Who Are You?

March 11 Who are You? John 8:21-30

“He first says that He will soon go away, meaning that the Gospel is preached to them only for a little while, and if they let this opportunity slip, the accepted time and days of salvation will not last forever. Thus also today, we must go at once to meet Christ when He knocks at our door…” John Calvin “Commentary on John” Vol. 4:214

“Who are you?” asked those who listened to Jesus. Their question represents the one asked in every age, by every person. The answer to that question determines one’s relationship to Jesus Christ. Those who believe in Him will have the privilege of following where He leads; those who reject Him cannot go where He has gone.

Even more clearly than before, Jesus claimed identification with the eternally self-existent God, revealed in the history of His people as “I AM WHO I AM.” Jesus’ use of the divine name in reference to Himself must have antagonized the authorities, but it illuminated those who had eyes to see. The great sin of those who condemned Him was their refusal to accept Him. As a result, they were condemned, and they could not go where He was about to go.

Still, they misunderstood. Where was it that He could go that they could not? Was He about to take His own life? No, but He was about to offer up His life for the sins of many. They did not understand that Jesus was referring to a spiritual realm, to which He would ascend following His resurrection. They looked for an actual, physical location. He was going to be with His Father, in heaven.

When Jesus spoke of being “lifted up” He pointed back, once again, to the Exodus; He also pointed forward to His mission’s fulfillment. In the wilderness, the bronze serpent had been lifted up as a symbol of healing. In the not-so-distant future, Jesus would be lifted up on the Cross for the healing of our sins. This would be His exaltation – the time of His greatest suffering but also of His greatest triumph.

The title “Son of Man’ is also messianic. Jesus continued to explain, in veiled language, who He was and what was about to happen to Him. The suffering servant would be lifted up by His enemies, an object of shame; but in that exaltation many would recognize Him, like the centurion standing by the Cross who, looking up, proclaimed Him the Son of God. Jesus did not mean that the act of crucifixion would, necessarily, convince those who condemned Him. He meant that the very fact of being lifted up on the Cross would be the key to His identity for many. He was, of course, correct. For two thousand years, the symbol of a living faith has been an instrument of death. Only by coming to an understanding of the purpose of Calvary can we begin to recognize Jesus as the very image of the invisible God who suffered there for us.

This means that, although the death of Jesus was a cruel and terrible tragedy, it still lay within the purposes of God. Everything that Jesus said came from and bore the authority of the Father. Everything that Jesus did, including the Cross, lay within His Father’s will. This does not make the Father cruel, vindictive, or vengeful. It simply means that God used human sin to overcome sin. The cruelty that sent Christ to the Cross was matched by the courage that kept Him there, and by the conviction that, by His wounds, we are healed.

For further reading: Psalm 89:1-38