Sunday School: Continuation of John chapter 10

All right, we continue in John chapter 10.

While you're churning there, I thought I would mention on a real practical level, since I've had conversations with folks about this a couple of times, someone purchased for me this volume.

This is the Reader's Hebrew and Greek Bible. They put out first a

Reader's Greek New Testament, which I've used many times. It's very readable.

I guess that's not why they call it the Reader's, though. It has at the bottom brief definitions of words that are used less than 50 times in the

New Testament, basically. And then eventually they put out the Hebrew Reader's version. It does the same thing.

And I figured someday they'd get around to putting them together, and they did. But when

I got it, I was extremely disappointed in the cover it had on it.

Zondervan spared no expense in putting the cheapest cover they possibly could on this text.

And so I was talking to some folks, and some of you have seen the leather covers.

A few people have purchased some of the leather covers that I've mentioned to you from a place called Renaissance Art. They do a really good job in making

Bible covers for your book covers, whatever. But they don't do bookbinding.

And so someone suggested we should try this place. And it's available online.

And so I got in touch with them, and they had a huge variety of colors and stuff.

And you can make your own, you know, how many different ribbons you want in it, what color. And the stamping is included in the price and all this stuff.

And even when you send the thing in, then they call you and they go over everything. And they were very conscientious.

It was very quick. It only took a week before it was shipped back. And so if any of you would like to see the job they did,

I think they did a fantastic job in rebinding this. And they don't just take it out and stick a new cover on it.

They totally rebind it, the binding and everything. And so it's quite impressive.

So I know Mr. Ricketts isn't here. So, I mean, Codex Rickettonius is the first one we would think of.

Though I'm not sure it would be legal to have Codex Rickettonius rebound, because I think it's something about ancient works or something like that, and not messing them up and stuff like that.

I'm not sure that that would actually work. But if you have some

Bibles that you really like, or maybe you've got an old Bible and the reason you don't care anymore is because the cover's about to fall off or something like that, they did a really good job.

And I think the whole cost with all the different colors and stuff like that was $85, I think.

So it really wasn't bad at all, given the quality leather they used and stuff like that.

So just a little practical thing as we go in there. Oh, one other thing. Hopefully we'll put it in the bulletin maybe next week or something like that.

But I have set up a sermon audio account for Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

Sermon audio is a huge site that makes available many – a lot of Reformed Baptist churches have gone this direction.

They have a very strong doctrinal statement you have to agree to. So you're not going to find a bunch of liberals and stuff like that.

You will find some interesting folks on there anyway. But still. And so starting with today's,

I put up a couple that I had on my system that I'm going to be grabbing a bunch this afternoon, sticking them on a jump drive and starting the process of probably putting up the

First Corinthians series, the Sermon on the Mount series, and my Hebrew series as far as going back goes. And then just going forward from there, posting the sermons and sermon audio.

So you'll be able to get hold of that that way. This will not be real audio. That will be MP3 format. And the other thing is if you have a smartphone,

BlackBerry, iPhone, Droid, those are the three big ones right now. There are apps available from sermon audio, which means you will be able to access them on your phone as well.

And so if someone now starts searching for Hebrews 6 on sermon audio, then my sermons on Hebrews 6 will be a part of the mix that comes up there.

So that should be getting a little more steam going here over the next few weeks as I start getting some of those series caught up and uploaded and stuff like that.

So we'll try to put the URL in the bulletin. And we'll certainly put it on the website.

Eventually we'll have to have Brother Jim throw that up there someplace so that people know how to find those resources.

So with that, oh great keeper of the notes, what was your last? Okay. That's what

I thought too. We're coming into an important section here that we have covered in the past.

But again, we always have new folks coming in.

And there's always a need for review, especially verses 31 and following.

We will probably slow down once we get there. But verses 22 through 30 are extremely important as well.

So I don't know how far we're going to get. But if you've not been with us, we have been working through the

Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But in the process, in the blue Harmony of the

Gospels, you can see a stack of them over there. They threw in the

Gospel of John at various places. And they threw basically chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 in where we were.

And so I thought it would be good to cover these because they are important as well. If we do that, then once we've gone through that whole book, we'll have covered all the

Gospels. And hopefully that will be, to those who've been here for most of that, very helpful in your background studies.

