Gooding, David: 10 - On the Road with Jesus

On the third journey of our Lord as recorded by John, so that we can get some idea, a bird's eye, uh, eye view of the contents of the material under the heading of this journey, that we may discover what the general subject, what the major problem is that is dealt with, and so that we may begin to get some idea as to how that problem is dealt with, and studying the structure of the whole, uh, passage to find some help, some guidance, some signposts for our further study, so that we might the more easily come to an understanding of the detailed contents. So now we are to study from chapter seven onwards of the Gospel of John. As in any book of scripture, so in the Gospel of John, there are some chapters that are favorites and constantly preached from. There are other chapters that are not so easy to preach from and very rarely get dealt with. And in those chapters, there are even more so paragraphs now and again that seem to be almost impenetrable. Uh, so that, uh, let's help ourselves as far as we can, first by noticing the extent of this journey. The first two journeys have been the account of our Lord's journey to a feast in Jerusalem, and then what happened when he left and came back again. So now in chapter seven, the feast of the Jews, seven two, the feast of tabernacles was at hand, and eventually, though not at once, our Lord went to that feast, verse fourteen, But when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. In chapter eight, uh he is still in the temple. I know that the first story in the majority text of John eight, the story of the woman taken in adultery, is disputed by many people as not belonging to John. But anyway, the end of that chapter tells us that he went out of the temple, and I shall be given re- giving reasons why I think that the story of the woman taken in adultery does indeed belong in this position in the gospel by John. But anyway, uh, it says in eight two, and early in the morning he came again into the temple, we'll see. So he's still in the temple in chapter eight. Chapter nine, uh, do you see, while he goes out of the temple at the end of chapter eight, chapter nine he appears to be still in Jerusalem because he sends the blind man to the pool of Siloam, which is in Jerusalem. Then in chapter ten, we are told in verse twenty two, and it was at the feast, and it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem, it was winter. Now, whether our Lord left Jerusalem after the feast of tabernacles and then came back again to celebrate the feast of dedication, John does not tell us. And so, as far as we know, our Lord was still in Jerusalem. But when John comes to the end of chapter ten, he tells us, verse forty, now explicitly here, that Jesus went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John was at the first baptizing, and there he abode. So now John tells us explicitly, our Lord has left Jerusalem. He has not at this stage gone right back to Galilee, and whether he did on this occasion or not, we're not told. What happens now in chapter eleven forms, as far as I understand it, a preliminary to the fourth and the final journey. Our Lord, uh, hears that Lazarus of Bethany is sick. He goes to Bethany, raises the dead, and then withdraws, chapter eleven, verse fifty four. But verse fifty five tells us the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover to purify themselves. They sought therefore for Jesus and spake with one another as they stood in the temple. What think you that he will not come to the feast? Well, he did eventually come, and the crowd were all agog on that occasion, his fourth visit to Jerusalem. The crowd was agog to meet him because they'd heard John explains in chapter twelve, how he had raised Lazarus from the dead. So I myself would be inclined to bracket chapter eleven along with the fourth visit to Jerusalem as the necessary preliminary to that fourth and final visit. That leaves us then with chapter seven, eight, nine, and ten, forming the third visit to Jerusalem and away. Our experience in the first two journeys has shown us that, um, the material in that John records within the journey is not recorded just because it happens. All the material is in various ways, uh, interlinked and deals with a subject, sometimes two sides to one subject. We might ask ourselves, therefore, what is the major problem to be dealt with in these chapters seven, eight, nine, and ten? As usual, the Holy Spirit normally puts the key of the door right at the front door itself. The Holy Spirit never goes out of his way to make life difficult, but always to make the script- understanding of scripture as easy as is possible. And at the beginning of chapter seven, he records a problem that the brothers of Jesus had. You'll see the feast of the tabernacles was at hand, chapter seven, verse two. His brothers, that is his human brothers. His human brothers therefore said unto him, depart hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world, for