36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Would you like to be free? Really free? One of the greatest blessings which God gives to us in Christ is FREEDOM. If we have not realised that glorious truth then we are still captives. Jesus came to set people free. That was the heart of His message, right from the beginning in his first sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth, his Nazareth manifesto.

Luke 4 18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

Freedom for the prisoners – release for the oppressed! Jesus came to set people free. We heard it in Jesus’s words in our reading from John 8.
John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Everybody needs setting free. Any time a person is not able to do what they choose to do because of some external pressure on them, they are a captive. Any time a person is not able to say what they choose to say because of some external pressure on them, they are a captive. Any time a person is not able to think what they want to think because of some external pressure on them, they are a captive.
By our very nature, every single human being is a captive to some degree or another. We all need God to set us free. Some people are trapped by their circumstances, others by their backgrounds. Some people are imprisoned by poverty – others by wealth. Some people are trapped in intolerable situations which they are powerless to change. Many people feel trapped by fears and worries. Without God’s help, every single one of us is trapped by sin and guilt and the fear of death. Jesus Christ the Son of God came and lived and died and rose again to set us free.
JESUS’S TEACHING SETS US FREE
John 8:31 … Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ …. 36 … if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Jesus the Son of God reveals God to us. As Peter said to Jesus, “you have the words of eternal life.” When we believe and obey Jesus’s teaching we receive God’s gift of eternal life.
JESUS’S DEATH ON THE CROSS SETS US FREE
FREE FROM PUNISHMENT FOR SIN
Christ has paid the penalty for our sins which we deserve to pay.
Mark 10 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
1 Peter 2 24 ‘He himself bore our sins’ in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; ‘by his wounds you have been healed.’ 25 For ‘you were like sheep going astray,’ but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God (NIV84)
Because Christ has paid the penalty for our sin we can be forgiven. So we can be
FREE FROM THE GUILT OF SIN
Our consciences are clear. We don’t have to run and hide away from God like Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, because we feel guilty because we know we have disobeyed God. We can come into God’s presence with a clear conscience!
FREE FROM THE GRIP OF THE DEVIL
Later in John 8 Jesus said this to his opponents.
John 8 44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
The devil is the father of all lies. We all need God’s truth which can set us free.
1 John 5:19 tells us that “the whole world is in the control of the Evil One”, the devil. One look at the news would tell us that is true. One look at our own hearts would tell us that but for the grace of God even we would be under the grip of the devil. Jesus’s death has defeated the devil. Jesus sets us free from the devil’s control so that we can live the lives we really want to live, lives which are pleasing to God.
But when he talked about freedom in his Nazareth Manifesto. I think Jesus had in mind something more than setting everybody free from the grip which the devil has on all of us.
Luke 4:18 He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,
I think that when Jesus talked of the prisoners and the oppressed he was not just referring to human beings in general. The Bible tells us that some people’s lives are in the grip of evil more than others. In the Gospels and Acts we find 70 mentions of demons, or people who are demonised. We have another 30 mentions of “evil (or unclean) spirits”. 40 times we read of Jesus or the apostles “driving out” demons or evil spirits. Satan is mentioned 18 times and the alternative names of Beelzebub or “the Evil One” another 13 times. Driving out demons was a major part of Jesus’s ministry. One third of His miracles were healings and one third were acts of deliverance.
1 John 3:8 The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
Driving out demons was part of proclaiming freedom for the prisoners and releasing the oppressed. Setting the captives free. I know that individuals can be affected by evil spirits and that people can be demonised. I know that because the Bible tells me so. I believe that because Christians and Churches and Missionaries all around the world give accounts of demonisation and deliverance ministry. And I know that is the case because I have met people who have been demonised and I have ministered deliverance to them and driven out demons in Christ’s name. Jesus came to set people free from the hold which the devil.
Colossians 2 13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
By his death on the cross Jesus did not only take away our sins. On the cross Jesus has also defeated the devil. Jesus can set people free. In Christ we are freed from the penalty of sin and from the guilt of sin and from the grip the devil has on our lives. Christ’s death on the cross has removed the barrier between us and God. It has changed us from God’s enemies into God’s friends – even more than that, into God’s beloved children. But Jesus has not just died on the cross for us. He has also risen from the dead and Jesus shares that resurrection life with us.
THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST SETS US FREE
God gives to every Christian the gift of His Holy Spirit. God Himself comes and lives inside us. And the Holy Spirit is the resurrection life of Christ living in us!
FREE FROM THE POWER AND PULL OF SIN
John 8 34 Jesus replied, ‘Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
By nature we are trapped in sin. Given the choice between doing right and doing wrong, human beings since Adam and Eve have an inbuilt bias towards doing wrong. Jesus came to set us free from doing wrong. If the Son shall set you free you shall be free indeed!
So Christ sets us free from our besetting sins. They may be dramatic sins with alcohol or drugs or sex or lying or stealing or violence. They may instead be what A.W.Tozer has called “the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit,” the “self sins”, “self-sufficiency, self-pity, self absorption, self aggrandizement, self-castigation, self-deception, self-exaltation, self-deprecation, self-indulgence.” The resurrection power of Christ within us sets us free from all our sins.
1 Corinthians 10 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.
The freedom we experience through Jesus is not to be free to do whatever we like. It is freedom to do what is right, freedom to resist temptation and stop sinning and freedom to do the things which are pleasing to God.
FREE FROM FEAR OF DEATH
Hebrews 2 14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.
We share Christ’s resurrection life. We have no need to be afraid of death. We have the happy certainty of heaven. And this gives us tremendous hope for the future. In these mortal bodies we experience our freedom through faith. Sometimes it is a struggle to live out our freedom. But we are promised that one day we will be completely free!
Romans 8 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
The glorious liberty of the children of God! That’s what is waiting for us in heaven. And we can enjoy the first installment of that freedom here on earth!
Even before all the blessings of Christ’s death and resurrection, Jesus reveals the truth which sets us free.
John 8:31 … Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’ …. 36 … if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
Jesus the Son of God reveals God the Father to us. As Peter said to Jesus, “you have the words of eternal life.” When we believe and obey Jesus’s teaching we receive God’s gift of eternal life, our personal relationship with God. And in turn this new relationship we have with God sets us free from many things.
OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD SETS US FREE
35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it for ever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
We are God’s children! That relationship with God brings us true freedom.
FREE FROM FEARS ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAPPEN TO US
Psalm 27 1 The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?
2 When the wicked advance against me to devour me,
it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.
3 Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear;
though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

Time and time again God says to his people, “Fear not, for I am with you.” Jesus sets us free from our fears. Whatever may happen, God is with us.
Psalm 46 1 God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
FREE FROM FEARS ABOUT WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK ABOUT US
At work, with our neighbours, even in our families many people are worried or afraid about what other people think of them. Our relationship with God helps us overcome those worries and fears. When we feel secure in God’s love for us we can cope with what other people may think about us.
1 John 4:18 Where God’s love is there is no fear, because God’s perfect love drives out fear. (New Century Version)
One frequent fear which many Christians have can get in the way of us talking about Jesus. We can be afraid of being rejected or insulted or even persecuted for standing up for Jesus. Again, when we are secure in the love God has for us, we will be prepared to take risks for God.
Romans 8:31 If God is for us, who can be against us? Absolutely nothing in the whole of creation can separate us from God’s love. We are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:37). Our relationship with God drives away our fears.
Our relationship with God sets us FREE FROM WORRIES
Philippians 4 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We do not need to worry – God will take care of us.
1 Peter 5 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
Would you like to be free? CHRIST’S DEATH sets us free from the punishment from sin and the guilt of sin and from the grip of the devil. THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST sets us free from the power and pull of sin and from any fear of death. And OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD sets us free from all our fears and anxieties. One of the greatest blessings which God gives to us in Christ is FREEDOM. If we have not realised that wonderful truth, if we are not living in the glorious liberty of the children of God, then we are still captives.
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

