The Gospel of John

The Question of Authority

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 24- 70

Genre:

Track: 024

Dictation Name: RR197N26

Location/Venue:

Year:

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing, enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name. For the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth unto all generations Amen.

Let us pray. Our Lord and our God we come into Thy presence again knowing how great Thou art and how great Thy mercies unto us have been and are for Thy mercies are new every morning. Teach us always to be grateful, teach us to give thanks, to trust in Thee and to know that Thy word and Thy promises unto us are all together good. Bless us this morning as we give ourselves to the study of Thy word, grant that we may understand Thee and Thy kingdom more clearly and serve Thee more joyfully. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture this morning is John 8:12-20. Our subject: The Question of Authority. John 8:12-20.

“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.

14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.

15 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.

16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.

17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.

18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me.

19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.

20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet come.”

These word are part of a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. At issue His authority. In Matthew 21:23 we are told that in the temple the chief priests and the elders of the people came to Jesus as He was teaching to demand ‘by what authority doest thou these things and who gave Thee this authority’. Neither our Lord’s miracles nor His teachings were specified because they wanted no examination of Christ’s records but simply to challenge His right to do or to say anything. In the incident in Matthew our Lord puts these leaders on the spot by asking the baptism of John. Whence was it, from heaven or of man? The religious leaders were unwilling to answer Him and so He would not answer them. In this episode He uses the opportunity to indict them and to set forth His own person. He begins by declaring: I am the Light of the World, he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness but have the light of life. The occasion, the feast of Tabernacles, was a reminder of the wilderness journey with the pillar of fire lighting their way and protecting them. By declaring himself to be the light of the world, the light of all who follow Him and their light of life, Jesus declares Himself to be one with God the Father. In effect, He invited the Pharisees to challenge openly His self-identification. This they did not dare to do. The miraculous feeding clearly invited comparison to the wilderness manna and this question they had no desire to raise.

Two things therefore that reminded them of their history, the pillar of fire, I am the light of the world, the miraculous feeding, manna in the wilderness. Jesus answers them was in effect a summons to follow Him out of the new Egypt, Judea, into the wilderness and freedom. Now Egypt in His thinking is Jerusalem and Revelation 1, or rather 11:8 speaks of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. Nothing could be plainer. Not only is Jerusalem compared to Egypt but also to the deprived Sodom. Christ says I am the pillar of fire which alone can lead you out of the present day Egypt and Sodom. Well naturally the Pharisees did not pursue that fact, they did not want more said about that. The people might not fully agree with Christ’s declaration of himself but too many had a low regard for the religious leadership of the day. The rise of Christianity in the Jewish-Roman War 66-70 A.D. left a partially leaderless people. The Sadducees were identified too much with Rome and the Pharisees came to the fore as a result of the war. So we cannot read their success backwards in time, Judaism today is Phariseeism. But they were a minority group at this time, the Sadducees represented the powers that be. Well instead of answering the Pharisees said ‘thou bearest record of thyself, thy record is not true’. They were citing the law of Moses. The law requires corroboration of any testimony before it can be accepted. The Pharisees therefore insisted on discounting anything that Jesus said as lacking corroboration. Jesus answered by saying ‘I do bear record of myself but my record or witness is true’. Its truth is self-evident and so it means no corroboration.

If you stand out in the open on a warm sunny day and there’s no one around you but a blind man who says there is no sun do you need any corroboration? The heat of the sun tells anyone that it is there. So our Lord in effect says at what point would you challenge me? The miracles are real and evident! They are corroboration by the Father. I know My origin and My destiny, you are so blinded that you cannot say whence I came from or whether I shall go. You condemn He tells them after the flesh, as fallen men but I judge no man. My mission now is simply to save and to heal those who will be so blessed. However, if I judge, my judgment is always true because my judgment is never alone for God judges with me He tells them. My judgment in other words has behind it the judgment of God the Father. Can you question what I have said and done without questioning the Father? You require quite properly because god’s law requires it, two witnesses, I bear witness and the Father at every point confirms my witness. This was a direct challenge to the Pharisees to examine His works and words instead of challenging His authority. His works and words had an inherent testimony and authority. So they shifted away from the miracles and His words to say ‘by what authority’. Well it was comparable in changing Him to university professors telling Thomas Edison that they could not accept as valid his harnessing of electricity to give lights until he presented his appropriate university credentials. With such tests nothing becomes acceptable, the response was again evasive.

Instead of looking to the scriptures for validation or non-validation the Pharisees asked ‘where is Thy father’. Our Lord simply dismissed them: ye neither know me nor my Father, they had not asked who is Thy father but where is He. Where they implying His father was the devil? They were later to say so. Where they inferring Christ came from hell? Their malevolence was clearly very great. Our Lord’s answer is dismissive, ye neither know me nor my Father, f ye knew me ye would also know my Father. We again see the enormity of evil. The modern faith is in facts, as a result where men’s faith militates against the facts the facts are declared null and void. We see that with evolutionary thinking. It violates every law of science, spontaneous generation, something out of nothing, it posits from the time in a vast emptiness an atom or a spark of life or something was born and it developed from billions upon billions and trillions upon trillions of miracles into life. When Darwin was confronted by the enormity of all this he admitted at one point well he could not account for the evolution of the eye, big of him, quite generous. Well, facts are declared null and void by the very people who demand facts. The clear cut evidence of our Lord’s life and works is denied by those who refuse to admit His truth, power and person. Modernism and unbelief are exercises in a false faith, not an honest consideration of the truth. Men hate the truth and love a lie unless they are truly made new in Christ.

