INTRODUCTION:
Many years ago, there was a popular game show on television called “What’s My Line”? Maybe you’ve seen it or have heard of it. Each week they would introduce an individual who had an unusual occupation. The contestants on the show would take turns asking this person questions in order to guess what this person did for a living. The first contestant to guess the person’s line of work or occupation correctly would win the game and would receive the prizes.
In this passage of Scripture, the Jewish leaders seem to be playing a game similar to “What’s My Line”, only in reverse. Jesus, who is the person being interviewed, has already told them several times who He is, yet they keep asking Him to identify Himself. Now it’s Jesus’ turn to ask them some questions.
I. JESUS’ FIRST QUESTION TO THEM (verses 31-32)
Verse 31 is a short intermission. It says, “The Jews took up stones again to stone Him.” They were in the temple so those stones weren’t on the ground at their feet. They had to walk away from Jesus in order to find stones and pick them up. These weren’t one-handed stones; they were two-handed, large, and heavy stones. They were picking up those stones because Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” All of those Jews recognized that Jesus was claiming to be God when He made that statement. While they are gathering the stones for His execution, Jesus calls out to them, asking His first question: “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” Within that question, there are several questions that Jesus wants them to consider and answer for Him. “Are you stoning Me to death because I gave sight to a man born blind?” “Are you stoning me because I healed a man at the pool of Bethesda, who had been ill for 38 years?” “Are you stoning Me because I cleansed lepers, raised the dead, and cast out evil spirits?” “Are you stoning Me because I made the dumb speak, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and fed the multitudes?” Jesus pointed to His mighty miracles which fulfilled prophecy and set Him apart as being from God. How are they going to respond to that evidence?
II. THEIR ANSWER (verse 33)
How do you answer a question that would prove you to be wrong? How do you respond to a question that would make you look foolish? Have you ever been in that situation? There are many possibilities. Let’s see which one they choose. In verse 33, the Jews give their answer: “For a good work we don’t stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make yourself out to be God.” I call this the “shame on you for asking” approach. In a loud and demeaning tone of voice, they are saying, “That’s a stupid question!” “You’re not really serious, are you?” “It should be obvious that we are stoning you for blasphemy because You, of all people, are claiming to be God!” They have side-stepped Jesus’ question and His miracles in order to put the focus on Him and His claims. By doing so, they are hoping to have the last word on that topic so they can proceed with their stoning. However, the conversation isn’t over yet. Jesus has another question for them to answer, and this time it concerns a passage of Scripture.
III. JESUS’ SECOND QUESTION (verses 34-36)
Jesus responds to His accusers in an unexpected and unusual way, giving His answer in the form of a question to them. He quotes from Psalm 82:6 saying, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’?” Jesus is going to be using a form of logic called “reasoning from the major to the minor” (or from the greater to the less). The focus of Jesus’ argument is going to be on one book of the Bible [the Psalms], one chapter in that book [chapter 82], one verse in that chapter [verse 6], and one word within that verse [the word “GODS”].
After quoting that verse, Jesus presents His argument in verses 35 and 36, saying, “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scriptures cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said ‘I am the Son of God’?” There must have been many puzzled looks on the faces of His adversaries after Jesus presented that argument.
We see, in this verse, Jesus’ confidence in the inspiration, the authority, and the inerrancy of God’s Word. He is saying that two things are certain: the psalm calls them gods and the Scripture cannot be broken. The Lord Jesus Christ is staking His life on the reliability, accuracy, and authority of just one word of Scripture, for His enemies were about to stone Him to death.
Down through the centuries, many ungodly people have tried to refute or destroy the Scriptures, but they have all failed. The famous philosopher, Voltaire, held up a copy of the Scriptures and boasted that he would put the Bible in the morgue. Before long, he was in the morgue and the Geneva Bible Society used his house as a Bible warehouse!
In Psalm 82, what did the psalmist mean when he used the phrase “you are gods”? Who was he referring to? He’s talking about the judges or rulers of the people of Israel. They are called “gods” because they represented God as they judged the people of Israel. It was God who put them in their positions of leadership. In Exodus 7:1, God said to Moses, “See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh.” In Exodus 21:6, as well as Exodus 22:8, 9, and 28, the word translated “judges” is the Hebrew word “Elohim” which literally means “gods”. Jesus has brought His argument to its logical conclusion. He is saying to His accusers: “Don’t stone Me just because I use the word “God”. Look at all the people in the Scriptures who were called “gods”, and the Scriptures can’t be wrong.” Jesus didn’t have to prove what He said to them because they knew those Scriptures. After hearing those words, the Jewish leaders started relaxing their grip. I can envision those stones slipping from their hands and falling to the ground beside their feet. You’ll see what I mean when we look at the next several verses of Scripture. They have lost that argument and the crowd that has gathered around them knows it.
