Hebrews 9.11-15 & John 8.46-59
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
“Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” This is Jesus’ promise. All those who keep His word—that is, anyone who receives it true, believes it, and places their trust in it—will never see death. Jesus said in John 5[:24], “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Jesus had told the crowd in John 6 the same, “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life,” and after that crowd rejected Jesus’ word Peter confessed the very thing the crowd could not: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:63, 68). Jesus has come to bring life to those whose lot is death. This is everyone of the line of Adam and Eve born in the natural way. “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). Since all have sinned—and “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)—Jesus says, “If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death,” so that none who are liable for death are excluded.
Unless they exclude themselves. The Jews with whom Jesus is speaking in today’s gospel lesson do just that. They don’t keep Jesus’ word—receive it as true, believe it, and place their trust in it. They attack it. They attack Him. They accuse Him of being a Samaritan—not a true, full-blooded descendant of Abraham—and of having a demon—an evil spirit of the same lying, murdering mind as the devil. They lash out at Jesus with such vitriol because they believe they already have life. They are children of Abraham. They are followers of Moses. They search the scriptures, believing life to come from obeying all that God commanded through Moses, even though they’re far from the perfect obedience of the heart Moses actually required. They believe their own merits are true merits and place their trust in themselves. They think they have life by their own identity as Abraham’s sons and disciples of Moses, and that these are what make them “of God.”
Imagining themselves to be “of God” by their blood and by their obedience, they can’t hear Christ’s word of promise for what is. They can only hear it with fleshly ears and twist it with devilish intent. “Now we know that You have a demon,”they say. “Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’ Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do You make Yourself out to be?” But Jesus did not say that He anyone who keeps His word shall never taste death—physical death. He promises eternal life that begins now by faith and continues into eternity. He tells Martha the same thing before He raises Lazarus from the dead: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (Jn 11:25-26). Jesus never promised earthly health, though He restored it to some. Jesus never promised a death-free entrance into eternal life as Enoch or Elijah were given. All the saints, with those to ancient exceptions, entered eternal life through death, just as we also must, unless Christ returns in glory first. They mock Jesus, saying that if keeping His word prevented physical death, He would be greater than Abraham and the prophets who spoke God’s word. “Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead.”
They expect a negative answer. No one would claim to be greater than Abraham, the father of the nation, the one with whom God spoke, the one who was called the friend of God (James 2:23)? No would claim to be greater than the prophets, those with whom God spoke and showed Himself in visions? No one would claim such an honor for themselves. But Jesus will not honor Himself. He will let His Father do that, and He will glorify Him in His human flesh soon. So, Jesus tells them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” It’s as if He were saying, “Your father Abraham saw My day—the work which I would accomplish—by faith and rejoiced. Your father Abraham did keep My word, which is why Abraham and all the patriarchs continue to live t this very day, for all live to Him (Luke 20:38). When God the Father said to Abraham, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed,” I am the promised blessing.”
They still don’t get it, though. Just as they imagine the “not seeing death” to mean “not physically dying,” so they imagine “Abraham saw My day” to mean that Jesus knew Abraham. Being children of the devil, they can only malign Jesus words and hear what He’s not saying. So Jesus tells them bluntly: “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Not, “I was,” so that He simply predated Abraham. That’s what the Jews seemed to have thought when they said, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” No, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” as in Exodus 3:14, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The one who tells John in Revelation 1:8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” There are those who say Jesus never said He was God. Like the Jews in today’s gospel, those who teach that do not hear Christ’s words because they are not of God. The Jews, however, have one thing over those who make such a claim today—the understood perfectly that Jesus, in that moment, claimed to be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
They pick up stones to throw at Him and show themselves to be true children of the devil. Jesus had said in John 8:44, just a two verses before today’s gospel began, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” They have demonstrated that they will not hear Jesus’ word but deceitfully and maliciously twist it. Now they prove themselves sons of hell by following in their father’s murderous footsteps by preparing to murder the One who has come to bring men eternal life, the One who is, Himself, the light and light of men “(Jn 1:4).
But Jesus eludes them. Using His divine power, hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. The Jews would succeed in murdering Him, but not today. He will be a victim, not because they get the upper hand, but because He, as High Priest of the New Testament, will offer Himself to God as the spotless sacrificial victim. He will be killed by them, but not in this temple built by hands. He will enter the Most Holy Place of God’s presence, once for all, and obtain eternal redemption for all mankind. In order for Jesus to give life to anyone who keeps His word, He must die, for He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” as the author of Hebrews teaches us in the epistle. By His death He makes full satisfaction for sins under the first covenant—the Law. His suffering and death pay for all of our sins of thought, word, and deed because it is the eternal Son of God, who suffers and dies in the flesh. His blood, shed once-for-all on the altar of the cross, is the blood of the New Testament, which cleanses us from all sins as often as we repent of them and flee to Christ. He dies in the flesh so that all who die in the flesh who keep His word, we never see eternal death. The life His gives begins now through faith in in His Word and extends past the moment of our bodily death into all eternity.
Christ wants to give these gifts to you—forgiveness of sins, new life, and salvation—through His word, and promises you, “Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” He wants you to keep Jos word by hearing it, reading it, and by meditating on it, contemplating it, and applying it to yourself, so that you live each day in repentance and faith: Repentance that acknowledges your sinful nature and the times you have given in to it; Faith that trusts Christ’s promise to cleanse the conscience from dead works of sin and selfishness, to serve the living God with living works of love for Him and neighbor. Those who are not “of God” do not keep His word. They ignore it, attack it, and Christ hides Himself from them. They remain in spiritual death now and into eternity. But all who are “of God” and keep His word, and to them Christ reveals Himself as the Mediator of the New Testament who gives new life that begins now by faith, and extends into all eternity. “If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.” Grant this Lord, to us all. Amen.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen.
