Synoptic Gospels John 13:27-32

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No, I didn't see that on your list. All right, we are in John chapter 13.

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We press forward in the midst of great cultural depravity.

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We press forward. Thankfully, John chapter 13 has not changed, despite the fact that, well,

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I won't even go there. It said the exact same thing last week that it says this week.

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There's something comforting about that. Despite the shaking of the foundations, they are not foundations that are eternal.

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So anyway, we are looking at John's rendition of the Last Supper here and thinking a lot about Judas Iscariot.

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We are going to be able to forget him soon, at least for the time being. But we had looked at the indication that Jesus gives, we assume, to John, whether he does so publicly to everyone or just to John.

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It would at least make a little more sense if he only told John. If John just asks him,

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Who is it, Lord? And he only tells John because then, verse 28, when

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Judas leaves, now, no one at those clients' table knew for what purpose he had said this to him. For some were supposing Judas had the money box that Judas was saying to him, buy the things we need for the feast, or else that he should give something to the poor.

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So after receiving the morsel, he went out immediately, and it was night. Now, let me just mention something before I forget it, because I forget things quickly these days.

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We'll probably have to get back into this when we go back into the synoptics specifically. But one of the things that you need to be aware of, and we did a whole study on this, and I don't know if we named it when we uploaded it.

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I don't know if it's on Sermon Audio. I don't know if it was before or after Sermon Audio. It may have been before, so I don't know.

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But at some point in the not overly distant past,

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I would say within three years, I did one of those things where I broke the group up into two or three different groups, or something, if I recall correctly.

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And we dealt with the issue of the alleged contradiction between the synoptic

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Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and John, relating to the timing of the crucifixion and when it took place.

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And what you will hear, and unfortunately, again, you just have to get used to this fact.

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You will hear people who are called Christian scholars and everything else.

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You need to recognize the term Christian scholar today is used of anybody who says something about Jesus.

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That's just all there is to it. But you will hear, you go to universities, you go to Christian universities.

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It doesn't matter. You will hear it just given as an example.

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The reason you can't really trust what the

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Bible has to say, or what the New Testament has to say, or what the Gospels have to say about Jesus, and the reason you have to sort of become more liberal in your perspectives, and so on and so forth, is that we have always taken the

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New Testament in a way it was not meant to be taken. And one of the evidences of this is

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John is willing to contradict

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke as to when Jesus was crucified. He puts the crucifixion, for theological reasons, at the same time that the

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Passover lamb would be sacrificed. And so he changes everything by a day from when

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Matthew, Mark, and Luke have this. And some people would look at this statement, for example, by the things we have need of for the feast.

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And you go, oh, the feast is still future. So John has moved the Lord's Supper a day ahead of Passover, whereas Matthew, Mark, and Luke have the

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Last Supper as the Passover. And that this is a contradiction in the text.

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And if you recall, if you were here on that Sunday morning, does anyone just off the...

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I hate to even ask this question, but does anyone just off the top of your head happen to remember the primary thing that we discussed and talked about at that particular point in time?

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Yes, sir. Well, in the sense that neither the

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Jews nor the Romans, if I recall correctly, counted the day from midnight to midnight.

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And hence, any portion of the day was counted as a day. Some began the day at sunrise.

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Some began the day at sunset. There were different ways of counting time.

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And the hours, you will notice a difference between John and Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

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Sixth hour, ninth hour, third hour, etc., etc., because they are starting at different times of the day as well,

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Roman versus Jewish time. That's true. But in regards to the feast itself, the day of the week, the

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Passover, does anyone just happen to remember what the key issue was?

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Yes. Right. When it says, by the things we have need of for the feast, the assumption for many is that you're talking about the one night of the

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Passover. And the problem with that is, even in John, John gives us one of the clearest refutations of this idea, is that at the trial of when the

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Jews are before Pilate, what's one of the things that is said? They did not want to profane themselves so that they might partake of the feast.

