Saving Faith (John 8:31-59)
John was selective in what he shared with us in the Gospel of John. It was organized in this particular way for a reason. And he will tell us that at the end of the Gospel of John,
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31 ESV)
There were many things that John could have written about that he did not. The reason that he included what he did and excluded what he did was for this purpose. So that you would believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and that by doing so, you would have eternal life.
Now, with that being our understanding of the purpose of this book, we can ascertain why John included the conversation at the end of John 8 that he did.
He is helping us to understand, through this conversation with people that proclaimed faith in Him, what the nature of saving faith is.
This is an enlightening conversation. It calls us to persevere in the faith. It calls us to re-examine what we mean by faith. And it calls us to put away the easy-believism that has dominated evangelicalism over the last 20 years.
It calls us to re-examine slogans like “once saved always saved”. And it calls us to think more deeply about what we mean by eternal security.
True freedom is found only through saving faith in Jesus Christ.
Saving Faith Perseveres (John 8:31)
Consider how this section begins. Jesus looks at the people that have chosen to follow Him and says, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples.” He is talking to people that profess faith in Him.
That word “abide” is very important. It means to “continue”. It doesn’t mean raise your hand and repeat after me. It doesn’t mean make a one-time profession of faith and forget about everything else. It means to continue.
In our own statement of faith, this reality is put forward.
“All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” (Baptist Faith and Message 2000. V. God’s Purpose of Grace, 2nd paragraph.)
Elsewhere, John wrote,
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” (1John 2:19 ESV)
In this discussion, the very first thing that Jesus says about saving faith is that it continues. It remains. It abides.
How many people do we know that have made a profession, even been baptized, not to think another word about Jesus?
How many people tried faith in Christ for a few months only to turn away when things became difficult? Or boring?
Saving Faith is not a one-time decision. It’s not getting our ticket punched. It’s not like buying a ticket to the Fair. Saving Faith is a faith that endures, that perseveres.
Before the last 100 years, people would never have dreamed that walking an isle and praying a prayer were what it took to make a person a Christian. They never would have dreamed that once that person recited the words they were told to repeat after the pastor that their ticket was punched forever.
Before that, Christians talked about the Perseverance of the Saints. This idea is seen in our statement of faith. “All true believers endure to the end.” There may be times where the true believer falls away for a period of time. But he will, ultimately, endure to the end.
Illustration: I am glad that we discuss numbers. Numbers represent people. An additional person in the pews on Sunday is an additional person that is choosing to follow God’s command to be in Church. Another person baptized is another person professing faith in Christ and being brought out of the Kingdom of Darkness and into the light. But Southern Baptists have often lived by the numbers and, in some ways, it has been to our detriment.
Pastors are taught that, unless your church is baptizing 1 new member for every 20 church members, you are not a healthy church. And if your church has high baptism numbers, then you get recognized by the State Convention. And what does this lead to?
“All you must do is pray this prayer. Now come down here and get baptized. Write this date down in your Bible and if you’re ever tempted to believe you’re not a Christian remember this decision you made. Praise God, you’re now a child of God and you have a home in Heaven.”
How many people have gone away from an experience like that and thought, “my tickets punched for Heaven. I’m good.”? And how many of those people left churches never to return and never to think about Jesus again.
Did these people abide? Did these people continue in the faith?
I have great fears concerning people in the South for this reason. How many of them profess some sort of faith in Christ, but do not continue in the faith? How many of them were baptized at the age of 8 at a children’s camp or vbs never to return to Church?
These warnings come to us from time to time and we sometimes just ignore them. But they are there for this reason.
“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you–unless you believed in vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-2 ESV)
We read right past the “if” and act as if it is not there. But what does Paul mean? Does he not mean that true faith endures? Does he not mean to tell us that some people don’t endure to the end? Does he not mean to give a warning here calling you to endure in the faith?
Again, what is it that Jesus says to people that profess faith in Him? “If you abide in my Word, you are truly disciples.”
Saving Faith Abides in Jesus’s Word
Today it is common for people to speak of faith as some sort of an amorphous blob that cannot really be defined. But a whole lot of people believe they have it.
Here we see that faith does not just exist. It doesn’t just abide, whatever that would mean. It abides in Jesus’s Word. And all Scripture is the Word of Christ, not just the red letters.
