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THE REFORMED WITNESS HOUR "Plainly the
Christ” Rev.
Wilbur Bruinsma June 29, 2008; No. 3417 (Printed copies in a
four-message booklet can be sent monthly without charge. Request from:
Reformed Witness Hour, |
prca.org
Dear radio friends,
Today we are going to consider an event that
took place during the earthly ministry of Christ. It was an open and hostile
confrontation of Christ by the Jewish leaders.
We read of this event in
John 10:24-31.
“Then
came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How
long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus
answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my
Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not
of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and
they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me,
is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.
I and my Father are one.”
Jesus was in
When Jesus was in
Now, we must appreciate what was happening here.
The last time, Jesus had slipped out of their grasp. He had disappeared
somehow, and they were unable to stone Him as they had tried. This time, the
Jews were determined that this would not happen. They surrounded Him—that is,
they cut off all means of escape. And they cut off Jesus from all possible
contact with any of the people that might still be sympathetic to His
teachings. The Jews, that is, the Jewish leaders, and the
The anger of the Jewish leaders was crackling in
this demand. Their question charged Jesus with an attempt to delude them. They
made the charge that Jesus was not being fair with them, but was evading the
main question, Are you the Messiah? Tell us. Why is it that you leave us in
doubt as to who you are. Tell us plainly, with
openness, if you are the Messiah that has been promised to the nation of
Now, of course, these men asked this question
not because they were truly confused on this matter and needed to have it
straight in their minds. It was not as if they were sincerely seeking to
understand Christ in order that they might, perhaps, believe on Him. They
wanted a reason to kill Him. If He told them outright that He was the Messiah,
they would accuse Him of blasphemy, and then the stones would fly again.
So the Jews stood around Jesus in order to kill
Him in an instant. They surrounded Him in order that He might not get away. And
they waited for His answer.
Jesus gave it to them very plainly. We read in
verse 25: “Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that
I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.” Jesus is telling them here
exactly what they asked. He is not sidestepping the question. He is right to
the point: “I told you. I have already identified Myself
to you. You act as if you are still confused and wondering. You act as if I
have been trying to be clever and avoid coming out and saying that I am the
Christ. But I told you that I am He. Why do I now get this question thrown back
at Me again?”
It is obvious, too, from Scripture,
that Christ had told them this before. Already in the early part
of His ministry, after healing the lame man by the pool of
So, plainly, Christ had come out with the claim
that He was the Christ. It was exactly this that had prompted the Jews
repeatedly to take His life. The truth had been told. Besides, Christ also calls attention, in this passage here in
John 10,
to the miracles He had
performed. “The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me”
(v. 25). Who but the Messiah had the power to heal the sick, and cast out
devils, or feed 5,000 people at one time, or command the winds and the waves to
obey Him, or to raise people from the dead to life again? All of these works
testified of the fact that Jesus was the divine Son of God, who had been sent
by God into this world as the promised Messiah.
It was obvious. If there is any confusion, it
was caused only by the Jewish leaders’ own unbelief. They saw. They heard. The
proof was irrefutable. Jesus was the Christ. But their own
unbelief stood in the way of accepting the fact that this Jesus was the Savior
who was come into the world. So Jesus tells them very plainly, “I told you,”
which in essence means, “Yes, I am the Christ.”
But again, Jesus reminds the Jews of a couple of
fundamental truths concerning the Messiah that they refused to acknowledge or
believe. The Jews believed that the Messiah was going to be a man, a mere man,
howbeit a great man, a man who would establish the rule of the Jews. They were
not looking for a Messiah who was God Himself come into the flesh. Neither were they looking for anything more than an earthly
deliverance from their enemies. They were not looking for this Messiah to come
in order to save them from their sins. Of course. The
work-righteousness of the Pharisees did not allow for this conception of the
Messiah. They did not need to be saved from sin. They had the law of Moses, and they kept those laws. Besides, they could
trace their lineage back to Abraham. They were good Jews, born unto salvation
by means of their earthly ties to Abraham. They did not need the Christ to
deliver from sin. They needed a Messiah who could establish them as an earthly
kingdom once again in this world, a kingdom that would rule over all the other
kingdoms of the earth.
So it is, in this passage, that Christ reveals
unto these Jews the purpose for the coming of the Messiah. Notice in verse 27
and in the first part of 28: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they
follow me: And I give unto them eternal life.” Christ tells these men who
surrounded Him now, that He was come into this world as the Messiah to give
eternal life. He was not interested in an earthly kingdom. He was not
interested in restoring an earthly kingdom to the Jews. His function, as the
Messiah, was eternal in its purpose. Jesus came to give His people a life that
far transcends the earthly. He had come to give eternal life, life in an
eternal kingdom.