What kind of church would we like North Springfield Baptist Church to be?
A church with good teaching? A church with genuine worship? A church with good children’s and youth work? A loving church? A united church? An evangelistic church? A church where people find God? A church which welcomes everybody? A church where Christians grow to be mature in their faith? A church where everybody plays their part? A praying church? A Spirit-filled church?
On the day he rose from the dead, in the Upper Room Jesus said to his disciples, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
We should want to be the church God wants us to be. We should want to be the church who are doing what God wants us to do. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”
So what did God the Father send Jesus the Son into the world to do?
Jesus came to LOVE PEOPLE
Jesus showed God’s love by welcoming everybody. Not just respectable people, but tax collectors, outcasts and sinners. Jesus showed God’s love by eating meals with people, which in those days was an expression of true acceptance and fellowship. Jesus expressed in his own life the love of God exemplified by the forgiving Father in the parable of the prodigal son.
God calls us to show His love to the world. We must show God’s love in the same ways as Jesus did, by loving our neighbours and accepting everybody just as they are. By caring for those who are poor and in any kind of need. By standing up for the rights of people who can’t stand up for themselves, anybody who is marginalised or an outsiders. Loving each other and loving other people as God has loved us.
Jesus came to SHOW PEOPLE WHAT GOD IS LIKE
John 1 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in the closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Now Jesus is no longer in the world in his human body, if people are going to see what God is like, they will look at Christians. We are the only way they will be able to see Jesus! We cach need to become more like Jesus, so that people can see Jesus in us. We need the Fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, Jesus living in us.
“Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All his wonderful passion and purity,
O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,
Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.”
We want to be more like Jesus, so that other people to be able to see Jesus in us.
Jesus came to HEAL PEOPLE and to SET PEOPLE FREE
Jesus brought miracles of healing and deliverance in supernatural signs and wonders. And He commands His church to carry on this work, showing God’s love and compassion in human ways and in supernatural ways.
BRING FORGIVENESS
Jesus died on the cross to make a way for us to be forgiven. Jesus died on the cross so that we could experience eternal life, life in all its fulness which not even death can take away.
And he entrusted his disciples with the message of God’s forgiveness.
John 20 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’
Reaching this world which is running faster and faster away from God will be costly! It will demand sacrifices. It cost Jesus his life to bring us life, and he calls his followers to lives of sacrifice. We must take up OUR cross too.
As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’
The Lord Jesus Christ is Risen from the dead. He is still alive in the world today. The world can’t see Him but He IS alive – inside us. Inside Christians. We are the Body of Christ. And God sends us to continue the work which Jesus began. Showing God’s love. Showing people what God is like. Bringing healing and deliverance. Bringing forgiveness. But there is one more thing which jesus came to do which he sends us out to do which I haven’t mentioned yet. Sometimes it gets overlooked.

Jesus came to TELL PEOPLE ABOUT GOD
Jesus didn’t just show God’s love. Jesus didn’t just show people what God is like. Jesus didn’t just heal sick people and drive out demons. Jesus didn’t just bring forgiveness. Jesus also preached the good news of the Kingdom of God. Jesus also taught the people. For us too, it isn’t enough for us just to show God’s love to people. It isn’t enough for us just to show people what God is like. It isn’t even enough to bring God’s healing and deliverance and forgiveness. We have to TELL people about God. Jesus came to tell people about God and he calls his church to continue that work.
Matthew 28 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.
We thought about this in our evening service last week when we asked, “What is the most important aspect of the mission God has given to the church?” Jesus and the apostles he sent out did not give up their lives to meet people’s material needs, or to address issues of social justice. Instead they preached the gospel of the Kingly Rule of God, the gospel of forgiveness and new life. That gospel is good news for the poor and the oppressed. It is that gospel which ultimately sets the captives free. It is only “in Christ” that all human beings can become one. So the greatest task of Christians is proclaiming that life-saving gospel of Jesus Christ – telling people about God.
Some churches devote all their resources to meeting people’s physical needs and never have time to actually tell people about Jesus. Some churches have taken up causes like equality and inclusion and spend all their energies fighting for the rights of minorities, as if that was the most important aspect of mission. Standing against the injustices of the world was one part of what Jesus came to be and to do, and that is part of what God sends his church out to do. But putting right the wrongs of the world must not be allowed to become the central thrust of the mission of the churches. Because, as important as issues of social justice are, there is a message which is more important than that. There are many other groups also fighting for justice in many areas, very often following paths which the churches first trod. But there is a mission which God has entrusted to his children alone – the task of telling people about God and proclaiming the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. The ministry of reconciling men and women and children to Almighty God. The core of the mission of the church has always been making disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them, talking to people about God.
The two tasks of proclaiming the good news in words and demonstrating God’s love in action must always go side by side. We must love our neighbours by serving our communities and by striving for compassion, justice and peace. But this should always go hand in hand with delivering the Good News of Jesus in words. In his book Mission Matters, Tim Chester makes the point very well. “It is not enough merely to address people’s felt needs. As well as their temporal needs we must also address their eternal need of Christ.” Christians must make sure that all the people who face a lost eternity without Christ are hearing about the Saviour.
The gospel of forgiveness and new life can be very uncomfortable to share, but Jesus did not send his disciples out to put right all the wrongs in the world. Jesus sends us out to preach the gospel of God’s free gift of salvation. When it comes to priorities in time and money and energy, we should bear in mind that many other people give generously to the poor and many people are fighting very hard for justice and human rights. But only Christians will give to pay for things like evangelism and church planting and theological education and Bible translation. Many people are working and campaigning for the needs of the poor. Only Christians can tell their neighbours that God loves them and Christ died for them. Only Christians can show their neighbours the way to be saved.
Paul wrote in Romans 1:16, 16 I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes,
Sometimes it looks as though many Christians are ashamed of this gospel which brings salvation. Perhaps some Christians have lost confidence in the power of the gospel to change lives, the transforming power of Jesus Christ which can save “from the guttermost to the uttermost.”
But this is the good news which Jesus sent his disciples out to share.
Mark 16 15 (Jesus) said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
And his disciples obeyed Jesus’s command. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.
The first Christians never stopped talking about Jesus – some Christians never start. We have to stand up and be counted against political correctness which tells us that it is rude to claim that we know the truth which can set people free.
The Swiss theologian Karl Barth was quite possibly the greatest evangelical thinker of the 20th Century. He wrote, “The church exists to preach the gospel. The life of the one holy Universal Church is determined by the fact that it is the fulfilment of the service as ambassador enjoined upon it. … The “Christ-believing group” … is sent out: “Go and preach the gospel!” … In it all the one thing must prevail: “Proclaim the gospel to every creature!” The Church runs like a herald to deliver the message. It is not a snail that carries its little house on its back and is so well off in it that only now and then it sticks out its feelers and then thinks that the “claim of publicity” has been satisfied. No, the Church lives by its commission as herald.”
The church exists to preach the gospel. That is the heart of the mission Jesus has given to Christians – to tell people about God. Whether people respond or not to the gospel is all God’s work. That is the work of God the Holy Spirit. OUR job is to tell people!! We are not responsible for how people respond to the gospel. We ARE responsible for making sure that we have told them!! To make sure that the seed is sown! The old saying is true – you can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Our job is not to make people drink from the waters of life. That is the Holy Spirit’s job. But our job is to MAKE SURE that EVERYBODY knows where to find those living waters – to proclaim the Good News that Jesus is the Christ using every means at our disposal, any which way we can.
In this Post-Modern Post Christendom world, that task is getting harder and harder. But the Covid Pandemic has had one very interesting effect on churches – it has led to the rise of what is called digital church. And churches are now reaching out with the love of Jesus in digital mission. According to the last year’s Ofcom report on the communications market, More than 80% of the population now use a smartphone. On average people watched more than 3 hours (3 hours 12 minutes) of television each day. On top of that, internet users spent an average of more than 3 and a half hours (3 hours 37 minutes) online every day. Two fifths (39%) of all that time was spent on sites owned by Facebook and Google. Online messaging services like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram are growing and taking over from text messages. Two thirds of the UK population are active Facebook Users, 60% use WhatsApp and a third of the population watch videos on YouTube.
Then the Covid Pandemic struck many churches started putting recorded services online Others were livestreaming their services over Facebook and YouTube which allowed people to join in with services by watching from their homes. We were among the first churches to use Zoom to share our services online in a way which allowed everybody to participate from their homes. There are some churches who are continuing to livestream, but not that many are continuing like us to run services which are “fully hybrid” where people can lead us in prayer from their homes, or choose the songs as we do in our evening services.
Our morning services on Facebook are viewed live or watched later by typically 50 to 60 people. The service on 22nd May where I talked about “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” has had 114 views so far. Our evening sermons are typically viewed by 20 to 30 people on Facebook and more on YouTube. The one on helping people through grief has had 44 views so far. We have a good number of regular viewers. Some of them are friends who are not local to us and others are folk from all over the country and beyond who we haven’t even met yet. Week by week more people are joining in our worship over Facebook and YouTube than are gathering here in this building.
Our public North Springfield Baptist Church Facebook Group has 92 members. I have my online blog where I post the text of every sermon I preach and we also have a church website. Between those two we average over 2000 page views and 6000 hits every day. Back on February 11th we were particularly popular and we had had 13,000 page views in one day. Every day there are many people who are reading about Jesus on our websites.
These are aspects of what people mean by digital church and digital mission. People engaging with services and sermons online as well as, or instead of, face to face. Church is happening over Zoom and Facebook and YouTube and not just in person. For many, people services and sermons online are just as valuable as meeting in buildings. So I believe it is important that we don’t give up on using these channels to reach our neighbours and even other people who may be thousands of miles away. We need to invest time and money to find ways to develop the mission we already have over the internet and social media. At the same time each of us need to take every opportunity to talk about Jesus with our friends and connections over social media. This is digital mission and in today;’s world it is an important part of what Jesus sends his church to do.
All Christians are ambassadors for Christ. A long time ago I came up with this little quote.
“The greatest challenge the church faces in this generation is to become the church of this generation and not remain the church of the last generation – or the last generation really will be the last generation!” Digital church and digital mission are here to stay. They are very significant for this generation, especially for younger people. We need to find our place within them.
God has given us all the resources we need to continue Jesus’s ministry. He has given us His Holy Spirit inside us!
Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
God sends us out to continue the work which Jesus began, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Showing God’s love. Showing people what God is like. Bringing healing and deliverance. Bringing forgiveness. And most important of all, just telling people about God.

