Episode Transcript
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Josh.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm Gabriel.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: And today, on reading the Gospel, we are studying the event are you the Christ? This is found in the Book of John, chapter ten, verses 22 through 42. Follow along with us as we read.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him how long will you keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.
Jesus answered them, I told you, and you do not believe the works that I do in my Father's name. Bear witness about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
I and the Father are one.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: The Jews picked up stones to stone him.
Jesus answered them, I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of them are you going to stone me? The Jews answered him, it is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy because you, being a man, make yourself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in the law, I said, you are gods? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken? Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world you were blaspheming because I said, I am the Son of God.
If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father. Again, they sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. He went away again across the Jordan to a place where John had been baptizing at first and there he remained. And many came to him, and they said, John did no signs. But everything John said about this man was true and many believed in him there.
So we're coming back to the Feast of Dedication. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about this? A little background?
[00:03:25] Speaker B: This was a festival which was not established by Moses or David or Solomon. It was established 100 something years before Jesus Christ by the Maccabeans. So Maccabeans, after cleansing the temple which was desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanus who ordered to bring sacrifices of unclean animals like pigs. After that, they established this Festival of Dedication, or Rededication, later in the time of Jesus Christ and slightly after that, josephus called that the festival of the lies. Today the Jews celebrate it as Hanukah.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Okay? And so here we have the Jews gathering around him and they're wanting to know, are you the Christ? They're being very direct here, just, Are you the Christ? Why does Jesus give this long answer instead of just saying yes?
[00:04:34] Speaker B: It was not easy to say yes because they have developed over time a specific portrait of the Messiah they are waiting for. For them, Messiah was a Jewish nationalist who will focus primarily on liberating them from the Romans and reinstating the golden state of David and Solomon.
So if Jesus Christ said I am Messiah, they would have understood it that way.
Jesus Christ could not deny it, could not say no, because he came as a fulfillment of all those messianic prophecies from the Old Testament.
This is why Jesus Christ said my works testify about who am I. And also in other places he said, My Father is a witness. And my words, in addition to my Father, are a witness. And also the works that I'm doing and the testimony of those who have been healed are witnesses.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: So what they're looking for is not God. What they're looking for is someone who will save them from the Romans.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And it happened before. Remember after jesus christ healed many people in copernaum that saturday night and in other villages around, and after he multiply the bread, they really wanted to put him as a king, in fact, to designate him as the messiah, because they said, this kind of leader we need. Who can heal our wounds? Who can provide the food in case that we start a war against the Romans?
[00:06:41] Speaker A: So what does this passage tell us about God?
[00:06:47] Speaker B: So here, Jesus Christ is very direct and he says, the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
And he said, my father and I are one.
So Jesus Christ here explains, describes the nature of his relationship with God.
So this is maybe the most evident part about who God is and who Jesus Christ is from this passage.
The second thing that I see in which God is revealed is the fact that Jesus says here in verse 29, my Father is greater than all, and nobody can snatch out of my Father's hand the sheep that the Father gave me.
This is another way when Jesus describes his extremely close cooperation with the Father, the Father and the Son are not only united, but in one mind, in one purpose, to execute our salvation step by step.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: I think that's what I was going to get at.
The Father is in me and I am in the know. This idea that Jesus was created separate, or a created being, or came later or was invited in, this is not what the Bible is teaching here, that Jesus and the Father are one separate beings, but one.
This I can't honestly say I still fully understand how there can be three people in the Godhead, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, yet one God. But I don't know if we're going to be given that answer. It's not in God's requirement to explain that to me, but I do believe it, yes.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: There are three persons, three different entities, because Jesus Christ prays to the Father, to someone else, which is not himself, and they communicate to each other. And Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit the same way as being someone else, another comforter.
And the Holy Spirit is God, because Acts chapter five talks about sinning against the Holy Spirit being equals to sinning against God. We may not understand all the details, the nature of this intriguing relationship, but we know that we are called to honor all of them, to worship all of them. We baptized in the three names of this triune God, and we live and we experience salvation as a result of all three being part and intervening in our lives.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Yes. No, I completely agree. The Bible does give us a lot of information, but there are things God hasn't revealed. All right, how is this passage speaking to us today and what are we going to do about it?
[00:10:26] Speaker B: I like to see myself as the sheep in this story.
Jesus Christ says in verse 27, my sheep hear my voice.
I know them and they follow me. That's beautiful.
When I read this passage, I close my eyes and I say, lord, I want to be your sheep.
I want to have this close relationship with you.
I like to be sure that you know me.
You know me not only what I do and what I think, but you know me in that closed relationship with you.
Because in the Bible, knowing means an extremely closed relationship.
[00:11:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: And it is not just us knowing God, but it is being known by God. We have been created in the image of God to know and to be known, to love and to be loved. And that's amazing.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
For me, as I look at this, the question comes to me, am I misunderstanding God in some way?
The Jews, they were looking for the conqueror.
And in my understanding of the Bible, in my training and my upbringing, I have a view of God, I have a view of Jesus'second coming, of prophecy, of all these things.
But is there something that I'm misunderstanding? And I think what that does is that drives me back to reading the Bible with fresh eyes, with open eyes, to studying what I've been told and to asking those questions again and again, that I'm not satisfied with getting through the Bible once, but going again time and time again just to see what else God can relate and reveal to me.
Let us have a word of prayer. Father God, it is you that we want to get to know. It is you that we want to spend time with. It is you that we want to reflect to others.
And I pray that you will clear any misunderstandings we have. I pray that you will draw us close to you. I pray that, Father, we will be your sheep and follow wherever you lead. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