IV. A CONCESSION (verses 37-38)
Now that Jesus has deflated their argument for stoning Him to death, He makes them a concession in verses 37-38. “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” Jesus knew that, if they would believe His works, it wouldn’t be long before they would believe in Him. This was the case for one of the most well-known illusionists in the world. Early in his career, Andre Kole considered himself to be an atheist and he was skeptical of Christianity. He was challenged to investigate the miracles of Christ with the intent of proving them to be illusions or tricks and exposing Jesus Christ as a fraud. However, his quest had the opposite result. Becoming convinced that Jesus’ works were genuine miracles, Andre became a devoted follower of Jesus Christ and used his abilities as a means of presenting the Gospel message to thousands of people around the world.
More recently, a well-known Christian illusionist and escape artist, Brock Gill, set aside his personal beliefs to explore the miracles of Jesus Christ objectively for a BBC television company. In every case, Gill concluded that Jesus could not have tricked people into believing they had experienced a miracle. There was no doubt in his mind that the mighty works of Jesus were actual miracles.
V. THE RESULTS (verses 39-42)
Verse 39 tells us what happened after Jesus finished speaking. It says, “Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.” Notice that it says “seize Him”, not “stone Him”. As I mentioned earlier, the stones that were in their hands have already fallen to the ground.” Now the Jews want to take Him into custody while they figure out what they are going to do next. That plan didn’t work either because Jesus eluded their grasp. His time had not yet come.
Jesus and His disciples escaped. They left Jerusalem and went to a place of refuge. Verse 40 says, “And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there.” The place the apostle John is referring to is on the other side of the Jordan River and about twenty miles from Jerusalem. Why did He choose to go there? There may be several reasons. It was a place of safety because the Jews wouldn’t pursue Him that far from Jerusalem. It was also a special place for Jesus. His betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion were only a week away, and Jesus has returned to the place where His public ministry began. He was baptized here by John the Baptist, and it was here that John the Baptist proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah and urged his own disciples to follow Jesus. Possibly the main reason Jesus decided to go to this particular region is given in verses 41 and 42. “And many came to Him and were saying, ‘While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.’ And many believed in Him there.” These people must have listened to the preaching of John the Baptist while he was in their neighborhood, preaching and baptizing. Some of them may have been baptized by John. It is now almost three years after the death of John the Baptist, yet these people still remember John’s words to them, and everything he said about Jesus has been proven to be true. As a result, many believed in Him. John the Baptist didn’t perform any signs (miracles), but he spoke about Jesus in such a way that people wanted to find out if what John said was actually true.
Bible commentator, Leon Morris, shares the following story about a ringing telephone. A harried housewife picked it up and shouted, “Sorry, I can’t talk now. Our white mouse is loose in the kitchen and I have to catch him before the cat does.” She left the receiver dangling, and strange noises filtered through for the next five minutes or so. Then she picked up the phone and heard a strange voice say, “Excuse me, lady, I know I have the wrong number. But I just had to find out. Who got the mouse?” Like this lady, John the Baptist was not a person of eloquent speech, but He spoke about Jesus in such a way that his hearers wanted to find out more about Him. Therefore, the Lord Jesus found genuine faith among these people. They came to the realization that everything John the Baptist said about Jesus was true, so they put their trust in Him because of who He was, not because of what He did.
CONCLUSION:
This event in Jesus’ life tells us a lot about His own view of Scripture. He held the Scriptures in the highest possible esteem. No one has ever had a deeper reverence for God’s Word than Himself. He read it, studied it, memorized it, meditated on it, obeyed it. and shared it often from memory. Jesus believed in the inspiration, the authority, and the truthfulness of all the Scriptures, and He came to fulfill the Scriptures.
What is your attitude toward God’s Word? It is a reflection of your attitude toward Jesus Christ because He is the main focus of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. If you’re not sure of your relationship to God and are not very familiar with the Bible, I challenge you to read the Bible and take a good look at what it says, as Andre Kole did. Investigate the life of Jesus Christ, His miracles, the prophecies He fulfilled, His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. Visit it, not as a tourist, but as an explorer. There are two ways you can study the Bible: studying it with your mind made up, or studying it to let it make up your mind. If you will take that second approach to God’s Word, you will find every word of it to be true. You will find Jesus to be all that He claims to be. Your life will be changed when you turn it over to Jesus Christ. You haven’t really lived until you’ve done so. You have yet to learn the meaning of true joy and purpose in life. You have yet to experience the relationship that gets better every day and never ends.
Fellow Christian, there’s gold and precious stones between the pages of God’s Word, but you’ve got to dig for it. The deeper you dig, the more spiritual riches there are to be found. Then, follow Jesus’ example and share the wealth with others.
CONSTRUCTION SITE: COMPLETED
Thank you for visiting this completed construction site: John 10:31-42. There are over 150 messages on this blog site and you are welcome to visit them all. I’m sharing the wealth with you.