This message is on video here.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/155446597813837/permalink/5297841006907678

In case you wanted to read further, here are the notes for the sermon.

JOHN 6:55 = The first of the seven great I AM sayings in John’s Gospel. Followed by some words which are harder to understand
vv53-55 What did Jesus mean ?
Specifically – is this eucharistic language? Relating to the Lord’s Supper or communion, C.f. Matthew 26:26-29 ?
I think John 6 is NOT Eucharistic language, not referring to communion, for a number of reasons.
1 John doesn’t record institution of the Lord’s Supper. Instead in the Upper Room John 13 describes Jesus washing his disciples feet.
2 Word in Matthew 26 at last supper is body soma, Jesus’s physical body
Word in John 6 is flesh – sarx – referring here to Jesus’s life on earth
3 Whatever Jesus said in John 6 would need to make some kind of sense to disciples at the time Jesus said it, which was BEFORE the Last Week and the Upper Room. So the disciples would not hear Jesus talking about “eating his flesh” and immediately think of taking communion, because Jesus had not yet instituted the Lord’s Supper.
V 52 Jews misunderstood – as if Jesus was suggesting literally eating his flesh = cannibalism. That was universally condemned at that time. Although later on, probably around the time John was writing his Gospel, the Romans would make the same mistake and accuse the early church of cannibalism because they misunderstood what they heard about the Lord’s Supper. But that does not mean that was what Jesus was saying or intending.
Vv 54-56 “Drinking his blood” was not only a universal taboo. In addition, for Jews the drinking of the blood of any animal was forbidden in the Old Testament. You might remember how that prohibition was one of just four Old Testament regulations imposed on Gentile Christians by the church at Jerusalem in Acts 15. Even more than that in Leviticus 17 the Israelites were specifically prohibited from drinking the blood of the Passover Lamb.
So whatever “eating his flesh and drinking his blood” would mean, Jews would know that it was a metaphor and not to be taken literally.
57-58 Jesus talks about feeds on me, and feeds on this bread from heaven. This feeding must be a metaphor, symbolic language, in the same way as the claim “I am the bread of life” is a metaphor.
V27 = food that endures for eternal life.
V32-33 = true bread from heaven is not the Manna that Moses gave to the Israelites in the wilderness, but Jesus who is himself the Bread of Life
V 35 Jesus is the Bread of Life
Vv39-40 The heart of Jesus’s work of salvation was to bring eternal life, which itself was an anticipation of the Resurrection of the Dead on the last day.
Vv48-51 Eating the Bread of Life, feeding on Jesus, whatever that means, is what brings a person eternal life. But this is not referring to cannibalism. Nor is it referring to receiving the bread and wine in a communion service.
So how do we feed on Jesus?
V29 – we feed on Jesus by believing in Jesus. In John’s Gospel believing in Jesus means believing that He is indeed the Son of God and putting our trust in Jesus as our Saviour.
V35 – we believe in Jesus.
V40 we come to Jesus, we look to Jesus and we put our trust in Him.
V47 Truly, Truly I say to you
The one who believes has eternal life!
V51 And what we are putting our trust in, is his flesh, the human life of Jesus, given up on the cross for us all.
So let us hear these amazing words of Jesus JOHN 6:35
Here is the promise we can all claim for ourselves JOHN 6:40

25 Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
This is one of the seven “I am” sayings of Jesus which we find in John’s Gospel. We only finished a series in John a couple of years ago, but I am still going to focus on this verse tonight because somehow I neglected to talk about it then. More importantly, it has something very significant to teach us. Or should I say, remind us of, because the central point I am making tonight is found in many places in the New Testament, just in case you think I am making a mountain out of a molehill. These words of Jesus simply illustrate a vital truth. Let me introduce it with a question.
Why did Jesus say, “I am the resurrection and the life” and not “I am the life and the resurrection”? After all Christians experience eternal life here and now, We will only experience the resurrection of the dead at the end of time, when all believers are raised from the dead into glory. Why say resurrection first, and life second?
Let’s just remind ourselves that Jewish hopes of eternal life or everlasting life did not rest on the idea that human beings are born with some part of us called a soul which is immortal and cannot die. The immortal soul is a Greek idea, not a Jewish idea. Nor did the Jews think that that God would give to people some quality of life which would make us “eternal” so that we wouldn’t die. The Jewish hope of life after death expressed in both the Old Testament and in the New Testament is the hope of resurrection. The hope that at the end of time God would bring all people who had died back to life again. Some would receive blessings and others would face judgment but all would only be alive after they had died physically because God raised them to life again. This was the Jewish hope Martha declared.
21 ‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.’
23 Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’
24 Martha answered, ‘I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.’
Like very many Jews and particularly the Pharisees but not the Sadducees, Martha shared the hope of life beyond death through the resurrection of the dead which will take place at the last day.
That is exactly the hope Jesus points to in the words which follow. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” This earthly life will end for all believers. It has for each one so far and will continue to do so until Jesus returns. Our physical bodies will all die. But then we will live again when we are raised back to life. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” This is our hope of resurrection.
This week I came across Benjamin Franklin’s epitaph which he wrote himself. Although we are not sure he was a believer, this is what he wrote.