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Well, everybody, no matter how you plan it, no matter how you figure this out, they had already partaken of the

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Passover, either one day or two days or whatever. The point was, the feast was a week long.

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And it's not just one day. And this is extremely important because,

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I mean, you will have, I mean, Bart Ehrman runs around the United States lecturing at the most prestigious universities and just assumes, you know, he just throws these things out as givens.

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No one could possibly disagree with this. And yet, this has been information that we've known for a very, very long time.

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And it's just, you know, people quote other people and they don't bother to think about it themselves. And it's just an amazing thing.

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So, be aware of the fact there's at least, if I recall correctly, four, it might be five, texts in John itself that clearly indicate to us that John is giving us the same chronology as the synoptics.

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He's not changed everything. And if you just realize that feast is a week long and not just one day long, there's absolutely no contradiction.

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And yet, for their various purposes, people will repeat this over and over again as evidence that you really can't take seriously, especially what

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John says, even if someone takes seriously what the synoptics say. Some of you may listen to The Dividing Line this week instead of addressing things that were obviously on most of our minds.

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I chose to go elsewhere and I've been addressing a debate that took place last month, if I recall correctly, between an evangelical, a non -reformed evangelical, and a professor of New Testament from Yale University.

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Now, what do you think of when you hear the term Yale University? Ivy League school. High -end scholarship.

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Very expensive. The man's name is

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Dale Martin. He is a homosexual. He is a post -modernist.

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And so he stands, the debate was on, did

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Jesus believe in his own deity? Was Jesus aware of his own deity?

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Now, part of the use of reviewing the debate was that the evangelical would only affirm that Jesus believed he was divine in some sense.

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I'm not sure exactly what that means, but that was given his theology and apologetic methodology, that's the most you can affirm, because his apologetic methodology would likewise limit him to saying that the preponderance of the evidence points to the greater probability of existence of a god.

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Well, that's the William Lane Craig, the fellow's name is Mike Licona. That's the most they can do from a presuppositional perspective.

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Anyway, but as a post -modernist, Dale Martin is a member of an

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Anglican church, well, an Episcopalian church. And says, now, as a

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Christian, I believe in the Trinity. I confess the Nicene Creed and Constance and Opal and Chalcedon, and I confess all those things, it's true.

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But I don't believe that anyone could seriously think that Jesus believed in his own deity. And you go, how does that work?

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Well, for a post -modernist, that's fine. That's okay. What you believe in one area does not have to be consistent with what you believe in another area.

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It's a different dialogue. It's a different story. You can have all sorts of different stories and there's no need for consistency.

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And even though the people who were, from his perspective, responsible for developing these creedal statements that he confesses on Sunday morning thought that what they were saying was true historically, well, now we know better than that.

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And it doesn't matter. I can still believe this and believe this, even though this is now left hanging in mid -air, has no foundation anymore.

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It's suspended in mid -air. But that's okay, because if you're a post -modernist, it doesn't matter.

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History itself doesn't matter for a post -modernist. I mean, history exists, but it's not part of your particular dialogue, your particular story, your term, narrative.

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And so it's only those portions of it that you bring into your story that matter.

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And so it's just, for most of us, we just sit there and go, can this guy balance his checkbook?

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I mean, from our perspective, there would be a fundamental disconnection, but yeah, he can balance his checkbook.

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Mike balances his checkbook better than I do. But from his perspective, there's no connection between that and really anything else.

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It's just such a fractured way of thinking. And so these folks, they can look at something like this, and even if they heard my explanation, even if I went through John and demonstrated that he's using feast and the long version and all that stuff, he'd just go, why are you bothering?

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It doesn't matter what one... One verse is just one verse. Its connection to the next verse or the verse after that is irrelevant.

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And his exegesis is the same thing. His exegesis doesn't matter what one...