But we've come to chapter 10, and we have been looking up to this point at the

Good Shepherd presentation that Jesus makes. And especially emphasizing in the last study the fact that Jesus gives his life voluntarily.

No one takes it from him. He gives it his own accord. I emphasized very strongly at that time that this is something you need to emphasize in speaking with Muslims who simply do not understand how

Allah could allow one of his greatest prophets, at least the second greatest prophet,

Jesus, Isa, as they call him, to die in such a ignoble way, in such a dishonorable way.

They believe that not only are prophets themselves generally almost sinless, not perfectly sinless, but almost sinless.

And hence reject much of what the Bible says concerning Noah's drunkenness or any of the other honest renderings of the human beings that God has chosen to use in the past.

But because of that, they really struggle with this idea of Jesus dying upon a cross in such a shameful way, especially because they say, well, that would make him cursed.

But that was voluntary. That was voluntary. That was something that he did himself.

And the gentleman I'll be debating a week from tomorrow evening in Dearborn, Michigan, Sheikh Mohammed Ahmed Awal, very strongly emphasizes that Jesus, according to the

Bible, was never crucified. It was only Paul who tried to crucify Jesus to create this new religion.

And so it will be very interesting because every time my opponent says anything, you will hear someone in the crowd cry out, and then everyone else will yell,

Allahu akbar, three times. And so, whatever he says, if he says something like,

Jesus never said he'd be crucified, Allahu akbar, that's what it's going to be like.

I can guarantee you that right now. So, we will see how that goes. So, having emphasized that, then we see in verse 19, once again,

John narrating for us the reaction of the crowd.

It's interesting to me that though John is so frequently dismissed as a non -historical source, simply making all this stuff up because he's so different than what you read in the

Synoptic Gospels, yet it is John who very frequently stops discourses to narrate for us the response of the crowd, and it's frequently a response that is a negative response.

Here, a schism takes place amongst the Jews because their reasoning amongst themselves is saying,

Well, the man has a demon. He's demonized. He's mad. Why are you listening to him?

But others are saying, Are these the words of a demonized one? Can a person with a demon open the eyes of the blind?

This is the debate that is taking place amongst the people.

And then the text moves on from there to a little bit of a different context, but the topic continues.

It's the Feast of Light, Hanukkah, as the normal term that we use today, in regards to the celebration in Jerusalem.

And Jesus is walking in the stoa, the portico of the temple,

Solomon's portico, and the Jews surround him. This is clearly something they intend to do.

They need to find grounds of accusation. They need to get him to say what they need him to say to go to the

Roman authorities and utilize the power of Rome to get rid of this thorn in their side.

And so, they surround him and basically say, literally, it's a very idiomatic phrase, for how long will you lift up our soul, is the idiomatic phrase that is used there.

But in other words, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? How long are you going to drag us along?

If you are HaChristos, the Messiah, the Mashiach, the Anointed One, then proclaim it openly.

Now, here again, we see the connection between John and the Synoptics, in that you have what's called the

Messianic secret in the Synoptic Gospels, which causes people some problems if you're not familiar with the background of that particular time period.

But you will remember that in the Synoptic Gospels, there are a number of times that Jesus charges someone.

upon the revelation of who he is, to not tell anyone. And sometimes critics of the faith will point this out and say, why are you proclaiming

Jesus as the Messiah when he told people not to say he was the Messiah and things like that. But there is a clear purpose for this.

We see that once people go out and do this, then the crowds become so large, Jesus could not even minister, could not even enter into a house, etc.,

etc. And the primary issue was the understanding of what the

Messiah was in that particular context. It would be a little bit...

Yeah, I think this is a fair analysis. It would be a little bit like today, identifying yourself as part of Al Qaeda.

Okay? As soon as you say that, you have identified yourself, and you will automatically have the attention of the authorities.

That's just all there is to it. There had been so many who, at this point in time, had already gone out into the world and proclaimed themselves

Messiah. They'd gather around themselves some zealous young men, and they'd start attacking small parties of Roman soldiers, and eventually they'd have to bring in a larger force because they did not...

Rome did not consider this area important enough at this time to have a large number of Roman soldiers quartered here.

They had far bigger fish to fry at other places. And so there was a rather small

Roman presence in Galilee and Jerusalem at this time. It's not until AD 70 that Titus and the

Roman legions, actually AD 68, marched into the area and eventually sacked Jerusalem because of the full -scale rebellion that took place.