The Body of B. Franklin, Printer
Like the Cover of an old Book
Its contents torn out,
And stript of its Lettering and Guilding,
Lies here, Food for Worms,
But the Work shall not be wholly lost:
For it will, as he believ’d,
Appear once more
In a new & more perfect Edition,
Corrected and amended by the Author.
There is indeed the Jewish and Christian hope of resurrection. A new and more perfect edition, corrected and amended by the Author of life God Himself. This is our Christian hope, celebrated in so many places in the Bible.
1 Corinthians 15 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23 But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him.
Philippians 3 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first,
Exactly as Jesus says, “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” This is our hope of resurrection.
When Jesus returns, Christians who have died will be raised from the dead. Actually Paul goes further and says that even in this life we are already sharing in the death of Christ. We have died with him, waiting until he returns so that we can be raised to life.
Colossians 3:1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
The hope of eternal life we have as Christians is all wrapped up in us sharing in the death and the resurrection of Christ. He is our life. We share his life.
This week in Draw Near To God we were talking about suffering. We said that when we are in the middle of experiencing suffering there are many things which might encourage us. The fact that how we respond to suffering proves that our faith is genuine, or that it helps us to empathise with others, or that suffering teaches us perseverance. But we also said that in the middle of great suffering, especially when a person is suffering opposition or persecution for the name of Jesus, the only thing which helps us get through is the hope of heaven. To look beyond our present sufferings to the hope of the inheritance waiting for us in glory.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.
Beyond this life which can be filled with tears, we have a living hope and we have an inheritance.
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
We have not fully received our salvation yet. It is waiting for us, being kept safe for us by God himself.
6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.
We rejoice not because of anything the suffering is doing in our lives but because of the hope we have in Christ.
8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So we look beyond our suffering to what awaits us in glory. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.” This is the promise Jesus gives us all. The hope of resurrection.
But surely that is looking beyond this life and our inevitably physical death to the life to come. So why did Jesus say, as he did, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Surely the resurrection Jesus gives to believers will be subsequent to the life he promises here and now. Why did Jesus not say, “I am the life and the resurrection” ?
The significant truth which this saying illustrates, I think, is this. Although in chronological order our experience of eternal life now precedes the experience of resurrection which awaits us all when Jesus returns, our experience of eternal life now comes from our future experience of resurrection. In this life now it is as we share in the experience of Christ’s resurrection, that we have a glimpse, a foretaste of our own resurrection which will we experience when Christ returns. In our lives now we experience the seal and the deposit and the first installment of heaven which is the work of the Holy Spirit, bringing the power of Christ’s resurrection life into our lives now.
Jesus said “I am the resurrection and the life” because it is resurrection which is the source of life. Resurrection comes first because new life is the product of resurrection. The resurrection of the dead is not some bonus tagged on to the end of the experience of eternal life we are enjoying here and now. Our future experience of the resurrection of the dead is the source of the eternal life which we are beginning to experience now.
We sometimes miss the fact that many of Jesus’s promises of eternal life actually look forward to the resurrection of the dead.
6 35 Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
We think of Jesus as the bread of life giving life here and now. But actually the promises look forward.
37 All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.’
6 44 “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
Our experience of eternal life now is all tied in to the promise and the happy certainty that we will be raised back to life at the Last Day, when Jesus returns.
6 53 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
So eternal life comes to us now, already, here and now, as a foretaste of the resurrection life which is waiting for us when Jesus returns. This is why Jesus’s words are true and inevitable. 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.
The person who experiences eternal life now by putting their trust in Jesus is guaranteed life forever. Even if their physical body has died, their life into eternity is certain. Because their eternal life here and now does not lead on to resurrection. Rather their life here and now flows back from their future experience of resurrection.
That is why Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and doesn’t phrase the saying the other way round. But we mustn’t miss the significance of the first two words. I AM the resurrection. Jesus is saying that all the Old Testament promises and all the Jewish expectations of the resurrection of the dead will be fulfilled IN HIM. HE is the resurrection. And all the promises and the expectations of eternal life, life in all its fulness, come to men and women THROUGH HIM.
I am the resurrection and I am the life.
Do you believe this? Jesus asks Martha. And her reply is significant.
27 ‘Yes, Lord,’ she replied, ‘I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.’

The Jews believed that the Messiah was going to come in the Last Days, and when he came the promised Messiah would bring about the resurrection of the dead. So Mary’s answer declares that she believes Jesus is indeed the Christ, and the Messiah, and truly the Son of God. For anybody who believes these things, and puts their trust in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord, these wonderful promises Jesus makes are for us too.
25 Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

We look in depth at probably the most widely-known verse in the Bible, the gospel in a nutshell, and consider three questions.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

? Did Jesus say those words?

? What does “so loved the world” mean?
“In this way” NOT “so much”

? How did God show his love to the world?
Through the cross vv 14-15 NOT by “gave his Son”

You can watch this message on video at

It was a few weeks after Jesus rose from the dead. Peter took some of the other disciples out fishing. Perhaps they just wanted to do something ordinary and mundane. Maybe especially Peter felt a sense of failure and he just wanted to get back to doing what he knew he was good at – fishing. In any case they fished all night but didn’t catch anything. Until early the next morning a stranger on the shore gave them some strange advice. Cast your nets on the other side of the boat. They did and immediately caught more large fish than their nets could hold. It is no surprise that it was the disciple that Jesus loved, the apostle John, who first recognised that it was Jesus. Jesus called them to the shore and cooked them breakfast.
And then it was the time of reckoning. Peter had been the natural leader amongst the apostles. But then on the night before the crucifixion outside the high priest’s house Peter had denied Christ three times. By a fireside Peter had denied being a disciple. Now beside another fireside, what would Jesus say?
We know the story so well. There were no words of rebuke. No words of condemnation or disappointment. Just a simple question.
15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
That is the only question that matters. For Peter or for any of us. Do you love me? Do you love Jesus?
Jesus knew everything about Peter – just like he knows everything about all of us who let him down and fall short time and time again. And here is the wonderful point of this story for all of us, miserable sinners. Our God is a God of second chances. Peter doesn’t need to apologise. God is ready to forgive him. Like the prodigal son, or the woman taken in adultery, God forgives before they ever repented. No confession of sins here – just the simple question – do you love me? That is grace! Amazing grace.
No matter how far any of us have fallen, whatever we have done wrong, God can restore us. By Christ’s death on the cross for our sins, even we can be justified. God can make it “just as if I’d” never sinned. And so Jesus asks us, “Do you love me?” Because in the end that is the only thing that matters! Do you love me? How much do we love Jesus?
But actually Jesus asks just a little more of Peter. “Do you truly love me more than these?”
That question could mean at least three things.
Do you love me more than you love these boats and these nets? Do you love me more than you love your job and your livelihood? Do you love me enough to leave your job and your family and everything which is familiar, just to follow me? Do you love me more than these?
Or the question could mean something else. Do you love me more than you love these other disciples. Your brother Andrew. Your business partners James and John. These other friends you have made since you have been following me? Do you love me more than you love everybody else.
Then the question could have a third meaning, Do you love me more than these other disciples love me? Because that is what Peter had rashly claimed on the evening before Jesus was crucified.
Matthew 26:33 Peter replied, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.”
34 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
35 But Peter declared, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.”
At that point Peter believed that he loved Jesus more than any of the other disciples did. But then Peter had discovered just how wrong he was. So Jesus is asking him, do you really love me more than all these others love me? You were the one who promised if everybody else let me down you wouldn’t. Yet you were the one who denied that you knew me, three times, even in front of a little servant girl. Do you love me more than these?
Yes Lord, you know that I love you.
Three times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” For each occasion Peter had denied Jesus, he has to declare afresh his devotion to Jesus. “Yes Lord, you know that I love you.”
And with each response Jesus gives Peter a job to do.
Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep.
This is the ministry Jesus commissions Peter for. To lead the church. And it has three parts.
Feed my lambs. To nurture new-born Christians, feeding them on pure spiritual milk.
Take care of my sheep. Tend the sheep – take care of the whole flock of God.
Feed my sheep. Feed established Christians on spiritual solid food.
Feed and take care of the flock. Jesus entrusts Peter with caring not only for the sheep, the established believers but also for the lambs, the newly born. And I also think there is significance in Jesus commanding Peter twice to feed the lambs and the sheep and then once to tend the sheep. That is a reminder that the Christian Minister cares for the flock principally by feeding them, by leading them to pasture, by teaching them the word of God.
As Peter had denied Jesus three times, so Jesus draws out of him three declarations of love. In that way Jesus reinstates Peter as chief of the apostles and commissions him to lead the Early Church.
But in all of this we have glossed over the most important point of this passage for Peter, and for us. For this, without the aid of a safety net but with the assistance of PowerPoint, we are going to venture into the world of New Testament Greek. There were a number of words in Greek which we translate as “love”, and we find two of them in this story.
AGAPE – God’s kind of love, charity – the original New International Version translates this word as “truly love”
FILIA – brotherly love, friendship – NIV translates this just as “love”.
Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”
“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.” (NIV84)
The first two times Jesus asks Peter do you love me with agape love, God’s kind of love. Peter replies, you know that I love you with filia love, brotherly love, friendship.
The third time Jesus changes to the word Peter has been using, and asks him, do you love me with filia love. To which Peter says again, Lord, you know that I love you with filia love, with friendship.
J.B.Phillips translation renders this most effectively.
BEST – JB PHILLIPS:-
Q “Do you love me?”
A “You know I am your friend.”
Q “Do you love me?”
A “You know that I am your friend.”
Q “ARE you my friend?” (Are you really my friend? Are you even my friend?)
Peter was deeply hurt because Jesus’s last question to him was, “Are you my friend?”
A “Lord, you know I am your friend!”
Why does this Greek matter? Because Jesus asks Peter for God’s kind of love, sacrificial love, the kind of love Christ Himself had shown on the cross just a few weeks before. But Peter was conscious of how much he had failed by denying Jesus three times. So Peter is open and honest enough to say, I can’t promise you that kind of self-sacrificing love. I can only offer you human love, friendship, brotherly love.
So Jesus asks again, can you offer me God’s kind of sacrificial love?
And Peter answers again, I can only offer brotherly love.
So Jesus asks – can you even offer me that kind of friendship? And that’s why Peter was deeply hurt at the change of wording. But Peter insists, “Yes I can. You know I love you with filia love.”
And Jesus accepts that. What God looks for is agape love. Sacrifice. That we love one another with exactly the same kind of agape love that Christ showed on the cross when he died for our sins. Jesus demands agape love – and deserves agape love. Jesus demands and deserves that we love him enough to take risks for him.
But Jesus will accept filia love, brotherly love, friendship. When we can’t love him in the same way as he loved us, to the same extent that he loved us, Jesus accepts that. He demands agape but accepts filia – from Simon Peter and from us today. That is the amazing grace of God!
But Jesus also has a warning for Peter. Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”
Following Jesus carries a cost. Peter would lead the Early Church and preach the gospel but Peter would be crucified just as Jesus had been. Jesus invites us to love him more than everything else, and to love him more than we love anybody else. And Jesus calls us to follow him, whatever it costs.
So the simple question Jesus asks each one of us is the same as the question he asked Peter.
Do you love me?

