We're in John chapter 10, and
we're basically going to try to cover this last section of
John 10, verses 30 through 42. It is such a vital chapter in
identifying Jesus of Nazareth. Ever since John began this book,
led by the Spirit of God, of course, to write this, John has
focused in on the uniqueness of this man named Jesus of Nazareth. He's unlike any other man. For
he is God manifest in the flesh. That's the reason John doesn't
set forth any of the, he doesn't set forth the genealogy of Jesus
as Matthew does and as Luke does. John sets him forth as being
the Son of God who is without beginning and without ending. And John begins the book with
very definite language by saying in the beginning was the Word
and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was
in the beginning with God. And as we get to John chapter
number 10, John, he sets forth an abundance of statements regarding
the Son of God. As we think of the Lord Jesus,
as we think of Jesus of Nazareth, we must acknowledge that He was
and He is man. He was a man. Certainly the manner
of His conception was unique. because he was without a father,
a human father, and he was conceived in the womb of the Virgin by
the power of the Holy Spirit. And if you ask me how that can
possibly be, I'd say, well, I would answer this way, in the same
way that God could create a man out of dust, indeed create another man in
the womb of a woman who never knew a man. The testimony of
the scriptures is very clear. Jesus of Nazareth was a real
man. He wasn't a He wasn't kind of
a shadowy form of a man. He was a real man. Even after his resurrection,
he said to Thomas, and we called him Doubting Thomas. That's something
to be stuck with, isn't it? Every time people talk about
Thomas, oh yeah, you're talking about Doubting Thomas. Well,
he was Doubting Thomas, but he was also Believing Thomas. because
he worshipped him, but I would say that the same thing true
of Thomas is true of each of us. We have doubts and we have
belief as well, don't we? Both dwell within us, but he
said, my Lord and my God. He confessed his deity, but our
Lord Jesus said to him, touch me and see. Touch me and say,
thrust your hands into my wounds if you don't believe that I am
Jesus. When our Lord appeared after
His resurrection to all of His disciples, Thomas was absent. He passed through the wall and
he said, I'm a real man. He said, do you have anything
to eat? And he ate. They gave him something to eat. And he was a real man. I'm not a spirit, I'm not a ghost. A ghost doesn't have flesh and
bones as you see me have. He was a real man, a real man. That's the reason we read a passage
such as in Acts chapter 2, Jesus of Nazareth, the man of Approved
of God. A man approved of God among you. You know He was a man approved
of God among you. Now I know the Jews said, we
know His Father, we know His Mother, we know His brothers,
and we know His sisters. But this is what they all must
acknowledge. He was a real man. He was a real
man. He got hungry. He got thirsty. He knew weariness. He had sleep. He had all of these attributes
of man. With this great big exception,
he didn't have any sin. He knew no sin. But he was a real man. When they
beat his back, he bled just like you would bleed. When they made
a crown of thorns and mockery and put it upon his brow, the
blood ran down his face and down his head. When they pulled out
his beard, that was a real beard. It wasn't a fake beard. That
hurt. They drove the nails in, drove
it into real flesh. Blood came out of his feet. When
the soldier came by and thrust a spear in his side, there came
out blood and water. He's a real man. That's what
the scriptures teach us. He's a real man. And he had to
be a man because God can't suffer, bleed, and die. But that is the
penalty for sin. So he had to be a real man. His
body was real. He had a real soul. He had a
real soul. It wasn't like he was just an
empty shell and then deity inhabited an empty shell. No, he is a man
and he is a soul. He had spirit. He said, Father,
into thy hands I commit my spirit, my soul. He said, my soul is
sorrowful unto death. In Isaiah 53, the Lord made His
soul an offering for sin. He's a real man. You're real. You're real. You have flesh and
you are a soul. And our Lord Jesus, He was flesh
and He was a soul. He was a soul. The Spirit of
Him. A real man. A real man. Nothing fake about Him. This
wasn't made up. This is not fiction. The Scripture says He took upon
Him not the seed or the nature of angels, but He took on Him
the seed of Abraham. He must be like those in whose
stead He lived and died. He had to be like us. And He
was. He was. The Scripture says He
was tempted in all points as we are. Every test that could
ever be put to a man, our Lord, He was put to the test. Yet,
without sin. That's what the Scripture says.
