Search the Scriptures Daily Program #4202d:
Gary:
Please stay tuned and at the end of the program we will let you know where to send your questions for Dave and Tom to respond to in a future “Contending for the Faith.” You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Now our final segment:
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
We continue our exploration of the doctrine of salvation. Here again are Dave and Tom.
Tom:
We’re continuing with the Gospel of John and for those of you who are joining us maybe for the first time, we’ve been going through this book verse by verse and we’ve been on it for quite a while, but it’s been—anytime we have the opportunity to go through God’s Word, especially verse by verse, to me it’s an absolute treat and certainly we are giving our interpretation of these verses, but we’re exhorting our listeners not to just take it from us. This is God’s Word; we are trying to encourage people to get into it themselves, to know what the scripture teaches, to come to an understanding. If you are a true believer in Christ you have the Holy Spirit who is your teacher. If you are not, I think you still have a level of understanding about this in which you can be drawn to come under the enablement of the Holy Spirit by accepting Christ as Lord and Savior. This is what the Bible is about from Genesis to Revelation. Christ who has to become our very life and he becomes our life by believing upon him. What he has done; what only he could do and he paid the full penalty for our sins and without that we are eternally separated from God. So Dave, we are in chapter 10 of John and we’re going to pick up with verse 31: “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.” Why did they do that Dave?
Dave:
You often hear even theologians say Jesus never claimed to be God. John:8:58Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. and I better look it up to make sure, I think it’s 58. Jesus said, “Before Abraham was I AM.” And verse 59 says, “Then took they up stones to cast at him,” to kill him, because that was blasphemy for him to say I AM meaning he is the I AM, Yahweh, I AM that I AM, the God of Israel, of the Old Testament is blasphemy. In fact the Jews knew what he was saying. And here when he says “I am my Father are One,” once again they take up stones to stone him to death for blasphemy. In fact they state that in verse 33. Let me just jump down for a moment, “The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” They know what he was saying. So Jesus did declare his deity. He declared it in some very powerful ways and this is one of them.
Tom:
So these religious Jews were in their own mind, in their own way of thinking and going by some of the things that they understood from the Law, they were trying to defend the faith as it were.
Dave:
Yes, you have quite a contrast here Tom. In contrast to the Garden of Gethsemane when Judas comes and betrays him, and he just yields to these people and they bind his hands and they lead him away to crucify him. That was a shock to the disciples. He had all power. He could walk on water, he could raise the dead.
Tom:
Calm the storms.
Dave:
Right, yes, he had power over the wind and waves and the weather and so forth. And here they take up stones to stone him. Why didn’t he just submit to it here? Because he was not going to be stoned for a number of reasons. “A bone of him will not be broken.” You break bones when you get stoned to death.
Tom:
Prophecy—it had to do with the fulfillment of prophecy.
Dave:
Exactly.
Tom:
Demonstrating who he was.
Dave:
Exactly, it was foretold that he would be crucified. That was centuries before crucifixion was even known. So he said, “No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself.” And he was willing to lay it down on the cross, but he was not willing to be stoned. Anyway, they take up stones to stone him, verse 32, “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?” He’s going to get them to say exactly why they’re going to stone him so that anybody reading this would know. And yet we have theologians today—“Oh no, Jesus never claimed to be God.” Well, they tried to stone him, they wanted to kill him for claiming to be God, and that in fact, is why they crucified him.
Tom:
Now interesting, the big issue today is demonstrating how close Islam through the reading of the Qur’an and they love Jesus, they talk about him as a prophet and so on and so forth, but would they go along that Jesus is Allah? I mean that’s a whole other issue. But that Jesus is God? Absolutely not!
Dave:
No, they deny that. They even deny that he’s the Son of God. They deny that he died for our sins.
Tom:
On the cross.
Dave:
Somebody died in his place, but the Jews say it very clearly and let me read it again in verse 33: “The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; (now they’re overlooking his good works. They are overlooking his power that he has demonstrated. He—
Tom:
Raised the dead.
Dave:
Raised the dead. Everybody knows, certainly the rabbis, that he raised Lazarus from the dead. That he had been in the grave four days. In fact, they were even going to kill Lazarus—such hardness of their hearts. But they say, “For a good work we stone thee not.” What good works has he done? Incredible, nobody ever did anything like this. We had that in chapter 9. From the beginning of time, was never heard that somebody opened of the man who was blind from birth and here Jesus gives him his sight. They know the works that he does, that only God can do them. But they are not going to—well you know we get to chapter 11 and it says well if we leave this man alone everybody will believe on him and then we’ll lose our position.
Tom:
Which tells you where their hearts are in all of this.
