John 8:39-41 39They answered and said to him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you are Abraham’s children, you will be doing the works Abraham did, 40but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I have heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. 41You are doing the works your father.” Then they said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.”
The Jews return to human-level thinking and tradition with their appeal to Abraham as their father. They thought that they qualified to be the special people of promise. Jesus uses another conditional sentence to point out their wrong thinking. There is an implied idea behind the protasis of the condition: if you were Abraham’s children. Abraham’s children would and should be able to recognize the Messiah. They would be people of faith, like Abraham. They thought being a Jew and following their traditions was good enough to qualify them as God’s chosen people. Jesus taught in various ways thus far that God’s children are by faith, and there is an invitation for the whole world, not just a few select people living in Jerusalem or Israel. Jesus’ vision was for all people. The works of Abraham did was the obedience of faith. He acted on the promises of God by trusting and moving out in faith. Although the word “faith” is not used in these verses, it is implied behind all Jesus teaches in John’s Gospel.
The evidence that the Jews were mistaken in their thinking was in their plan to kill Jesus. They had missed the whole point and even went to the opposite extreme. They not only did not believe in Jesus, they even wanted to kill him. Jesus makes the point clear once again for the slow-learning Jews. He had spoken the truth to them in plain words but they refused to believe. When Abraham received God’s promise in Genesis 12 and later 15, even though it seemed impossible, he believed, left his homeland, and moved to a new place. When it seemed impossible to have a son, he still believed. The Jews were following another father, whom Jesus identifies in verse 44 as the devil.
The situation appears to have worsened in the following verses, almost to the point of argumentation. The Jews’ lack of faith is evident in their response in verse 41. Jesus’ criticism of their lack of faith made them think he was calling them the illegitimate children of Abraham. They were not like Ishmael, who was born of the slave Hagar. They were descendants of Isaac, the son of promise. There may be a subtle jab at Jesus’ identity and a possible rumor of how he was born, but the text is not clear enough at this point. Verse 48, however, makes it clear that they did not really know Jesus’ identity. Jesus could criticize their heritage, but their foundational appeal is that they had God as their Father. They were assuming the special place held by Jesus as the only begotten Son of God. This story shows how crucial it is to have the right idea about Jesus. Without the essential belief in him being the divine Son of God, everything else about faith crumbles and descends into humanism.
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