But at this point, you do not have a huge Roman army in the area.

That's one of the things that's sort of funny about what's called the Gospel of Barnabas.

Have you ever heard anybody mention the Gospel of Barnabas? Not the Epistle of Barnabas. The Epistle of Barnabas is a 2nd century

Christian writing. It's sub -biblical, but it's somebody who thought they were

Christian anyways wrote it, called the Epistle of Barnabas. We have that. There's something called the Gospel of Barnabas.

In the Gospel of Barnabas, many Muslims, not all, thankfully, there are Muslims who recognize it for what it is, but the less well -read

Muslims will accept the Gospel of Barnabas as being real. The Gospel of Barnabas, at its earliest, was written in the 13th to 14th century, probably written in the 15th century, maybe even the 16th century.

It's that time range there, filled with anachronisms. I mean, it's just downright silly, but you wouldn't believe how many

Muslims say, ah, see, this was because it was written by a Muslim. And it turns

Barnabas into a Muslim and turns Jesus into a prophet and blah, blah, blah. But one of the things that's sort of humorous about it is that it presents this massive war with hundreds of thousands of Roman soldiers involved.

There weren't 100 ,000 Roman soldiers in Titus' legion. But it has this massive wars taking place in Israel with more people involved in the battles than actually lived there at the time.

And so it's a little bit humorous, but there are people that just will tell you, well, that was taken out of the

Bible at the Council of Nicaea, you know. And just the amount of fantasy out there about church history is pretty amazing.

So anyway, this term, the Messiah, there had been so many people that had run off into the desert and started rebellious movements that to identify someone as the

Messiah was to paint a big old target on their back for the Roman soldiers.

And that's what the Jews are trying to do here. They want him to just come straight out and say, yes,

I am the Messiah, so they can take that apart from everything he had taught about what the

Old Testament taught about what the Messiah was to be and to do and all the rest of that stuff and run off to the

Romans with that particular information. That's why they want this to be done openly.

Tell us openly. So Jesus' response is to point out to them the facts of what they already know.

Jesus responded and said to them, I told you and you don't believe. So for him, believing that Jesus is the

Messiah is a matter of faith, not a matter of political orientation. He says, the works that I am doing in the name of my

Father, they are bearing testimony concerning me. Now you see, Jesus knows that no

Roman procurator or governor or centurion or anybody else, depending on who they decide to go to, is going to have the slightest interest in some guy saying that his works, demonstrate that God has sent him.

Because then you're going to have to go into, well, what kind of works are we talking about? And, oh, so you're talking about the

Old Testament. We don't care about your scriptures. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Jesus points to the evidence that they themselves would be accountable for.

They knew the scriptures. Their great sin was that they knew what the scriptures said, but refused to be obedient to what the scriptures said.

And so, he identifies them as unbelievers. He points out that the works which he is doing in the name of his

Father, of my Father, these works testify concerning me. But you are not believing because you are not of my sheep.

And I know it sounds like a broken record after a while, but that's not the order it's supposed to be in according to most evangelicals.

Is it? According to most evangelicals, the order should be, you are not of my sheep because you have not yet chosen to believe.

But Jesus' statement is, you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

Sheep believe. It is of their nature. I used the illustration last time of my friend

Wally Tope, who would say, you don't go, blah, blah, to become a sheep. You go, blah, blah, because you are a sheep.

It flows from your nature to act like a sheep. Sheep believe. Another illustration just popped in my mind.

I was having breakfast this morning, and all of a sudden I hear this horrific noise behind me, this screaming behind me.

And I turn around, and one of our three just over a year old male cats has come through the

Arcadia door, which we have cracked open in the morning, so they can run around outside. I'd rather have them running around outside than tearing the place up inside after they've had their breakfast.

They get quite playful. And one of our three male cats has a full -sized bird in his mouth that is screaming like anything.

And he thinks he's going to go find a place under a bed someplace to store this screaming bird.

And so I'm standing blocking his way going, Out! Out! And the bird's going,

And all the other cats are freaking out, and Summer comes running out to go, What in the world is going on here?

And I eventually got him out, and the horrible thing was I got him out and closed the door, and for the next ten minutes you could hear that bird screaming out there because the poor, the cats are domesticated.

