Synoptic Gospels John 13

Late start this morning, but we are in John chapter 13 Gospel of John chapter 13

We have been working through the synoptic

Gospels, but the synoptics have to find some place to basically put chapters 13 through 17

Chapter 12 is the end of the public ministry of Christ, so you have this big block of material that is not found in the other

Gospels and We are aware of the fact that as a result many would say that what we have here is merely the

Theological ruminations of John writing at a later time

I would say even Define the spectrum of scholarship, but there are many in the

That would be seen from the world's perspective as primarily conservative maybe not from ours, but from the world's perspective primarily conservative scholars that would

Take that view that would look at especially this section where you have this very in -depth teaching on Jesus's part specifically to his disciples as Later theological reflection and that you couldn't say specifically

Well, Jesus said this or Jesus said that and so if you were to ever

Maybe do some traveling Visit some other churches you might run into that kind of a discussion that kind of a perspective

Need to be aware that that is out there But when we consider that I think that a much more likely approach

Much more consistent approach is that Matthew Mark and Luke are specifically writing

Gospels that are intended to be presented to The world different context different different groups mark primarily to the

Roman world and and Matthew to the Jewish world and but it's meant to be a part of the gospel presentation and We don't go out at least.

I hope we don't go out If you were to you know go out to Mill Avenue or something there's a lot of people who go out to Mill Avenue and pass out tracks and witness to people and stuff down in ASU and I I don't know how useful it would be for you to write up a track for ASU students and Mill Avenue on the hypostatic

Union You know hi You know you got some guys walking along and you know they've they're getting ready for an

ASU football game you know hi, I'd like to stop and talk with you for a while about the hypostatic

Union and Probably not to get a whole lot of really positive

Response that my family in the back going why it's dinner at our house. What's the problem? You know it's a Very normal stuff, and that's so I obviously have perverted their lives, but anyways we

There there's there's a difference between What I'm talking about here, and that is that you have

The gospel presentation it has a certain level to it there are certain things that need to be there for it to be a gospel presentation and what

Paul describes as The distinction he makes remember when he talked to the

Corinthians I would know nothing amongst you except Christ Crucified and There are some people who take that and go so all you should ever talk about Every single

Sunday should be the four spiritual laws just mix them up jumble them up You know put them different flavors seasoning on them, but that's that's all you ever do every single

Sunday Well, what does Paul do just a few you know about a chapter later? But amongst the mature we do speak on a different level there is a there is a recognition

That within the family of faith within people who have made a commitment to Christ and who have demonstrated

Some steadfastness in that That you need to go further than that that there needs to be a going in depth there needs to do these other things to be discussed and When I talk about John Being that next level where instead of it's just the public proclamation

This is what the gospel is is what you present here is What Matthew Mark?

What Matthew Mark and Luke knew? But did not consider it to be appropriate to put into their

Gospels given the context in which they intended their Gospels to be used Etc etc I'm not saying that John is some kind of Gnostic gospel

And that's what everybody always says as soon as you make this statement, but oh you're promoting Gnosticism. Oh, what was what's that about well?

There were Cults and sects in the early church. They weren't in the church.

They're outside the church, but they call themselves Christians and they Believed in a special secret kind of knowledge and You'd have to go through these various levels of initiation and and full salvation

Was found by getting this last bit of knowledge a lot like Scientology today You know anything about Scientology you know they you pay money to get to all these different levels called auditing and all the rest of stuff and you pay an

Outrageous amount of money to get the last level that's when you find out about Zimu and throwing people in Volcanoes and their their their souls being released and attaching to you as Dayton's and it's just So anyways

And after you've spent $250 ,000 to get there you're not gonna make a fool of yourself as saying this is stupid

Sort of how it survives, but anyway That's that's a that's a kind of that's a kind of Gnosticism in of itself

This secret type of knowledge John by writing this isn't saying okay

We need to keep this secret and you only learn this in the temples because that's how that's where the Gnostic knowledge was is you?

