The Gospel of John

War against God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 29- 70

Genre:

Track: 029

Dictation Name: RR197Q29

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Year:

Let us worship God. Blessed is the man who Thou choosest and causes approach unto Thee that he may dwell in Thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy holy temple. Let us pray. Oh Lord our God we give thanks unto Thee that day after day Thy mercies are new every morning. Teach us therefore to trust in Thee, to know that Thy ways are altogether righteous and holy. Take away from us our impatience and make us ever mindful that Thou who hast begun so great a work for us will continue unto the end that Thou who didst give Thy life for us will do yet more and care for us. Our God we thank Thee, in Christ’s name, Amen.

Our scripture is John 8:49-59. Our subject: War Against God. John 8:49-59.

“Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.

50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and judgeth.

51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.

53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?

54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God:

55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying.

56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.

57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?

58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.”

The confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders now reaches its climax. As is often the case then as now religious leaders often believe they have a monopoly on religion and that God has no other voice than their voice. Jesus had called attention previously to their willful misunderstanding of Him and their efforts to defame and dishonor Him. So be it. If in the face of this animosity a man honor Jesus and His word even as others seek His dishonor then He shall never see death because our Lord says he already has eternal life. He is already a member of Christ’s kingdom. Because our Lord disagreed with the religious leaders they then accused Him of being devil possessed. They had suspected it previously they said but now we know. Because they reject Him they rejected His words and His deeds. The miracles are discounted and His words are rejected. Because in their own eyes they believe they are good and are the guardians of true religion. Jesus must be devil possessed. After all is He not attacking them? What could be more proof that He is evil. He has attacked them. Abraham is dead, he died long ago they then say and the Pharisees were now speaking like Sadducees. They professed to believe in life after death but Abraham was not a living person to them.

The Pharisees also overstate His comment that those who keep His saying who ground their lives on Him shall never see death. In their version Jesus said he will never taste of death. A common image in antiquity was the bitterness of death, the bitterness of death. Whether in Homer or others you meet that expression and it was common to the world of that time. Even those who believed in life after death saw it as a shadow life and the dead as shades, that was a common term for them. As pallid ghosts and such was the Greek view in Homer. In fact, if you were going to go to some kind of person who could help you communicate with the dead it was believed necessary for you to take an animal to be sacrificed and the blood poured into a basin and then the ghosts would crowd around as they began to take shape and drink of the blood and only by drinking of that blood would they be able to talk. That was the common belief. In the most sophisticated Greek thinking that type of thinking was prevalent. The echo of this pagan view of death as bitter indicates the extent to which the Greco-Roman culture had influenced the leaders in Judaism. Then they accused Jesus of making Himself greater than Abraham and the prophets. Abraham and the prophets are dead, does He believe Himself to be immune to death? But they already knew He was greater. Abraham and the prophets with rare exceptions, Elijah and Elisha, worked no miracles. Our Lord’s life and works were without equal, the purpose of their judgment was ridicule not truth.

But Jesus answers despite your persistent attempts to dishonor me God my Father honors me. You call God your Father but you pay no attention to the obvious confirmation of my person and work. I do not need to honor myself, self-honor is nothing he tells them but God has honored me by working in me and through me. Jesus here again opened the door to them for an acknowledgment of His person, His word and His works. They have called Him demonic but they have rejected evidence to the contrary. They reject all evidence that does not conform to their evil presuppositions. The Father has glorified Jesus in all His works but they reject Jesus because they reject God the Father. Having glorified themselves falsely using God’s name they now reject the Father by rejecting Jesus. Ye hath not known the Father who I have known, I would be a liar like you if I said otherwise. You cannot recognize the hand and presence of God. I keep the Father’s saying, I live in obedience to Him. If I deny who and what I am I will be a liar like you. Earlier in verse forty four Jesus had declared the father of these religious leaders to be the devil. A liar and a murderer from the beginning. Now He demonstrates to them that relationship is proved by action. This is a fact the world chooses to ignore. Morality is revelational of character. The idea that you really don’t know what people are like because you don’t know what’s in their heart is Greek rubbish, it’s not Christianity. Our Lord says by their fruit shall ye know them, or, morality reveals one’s character.

The relationship is proved by action. Well empty professions of faith are all too common in our day. Our premise must be our Lords, by their fruit you shall know them, faith without works is dead as our Lord’s brother James declared. Pietism has replaced the priority of a faith that has work with empty words, with pious gush. Pious words are no evidence of faith in too many cases. These religious leaders saw themselves as pillars of the faith but they were planning to murder our Lord. In verse fifty six our Lord boldly says your Father Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad. He rejoiced, meaning he was overjoyed and exalted. Since this statement is in the past tense it could mean that Abraham while on earth saw in visions Christ’s coming. Genesis 12:3 perhaps hints at that. Perhaps he all his life exalted over the future coming of the Messiah. According to Plumber and I quote:

“The Old Testament saints in paradise were allowed to know that the Messiah had come. How this was revealed to them we are not told but here is a plain statement of the fact.” Unquote.

Well, whether Morse or Plumber is right it is hard to say but we do know that Abraham rejoiced to see Christ’s day however he saw it. The religious leaders were quick to answer, again taking Christ’s word in as wrong a sense as possible. Thou art not yet fifty years old and has Thou seen Abraham? Fifty meant maturity to them and Jesus was in His early thirties. How could He speak so familiarly of a man dead over two thousand years? Jesus said verily, verily I say unto you before Abraham was, I Am. Before Abraham ever existed I was the eternally self-existent one. Again Jesus identifies Himself as God incarnate.