even his brethren did not believe on him. And you might at first glance think that that is simply a little circumstantial detail that John puts in to give the whole story some sort of down to earthness, but of no particular significance. We shall find as we proceed, however, that it is the central problem that is about to be answered in these four chapters from four different points of view. So let's stop a moment on the problem, and we'll start with the brothers of Jesus. They were worldly men, John tells us. They were not yet believers. They didn't believe on the Lord Jesus, but nonetheless they had some very worldly wise advice to give to their brother, you see. I think they were the ancient equivalent of Saatchi and Saatchi or something. How to be a successful prime minister. I mean, you- there are rules and regulations that can turn you an almost unbeknown person to famous, the world's rule. And, uh, so these brothers had some advice to the Lord Jesus on that score. They said, you see, depart hence and go into Judea, that thy disciples may behold the works that thou doest, you see. For no man, uh, uh, uh, for no man doeth anything in secret and himself seeketh to be made known openly. Look here, they said, we don't care much for this religious notion of yours, but, uh, take a hint from us, do you see? If you really want to start a new religion, brother dear, eh, eh, eh, eh, you see, there are ways of going about it. It's no good staying up here in Nazareth, this one-eyed show, you see, and supposing you're going to be world famous. Goodness me not, they said, you see. Uh, you'll never get known up here. What do you want to do now? Come, look, they said, there's a, there's the Feast of Tabernacles, you know, and it's a very popular feast, the Feast of Tabernacles. They'll be coming from all over the world, from Patagonia and from the shores of the Nile, you'll see, and some might even come from Britain. But anyway, uh, you'll say there'll be thousands of people there, it's your prime opportunity. Now you get yourself and do some miracles, man. You can do miracles, can't you, so they say. So do some miracles, you'll see, and get known, you'll see. Want to, you to to get on TV and on the radio and be in the press, you'll see. Get somebody in status to introduce you. Do some miracles, you'll see. Get publicity. That's the way to start a religion. No one's stopping up here, you'll say. Well, we see their point. Mm-hmm. Which raises a question. Why did he stop up there? Uh, he said, no, I'm not going up to the feast, not yet at any rate. So he didn't. And when all the others went up, he stayed behind. Very odd. Well, John says, uh, you'll see verse, uh, fourteen, but when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. Well, verse ten again, when his brethren were gone up unto the feast, then went he up also, not publicly, but as it were, in secret. Well, you can understand his brothers would have felt a little bit frustrated, what, after their excellent advice. That instead of getting mag- maximum publicity on the road up, he went up in secret, you see, well, where nobody would know who he was, you see. And worse was to come. Eventually he went up into the temple and taught, and people didn't know who he was at first, but then when the penny dropped and they tumbled to who he was, they began talking, you'll see. Is this the Christ? And so forth and so on. So in verse thirty two, the Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to take him. And Jesus said, I wouldn't bother if I were you, gentlemen, so I'm going away anyway. They said, you're going away? Yes, yes, a little while, uh, am I with you, and I go unto him that sent me. You shall seek me and shall not find me, and where I am you cannot come, so I wouldn't bother to arrest me if I were you. I- I- I'm going away very shortly. I said, where are- where are you going? You've gone on a lecture tour somewhere, or to- to the Jew- the- the Jews in the dispersion down to Alexandria, perhaps, on a course of lectures or something? What on earth do you mean you're going away? Well, we know what he meant. He was going away to glory. That only adds to the problem, doesn't it? Because if we've got hold of the idea of these dear brothers, we could extrapolate on it a bit, couldn't we? You believe that Jesus is the Son of God, my good brother? Well, of course you do. Do you believe that God wants the world to know it? You do? Well, perhaps then you wouldn't mind explaining to me the tactics that God has used. He sent his son into the world to be the savior of the world. He wanted the world to know, and his son, born in obscurity, only stayed here thirty three years all told. Come, come, that wasn't much, was it? And of that thirty three years, he spent thirty of them virtually in obscurity, one-eyed Nazareth, not even seventeen miles up the road to Sepphoris, that was, um, Herod's capital city, but down in little Nazareth. And even that was in