I don’t get to say that I have faith in Christ and at the same time make everything up as I go. And I certainly don’t get to say that I have faith in Christ while rejecting His words.
As a conservative, I automatically think about things like rainbow flag waving pastors that advocate for abortion and homosexuality. They don’t believe the Bible to be true, but they will tell everyone that they have faith. But I don’t think that this attitude is just found in liberals.
For instance, who gets to have a say in pastor qualifications. We read in the pastor qualifications that a pastor must be a man who is a “one woman man” who leads His family well. But how many churches act like they get to ignore that and decide on their own who is qualified? How many churches in this town have pastors that have been divorced three times and working on their fourth? How many pastors around are men that do not govern their homes well? But for some reason they and their congregation believe that they are suited for the job.
Saving faith is not a faith that says, “I hear what you’re saying, but I’ll do it my own way.” It is a laying down of our arms and entrusting ourselves to Christ. Sure, we’ll get things wrong from time to time. I’ve certainly been corrected in my understanding of things over the years. But saving faith does not have ourselves upon the throne. Saving faith does not abide in our words, our thoughts, and our thinking. Saving faith abides in the words of Christ.
And this includes Jesus’s Word about Himself. Here we see Jesus proclaim to everyone that could hear Him that He is Yahweh. That is what He proclaimed when He had this discussion.
His hearers began to understand that Jesus was proclaiming Himself to be greater than all the Old Testament heroes when He proclaimed that those who trust in Him would never die. Even the greatest of the Hebrews died. Abraham died, Moses died, the Prophets died. But the person who believes in Jesus will not see death?
This discussion is depicted for us in John 8:52-58. The Pharisees ask Jesus if He is greater than Abraham. And the response is truly astounding. He tells the Pharisees that Abraham rejoiced that he would see Jesus’s day. And in fact, Abraham did see it and was glad (John 8:56). This is a confusing statement for us to examine, but it is likely a reference to Abraham seeing God’s promises fulfilled right before his eyes. Abraham saw Isaac born and owned a little piece of the Promised Land. It could also be a reference to Abraham’s three visitors, one of which would’ve been God the Son.
Because of the vagueness of Jesus’s comment, we can’t be completely sure of what He meant by this. And I’m not going to pretend to know the answer. But we do know that Abraham saw it and rejoiced.
Now the obvious question arises. How could Jesus and Abraham have interacted? Jesus is only 50 years old and Jesus is claiming that Abraham saw Him.
Jesus’s answer is “before Abraham was I AM”. Here two things are proclaimed. First, Jesus is stating that He existed before Abraham. And second, He is claiming to be Yahweh. Like the last few weeks, Jesus proclaimed that He was God by calling Himself “I AM”, “ego eimi”.
And for all the people that have any doubts as to what Jesus proclaimed here, His hearers understood Him. And we know this because they picked up stones to kill Him (John 8:59).
God the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, took on human flesh. He died on the cross and paid the punishment for sin. Three days later, He rose from the grave. And all those that trust in Him are given eternal life.
The Christian is the person that abides in the word of Christ. True saving faith does not look at ourselves as the arbiter of truth, it looks to Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life.
How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m a Christian, but” and then they go on a rant that is essentially all the unchristian things that they believe? This is not a person who is entrusting their self to Christ. That is the picture of a person that is relying upon their self and attempting to sprinkle just enough Jesus in to get their ticket punched to go to Heaven when they die.
And that is not saving faith.
For a long time we have discussed saving faith as having three aspects:
- Notitia—knowing the facts
- Assensus—knowing the facts to be true
- Fiducia—entrusting ourselves to the facts
A person that simply recites a prayer one day to get their ticket punched is not a person that is entrusting their self to Christ.
This can be illustrated by thinking about airplanes. A person can know the concept of an airplane (notitia). They can know that it is true (assensus). But until they sit down on the plane and go for a ride they have not entrusted their selves to it (fiducia). The response to the gospel is to entrust ourselves to Christ.
And the problem with Islam, Judaism, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others is that they don’t abide in Jesus’ Word about Himself.
They don’t believe in Him. They are not abiding in Him. They don’t believe that Jesus is God the Son. They have other ideas about who He is. And these are not rooted in the truth of the Scriptures.
Saving Faith Sets Us Free (John 8:32)
This idea takes up a bulk of the discussion. The Jews believed their selves to already be free because of their paternity (John 8:33). But Jesus responds to them by saying, “everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).
