As we continue our journey through the gospel of John it is hard not to notice a change in Jesus. He is becoming more forthright in how He speaks to the Jews. I guess as you think about it He had to do so. Despite performing many amazing miracles and despite His powerful teaching the people were not convinced of who He said He was. His testimony was considered invalid and not trustworthy. The people disputed His claims. Why was this? What prevented them from accepting His testimony?
In essence, they did not like His teaching. Whilst they were eager to have the long awaited Messiah come, they could not see that they were in need of salvation. They did not realize that the reason for the Messiah coming in the first place was for the purpose of bringing people back to God through the forgiveness of sins. They thought the Messiah would come to give them victory over their oppressors. After all, they were good people and they could trace their heritage back to Abraham. They thought themselves to be the legitimate children of God. They did not need a Saviour like Jesus!
Jesus was at pains to explain to them who He was and why He had come. It all turned very ugly when Jesus became extremely controversial. He claimed that if they were the legitimate children of Abraham then they would do what Abraham did. Abraham believed God and was obedient to Him. Jesus accused them of being anything but the children of Abraham and were, in fact, children of the devil! How to win friends and influence them! Jesus struck out big time with gaining the acceptance of these people gathered on the steps of the Temple.
Yet, there is a timely warning for each one of us. Jesus is teaching that if we claim to be God’s children then our lives will show it. We will have no problems yielding our lives to Him because we know that without Christ we too are no more than children of the devil! Why? Because of sin! That sin needs rectification. They only way for rectification to take place is to accept God’s terms of rescue! Jesus is the Rescuer! We must humble ourselves before Him, repent of our sins and follow Him. He is the light of the world and in Him there is no darkness! The question is this: is our faith in Jesus genuine? Have we been truly been set free by yielding our lives to Jesus? Is Jesus’ light shining within us?