Know you had to have the passwords and keywords and all this stuff you had to go through all the stuff to where you could Get that final bit of knowledge which basically was you're actually divine and once you realize you're really divine

Then you're your divine spark can fly upwards and be rejoined to the one and blah blah blah blah blah I just ruined all the you know

Gnostic sales pitches right there, but they sort of in dead for a long time anyhow, so That's that's not what we're talking about when we're when we're talking about the fact that John is willing to address and To discuss issues that are not found in the synoptic

Gospels What Jesus says in these texts is

Especially and primarily relevant to the church and to believers and a lot of it

Just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to unbelievers I mean if they if you follow John through sure reading

Gospel John that'd be great But if you if you put in the context of the early church, you've never even heard of Jesus before What you have especially in verse chapters 13 through 17

Because up to this point there will be some type some connections in the synoptic Gospels You've got the feeding in the five thousand.

You know you've got stuff like that You've got stuff, but then you have all of John chapter 6 had this lengthy discussion

In the synagogue Capernaum well, that's not the Gospels record that But they don't they record the feeding of five thousand.

They don't record what Jesus says in the synagogue Capernaum afterwards and What most people say is well if the other gospel writers knew this they would have recorded it

What's the assumption being made there? That is their intention to just give a a

Journalists Rendition of what Jesus did rather than they having a specific purpose and A specific intent in what they were what they were doing which would not necessarily include

Some type of exhaustive Documentation or things you just did I mean even as John says if you wrote down everything

Jesus said and did the world would not Contain the books would be written in other words any Written summary is going to be just that a written summary.

It's going to be brief It's not going to be this massive thing and so when we get into chapters 13 14 15 16 and 17

We definitely encounter teaching that Only in segments do we see in Matthew Mark and Luke?

But it is there. It's just not this Expanded Discussion and so you have some people who say well, that's because Jesus never said all this

This is the Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Maybe they might make it a very spiritual thing But an inspiration

Holy Spirit pondering what Jesus said and bringing out new realities and new meanings That's what a lot of people like to say

I think that Matthew Mark and Luke knew all of this stuff But that's not who they're writing to or the purposes of which for which they are writing

John seemingly writing at a later period Has the intention of doing exactly that and hence we don't have to chuck the

Historical basis of Jesus words out just simply to fit some preconceived theory that we might have so Notice that you know

John says now before the Feast of Passover Jesus knowing that his hour had come that you depart out of this world as a father having loved his own who were in the

World he loved them literally completely to the end Of Here's the transition the transition.

We're moving Into this final period this is that last Passover period last time we mentioned

I believe Because the Passover to remember the Passover is a week -long celebration not just one day.

That's why People like Bart Ehrman who try to say John was playing with history here miss it

Because they assume that the Feast of Passover is one day, but there's clear evidence That's not the case and we talked about the day of the crucifixion things like that.

That's what we did the last time We were together so John however does place this right in history unlike most of the

Gnostic myth that would just sort of say Well at one season of the year blah blah blah blah and and does doesn't bother putting it any place or at any particular time

We're talking about a specific city We're talking about a specific political situation with the

Romans and we're talking about specific time Coming up to the really the high point of the

Jewish liturgical year and that is the Feast of the Passover and Jesus knows that his hour has come up until now we had those cryptic statements in John my hour has not yet come my hour has not yet come and Again people try to contrast that with Mark or something like that But we've seen very clearly in in Mark and other places that John that Jesus knows

What exactly what his purpose is it is necessary the Son of Man go to Jerusalem and he go through these things

Each of the Gospels is presenting a different story just with different emphases Just as you would expect as if we were to talk to eyewitnesses of a particular event

Who would have different emphases in their response? and so It says during the supper and so Which supper is in mind?