Galilee. Well, didn't want, didn't God want the people to know? And when it came to three years, he spent most of that in Galilee as well, in his public ministry. And then when he eventually comes down to Jerusalem, on his own confession, he isn't for staying, he's going away, he says. And away he did go. Home to glory. Ha- can, do you make sense of it? Did God really want the world to know? Why didn't he have the Lord stay here for a hundred years or something? Or even some human, ordinary humans have lived and managed to live for a hundred years, then the world would have got a chance to know, wouldn't they? Come to think of it, because I'm a modern man, I had one or two suggestions to make to, to, to God, if I might be do so reverently. Well, why doesn't, if God really wants the world to know nowadays that Jesus is his son, why doesn't he have it come up, you know, like these funny watches we have nowadays, digital things? Why doesn't he have it come up on the sky? In every language in succession under the sun, Welsh today and Irish tomorrow, and American and then English and so on, and you'll see, and have it on the sky in every language, Jesus is the Son of God, then everybody would believe, wouldn't they? Would have no option. Then why doesn't he? You say, you will perhaps say to me, well, that's because the missionaries haven't gone to tell the Muslims. Well, that could be true in one sense. That's a sad business. But why? Even in the time of Christ, how would you explain his life as a strategy for getting the whole world to know that he's the Son of God? There's a problem. And I hope you perceive that I'm not being just silly. I didn't invent it. Do you see the Holy Spirit recording the problem? The very fact he records this problem enunciated by the brothers means he wants you to take notice of it. This is a real problem. I don't know what you normally answer your atheist friends when they repeat it, but, um, there are answers. So if this is the problem, what are the answers? There are four chapters in this journey. So now let's spend our remaining few moments mapping out the kind of contents, and that's easy, makes it easier, doesn't it, uh, for us, uh, eventually, uh, to grasp the thing as a whole. So notice a little matter, simple little historical geographical matter. Um, chapter seven, we begin in Galilee. After these things, Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Judea because the Jews sought to kill him. Verse nine: having said these things unto them, he abode still in Galilee. With Galilee, chapter seven begins, and with Galilee it ends. Look at it. When the officers came back to the council, the officers that had been sent to arrest the Lord Jesus, the high priest said, well, haven't you brought him? And they said, no, we haven't, but no, never, nobody ever spoke like him before. They meant that when they went to arrest him, he said, I shouldn't bother, I'm going away anyway. So, so they didn't arrest him, and they came back and they said, why haven't you brought him? Well, he said we couldn't make head and a tail of what he said. Do you see? Uh, so, um, they said anybody believed on him. Nicodemus says, does our Lord judge a man except it first hear from himself and know what he does? And they answered and said, art thou also of Galilee? Search and see that out of Galilee arises no prophet. And you will now see, though we shall not expound it in detail, that this reference to Galilee that begins this chapter and the reference of Galilee that ends the chapter is not just an innocent little geographical detail. My brother, where did you come from tonight? I came from Ross McGlen, Cross McGlen, you did really. Ah, yeah, and you will go back to Cross McGlen tonight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, then five minutes after I'd forgotten that, that was just a little pleasantry. This is more than that. The fact that he abode in Galilee and didn't go down to Jerusalem has raised a problem. Actually, it explains why he stayed in Galilee and didn't go down to Jerusalem, because the Jews sought to kill him. You mean the people in Jerusalem, the Jews in Judea. They walked in Galilee. And now at the end, it's not saying, where does this prophet come from? Anybody know his address? Galilee? Oh, thank you very much, Galilee. Uh, no, no, no. They're challenging Nicodemus. You don't believe on him. Well, he says we ought to give him a hearing. Nonsense, said Caiaphas. A hearing? Why waste your time? Eh, we already know that he can't be a prophet. He comes from Galilee. Search and see, no prophet ever came out of Galilee. So the matter of Galilee is important, isn't it? And you will see that, uh, when you've really taken notice of that, you will recur to the topic, and that will bind that together. That section will be bound together as one whole. There's a flow of thought from beginning to end. Similarly, in the, uh, next, uh, chapter. He came into the temple. Into the temple. And the chapter ends, as we've