Did you ever have a nickname? As a teacher I was known as “Mr T” obviously after my striking resemblance to the actor who played B.A. Barracus in “The A Team”. A number of the Apostles had nicknames. James and John were the Sons of Thunder. Simon was given the name Peter, Petros in Greek, or Cephas in Aramaic which means Rocky – the Rock. John modestly refers to himself throughout his Gospel as “the disciple Jesus loved” and since later editors did not change that we can assume that is how he was known in the Early Church. Judas was known as the traitor and we still refer to a traitor as “a Judas”.
The apostle Thomas was known in Greek as Didymus, “the Twin”. But through the history of the church he has been known by another nickname. “Doubting Thomas.” But that might not actually be accurate.

Back in John 11 Jesus had been informed that his dear friend Lazarus had died.
John 11:11 After he had said this, he went on to tell them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
12 His disciples replied, “Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better.” 13 Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep.
14 So then he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16 Then Thomas (called Didymus) said to the rest of the disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Some people are naturally lively and bouncy. They are the life and soul of the party all the time. Some people are not like that. Some people are naturally thoughtful – some people might even describe them as morose or gloomy. The donkey Eeyore. Marvin in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Toby Zeigler on the West Wing. I prefer to think that the apostle Thomas was like that. Thoughtful.
“Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

Thomas wasn’t being pessimistic but realistic. He knew and accepted that when Jesus returned to Jerusalem it would be for the last time. Thomas knew that opposition from the Pharisees was increasing and that they would plot to kill Jesus. Jesus had been warning his disciples of that fact – but perhaps only Thomas had been listening.
(Jesus) then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. (Mark :31-32)

Going to Jerusalem would be a death sentence for Jesus. And Thomas realised that when Jesus went up to Jerusalem, those who were travelling with him would also be in danger. Jesus would tell the disciples as much only a few weeks later.
john 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

So Thomas was not being cynical or deliberately negative when he said, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” He was being a realist. He knew exactly what going up to Jerusalem would cost Jesus, And Thomas already recognised what the other disciples were soon to discover, just how much being a disciple of Jesus would cost them all!

God doesn’t want superficial enthusiasm. God wants us to be honest. To tell it like it is. And God wants us to think deeply about things and to think things through, just as Thomas did. Like when Jesus makes wonderful promises to his disciples about the happy certainty of heaven.

14 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
This all sounds very nice to us who are Christians today. We can look back on Jesus’s death and resurrection and see how Jesus has opened the door of heaven for all of us believers. But listen to these words again and imagine you are one of the disciples hearing them for the first time – while Jesus is still alive and with them.

2 In my Father’s house are many rooms;
Very nice – but where exactly is “My Father’s House” – that wasnt a name the Jews in Jesus’s time would have used for heaven. The Jews were too much in awe of God to even use his Name. Only Jesus dared refer to God as “my Father”. So “my Father’s house” wouldn’t mean anything to Jews. And “God’s house” or the “Lord’s house” would have only one meaning – the Temple in Jerusalem.
Jesus himself uses the word house in that sense when he is driving the money-changers out of the temple.
Matt 21:13 “It is written,” he said to them, “ ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it a ‘den of robbers’ ”
The only other time Jesus used the phrase “My Father’s house” it was as a boy when Mary and Joseph lost track of him and found young Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem. And then “my Father’s house” definitely referred to the Temple.
Luke 2:49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
So here in the Upper Room, we find Jesus talking about his Father’s house, and all the disciples are just sitting listening quite probably not understanding a word of what Jesus was saying.
And Jesus goes on, “I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
OK – a place in the Father’s House – a room each in the Temple?? Sounds weird. But carrying on,
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
So Jesus is going to travel somewhere and arrange somewhere with a dozen rooms or so for all of the disciples to be together and stay with him. Then he will come back and take us to this place. Fine, no problem. We don’t need to know where this place in “his Father’s House” is because Jesus will come and take us there. And then Jesus says,
4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
One or two of the disciples might have been looking a bit puzzled at this point. Most were probably still politely nodding their heads pretending to look wise, not wanting to let on that they really hadn’t a clue what Jesus was talking about. That is the point at which Thomas pipes up.
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Hang on a minute Jesus. You’ve lost me. Your Father’s House. Where’s that? The Temple in Jerusalem. Somewhere else? What on earth are you going on about??

I don’t think Thomas was being awkward or obtuse or especially thick here. I think he was the only disciple brave enough to ask the question which was on everybody else’s lips as well. Because he really wanted to understand. He wanted this vital truth spelled out. Just exactly where was Jesus going? What was this place Jesus would take them to so they could be with him? And out of that question comes one of the most significant and profound statements in the whole of Scripture. If Thomas had not asked, we would never have heard the wonderful answer.
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.
His Father’s house Jesus is talking about is not the Temple. It isn’t a physical place at all. To be in the Father’s House is to be in the very presence of God. And Jesus Himself is the way there, the truth and the life and the only way any one of us can come to God – through Jesus. It’s a good job for us Thomas asked his question!

It is OK with God if we want to understand things. Even if everybody else in the room is nodding as if they all understand every word. Even if everybody else does understand, if you don’t it’s ok to be the one to ask the awkward questions. It’s ok to demand answers.
Some people talk about “Blind faith”. For some people faith means “believing things you know aren’t true.” But that concept of faith is mistaken. Faith simply means trusting God. Putting our trust in God’s love and justice and almighty power. Relying on God not to deceive us or let us down. That kind of confidence in God is never “blind faith”. Faith is allowed to ask questions. Faith is allowed to demand answers. Faith is allowed to ask for evidence. Faith is even allowed to ask for proof!
So we come to the passage from which Thomas the Twin got his reputation as a doubter. Jesus had been crucified. And then He had risen from the dead! He had appeared to Mary in the Garden. And then he had appeared to the all of the disciples in the Upper Room – well not all of them because one was missing.
John 20:24 Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.
It doesn’t surprise me that Thomas was not with the disciples when Jesus appeared the first time. They were finding comfort in each other’s company. I am sure Thomas preferred to be alone with his own thoughts as he struggled to make sense of all that had happened.
25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
This was not the kind of “stubborn refusal to believe” which God criticised the Israelites for time and again in the Old Testament. This was honest questioning. And before we get too hard on Thomas, remember how all the other disciples had reacted when Mary Magdalene told them that Jesus had appeared alive to her on the first Easter morning. None of them had believed Mary until Jesus had appeared to them in the Upper Room on that evening.

