ARE YOU RELIGIOUS?

Then He said again to them, “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews were saying, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, “Where I am going, you cannot come’?” And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore, I said to you that will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” So they were saying to Him, “Who are You?” Jesus said to them, “What have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.

I cringe when someone describes me as “religious”. A far better description would be one that highlights my relationship with Jesus Christ. The Pharisees and Scribes were “religious”, yet they were headed for hell while believing with all their hearts they were on their way to heaven. They believed they worshipped the right God and, therefore, safe from His wrath and judgment. The truth was that they were spiritually dead while they were physically alive, deluded by their blindness and hardness of hearts. Self-righteous, they lived for this world, were focused only on the blessings this world offers, unbelieving, and willfully ignorant. They were “religious”, a title they loved to have ascribed to themselves. But before we look down our noses in judgment, the Pharisees’ hearts reflect our own hearts before the Lord was pleased to open our eyes to the truth, give us new hearts that are soft and moldable, and faith to believe. So, when we see the Pharisees and Scribes in Scripture, we need to stop and examine OUR own hearts.

Jesus’ time on earth was fast approaching the end; He would soon head to the cross. Now, imagine, hearing these words from Jesus before your salvation but with the understanding you now have. In verse 21, Jesus is telling them that He is going to go away or die soon. He’s going His way—back to where He came from, back to His Father. He says, “I’m going back to heaven by the way of my impending death, and you will continue to seek for the Messiah you have envisioned is coming—the one who will give you peace on the earth, who will rule over all your enemies—but you will die in your sin.” He tells them that where He is going, they cannot come.

Think about a time before the Lord saved you. You sincerely believe you are a good person and that you are on the right path to heaven. Someone comes into your life and tells you that what you have believed is a lie. What this person is saying to you goes against everything you have ever been taught. You were raised from birth in a religious system to believe that you are on the right track. What do you do? What did the Pharisees do? They dug their heels in deeper in the quicksand of unbelief.

Because they could only see with physical eyes and were blinded to the spiritual truths Jesus spoke, they falsely believed He was speaking about suicide. (The Jews believed that suicide was one of the severest of sins resulting in that one who takes his own life being thrown into the worst part of Hades.) We know that is not true, but it is what they believed. They know that crowds were following Jesus. They didn’t want to diminish the people who they believe should be following them! I suspect they believe that Jesus is crazy, but He’s no less of a threat to them. In their confusion to try and understand where the argument is going, they resort to mocking Him. Believers for any length of time have certainly experienced the same mocking in attempts to relay the Gospel to friends and families.

Jesus continued as if reading their minds regarding suicide, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

Jesus clearly defines for them the two spiritual realms that exist—the invisible realm associated with God and the realm of all things relating to the world systems controlled by Satan. Ephesians 2:2-3 says: And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. The Jews, here, believed they belonged to God. In reality, they belonged to Satan and his kingdom. 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 says: And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world  has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 

Christ is the Light of the world; they lived in darkness. In Him is eternal life; they lived in eternal death. Christ’s heart is focused only on the Kingdom of Heaven; their hearts were only focused on the kingdoms of this world. Unless they were to believe that He is the Messiah—their Messiah—they would die in their sins. He claimed to be God; they refused to believe. To believe that Jesus is God requires obedience to His lordship. The point of the Gospel that is most egregious to our flesh because of our human pride is the point where we must bow the knee to Christ’s lordship. Why? Because we want to be the lord of our own lives. The Pharisees were used to men following them. Belief in Scripture is never just a mental assent to the truth. Belief involves getting off my throne and bowing to the One whose throne is high and lifted up above all His creation.

At this point, the Pharisees turn to Jesus and say, “Who are You?” Jesus tells them, “I’ve been trying to tell you.” Again, He reiterates the fact that He was sent by God, the Father, to give the world a message from Him. How could they know that He is the Son sent by the Father? Because Jesus said He did nothing on His own initiative but spoke only the things the Father taught Him. They purportedly knew the Father from their own Scriptures that revealed Him. If that were true, they should have recognized Him for who He is. Jesus says the Father is with Him, “for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”  He told them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He…” Jesus didn’t have His own agenda, but came down to earth to die out of total obedience to the Father’s will.

They weren’t obedient to the Father, the God they professed to follow. They would be the ones who would deliver Him to Pontius Pilate to be condemned resulting in crucifixion. He tells them He will be lifted up upon a cross, just like the serpent was upon the pole in the wilderness. What the Jews would plot for His reproach and shame would be His exaltation. By His obedience to what He was telling them was soon to come, they would know that His testimony was true. For most, due to the hardness of their hearts, it would be too late to believe; but for some who would remember all that Jesus testified about Himself, would turn to the cross and put their faith in Him.  For them, their blind eyes could now see, and the prison doors swung wide open for them to walk in the light, free from sin and darkness.