“Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever keeps my word will never see death.”
Jesus did not give the Judeans room to regard him as merely a teacher or a worker of mighty deeds. Death had been a problem since the beginning, having entered the world along with sin, the consequence of disobedience to God's word.
sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin (see Romans 5:12).
There were hints in the prophets that death might not always have the last word, that the dry bones would rattle and come together again (see Ezekiel 37:1-14), that the Lord himself would "swallow up death forever" (see Isaiah 25:8), that he would raise us up on the third day (see Hosea 6:2). Yet the Judeans were not prepared for Jesus, who was to all appearances human, to be the one who brought these blessings to the world.
“Now we are sure that you are possessed.
Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say,
‘Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.’
Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?
Or the prophets, who died?
Who do you make yourself out to be?”
The claims of Jesus were so great that the Judeans assumed he must just be over selling himself, glorifying himself in order to sound impressive and increase his pull on the crowds. They saw his claim the way we might see the claim on a miracle cure supplement or self help book.
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me,
of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’
Jesus was not engaging acts of shameless self-promotion. He was doing the work that his Father gave him to do, teaching others to believe in him so that they could be saved. He was trying to help people who were still implicated in the disobedience of Adam to change from people who disobeyed God's word as Adam did into people who would keep the Father's word as Jesus did, and in doing so move from death in Adam to life in Christ. The words of Christ were not marketing, but a sincere invitation to freedom from slavery to sin that went hand in hand with the fear of death.
he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery (see Hebrews 2:14-15).
The one thing that the Judeans got right was that no mere man, no mere prophet could promise what Jesus did. Abraham himself died, as did Moses and most of the prophets. If Enoch and Elijah were excluded from the list of those who suffered physical death they nevertheless were the exceptions. Even the powerful word of Elijah that raised the widow's son at Zarephath could nevertheless not prevent that child from dying again. There was literally no precedent for the claim of Jesus. Death had been a reality since Adam and it was hard for them to imagine anything else.
Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day;
he saw it and was glad.”
So the Jews said to him,
“You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you,
before Abraham came to be, I AM.”
Jesus was indeed greater than Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Jonah, Solomon, or any other point of comparison the Judeans could offer. He preexisted all of them because, although he was truly man, he was also the only one on earth who could legitimately lay claim to the divine name revealed to Moses at the burning bush, "I AM". Correctly understanding what Jesus was implying but rejecting the truth of it, the Judeans did what the law prescribed for blasphemy of the name of God.
So they picked up stones to throw at him;
but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.
After all of these impressive statements of Jesus we nevertheless continue to die physical death at the end of a life that may well be mostly seventy years of suffering or eighty for those who are strong (see Psalm 90:10). But in spite of this Jesus was not mistaken, nor was the reality implied by his claim less impressive because what he meant by it. Those who believed in his word would not die spiritual death, would not die "in there sins" and so would escape from the true horror of death. For them death would be merely a transition. Even life apart from the body would merely by a temporary stop along the way to the resurrection of the body on the last day. For those who kept his word death no longer had any venom. It had been unmasked and defanged and was now not only not an object of fear but one to be mocked.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting? (see First Corinthians 15:55)
Who could have guessed the deeper truth of the firmness of the promise of God to Abraham and the truly unbreakable nature of the covenant he gave? He said the land of Canaan was to be a permanent possession and delivered on that promise by providing eternal life in the true promised land of heaven. Our part is the same as that of Abraham's descendants, to keep God's covenant. In Christ Jesus we are now the heirs of the faith of Abraham, free from bondage to sin and the fear of death. Think of it! We are not going to suffer everlasting death because we are in Christ! This is the joy of our salvation in which we are meant to take comfort and which we must urgently share to a world still in bondage to the fear of death.
He remembers forever his covenant
which he made binding for a thousand generations
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