Some people talk about “taking things on faith” or “taking a leap of faith” or “taking a leap into faith”. This is what Thomas refused to do! Because the story of Jesus being alive again, Jesus rising from the dead, Jesus appearing to the disciples, was just too incredible, literally too unbelievable! Even the testimony of Mary and of the other apostles wasn’t enough to convince Thomas that Jesus was alive. Even though he had been travelling around as one of the twelve for three years, their word wasn’t enough for him. They had all watched Jesus being nailed to a cross. They had seen the spear pierce his side and the water and the blood gush out. I am sure they had been watching from a distance as Jesus’s dead body was laid in the tomb and the stone rolled over the entrance. The idea of Jesus being alive again was totally impossible! So Thomas needed proof! Thomas demanded proof! And it is a demonstration of the grace of God that the Risen Jesus appears to his disciples one again just to give Thomas the proof he needs.

26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas had his questions – and Jesus answered them. We aren’t told whether Thomas actually did out his finger in the holes in Jesus’s hands or his hand into Jesus’s side. It’s my guess that he didn’t need to. It was enough for Thomas to see Jesus with his own eyes and hear him with his own ears.

And then it is Thomas who is the very first disciple who puts all the pieces together and reaches the inevitable conclusion. It is the questioner Thomas who first makes this amazing declaration of faith.
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

The purpose of questions is to find answers. And after Thomas had asked all his questions he found all the answers he needed – and much much more. It was Thomas who first realised the incredible implication of the resurrection of Jesus – that the one who had died and then rose again was more than just a poet and a peasant and the son of a carpenter. If Jesus was alive again, that means that Jesus is indeed Lord of all. The resurrection was the proof that Jesus was not only the Son of God but truly God himself. Jesus had been telling the truth when he said, “I and the Father are One”. (John 10:30)

It is ok to ask questions. We need to remember that when we have questions ourselves. When the simple answers we once believed don’t satisfy us any more we need to allow ourselves to look for better answers. We shouldn’t feel guilt or failure if there are things we don’t understand. We should press on to find and prove for ourselves the truths which other people may be happy to accept on faith. And we need to give each other the freedom to ask questions. After sermons and especially in Bible Study or Draw Near to God we need to explore our faith and stretch our faith. We need to encourage each other rather than criticise each other if somebody feels the need to ask awkward questions.

God isn’t afraid of our questions. He has the answers – even though there are some answers we will never be able to understand in this life or even in eternity. God welcomes our questions. And we need to remember that especially as we share our faith with others who are not yet Christians. Things which we take for granted about Jesus and the resurrection and the fact that He was truly God as well as completely human. We believe these things but we must never forget that they are not obvious to everybody. Thomas couldn’t believe in the resurrection even when the disciples all told him. He demanded proof.

And we should be ready to explain the proof we have for the resurrection. Proof like the empty tomb – nobody ever found Jesus’s body. Proof like the eyewitness testimony of all the apostles and others, most of whom went to horrible deaths as martyrs for preaching that Jesus was risen from the dead. As they faced the cross or the stake or the fire, not one of them changed their story and said, “ok – it was a lie – we made it up.” The proof of the changed lives of those apostles, and countless millions of believers since. Proof in the difference Jesus makes in the lives of people today – even people like you and me.

But we should also expect that many people will need more proof than we can ever give them. Some, like Thomas, will demand to meet the risen Jesus for themselves.
“Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it.”
And that is fine. Because God welcomes our honest questions. And if anybody is sincere about wanting to encounter Jesus Christ and experience the difference Jesus makes for themselves, God will deal with that. God won’t let them down!

“Doubting Thomas” – no, that’s not correct. Thomas the disciple with honest questions – yes.

John 20 28 Thomas said to him, ‘My Lord and my God!’
29 Then Jesus told him, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’
John 20 continues, 30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
God wants us to have confidence in what we believe. He wants us to be as certain as Thomas was that Jesus is risen from the dead. God wants us to know just as much as Thomas knew that Jesus is indeed Lord and God. MY Lord and MY God.

JOHN 20 17 Jesus said (to Mary), “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

“My Father and your Father.” Jesus came to reveal God as Father – the Christian name for God is Father and the Christian name for believers and followers of Jesus is “children of God.”
–J.I. Packer, Knowing God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1973/1993), 201-202 wrote:
“You sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.
For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.”
Jesus was the Son of God. As He grew up Jesus came to realize he had a unique relationship with God the heavenly Father which no other human being has.
John 6: 45 “Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. 46 No-one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.
So Jesus realized that His ministry was to Reveal God the Father to human beings – to share His unique experience of God with us. And Jesus refers to God as Father 109 times in John’s Gospel!
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
John 14: 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know a my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me;.
SPEAKING the Father’s WORDS
John 12: 49 For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 … So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 15: 15 I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
DOING the Father’s WORKS
Jesus did not do all his wonderful works of salvation in his own strength or according to his own plans. As a faithful and obedient Son, He simply did what His Father commanded.
John 14: 31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
Jesus did not do his miracles in his own strength but in the power of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.
Here is a little parable. The Son was the Father’s apprentice. Jesus learned from Joseph how to be the carpenter in Nazareth. So also Jesus learned from His heavenly Father the works of the Godhead. Whether giving life, or acting in judgment, the Son only did what the Father did. Because in himself Jesus was indeed God.
John 10: 30 I and the Father are one.”
The whole reason that Jesus the son was born and lived and died so that we could know God as our Father and become God’s children.
John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
So we can have a relationship with God as God’s children. And the proof of this comes in Jesus’s words to Mary in the Garden after the resurrection
John 20:17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ ”
My Father AND your Father – my God and your God. Christians know God as our Father – like the father of the Prodigal Son who welcomed his lost son back home with rejoicing.
Luke 15:23 ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Jesus came to reveal God as Father. Jesus’s relationship with God as His Father is the pattern for our relationship with God as our Father – knowing the Father and doing the Father’s will. And all this is possible because Jesus is alive today – risen from the dead!

JOHN 19 28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

IT IS FINISHED! What is finished? Let me unpack that phrase for you this morning. What was finished? As we have worked our way through John’s Gospel we have seen Jesus talk about his death several times.

Back in John 10 Jesus talked about the Good Shepherd who saves his sheep by dying for his sheep.

JOHN 10 11 ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Jesus is clearly looking forward here to his death on the cross on behalf of his disciples, his sheep.
14 ‘I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.
Amazing love, O what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me. My debt He pays, and my death he dies, that I might live.
17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life …. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.
The Jews didn’t crucify Jesus. The Romans didn’t crucify Jesus. No created human being could possibly have laid a hand on the Son of God, the creator of the world, if Jesus Himself had not chosen to lay down his life out of love for us all. The Good Shepherd saves the sheep by giving His own life for ours.