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You can look at any single sentence. You can look at any single word. And its relationship to others is just however you feel.

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And you just go, why do these folks bother majoring in New Testament? Why do they even bother teaching this stuff?

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I cannot answer that question. I have no earthly idea. But that's what's out there, and that's what the world says is great wisdom.

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And sadly, there's still a lot of Christians that think that we should somehow think that that's great wisdom too.

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And I don't see any biblical writers who would ever think that that was wisdom. I just can't imagine it.

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That's the very foolishness of the world. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that. We'll undoubtedly have to get back into it when we transition out of the

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John material and go back into the synoptics and consider their relationship and go back over once again at that point the timing of the crucifixion.

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There's all sorts of questions that we'll be looking at at that time, and it will be quite challenging, but I think worthwhile.

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So we have Jesus' identification to John, again as we assume, the one to whom

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I give the sop. In other words, remember I mentioned briefly toward the end last time this was actually something you would show honor to someone.

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I mean, you're sort of serving someone in essence by doing this. You're showing them to be an honored guest. And it seems to me, maybe anyways, that what you have in verse 27, and after the morsel,

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Satan then entered into him. Therefore, Jesus said to him, what you do, do quickly. There obviously isn't any question on Jesus' part of what

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Judas' role is, what Judas' function is, the necessity of the cross, any of those things.

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This isn't some, oh, I wonder what's going to happen situation. At the same time, what people don't like about that is that, well, that makes it meaningless.

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Jesus is, everyone's just a bunch of robots and you're just sort of going along with the program.

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That's not the case either. I think that we need to make sure we do not fall into the error of thinking that the certainty of God's decree renders the reality of events in time irrelevant.

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It's God's purpose that he be glorified by those very events in time and that's what gives them meaning.

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And so, we can, I think, we must give consideration to the fact that even at this last moment, when

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Jesus shows kindness and hospitality to this man who has already arranged for his betrayal, that it is that man's rejection of that and his continued hard -heartedness, even in the midst of this touching scene, where he is a part of a group that has gone through so much and seen so much and experienced so much, so much more than we can even begin to imagine.

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I mean, we could read everything the synoptics record for us. We could read all of Jesus' teachings, everything that we find in John, in just literally a matter of moments.

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That does not record for us the reality of the years.

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However many it had been, there's arguments about that, but most people come down to three years.

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Some argue for one, some for two, some for three. But most come down with three.

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Let's say three years of ministry together, eating together, the number of times that Judas had heard

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Jesus pray, the gracious things he had seen from his lips. Here's a man who had observed someone who had lived sinlessly for three years.

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How can you be hard -hearted? How can 30 pieces of silver be relevant to someone like that?

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It's hard to imagine. It really is. So, Jesus' response to the presence of the enemy, let's say

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Satan then entered into him. I don't know that that necessarily means that up to this point,

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Satan wanted to get in, but he couldn't. No, I think it was the decisive point where in Judas' mind anyways, up to this point, he still had outs.

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He still had alternatives. But time was running out.

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And here you go. Now, he's going to do exactly what we know from the

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Scriptures. God's decree was going to involve. And yet, so what's Satan doing? A lot of people think that if there's a divine decree, then

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Satan's irrelevant. And if Satan's relevant, then it can't be a divine decree. Again, we take this shallow, the decree exists somewhere out there, and everybody's turned into Muppets if there is such a thing as a decree, rather than recognizing the richness of that decree and the fact that it's what gives events in time their meaning.

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And the amazing thing is, it also involves God's interaction with us in time. So, Satan remains the enemy of our souls, and yet, he is completely under God's control.

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If he were not, then you'd have some sort of cosmic battle going on between good and evil that no one knows who's going to win, and it's up to us, and it's up to you, and Uncle God needs you posters and things like that.

