3: Total Inability
All people are conceived in sin and are born children of wrath,
unfit for any saving good, inclined to evil,
dead in their sins, and slaves to sin.
Without the grace of the regenerating Holy Spirit
they are neither willing nor able to return to God,
to reform their distorted nature,
or even to dispose themselves to such reform.
Summary
Once again John torpedoes the pervasive idyllic image so many people have regarding what Jesus was like. Jesus is often described using words like gentle, nonjudgmental, tolerant, soft-spoken and mild. Certainly at times Jesus was those things. And of course no matter His demeanor He never acted sinfully, but notice how often in the gospels (especially John's) Jesus argues with people!
What's so surprising about today's passage is that it's not just the corrupted religious establishment types that Jesus tussles with, but that he here lays into the Jews who had believed Him! And He doesn't just gently chide them either; He challenges their core identity as descendents of Abraham. He provocatively tells them than not only was Abraham wasn't their father, but that not even God was! Jesus knew that these people weren't true believers, they were posers. He tells them their father is the devil!
True believers - or disciples, to use Jesus' terminology - are the ones who hold to His teaching. Jesus knew that although these people were intrigued by what He said at the moment and even actually believed it, they were not true believers. They would quickly lose their grip on the gospel and instead begin to look for a way to kill Jesus.
Jesus goes on to explain their specific problem: they had no room for His Word. As soon as His Word challenged their carefully constructed identity, they immediately and instinctively attacked it.
Dig Deeper
Ironically, it's one of Jesus' most beloved and well known sayings that sets these 'believers' against Him: You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The very people who had been saved from slavery in Egypt and now were under the thumb of Caesar ironically retort that they've never been slaves of anyone! In their mind, they had nothing that they needed to be set free from.
This deeply embedded human instinct persists. People continue to reject these doctrines of grace that we've been studying this year because they can't swallow the concept of total depravity, which teaches that, in Jesus' words, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
Robert Schuller, the famous twentieth century Crystal Cathedral preacher (who actually grew up in NW Iowa!), once said, “I don't think anything has been done in the name of Christ… more destructive to human personality … than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.”
But Jesus wants you to know that it's not until you come to grips with the slavery to sin that you were born into that you - empowered by the Holy Spirit - can keep your grip on Jesus' teaching as His disciple. This is why the ugly doctrine of total depravity is the very T in our TULIP, continually reminding us that God's grace is stronger than our slavery.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who sent Jesus so that we would love Him;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the strength to keep on killing of your old self which is enslaved to sin so that you can hold to Jesus' teaching and truly believe into Him.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Luke 2
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