Thoughts on John 10

Today’s reading: 2 Kings 11; John 10

I know I just wrote about this in my post on John 7, but if Jesus felt the need to talk about it again, and John felt the need to record Jesus talking about it again, I guess maybe we should talk about it again as well.

As Jesus is walking in the temple, Jews gather around Him and tell Him to tell them plainly whether He is the Christ. This is reasonable on their part because Jesus is doing all the right things that the Messiah is supposed to do, but the only time He has directly and unequivocally said that He is the Messiah was to the woman at the well, and nobody else was present for that. They are expecting the Messiah to come in as a conquering hero, to rally the troops, to rescue Israel from all their oppressors (specifically Rome at the time), and to establish His kingdom on earth, and Jesus’ actions don’t really match up with that expectation. Why wouldn’t the conquering king boldly declare His identity and call for everyone to follow Him??

Jesus’ response is to say, “I told you, but you don’t believe me.” He then points them once more back to the works He has been doing that nobody could do apart from the power of the Lord, which should be enough to validate His identity and claims. But then when Jesus says, “I and the Father are one,” the people pick up stones to stone Him for blasphemy.

How ironic is this? The people, seeing Jesus do the works the Messiah is expected to do, want Him to tell them if He is the Messiah, but then when He answers them, they try to kill Him for it…

I think there are two things going on in their rejection of Jesus’ identity that I see from people responding to Jesus today too: (1) responding when Jesus goes from theoretical to practical, and (2) responding when Jesus’ identity means their condemnation.

On the one hand, people tend to like the idea of Jesus much more than they actually like Jesus. The Jews wanted a savior, and as long as that savior hadn’t shown up yet, they could all have their own ideas about what he would be like and how he would operate, but once Jesus shows up on the scene, He is no longer a theoretical savior that they can mold in their own heads to match their own preferences. Once they are dealing with a real person they don’t get to choose what He is like and which of their theological positions He might take issue with. Once Jesus is really there, the only choices they have are to get in line behind Him or reject Him in order to preserve their own ideas. And this is the position many people are in today as well. People like the idea of heaven, but not so much the idea of needing a savior to take them there, or they are fine with needing a savior, theoretically, but not so much the admission that there is actually anything insufficient about them as they already are. Theoretical Jesus is much easier for people to get behind than real Jesus, especially when real Jesus said and taught things that make them uncomfortable…

The other thing people have trouble responding to is when the reality of Jesus means their condemnation. If practical Jesus perfectly matched their theoretical Messiah, agreeing with all of their preconceptions and positions, Jesus would have been an easy pill for them to swallow, but this is not how Jesus works. To be on a different page from Jesus means condemnation, and people take offense to that. The Jews were angry because Jesus said that the reason they didn’t already recognize Him as the Messiah was because they were not sheep of His flock, meaning if Jesus really is the Messiah, they are cut off from His salvation. I think a lot of people would have an easier time accepting Jesus if the reality of His identity didn’t mean anything about them or their eternity. But to admit that Jesus is who He says He is is to admit that, currently, I am on my way to Hell unless I admit my need for a savior. Or it is to admit that people I care about who have already died, not believing in Jesus, are condemned. As much as it doesn’t make rational sense, it feels like by rejecting Jesus, we are “saving” other people, or ourselves, from Hell, as though our personal recognition defines reality.

This is why the crowd around Jesus can go from recognizing His works as those of the Messiah to rejecting Him and wanting to kill Him for making a Messianic claim in a couple sentences. They all had their own Messiah in their own heads and their own Messiahs agreed with them in every way. But when the real Messiah was before them, challenging their personal convictions, they were unable to bow before Him in recognition of His power, identity, and position, and say, like Peter in John 6, “I may not like what you’re saying or teaching right now, but I have come to believe that you are the Holy One of God. To whom else could I go?”

So when the real Jesus is calling you to respond in faith to the salvation He is offering you, how will you respond? Will you reject Him for failing to match the Jesus you have built up in your own mind, or will you allow the Lord to be Lord and let that be enough?