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And there are some forms of theology that sort of have that idea. But Jesus is well aware of this, and so when this is taking place,

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Jesus says to him, do quickly. Now, what did

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Judas understand that to mean? I have no idea. We're not told. All we know is that Judas goes out, there is confusion amongst the disciples, there is...

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after receiving the morsel, he went out immediately, and it was night. Does the phrase, and it was night, mean something?

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Like I said, I heard a great sermon once about it, but it could just mean it was night.

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It could just mean that. You know, I mean, you can write stuff about the dark night of the soul, and the lack of light, and the...

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well, okay, maybe. I'm not going to say there's necessarily nothing to that, but I'm not sure that you can go beyond that.

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But it's interesting that John spends more time focusing on the confusion of the disciples than anything else.

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But Judas leaves, and the idea, by the things that we have need of for the feast, or else, you should give something to the poor.

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The idea was that they didn't know what the reasons were. Jesus may have said something to Judas before, and they just weren't aware of it.

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Obviously, things like that had happened. But he goes out from their midst, and so the rest of what we have in the conclusion of chapter 13, all of chapter 14, think of John chapter 14, promises of heaven, beginnings of promise, the coming of the

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Spirit, vine, the branches in chapter 15, more about the Spirit in chapter 16, the

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Lord's high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. Judas isn't a part of these things. When does he show up?

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He shows up in John chapter 18. So, basically, four full chapters plus will now be devoted to a relatively brief period of time.

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A relatively brief period of time that is not the focus of the

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Synoptic Gospels. And again, you will very often hear it said that the reason we can't really take

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John seriously, even in this debate, the

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Evangelical said that what you have in John is not the

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Ipsissima Verba, but the Ipsissima Vox. Now, what does that mean?

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Ipsissima Verba would mean the very words of Jesus. Ipsissima Vox would be the voice of Jesus, but not the words of Jesus.

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Voice would be...

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Jesus would agree with these things, but he never said them. I guess would be one way of expressing it.

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That there is a continuity of worldview and thought, but not actually of content.

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That John is giving theological reflection on other things that Jesus said, but Jesus never actually said these things.

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Now, I personally have problems with the limitations of those two categories anyways.

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Because even when you say Ipsissima Vox, it again is reducing your options to is this a fictional story or is this a

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CNN reporter with an MP3 recorder? And there's no other possibilities.

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And I think that's a limitation that is... But, one of the reasons that many scholars, even quote -unquote conservative scholars, will be somewhat wimpy in their affirmations of the meaningfulness of John and its historical accuracy is because they've accepted the argument, well, if Jesus said what he said in John 14, you know, in my father's house are many what?

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Mansions, if you're raised in the King James. It's rooms, actually.

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I know, I know, I remember Vacation Bible School too. And, you know, daydreaming about what kind of mansion

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I was going to get. It does good to have one mansion but many rooms, you know. Some rooms in some mansions are pretty nice.

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But, it's actually rooms. But, anyway, the idea is if Jesus ever said anything like that then

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Matthew, Mark and Luke would have to have included that. Because it's so cool. And I go,

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I don't accept that argument. I think there are all sorts of things that Jesus said.

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Well, there have to be tons of things that Jesus said that are not recorded for us in the

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New Testament. Because, again, you could read every quote of Jesus.

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Even if you include Matthew, Mark and Luke when they're telling the same story.

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But, even then you could read all of that in one day. You could read all of that in depending on your reading speed, in a couple of hours.

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Jesus said more than that. Not just publicly. But certainly privately.

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And it would seem to me that it makes much more sense that Matthew, Mark and Luke are going to limit the private the revelation of the private, personal interactions with Jesus.

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Because this is a public proclamation. John coming at a later point in time it seems may have more reason to be the one who then tells these things.

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Did the disciples get together one day? Before they were scattered from Jerusalem?

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And have discussions about how they were going to preach and what they were going to preach?

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Did they have discussions about what they were going to reveal about their lives with Jesus?

