John 12:44-50


John 12:44-50
44 And Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. 45 “He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me. 46 “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness. 47 “If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. 48 “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. 49 “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. 50 “I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.”
Jesus and the Father are one.  Jesus wants to make sure the disciples and the people who are hearing Him know that He is not just making things up and speaking on His own authority, but that He is simply being obedient to the Father.  Jesus desperately wants people to know the Father and has made it His mission to reveal the Father to the world, so they can be reconciled with the Father.  This was the mission of Jesus: to reveal God to men so that men might be reconciled to God.  This mission was accomplished through His incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection.  By becoming a man, His life and His teaching reveled the nature and character of God.  By dying on the cross, He paid for the sins of all who believe on Him.  By raising from the grave, He was victorious over sin and death so those who believe will have eternal life.  Jesus reveals three ways in which He and the Father are one.

BELIEVING JESUS IS BELIEVING THE FATHER: Jesus wants to make it clear that He and the Father are one.  He cries out that those who believe in Him, are believing the Father because, in reality they are seeing the Father.  Jesus was sent by the Father to provide illumination about the Father.  God has reveled Himself to man through various means.  Creation, conscience, Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and even angels; but the clearest revelation of the Father is Jesus.  Jesus calls Himself Light because those who believe in Him will not live in darkness.  Sin has darkened our world, our heart and our very existence.  Jesus came to change all that.  We can be set free from the power of sin over our lives.  Jesus gives us hope of an eternal world that will be completely free from sin.  However, the only means by which we can be free of sin to live in the Light is by believing in Jesus.  God’s desire is to free men from sin, so we can be reconciled to Him through faith in Jesus.

REJECTING JESUS IS REJECTING THE FATHER: There is a price associated with unbelief and disobedience.  That price is falling under the Judgment of God.  Jesus did not come to judge the world; He came to save the world.  However, apart from Jesus there is no salvation.  The world is already under the judgment and wrath of God because of Sin.  Jesus came to rescue men from that judgment by paying for sin’s price on the cross and freeing man from the power of sin through His resurrection and subsequent ministry on our behalf from heaven.  Those who reject the salvation offered by faith in Jesus remain under the judgment of God.  The Father sent the Son as His means of bringing man back into a right relationship with Him.  At great personal suffering and pain, He made the way of salvation through the Son.  Those who reject so great a salvation, reject the Father and even more significantly, will be rejected by the Father.  The purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to save man through His death and to reveal God and His plan of salvation through His life and teaching.  Our job is to embrace that salvation and revelation.

HEARING JESUS IS HEARING THE FATHER: The words of Jesus were not His words alone.  Everything He said was exactly what the Father commissioned Him to say.  The Father will use our response to those words to determine how we will be judged.  God’s intention in sending Jesus to reveal Himself to that nations was that the words of Jesus would lead all men everywhere to repent of their sin, believe on the death of Jesus as payment for that sin and hope in the resurrection of Jesus as the only means of victory over sin and death.  In short, the words of Jesus are intended to bring eternal life.  All we must do to inherit that eternal life is: believe.  However, if we chose to reject those words, condemnation continues to reign over us and those words stand in testimony against us, because we have rejected the words of Jesus.  We have the privilege of having the Word of God reveled to us through Jesus.  We must believe and then rejoice in the eternal life they impart.

APPLICATION: Make sure that we understand the importance and implications of listening to and following the words of Jesus.  Knowing God ought to be the highest priority any person has.  Since that is true, our study of the life and teachings of Jesus must be given close attention and adequate time.  Keep believing in Jesus.  He is the only means by which we will ever be able to be reconciled to the Father.

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