As Adam was a real man, so the last Adam was a real man. But there's more. You see, there are a lot of people
who will say Jesus of Nazareth was a real man. But now we've
got to tell the rest of the story. The rest of the story. And the
rest of the story is He's the Son of God. As His nature as a man was conceived
by the power of the Holy Spirit, As that cannot be known apart
from the Holy Scriptures, so His divinity can't be known also
except by the Word of God, the testimony of the unerring Word
of the Lord. Do you remember the message that
the angel gave to Mary? when he told her she would conceive
and bear a son? And said, you'll call his name
Jesus? The angel answered and said unto
her, because Mary said, how can these things be? I've never known
a man. This can't be. Well, it can't be as far as we
reason things out. It can't be. But nothing is impossible
with God. We forget who we're dealing with
here. The messenger says, the Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall
overshadow thee. Therefore, that holy thing that
shall be born of thee, he shall be called the Son of God. He's the Son of God. Jesus of Nazareth was not a demigod. You know what a demigod is? Half man, half God. He wasn't a demigod. He's altogether man, He's altogether
God. He is the God-man. Romans 11.5 says, He's God over
all forever. Thomas, again I refer to his
words, he said, my Lord and my God. If he wasn't the Lord, if
he wasn't God, he would have been, Thomas would have been
rebuked. He would have been rebuked by
Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus of Nazareth would have
said, don't call me Lord and God. But he wasn't rebuked because
he was stating the fact. He was stating a double truth. My Lord and my God. When our Lord dealt in effectual
grace with Nathanael in John chapter 1, Nathanael made this
confession, thou art the Son of God. In Hebrews 1.8, the father
said to him, thy throne, O God, is forever. God called him God. If God called him God, we better
call him God and mean it. The apostle Paul told the elders
of Ephesus, feed the church of God, which he had purchased with
his own blood. You see, the works of deity belong
to Jesus of Nazareth. Creation. All things were made
by Him, John says. And without Him was not anything
made that was made. Divine providence. By Him, Colossians
1, by Him all things consist. Hebrews 1.3 says, He upholds
all things by the word of His power. Salvation, who can save
but God alone? Well, the scripture says He's
able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him. What about judgment? Everybody
knows the judge is God. All judgment, John chapter five,
all judgment has been committed to the Son. The perfections of
deity belong to Him. Eternity. In Isaiah 9, He's called
the everlasting Father. Immutability, He's unchangeable. Jesus Christ, the same yesterday,
today, and forever. Omni-presence. He said to His
disciples, lo, I am with you always. He said in John chapter
2, or John chapter 3, no man hath the synod up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is
in heaven. Where was He when He said that?
He is on earth. But He said, even the Son of
Man which is in heaven. How can He be in heaven? He's
divine. He's everywhere. He's omnipresent. He's omniscient, the end of John
chapter 2. He needed not that anybody should
tell or testify of man, for he knew what was in man. Omnipotence
is with Jesus Christ. All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth, the scripture says. Worship is to be focused
on Him, yielded to Him, given to Him. The angels, God says
to the angels in Hebrews chapter 1, worship Him. Worship Him. So Jesus of Nazareth
was real man and real God. And when He again declared His
deity here in John chapter 10, when He said, I and My Father
are one, they took up stones to stone Him. If, as you read through, especially
John chapter 10, but really all the way through the gospel of
John, you'll notice that our Lord Jesus, sometimes he addressed
or he speaks of the Father as my Father. Other times he speaks
of the Father as the Father. The Father. My Father, the Father. There's a difference. Even here
in John chapter 2, or John chapter 10, excuse me. Notice what he
says. Go back to verse 25, and let
me just point these out to you quickly. Whenever he is speaking
as the mediator, whenever he is speaking as Jehovah's righteous
servant, Whenever he's speaking in that capacity as our representative,
as the one who stooped down, as that one who humbled himself
to become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,
whenever he's speaking in that way or in that capacity, he speaks
of the Father as my Father because he is speaking as one who serves
the Father. He serves the Father. For instance,
here in chapter 10 verse 25, Jesus answered them, I told you
and you believed not the works that I do in My Father's name. My Father is the one who sent
Me and I do these works in His name. They bear witness of Him. Verse 29, My Father which gave
them Me is greater than all. Well, isn't our Lord Jesus as
great as the Father? Absolutely, as the Divine One. But He is Jehovah's faithful
servant who stooped down to do the work of redemption and reconciliation
that He agreed to do back in the covenant of grace. And He
came as the Father's righteous servant to do the Father's will. He said, I do always those things
that please Him. He said, not my will, but thy
will be done. But is it the will of the Son
the same as the will of the Father? Absolutely. But he's speaking
as God's faithful servant. My Father which gave them me.
At the end of the verse, nobody can pluck them out of my Father's
hand. But then look at verse 30. I
am, and unfortunately, Those men who translated the King James
Version, and by and large, they did a wonderful job. It remains
the best translation of all. But the word, my, wasn't in there
at that point. They inserted it. They put it in. Really, it's
I and The Father are one. Because now He's not speaking
anymore as the mediator. He is not speaking as that one
who is the faithful servant of God. He is now speaking of one
who is equal with the Father in every way, equal in nature,
equal in essence, equal in eternity, equal in all of His attributes.