How does this work out chronologically? I think we'll be able to tell a little more closely as we see some of the later events

But during supper the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon to betray him now we don't know when that is and I remember a sermon

I heard years and years ago. It wasn't here But I remember a sermon years and years ago that I heard

Where is it in John? I forget exactly which gospel it is, but when

Let me see here I'm just looking real quick but there is there is at one point when

Jesus is talking to Judas before the betrayal and He says you know what you what you're going to do

Judas do it quickly, and it says and he went out and It was night, and I got an entire member an entire sermon.

It was a well -done sermon. I gotta admit. I mean as far as You know grabbing hold of people and really making you know it was night.

It was the night of Judas's soul and You know I and I'm not saying that there was anything wrong with that I'm just not really sure that's what the gospel writer meant

Other than he was saying that he did this at night rather than During the day of lights, you know

I mean You know maybe that's the boring way of taking things, but I just really wasn't certain that That was necessarily

Meant to be it was the night of Judas's soul that might ruin a lot of really cool preaching, but anyway

You've got a you've got a lot of that going out there. We're not told When The devil had already put in the heart of Judas to scare at the son of Simon to pray

We're not we're not given any Description and some of you may recall about What's about five years ago?

It's probably longer than that I was having a discussion with my daughter about the last movie

I had seen in a theater, and and I had thought it was like 2009 and she Whipped out her phone and said 2006 oh okay

Whatever it didn't seem like that long ago. You know but Get get to this age and this time of life and things just Speed up real big real fast, and so you you can remember exactly what it was, but anyway a few years ago

After the year 2000 at least let's put that way so let's make it this Millennium. How's that sometime in this

Millennium? The Media was all excited about the gospel of Judas and There had been this very poorly preserved manuscript dug up somewhere in the

Middle East and It was this wild Strange Gospel of Judas that doesn't mean it was written by Judas it's probably from the late second early third century as I recall and We only have a portion of it, and it's really easy to identify the religious background out of which it comes

It was it was a Gnostic gospel, and and so you have the Gnostics and their weird ideas and Their Deity Barbaloo and stuff like that.

That's a great name for a deity isn't a Barbaloo. It's just Sort of like Barbie and Lou.

I don't know but anyways But it's you know it has nothing really to do as biblical

Christianity Oh, then the author knows the story and is now turning on its head to where Judas is

The only faithful disciple who has a clue and gets it because you see

Jesus needs to be freed in this physical body because that's what real freedom is is to be well

It doesn't really have physical body, but anyway This has to happen For for Jesus full

Exaltation and the revelation of Gnostic knowledge all the rest of stuff so Judas is the only guy who's really doing the right thing and The rest of the disciples is clueless because they're still a part of the old religion the

Gnostics were very strongly Actually they were anti -christian it's funny that so many people call them Christian Gnostics, but they're actually anti -christian

They were opposed to the organized church and to Christian orthodoxy and frequently mocked it in in incredible terms

Of course they're attacked in the New Testament, so I guess they figured that was fair, but anyway you know this this book comes out and and Judas is presented as this real good guy and and The people were like oh,

I wonder You know is this gonna overthrow the Christian faith. I just love the media whenever anything like this You know we're coming up on Christmas So there'll be something that will come out then like it is every year and then come

April March April You know there's something new about this may just may end the Christian faith

Great you know but Judas has always been a

Fascinating figure in in Christian Theology and Well, let's be honest mostly speculation

Because you know we know who's the keeper of the bag so that means It means he had accounting skills, and you can't trust accountants, so You know you sort of wonder you know he would he was skimming off the top and and But just think what it was like to be

Judas. I mean you're in the inner circle Okay, you're not You were on the mount transfiguration

Okay, so that you've got the inner inner circle, and then you've got the disciples, but still He passed out the miracle bread and fish at the feeding of the 5 ,000 and He saw

Lazarus raised from the dead and he saw the widow's son name raised from the dead and he saw lepers cleansed and He What was it like I mean if you want the clearest evidence that merely seeing miracles is?

