 This video is part of a study series titled Biblical Salvation Settled Wonsome for All. Please see the playlist link in the video description. Hello and welcome back. So in this part of the series we'll be looking at John chapter 8 and in this study what we're going to be picking out of this chapter is what do these things mean? So when Jesus says to the crowd he that is without sin among you when he said to the woman caught an adultery go and sin no more and when he said to the Jews and Pharisees I am the light of the world you shall die in your sins if you continue in my word a particular tricky one here whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin the sun shall make you free what exactly does Jesus mean by that and the dichotomy here between Abraham's seed and the sons of the devil. So these are all the themes that we're going to be picking out of John chapter 8 to help build our salvation doctrine in this series. So to kick off this story then we have the well-known story of the woman caught in adultery. So starting at verse 1 up until verse 7 Jesus went onto the Mount of Olives and early in the morning he came again into the temple and all the people came on to him and he sat down and taught them and the scribes and Pharisees brought on to him a woman taken in adultery and when they had set her in her in the midst they said on to him master this woman was taken in adultery in the very act now Moses and the law commanded us that such should be stoned but what do you say this they said tempting him that they might have to accuse him but Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not so when they continued asking him he lifted up himself and said on to them he that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her. So as we see this story introduced notice that the context of the story is a potential physical condemnation the woman was caught in a situation where she could have literally been stoned to death now the Pharisees were trying to put Jesus in a trap here because under the mosaic law she should have been put to death if there were multiple witnesses to the offense but remember that Israel was subject to Roman law so secular law wouldn't enable them to carry this out so they could accuse Jesus of either denying God's law or stirring strife under the Roman law so they are attempting to trap him in this situation but the fact that it's a physical condemnation where she could have in quite a literal sense of the word to be stoned to death that's very important for setting the premise of this story and just in case you're wondering notice that the Pharisees were already familiar with who Jesus was before this event so this this was a deliberate setup now it's not hugely important to this immediate story it will become more important later when Jesus speaks to the Pharisees again now here in verse seven it may be misunderstood what exactly Jesus meant by this that he that with his without sin among you let him cast the stone um Christians with a poor understanding of the bible they use that verse to in a sense reject correction arguing that well no Christian should be judging or criticizing another Christian for their sins or whatever the reason because after all he that is without sin cast a stone and so this verse here becomes an excuse for seeing seeing this essentially because it's like saying well Jesus himself let her off the hook um but first of all uh well the thing is I might say to somebody um it's wrong to do this or churches are wrong for enabling that or these people are allowing and endorsing sin and sometimes I'm not even necessarily judging or condemning people in an eternal life sense it's just something on this earth that they are doing wrong that they should be doing right and then I've been talked down to somebody and they just say well he that is without sin you know cast the first stone you shouldn't be judging people because you have sin as well but the problem is if you just examine what's going on in this story this woman is not merely being criticized or judged for adultery they were appealing to Jesus to literally stone her to death this is a very literal casting of stones it's not metaphorical about judging someone or telling them that they're wrong so this this passage has nothing to do with uh like judge not less thou be judged or you know a physical condemnation is about to take place here that's the context of Jesus saying this statement okay continuing this story then to verses 8 through 11 we see that the scribes and Pharisees failed to trap Jesus and consequently they left they didn't they didn't condemn the woman so following this Jesus did not condemn her either so let's let's just read what happened at the end of this story and again he stooped down and wrote on the ground and they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one beginning at the eldest even on to the last and Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman he said on to her woman where are those your accusers has no man condemned you she said no man lord and Jesus said on to her neither do I condemn you go and sin no more now people with um workspace kind of a salvation they they interpret this passage to mean that Jesus is giving the woman here another chance to repent you might say once and for all and if she accepts this chance she won't be condemned but if she continues in sin then she will be condemned by which which they mean hell when Jesus said you know neither do I condemn you and then when he says go and sin no more well this this then leads to false doctrines such as sinless perfectionism and conditional security where we can lose our salvation so I'm going to tackle that in light of this passage so to the first thing to debunk those false interpretations here is as far as we can tell from this passage from the words that the narrator has offered us there is no prospect of eternal condemnation or eternal life in this passage the context of the condemnation is a physical condemnation only they were literally proposing to stone her but nobody condemned her so Jesus did not condemn her to be stoned to death either beyond this we we have no context at all that's related to hell or damnation moreover again in the story Jesus as far as we know never mentioned believing on him or eternal life he just didn't mention those two things so this is not the context of Jesus's conversation with her either then the prospect of her salvation whether she could go to hell or won't go to hell or will that that's just not documented in this story at all if you want to make it about eternal condemnation you're adding conjecture to the text because there's not enough there to make anything about eternal life this is a physical condemnation only now you might say on to me then well why does it matter that Jesus didn't mention eternal life well the thing is if you've watched my previous video in this series about John chapter five and I delved into the statement sin no more because here in John 8 this is the second time that Jesus said sin no more so people with a workspace salvation they love to quote verses like this is a salvation instruction even though that's not even how Jesus used it because the thing is he isn't talking about eternal life here in John chapter eight and he didn't talk about it in John fact now I've sort of cut the sentence short there what I mean is when he didn't talk about it in John five I mean in relation to the saying sin no more that's that's where he never mentioned it he did mention it later in John chapter five but not in the context of saying sin no more so here are example comments of people on social media who take this statement from Johnny you know sin no more and they apply it to the gospel so you might see a YouTube video where someone was debating or discussing well if I still have sin in my life am I still saved and then people just put these off the cuff comments like well go and sin no more sounds pretty clear to me easy believes them is right up there with the deadly doctrine of one saved always saved going sin no more makes sense Jesus said going sin no more sounds like they love this in more than God and so on and so on and so on so they're using these verses as if this is part of the gospel going sin no more but Jesus isn't mentioning eternal life in the two places where he says that statement now a sinless perfectionist so someone who says we have to be absolutely sinless in order to go into heaven they might ask a hypothetical question well why would Jesus tell someone to go and sin no more if it were not possible to never sin again like because you might argue it's redundant advice well this is begging the question though because it already presupposes that this is the way that Jesus used that statement so when Jesus said going sin no more they assume that Jesus meant absolutely never ever sin again in your entire life if you want to make it to heaven but as we already saw from the studio video of John 5 if you want to go back and find out because I think I spent about 30 minutes on this issue of sin no more we don't know what the underlying sins the man at Bethesda had done and whether or not such sins directly resulted in him being lame in the first place in John chapter 8 only the woman's adultery is addressed no other sins she has or may have are addressed for all we know she could have also been a drunkard but that didn't result in her being stoned to death though so we just don't have that context there that that sin no more really means that in the way that a sinless perfectionist would interpret it and moreover if we have three key similarities between sin no more in John chapter 5 and going sin no more in John chapter 8 only physical tribulation or condemnation can be proven as the context in both cases for the lame man that was healed he was told to sin no more so that no worse thing would come upon him now some people assume that means hell but Jesus could have just cut the fluffy language and said hell if that's what he really meant and obviously we don't want to accuse Jesus of using fluffy language to you know hide what he really means and again as we've just seen from the John 8 scenario only a physical condemnation is proven as the context of this statement moreover based on the information that we have from these passages we don't know what kind of life either person lived after this encounter with Jesus we don't know if the John 5 man or the John 8 woman lived a literally sinless life after their encounter with Jesus in other words we don't have enough salient facts to make such a huge doctrine out of these three words you can't say well Jesus said sin no more so we must never sin again because you're going well beyond the available facts where it actually sets up what Jesus means by this statement there's actually as well technically speaking no absolute proof that either of them were eternally saved before during or after their encounter with Jesus we assume that they may have got saved then and there but the things we don't really know they could have been saved before then they could have maybe not believed on Christ straight away at that encounter and maybe believed on him sometime later maybe he healed them or he you know he saved them in that sense but he didn't actually they didn't actually get eternally saved the things we don't know these are not sufficient salvation passages because we don't know about the man at the pool of Bethesda we don't know enough about the woman caught in adultery we do not have background about their before