noticed, out of temple. So that is one whole. Likewise. There is another little matter here. They took up, they said, uh, matter of stones, cast stone, stone her. And here, took up stones to stone him. I see. That likewise is one whole. Chapter nine, in that same way, if you can keep your eye on the text, and I'll keep mine on the blackboard for time, blind man. And the apo- the apostles say, who did sin? This man or his parents, that he was born blind? And our Lord's reply was neither. And, uh, chapter nine ends. Those of the Pharisees which were with him heard these things and said, are we blind also? Ha. The penny had dropped in the Pharisaic head. It took some time sometimes for the penny to drop, but it did drop. That they, after all this long discussion, this physical miracle, they saw it had a spiritual meaning. Ha ha. Our Lord had given the man physical sight, and now the man had come to see certain spiritual things. They suddenly saw the point. They said, ah, oh, thank you very much. Oh, are we blind too? How nice of you. We're blind as well, are we? Our Lord said, if blind, you would have no. Oh. And the question of the relation of sin to blindness, and at the end, sin to blindness. It's obvious, isn't it? A cat could see it almost. That also is, uh, one whole, you see. Mm-hmm. And finally, there comes chapter ten. The man that climbs up the right way, to him the doorkeeper. Opens. Now, I don't know who you think the doorkeeper was, or is, or whether you think it's anybody at all, or what have you, but I can tell you what comes at the end of chapter ten. Uh, they said, verse forty one, John Baptist did no sign, but all true, all things that he spoke of Jesus were true. Yes, John was the doorkeeper who opened the door, and as a result, many believed. There's already then some evidence, a beginning to be some evidence, that these chapters are very carefully constructed. Yes? Now let us notice a very interesting thing. Uh, start at chapter ten, if you will, and the very first words about it. Verily, I verily, I say unto you, he who enters not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. In other words, if you can imagine a big fold in the center of town, and the shepherds have come to town for the weekend, and they've deposited their flocks in the fold, you see, and gone off wherever shepherds go off to of a Saturday night, and and uh, so the sheep are left in the fold. When they come back, you'll see, uh, after the weekend. Now, there's an appropriate way to come if you're d- s- a real genuine shepherd, you ju- you come to the doorkeeper, yes? He opens the door, and then you stand in and call your sheep, and they come out, yes? That's the way you do if you're a genuine shepherd. But if you're a thief and a robber, you don't come to the doorkeeper because you wouldn't get in, he wouldn't let you in. So you have to go around the back and bunk up some other way, you'll see. If you should see anybody not coming through the door but climbing up some other way, ah, you'll say that man's a, that man's not a true shepherd. He's a robber, he's a thief. How did you know? You say I know, knew it by his approach to the fold, the way he approached the fold. He, a free lesson in Greek tonight that will add expenses, but never mind. The word our Lord uses is anabino in Greek. Nice little word in Greek, means to go up. It climbs up, goes up some other way, do see. In your English, climbs up, uh, up some other way. Anabino. It's a very serious point in this parable. It's pointing out, how would you know who is the true shepherd? How would you distinguish the false shepherd from the true? You would do it by the manner of their approach to the fold. Ah, but now if we go back to chapter seven for a moment, this same little word, anabino, very same word as we had across the other way, occurs several times over, you will see. His brethren therefore say, depart into Judea, and so forth. Jesus saith unto them, my time is not yet come, but your time is already. Verse eight, go you up, anabino, go you up unto the feast. I go not up yet unto the feast, anabino. Verse ten. but when his brethren were gone up an abino, he also went up an abino. Verse fourteen. but when it was now the midst of the feast, Jesus went up an abino. An abino five times. You couldn't miss that either, could you? Hm. And it's saying something about his going up to Jerusalem, but not just, uh, how did he go by cooks or train or airplane or what have you. It's how he went up because of all this business. Why didn't he go up with the whole caravan of pilgrims? Why did he wait behind? And why did he go up in secret? It's talking about his approach to Jerusalem, isn't it? Yes, so this is approach. Indeed, here we've come back to the very topic and problem with which he started out. Our Lord's approach to the people, his approach to publicity, and how it presents a problem, and what his answer is going to be. So this is going to be about by his approach, of course. By his