Not enough to change an unregenerate heart Judas is The best example of that you could possibly have

I mean we look at the Jewish leaders Look at the Jewish leaders after the resurrection of Lazarus, and we go

What hard heartedness is that? You just saw a guy come out of the grave, and you want to go kill the guy that did it

I Mean there's the unpardonable sin. That's true But is it not even worse?

To be Judas is going. Yeah, isn't that great, and you didn't betray the guy for 30 pieces of silver

I Mean which is worse I mean

I was sort of thinking this week Again I was listening to a debate that took place

Recently this Dan Savage guy this pro -homosexual guy that became famous when he ravaged those high school kids and A number of them walked out and stuff he did a debate in his dining room with the

Roman Catholic head of the National Organization for marriage and I listened to it yesterday morning the start of my ride and in That one he was trying to be a little bit more

Nuance, I guess you know But still I'd rather have a Dan Savage who basically says the

Bible is filled with bleep And that's what he said to the high school students Then a lot of these people who call themselves

Christians and try to just pervert the scriptures into something that is absolutely unrecognizable I I prefer open direct rebellion to Silent hypocrisy,

I mean give me my pagan straight up. You know I mean, it's just I stole that from some you know that's it's just easier for me to deal with somebody like that you know and So it's a little bit easier for me to deal with the

Pharisees than to deal Judas Given what he had seen and given what he had experienced and given what he had heard

What an amazing thing it is For him to be to do the things that he does here, it's

It's it's truly an amazing thing to consider. We don't know what started it, but we do know the description is very clear that the son of perdition as He is identified in the

Gospels. He had a role to play and Here you have

Rather interesting statement the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot But Jesus knew that was that outside of God's control.

I mean isn't interesting Jesus knowing That the hour had come

Jesus knowing that the father given all things into his hands Wouldn't that include the devil and even

Judas's heart that he had come forth from God. It was going back to God, so Don't you see it seems we have right here this tension that Everybody has to deal with in the scriptures

The devil is involved here. The devil is doing what the devil does by nature. He's the father of lies he seeks to destroy life and Yet Jesus says his hour has come

Well who fixed the date an hour was the devil of course not?

So his hour has come the devil's doing exactly what the devil wants to do and desires to do and he puts into the heart of Judas Iscariot the son of Simon to betray him and Yet his betrayal is exactly at the heart of What Jesus teaches his whole purpose in coming was?

That he would be betrayed in the hands of men that he would be mistreated that he would be killed

He'd be buried rise again the third day And this in the context of saying the father has given all things into his hands he had come forth from God was going back

God so you have what a lot of people say are the the two sides that we cannot put together and That we only get into trouble when we try to put them together

You clearly have God's sovereignty You clearly have the fact that he is the one who has fixed the date and the hour

I mean if he prophesied the coming of the Messiah Hundreds of years before him

Then did he only do so because he looked down the corridors of time and said ah that's what's happened cool

No, of course not Because you know once you start down that road then then what do you do with this?

Autonomous will of man I mean you know when I debate open theists People who don't believe that God knows what the future is going to be infallibly

God knows the general outlines of the future But he can't know for certain because he can't know what free creatures are going to do if God knows what you're going to have for Lunch today, then

God then you don't really have the freedom to have lunch today That's that's their perspective so if God knows then

Then you're not really free. That's that's the bottom line of the open theist and so I'll point out the example of Cyrus who let the people of Israel return to Jerusalem and he's prophesied by name which is why

Non -believing scholars say that Isaiah 40 and following can't be from the real

Isaiah Because it mentions Cyrus, so it's an anachronism ie. There's no such thing as prophecy

That's how you got to deal with the text when you don't believe what the text itself is actually saying But Cyrus is prophesied before he actually

Does what he is? Going to do and so I asked the question

How can God prophesy saying what if what if Cyrus got up in the morning? The morning he's going to give the proclamation to return the children of Israel That they may return to Jerusalem rebuild the temple and he gets out of his kingly bed and He puts his bare kingly foot on the floor and steps right on top of a child's toy from one of the little princes who had been playing there the day before and It's a sharp little toy, and so his royal highness is royally angry

And he picks up the toy And he turns it over and discovers. It's a toy made by one of those

Jews and So now he's angry Instead of being angry at the little royal brat.