The Jews should have thought upon their own sin
and the consequences due them. Unbelief, however, does not do that. Only faith
does.
Today, dear listeners, we look upon ourselves,
and we ask ourselves the question: What kind of Christ do we seek? One who will
make us feel good about ourselves? One who will come
and establish some kind of an earthly kingdom? Or one who comes to save us from
sin?
You realize that sin is a horrible matter. Sin
makes us guilty before God, for by it we offend God’s most high majesty. And
God, in His justice, will not allow sin to go unpunished. He punishes it
temporally, but He also punishes it eternally. The sentence that He hands down
is that of death. The whole human race, having fallen in Adam, is guilty of sin
and therefore must receive the death penalty on account of sin. And that death
penalty is eternal death.
How is it that we can escape this death? Certainly not by means of our keeping of laws and traditions.
Certainly not by performing good works in order to merit our
righteousness before God. The one and only way to escape eternal death
is to have someone make payment for our sin, to take away that guilt. And that
is the purpose or the function of the Messiah. By His death, by suffering the
wrath of God against our sin, He paid the price for our sin. And in that way, Christ
satisfied God’s justice, taking away the cause of death. Christ now gives to
His people life, life in the presence of God, eternal life. That was why He
came into this world.
But it is exactly that that the Jews did not
want. They saw no need for such salvation. In fact, when Christ now again, as
in the past, reminds them of this, they became vehemently angry with Him. That
is why we asked the question, What do we expect of our
Christ? What kind of a Christ do we want? If it is one who comes to save sinners
from their sins, then we will believe on this Jesus. If it is not, then we will
become vehemently angry when we are told that that is the kind of Savior we
need.
But this also would imply the truth that Christ
is divine. That truth concerning Christ rubbed the Jews raw. They did
not like that. Christ made the same claim again to them in this discourse (v.
30), “I and my Father are one.” This truth of Christ lay at the very heart of
everything that Christ was now telling these men; it lay at the very heart of
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. To men, to all men, the Messiah must be
divine. He must be the Son of God. A mere man could not perform the work of the
Messiah or of the Christ. As the anointed of God, Christ must bear the burden
of God’s wrath. And no mere man can do that. God’s wrath is eternal in nature;
so must also be the payment of sin. The Messiah had to be the Son of God. So
Christ says, “My Father and I are one.” And notice in this passage how Christ
calls God His Father repeatedly. He is the natural-born Son of God.
But that bothered the Jews so. Why? Because they did not want a Messiah who was divine. They
wanted simply a great man who could accomplish a man’s work. And so, when Jesus
told them that He was divine, they felt that Jesus was haughty and proud, and
therefore a blasphemer, taking on a title that no man deserves to take on
himself. Unbelief does not understand Christ. It turns a hardened heart to Him
and to who He really is. Therefore the Jews stubbornly rejected Christ.
This rejection did not take place until first
Christ revealed to them the most blessed of all truths—the work of
preservation. We read of this beautiful truth in verses 27-29: “My sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal
life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my
hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to
pluck them out of my Father’s hand.”
These words have become the source of greatest
joy and comfort in the lives of God’s people. We are Christ’s sheep. He is the
good Shepherd who cares for His flock of sheep. We are the sheep who belong to
His pasture and His sheepfold. Christ said earlier in this chapter that He lays
down His life for these sheep. He lays that life down in order that He might
give to them eternal life. These sheep, Jesus informs us in verse 29, have been
given to Him of His Father.
Now all of this is very telling. This teaches us
that Christ’s flock is made up of a predetermined number of sheep—a number
chosen by God and specifically given by Him to Christ. It is not as if Christ
does not know who His sheep are. He does. He knows every one of them by name.
They are exactly those people whom God had given to Him from eternity, who were
chosen by God unto eternal life. That is why their salvation is so sure. That
is why they are preserved. They belong to God from eternity. He has chosen each
one of His sheep—each one of His people—in Christ in His eternal plan for all
things. Before time began, before the foundations of the earth were laid, God
chose for Himself a certain people in Christ. And their end is eternal life.
These God, in turn, gave to Christ. And Christ went to the death of the cross
for these sheep. He died for them. And, in having died for them, He gives to them, and to them only, eternal life.
These sheep believe on Christ. They know the
voice of their good Shepherd. They hear Him. They love Him. They follow after
Him. And that is faith. It is knowing Christ, trusting
that He alone can give eternal life, and, therefore, coming to Him and
following Him.