during and after other than what it does give us for the during we only have that little bit and then finally just a few more points that I want to point out from my I did a study on John chapter 5 and I mentioned these points if sinning no more is such an essential component of the gospel in other words you have to literally sin no more to be saved then you have to explain why Jesus frequently doesn't mention it in all of the John passages where he does actually talk about eternal life clearly and he keeps mentioning to believe on him you can easily cherry pick verses like these about sinning no more but you then have to ignore all the verses that talk about forgiveness God's ongoing God's ongoing mercy for believers you have to assume that that doesn't exist basically or like in how the Lord's price is give us Lord our daily bread and to forgive us our sins he's teaching us how to pray well why would he teach us how to pray and say forgive our sins if we don't still have sin that would that really that dismantles itself so you have to cherry pick these verses and likewise you know the reverse is true we shouldn't just cherry pick all the verses about forgiveness and mercy and pretend that Jesus never said sin no more that's what a lot of the charismatic some penny costals and liberal Christians tend to you know you know two sides cherry picking the verses well I only need to bring both of them together yes sin no more but yes forgive us our sins to both of those things and there are plenty of verses that deal with the issue of a believer that sins which again would be completely redundant and useless according to the sinless perfectionist view I've dealt with some verses like that in other videos in this series so to wrap this up then if you want more study on the issue of sin no more go back and see my John 5 study video and I delved into it in a bit more detail than in this study so I'm not going to recover the same ground so in verse 12 of them when it says then spoke Jesus onto them saying well we already saw earlier in the verses that the scribes and Pharisees already knew to some extent who Jesus was and now Jesus is speaking on to them again so this sets the context for Jesus's next conversation because he will still be talking about eternal life but he will not be appealing to this group so strongly to believe on him as he's done with other people that he spoke to earlier chapters in John and he will give some hard sayings in this chapter so yes he will tell them to believe on him but he won't be doing it as with as much of an appeal as he has done with previous chapters so then between verses 12 to 18 then spoke Jesus onto them saying I am the light of the world he that follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life the Pharisees therefore said on to him you bear record of yourself your record is not true Jesus answered and said on to them though I bear record of myself yet my record is true for I know from where I came and where I go but you cannot tell from where I came and where I go you judge after the flesh I judge no man and yet if I judge my judgment is true for I am not alone but I am the father that sent me it is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true I am one that bear witness of myself and the father that sent me bears witness of me now sometimes that the people that believe in work salvation and conditional security they make these really big doctrines about what exactly it means to follow Jesus for eternal life when it we know where he says he that follows me shall not work walking darkness and they say things like well you've got to pick up your cross and follow me and this that and the other but throughout the conversation in this chapter although Jesus touches on the subject of eternal life it is not as big of a subject matter as his relationship with the father which seems to be a much bigger subject matter in this particular chapter and that's going to be the immediate upcoming context from verse 12 and so it's more this chapter is really more about the hard-heartedness of the people who reject him rather than specifically how to be saved as a kind of instruction and as a side note you know up until now Jesus is very very consistently told people to believe on him for eternal life and so if you're going to say well how do we follow him to walk in the light in the context of getting saved anyway it's to believe on him obviously when we're saved then we can talk about those other verses about obeying his commandments and such but in the context of eternal life it's believing on him because that's what he told us to do for that particular purpose now just to append one more verse onto our scope here so in verse 19 they said onto him where is your father Jesus answered you neither know me nor my father if you had no mean you should have known my father also and what will come about strongly in this chapter is that in the New Testament you cannot be considered saved while consequently rejecting the Messiah also and this is important because some Christians have a rather unwarranted fascination with the religion of Judaism and the nation of Israel I call it a Jewish fetish that some Christians have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with this they consider Jewish people in the nation of Israel to be their brethren concerning the faith but the split between Christianity and Judaism the very reason that exists is very precisely because the Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah as many Jews in this chapter will do Jesus is very clear here that one cannot know the father without knowing the son because the father bears witness of him so to reject Jesus as the Christ is to reject the witness of the father the Jews cannot be yoked with Christians as both being God's people if they reject the father's witness because they essentially make him a liar I mean a good qualifying verse for this one John 5 10 he that believes on the son of God has the witness in himself he that believes not God has made him a liar because he believes not the record that God gave his son so this is very very fundamental to believing the father is believing on the son now just in case you might wonder perhaps maybe possibly the Pharisees had no credible reason to believe that Jesus was the Christ after all if he bears witness of himself well obviously anybody can claim to be the Messiah so how should they know that Jesus is legitimate over anybody else claiming to be such well remember that the context leading up to this has per verse 12 the Pharisees already had some idea of who he is they'd obviously dealt with him before and John's gospel doesn't detail as many of Jesus's miracles as the other gospels do and some of Jesus's exchanges with the Pharisees and the chief priests and the Jews and scribes that are described in John tend to focus more on Jesus's doctrines and eternal life rather than his miracles whereas in some of the other gospels it's perhaps more about his miracles so here are some key summary points leading up to this conversation so we already saw in previous chapters of John that there was conflict about Jesus claimed to being the Christ in John chapter 7 there were disputes as to whether he was the Christ or whether he wasn't according to his teachings in John chapter 6 Jesus did the miracle of the five loaves and the two fish and some of the Jews receiving it approached him later to hear more but ended up rejecting him anyway as did some of his own disciples actually in John chapter 5 Jews sought to kill Jesus for doing the miracle on the Sabbath day so they knew he could do miracles so you get this sense that a lot of them already had some idea that he'd done these things so they really were without excuse and later in John's gospel in chapter 10 between 37 and 38 that they should who should believe that Jesus is the Father because of the works he does he demonstrated his sonship by his works and his teachings miracles so he did the works and told them to believe on his works if they don't at least believe in him to prove that he really is who he says he is we see in other gospels that Jesus did miracles before important Jews so for example the scribes in Mark chapter 3 and they accused him of doing it such by the power of the devil so it's likely that the people in this chapter have no particular excuse they must have some idea about who he is so reading three more verses in them between 22 22 these words spoke Jesus in the treasury as he taught in the temple and no man laid hands on him for his hour was not yet come then said Jesus again on to them I go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins where I go you cannot come then said the Jews will he kill himself because he says where I go you cannot come now the earlier context in verse 13 suggested that Jesus was only talking to the Pharisees but as Jesus is preaching in the treasury as we see from verse 20 the context in verse 22 is now changed to the Jews so there's probably a wider Jewish audience than just the Pharisees in the upcoming dialogue it is likely that he was mainly talking primarily to the Pharisees at least at first but then other Jews were also listening in on the conversation because according to verse 22 the Jews were talking amongst themselves rather than directly talking to to Jesus and despite the negative theme of the upcoming conversation Jesus has some of the Jews will believe on him which we'll see in later verses now verse 21 where it says I go my way and you shall seek me and shall die in your sins where I go you cannot come this seems to give the impression that the Pharisees are now a point where even if they were to seek Jesus they will not find the path to eternal life to be saved and so they will die in their sins now when it says you shall seek me I would say that this is in the context of seeking him for the purpose of seeing the light as as per the previous verses that we looked at not necessarily to catch him and kill him although that is the underlying context of the dialogue so that is to clarify exactly what he means by you shall seek me Jesus is giving much less emphasis to believing on him for the purpose of eternal life in this chapter because the Jews especially the Pharisees have rejected him as Christ multiple times up to now and have tried to catch him before we briefly touched on this in in John 7 but didn't delve into it too deeply so we could address this issue of spiritual hard-heartedness now however there's a more clear passage in John chapter 12 so for now I'm going to wait for that until later in the series when I can deal with John chapter 12 and then I'll deal with the issue of somebody hardening their heart to the point where they're not even going to be able to find the light anymore they're not even going to be able to seek Jesus so I'm going to park that idea for now now just to pick up on this other thing he said in verse 21 what exactly does it mean I go my way and where I go you cannot come well the context clarifies it in verses 23 and 24 so it says and he said unto them you are from beneath I am from above you are of this world I am not of this world I said therefore unto you that you shall die in your sins for if you believe not that I am he you shall die in your sins so Jesus is from above which common sense would tell you means heaven we know that Jesus will ascend to heaven later although that's still some time away from this particular conversation and the Pharisees cannot come with him to heaven presumably but rather they shall die