Then in John 11 Jesus explained that his hour had arrived
The hour which Jesus had been anticipating every day of his life was getting very close indeed. It would be a vital hour not just for Jesus but for the whole world, the whole of humanity in every age.
John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.
The judgment of the whole world would hang on that one hour. That hour would bring hope to the world facing the judgment of God. It would be the hour when the devil was finally defeated and the grip of evil on the world would be broken.
But for Jesus it would be the hour of his departure – the hour Jesus had to leave the world.
John 13:1 It was just before the Passover Festival. Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
So for Jesus this would be the saddest hour, the hour he would be leaving – the hour his life would end – the hour the Son of God would give His life as a ransom for many – the hour Jesus would give up his life. The hour Jesus would show the full extent of His love by dying on the cross. The most important hour of Jesus’s life would not be all the times he spent with his disciples, but the hour he said goodbye to them. Jesus later compared it to an hour like childbirth.
John 16 21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22 So with you: now is your time of grief,
It would be a critical hour for the world. Like the hour of a new birth. The hour when a new era and a new age would spring into being. And afterwards there would be joy, but at the time during the birth there would be only suffering and pain and grief. This was the hour Jesus had been preparing for all through 33 years.
The hour to be lifted up
John 12 31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ 33 He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.
It is bad enough to anticipate a visit to the dentist or a hospital appointment, or an exam or an interview. Imagine spending 33 years looking forward to your death. And not just a quiet peaceful slipping away, but the terrible agony of being crucified. Being rejected by your own people, betrayed and deserted by all your friends, falsely accused, unjustly convicted, mocked and tormented and finally lifted up nailed on a cross to die.
Being lifted up reveals who Jesus is
John 8 28 So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
In a mysterious way, his death on the cross will reveal that Jesus really was who he claimed to be – the Son of God. “I and the Father are One.” The cross is the supreme demonstration of God’s love for the world. And that is why the cross is the symbol of the Christian faith. People are not drawn to Jesus by his words or his miracles alone, but especially by His death on the cross.
John 12:31 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
Being lifted up brings salvation
Jesus said this to Nicodemus.
John 3:14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
Jesus was recalling events which happened to the Israelites as they were wandering in the wilderness. The bronze snake on a pole was a symbol of salvation. Moses lifted it up, people looked at it and trusted in God and they were healed. So for us the cross of Christ is the symbol of salvation. As we look to it and put our trust in all that Jesus accomplished by dying in our place, so we are saved.
Nobody except Jesus expected that the Messiah, the Son of God, would have to die. Only Jesus realised that it was essential for him to choose to go to the cross, willingly, to die. Because the hour to be lifted up was also,
The hour to be glorified
John 12:23 ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Very truly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.
The hour when the Son of man would be glorified would be the hour in which he died! Here was the principle we see in nature, the seed which dies in the ground in order to produce a harvest, the caterpillar which dies to become a butterfly, the “seed principle” that life only comes through death. That would be the hour in which Jesus would be glorified. The hour He died. Sometimes we think of the resurrection as the point at which Jesus was glorified. But it is the moment in which the grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies which is the moment of glory. The death of the seed in the ground may not seem as beautiful as its life in the flower, But the death is essential if more seeds are to follow.
John 12:23 ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

It was in the hour of his death that Jesus would be glorified and that God would be glorified. That was the hour he had come for. Not for the triumphant entry on Palm Sunday. Not even in His glorious resurrection. But in His death. This may be hard for us to appreciate. For us Jesus’s suffering and death seem to be a total defeat. But Jesus is telling us that it is His DEATH which brings victory over the devil. It was Jesus’s DEATH which paid the penalty for sin and frees us from the powers of sin and death and the devil. Jesus’s death is his glorification.

Right at the beginning of the Gospel, John the Baptist had foretold that sacrifice for sin. John testified that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. But the most important message John brought was this.
John 1 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Jesus was the Son of God. But most important, Jesus came to be the Saviour – to set people free from the penalty and the punishment of their sins. Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The title, “The Lamb of God”, would have reminded any Jew of at least three parts
of the Old Testament and each of those tell us something about the ministry of Jesus. Firstly, the Lamb of God is a reminder of the Passover Lambs – the lambs which were sacrificed so that the Israelites would be spared when the angel of death passed through Egypt and the Tenth Plague killed every firstborn child and animal. Only the children of the Israelites escaped and that was because they had sacrificed a lamb and smeared the blood of the sacrifice on their doors. That was what persuaded Pharaoh to let the people of Israel leave Egypt. In echoes of the Exodus, the Lamb of God brings salvation and freedom to God’s chosen people.

Secondly, the Lamb of God would remind any Jew of the lambs which were sacrificed on different occasions for the forgiveness of sins. Two lambs were sacrificed every day at the Tent of Meeting, making a way for people to meet with God. But then also on the Day of Atonement, just once a year, only one man, the great High Priest was allowed into the most holy place in the Temple, the Holy of Holies, to present this sacrifice for sin. This sacrifice of atonement dealt with all the sins of all the people.

But then there was a third understanding of the Lamb of God in the Old Testament. The Jews did not understand its significance, but this would become very important in the ways that Christians understood the ministry and especially the death of Jesus. This was the Lamb of God in the prophecy of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah chapter 53. Seven centuries before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah looked ahead to this individual, and even compared him to a lamb.
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
This servant of God would be rejected and ultimately sacrificed, which is exactly what Jesus foretold many times about his own life and death
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth;
he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors.
But this sacrifice was God’s way of dealing with the sins of the world.
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows,
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
And this sacrifice by the Lamb of God indeed took away the sins of the world
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

The sacrifice of the omnipotent Father is as great as the sacrifice of the helpless Son. God’s deity is divided! The Holy Trinity, God the three-in-One, is split apart by OUR sin as Christ the Son shares our rebellion and separation from God the Father!

And at the end of all this we find Jesus saying just one word, which translates into English as, “It is finished!” What did Jesus mean by those words?

Not “I’m finished” but “IT is finished”
Not “I’m done for”, not “I’m done in”, but “It is done”, “I’ve done it!”.
It is completed. It is accomplished. It is finished!!

Jesus’s death on the cross was God’s plan of salvation. That is what was completed – THAT is what was finished! The cross was all part of God’s master plan for salvation. But we can only understand the cross if we see it in cosmic terms. There on the cross Jesus was dying for sin – paying the penalty WE should pay for our rebellion against God, for our disobedience and pride, taking on Himself OUR punishment. That is what was finished as Jesus died. That is what was completed!

Looked at in terms of “the shortness of time” the life of Jesus ended in failure. But looked at from the perspective of the vastness of eternity” the cross wasn’t failure – but success! It wasn’t defeat but victory!!! The cross was the ultimate victory over sin, over death, over the devil. It is finished! It has reached its end. It is completed.

I hate paying bills – but there’s a tremendous satisfaction in handing over the money and seeing that stamp “paid in full”. They used to have tax bills in Jesus’s time, and they used to write over the bills in Latin “consummatum est”, or in Greek “tetelestai” “paid in full”. And that’s what Jesus cries here on the cross. “Telelestai”, “paid in full”. With sin’s account settled, our debt of guilt was indeed wiped out! It is finished!

This is the great difference between the Christian religion and every other religion in the world. Every other religion can be summed up in just two letters but the Christian faith needs four!
Every other religion says ‘DO! D_O. Do this, do that, do the other and you will find salvation”.
But Christianity says “It is DONE! D_O_N_E. It is accomplished. It is finished!”

Bearing shame and scoffing rude, In my place condemned He stood;
Sealed my pardon with His blood: Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Lifted up was He to die, ‘It is finished!’ was His cry:
Now in heaven exalted high: Hallelujah! what a Saviour!

Who was responsible for the crucifixion? Who bears the blame for the Jesus’s death? On the night before the cross, Jesus faced three trials. The first was in the middle of the night on which he was arrested, as Jesus was taken before the High Priest Caiaphas and all the Jewish leaders of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin. The next trial began very early the next morning before dawn, in front of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor of Israel at that time. The third trial, which John’s Gospel doesn’t mention probably because it didn’t have the slightest impact on the outcome was in front of the Jewish King Herod. Many people blame Pilate for the death of Jesus. But that may not be quite fair. Because all the trials were rigged and the outcome was decided even before Jesus was arrested. The Jewish leaders had already decided and arranged that Jesus should be killed.
Last week we read about how Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. We followed the story as the apostle Peter denied three times that he was a followed of Jesus. We skipped over a comment John’s Gospel makes about the trial before Caiaphas the High Priest even before that sham trial began.
John 18 12 Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him 13 and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. 14 Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people.
John is looking back there to a discussion the High Priest had with the other Jewish leaders some time beforehand. Back in John 11 we read how Jesus raised Lazarus back to life. And this is what happened next.
John 11:45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.
“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
John 11:49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.
That discussion took place weeks before Jesus came to Jerusalem. Weeks before the events we remember on Palm Sunday when Jesus entered Jerusalem as a Passover pilgrim, riding a donkey which to any Jew was a clear claim to be the Messiah they expected. Weeks before Jesus cleared the merchants and the money-changers out of the Temple. Even before Jesus came to Jerusalem the Jewish leaders had already been plotting to kill him.
And in all that discussion it was Caiaphas the High Priest who had suggested that Jesus would have to die to protect the Jewish nation from the Romans. Caiaphas was ready to sacrifice Jesus to save the people. “You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” Caiaphas did not realize how true his words were. Not only would Jesus save the Jews from the Romans – more than that, Jesus was the Saviour sent from God to save his people from their sins. But it was those words from the High Priest which sealed Jesus’s fate, weeks before Jesus would stand before him in a mock trial. It is Caiaphas who must bear the greatest share of the responsibility for the death of Jesus. From a human point of view, it was his plotting and his scheming and his decision to sacrifice Jesus.
So when Jesus stood bound in front of Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin, the outcome of that trial was already decided. Unlike the other Gospels John doesn’t tell us any of the details of Jesus’s trial by the High Priest. It didn’t make any difference. The Jewish leaders had already condemned Jesus to death. But what would the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate say?
28 Then the Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness they did not enter the palace, because they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, ‘What charges are you bringing against this man?’
30 ‘If he were not a criminal,’ they replied, ‘we would not have handed him over to you.’
31 Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.’
‘But we have no right to execute anyone,’ they objected. 32 This took place to fulfil what Jesus had said about the kind of death he was going to die.