I mean, they're all born feral, but they're domesticated. They've already had breakfast. You know, if he was hungry, he would have finished staying off and eaten it.

But he's just sort of like, My mind says to chase this thing and catch it, but once I've got it, what do

I do with it? You know, what's going on here? It's a little weird. And eventually that stopped, thankfully, because the little birdy got away and wasn't even harmed.

That's what I'd like to believe. But anyway, he was just doing what's natural to him.

You know, I mean, he's just the most even -tempered little cat. I mean, you can always pick him up, and as soon as you touch him, he starts purring, and he's just, you know, but there he is,

Hunter. You know, his big old fangs sunk into this bird. He was doing what comes natural to him.

And that's what sheep do. When sheep believe, sheep are doing what is natural to sheep.

And when you do not believe in the shepherd, you are doing what is natural because you're not one.

That's the way it is. That's not how a large portion of the people who gather in evangelical churches today believe, but that's what

Jesus taught. You are not believing because you are not of my sheep.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Just to remind you once again, remember the reciprocal relationship. My sheep know me. I know them. I in them.

They in me. They hear my voice. They know my voice. They don't follow another shepherd. That's why

John puts this information together here, as he's creating the theme. My sheep hear my voice.

They have that capacity to hear, and I know them, and they follow me.

And that's why I said again, I like to contrast this text with the text in Matthew chapter 7.

When Jesus says to those who said, Lord, Lord, did we not do this?

Did we not do that? And what is Jesus' response to them? Depart from me, for I what? I never knew you.

Here Jesus says, I know them. I know them. They know me. Jesus could never say the words of Matthew chapter 7 to someone who had ever truly been in him.

Couldn't say it. And if you're sitting there wondering, so what do people say in response to that?

I've never gotten a meaningful answer. It's always, yeah, but what about this over here? No, what about this right here?

We'll go over that. We'll go over to Hebrews 6 later on, but what about, you know? I've never gotten a meaningful response there.

I'm sorry, what text are you looking at? It says, but that you do not believe because you are not of my sheep.

Yes, those would be equivalent phrases. I mean, you go to John 17, and the same concept is expressed there as union with Christ.

Sure. Except one thing, the emphasis here is that the shepherd is the one who chooses the sheep.

The shepherd defines the sheepfold. The sheep do not define that for themselves.

Sometimes if you just use, in me, there might be some confusion on the part of people so often used in a, we're the ones who choose to be in Christ rather than Christ choosing those who are going to be united with him.

Other than that, it's certainly the same group that is in view there. So, verse 27 repeats what we saw in the preceding part of the chapter.

In regards to the sheep, they hear his voice, he knows them, they follow him.

And then you have the expansion beginning in verse 28, and this is probably one of the most popular texts in all of the

Gospel of John, certainly. And I give to them eternal life.

Let me translate it literally. And I give to them life eternal and never perish forever and no one snatch any one of them from my hand.

Now the reason I wanted to emphasize that is that the Greek phrase oomei, kai oomei apalontai, it's called the aorist subjunctive of strong denial.

It is the strongest form of negation or denial in the language. It uses a double negative, two negatives, oomei, which in English is not only improper but it reverses things.

But in Greek it just simply makes for a very strong negative statement.

And so the assertion that is being made is twofold. On the positive side,

I give to them. To whom? To a specific people. I don't think anyone could argue that we have in any way been unfair to the text in John chapter 10 to emphasize the fact that what you have here is glowing particularity.

Glowing particularity from the beginning of the chapter to this point. What I mean by that is an emphasis upon the fact that there is a particular people.

Just as we saw in John 6. In contrast, the unbelievers even amongst his disciples who are going to walk away, you have the emphasis upon the sovereignty of God and the elect people given to Christ.

Here you have the sheep and those who are not his sheep. And the emphasis is

I will give to them eternal life. Now, eternal life we've seen before.

It's time of the year to start running the fan regularly, keep things moving along here. I think once it's going to hit 110, it's time to keep the air moving a little bit.

Eternal life we've seen before numerous times in John. Hearing the voice of the

Son of God, I give them eternal life and she'll never perish. They've already passed out of judgment into life. We saw it all through John chapter 6,

John chapter 8 and now we have in John chapter 10, I give to them eternal life.

It's not something they've earned. It's not the meritorious reward of their works.

It is something that Jesus gives to a particular people.

