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The Gospel of John, The Period of Conference, Transition, Part III, John 12:47-50 - Lesson 111
Jesus Christ continues to preach to the Jews at the start of the week of the crucifixion.
John 12:47,48, And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
The word for rejecteth means "to count as nothing".
Do not the multitudes count as nothing the word of God?
Just a lot of words in a dusty book in the drawer of the bed stand of every motel and hotel room.
Ho Hum words.
Just multitudes of words.
To treat the word of Jesus Christ just as he was treated in Jerusalem by the priests.
What status has his word?
Who cares about his word?
It means nothing to us!
But Jesus Christ warns that this same word shall judge those who treat it with contempt.
Unbeliever, Do you want to know by what criteria you will be judged?
This book holds the criteria and it is called the word of God.
Open it and read it and find out how you do not match up with the righteousness of God.
That difference is what you will be judged by.
You will be naked to the judgment of His word unless you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.
Jesus Christ warns the Jews.
Unless they hear his words and put them into practice and provide a secure foundation for life, they will be judged in the last day.
And that judgment will cause them to never see life, only eternal damnation, eternal death.
Jesus Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost.
The same message that proclaims life to the believer is the message that proclaims judgment to the disobedient.
If you will not be saved the only alternative is to continue in your lostness and ultimately be judged by the word of Christ.
John 12:49,50, For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
Jesus Christ continues to pound this truth into our hearts.
He claims no private word, he claims no exclusive message apart from the Father.
He does not elevate himself, he does not speak apart from what the Father commands him to speak.
He is humble and lowly, yielding himself to the Father's will.
Isaiah tells us that: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
What Jesus Christ looked like is not important, his appearance was not important to his mission to reveal the Father.
He looked like a common man, an ordinary man.
He was not given an appearance designed to attract men to him.
Appearance would only get in the way of his mission to reveal the Father!
His mission was as the Sent One of God.
He was commanded by the Father to reveal the character of God, to imitate God's work, to bring out to men the thoughts of God.
He was the logos, the self-expression of God.
He was the Son sent to man to reveal the Father to men.
He so perfectly obeyed the Father's will that we can know the Father by knowing Jesus Christ.
The Father gave the Son a commandment to be the Messiah, to announce truths of God, truths by which the soul of man truly lives.
So he could say that he came to seek and to save that which was lost and he came because that was the exact will of the Father!
He perfectly carried out the commandment he received from the Father.
Eternal life is to be found in what the Father had given him to say.
No where else is it to be found.
Turning away from those words will always bring a turn toward darkness and away from light.
1 John 5:10, He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son,
It is an affront to God Almighty not to believe the record of Jesus Christ.
Because the record of Jesus Christ was made in perfect obedience to the Father.
By the Jews refusing to believe the teaching of Christ they showed that they despised the God of their Fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.
This was the last word that Jesus Christ said to the Jews in John's Gospel.
The remainder of John's Gospel will involve the Lord's instruction to his disciples in this final week of his life on earth. |