But, again, this faith is not something that
every person has innately in himself, something that
he must exercise before becoming one of Christ’s sheep. On the contrary, only
those who are chosen by God in eternity, irresistibly drawn by the Spirit to
Jesus Christ, are those who as a result believe. These have faith.
Christ emphasizes this truth when, in verse 26,
He says: “But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep.” There you have
it. There is the truth, the truth of God’s Word. They were not of His sheep.
Now, notice, He did not say there, “Because you don’t believe, you’re not of my
sheep.” He says, “You do not believe because you are not one of my sheep.”
Unbelief is that which stumbles over Christ, the Messiah; it stumbles over the
cross; it stumbles over the need for salvation from sin. And those who stumble are indeed those whom God has appointed to stumble
(I Pet. 2:7, 8).
Even that
is not left up for grabs, you realize. Those chosen by God from eternity are
His sheep. And these will exhibit faith. They will follow Jesus Christ. But
others God has appointed in eternity to stumble at the cross of Jesus Christ.
These men are not Christ’s sheep. They were not given to Him from eternity.
And, therefore, they do not believe. They cannot believe.
It is for that reason that these Jewish leaders
took on this threatening stance before Jesus when He said that. Their hearts
were hardened. They knew that Christ had plainly told them already that He was
the Messiah. They simply did not want that. And it was for that reason that
they picked up stones and were going to stone Jesus to death. Again, as before,
three times now, they tried in their anger to kill Jesus. So sharp and bitter
was that anger toward Him. Because He was in fact the Christ.
They wanted blood. Christ was despised and rejected of these men. The threat of
Christ being killed was real. Everyone knew it.
But those who are chosen by God from eternity,
He now also irresistibly draws to Christ. They hear Christ, the good Shepherd,
through the preaching. The Spirit works in their hearts. When they hear that
call to faith and repentance, they repent of their sins and are drawn unto
Jesus Christ unto salvation. Because God chose them, they believe. And Christ
gives to these sheep alone eternal life.
That, then, is the most amazing truth of all. No
one is able to pluck these sheep out of the hand of Jesus Christ. And no
one is able to pluck these sheep out of God’s hand. Those whom Christ saves,
those for whom Christ died, will never perish. Every person for whom Christ
died is saved. Every person for whom Christ died believes. And every person for
whom Christ died will be preserved unto eternal life. No doubt about it. God
has chosen His people from eternity. He has viewed them in Christ. And since
these saints belong to the sheepfold of Christ, no man, no devil, no
circumstance of life will be able to pluck any of them from God’s hand. Because Christ is God, and no one can pluck them from God’s hand.
That is the blessed truth of the preservation of
the saints. You know, the preservation of the saints is not merely a matter of
theological dispute that is carried on with those who believe that a person can
fall away from faith. We are not interested in carrying on that debate right
now. This is a truth that is vital to the comfort and joy of the child of God.
If I thought for a moment that I could be a child of God today and then, a week
from now, not be; if I thought that this was all up to
me, I would despair. I truly would. In fact, I would give up, because I know I
would fail. I know my heart well enough. I see so much sin in me. I am a sheep.
A sheep loves to wander and stray from the sheepfold. And that is exactly what
I would do if it were left up to me. I know myself well enough. I see nothing
in me to brag about spiritually. If left on my own, I would walk straight into
sin and never turn back.
But God, through Christ, in His grace preserves
me. He holds me in His mighty hand. And even though I stumble around in my
weakness, He holds on to me and He will not suffer my foot to be moved.
I need to know that. I look at my heart and, oh,
how I need to know that God will not let me go. I may lose, for a time, the
assurance of the faith, but I will not ever lose faith, that work of God
whereby He has inseparably bound me to Jesus Christ as one. Faith is a gift of
God. God gives it and God preserves it in His people. We shall never perish. No
man is able to remove us from the hand of the God who has saved us.
Our reaction, therefore, to Christ the Messiah,
who has come to save from sin and to give to us eternal life, is this: Thanks be to God. We thank Him for removing our unbelief. We thank Him
for making us to know Christ.
May God give to us, those chosen from eternity,
saved in the blood of Christ, may God give to us steadfastness in the faith,
that we might ever, as Christ’s sheep, follow Him.
Let us pray together.
Father in heaven, we thank Thee that we are
chosen by Thee, saved in the blood of Christ, and, therefore, held in Thy
almighty hand, so that nobody will be able to pluck us out of Thy hand. What
great assurance we receive, and need every day of our lives. Wilt Thou continue
to guide us now by Thy Word, that we might receive assurance from that Word,
and that we might go forth as Thy sheep. Hear our prayer, Father. For Jesus’
sake we pray these things, Amen.