approach to the fold, what do you think? Well, if here it's his approach that shows you he's the true shepherd, his approach here shows you... Well, shows you something, doesn't it? We're supposed to see that next week. Yeah, you'll see. Anyway, uh, there are these two middle chapters, of course. In chapter eight, our Lord says, I am the light of the world. Yeah. In chapter nine, he says, you'll see, verse five, when I am the wor- when I am in the world, I am the light of the world. Well, there's no harm in repetition, is there? It's good, Julesy. But obviously, these two chapters are going to have something to do with each other, aren't they? It isn't actually repetition. Do you see, hmm, if you are going to see this pencil that I have in my hand, this green pencil, ladies and gentlemen, you will need three things. The pencil has got to be there to start with. You won't see it if it isn't there, will you? But after that, if it is there, you'll need not one thing but two, won't you? You'll need light to see it with. Because if the room was in absolute darkness and I held out this pencil in my fair hand, you still wouldn't see it. Now, if you're going to see the pencil, you'll need light to see it with, and then you'll need something else. You'll need eyes. Because you could have all the light in the world shining on the pencil, but if you haven't got the eyes, you won't see it. So you'll need light to see with and eyes to see with, yeah? Well, that's obvious, isn't it? That's nothing difficult. You knew that before me. But you see, hmm. Here in nine, it's the eyes to see with. There's a blind man who didn't have eyes. Jesus could be the light of the world, but he didn't have the eyes to see it. So our Lord gave him eyes to see with. In chapter eight, as we shall discover, Jesus is the light. It's the light to see with. As he shone on people and they saw themselves, they found it very uncomfortable and tried to put the light out. Took up stones to stone him. He was the light that shone on man, and man began to see himself as God saw him. He was the light in the sense that when a man had no sight to see with, he gave him sight. Well, this begins to be sensible, doesn't it? And not very difficult, you see. Um, one final thing, because I can't resist it, and at half past nine it is allowed, as I've often said, to be fanciful. We'll see. What about this first incident here in chapter eight, the woman taken in adultery? Two major reasons why many scholars, conservative scholars at that, feel that this story of the woman taken in adultery, um, was not originally, uh, part of the Gospel of John. It is, all agree, a valid story about our Lord's lifetime, you'll see. But they feel it wasn't a part of John's Gospel originally. Why do they think that? One, because in the manuscripts it occupies different places. Some have it at the end of the Gospel of Luke, and some have it elsewhere, and many there are that don't have it in the Gospel of John at all, you see. And the fact that it is in different places in the manuscript suggests that perhaps it wasn't originally in the, uh, Gospel of John. Secondly, if you analyze its literary style, its grammar, its syntax, its vocabulary, and such like things, you will find that its vocabulary and style is markedly different from John's vocabulary and style, and therefore they say this was not, uh, originally part of John's gospel. Their arguments are very strong. Many conservative scholars accept them, though of course they still believe that it is part of God's inspired word and is a valid record of something our Lord said and did. But in addition to those considerations, I want to suggest the following, you'll see. As indications that wherever John got this story from, he was guided by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to put it in his gospel, even if he didn't, wasn't the first one to write it. Why do I say that? Well, for, uh, reasons, you'll see. Look at this little thing. It's only a small thing, isn't it? When the woman stood before him, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. You'll see. Here, presented with the m- blind man, he spat on the ground. Made clear the spittle and anointed the man's eyes and said, go wash in Pool of Siloam. And he went and washed and came seeing. Now, granted that the Greek word for ground is a different word on those two occasions, yet it means the same, of course. He wrote on the ground here, he spat on the ground there. His spitting on the ground here and making clay and putting it on the eyes of the blind man, of course, is immensely significant, isn't it? Just you picture the Lord Jesus spitting on the ground and molding the clay out of the dust and the spittle, and he molded it into clay, and then he put it on the blind man's eyes. You see, the blind man had been blind from birth. It wasn't that he'd had sight and lost it. He never did have it. Never. And now the Lord was giving him sight. Why? Well, that's the point. You were going