in their sins because they do not believe that Jesus is he so I think the context they would tell you that that's what that means moving on to verses 25 to 30 them then said they onto him who are you and Jesus said onto them even the same that I said unto you from the beginning I have many things to say and to judge of you but he that sent me is true and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him they understood not that he spoke to them of the father then Jesus said onto them when you have lifted up the son of man then shall you know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself but as my father has taught me I speak these things and he that sent me is with me the father has not left me alone for I do always the things that please him as he spoke these words many believed on him so many of the Jews listening to Jesus at this time may know that Jesus is he after he has been crucified they they lift him up many Jews believed on him after this dialogue as per verse 30 now it may not be immediately obvious at the time of Jesus crucifixion that Jesus would know sorry that the Jews would know that Jesus is he that being the Christ or the son of God in fact it seems that by watching him die many watching actually despised him for not lifting himself off the cross but remember that in Acts chapter two and three that the apostles will preach to to many Jews and some will be converted onto verses 31 and 32 then said Jesus to the Jews which believed on him if you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free so this verse in 31 this is used to promote conditional security because Jesus requires that the audience continue in his word so as to be his disciples which is taken to mean be saved in in this particular context so the prospect of not continuing would cease this discipleship and thereby salvation which is how they interpret it now and advocates of faith alone and eternal security usually make a clear distinction between discipleship or fellowship and eternal life itself so if an opponent would point out a verse like this about warnings against a believer not continuing or sins or whatever it might be that someone will then reply well that verse is in response to discipleship it's not about salvation okay but in this context though and in the flavor of the overall passage and what's been leading up to this verse Jesus said this specifically to the Jews that believed on him and so it seems that at least in this context being a disciple here is synonymous or intertwined with salvation itself rather than something that's distinct from salvation and so continuing in his word would seem to be an important command required for eternal life now it's too early in the series to address continuation in the context of salvation yet because it would be better for me to address that later in the series when we look at John chapter 15 where Christ instructs his disciples to abide in him so I'm not going to address it in great detail now but the simple short answer is that if continuing in Christ's word is necessary for salvation this this is in relation to your belief it's not your works of obedience because this was proven back in John chapter 5 in verse 38 and where Christ said to some people you have not his word abiding in you for whom he has sent him you believe not so that word abiding is similar to continuing and again it's this concept of his word and conditional security falls apart because they often associate these continuation with works rather than faith and we already really have already dealt with conditional security in this series so far and in relation to it we studied John chapter 6 earlier in this series and we saw how Jesus defines his disciples who walked no more with him which you might argue is synonymous with with not continuing in his word because it was Jesus' words about eating his flesh and they stumbled on those words so the disciples that walked no more with him you could say they are those who did not continue in his word well we saw from John chapter 6 that those disciples Jesus put them in the category of believe not Jesus knew from the beginning that they believe not so it's meaningless to say that they were temporarily saved until they stopped continuing in his word and then lost their salvation because Jesus already foresaw that this would happen they do not really believe so it's pointless to say that they were saved or believed for a while it just doesn't make sense to say that in the totality of Jesus words and so piecing together what we've learned so far in our study of John in the series we can see what happens to those who continue in his word versus those who didn't so John 8 31 does not contradict eternal security in any way whatsoever so this is just a nice little graph to prove that so this guy here believes get saved all that which the Father has given me I should lose nothing we believe that Jesus is going to fulfill what he said he would do well if you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed once saved always saved now the guy that does not continue in his word well Jesus knew from the beginning who believed not and who would betray him who so ever doesn't believe in him is condemned because he has not believed in him that's what John has said in previous chapters so it's not he didn't lose his salvation it's not once saved always saved because he didn't continue it's twice lost always lost he was always lost that's why he didn't continue makes perfect sense when you just compare it with everything that that John's gospel has set up to now now in verse 32 where Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free there needs to be careful thought about what Jesus means by this statement what what exactly does the truth set us free from you might ask a sinless perfectionist would say well it's sin you need to be set free from sin so that you never sin again and if you still have sin in your life well you're not free then because Jesus said the truth shall make you free someone else might say well no it's the consequences of sin it's essentially getting saved it's just anonymous the truth shall make you free you shall be saved or is it something else the truth will set you free from something that's not one of those two other things so we need to look carefully at this spend a bit of time looking at this so consider then that in verse 31 Jesus was speaking specifically in at least in this sentence to the Jews which believed on him and then he goes on to say if you continue in his word and he's already established the relationship with his father so that that's the target audience for that particular part of the state of the sentence there the statement now just a few verses ago in verse 24 he stressed to this crowd that they need to believe on him otherwise they shall die in their sins we will also see in the upcoming verses that the Jews deny being in any form of bondage being privileged to be Abraham seed but Jesus is going to challenge that notion so this is all setting the premise of what it means that the truth shall set you free so at an initial glance just really briefly looking at what we've just seen then it would seem most likely that being set free in this context is that by believing in Jesus you will not die in your sins so there's not really strong enough evidence from this passage to suggest that a saved person will never sin again and is thereby being set free from their propensity to ever sin again well we've already really looked at that previously in this video and in that series but those who hear Jesus words and are receptive to those words they will not see the death that is associated with our sins dying in them so that would seem to be what the initial glance anyway what what he means by the truth setting you free this will become more apparent as our study of this chapter progresses but let's let's look at one potential objection first so obviously I've just started the argument that being set free does not mean that you're set free from your propensity to ever sin again well someone might object to that then say well if you pay close attention to the tenses up to now Jesus's frequent encounters in John's Gospel concerning eternal life have suggested that believing on Christ's for eternal life is is rather instantaneous so believe on him have eternal life is passed from death on to life whosoever shall drink of the water that I shall give shall never thirst whosoever eats my bread shall never hunger it appears to be quite instantaneous then and then but in 832 being set free by the truth is in the future tense while Jesus said this to the Jews that believed on him so then one might argue that new believers are not set free yet of whatever it is that we need to be set free from so he turns to those that have believed on him he says you shall future tense know the truth and the truth shall make you free but maybe it's not made you free quite just yet and again this is going to be the typical prevalent view among those with a workspace salvation or conditional security where we can lose our salvation or sinless perfectionism because they're going to assert based on this verse that salvation is more of a journey in a process where we need to overcome all of our simple simple habits hence shall make you free and this is especially in light of verse 34 so what I would say then is is hold on to that thought because we can revisit this when we have a more holistic picture of Jesus's conversation here so let's continue our study through the verses and we can revisit this this issue now what you'll notice at a glance here is that he says in verse 32 that we've just read you shall know the truth and truth shall make you free and then in verse 36 it says if the sun shall therefore make you free you shall be free indeed and so because verses 32 and 36 are very similar they act as bookends for the verses that are in between to help further define them so you've kind of got the beginning and then you've got this trunk in the middle of these three verses and then you've got the end which is pretty much the same as the beginning so for the benefit of anyone who's hard of sight let's just reread from 31 and we'll go up to 36 so then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him if you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free they answered him we be Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any man how do you say you shall be made free Jesus answered them verily verily I say unto you whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin and the servant abides not in the house forever but the sun abides forever if the sun therefore shall make you free you shall be free indeed so in verse 33 we have a really good context verse here for how they shall be made free we are Abraham's seed we are not in bondage to any man how do you say we will be free so the Jews being spoken to here deny being in any form of bondage on account of their Jewish ancestry Jesus's statements are in opposition to this and we will see in the upcoming verses he already told the Pharisees earlier that they would die in their sins Jesus will continue this thought thought in verses 37 and 38 I know that you are Abraham's seed but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you I speak that which I have seen with my father and you do that which you have seen of your with your father so back here in verse 33 the Jews being spoken to here deny being in any form of bondage despite overhearing Jesus say to the Pharisees that they would die in their