Dave:
Right. “…a good work we stone you not, but for blasphemy because thou being a man makest thyself God.” So it’s very clear. What Jesus had said they understood it and they were going to stone him for that.
Tom:
And Dave, we go on with something that we were discussing earlier. Many within Christendom call themselves even evangelicals, use this next verse to prove that we can be gods. Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”
Dave:
Well, where is it written? Now my margin has Psalm:82:6I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High., but if you go back there, there it says, “I have said, ye are gods.”
Tom:
“I have said ye are gods and all of you are children of the Most High,…” but verse 7—
Dave:
“…We will die like men.” Right. Well Tom, then where does it say, “You are gods.” Where did God say, “You are gods?” Well you’re going to have to go back to Genesis 3 and there he says “The man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil.” So man did, as you said a few moments ago, become a little god. And it’s not good. We quoted it earlier. Jeremiah:10:10-11 [10] But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.
[11] Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.
, “You say to the gods that haven’t made the heaven and the earth. Well who are they? There must some gods out there that didn’t make the heaven and the earth. That is what man became. A little god. As you said a rebel. A pretender god. Pretender to the throne of God even as Satan was. You notice in Genesis 3 he doesn’t say there to Eve, “You can become God.” In fact, Satan isn’t so stupid as to have that ambition himself. He says I will be LIKE the Most High. Of course it’s the impossible dream. How many Most Highs can you have? You can only have one. But anyway, Satan has done away in that one statement with monotheism and he’s introduced polytheism. Well the Most High, he’s not going to be the only one. We can all be gods like he is. So this was the lie and now you say, well why didn’t Jesus say it more clearly? He’s trying to get them to think. He’s driving them back to the Word of God. He does this continually. For example, they say well, are you from God or not and so forth, and he raises questions about John the Baptist. Was his ministry from God or wasn’t it? And they are afraid to say one way or the other. And he says well, the Messiah, who’s son was he? Driving them back to the Bible again. And here he’s driving them back to the Bible. Is that written back there? He’s not saying, “I’m a god like you’re a god,” like Benjamin Crème said on national TV, “Oh yes, he’s god like all the rest of us.” He is THE God, THE Son of God, but he’s trying to get them to think. And I hope that we’ve gotten our listeners to think a little bit. It is so wonderful, if you’re a Christian to get on your knees and ask God to help you to understand and then do some thinking. You will find things as Peter said, that are hard to be understood. Think them through. Ask the Lord to help you compare scripture with scripture. And the Bible is the only real commentary on the Bible.
Gary:
Dave and Tom will resume their discussion on the topic of salvation next week; we hope you can tune in. This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call.
And now, to tell you more about our ministry, here’s TBC Executive Director, Tom McMahon:
Tom:
The name The Berean Call is taken from the Book of Acts:17:10-11 [10] And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.
[11] These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
, where we find the Apostle Paul entering the synagogue in the Greek city of Berea, after he had just come from Thessalonica. To these Bereans he preached that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah sent from God. They were commended for being noble or fair minded, not only for their willingness to hear what Paul had to say about the matter, but more specifically, because they “searched the scriptures daily” to find out whether or not what the apostle was saying was found in God’s Word. That’s what we hope to encourage through this ministry. Our mission is to alert believers in Christ to unbiblical teachings and practices impacting the church. our prayer is that we can be used of God to stimulate Christians to look to the Bible alone as their rule of faith, authority, and practice in living lives pleasing to our Lord and Savior.
Gary:
If you are a serious student of God’s Word, we offer many materials that you’ll find helpful. From books and tracts to video and audio tapes, CD-ROM, our internet website, and much more. If you would like a copy of this broadcast, ask for Program #1112 and be sure to mention the call letters of this station. Next week, we continue our series of discussions based on Dave Hunt’s book In Defense of the Faith and “If God doesn’t want us to suffer, why do we?” “American Atheists demand their God given rights,” we’ll take a look at that story and examine the question “If it wasn’t for the Catholic Church would we have the Bible?” We hope you can join us. If you have questions or comments about this program, we urge you to contact our offices. Search the Scriptures Daily Radio Ministry is made possible by God’s grace, your prayers, and your financial support. I’m Gary Carmichael and for Dave, Tom, and everyone here at The Berean Call, I would like to thank you for joining us and invite you to tune in again next week. Until then, if you desire to know God’s truth, search the scriptures daily.
You’ve been listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. For more information about The Berean Call and a free subscription to our monthly newsletter, contact us at PO Box 7019, Bend, OR 97708. Call us at 800-937-6638 or visit our website at www.thebereancall.org . Join us again next week for Search the Scriptures Daily featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon.