In theory the Jews might have been allowed to stone a man to death for certain religious crimes. But they could not execute him by crucifixion – only the Romans could do that. And that was the death which the Jewish leaders had decided was appropriate for Jesus. The punishment of a revolutionary. But Pilate isn’t convinced. As we follow the story you can see that Pilate went in and out no less than eight times between the Jewish leaders outside and Jesus inside as he tries to reach his verdict. And one thing is very clear from all these discussions. Pilate was convinced that Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to die. That was the reason he tried to pass the buck back to the Jewish leaders in the first place.

31 Pilate said, ‘Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.’

That didn’t get rid of them so Pilate went back to talk to Jesus. Here was the heart of the trial before Pilate. And it hinges on two questions. What kind of king is Jesus – and what is truth.
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’
34 ‘Is that your own idea,’ Jesus asked, ‘or did others talk to you about me?’
35 ‘Am I a Jew?’ Pilate replied. ‘Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?’
36 Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’

The Jewish Leaders had told Pilate that Jesus had claimed to be King of the Jews. The other Gospels tell us that that was what the trial in front of Caiaphas had all been about. If Jesus was claiming to be a king, that could be seen as a threat to the tight grip the Roman Empire had on Israel. So it mattered whether Jesus was actually a king or not.

36 Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’

My Kingdom is not of this world. It is not like other kingdoms. Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, which means exactly the same as the Kingdom of Heaven, more than 50 times in the Gospels. The kingdom of God does not refer to some place where God is King. Rather the Kingdom of God is talking about God’s reign as King, the things God does as King, God’s Kingly Rule. So Jesus is a King, but not the kind of king Pilate would recognize.

But now my kingdom is from another place. Actually, “from another place,” in the New International Version is not a particularly good translation. What Jesus says is “my kingdom is not from this place.” “My Kingly Power does not come from here.” The Message puts it very well.
“My kingdom,” said Jesus, “doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.”

The fact is that the question of what kind of King Jesus is was irrelevant, as Jesus goes on to explain.

37 ‘You are a king, then!’ said Pilate.
Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’
38 ‘What is truth?’ retorted Pilate.
Whether Jesus was or was not a king in human terms was not the point. The important thing was that Jesus came to reveal the truth.
John tells us, John 1 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
In John’s Gospel eternal life comes through knowing and believing the truth. The truth that it was Almighty God who created the earth from nothing. The truth that human beings have cut themselves off from God by rejecting him and rebelling against him. The truth that only Jesus Christ the Son of God can bring us back to God again. This is the truth. Jesus Himself was the Truth. He said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6).
Jesus is the truth who brings us eternal life. John 8 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” …. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
What is truth? asked Pilate. Jesus the Way the Truth and the Life became a human being. Jesus came to reveal the truth about God and about eternal life. But human beings rejected that truth, which is the whole reason why they nailed Jesus to a cross. And sadly there are very many people still today who actually don’t want to hear the truth.
With this (Pilate) went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, ‘I find no basis for a charge against him. 39 But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release “the king of the Jews”?’
40 They shouted back, ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.
I find no basis for a charge against him. So Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. But to give himself a way out without losing face he made the suggestion that he might pardon Jesus rather than Barabbas the convicted revolutionary. That didn’t work. I am sure that Pilate was just as sad and angry about letting Barabbas the convicted revolutionary walk free as he was about condemning Jesus to death. So he tried a different strategy. Pilate had Jesus flogged and the soldiers mocked Jesus with the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
John 19 4 Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, ‘Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.’ 5 When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, ‘Here is the man!’
Again the same verdict. “I find no basis for a charge against him.” Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent. So he brings him out on display. “Behold the man.” Perhaps Pilate was hoping that the Jewish leaders would see what a pitiful sorry state Jesus was in and would be satisfied with that. Perhaps he hoped they would change their minds about killing him. But that didn’t work either.
6 As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, ‘Crucify! Crucify!’
But Pilate answered, ‘You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.’

Once again Pilate declares Jesus to be not guilty.

7 The Jewish leaders insisted, ‘We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.’
8 When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9 and he went back inside the palace. ‘Where do you come from?’ he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10 ‘Do you refuse to speak to me?’ Pilate said. ‘Don’t you realise I have power either to free you or to crucify you?’
11 Jesus answered, ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’

Pontius Pilate was the Roman Governor. He was the representative of the Emperor and the most powerful man in the Province at that time. And Jesus tells him the truth he doesn’t want to hear. 11… ‘You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.
Jesus knew that behind all the events which were unfolding, God was in control. And although Jesus did not want to die, of course not, he also knew that his death was the lynch-pin of God’s cosmic masterplan of salvation.

11 ,…. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.’

The one who handed me over to you – Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin. They were the ones to blame for the crucifixion. Not Pilate.

12 From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, ‘If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.’

Despite his best attempts, Pilate was trapped in a corner. To keep the peace he would have to have Jesus executed. But he refused to accept responsibility for that death. The other Gospels record the symbolic action Pilate took which has become a byword in our culture.

Matthew 27: 22 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked.
They all answered, “Crucify him!”
23 “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.
But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”
24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”
25 All the people answered, “Let his blood be on us and on our children!”

Pilate washed his hands of the whole affair. He passed the buck back on to Caiaphas and the Jewish leaders and all their cronies in the crowd. Then he made one last attempt to save Jesus before he passed sentence.

John 19 13 When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14 It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.
‘Here is your king,’ Pilate said to the Jews.
v15 But they shouted, ‘Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!’
‘Shall I crucify your king?’ Pilate asked.
‘We have no king but Caesar,’ the chief priests answered.
16 Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

“We have no King but Caesar!” That wasn’t just the ignorant crowds chanting, but the High Priest and the chief priests. They were the ones who rejected Jesus, their Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour the whole nation had been waiting to come for centuries. “We have no King but Caesar!” Such hypocrisy in those words. In the Old Testament, the Lord God is the true king of Israel. Isaiah wrote, ISAIAH 26:13 LORD, our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honour.
At all their great and joyful celebrations, including the Passover, Jewish worshippers even to this day recite the great song of praise the Hallel which is made up of Psalms 113 to 118. They would end with this prayer: ‘From everlasting to everlasting thou art God; beside thee we have no king, redeemer, or saviour; no liberator, deliverer, provider; none who takes pity in every time of distress or trouble. We have no king but thee.’
So when the chief priests said We have no king but Caesar they knew that they were denying the heart of their Jewish faith. Worse than that, they were also rejecting Jesus, the Son of God, their true Messiah and Saviour. As the prologue to John’s Gospel records,
John 1 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
Caiaphas and the Jewish leaders shoulder the blame for the death of Jesus. But Pilate was not without guilt. It was Edmund Burke in 1770 who wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. Three times he said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.” He tried to set Jesus free, but he didn’t try hard enough. So the events of Easter unfolded to their ultimate conclusion.
John 19 16 Finally Pilate handed (Jesus) over to them to be crucified.