sins but the son or the truth can make them free and this is consistent with previous conversations Jesus has had with Jews and Pharisees such as in John chapter 6 and in John chapter 7 whereby most of them persistently rejected him. Consider that contextually as well this is consistent with Paul's writings particularly in Romans 9 to 11 they assumed themselves to be God's people and Abraham's seed on account of their fleshly physical descendancy from Abraham as according to their genealogical records but of course given everything that we know from the Bible in its totality we know from Paul's writings and from other statements in the Bible that the true sons of Abraham the children of God are by faith not by flesh or ancestry so for example in John 1 12 to 13 this is John the disciple is narrating in his gospel but as many as received into them gave he the power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God so there you go the sons of God are born by faith not by flesh or or the will of man or of blood. Matthew chapter 3 verse 9 and this is John the Baptist talking not to be confused with John the disciple and think not to say within yourselves we have Abraham to our father for I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children onto Abraham so in other words again you can't just say Abraham is our father work clear you have to believe on this coming Christ and then Romans 9 30 to 32 I could obviously pick other passages in Romans but this just seemed like a good a good few verses collected together what shall we say then that the Gentiles which followed not after righteousness have attained to righteousness even the righteousness which is of faith but Israel which followed after the law of righteousness has not attained to the law of righteousness why because they sought it not by faith but as if it were by the works of the law for they stumbled at the stumbling stone and obviously that that's not really telling you a lot there because you'd really have to get to the whole thing for more information on that but they're not Abraham seed just because they follow the law of Abraham or they descend from Abraham it has to come by faith now again just to remind you of the conversational context here because in verse 31 it said then said Jesus to the Jews which believed on him but then the conversation very quickly turns sour in the next few verses and in 37 he's saying I know that you are Abraham seed but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you well that would seem to not jive very well with what just happened in verse 31 so let's set a bit of context to the crowd that he's talking to so as per verse 12 when it said then speak Jesus on to them saying and in 13 the Pharisees therefore said Jesus was originally talking to the Pharisees then in verse 20 and 22 Jesus speaking in the treasury then said the Jews so Jesus was speaking in a public place and Jews responded rather than specifically the Pharisees so that there must have been other people listening into this conversation this must have been quite a public audience actually so then in verse 31 said Jesus to those Jews which believed and then they answered him in verse 33 and later on in verse 48 it's going to say then answered the Jews so although Jesus specifically and intentionally addressed the Jews that believed on him in verses 31 and 32 specifically this was a public crowd of Jews that were being addressed and so the Jews who didn't believe would have assumed that he was talking to them as well so addressing the unsaved Jews will consist of the majority of the upcoming chapter so I've just pointed that out just in case you're a bit confused as to whether he's talking to save Jews or unsaved Jews or or both now between verses 34 to 36 so again whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin and the servant abides not in the house forever but the son abides forever if the son shall make you free you shall be free indeed we need to carefully look at exactly what Jesus means here because once again those who preach conditional security or works salvation or sinless perfectionism they love to use verses like this because here in verse 34 Jesus uses a very one-dimensional statement that anybody who commits sin is the servant of sin it's quite quite plain and simple they love that verse so let's spend some time on this to carefully consider what Jesus means by saying that so then whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin what exactly does this mean well this verse is interpreted in a variety of different ways depending on who you ask because it's it's very one-dimensional and defining defining commits in this context is problematic so interpretation one you could say who whoever has sinned or has ever sinned is the servant of sin i is a sinner or has sinned and is under the condemnation if they're not saved interpretation two says well it's whosoever sins anything at all is the servant of it so whoever is righteous must live in sinlessness it is not possible for a person to remain saved if still doing anything interpretation three would say it does not mean perfection but it means whoever makes a practice of sinning and so just has a generally sinful lifestyle with no particular intention of repenting that that kind of a person is a servant of sin and so obviously we have three different interpretations there as to what exactly that means now the word commit or commitment in this verse is a synonym for do or does or at least has an intention to do though a commitment is a very complex word in english because it can have various meanings and contexts which are what makes this verse quite difficult to understand at first so commitment may refer to a one-off final action or pledge for example i commit however much money to whatever fund a commit may also refer to a series of to-dos which which may be continual or not continual so for example i could say i'm busy with several commitments tomorrow well such commitments may include ongoing actions such as going to work or one-off actions such as just sorting a problem with my bank account a commitment may also refer to a dedication of ongoing actions for example you need to show more commitment towards practicing the piano so it could mean a one-off action it could mean ongoing actions it's a very problematic word because it can really mean either of those and it can mean just one action or it can mean a list of actions so generally speaking it's it's used to refer to an intention a pledge or an oath or an agreement or plan to do something irrespective of whether that action is continual or one-off and whether or not it actually is or isn't carried out so it's quite a broad word really which makes this verse difficult to understand now comparing the kinks i'm reading the king james bible even though i modernize it when i'm saying it i'm still using the king james comparing it with other english translations in their ever-failing conquest to make life easier for us doesn't really help address this lack of clarity because actually i would argue other bibles may use even more problematic wording so in the king james the word is commit the word commit is obviously ambiguous it can be a one-off action or a continual action in the esv it actually says i say on to you that everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin and so this word practices implies an ongoing action and this is actually a very problematic translation because where do you actually draw the line between someone who's practicing sin and has a sinful lifestyle versus somebody who doesn't live a sinful lifestyle but just makes mistakes well when does it become a practice and when is it just a one-off so i don't really find that a very helpful alternative to be honest the niv says everyone who sins so it doesn't even have a word like commits or practices it just turns the word sin into the action itself so removing the word altogether leaves us with the same diet limit when it says everyone who sins well is that everyone who sins continually or has an ongoing problem or just anyone who ever sins once it's still a problematic translation there and then the gwt i think there's a good word translation i can't remember but it says i can guarantee this truth whoever lives a sinful life and so this is more of a paraphrase or a dynamic equivalent and really it just flat out promotes work salvation but this term it's similar to the term practices we have this arbitrary line between whether it's ongoing sin and when that becomes a sinful lifestyle or when it just becomes someone who's still saved what makes mistakes i don't know where to draw this line with these translations so i'm just going to stick with the king james well now i've got to define what it means to commit a sin so let's look at another example of this word committing a sin as it will help give us some clarity about what jesus means so jesus said in matthew 5 27 to 28 you have heard that it was said of them of all time you shall not commit adultery but i say on to you that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart so then how many times does a person have to do an adulterous act to violate the law you shall not commit adultery well the answer's simple it's it's only once and and we actually already saw this earlier in our study of john chapter eight the woman caught in adultery only had to be found out once and she was already considered guilty before them so it's not evident from the passage at all that she had some perpetually adulterous lifestyle she only had to be caught once she only had to do it once and be caught doing it to then be accused of committing adultery and notice as well that in in matthew 5 here jesus actually enhanced the old testament commandment because he's saying here that whosoever looks on a woman to lust after so he doesn't even have to do anything technically he just has to look upon her to lust after it doesn't even say that by doing this he is committing adultery he has already committed adultery with her already so it's already been done so just the lustful intent and has already committed adultery now i'm sure if a lot of men are honest they say that this is something that they really really struggle with and so when we see then whosoever commits sin well you only have to look upon a woman to lust after and you have already committed sin so this will then help us when we return to john chapter eight to understand exactly what's going on but in conclusion what what we can see there is that even doing a sin once or even having a desire or an intention to sin even without doing the action is in of itself committing sin there's no ongoing practice or lifestyle for it to be committing sin it's just the one intention alone and that's it okay now somebody then might object to the way that i'm handling john 834 so someone might object and say well john 834 is in the present tense it's not the past tense so wouldn't this imply then that being jesus's disciple cannot include ongoing sins being committed that they must sin no more so as to not be the servant of sin well there are other verses in the bible that deal with sin as a continual or a present tense while being applied to the gospel or the consequences of god's own people sinning so we're just going to take a look at a few and again it's just going to help us get an overall picture of what jesus is actually intending to point out to us in john chapter 8 so ecclesiastes 720 for there is not a just man upon the earth that does good and sins not so that's all present tense it's