Jesus then takes up a line of reasoning that they would understand. Slaves were relieved from duty and told to leave after years of service, or after their debt was paid. Children, however, could stay as long as they liked. They were always part of the household. And their enslavement to sin proves that they are slaves. But if they would but trust in Christ, they would be made free (John 8:36).
And Jesus proves that they are enslaved by examining their actions. They are offspring of Abraham, but seek to kill Jesus (John 8:37). In other words, their actions reveal their spiritual parentage (John 8:39-40, 44-45). Their actions reveal that they are children of Satan, not God.
In fact, if they were God’s children, then they would believe in Jesus Christ (John 8:42). But because they are children of Satan, the Father of Lies and a murderer, they do not believe Jesus when He tells them the truth (John 8:45).
Who has sinned? What does this say about us?
How does a person find freedom from sin? Or in who do they find freedom from sin?
Jesus died and rose from the grave for us. And those that trust in Him are delivered from sin and death. We have true freedom. Freedom from the penalty. And freedom from the bondage to sin.
What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:16-18 ESV)
What then is the freedom given to us in Jesus Christ?
It is the freedom to now walk in obedience and new life. It is the freedom to be brought out of darkness and into light.
Our society is so dull that this is difficult to understand. The blood-bought freedom given to us frees us from bondage to sin and death and purchases for us the freedom to walk in righteousness.
“If the Son has set you free, then you are free indeed.”
Look around and you’ll see a lot of people that believe their selves to be free and non-conforming that are so far in bondage to sin that they can’t see their way out of it.
This is related to last week’s discussion on lost people being in the dark. They really and truly believe they are free.
I found this interesting in both Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell. The people that thought they were free were the captives. It was the poor people in both that were able to live their lives that were free. That’s sort of how it is with people today.
The purple haired lesbian with two trans children looks at a faithful church member and thinks, “I can’t believe they’d live like that.” Every study shows that the Christian wife is more happy, more fulfilled, is healthier, and lives longer. But she doesn’t see that her sin and enslavement is destroying her.
The same is true for the alcoholic or drug addict. They think it’s fun and have another drink or another of whatever drug is their flavor. They don’t realize that they are being enslaved by their sin.
What about the porn addict? They believe it’s okay to lust after strange flesh until it destroys them. They lose the ability to have normal relationships among other major problems. They didn’t realize that they were being enslaved to their sin.
This list could go on and on. But the point is that they don’t see it as enslavement. But it is.
The person who sins is enslaved to sin. And the only real freedom is found in Jesus Christ.
“In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV)
The lying and murderous rage of Jesus’s hearers proved that they were under the parentage and influence of Satan. And so it is today.
The lost person is enslaved. They are lost and dying in their sin and the only freedom is found in Jesus Christ. Freedom is only found through faith in Him.
Conclusion
I struggled to know how to close this sermon. And as I was frustrated and griping about things happening in my life, I understood exactly how to close this sermon.
As you know, I have had 6 knee surgeries that have culminated in me having to metal and plastic knees. For most of my adult life, my mobility has been limited. And it has causes some problems as I’ve attempted to regain it. I walked two laps around my neighborhood and my calves were throbbing but I felt pretty good. My calves hadn’t moved that way due to how I’d been walking for years. And at that point, I have a choice. Will I walk and cause the throbbing again or will I sit on the couch because it hurts?
Leg exercises at the gym are difficult for me. Some of them are struggles that shouldn’t be struggles. And at that point, I have a choice. Will I do the exercises, endure the pain, and endure that pain or just stop because it hurts?
So far, I have pressed on. So far, I have endured the pain and seen improvements.
Why? Because I want to be able to walk with ease pain free. I want to be able to play with my grandkids someday and chunk them around the place.
I see the end, and so I endure.
What is it that Jesus calls us to here? He calls us to trust in Him, to believe His Word, and to endure.
Endure. Persevere. Walk through the fires of this life trusting the Savior! When you are tempted to leave Him, persevere! Endure! Abide in His Word and continue to abide in His Word.
I met a man one day at the hospital as I was working as a chaplain there. He was hunched over and could barely walk. He told me that getting knee replacements was not worth it because they didn’t work.
How many people in this life make some sort of a decision to follow Christ, never to return, thinking it just didn’t work for them?
Endure. Remain. Continue. Persevere.