John 8:37-42 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. 38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. 39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. 41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

Last week we saw that the Pharisees were attacking Jesus. These were sincere people who believed in the Law of God. They were very conservative – and often added to the Law of God, making it more strident and binding. The Pharisees are also bullies, and try to bully Jesus. Jesus tells these religious zealots:

vs 37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed…

These people thought that because they were direct descendants of Abraham, that they were in a right relationship with God. As Pharisees they were physically tied to a righteous man named Abraham. But this is not how you are saved.

To Be Saved, You Must Be PHYSICALLY And
SPIRITUALLY Tied To God The Father

There will be many Jews who spend eternity in hell because they rejected Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. These same Jews will believe that they are God’s “Chosen People” because they can trace their lineage back to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob. The Apostle Paul – a reformed “Pharisee, a Hebrew of the Hebrews” (Philippians 3:5) wrote:

Romans 2:28-29 (ESV) For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

A child of Abraham is not a physical descendant, but someone who has had their heart circumcised by God the Holy Spirit. Those who are spiritual live their lives to please God the Father, not those around them! Paul wrote in:

Romans 9:6-8 … they are not all Israel, which are of Israel 7 Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. 8 That is, They which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.

The Children of the Flesh – that is, those who can PHYSICALLY trace their lineage back to Abraham, are not necessarily of Israel or of God’s Chosen People. It is the Children born of FAITH, of ISAAC and not Ishmael. Ishmael was created of human works. Isaac was created of faith.

God’s children are created of FAITH and PROMISE.

When a person puts their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God acts on that faith. He causes that person to be “born again of the Spirit”. At that moment that person becomes an heir of the promises made to Abraham. That person becomes a Child of God. The Apostle wrote:

Galatians 3:26-29 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. 27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

If you have received the “Word” of Christ,

“WORD of the Lord” (Acts 8:25; 1 Peter 1:25)
“WORD of the Gospel” (Acts 15:7; Colossians 1:5)
“WORD of Truth” (Ephesians 1:13)

then you are SPIRITUALLY tied to God the Father, and become an heir of Abraham’s promises. The Pharisees rejected the Word of Christ (Colossians 3:16). Jesus said:

John 8:37 … ye seek to kill Me, because my word hath no place in you.

They rejected the truth that Jesus was the Messiah, and would not even entertain the thought. Jesus told them:

John 8:38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.

Jesus professes to have been in the Presence of the Heavenly Father. He said that He had “seen” (Greek horaō, to have PHYSICALLY seen with the eyes and SPIRITUALLY PERCEIVED with the mind) Heaven and the Throneroom of God, and understood what He saw. Jesus is a Messenger sent of the Father. The Pharisees argue with Jesus:

John 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

A tree is known by the fruit it bears (Luke 6:43-45). The Christian or lost person is proved by the fruit of life.

Illustrate: In Genesis chapter 18 the LORD appeared to Abraham while he dwelt in the plains of Mamre. The LORD appeared through THREE ANGELS (Genesis 18:1-18), and shared that He was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham did not chase away or seek to destroy these Heavenly Messengers, but welcomed them as honored guests and fed them. Bible Scholar William Barclay notes:

“Jesus was not simply a man telling other men what He thought about things; He was the Son of God telling men what God thought about things.”

John 8:40-42 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. 41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

If these Pharisees are of God, they would do the works of LIFE and not DEATH. Though Abraham was not perfect and failed God many times, He never turned away from the Word of God. Even when God asked Abraham to do the most difficult thing:

Genesis 22:2 … (ESV) “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”

Abraham did not argue with God, nor plot on how he might find a loophole by which he could avoid doing what God commanded. No, Abraham trusted the Word of God, and did as God said even though he didn’t fully understand the why of it. The Bible tells us:

Hebrews 11:17-19 (ESV) By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, 18 of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” 19 He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Abraham was bound to God BOTH Physically as well as Spiritually. God was his Father. He trusted God.

If the Pharisees were God’s Children by faith, they would know Jesus as the Messiah, and would love Him as God the Father loves Him. These Pharisees were lost. Jesus told them:

John 8:43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.