quite hyperbolic there it says there is not a just man upon the whole earth so that would indicate that it actually covers both believers and non-believers in that sense psalm 14 and also 53 is very similar reading between verses 1 to 3 the fool has said in his heart there is no god they are corrupt they have done abominable works there is none that does good the lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any that did understand and see god they are all gone aside they are all together become filthy there is none that does good no not one so again present tense quite dramatic quite hyperbolic and although in their proper context those psalms would appear as if they're talking specifically about the unsaved or people that just don't believe in god you know the children of men but not the children of god but in the new testament though when paul partially quotes this and paraphrases it in roman's chapter 3 he applies it to both jews and gentiles that all are under sin and that that's why righteousness must come by faith and not the deeds of of the law another good passage is one kings eight where solomon is praying for the israelites and i've great some text out because it's not necessarily relevant to the point that i'm getting across and for the sake of time i'm not i'm not going to read this entire section here just because that it's the take of time but between verses 46 and 51 in this prayer we see that solomon is praying for god's people and it's if they your people sin against you for there is not a no man that sins not present tense and this is in the context of god's own people and then it goes on to explain if they sin against you when you do this and send them into a land far away but then if they shall repent of that sin and come back to you and admit that they've done that then you will bring them out of that land and you will hear their prayer and you will forgive these people and again in the context of god's own people sinning against him and then in verse 51 it clarifies by saying for they are your people they are your inheritance so even people that are god's inheritance still have this propensity to sin against him and in my video on my channel about repentance i went into a lot more detail about these verses that deal with the issue of a believer that sins and so you can't just take the john passage about committing sin and then just pretend that all of these other verses don't exist okay we have to bring everything and consider the bible in its entirety and uh you know in verse 46 this is the present tense it starts with an if well maybe it's just if they sin against you they might not sin against you but then it goes on to saying brackets for there is no man that sins not so you know that encompasses absolutely everybody there so because of passages like that and plenty of others that we could turn to it doesn't really make sense to interpret john 834 through the lens of sinless perfectionism or conditional security to say that a believer can never sin otherwise he is the servant of sin and cannot be a servant of god and you know they'll say that that forfeits his salvation because a servant cannot serve two masters and so on and so forth which is something that we quote out of context but there you go so interpreting these uh this verse in this kind of a way really is just to completely ignore multiple and abundant passages in the bible for the sake of one verse that's actually rather enigmatic really um in multiple prayers in the old testament prayers were made to intercede for the sins of god's own people jesus taught his disciples how to pray you know give us lord our daily bread this is how to pray daily and forgive us our sins and he taught to forgive one another sins for our own forgiveness and so and also psalm 130 psalm 130 verse 4 sorry says that there is forgiveness with god specifically so that he may be feared that's that's what it says there uh james 210 says if you transgress one law you'll transgress then all which is perfectly consistent with this verse and the point that it's making here so returning to the passage then we can see that even just committing one sin puts somebody in the category of a servant of sin so uh what does jesus mean by a servant of sin and and what's the purpose of him saying this here well the clue lies in the next uh verses the analogy that he uses that a servant abides not in the house forever but the son abides forever so the key key lies in in this verse a servant may be paid or unpaid depending on context but he's typically not a permanent member of the family or a member at all really uh he may have a limited amount of time of servitude there may be a time when his servitude stops um and he does not have any inheritance he doesn't inherit the family uh fortune or the family house so that's what you could take to mean by abiding in the house whereas the son is an heir he is always a member of the family he inherits the family assets and his children will inherit it from him as well now some uh oh well actually most modern translations translate servant a slave instead a slave of sin sounds a bit more dramatic i suppose a bit more hyperbolic doing a quick search on the greek word the slave is considered a more appropriate translation apparently but there are sources that reveal that a servant is a suitable and a possible translation so for me personally i think depending on how you interpret a servant or a slave to sin shall not abide in the house forever the word servant seems to make more contextual sense so uh for example the the old testament law put a death penalty on enforced unwarranted slavery uh the acceptable conditions of enforced servitude would have been things like dent debt bonds or agreed financial arrangements with the family of the servant or the servant's own choice actually in some cases um he could you know choose to be a servant for the remainder of his life of his own volition if he's so wished for he brew servants this would typically be for a limited time or at least it should have been for a limited time in theory according to the law while for foreigners it would be everlasting on to their future generations until any debt bonds were resolved as long as that would would take so typically in the ancient world slaves were treated as property or lower class citizens and their children would be the property of the master so in a way the slaves continued to abide in the house in a manner of speaking a more over the most crucial thing is that servants earn wages slaves typically do not so those who commit sin are the servants of sin because there is a wage to be paid for that sin that's why they're the servant of it whereas those who believe on christ are adopted as the sons of god and i'm not going to read all this out because roman six will eventually god willing get its own uh video in this series but roman six talks about this about yielding your members to righteousness because on to whom you yield those are the servants you are the servant to obey it so you were the servants of sin but you've been made free from sin and so there's a key point there you have become the servant of righteousness and when you read romans in its full context you see that well you were a servant of sin you've been made free from that but there is still the spirit warring against the flesh those two are contrary towards the other and you have to bring the flesh into subjection and a key point is in roman six 23 it says the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life through jesus christ our lord so then let's apply the analogy that jesus is using to sin and him being the son of god so we see that there's two contrasting options here essentially if you do not believe that jesus is he the son of god you shall die in your sins that's what he said in verse 24 so you can claim to never be in bondage to sin as these people were trying to do for whatever reason they they claimed ancestry to abraham in this case but even if you commit which is to do or intend or desire to do even one single sin you are essentially the servant of sin and you shall die in your sins that's why as paul said there is no righteousness from the law you will not abide in the house forever which you could take to mean the limited available time available to repent onto eternal life because once you die in your sins this this opportunity closes um support supporting verses for that for example john 12 35 says and jesus jesus said onto them yet a little while is the light with you orc while you have the light less darkness come upon you he bruised 9 27 and it is appointed onto men once to die but after this the judgment so then you can start to see how jesus is laying foundations here and then paul is going to build on those foundations in his epistle so even just committing one sin or having a desire or an intention to do that sin bring somebody under bondage they become the servant of sin and there is not a just man upon the earth that does good in the sins not so everybody becomes a servant of sin they cannot attain righteousness through the law and a servant his own wages while the wages of sin is his death as paul told us and so that's essentially what jesus has to set us free from and so other than being the servant of sin then the other option is to believe on jesus believe on the lord jesus christ and those people who do that shall not die in their sins ergo the truth shall make them free the son abides in his house forever why because jesus offers eternal life to those that believe as we have consistently seen throughout john's gospel up until this point so this is what we are set free from it's dying in our sins already the servant of sin so we're going to die in those sins because that's the wages for the servants of sin the wages of sin so then the gift of god is through his son eternal life to those that believe and that's why the son abides in the house forever so this is what we're set free from it's dying in our sins and by extension of this the condemnation of eternal judgment in hell now bear in mind that jesus is talking to a mixed audience here there were some jews that believed on him there were some that didn't so of the jews that did believe on him they are one to continue in his word so as to be jesus's disciples in the context of eternal life not not fellowship or discipleship though unless they be as like the disciples at the end of john chapter six where we saw they stumbled at jesus's words and watched no more with him so they didn't continue in his word of which jesus already knew from the beginning that they did not believe they did not lose salvation because they were never saved as we saw and quite clearly when we looked at john chapter six so given what we have here we don't really have enough context to assume that this means believers are set free from the propensity to sin itself and that this goes completely against what we read elsewhere in the bible and it's not the topic of discussion here really jesus is addressing a mixed audience including a lot of unsaved jews and Pharisees in roman six where we cross reference turning from sin and yielding the body to righteousness is more of a subject matter but that passage is addressed to those who already believe and paul did address their infirmity off the flesh as well even though these are already believers in his audience so the propensity to sin itself is still there but roman's god willing will just have to wait until its own study video later in the series so wrapping up this particular point then with