How we know and what we know has its foundation in what we are. True knowledge has moral foundations and the moral illusion that facts are determinative is a dangerous one. Courts of law become courts of injustice if God’s son and God’s law do not govern them. Our courts today grow more and more evil and at times the innocent victims and the police seem more on trial than the accused. The Supreme Court has been wiser than many courts in barring television because the reports as they’re coming in have indicated that nothing has disillusioned the Americans with regards to the courts more than the O.J. Simpson trial. In verse twenty we are told that our Lord had been teaching in or at the treasury, the place where the thirteen bronze chests were placed for the people to drop their offerings. These were at the court of women and near to the place where the Sanhedrin met. It was close to the seat of religious authority and yet no man laid hands on Him for his hour was not yet come. So those who were not there challenging Him were close by and their officers were readily available but at this point they were unwilling to do anything openly. The confrontation was of God’s ordination and the confrontation had become an evasion, they gave no honest consideration to our Lord’s words and works.

They only challenged His right to speak and that’s a good way of evading the truth. I’ve been interested in the growing challenge for example that is developing to home churches. What right do they have to hold a service outside a church building on the Lord’s Day? Or outside of church leaders and their authority? And they never say ‘why are they having a home church’, why, why. Or are they teaching something false? No they don’t raise that question. One man, found that a great many people in the place where he worked, all well to do younger executive type people, were curious about the faith but none of them wanted to go to a church, they had too many bad experiences. So what happened, this young man said well why don’t I start a class. After work you can come over to my place and I’m not far from here, we can have a class. Twenty six came to the first meeting. It was a tremendous success, a great deal of excitement and it continued and grew. But he was so pleased with it he mentioned it at his church and he was called in and ordered to cease and desist, well he explained why the circumstances and said if you want to assign one of the assistant pastors take charge of the class I’ll be happy to set aside. They said you don’t get the point you have no right to start something and tell us what we should do. Well they lost all the young men, a growing group, and they lost this young man as well. Hatred governs such challenges. As the bible says such people in effect say we are the people. We are the ones who can speak for all and so they challenge anyone’s right to dissent and hatred governs their challenge.

They have not done their duty and therefore they deny the right of anyone to do what is right. The Pharisees had in effect denied the Father as well as the Son in favor of themselves and this is a choice still common in the church. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that our Lord cannot be contained by the authoritarian devices and models of men. We thank Thee that the whole earth and creation cannot contain Him nor limit Him nor control Him for He is the Lord. Give us grace always to know Thee oh God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost is alone Lord of all things, our Lord, our redeemer. Make us joyful in Thee and ready to separate ourselves from others unto Thee and Thy kingdom. For it is Thy will alone that shall be done and Thy kingdom alone that shall come and prevail. Oh Lord how great Thou art and we praise Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Yes. There was no question I think in their minds that this was of God but they preferred their own way and their own will to God and His Son.

[Question] Has the church today elevated itself above God?

[Rushdoony] The church too often has elevated itself above God because in a sense what we have seen developed is a concept that has pagan and Greco-Roman origins that in Hagel’s terms ‘the spirit of being’, of the God who is inherent, imminent in all of matter and creation, is incarnating himself there. And so he manifests himself in the church or in some leader, I believe Hagel if I recall correctly briefly saw Napoleon as the incarnation of that but basically the Prussian state. But they see it as incarnate in some aspect of the created order. Well, if you believe that then that you believe that the high point of being is the person or group of persons who are in power and in authority or who are the key minds. And this kind of thinking is very heady stuff. Now it has reappeared again and again in history, to me one of the more delightful if grim aspects of that was Henry the Eighth. Henry the Eighth was brought up by the Renaissance scholars, one of them Sir Thomas Moore, to be a philosopher king after Plato. Only they were going to control this philosopher king. And Henry decided, well, why should I have them I might as well do it myself. And Sir Thomas Moore has been his counselor in advocating the break with Rome but when Henry broke with Sir Thomas Moore he decided he’d go back to Rome against Henry. Well the state of the church has been seen at one time or another or the intellectuals or religious leaders as somehow the voice of this developing spirit. So in a sense they are expressions of the continuing incarnation.

His voice for the time. And one Unitarian thinker of about a hundred and fifty years ago held that the spirit of the age incarnates itself, he was a Hagelian, and finds a voice in that age. This kind of thinking is very much with us, all around us, and you find it expressed in the mainline churches, you find it expressed in some evangelists who when caught in their sins feel that they are above criticism. So it really amounts to a way of saying not openly and honestly ‘the Bible doesn’t give proper expression to the true God, we do’.

Are there any other questions and comments?

We see in John from beginning to end and it builds up as it goes on a challenge to the powers that be. To the forces that governed his age and govern every age. Perhaps that’s one reason why the Gospel of John has been such a target on the part of the higher critics, so called. And it’s ironic that on the other side, pietists, have turned it into a book that has very little relationship to the hard battles that the book tells us about from beginning to end. Well if there are no further questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee for this Thy word. We thank Thee that Thy word is a light to guide us upon our way. Teach us to turn away from the false lights of men and nations and institutions and rely only upon Thy word and Thy light. Our pillar of fire, Jesus Christ who guides us to our promised land. Bless us in Thy service. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, Amen.