I and The Father are one. Once again, he comes to verse
32 and he uses my father. Many good works have I showed
you from my father. These are works that the father
sent him to do. But now look at verse 36, where
he is going to again speak of his deity. He says to these Jews,
Say ye of him whom the father, the father, and I know because
it begins with a F with a consonant, you should say the father, but
for emphasis I'll say the father. Say, he of him whom thee father
hath sanctified and sent unto the world, thou blasphemous,
because I said, I am the Son of God. Once again, he's speaking
of his equality with God. Listen, he stands eye to eye
with the Father and the Spirit. He's one of the Holy Trinity. He has no less power or authority
or deity. He's no less worthy of worship
than God the Father is. That's the reason we read earlier
back in John chapter 5, He that honoreth not the Son of God honoreth
not the Father who sent Him. Because they're equal in every
way. I am the Son of God. But then he
reverts back and he says in verse 37, if I do not the works of
my father, speaking again as a servant, but in verse 38, but
if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works that you
may know and believe that the father is in me and I in him. What is he talking about? The
father's in me and I'm in him. He's saying we're equal. And
He calls these people to believe Him, that is, believe His deity. Believe His deity. And you'll
believe that He's God, you'll worship Him as God, or you'll
go to hell. A brother, Stan, mentioned back
in the off-stomach Jehovah's Witnesses. And he asked me, you
believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Is He God? No! They're absolutely wrong. Got no basis to continue with
the conversation there. If He's not God, He can't save
us. If He's not God, He was a fraud. He was a phony. Our Lord Jesus,
He calls these people to believing. and to believe him as being God
over all, blessed forever. He's the divine one. Well, when he said in verse 30,
I am the father of one, they took up stones again to stone
him. You see, there may be some religious people out there, Jehovah's
Witnesses and Mormons and others who deny the deity of the Lord
Jesus and say, he never said he was God in the flesh. Well, I tell you, these Jews
knew exactly what he was saying. They knew, that's the reason
they picked up stones to stone him. And Jesus answered and said,
many good works have I done. I've manifested you from my Father
that I was sent of God. For which of the works do you
stone me? And they said, well, we don't stone you for good work.
They didn't tell all the truth there. You see, they had problems
with his works too because when they could not actually denied
the reality of the works, then they said, well, he does his
works by the power of Beelzebub. In other words, they said he's
satanic. But they said, here's why we
would stone you for blasphemy. And here's the reason, because
of that thou being a man, you're just like us. You're just like
us. And yet you say you're God. And there you stand. You have
all the attributes and the characteristics that we do. And yet you have
the audacity to stand before us. And we're religious rulers. We have studied the Scriptures.
We know about Messiah. We know when He's going to come.
What He's going to be like. And you are not Him. You're not
God in the flesh. You're just a blasphemer. And
that shows you the blindness of the heart of man, because
these men knew the Old Testament, but they didn't know the God
of the Old Testament, and they didn't know the message of the
Old Testament of Christ Jesus and Him crucified. They hated Him without a cause. Jesus answered then, He takes
them back to the Scripture. And you see, whenever you would
talk to somebody about the things of God, our basis for what we believe
is not, hey, I'm a Baptist and this is what Baptists believe.
No. Hey, I'm a Calvinist and this is what us Calvinists believe.
No. The basis of that which we believe
It must be the Word of God. The Word of God. These other
things don't mean anything. I tell you, there's going to
come a day when the name Baptist won't be heard anymore, the denomination
of Baptist. There'll be days coming when
the name Calvinist or Calvinism, something like that, won't be
named anymore, heard anymore. But the word of God, heaven and
earth will disappear, but not the word of God." God said, my
word abides forever. He said, it's written in your
law. You acknowledge that it's written
in your law, in the word. Your gods, and the Lord was speaking
then of rulers and judges, men to whom God had given authority
to judge cases and things like that. And that authority that
they had was ultimately given to them by God because, you see,
all authority is a message to us that the ultimate authority
is God. In the union of a man and wife,
the husband is the head of the household. He has the authority. Mom and dad have the authority
over the kids. In the house of God, the pastor
has the authority over the congregation. In the secular world, there are
people who have authority over us, rulers who represent us.
