Reach Out
Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come … You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins” John 8:21,23,24
This is the third time through the Feast of Tabernacles Jesus has said He was going away (7:33; 8:14,21). ‘And you will look for me, and you will die in your sin.’ When we read these words we naturally think of spiritual death, both the state of someone now whose heart is dead to Christ and the state of someone whose heart has remained closed to Christ when they die. But in the other gospels Jesus makes it increasingly clear that another destruction awaits them. That destruction would be national. The Romans had already overrun Palestine and ruled the Jews but the Jews hated both their captors and hated the way their freedoms had been taken from them. Pockets of resistance were constantly arising. Jesus foresaw that national rejection of Him as the Messiah would lead to God’s rejection of the nation. It would be destroyed (Matthew 24:1,2; Mark 13:1,2; Luke 21:5,6).
But He is offering an alternative. If they would only believe He was the Messiah, sent by God to rescue Israel and the world. If they would do this and follow Him their world would not be plunged into ruin.
“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.” Those who stood against Him, like the rest of humanity, were from below, from this world; but He was not from this world. He was from above, from heaven (John 3:13,31; 6:38-51). When He returned to heaven they would not be able to follow Him. Repeating the warning for the second and third time, Jesus said to them, “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” Jesus came into the world that those who believe in Him would not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). But the sins of those who don’t believe remain unforgiven and their guilt remains (John 9:41). To die in their sins means they would personally have to carry the punishment for them.
There are two possible meanings to Jesus’ words, “if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be.” John literally wrote, “if you do not believe that I am you will indeed die in your sins.” Jesus could have been saying (as the NIV has translated the sentence) that He was the one He claimed to be, the Messiah, sent from God. The second possible meaning is that Jesus was applying Yahweh’s eternal name “I am” (Exodus 3:14) to Himself, as He would do later in this same discourse (John 8:58).
Even at this late stage, Jesus was reaching out to those who had shut their hearts against Him. “If you do not believe” holds out a final possibility of change.
Jesus reaches out to a fallen world. Are you praying for an older person who has not responded to Jesus? Don’t stop. Don’t give up or give in. Jesus can go after them right up until the last possible moment.
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