Transcript
Okay, I’m here with Zane Hodges, and we’re discussing John chapter 8. We’re going to particularly look at verses 30-32. And let me read that, Zane, if that’s all right.
Yes, go ahead.
Then we’ll take a look. First of all, verse 30: As Jesus spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then verse 31 says,
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’
Now this passage is often explained as an example of people who believe in Jesus intellectually but do not yet believe in Jesus with their heart. They do not yet believe in Jesus volitionally or in some other sense. And so they say these people believe in Jesus with intellectual assent, but they don’t yet have faith in Him that is saving. They say this for a couple of reasons.
First of all, they say it because in verse 31 Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If [conditional] you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” So to be His disciples indeed requires that these people do something more than what they’ve already done. And so the argument is if all believers are disciples, then these people are not yet born again.
And then also in verse 32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” The argument is if anyone is born again they’re already free. And these people aren’t yet free.
And the third thing they point to is verse 33. They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” And then this discussion goes on and they get very angry with Him. In verse 41 they say, “We were not born of fornication,” which is clearly a slam against Jesus, saying that He was born of fornication. Then Jesus Himself comes out in verses 45 and 46 and says, “You do not believe Me.”
So the argument is made on those three bases that these people are not believers. And yet “many believed in Him.” Because that is the same language we find in John 3:16. So Zane, help us out here.
Well it seems to me that the misunderstanding of this passage is based on a series of misconceptions. One of which you alluded to earlier: the idea of believing in Jesus in the Gospel of John ever indicates anything less than sufficient faith. That’s something that is not certainly presented by the Gospel of John itself. And in fact it’s read into the Gospel of John by people who come to passages like this and they can’t believe that the people who are addressed are in fact born-again believers. Even though the Gospel of John says flatly that they believed in Him, using John’s standard and almost exclusive terminology for saving faith.
Just so I understand what you’re saying. You’re saying if we’ve understood anything of what’s come thus far in John we should understand that this is inspired Scripture telling us these are born-again people.
Exactly. And there are no grounds for taking it otherwise. What really happens here is that people import into this a kind of prepackaged theology. Jesus would never say this to anybody if in fact He’s saying this to them. But the point is that Jesus would never say certain things to born-again believers. For example you mentioned it. He says to those who believed in Him, “If you continue in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” Well if we begin with the presupposition that every believer is automatically a disciple and they don’t need to be told how to be disciples, then of course we’re going to get fouled up here.
Whereas the simple straightforward understanding of this is that Jesus knows there are people out there in the audience who have believed in Him for eternal life. And He wants to give them instructions on how to go on. So He directs this statement to them and He says if you stay in My word. Meno is the word here.
And of course we know that it’s used to abide or to remain.
Exactly. It was the relationship between Christ and the apostles in the upper room according to John 15, right?
But if you stay in My word you’re really My disciples. That’s a perfectly understandable statement until the theology intrudes that all Christians are disciples. And then that leads to the false conclusion that these people, even though they believe, are not Christians. So it’s importing theology into our exegesis in an illegitimate fashion and creating theological results that don’t follow.
So in other words, if a person was letting the Bible teach them rather than them teaching the Bible, when they came to this passage and they believed that all born-again people are disciples, they would look at these people and they would say, “Oops, we were wrong. Discipleship requires ongoing continuance in Jesus’ word.”
That is well put. And if a person came to this with a completely open mind, having read perhaps the previous material in the Gospel of John, even if he has no theological presuppositions, he says, “Okay, these people believed in Him. And according to the testimony of the Gospel of John so far they had eternal life. And now Jesus must be telling them something else about their future experience.”
Yes.
And in fact that is indicated by the word “remain.” In other words if they already have been born again, if they already have eternal life, Jesus is telling them something about their relationship to Him in the future. And it doesn’t need to be confused with the doctrine of regeneration or new birth.
That’s a good point. So a person can’t remain or continue or abide in His word unless they’ve received it to start with. They believed it to start with.
That’s right. And the testimony of the Gospel of John up to this point is that once faith occurs it’s a done deal. You drink of this water you’ll never thirst again. You passed out of death into life. They heard the voice of the Son of God and they lived. So the person who comes with that information from the Gospel of John to this passage and reads that many believed in Him will have to say this is a done deal for them. There’s nothing more for them to do. There’s nothing for them to follow through on that would make their salvation any more permanent or firm than it is.
But lo and behold Jesus is saying now I want you to abide in My word. I wonder what He’s saying that for? Well so that you will be My disciples indeed and so that you will know the truth and be freed by the truth. It’s obvious even on a superficial glance at it that this is an issue that is different from the issue of eternal salvation and relates to our experience in life. Are we going to be true disciples of Jesus? The word may mean pupils. Are we going to discover the freedom that He gives us? If so we will have to learn the truths.
So in my judgment if we started only with verses 30, 31, and 32 there would be no grounds at all for having any kind of significant confusion here. What has happened as you know is that the resumed discourse that Jesus engages in following this has been misread and misunderstood by many readers of John chapter 8.