They refused to pick up on that. They do not want that out in the open. John in His prologue to the gospels speaks of Jesus the Christ as the eternally preexistent and self-existent God the Son, the logos. God’s supreme self-identification to Moses in Genesis 3:14 following was exactly this: I Am. I Am that I Am. There was no mistaking what our Lord said and the religious leaders knew it. Their response was to pick up stones to kill Him. The temple was under expansion and building stones were apparently lying around. Our Lord simply hid Himself in the crowd and left. He had made clear first that He knows Abraham their father in a way that they do not. Second, He is God Incarnate the eternal logos. Third this means that He is the Messiah of prophesy. All that they profess to believe in He is and they refuse to know Him. The implications are clear. The religious leaders are indeed evil, they profess to believe in God and in His messiah but face to face with Him their response is attempted murder. It is significant that in our Lord’s day the center of unbelief is the temple . Just as today the center of unbelief and cynicism, skepticism, under a façade of religiosity or piety is too often the church. They could not answer Him so they attempted to murder Him.

This raises a greater question: can men murder God? This has been and is the goal of much man’s activity, both the church and in the world to eliminate God somehow. It is an idiotic goal. Men thinks that by blinding himself to God and by killing God’s people here on earth he will eliminate God. Man is at war against God and it is a losing war. It is significant that we had at the beginning of the sixties a very influential school of thought, the death of God school. It didn’t go away it’s just been built upon so that most of your reigning theologies in the major seminaries today are based on the death of God school of thought. Now, what was basic to that school of thought? They never said God is dead as I’ve pointed out before they simply said God is dead for us. Whether He exists or not we regard Him as irrelevant for us and so whatever He may be out there for us is dead. Well that’s like blinding yourself and saying there is no sun. But our age is built upon that, an incredible delusion. It’s built upon a willful self-blindness. A few years ago we had here with us before he moved on and working with us and working for us Timothy Long. Some of you who were here then remember him. He had been previously a missionary in Papua and New Guinea.

And he described an ailment that existed there although it was disappearing as cannibalism was disappearing, kuru. K-U-R-U. Cannibalism led to insanity. And the natives knew it but they indulged in it because they felt by eating this or that powerful warrior whom they captured or killed they would gain his strength and it was worthwhile however briefly they felt no matter what happened to them after. Well while Tim was still here of course something happened in Britain, perhaps you remember it, cow madness. Cows that became crazy and sheep also, why? Because they were fed when they were being fattened with processed foods that involved the byproducts, the waste products from butchered cattle and butchered sheep, so they were turned into cannibals and became insane. It led for a while to all English beef and lamb being barred from the continent because they were afraid it might be transmitted to people. But men will not learn what is happening right now. Well in China of course they have the one child policy. And any women who are then pregnant after having one child are compulsorily aborted and now there’s a lively market in the meat of these aborted fetuses. And yet the whole scientific world and its headed up by the scientists of China knows what cannibalism leads to whether in men or animals. Kuru and similar complaints depending on the species. And yet they proceed.

When men war against God they are suicidal, they lose their sense of causality. It is regularly amazing to me although I should not be surprised, I’ve seen it so often, how sinful people lose common sense and do things that ultimately lead to their self-destruction. The leaders, the religious leaders waged war against God, they did it by trying to kill God and the person of Christ and the person of the followers. So they were sending men far and wide to arrest Christians. But it destroyed them, the temple, Jerusalem and all of Judea. Our world today will not learn, it is a suicidal course and unless it repents it will likewise perish. Men can never win in a war against God. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee that our Lord is our redeemer, our king, our shield and our defender. Make us ever mindful as we look at our lives how often our sins and our mistakes have led us into trouble and how often thy providential care has delivered us, preserved us and prospered us. Oh Lord our God how great Thou art and we praise Thee and thank Thee. In Christ’s name, Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Yes. Yes and men somehow think that if they work at it long enough they are going to make sin succeed. Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] You’ve put it as well as it can be. People regularly astonish me when they pursue a course given a high order of intelligence that is suicidal. And then somehow they have to blame a bystander for their own stupidity. It really is an appalling thing and yet very, very common place thing. Yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Yes. I believe that in our time education, prestige and position make people more arrogant. It isn’t that they have any special depravity as against others but they have a better opportunity to indulge in it and more ego so they are very, very prone to involve themselves in amazing absurdities.

Any other questions or comments? Well…yes?

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] He answered them honestly. His time had not yet come so even though there was a confrontation here He did not push, they did the pushing and He answered them.

[Unintelligible Question]

[Rushdoony] Well what he wanted to do was bring the issues so clearly into the open that for all time men would be without excuse. These people were clearly without excuse and as we read it, it horrifies us that people could be so self-blinded. So our Lord brings out the issues very clearly and for all time they are made absolutely unmistakable.

Well if there are no further comments lets conclude with prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee for Thy word. We thank Thee that our Lord spelled out the issues so clearly and plainly. Write them upon the tables of our heart so that we may always be mindful of how great was His love, His patience, and His sacrifice. Grant this in Christ’s name. 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.