John 8:31-59

Read John 8:31-59 The religious leaders object when Jesus says, “The truth will set you free.”

Verses 31-47 Some people don’t abide in Jesus’s word and therefore do not do the works that a child of Abraham would do

In verse 31, John refers to “the Jews who had believed in him.”  Usually in John, “the Jews” is shorthand for the religious leaders, but they have not believed in him, so John must have someone else in mind.  It is possible that there were people who partially believed in Jesus, but by verse 37 Jesus will say that the people he is talking to are trying to kill him; so the scene morphs quickly into a confrontation with people who do not believe in him. Many scholars think that John is thinking about Jewish Christians in his own time who face pressure and the threat of excommunication from their local synagogues and must decide whether to accept Jesus or to continue to trust in following the rules of the  Jewish Law.

Jesus’s statement in verses 31-32 has two parts.  What does he say in verse 31?

The key verb in verse 31 can be translated in many different ways: abide, remain, continue, stay, live.  It is the word Jesus uses in John 15:4-5 when he says, “Abide in me, and I in you” and that the one who abides in me “bears much fruit.”  To help us maintain that connection, we will use the word “abide” here.  Here in verse 31, he speaks of those who abide in his word.  What does it mean to abide in his word?  How do we do that?

Note that Jesus does not say, “abide by my word.”  This is not about rule-following.  He says, “abide in my word.”  He is talking about immersing ourselves in his word, allowing it to permeate our minds and guide our actions, letting it suffuse every part of our existence.

Why is abiding in his word so important for being a true disciple?

What are some practical things you can do in your everyday life to help you abide in Jesus’s word?

In verse 32, Jesus says that if you abide in his word, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  How does Jesus’s word lead us to the truth?

How does the truth set us free?

In verse 34, Jesus explains that he is talking (at least in part) about freedom from sin.  He refers to people who commit sin, and the Greek word indicates that he is not talking about people who commit a single sin but people who sin regularly.  He says that anyone who regular practices sin is a slave to sin.  How is that true?

The people object to the idea that Jesus will “set them free.”  In verse 33, they say: We have never been enslaved – i.e., we’ve always been free; we are children of our great father Abraham.  This is a questionable claim: at one point they were carried off into captivity in Babylon and they are now under Roman domination.  But that is not Jesus’s concern here.  He is making a spiritual point.  How are they missing Jesus’s spiritual point?

In verses 35-36, Jesus draws a distinction between a slave, who does not live in a household forever, and a son, who does.  (Slavery in Israel did not mean a lifetime of bondage the way it did in the American South.)  Scholars think Jesus is alluding to the sons of Abraham: Ishmael was born of a slave woman and not included in Abraham’s family, and he did not receive the blessings of the covenant with God, whereas Isaac was born of Abraham’s wife Sarah and through him the covenant was passed on to the generations that followed.  So being  born of Abraham is not enough.  Jesus says they will abide in God’s house forever only if a son – i.e., Jesus – frees them.  How does being set free from sin by Jesus allow us to live in God’s household forever?

It is easy to read these words but still live lives that are bound, not free – bound up in anger, unforgiveness, jealousy, self-centeredness, greed, desire, etc.  If Jesus was standing with us now, how do you think he would explain to us how to take hold of the freedom he offers us?

In verses 37-38, Jesus tells them that the way to respond to his word is to “do what you have heard from the Father.”  How is that a good guiding principle for us?  How can we apply it in the real challenges of our lives?

In verses 39-47, Jesus and his critics go back and forth over whether they are acting like children of Abraham.  Jesus says they are not doing the works of Abraham.  How would Abraham act differently than they do?

In verse 44, Jesus says that, in their desire to kill him and in their rejection of the truth, the religious leaders are children of the devil, who is a murderer and a liar.  This is not a generic statement about people who don’t believe in Jesus; it is particular to the religious leaders who seek to kill him.

Jesus repeats that they are unwilling to accept his word (verse 43) even though he speaks the truth (verse 46).  Why does Jesus insist on such a tight link between the truth and his word?

In verse 47, Jesus links some concepts together: those who belong to God hear God’s word (i.e., listen to it and respond), and those who do not belong to God refuse to listen to God’s word.  How do you experience the reality of belonging to God as you hear and try to follow God’s word?