all of this in mind we can see now why jesus said the truth shall make you free in a future tense remember so remember earlier i told you to hold on to that thought so let's just summarize what's going on here there's a mixed audience and there were some jews who believed on him but there were many jews and Pharisees in this audience who didn't believe on him and they didn't acknowledge being in bondage to sin so jesus needs to reaffirm this to the non-believing jesus has already dealt with disciples in john six that did not continue with him because they stumbled at his words the truth did not set them free they remained the servants of sin but jesus already knew that from the beginning obviously it does happen that there are false converts who believe for a while as the parable goes but then stumble and fall away as it's described in the parable of the seeds that fell in various places we have seen previously in john that whosoever believes and that's with a genuine belief not not the belief of the falling way seed but a genuine belief is passed from death on to life but still being in our mortal bodies this eternal life has not yet fully manifested itself and so when we looked briefly at roman six it said in verse 22 he said that you believers are now being made free from sin but the end is eternal life so it's the end it's not yet manifested itself fully so the body itself is still dead because of sin and paul will go into that in a lot more detail in the epistles that john is obviously just laying down the the foundations here so i hope that helps deal with the servant of sin issue so next we can move on to abraham's seed and this is going to be very significant for the remainder of the chapter so jesus carries on this conversation where he left off after telling them that the truth shall set them free so between verses 37 to 40 i'll read up to 40 i know that you are abraham's seed but you seek to kill me because my word has no place in you i speak that which i have seen with my father and you do that which you have seen with your father they answered and said on to him abraham is our father jesus said on to them if you were abraham's children you would do the works of abraham but now you seek to kill me a man that has told you the truth which i have heard of god this did not abraham now i've included some more verses in gracious for context but we'll look at those later the the great out for now so here we can see that jesus acknowledges that they are abraham's seed but goes on to say that their works prove that they're not abraham's children so yes they are the physical offspring of abraham but in terms of their seed but they're not his children now now some people would say that that's a bit of a strange distinction but that that would fit the context of what jesus is talking about here because if they were his children they would have an inheritance with abraham so the the promises and an eternal life but but they have no part of that inheritance so they they are his seed but they're not his children if that makes sense so we did already touch on this earlier when we looked at their denial of of being in bondage and we looked at cross references for that uh john's gospel does not go too deeply into the doctrine about abraham's children being of faith rather than of blood so uh romans 9 to 11 obviously it delves into that in a lot more detail so we can't really cover it in this study in too much detail and something to point out here in verses uh 37 and 38 particularly is jesus is spelling it out for us here that any any jews who reject him and in this in this particular scenario sought to kill him they are not of god the father they they have their own father which later verses in this chapter will clarify is the devil essentially and the reason why this is important is uh for christians to understand is their relationship with judaism some christians have a very unhealthy obsession with the nation of israel the hebrew language and jewish practices you know i mean things like the churches put in the israeli flag up for for some bizarre reason you have these hebrew roots movements you have these black israeli movements you have these messianic jews and calling jesus you're sure and all that kind of stuff this is very i said this is very dangerous though because it leads christians into thinking that christ rejecting jews get a free pass as god's people just because they're jewish when in actual fact they need the gospel just as much as any muslim or or hindu and that's very clear from this chapter they can't just claim that we're the seed of abraham and we get a free pass they need to believe on the christ if they reject the christ unfortunately they reject eternal life with that and they reject inheritance and more over these sort of judaizing movements or all like where it seems like the jews are messianic jews like jews for jesus and these groups you always have to watch out for those because even if they claim to acknowledge jesus or believe in jesus or love jesus while still being jewish you have to question what is your salvation is their works of the law in there somewhere and that's what i often find with these kind of hebrew roots and judaizing movements is that well they still claim to believe in a messiah but but they still believe in obedience of of works to the law completely contrary to everything that paul tells us so so watch out for groups like that to be to be quite frank so that's all i'm really going to say on that particular issue but no you know if jews reject jesus the messiah or if they still trust in the law for salvation according to this chapter they are the servants of sin they do not have eternal life under that now something that really needs to be addressed at and looked carefully here is that in verses 39 to 40 so where jesus says if you were the children of abraham you would do the works of abraham but you seek to kill me and abraham did not do this so people who believe in a workspace salvation or that you can lose salvation they're going to use these verses to claim that you have to have works for salvation now sometimes they'll try and distinguish between works of the law versus works of faith but essentially what they're doing is they're saying that you have to have the works of abraham to be abraham's children so you have to have these fruits of righteousness otherwise you don't have eternal life well this is really this is a very moronic handling of this verse because first of all they're conflating the cause and the effect okay there's a cause and the effect and they just flip those around and really in the context of what we're looking at here this passage has absolutely nothing to do with works of righteousness versus works of the flesh for believers it's a it's about a very specific evil work of this particular group of jews in opposition to how abraham and his children would would ever behave okay that that's quite important that we understand that so let's just visualize this so what comes in very clearly in verse 39 is that it says if you were abraham's children so being abraham's children is the condition or the cause doing the works of abraham is the effect so if these jews that jesus is talking to are really abraham's children well if the answer is yes they would do the works of abraham otherwise so the opposite of that if they were not abraham's children they seek to kill jesus so this is these are the opposites this is something that's quite specific in its proper context so the folly of turning this passage into a thing about works for salvation or that you can lose salvation if you don't have those works is that they've now flipped the cause and effect and around so they're saying do you do the works of abraham well if the answer is yes you are abraham's child and if the answer is no you are not abraham's child but but what relevance is this to the people in this chapter who seek to kill jesus what where are they addressed in this paradigm that this is completely ignored even though it's a key point relating to the dialogue and just in case you're wondering so let's ask this hypothetical question what about people who didn't do the works of abraham quote-unquote by which the work salvation crowd they mean you know do all these works fit for a believer so people didn't do these works but they also didn't seek to kill jesus either and a couple of examples of this now you might not think this is a great example this first one but pilot found jesus innocent now yes he did action jesus as crucifixion but he did appeal to the jews against it he did not seek it wantingly he didn't want this to happen he was under political pressure by the jews and the Pharisees and he instead sort of tried to play what we might call the agnostic card like what is truth who really knows and he tried to wash his hands of that situation so he didn't really seek to kill jesus but he wasn't exactly somebody who was full of the works of abraham right uh nicodemus would be another interesting example because he seemed more favorable towards jesus than most of the Pharisees he tried to calm the other Pharisees down in john chapter seven when they were trying to catch him we saw that in the last video and later in john 19 if we assume that that is the same nicodemus he helped him bomb jesus's body but we don't know for sure that he ever actually got saved or that he even repented of his membership among the Pharisees so which category do these people fit in do they do the works of abraham or do they seek to kill jesus because really i'm having a hard time fitting those characters into either one well the answer is neither because once again this passage has nothing to do with believers bringing forth fruits or works of the spirit or obedience versus non-believers or false believers or idol believers not having these works or bringing forth evil fruit or evil works of the flesh or disobedience this is not the context of this passage plain and simple it has nothing to do with this chapter the group that jesus is speaking to have heard the truth yet they not only reject the truth which is bad enough in of itself but they want to kill jesus while at the same time claiming to be the children of abraham this is the issue with this chapter this is what's going on and so this is what jesus is trying to address here with what he's saying now abraham and his true children the people that acknowledge the truth they would not dream of killing the christ and in fact verse 56 later in this chapter shows that abraham rejoiced to see christ's day quite in opposition to what this group are claiming despite the fact that they claim to be his children so that this is what's going on here in this chapter so then the purpose of doing the works of abraham here is to highlight that these jews and Pharisees are not abraham's children because they do the opposite of what abraham and his true children would ever do now if these jews were abraham's children then they would do this do the works of abraham instead because they're not abraham's children they do this they seek to kill jesus this that's kind of hypothetical person that has faith but doesn't have any good works to show for it this is utterly irrelevant to the matter being discussed and so this is why it's just so ridiculous to use this verse to say well you have to have works to be saved or you can lose your salvation if you don't pursue these works because if you were abraham's children you would do the works they're just taking that verse completely out of the context of what jesus is