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Not out of... Certainly there wasn't anything about well, we better hide... Peter, for your sake, we're not going to mention the babbling on the

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Mount of Transfiguration thing. That makes you look really bad. So, we're not going to...

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And, I can just see Peter getting out his little money bag. Okay, how much to keep us quiet about the get thee behind me

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Satan thing. Obviously, that didn't happen. We're not talking about that kind of let's see how we can make ourselves look better.

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But, would there be discussions about Lazarus and Mary and Martha still live in Bethany.

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And things are... There's a lot of persecution going on. Let's be careful about what we...

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the stories we tell and where we tell them. I know this would not even be a discussion amongst the persecuted

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Christians in Egypt today. They wouldn't even... They'd go, well, of course.

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Because they have to live that way. They have to be careful what they say. They have to be careful what names they name.

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But, for us, it's sort of like oh, I don't know. I would think it would be natural to have discussions about issues like that.

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Especially when people are still alive. John writes Lazarus probably isn't alive anymore.

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Mary and Martha, if they're still alive, probably don't live there anymore. So, could it...

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It almost seems unfair to me the standards or the unspoken standards that are used by many people to say hey, they couldn't have had conversations.

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There could be no purpose why only John tells the stories John tells.

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If he's the last one writing, if he's already aware that Matthew, Mark and Luke have told the stories in their fashion, why would...

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If he was aware of that, why would he repeat everything they said and limit himself to the same scope?

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See, none of this makes any sense to me, but I'm weird. So, the point being, at this point in time, at 1331, through chapter 18, the very beginning of chapter 18,

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Judas is gone. And, man, you've got some incredible stuff in these chapters.

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Just some of the deepest theology around. And, even there, notice this says,

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Therefore, when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.

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How is the Son of Man glorified, just because just because Lucifer has... Satan has entered into Judas and now he's left?

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Well, I would suggest the now is related to the hour has come.

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And, everything... the key issue has now been joined.

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The betrayer is going to betray. The forces of evil are now to gather together.

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The time has come. Now, that hour had been coming in the Gospel of John since when?

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I'm going to check this. I want to make sure that my memory here is correct.

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And... let's see... that's even earlier than that.

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Uh -huh, okay. My recollection is correct. What is the first appearance?

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Don't go looking. It's no fair. What is the first appearance of Jesus saying something about his hour in John?

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Wedding in Cana of Galilee. John chapter 2. Beginning of the chapter. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him,

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They have no wine. And Jesus said to her, Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.

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It's not time yet for me to be revealed in the fullness you desire me to be revealed with.

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And we can understand why Mary would desire that, you know, all those years of the whispers and the pointing, that that would all be taken care of in one fell swoop.

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Could you do some really major miracles and make me look good? But this has been coming for a long time.

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Now the hour has come. And so the Son of Man is glorified.

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But isn't it fascinating that this has been coming for a very long time.

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The entirety of Jesus' ministry has been lived in light of the coming hour.

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So it's not that the coming hour was a, well, I don't know, it might happen, might not happen, you know, it's hard to say.

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No. The hour was fixed. The hour was certain. But that doesn't make its coming any less vitally important.

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And it doesn't make all the means that are a part of the decree any less important.

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I think for us Reformed folks especially, you need to get that down.

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Because for many who reject our theology and our position, they do so because they automatically assume if there is a divine decree, then there is no meaning to events in time.

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There is no meaning to my life. There is no meaning to my decisions.

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My decisions aren't real. My actions don't matter. Que sera, sera.

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What will be, will be. We're all just a bunch of marionettes on a puppet string. We've all heard it.

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But we need to realize that God's decree includes the ends and the means.

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And the means are vitally important. The means glorify

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God. And since we are a part of that, that is the very matrix in which judgment takes place and meaning is assigned and value is found.

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Unless you turn God's decree into something as paper thin and mechanical as some kind of governmental mandate, then you just can't diminish the multifaceted nature of God's decree.