He gets angry at the Jewish person that made the sharp toy and So he changed his mind because we're all free to do that and decides not to let the people go and so all the prophecies

Of Isaiah now become false prophecies. We've got to start all over you can't have

Specific fulfillable predictive prophecy If there is not a divine decree that fixes the shape of the future

Otherwise God isn't prophesying what he's going to do God is just prophesying what's going to happen, and he doesn't have any control over it because remember

He's just looking down the corridors of time going. Oh, okay. That's what's going to happen, so you can either have prophecy

That is Static where God is just telling you what the future is going to be but not in control of it

Or you have the type of prophecy you have in the scriptures is that I will fulfill my purposes

And here's what my purposes are and this is what's going to happen that requires a divine decree And that's what you have in the hour has come

Well, then the hour is not yet now the hour has come is that just Jesus going. Yeah, I'm tired of this

Start this off no Jesus knows there's a specific hour. There's specific things that have to be fulfilled.

There's all these prophecies About how he is going to give his life

It must be fulfilled in a particular way and it requires the Romans to be there it requires the Jewish leadership to be there it requires certain leadership to be there it all comes together at one particular point in time and The idea that yeah, well, but somebody could have messed it up by just You know they came to a fork in the road they went this way it's not that way

You know the guy that was supposed to be there to have the upper room You know that Jesus sent the disciples in you're gonna meet a guy needs to be carrying a water pitcher and go ask him and He decided to turn left instead of right.

He missed the appointment it all fell apart and There are people who actually believe that that's what happens all the time and that God just you know,

I debated a guy Again sometime this millennium It's gonna become a normal thing for me

This is it's been in this money I Shaved my head in 2001.

That's a good. Yeah, I Didn't have hair when I debated him there. That's the millennium there. That's how

I remember these things anyway, I debated this guy and So focused was he upon defending an

Arminian perspective That for example in talking about Paul's conversion

He specifically stated that Paul even though he was knocked off his horse and had this conversation could have said appreciate it, but no, thanks and God would have had to have found somebody else to fulfill the role

Paul so evidently God just has all these fallback positions and But the problem is

That would mean that his timetable is constantly in flux there could be no meaningful predictive prophecy

Whatsoever in the Bible If God is does not have a divine divine decree, and I think sometime early next year.

I'll be doing a debate on Non home turf back east with a good friend of mine

And this is what we're gonna have to focus on because this really is This is this is the issue if you start

With God and you start with a coherent Biblical view of his perfections his sovereignty his kingship

That's going to condition what you do with man if you start with man and create a theology of man

That says man has to have these capacities and these abilities and so on so forth then

You're going to go to God, and you're going to limit God so as to maintain your

Anthropology your doctrine of man That's backwards. You don't start with the creature and to find the

Creator you start with what the Creator has said about himself and Move to a recognition of what the

Bible says about man even when it's uncomfortable to do so and even when it impresses you to realize that very often the scripture speaks to us as Fallen creatures as ignorant creatures as creatures who can only observe time from Right where we are and that is we are incredibly ignorant of what's come before us

I mean think about even in your own life Not only do you forget stuff

Not only Are there instances where? Your understanding of what happened even in your own life is skewed because you don't know what's going on the lives of people around you but Then as soon as you go to the people closest to you

How much do you really really know about them you may think you know them like the back of your hand? But you're not with them 24 hours a day

They have all sorts of experiences that are not yours you may have misinterpreted things They said did so on so forth so even within the closest area of your knowledge there's all sorts of holes and gaps and misunderstandings and everything else and Then you pile on the rest of humanity and All the things that mankind itself doesn't even know and so here.