I give them eternal life. That's the positive aspect. And the result of that is the strong affirmation that they shall never perish.

Now, that is then expanded upon with the further assertion.

And no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

My Father who gave them to me, and there's that term straight out of John 6.

My Father who gave them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my

Father's hand. I and the Father, we are one plural verb that I'll emphasize in a moment.

So, you have the positive affirmation of being given eternal life. You would think that would be enough, but Jesus knows that's not enough.

In every age, it is the intention, the mad intention of the heart of man to intrude himself into the glory of God and salvation.

It seems like man sits around and tries desperately to find ways of snatching at least a portion of the glory of salvation for himself.

The convoluted thinking that I have encountered in so many areas of people who are trying to find some way to turn salvation from being solely to the glory of God to a synergistic cooperative effort.

There just seems to be no end to the ways in which people come up with ways around these biblical truths.

You would think it would be enough to say, I give them eternal life. I mean, eternal life is by definition eternal.

And yet, for so many, well, you can have it, then you can lose it. Well, then it wasn't eternal life now, was it? Well, it will be someday.

No. I give to them eternal life. Not, I will give. It's not something down the road.

It's something we possess right now. If that's not a description of the kind of life it is, well, yes, it is, but it's only if you do this.

Well, is it going to be that way for eternity? Is this the doctrine of eternal insecurity? Are we like Jehovah's Witnesses who tell their followers that they have to be faithful during the millennium, and yet there's going to be this great deception at the end of the millennium, and even if you've been a faithful Jehovah's Witness your whole life, you might not make it through that final test at the end of the millennium.

But even if you do make it into Paradise Earth, if evil is ever found in anyone's heart, they're just annihilated where they stand.

And it might happen. Doctrine of eternal insecurity. Is that what we really believe?

So, I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

Now, we all know the standard response to this, the part of those who do not believe that salvation is fully and solely the work of God.

To His glory and based upon His choice. We know what the response is. Well, yeah, they'll never perish, never snatch them out of His hand, because but we can jump out.

We can get out. No one can snatch us out as long as we want to be in. But we can jump out of our own.

Well, that skips the first part of the negative. The first part of the negative is they shall never perish.

If I have the capacity to undo the work of the

Triune God on my behalf, the decree of the Father, the work of the Son, the work of the Holy Spirit, if I am able to undo all of that by my mighty will, then

I will perish. And so, the promise, and they shall never perish, would not be true.

Because some of them will. And if you really believe that you can have been in union with Christ, truly born again, regenerated, justified, united with Christ, indwelt by the

Holy Spirit, who is placed in you as the down payment, the Arabon, Ephesians 1 .14,

God the Father's promise, He's going to finish the work He's begun within you. And yet, despite all that, be lost.

Then Jesus' promise is null and void. It's, and I've heard men say this.

I've heard women say this too, but I'm not sure they were supposed to be talking about it anyhow. But I've heard men say this behind the pulpit.

Jesus doesn't always get what He wants. Jesus doesn't always get what

He wants. So, to say that, well, yeah, certainly no external force.

Because the last phrase, and no one shall snatch any one of them out of my hand, would refer to something other than them.

So it's an external force. Satan, the world, the flesh, the devil, all the terms that we would use for external things, this is expanded upon by Paul in Romans 8, of course.

And his assertions there that, you know, neither depth nor height nor any created thing and nakedness and peril and sort, all these things will not separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

Well, here you have a briefer version of that. No one is able to snatch them out of my hand.

But the two negatives have to be taken together. They will never perish and no one will be able to snatch them out of my hand.

I give them eternal life. They shall never perish. No one snatch them out of my hand. As long as you think on any consistent level that it is

Jesus who saves, what more do you want?

What more could you need? It's right there. Straightforward.

But then you have a further addition.

And we need to hear what this addition is. Folks, John 10, 30 is very frequently abused by Christian theologians.

It is. John chapter 10, verse 30 is very frequently abused by Christian theologians.

You will see this text cited over and over and over again without context, without a connection to an exegetical foundation as a mere assertion of the unity of the

Father and the Son in the Godhead. But that's not what's being discussed. And you'll find lots of really good people who will quote the text in that way.

Now, they might be able to give you an exegetical foundation if they were giving you a fuller explanation.

So maybe sometimes the reason you see it is just because of brevity and it's assumed that you have the background, but sometimes it's not.

