John 8:19-24: a reflection

19They said therefore to him, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” 20Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as he taught in the temple. Yet no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. 21Jesus said therefore again to them, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sins. Where I go, you can’t come.” 22The Jews therefore said, “Will he kill himself, because he says, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come’?” 23He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. 24I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”

Jesus says some hard, stark things to his opponents here. Where I am going, you cannot come; you will die in your sins. And he names the pivot on which everything turns: unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. He points to who he is, using the divine I am, and makes belief in his identity the decisive thing. Everything hinges on it.

Notice how central Jesus makes this one question. Not primarily what you have done or how well you have behaved, but whether you believe who he is. He claims to be from above, not of this world, the great I am, and he says that receiving or rejecting that claim is the difference between dying in your sins and not. The stakes could not be higher, and they rest on the question of his identity.

That presses a question we cannot finally dodge: who do you believe Jesus is? It is possible to admire him as a teacher, to respect his ethics, and to sidestep the claim he actually makes, that he is the I am, God come from above, the one in whom alone our sins can be dealt with. Jesus does not leave that as an optional add-on; he makes it the hinge of everything. The most important question you will ever answer is not what you think of religion, but who you believe Jesus is. Believe that he is who he says, the great I am, and do not die in your sins.

Lord Jesus, you make everything turn on believing who you are, the great I am, God come from above. Keep me from admiring you at a distance while sidestepping your actual claim. I believe that you are who you say you are; help my unbelief, and let me not die in my sins but live by trusting you, the I am.