The one who comes from above is above all.
The one who is of the earth is earthly and speaks of earthly things.
Jesus wants us to understand how he is different from other men. He was born of a virgin and possessed a real human nature, and thus looked as human as anyone else. He was found to be human in appearance, but was actually also in the "form of God" (see Philippians 2:6), and "the exact imprint of his nature" (see Hebrews 1:3). People looking at Jesus could see the former but not the latter. But they often noticed that Jesus did not speak as ordinary men did. There was something different about his word. It possessed a unique authority that the words of other teachers did not. He spoke with confidence about what he had "seen and heard", the heavenly realities which he had directly known and experienced from all eternity. Other teachers were limited to discussing of earthly things since they didn't have access to the heavenly realities themselves. When they tried to speak about matters beyond their ken they could offer nothing more than guesses and inferences. That is why the wisest men did not strive to know what was too exulted to be known and too inaccessible to be discovered by unaided human reason.
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me (see Psalm 131:1-2).
However, as it turns out, the heavenly things are not irrelevant to us even though we are creatures of the earth. We are of the earth but our destiny is not meant to remain at the level of the earthly, the finite, and the mortal. We must therefore believe the Son, the only verified expert on heavenly matters, so that he can guide us to our eternal destiny. Thus, anyone who "believes in the Son has eternal life". Note, however, that belief is contrasted, not with doubt, but rather with disobedience. Belief that avails for eternal life is therefore obedience to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The choice to believe or disbelieve is not merely a blind chance or random guess. It is our response to the revelation of the one who is perfectly trustworthy and unfailingly good. To reject him is to reject truth itself and goodness itself. When we do believe our own minds begin to heal from former darkened ways of thinking. The fundamental tenet that becomes the basis for our thoughts is that the words spoken by the one who is the Truth are true. It may seem obvious in hindsight. But all our negative patterns of thinking pretend this is not the case. Instead, we think like Adam and Eve who wished to know for themselves the difference between good and evil. But when we certify that God is trustworthy things begin to change for us. We open ourselves to Jesus, upon whom the Father does not ration the gift of the Spirit, who in turn pours that Spirit out on us as we are able to receive it. It is precisely this Spirit that is our own entry point into the life of the Father and the Son, and a foretaste even here and now of the life we hope to live forever with them.
but whoever disobeys the Son will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains upon him
If we insist on clinging to our own truths rather than conforming our lives to the truth of God we will not be able to avail ourselves of the rescue mission that Jesus came to accomplish. Rather than being delivered from our default condition of darkness we will remain under God's wrath, we ourselves being the ones who have culpably chosen to remain in this state. Instead of this we must learn to be committed to God's words over and against the opposition of any merely human words such as those of the Sanhedrin to the Apostles:
"We gave you strict orders did we not,
to stop teaching in that name.
Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching
and want to bring this man's blood upon us."
But Peter and the Apostles said in reply,
"We must obey God rather than men.
No comments:
Post a Comment