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The Bible won't let you do it, but a lot of people do it anyways. Because they just don't want to even consider what it would possibly mean to them and certainly to their view of God and the gospel and things like that.

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So, Judas has gone out. We certainly know that This isn't a situation where you've got this wonderfully good guy and this mean, nasty

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God is standing behind him with this big old gun saying, Go be bad. I don't want to.

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Yes you do. Go. That's not how this works. We can't fully understand the what would cause someone to be able to be in the presence of the incarnate

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Son of God and yet betray Him. That's an amazing thing.

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Especially for such a pittance. But the fact is, he does what he desires to do.

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There was, well, I just keep going back to that text. They went out from us because they were not truly of us.

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And every time, even back in John 6, even back in John 6, remember, everyone's left.

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Everyone's walked away. And how quiet it must have been.

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Five thousand excited followers. Jesus teaches and drives them all away.

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They all walk off. Slowly at first, you know. Can you imagine the disciples?

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They see this happening. It's certainly like on a Sunday morning. And for everybody to start slowly getting up and leaving.

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Did you think you'd notice? You'd hear the vroom vroom of the door. We all hear the vroom vroom of the door.

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You know? It's our special vroom vroom door. Would any of us even be able to go to church if we didn't have a vroom vroom door?

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I don't know. I'm just used to it. It's difficult for me when I travel. There's no vroom vroom doors anywhere else.

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But, you know, vroom vroom. Vroom vroom. Vroom vroom. And it's not just people going out and coming back.

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It's that they're leaving. You know? We'd all notice. And I can guarantee you, the disciples are probably, you know, at first they're going, and then it's sort of like, does he notice?

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Does he notice that this constant repetition and no one is able? The crowds are getting smaller.

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Hello? They had to have noticed. And then they're all just left standing there.

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He did that purposely. He drove them all away. We were having such a good time.

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We could have had our own army. And yet, there was one who stayed.

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It was the devil. And even Jesus said it. Peter says,

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Where will you go? You have the words of eternal life. Jesus says, Have I not chosen you?

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And yet one of you is the devil. So there's nothing new here. This is the way it's been.

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Jesus isn't surprised. It doesn't change the reality of the experience of the disciples or of Judas himself.

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And so now, the hour has come. And now, the Son is the

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Son of Man glorified. Now, if you've, just briefly, if you've ever heard people say,

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See, Son of Man is, Jesus is talking about his human nature and Son of God's divine. No. Not at all. The Son of Man is glorified.

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This is the Son of Man of Daniel chapter 7. The Son of Man presented before the Ancient of Days. The Son of Man who has people who worship

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Him in the highest form of worship. This is a very exalted term that Jesus uses himself in all of the

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Gospels. And there is something about having reached this point where the clock has struck midnight and everything is now going to, it's just, it's going to lead straight to the empty tomb.

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And in all of this, the Son of Man is glorified. And there is such a certainty to this that Jesus can even say in his high priestly prayer in just a few sentences, literally, in John chapter 17,

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I have completed the work you've given me. This is before the cross. I have completed the work you've given me.

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That's an amazing confidence. And a lot of people really struggle that Jesus could even have.

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So, now we enter into some really deep stuff. I'll have to admit, I mean,

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I'm not sure how long it'll take to get through it because there's so much stuff here. But, it's certainly well worth going through it.

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Alright? Okay, let's close the time. And dear

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Heavenly Father, we do thank you for this word and for your preservation of it and its message to us.

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And we thank you, Lord, that just during this past 40 minutes or so we've been able to consider eternal truths.

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Things that will be true long after we're gone and things that were true long after we came here.

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And we thank you for the comfort that gives. In this very rapidly changing and uncertain world, this world that is, as your word has always said, passing away, there are things that remain true, that remain important.

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And you have caused us to think upon them this day. We thank you for that. Be with us now as we go in to bring honor and glory to your name.