Word Study: The Pharisees could not understand Jesus’ “speech” (lalia), the way that Jesus spoke. It wasn’t because Jesus was from Nazareth, but because Jesus was and is from Heaven. Since they rejected His “word” (logos), that is “His Gospel Message” they were unconverted. They could not understand spiritual things. The Scripture says:

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

If You Reject Jesus As Lord And Savior,
Your Father Is By Default The Devil

Jesus now gets even more in your face direct! He says plainly:

John 8:44-47 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. 45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. 46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? 47 He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Jesus challenges the Pharisees to name even one sin that He had committed. They could not. The Bible says of Jesus that …

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Our Lord Jesus was “without sin”. They could never find a single sin that He committed, so they hired false witnesses and manufactured treasons. Jesus Christ as our High Priest is, unlike the other priests of Israel, is …

Hebrews 7:26 (ESV) … holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

The Prophet Isaiah said of Christ:

Isaiah 53:9 (ESV) And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Tempted of the devil, Jesus declared “It is written”. Tormented by the Pharisees, Jesus kept His eyes on the Father. What is the ULTIMATE sin? The Bible says:

John 16:9 … Of sin, because they believe not on {Jesus}

The sin that curses, that damns forever, is the sin that turns from Christ to follow the world. Those who follow the world are “dead in trespasses and in sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Those who receive Christ as Lord and Savior are freed from sin, and bound to God for all eternity.

John 8:48-53 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? 49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and ye do dishonor me. 50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth. 51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. 52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. 53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?

As these Pharisees do not know God, and can not accuse Jesus of any sin that He committed, they resort to the same tactics that Progressives and other Humanists far from God do today.

They resort to insult.

Samaritan/ Galilee: Their first insult is “thou art a Samaritan”. These same people insulted Nicodemus (John 7:52) when he defended Jesus based on the Law of God. They said to Nicodemus, a Teacher of Teachers, “Are you from Galilee, too?” Those from Judea were separated from Galilee by Samaria, a non-Jewish territory. Those of Galilee were despised as “country cousins”, unsophisticated, who spoke what was considered a sloppy form of Aramaic. Religiously the Galileans were considered very lax in the observance of the Jewish faith.

For a Jew to call another Jew a “Samaritan” is to call them “dogs” or “half-breeds”. Samaritans were a people who intermarried with the Assyrians, contrary to Deuteronomy 7:3-5. When Israel was released from Medo-Persian captivity to rebuild the Temple, Samaritans did their best to hinder the rebuilding (Ezra 4; Nehemiah 4:2). The Samaritans held that only the Books of Moses (the Pentateuch, Genesis – Deuteronomy) were Scriptural, and rejected the rest of the Bible.

By calling Jesus a “Samaritan” they were saying that He was NOT a Rabbi, but a half breed that rejected God’s Word. By calling Jesus “Demon Possessed”
they were saying He was damned, a child of Satan.

Jesus ignored the statement about Him being a “Samaritan”. Jesus never responded to wild claims and accusations. Our Lord showed us that you do not need to respond to the statements of mad men or deluded fools. Jesus told them that He was a faithful Witness, presenting only the things the Father sent Him to present.

Faith In Christ Is The Only Way To Eternal Life

Jesus then said:

John 8:51 If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death

Word Study: Jesus starts with the word “If”. Genuine faith is tied to OBEDIENCE to Christ’s Word. The word translated “keep” is the Greek tēreō, which means “to observe, to hold fast to, to attend to carefully, to guard or cherish”. When Jesus gave His “Great Commission” to the Church, He said:

Matthew 28:20 Teaching them to observe {tēreō} all things whatsoever I have commanded you …

Jesus is LORD. We are to KEEP His Word, to rest in it, to obey it, to breath it. Those saved by faith CHERISH what Jesus has said for Christ’s sake. To those who tēreō His Word, He promises that you “shall never see death”. The word translated “see” is the Greek theōreō. This is an interesting word. It means to “study on, to watch and concentrate on”. My commentary notes:

“According to Westcott, the sight here mentioned is that of ‘a long, steady, exhaustive vision, whereby we become slowly acquainted with the nature of the object to which it is directed.’”