to tell me, weren't you? I think it was the first lecture, or it was the second, when you uttered a faithful promise that if I allowed you to come back again, you'll tell me why it was that in chapter five our Lord refused to use the pool, because he didn't need to, and in chapter nine he went and used the pool when he, when nobody was thinking about a pool. He sent a man to the pool. You were going to tell me about that. Well, next time is your opportunity. But that is to be noticed that he went to use this elaborate means, making the clay from the spittle and the dust of the ground and putting it on the man's eyes. Why did he do it? Well, whatever the reason, it evokes in my mind a long memory. For there is another place where we read in scripture of God molding the dust of the earth. It is in Genesis, of course, chapter two, When God the Creator made man, he molded him, says Hebrew, out of the dust of the ground. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, this is the Creator incarnate. And the creation had gone wrong, but man never did have sight. The Lord didn't just speak a word. Once more, as the creator incarnate, he stooped down to earth. Oh God be blessed. He stooped down to earth, and once more, patiently and graciously, he molded the clay and put it on the man's eyes and gave him sight. What about this one then? He wrote on the ground. Well, now the many suggestions that have been made of this, I would fill a book almost, all the reasons and suggestions why, and what was the significance of our Lord's writing. So I don't suppose there's any harm in my offering another. You will take it with a large grain of salt anyway, I know, so there's no harm in my mentioning it, we'll say. The context is this. They dragged this unfortunate woman to Christ, and they said, Lord, Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned. What do you say? Oh, so now it's about the law, is it? And what Moses in the law commanded. Where did Moses get that law from? You say, aha, that's serious, that law, because, I mean, Moses didn't make it up out of his own head. He was summoned to the top of Sinai and t- t- took up two tablets of stone, and God wrote the commandments with his finger, written with the finger of God. That's where Moses got the law from. And they're quoting the law, and God writing with his finger on the law. But The God. God that stood on Mount Sinai has become incarnate. And to their incessant appeal, he bowed down and with his finger he wrote on the ground, lifted himself up and said, he that is without sin among you, cast the first stone. And they turned around and went out, didn't they? They found someone superior to the law of Moses. Here they were standing, exposing the woman's sin to Jesus Christ, when, uh, after he had written with his finger on the ground and lifted himself up and spoken his word, they found themselves exposed in a way that the law of Moses had never exposed them. And then he wrote, bowed a second time and wrote with his finger a second time, and lifting himself up, the woman was there alone, and he said, has no man condemned you? She said, no man, Lord. And he said, neither do I condemn you. Oh, what a mercy. And on what grounds he could say it, we shall have to consider next time. But this remember, that the law was given twice in Israel, wasn't it? First, Moses was summoned to the top of Sinai, and God gave him the commandments written with the finger of God. And Moses had scarce taken a couple of paces down from God, when the people he discovered had apostatized from God, broken his law, broken his covenant, and Moses took the tables of stone written with the finger of God and smashed them to smithereens on the ground. And then Israel came near to being utterly destroyed for their breaking of God's law. And would have been completely had not Moses interceded for them. As a result of Moses' intercession, Israel was spared, and God summoned Moses a second time, and the law was written a second time. Its second writing, an exhibition of the mercy of God. Ladies and gentlemen, if chapter nine is going to tell us about the Creator become incarnate and creating sight where it has never been before, chapter eight tells us of the lawgiver incarnate. How the law was given through Moses, but given from God. But God, the lawgiver, became incarnate. And here is the giver of the law, faced with guilty men and women, and with his mercy writing once upon the ground, and in his greater mercy writing twice. How that in face of a law that condemns and exposes all mankind, mercy and forgiveness is possible, even from the hand of the lawgiver himself. And with those few simple observations on these four chapters, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I've demonstrated that these four chapters are not just a jumble, they are a very carefully ordered discussion of the problem with which we started, and next time we shall hope to see what bearing they have towards the solution of the problem.