What do I mean? Jesus adds to the assurance that verse 28 would give to any believer, to any one of his sheep, if being one of the sheep of Christ is something that causes your heart to rejoice.

You know, I'm going to be debating Christopher Hitchens. He hates the Christian God and he hates the idea of being a servant, servile, crouching before the mighty

Master. Well, that doesn't surprise me. For somebody who hates God, you don't want to be under his control.

But for any one of the sheep, verse 28's enough, but verse 29 adds a vitally important assertion.

My Father who has given them to me. There's John 6.

If you turn John 6 into something other than what John 6 is, all the Father gives me will come to me.

Here's the same concept once again. And if you tried to somehow get rid of John 6, and sadly

I know certain hyper -dispensationalists who do that. This only had to do with the Jews. Really? So I guess this only has to do with the

Jews too. The Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my

Father's hand. Literally, it's the Father's hand, not my Father's hand. Now why emphasize this?

All of a sudden, which hand are we in? I and the

Father. We are one. Why do I keep emphasizing we? Because Oneness Pentecostals have used this text.

Oneness Pentecostals would go here and say, see, Jesus is the Father. I and the Father are one. It means we're one person.

So Jesus is the Father, the Father is Jesus, and Jesus is actually just engaging in ventriloquism during his prayers. But the reality is no

Greek speaker would have understood it that way. Not only is the word one that is used here, not the word that would be used if he was saying one person, but the verb is plural.

That's why I emphasize I and the Father. We are one. One in what way?

Well, the text just explained it. My hand, the Father's hand. The purpose of both is absolutely identical.

Who the sheep are, what the sheep are going to receive, all one thing.

Perfect unity between the Father and the Son. Now, John 10 30 is relevant to the deity of Christ because no mere human prophet could ever say these words.

No mere human prophet could say no one will snatch God's people out of my hand.

I mean, think about that. What he's just said here is blasphemous if he's not

God. But it doesn't make him the Father. He has clearly differentiated himself from the Father in every way language can make the differentiation.

He's using different pronouns. He's referring to him in a second person, you, or a third person, my

Father. He's making clear differentiation between himself and the Father. And by using the plural he's not saying

I and the Father, I is one. He's saying we are one. One in the salvation of God's people.

One in the giving of eternal life. One in the fact that it is the one divine purpose that holds the people of God together and no one can undo that divine purpose.

And the Father and the Son are one in the accomplishment of that purpose. That's all about what John 5 was.

What John 10 does is take the themes of 5 and 6, put them together and fulfill them in the salvation of God's people.

So, the text is relevant because no mere human being could say these things.

But we open ourselves up for appropriate refutation when we just simply quote the text without providing the context and the contextual evidence that demonstrates what we're talking about is true.

Now, the fact that we have correctly interpreted the text comes out in what happens after this, which we'll move to the next time we're together.

And that is the response to Jews. Now, sometimes people argue, well, the

Jews they were all mixed up anyways. And so you can't put much into what their reaction is.

Well, if by that you're making a rather obvious observation that the

Jews were not perfect interpreters of even their own text, that's part and parcel of Jesus' own statement. But when the

Jews respond to Jesus by picking up stones to stone him, it is the interaction that takes place between Jesus and the

Jews and their responses to his questions. And then

Jesus' response to their responses that helps us to see what the real issues are.

Neither in John 5. Remember John 5, 18? This reason they're seeing all the more to kill him, because he not only loosed the

Sabbath, but he made God his own father, making himself equal with God. That results in the rest of John chapter 5.

He must honor the Son, even John the Father, the perfect unity, stuff like that. Well, in the same way here, you're going to get right to the point when someone's standing with a rock this big like this.

You know what I mean? The time for fluffy social discourse has ended at that point.

It's time to get to the real issues. And so, that's what's going to happen here, is

Jesus is going to press them for the basis of their accusation of blasphemy.

And Jesus' response has been abused and misused over and over and over again.

A couple years ago, about two years ago, I think. Maybe a little bit more than that. I played for you the debate with,

I believe it was with Greg Stafford where this came up, if I recall correctly. There might have been some other debates where it's come up.

We've gone over this before, but it's not the easiest text to deal with.

And so, we will go over it again with some depth to finish off chapter 10.

And then we will go back into the Synoptic Gospels at that point.