Synoptic Gospels John 13

The Purpose and Audience of John’s Gospel

Late start this morning, but we are in John chapter 13. Gospel of John chapter 13 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 sure how to 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 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 at 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 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 you 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 talks 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. That's what everybody always does as soon as you make this statement book. 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. It's 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. I say this is stupid. So that's 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?

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 till this point there will be some type some connections into the synoptic Gospels. You've got the feeding into 5 ,000. 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 the synoptic Gospels record that. But they don't they record the feeding of 5 ,000.

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.

Journalist. 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 anything Jesus 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 he departed out of this world as a father having loved his own who were in the World he loved them literally completely to the end.

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 the 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 as 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 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 us 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 bit 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 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 it and I remember 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, 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.

Then he was saying that he did this at night rather than During the day flights, 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.

I 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. Well, 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 Beat 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.

This is Sort of like Barbie and Lou, I don't know but anyways but it's you know has nothing really to do as biblical Christianity other than 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 from 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, it's just 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 selling.

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.

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. 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 someone you know, that's it's just easier for me to deal with somebody like that, you know, and So it's 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 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 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.

Gia says his hour has come. Well who fixed the date an hour? Was it 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.

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 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 to 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 beforehand Then did he only do so because he looked down the corridors of time and said ah, that's what 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 gonna have for lunch Today then God then you don't really have the freedom to have lunch today.

That's that's their perspective and so if God knows.

Then.

Then you're not really free. That's that's the bottom line of the open theists. And so I'll point out the example of Cyrus 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 prophesize thing?

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 again. 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 gonna 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 gonna 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. Let's let's 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 that 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's a Jesus sent the disciples in you're gonna meet a guy.

He needs to be carrying a water pitcher and go ask him and that he decided to turn left instead of right he missed the appointment at all fell apart and. 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, um, 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 going to 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 presses 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 and 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. It's not 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.

Oh, 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 derive from. Yes, sir, 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 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 don'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.

Well, 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 than the fishermen would have been one way or the other. The the point was to rebuke Peters rationist 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. The capacity capacity and 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 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. 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. 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.

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. Let's pray together. 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.

We celebrate that this day be with us now as we go into worship. We pray in Christ's name.