We live in a republic. People who represent us. We have
a president who represents us. God has given authority to people
in this world And all that authority comes from God and is indicative
of that authority that ultimately God has all of it. So God gave
authority to these judges and so forth in the Old Testament,
to the Jewish legislators and that sort of thing. And the people
called them gods. You're gods. Not capital G, but
little g. In other words, you're men of
authority. And the Lord Jesus said, you
don't have any problem with that. You don't have any problem when
they're called gods. But here I am, and the works
that I've done, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, the
ability to walk to the lame, I cleansed the lepers, I raised
the dead, That shows that I'm God, and
yet when I tell you I'm God, you're enraged. What he says doesn't make sense. You're
not being objective about this. And He says, are you going to
say of Him whom the Father set apart? When did God the Father
set Jesus Christ apart? Set the Son of God apart? Before
the world began, He set Him apart to be the Savior. In fact, He's
the very first one to be set apart, to be chosen, and we were
chosen in Him. He was set apart to be our Redeemer,
to be the one who would save us, to reconcile us to God, give
to us a perfect righteousness. He said, will you say to me,
the one that God the Father set apart before the world began,
that I blaspheme when I say I'm the son of God? And then he says, okay. Our Lord, He used unusual patience with
these people. And he says, okay, if I don't do the works of my
father, then don't believe me. If all of my works have been
fraudulent, hocus pocus type of thing, sleight of hand, then
don't believe me. But if they're real, Now, remember,
a couple of months have gone by since the Feast of Tabernacles.
What happened at the Feast of Tabernacles? He healed a blind
man, remember? And we always need to kind of
keep that in focus here. And he's saying to these people,
was that a real healing? Had that man been blind? And
does he now see? And I would suspect, at least
for the first 21 verses of chapter 10, that that man who was formerly
blind was there with a bunch of them. This man here, is he
an example of a man who's been healed? They knew he was. He says, so though you don't
believe my words, believe my works. Here's the two-fold evidence
of who He is. His words and His works. What He said, what He did. Okay, the Savior says, okay,
so you won't believe what I said, believe what I did. What I did,
that's the evidence of who I am. But will they hear the evidence?
No. No. He says that she may know and
believe. He called them to believe. Believe that the Father's in
me and I'm in the Father. That's everlasting union there. He's saying essentially the same
thing that he said in verse 30. I and the Father are one. We're one in essence, one in
power, one in will, one in purpose. One. Verse 39, therefore they sought
again to take him, but he escaped out of their hands. They wanted
to take him, arrest him, and take him to the Sanhedrin, but
he escaped. It's not the time for him to
die. That'll come later. In verse 40, and he went away
again beyond Jordan into the place where John had first baptized. He went to Bethabara. And there
he abode, and we know he abode there three months. Because as
I've indicated before, if you don't mind putting a note in
your Bible, there between verse 42, well actually verse 40 and
chapter 11 verse 1, three months. Three months go by. And here's
what he's done. He just leaves these people.
He leaves them in their ignorance. He leaves them in their unbelief.
He leaves them in their rejection. He leads them in the rebellion.
For you see, they will not believe what He speaks. They won't acknowledge that His
works are the works that the Father sent Him to do. This is His final declaration
of His deity to them. In fact, this will pretty much
end His public ministry. Because when we get to John chapter
11, we're right into the time when he dies. So he goes beyond Jordan. And
he stayed there. And look at verse 41. And many
resorted to him and said, John didn't do any miracles. These
people, this is where John began to preach the gospel. This is
where John began to say, behold the Lamb of God that takes away
the sin of the world. And they remembered the messages
of John. They remembered the preaching
of John. Keep this in mind, John's dead and gone. John, he's been
beheaded. His ministry's over. But it's
as though he being dead, yet speaketh. And here our Lord Jesus
comes along and He's preaching the same message of grace as
John the Baptist did. And the people said, we remember
another preacher that came this way preaching that same message.
Oh, it's been a long time ago, but don't you remember? Oh yeah,
and the people said, oh yeah, we remember. Oh, what a powerful
preacher he was. But you know, he didn't do any
miracles. No, not like this man did. The Lord Jesus Christ. But they said this, everything
John said about this man, is the truth. What a wonderful kind of a summarization,
maybe you'd say, of John's ministry. All that he said about this ministry.
All that he said was about Jesus Christ. That was his message.
That was his message. And they said, you're the one
he was preaching about. And verse 42, And many believed
on him there. Many believed on him. You see,
John had sowed the seed. Nothing happened then. Old Brother
John, he didn't live to see anything happen there beyond Jordan where
he had been baptized. But he preached the Gospel. And
then many months later, over a year later, Here comes the
Lord Jesus Christ. Seeds already been planted. They
said, you know what? You're preaching the same message
that other preacher preached. And you know what his message
was? He was preaching about you. He was preaching about you. And
they said, we believe you. We believe you. Oh, glorious day when God grants
unto us faith to believe the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, don't
let me remain in my rebellion, unbelief, and rejection. Overcome
that! Because He's got to do that.
Take the good seed of the Word of God. Put it in our hearts. Make us alive. Make us to believe
Him. in the Lord Jesus Christ, because
it sure is sweet to trust Him. That's our final song.