Big Claims – John 8:12-30

247WallSt.com lists the 43 most outrageous product claims of all time.  They include the 5-Hour Energy drink’s claim that it was better than coffee and recommended by doctors (had to pay $4.3 million), Luminosity’s claim that their app would help prevent Alzheimer’s disease (fined $2 mill), Vitaminwater’s claim it would promote healthy joints and reduce the risk of eye disease, among other benefits.  Camel cigarettes claimed doctors preferred their brand.  Big claims!  Jesus claimed he was the light of the world, and the Jews challenged him on it.

Jesus again therefore began to tell them, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”  So the Pharisees responded, “You are bearing witness to yourself.  Your witness is not true.”  Jesus answered them, “Even if I bear witness about myself, my witness is true, because I know where I came from and where I am going.  But you do not know where I come from or where I’m going.  You judge according to the flesh.  I do not judge anyone.  And if I do judge, my judgment is true, because not only I but the One who sent me, my Father, judges.  Now in your own law it is written that the witness of two people is true.  I am one who witnesses about me and my Father who sent me bears witness about me.”  So they began saying to him, “Where is your father?”  Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father.  If you knew me, you would also know my Father.”  He said these things in the Treasury while he was teaching in the temple.  And no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come.

Again he said to them, “I am going and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin.  Where I am going you cannot come.”  So the Jews began saying, “Will he kill himself, because he says, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.'”  And he said to them, “You are from below, I am from above.  You are of this world, I am not of this world.  That is why I said to you that you will die in your sins.  For if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”  So they said to him, “Who are you?”  Jesus said to them, “Who I’ve been saying from the beginning.  I have many things to tell you and to judge, but the One who sent me is true, and what I heard from Him, these things I speak to the world.”  They did not know that he was speaking to them about his Father.  So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that by myself I do nothing, but as the Father taught me, so I speak.  And the One who sent me is with me.  He has not left me alone, because I always do the things that please Him.”

When he said these things, many believed in him.  (John 8:12-30)

Jesus becomes embroiled in a debate about how to know whether he is who he claims to be.  He makes a declaration in the temple that he is the light of the world.  If you heard someone stand up in public and make this claim you might argue as the Pharisees did.  “What, just because you say you are the light of the world, we’re supposed to believe you?”  But Jesus insists that even if he is his only witness, it is true.  Jesus says “even if” because that hasn’t been his only witness.  John the Baptist has been a witness, a man many saw as an authoritative prophet from God.  The works the Father has given Jesus to do are a witness.  Jesus’ teaching is a witness (“we’ve never heard anyone teach like this”).  But Jesus doesn’t rehearse this, because it is self-evident and the Pharisees want to ignore it.

Jesus appeals to the Law of Moses that says by the mouth of two or three witnesses truth is determined in the court, and he asserts that the Father witnesses to him so that makes two witnesses.  But they ask where his father is?  “If God is witnessing to you let’s see and hear from Him.”  This too is willful rejection since the works he has done could only have come from the Father.  So he asserts that they will die in their sins, that they are only earthly in their perspective and unwilling to believe in him, so they will die in their sin.  The lifting up of the Son of Man that Jesus is talking about is his crucifixion, when he is lifted up on a cross to bear the sin of the world for those who believe.  Those whose hearts were not willfully rebellious believed, and so have we.  As we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ many will challenge the truthfulness of our message, but those whom the Father has drawn to Jesus will come to him and be saved.

Discussion Questions

1. When you are asserting something to be true and someone challenges you, what is your normal response?
2. How radical is Jesus’ statement that he is the light of the world?
3. How would you describe Jesus’ defense of his truthfulness?
4. Why doesn’t Jesus answer the Pharisees’ specific questions with appropriate answers?
5. Who has Jesus been saying he is from the beginning?
6. If Jesus says he did nothing but what he heard from the Father, how should we live?