using it for it has nothing to do with the works of a believer or you know the verses the lack of works of an idol believer that's not relevant to the matter being discussed the matter being discussed is these people who want to kill jesus quite in opposition to abraham's true children that's what this chapter is about so continuing this conversation then between verses 41 to 47 you do the deeds of your father then said there to him we be born not a fornication we have one father even god jesus said unto them if god were your father you would love me for i proceeded forth and came from god neither came i of myself but he that sent me why do you not understand my speech even because you cannot hear my word you are of your father the devil and the lusts of your father you will do he was a murderer from the beginning and a boat not in the truth because there is no truth in him when he speaks a lie he speaks of his own for he is a liar and the father of it and because i tell you the truth you believe me not which of you convinces me of sin and if i say the truth why do you not believe me he that is of god hears god's words you therefore hear them not because you are not of god and so here we see essentially a repeat of the same points except that the stakes are higher so not only do they claim to be abraham's children they even claim to be god's children which jesus completely refutes with pretty much the same points he raised before about abraham's children they are not god's children because they seek to kill the son of god and they do not hear his words of truth and jesus uses very strong language here even to go as far as to say that the devil is their father now one minor comment about verse 41 it says we be born not of fornication it's not entirely clear whether they were indirectly accusing jesus of being born of fornication as opposed to being born of a virgin which would make sense given their rejection of him but we don't really know a lot around what exactly they meant by that and jesus doesn't address that point specifically it's possible that they were hinting at it or they were just specifically addressing their own claim of being of the father god so i can't really delve too much into that it's just a possibility of what's going on there now i get the impression that there seems to be a lot more going on beneath the surface in this conversation than than just the the words of the conversation itself the jews being spoken to here they are devil's children and as such they are completely and utterly resistant to the truth seemingly incapable of accepting christ and are completely blinded to his words now because jesus is speaking to a group of people here we don't know from the narration how many if any members of this crowd had encountered jesus several times before to somebody who doesn't really know jesus and has not seen him do any miracles or has not heard his preaching prior to this encounter on the superficial surface of things it may seem as if he's been somewhat bold or arrogant or or prideful here you know if you didn't know that he was the christ i mean but bearing in mind that many of the Pharisees present would have encountered him several times before he preached several times at the temple so regular visitors would would likely be quite accustomed to seeing him preach at the temple and moreover there are plenty of examples elsewhere in the gospels where the Pharisees and the jews did not believe on christ even after seeing him do miracles for example the scribes in mark chapter three they saw him cast out devils they even acknowledged that he was casting out devils but they accused him of doing it by the power of satan and very similarly later in this chapter they will accuse jesus of being demon possessed in this chapter as well there are several verses in the gospels showing that jesus knows the hearts of man and jesus already has preconceived knowledge about many of the people that he's speaking to so he knows that the people in john chapter eight are filled with lies he perceives that even without any deductive reasoning he just knows that about them and so that's why they want to murder someone who speaks the truth even christ himself so it's not just that christ is being a bit too big for his boots here they must have some idea of who he is and they must hate the truth to a point of this is why they want to do this and we see a similar parallel to this dialogue actually in matthew 23 25 to 31 jesus rebuked the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees because they claimed that they would have not partaken with their ancestral fathers in killing the prophets had they been around at that time and yet here they are in john chapter eight seeking to kill the one to whom all the prophets give witness according to ax 10 43 and this is nothing new it's nothing old either in theory the old testament jews and israel acts should have been god's people at least in theory yet we persistently see that they fell away and killed the prophets and priests and if they didn't well then why would Pharisees even be saying that in Matthew 23 they did kill the prophets and priests in the early days of the new testament the jews believe that they were the true jewish line the children of abraham the seed of abraham but they killed christ that they had been looking for for so long and persecuted christians in the later in the new testament who who did believe in the jewish messiah so again they claim to be of the true line yet they do the works of somebody who's evil and is of the devil and later in history as jewish persecution started to decline catholicism emerged and horde with the roman state they claimed once again it's the same spirit that drives all this they claim to be the true church that jesus founded and yet for hundreds of years they persecuted and killed the true beliefs of god denouncing them as heretics and prevented the bible from being translated or made publicly available now in some cases those persecuted groups were heretical but the reasoning behind the persecution wasn't usually the gospel to be honest and the reasonings could include saved christians as well such as for example if a group rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation and fast forwarding the clock some more islam emerged and again they claim to be the true abrahamic succeeding faith and really just continued what the roman catholics left behind in some parts of the world today strong conservative islamic countries are still very dangerous for christians in many cases and even in the early days of the reformation protestants saw themselves as the true successes to early christianity by breaking away from the heretical and apostate practices of the roman catholic church yet there were incidents although much less extreme on the grand scheme of things among their exalted reformers such as luther and calvin where again just like the roman catholic church before them they yoked with political forces an actioned persecution against minority groups of christians such as for example the anabaptist and as with the roman catholic persecution of these kind of groups yes some of them may have been heretical but the grounds the reasoning for the persecution could have included save christians as well and so you see that this is the habit of the devil's children they think that they are the righteous seed yet they do these evil things that only satan would do because the righteous seed would never do these things and so you can see how there's there's nothing new under the sun as it is written so we see this mentality here there's these groups of people perceiving themselves to be the the true group abraham's true children in bondage to no man and yet because they are full of lies they persecute that christ and they persecute his his true followers and these issues that they're not merely denominations that are just off on a few issues but otherwise okay christ is clear here they reject christ and they will die in there since it's perfectly clear from this chapter now persecution is a bit off topic from salvation doctrine though extreme persecution amongst doctrine of the divided groups is perhaps no longer common now as as the church and state are separated politically but you can see that this mentality and this underlying spirit of rejecting the words of christ and hating the truth while claiming to be abraham's seed and under that no bondage is still very much there it really is there in a lot of what's called christianity today so then these devil's children that resist the truth how does this manifest well i'll give you a few examples so you you try to show something to the devil's children just like jesus was trying to show them in john chapter eight they'll give you a reply and what's actually what's actually going on is there's double speak behind what they're saying if you really think carefully about the implications of what they're saying so you say to the devil's children jesus said my father is greater than all and i give on to the maternal life and no man is able to pluck them out of my hand is it well that's what the bible says there's the truth that's the words of jesus you show that to the devil's children and you'll get an answer along the lines of but you can still walk away he won't lose you so long as you injure to the end and so what the double speak of that reply is that you can't trust jesus to fulfill what he said he would do the father's hand is not really greater than yours security and jesus's eternal commitment to you is demonic that that's essentially that the logical outcome of what they're saying but they'll obviously say it a lot nicer than that he points out to them paul said salvation is by grace through faith not of works it's a free gift jesus only told nicodemus and the woman at the well and the jews in john chapter six to believe on him and they would never hunger they would never thirsty you point that out to them and this is kind of the reply that you get from them it's not enough to just believe faith alone is demonic the bible is clear we need to be baptized you need to repent of your sins to be saved otherwise you're giving people a free ticket to heaven that is cheap grace that that's the kind of reply that you're going to get from them and so well what's the double speak of the devil's children here well essentially then they have to say that jesus preached a false and incomplete gospel multiple times to multiple people you have to say that paul preached a false gospel the free gift of eternal life you have to say it's not really a free gift of grace it's actually very expensive and it will cost you everything you have the bible says it's a free gift the bible says it's grace but that's the double speak of what they're actually saying the devil's children cannot comprehend the truth and they always have excuses and answers to override the truth with with their own point of view and the thing is you know i'm not necessarily talking about maybe a christian who's been stuck in uh something wrong or apostate for like 20 years and then they come out of that and get saved because you know in many cases they may have done that out of ignorance but there are devils children who they they know the bible very well they know exactly what it says they've had all these sorts of arguments and that they still continue to resist the truth even when all their points it's just completely indisputable that there's no debate between these things but they still dispute it just like the Pharisees and the jews are