Verses 48-59 Jesus says that whoever keeps his word will never see death, and “Before Abraham was, I AM”

In verse 51, Jesus says, “Whoever keeps my word will never see death.”  What does he mean?

The religious leaders object, arguing that Abraham and the prophets died, so Jesus is talking nonsense when he says that those who keep his word will never see death.  In verse 56, Jesus responds with a surprising statement about Abraham.  What does Jesus say about Abraham?

Jesus says that Abraham rejoiced that he would see Jesus’s day, and he saw it and rejoiced.  What could this mean?

• The scholars mostly interpret this to mean that Abraham rejoiced when God gave him his son Isaac, because that was the start of God’s fulfillment of the promise he had made to Abraham, which led to salvation through Jesus the Messiah.

• Abraham also rejoiced when God spared Isaac and stopped Abraham from sacrificing him.

• Alternatively, Jesus could be suggesting that Abraham is seeing this from heaven.

• Finally, there were texts circulating in Jesus’s time – eschatological texts about the coming Messiah and the end times – in which Abraham is described as rejoicing at the coming of the Messiah (Perkins, p. 967, par. 125), so he may have had that in mind.

When Jesus claims to know that Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’s day, the religious leaders retort that he could not possibly have seen Abraham – he’s not even 50 years old (he’s in his early 30s).  How does Jesus respond, and what does it mean?

Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”  Before Abraham came into existence, Jesus already existed.  That is a claim to heavenly origin, because he is taking for himself the Old Testament name of God “I AM” (Exodus 3:14).

How do the religious leaders respond to Jesus’s claim?  What does their attempt to stone him tell you about how they interpreted his words?

The religious leaders pick up stones to stone him because they think he has said something clearly blasphemous: he has claimed to be God.  Some scholars think that Jesus’s use of the phrase “I am” is ambiguous and did not necessarily involve a claim to be God, but the reaction of the religious leaders shows that they believed that Jesus was claiming to be God, and he did not tell them they had misinterpreted him.  Skeptics sometimes suggest that the Church didn’t decide Jesus was God until the 4^th century, but John is clearly indicating that Jesus himself said he was God (see When Did Christians First Recognize the Divinity of Jesus?).

When the leaders tried to stone Jesus, he “hid” (verse 59).  Why do you think he didn’t just make himself invulnerable to the stones – let them bounce off of him?  How was his hiding a sign that he really was a human, not just a spirit pretending to be a human?

Jesus rejected a show of being superhuman, just as he rejected that option during his temptations in the desert (Matt. 4:3-7, where he refused to throw himself from the top of the Temple and let the angels catch him).  He wanted us to know that he was truly human.  As Hebrews 4:15 says, he faced the same weaknesses that we face (in this case, the same human limitations) yet without sin.

In this section, Jesus has talked a lot about abiding in his word, knowing the truth, and being set free.  What is the most important thing you can take with you from this chapter and apply in your everyday life?

Take a step back and consider this:

In John 8:31-59, Jesus establishes that your background cannot make you a child of God.  Not even being a descendant of Abraham can make you a child of God.  (John the Baptist makes this same point in Matthew 3:9.)  The same thing is true of every religious heritage: there is nothing about your ancestors that can make you a child of God.

We use the term “child of God” in several different ways:

• In a broad sense, every human being is a child of God because every person was created in God’s image and likeness (Gen. 1:27-28).

• In a sacramental sense, those who have been baptized into Christ are no longer slaves to sin but are now children of God (Gal. 3:27-4:7).

• In an experiential sense, John tells us in chapters 1 and 3 that those who accept Jesus become children of God – those who believe in his name and are made God’s children by the grace of God.  In chapter 9, John describes the signs that someone has accepted Jesus and is a child of God: The children of God are those who are freed from sin by Jesus (see 9:34, 36), who believe in Jesus (9:24), who remain in his word (9:31), who keep his word (9:51).  Those are the signs of a child of God.

Is there a religious heritage you rejoice in?  How can you honor that heritage without implying that your connection to your ancestors is what makes you a child of God?

How does your religious heritage support you in living the life of a child of God?

What does being a child of God mean to you?  How do you experience the reality of your relationship with God?