John Chapter Eight: Jesus Debates for Evangelism
By: Deji Yesufu
Historical events may sometimes be traced through the writings of the contemporary writers of those days. It is therefore noteworthy to state that Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan was undergoing a study of the book of John in the same year that the people of Israel experienced the worst terrorist attack on their ancestral land – the incident that is now known as “October 7”. This has also led Israel to launch a full-scale war on terrorist groups in her neighbours, and even threaten attacks on Iran – which is the biggest sponsor of terror in the Middle East. At the bottom of the crisis is religion – the Middle East, which is today largely Islamic, is antagonistic to the Jewish nation situated in her region because through Israel the gospel can be launched into their countries. Christianity and Judaism may seem to be standing side by side today, but in the days of Jesus, it was not so. The Jewish leaders of Jesus’ days were incredibly critical of our Lord’s claims. John chapter eight depicts this much more than any of that book of gospels.
The chapter opens with Jesus heading to the Mount of Olives to pray, while his detractors in the previous chapter went to their homes to sleep. Christ returns to the temple in the morning to meet a situation: a woman has been caught in adultery – in the very act. A rational mind should have questioned why it was only the woman who was caught; where was the man she was engaging in the act with? The misogyny in the whole situation was apparent. The situation was equally dire because the Jewish leaders sought to put Jesus in a fix: if he sanctioned her being stoned to death, he would share in a clear civil crime that the Romans could prosecute. If he did not condemn the woman, he would share in the woman’s sins. Our Lord, in his characteristic wisdom, asks the woman’s transducers: “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her…” I am thoroughly convinced that it was the force of the spoken words that led those men to conviction and made them leave that woman alone. Jesus tells her: “… go and sin no more.” In other words, Moses is right in telling you to stone the adulterer; and the civil government is right in judging crises like these according to the laws of the land. But there is One that has come who is greater than Moses and the Romans: the rest of the chapter will be a debate between the Jews and Jesus on who he was.
Jesus now provides three witnesses to his claims of being divine: first – that the Father bears witness of his ministry (verse 18); second – that at the core of his ministry is salvation from sin (verse 24); and third – a response to the Jews question of “Who are you?” – that Jesus indeed is one sent from God the Father to teach the Jews a new and living way. In my commentaries on the book of John, I have repeated over and over again that in a sense the Jews cannot be blamed for rejecting the person of Christ. Many of the claims our Lord was making sounded way above their heads. For example, the Jewish shema teaches that there is only one God. But here is Jesus claiming to be God too. How does one reconcile this? In the latter part of John 8, Jesus invites Abraham to lend credence to his ministry. For now, it is sufficient to say that if the Jews followed the laws of consistency, they would have been able to begin to decipher the truth in the words of Jesus. The real challenge with the Jews was not that Christ was teaching something new; the real challenge with these people then, and the problem of many religious people today, is inherent prejudices. It is not an accident that the chapter began with the misogyny of the Jewish people. Everywhere in their perception of life and religion, was a deep defective worldview. Regardless of what Jesus said or did, they simply had nothing within them to believe his words.
The moment Jesus raised the point of identity, talking about his relations with the Father, the Jews also pointed out the fact that they were not born illegitimately: that their father is Abraham. Jesus very quickly points out to them that they were not the children of Abraham because Abraham never sought to kill him. Jesus told the Jews that instead of this deep jealousy and prejudice they had against his ministry when Abraham saw him, he rejoiced to see his day. The Jews are aghast: how old are you that you tell us that you have seen Abraham? You are not even up to fifty years old, and Abraham had lived some two thousand years before that time. At this point in the debate, Jesus is speaking spiritually but the Jews are way too carnal to appreciate his point. Our Lord is referring to the incident in Genesis 18 when three strangers approached the tent of Abraham. Quickly, he did everything to make them comfortable. We will learn that one of the men is the LORD – the pre-incarnate Christ. When Abraham saw Jesus for the first time, he sought to entertain him; while the Jews had lived with Jesus for some three years, and seen his miracles, yet they despised him. There was no doubt whose sons they were – they were not the sons of Abraham. The discussion therefore reaches its climax when Jesus proves to the Jews that their father was not Abraham, neither do they have God as Father. Instead, Jesus affirmed that they were sons of the devil and like the devil they sought to murder a righteous man, they were unable to learn biblical truth, and they were liars. The Jews had had enough, the moment Jesus told them that he was greater than Abraham and was actually “I AM”, they picked up stones to stone him.
What Jesus is doing with the Jews: tolerance and dialogue are what the Western world has succeeded at bringing to the field of religion. It is safe to say that our world is progressive today only in the sense that she permits the proliferation of ideas through debates. What debates do is that it allows for the best ideas to triumph in the marketplace of thinking. Where the best ideas are adopted in a nation, there is a likelihood that that country will know development and progress. This is the great advantage that countries like the United States of America have. They have also succeeded in selling these ideas to Israel, so much so that that tiny country in the Middle East is the most powerful country in those parts of the world. Israel entering into military conflict with its Muslim neighbours is necessary. Where Israel triumphs, the liberalization of ideas will come into those countries. The days are coming when Christian missionaries will enter Iran, Iraq and places like Saudi Arabia and share the gospel freely. Like Jesus is debating the Jews, they will debate Muslims, and hopefully, the best idea will triumph. Jesus debated the Jews because he understood that eventually, his truth would win over theirs. It did not matter that they killed him. His death and resurrection only further brought redemption to humanity. What Jesus is doing with the Jews is what you and I are called to do with people of diverse faith, with the hope that God will bring conviction to the hearts of the elects. Debates can be evangelism.
Amen.
Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY.
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