John 10:31-39 31Again, the Jews picked up stones in order that they might stone him. 32Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which work will you stone me?” 33The Jews answered him, “Not for a good work we stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” 34Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35If he called those people gods to whom the word of God came, and Scripture cannot be broken, 36do you say of whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, in order that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” 39Then they again sought to arrest him, but he escaped from their hand.
When the Jews heard Jesus express his unity with the Father, they could not accept it and tried to stone him. Stoning was a form of execution done by a mob. This form of ancient lynching could result from anger when someone broke sacred traditions, for example, when Stephen was stoned in Acts 7. The Jews had missed the whole point of Jesus being the revelation of God. It appears that the two positions were coming from different angles. On the one hand, the Jews would not accept Jesus’ verbal claims about himself, leading them to refuse to believe the miracles he was obviously doing. On the other hand, Jesus said that his miracles proved the truth of his words. No one could do the miracles he was doing unless that person was from God. And the miracles Jesus was doing were beyond anything of any time in history, making them clear proof of divine favor.
The Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy, which was worthy of being stoned to death. They thought Jesus was making himself God. Jesus’ teachings could be easily misunderstood in this way. He kept himself separate from God the Father but also showed an intimacy and unity beyond human understanding. They were not open to the depth of messianic theology. At a personal level, they had made God so remote that they had an imbalanced view of God’s holiness in relation to his love. They emphasized God’s transcendence to the point that they neglected God’s immanence.
Jesus’ response, beginning in verse 34, appealed to the Jewish Law, which likely refers to the whole Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, from the Septuagint translation of Psalm 82:6. The basic point of this citation is to demonstrate the wide range of meaning of the word “gods” (theoi). Other people in Scripture are called God’s sons and daughters; therefore, it was not blasphemy for Jesus to call himself the Son of God. Jesus adds the idea about the sureness of Scripture and that it cannot be broken. This could be a specific reference to Psalm 82 and the idea that the passage was relevant and would be fulfilled, or it could refer to the general reliability of all of Scripture. Jesus defines his mission further in verse 36 in two ways: as being sanctified (hēgiasen) by the Father and being sent into the world. Both concepts verify Jesus’ authority and position as the Son of God. Jesus was set aside as special and unique in all of history and sent into the world with the special mission of proclaiming God’s message of salvation and showing the extent of God’s love by suffering, dying on the cross, and rising from the dead.
The works (erga) that Jesus was doing proved the truth of his claims. The Jews could not deny the miracles. Some of them likely saw the miracles take place. They just could not get around the narrow views of how God works. Jesus fulfilled the old revelation and brought new revelation consistent with the old. Jesus challenges them to look at the evidence, which should give them assurance that he spoke the truth. One of the purposes of his miracles was to help them know and understand (gnōte kai ginōskēte). These two verbs are closely related: the first gives the nuance of coming to know a truth (aorist tense), and the second indicates more of the continued process of understanding (present tense). The Jews could come to a point of faith and then grow in this faith by connecting Jesus’ miracles to his teachings. Faith would be understanding, and understanding would strengthen faith.
Once again, the Jews could not accept what Jesus said and wanted to arrest him even more (see 7:30). Things had reached a crisis point. They were like some people today who refuse to accept the claims of the Bible about Jesus. One argument is that everything was made up by the early church; there is no evidence of the truth of the Bible. In the face of such skepticism, the miracles that will prove the truth about Jesus will come through the changed lives of his followers. Our testimony may be the link that proves the truth of the gospel. But we should be prepared for rejection, just like Jesus faced.
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