Now how would it be properly read? All right. We already know for example from John 8:20 that Jesus is engaged in a public teaching situation in the Jewish temple.
These words Jesus spoke in the treasury as He taught in the temple, and no one laid hands on Him for His hour had not yet come.
So He is in the temple teaching.
Okay.
And a crowd is there.
All right. So up to this point in the exchange the “they” has been obviously the crowd, the people in the crowd talking to Him. Suddenly Jesus says something that is beamed in the direction of people who believed in Him.
Yes.
But notice carefully that He doesn’t say now wait a minute hold everything I’m just talking to those people who have just believed in Me. He doesn’t do that and there’s no altar call. As I’ve often said nobody’s raised their hands and I believe now on You. Nobody’s come forward. As far as the audience is concerned nothing has happened. But Jesus knows that something has happened in the hearts of some believers. So He beams a very important and significant basic truth to them.
Which John says Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him.
That’s right. But when we come back then to verse 33 they answered. We are back to the crowd.
Okay.
And that’s the mistake that has been made here. So the whole crowd hears this. They don’t know. They don’t believe in Him and they don’t know people out there have believed in Him. And they don’t even know that Jesus is talking to those who believed in Him. Jesus doesn’t say I’m talking to you who’ve just believed in Me. He says if you... you know to whom this applies the believer will hear it. If you continue in My word you’ll be My disciples. But everybody hears that.
And they say how can You say that?
You know what I mean? So that’s the second mistake that is made here. First of all prepackaged theology reinterpreting the terminology of salvation and discipleship. Secondly the misconstruction of the whole structure of the chapter which is Jesus interacting in public with a large audience and mainly the Pharisees who didn’t believe in Him. So the responses He gets are the kinds of responses you would expect from unsaved unregenerate people. And the passage proceeds in the same way that it had developed up to this point.
So let me ask you this. Wouldn’t it be fair to say that since verse 30 says many believed in Him and verse 31 Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him and then verses 45 and 46 You do not believe Me. Why do you not believe Me? John’s the one reporting both.
That’s right.
Wouldn’t it be obvious it has to be a different group? Otherwise Jesus is contradicting what John already said?
Yes. Yes that’s a very good point. And that should show us that the dialogue that follows verses 30, 31, and 32 is not a dialogue with these believers. It is a dialogue with the larger audience most of whom are unbelievers.
Well let me ask you a quick question about—you’ve already touched on it—but in verse 32 to new believers, “If you abide in My word you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” I mean we’ve heard this over and over again from preachers using this as an evangelistic verse.
Well if this isn’t an evangelistic verse what is it that Jesus is promising for the person who abides in His word? This is not an evangelistic verse as you correctly said. It’s a discipleship verse. And He is saying to the believers you’ve got to stay in My word. The result of staying in My word will be a knowledge of the truth. And the result of a knowledge of the truth will be a liberated experience in your life. Another way of saying this is that if you stay in the word of God you’ll get to Romans 8. You will find in the process that you have a bondage maybe that you didn’t even realize was there. The good that I wanted to do I didn’t do. The evil that I didn’t want to do I did. Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And then the Holy Spirit’s work is introduced in Romans 8. So what have you done? You’ve come to know the truth about yourself, the truth about God’s provision for you, the truth of the work of the Holy Spirit. And that liberates you to live a Christian life.
And so it’s tied in with the truth, the word. So this is similar isn’t it to verses like 2 Corinthians 3:18, “We all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed.” Or Romans 12:2 that we’re not to be conformed but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. This is the idea that the word is central to the spiritual growth that frees us from bondage to sin, which is of course ultimately where they’re going with the answer by the unbelieving crowd.
Exactly. And of course that’s also in Romans 8. To be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded. And the word is phronēma. To have the spiritual perspective, the spiritual orientation. To be spiritually minded is life and peace. What is the spiritual mind? It’s knowledge of the truth. The carnal mind is ignorance of the truth. That sort of thing.
So in a kind of wrap-up of this John is telling us look there Jesus is teaching in the temple. He says some things that people come to faith in Him. And Jesus then makes some comments specifically to them. Although He doesn’t say it John picks up that Jesus was speaking to them and presumably these believers did too, right? And then He makes this comment about continuance or abiding in His word to be His disciples indeed. And that in turn sets the person free.
That’s right. Discipleship. And we need to keep this in mind because the term disciple has become a quasi-technical term in Christian circles that has lost its original meaning. And therefore it has become an empty vessel into which people have poured various theologies.
Right.
But the word disciple is the Greek word for pupil or student. And so when Jesus... well we could make an argument that the text would be clear if we translate it if you continue in My word then are you truly My students. What does a student do? He learns something. And so you shall know the truth. If you will stay in My word I will teach you. When I teach you the truth that will liberate you. That sort of thing.
Yeah. That’s fantastic. Well thanks. We’ll go on from this and consider John chapter 2 because John 2 is also related and then also John chapter 12 in our next session.
Okay, fine.