The great C.H. Spurgeon said:

“while {I am} unforgiven, I cannot help gazing upon {death}, and foreseeing it as my doom. When the Gospel of the Lord Jesus comes to my soul, and I keep His saying by faith, I am turned completely around. My back is upon death, and my face toward life eternal”.

The Bible speaks of three stages of death.

(1) Spiritual Death is when a person is bound to sin and divorced from God as Father and Savior. Spiritual death is what Adam, by his disobedience, brought into God’s perfect creation. (see Genesis 2:17; 3:1-24; Isaiah 59:2; Romans 7:10-11; Ephesians 2:1; James 1:15).

(2) Physical Death is the result of sin incarnate in our flesh. Our carbon based bodies will eventually corrode, and return to the soil of our creation. (see Genesis 3:4-5; 5).

(3) Eternal Death, also called “The Second Death” is the state of those who leave this earth with NO relationship with God through faith in Christ. (see Revelation 2:11; 20:6,14; 21:8).

Those who receive Christ as Lord and Savior are freed from death. Jesus brings us into union with the Father. Jesus conquered physical death. And those who have received Jesus as Lord and Savior will never experience the place we call “Hell” or “The Lake of Fire”. Those whose names are written in the Book of Life will never “see” death.

John 8:52-56 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. 53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? 54 Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: 55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

The Pharisees believed Abraham and the Prophets to be dead. Since they died, Who was Jesus to say that He had conquered death? Jesus could not possibly greater than Abraham, Moses, Elijah – or could He? Jesus said “I know him”, that He intimately knows God the Father – and that He would be a Liar if He said otherwise. Then Jesus drops a bombshell:

John 8:56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

Jesus does not say “OUR father Abraham”, but “YOUR father Abraham”. My commentary notes:

“This is a startling statement. Jesus distances Himself from “the Jews,” “the Law” (cf. John 8:17), “the temple,” and even the patriarch Abraham. There is a clear break from the Old Covenant!”

Jesus – though made a Jew through the Promise God made to Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3) – now makes Himself to be Someone GREATER than any Prophet or Person in all of Jewish history. He says that Abraham “rejoiced to see my day”. When Abraham walked the earth, the Father gave him a revelation that Messiah would come through Israel. Though Abraham physically died before the Messiah came, the Bible says:

Hebrews 11:13 (ESV) These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

Abraham left this life with a smile on his saintly old face, because God gave him a glimpse of Christ. The Jews still did not understand.

Jesus Christ Is God Incarnate

John 8:57-58 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? 58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Jesus was probably – as a human – only about 30 years old at this point. There were several thousand years between Abraham’s earthly death and Jesus Who now stood before them. How could Abraham have seen Jesus? Jesus tells them:

Before Abraham was, I am

One of the most Holy Names of God is “I am” (Exodus 3:12-14), the name that God gave to Moses when sending him to Pharaoh. By applying this name to Himself, Jesus was saying that He is co-equal and co-eternal with God the Father (see John 4:26; 6:20; 8:24,28,54-59; 13:19; 18:5,6,8).

John 8:59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

Comparing Himself to God is – if Jesus is NOT God – a sin called “blasphemy”. Blasphemy was punishable by death by stoning (see Leviticus 24:16). And yet, they could not kill Jesus. He “hid himself” by perhaps shifting their perception of Himself, or by disappearance, or by blending into the crowd. Christ’s time had not yet come. When He died, He would have to die hanging on a tree, cursed by the Law of God.

Deuteronomy 21:23 (ESV) … his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

God became perfect Man so He could die for the sins of imperfect man. When you receive Jesus as the solution for sin, receive Him as BOTH Lord and Savior, then you are saved. I pray that you are not almost saved, or hope so saved, but saved in reality and truth. May God touch your hearts with His Word. Amen and Amen.