doing in john chapter eight and so then what starts to happen is as these people are given over to their false gospel and their delusions again you try and point things out to them and you just get the same uh stupid response for example you point out to people on both occasions when jesus said sin no more he never mentioned believing on him he never mentioned eternal life he wasn't preaching the gospel when he said that but you just get the same repeat of completely unironically well jesus said go and sin no more makes perfect sense to me our salvation depends on it so that they just don't grasp this basic concept at all they just cannot divide the word of god in this regard here's another example you try and show the devil's children when james said justified by faith and works the context was the benefit of the brethren when he said can faith save him he proceeded with though a man say he have faith he doesn't say that he actually had faith he just said he had faith and really james there is asking an open question he's not making a statement technically speaking whereas when paul said justified by faith without works the context was righteousness before god when he said to him that works not but believes on him that justifies the ungodly his faith is countered for righteousness he wasn't asking a question like james was he was making a clear statement not asking an open question so again you point out the context to them you try and show them the justification in james with works versus the justification of paul without works and how that actually applies and once again they cannot separate the gospel from the life of a believer and so you just get this same line fake without works is dead fake without works is dead they just keep repeating that because you know they just keep defaulting back to that infinite loop that they just they just cannot escape from because they cannot put the bible in its proper context they cannot divide between what is for our salvation and what isn't and just like in john chapter 8 the irony of this is that the devil's children they are utterly convinced in their own minds that they are the true children of abraham you try to reply to their false premises but it falls on death ears because you cannot give sight to the spiritually blinded and there were even some people that jesus himself dealt with people like we see in john chapter 8 where they were a lost cause and a servant is not greater than his master so unfortunately we are going to encounter people who it doesn't matter if you answer every objection they have about you know about with their work salvation or conditional security or sinless perfectionism and you just show why it's wrong they'll just find another passage and go what about this they'll just find another passage and what about this well no we're the children of abraham and it just around and around it goes like well you just cannot preach that you know you just they just cannot see it they are just spiritually blind there's something wrong with them something is blocking them from just seeing god's simple truth so they'll say things like you need to repent of your sins to be saved if you preach faith without repentance you're a false prophet it's like well jesus preached belief without turning from sin to multiple people in john's gospel again just no grasp of it whatsoever it just it doesn't register with them at all they say things like a corrupt tree produces corrupt fruit if you have any corrupt fruit you won't make it to heaven well it's like well your fruit is work salvation though your works are as filthy rags in his sack but again just there's a block something is not getting in they are not perceiving this and what jesus is saying is not even that difficult in some cases but it's just it just will not register them because they are the devil's children they are given over to this they cannot get out of this they are the children of lies essentially and so you know we can dispense with all of this the silly memes now i'm sure you get the you get the idea but but what you can see here is that this the same spirit that drove these Jews in in Pharisees back in john chapter eight is very much alive today in christianity itself christianity is no different there are loads and loads of christians who who just completely reject the the truth and so going back to the passage then bearing in mind that in verse 46 the Pharisees even attempted to trap jesus and they've done this multiple times throughout the gospel they tried to catch him on his own words he answered their objection every single time he even challenges them here to convince him of sin but either they did not or they could not respond to this challenge they just got more riled up against him and we're going to see that in the upcoming verses so they reply to them then in verse 48 bearing in mind he just said two verses ago which of you convinces me of sin they don't even point us into him they just they then answered the Jews and said unto him say we not that you are a Samaritan and has a devil that that's their reply they don't even point us into him they just well you're obviously a devil you obviously have a devil then just based on what you even though they can't actually point to what's wrong with what he said jesus answered in verse 49 i have not a devil but i honor my father and you do uh disonomy verse 50 and i seek not my own glory there is one that seeks and judges verse 51 very very very i say unto you if a man keep my saying he shall never see death and so there will be a few more verses yet but uh we're obviously starting to see as this chapter's coming towards its end a very expected conclusion jesus just reaffirms he is of the father this group are just incapable of hearing it in verse 48 they accuse him of having a devil so that this is not too dissimilar to the scribes in mark three who even acknowledge that jesus is able to cast devils yet they still accused him of uh doing it by the power of the devil instead of the holy spirit and in in doing so in that context they committed the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the holy spirit so with this in mind it would make sense then why this group in john chapter eight appears to be unsalvageable at this point now something just to address carefully here in verse 51 what what does it mean exactly if a man keep my saying um well actually even those who persecute christ keep his saying in a manner of speaking according to john 15 20 so in john 15 20 jesus is speaking to his disciples and he says remember the word that i said unto you the servant is not greater than his lord if they have persecuted me they will also also persecute you if they have kept my saying they will keep yours also and so in john chapter 15 it's those who persecute christ who kept his saying but that's quite the opposite of what christ is saying here in 851 because it's those who keep his saying are not seem to be not the ones who want to put into death and so it may seem contradictory so uh the most logical interpretation to this i would say is when he says keep my saying it means hold him to his own words and so this may vary in context so let me just show you what i mean by that so in the context of john chapter eight the one who keeps the ones who keep his saying or hold him to his words are those that believe him when he said the sun shall make you free i proceeded forth from god the father who sent me i tell you the truth this is all the stuff that he's been saying in his chapter so the ones that keep his saying hold him to those words are those that believe on him when he said those words so like john 5 24 he that hears my word and believes on him that sent me has everlasting life so it's hearing those words and holding him to those words believing him when he said those words whereas in the context of john 15 when christ was warning about his disciples about persecution those that kept christ saying in that context and persecuted him they they still persecuted him because of his words it's just that instead of believing his words and keeping him to his words in that way they kept him to his words and hated him because of those words so they will like likewise persecute the disciples for preaching those same words because they will hold the disciples to those words essentially is what he's saying there so i hope that helps you just helps you to see that keeping christ's words goes in one of two directions in this exchange the ones that believe on him holding to his words that they shall never see death and the ones that persecute him holding to his words that they hate and are unable to receive essentially this is perfectly consistent with this chapter because there are those who are the children of abraham doing the works of abraham and there are those who are the children of the devil and seek to kill jesus it's just keeping his words goes in one of two directions now again as i mentioned earlier in this study the prospect of a person that doesn't seek to kill jesus but doesn't believe on him either is simply not addressed here he is not one that keeps christ saying either in the john eight context or the john 15 context and again the prospect of a believer that doesn't do the works of abraham is again not addressed here it's outside the context of this dialogue because jesus is not talking to safe believers he's talking to jews that need to be safe but won't hear it and so wrapping up this study video we're getting towards the final verses of this chapter so the jews said onto him in verse 52 now we know that you have a devil abraham is dead and the prophets and you say if a man keep my saying he shall never taste of death are you greater than our father abraham which is dead and the prophets are dead who do you make yourself jesus answered if i honor myself my honor is nothing it is my father that honors me of whom you say that he is your god yet you have not known him but i know him and if i should say i know him not i shall be a liar like onto you but i know him and keep his saying your father abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad then said the jews on to him you are not yet 50 years old and have you seen abraham jesus said onto them truly truly i say on to you before abraham was i am then they took 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 so here in the finale the jews that rejected him they don't grasp eternal life they don't grasp the eternal nature of christ they don't even point to scripture and show him where he's wrong from scripture they just don't like what he says they don't like who he is they are carnal and they they just can't understand heavenly things and some of jesus saying here are very similar to luke chapter 20 when jesus was addressing a question about the resurrection abraham is only dead in a manner of speaking in the flesh because jehovah the lord god he's a god of the living he's not the god of the dead but this crowd they just assumed that they're all dead they don't seem to be grasping eternal life properly here so i hope that that has helped you and this has been quite a complex and profound chapter somewhat more complicated than some of the earlier chapters in john's gospel so god willing as as more time progresses i hope to do more study videos on the remaining chapters of john later in this series i'm really excited about doing john chapter 10 soon because i absolutely love that chapter so if you've found this series interesting please do keep your eye out for more study videos coming out thank you for your time