We are at the present We know very little about what's going on right now. I mean we know almost nothing about what's going on I thought this one room right now

We know very little about what's happened behind us, and we know nada about tomorrow And we can sort of predict that I predict.

It's gonna be hot and humid whoo there you go all right. You know You know but here we are

We know little we've had so little knowledge and yet we dare to stand up on our hind legs and Say to God you need to answer to me

When we know next to nothing about what's actually going on in in in the world around us

It's an amazing thing when you think about we can't start with ourselves If we don't have a revelation from God that reveals first of all who he is so that we can have light to see ourselves we are

Well, that's where human religion comes from That's why there's so many different human religions. They're all contradictory to one another is because that's where they drive from Well, I don't think there's any question about that.

I didn't put together an entire study on Judas today, but He's called the son of perdition, and it is specifically stated that he did what he did to fulfill the scriptures

So that's about as close as you can get well if God decreed if you're saying could

God have had Andrew do this instead of Judas. I mean if that was his decree

Certainly, it's not that there there can't be anything external to God that says it's got to be

Judas not somebody else There are theologies to say that No, I do not

Yes Yes, I wouldn't well.

That's just a statement of capacity that the point that Jesus is when Jesus says to Peter put up your sword

He's he's pointing out to Peter that First of all his action is is ridiculous a a fisherman with one sword

Against an entire cadre of soldiers whether they're Roman soldiers involved or not

We don't know it could have been the temple guard, but the point is all of them would have been more Skilled with a weapon than then the fishermen would have been one way or the other

The the point was to rebuke Peter's rashness in in his actions not to engage in a theoretical discussion of could

I Disrupt the prophetic flow of history And undo what

God has decreed would take place in his creative decree Well capacitive the capacity capacity in reality are not the same thing

I mean on one level the you know, there's yeah capacity around I I might have the capacity to do all sorts of things, but what

I actually do is what matters and the the fact is Jesus said

I could Call upon my father and since one angel wiped out 186 ,000 the

Syrians in one night I could I could you know the father has the capacity to Destroy the entirety of the human race that the point is that what you're going to see in the cross is the restraint of God's power

The world's gonna see it as weakness, but what it really is is the restraint of God's power and Peter's Impetuous action is not a demonstration of God's power in any way shape or form

He's actually getting in the way as he had before of God's purposes in that sense in not seeing what

God's purposes really were so it's not He's not engaging a three a theoretical discussion of Well, here's the decree, but we could change the decree because I had this capacity the point is

Peter what you're doing is once again, you're not mind of things of God your mind of things of men

Don't you know that I don't I don't need your sword Peter put it up If I was trying to avoid this because that's what

Peter's trying to do. He's trying to give the Lord the opportunity to boogie and Boys not going anywhere

His point is I Have this capacity. I don't need you. So you're missing the whole purpose of why

I'm here He still didn't get it Peter still didn't get even though he'd been rebuked even though The tradition of about what the

Messiah was to be was so strong in their minds They just couldn't see it real quick and yet you have again the important thing that to add to this is the fact that Judas did what he did

What juice wasn't some? Innocent guy and he's got a gun to his back. Oh No This is something that he wants to do the devil's involved in putting it into his heart.

He acts upon it He acts upon the temptation. This is what he wants to do It is it is not a simplistic issue of we're all just you know, you know

This isn't the walking dead except we don't we can actually talk this is there is much more to the biblical presentation the relationship of the

Sovereignty of God and the actions of man and that's being here because you have

Judas Iscariot You yet you also have the sovereignty of God all at the same time.

So Unfortunately, we have run out of time so we will Continue with that discussion next time our father

We do thank you for your word and we do thank you that that hour did come because by that hour we have eternal life

We thank you for that. We gather this day in recognition of that gospel that has Given us eternal life given us forgiveness.