Transcript

The following poem was written by James Allan Francis in 1926. It is called, “One Solitary Life.”

He was born in an obscure village, a child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

Then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never had a family or owned a home. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He never held an office. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.

While he was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends deserted him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.

While dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone and today he is still the central figure for much of the human race. A]l the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth, as powerfully as this One Solitary Life.

In this series, we are looking at the question, “Who is Jesus?” The Gospel of John tells us very clearly who Jesus is. Because Jesus Christ is like no other and is God in the flesh, the Savior of the world Who rose from the dead, this is why His one solitary life has so powerfully affected the history of the world.

John 10:22-24: “And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.”

The Hebrew word for “dedication” is Hanukkah. The Feast of Dedication was not out of the Mosaic Law or a divinely sanctioned feast. It commemorated the historical Jewish victory over the Syrian leader, Antiochus Epiphanes, who persecuted Israel.

The feast celebrated the cleansing of the temple and its “[re]dedication” by Judas Maccabeus in 165 B.C. after its desecration by Antiochus. It was an 8-day, annual feast.

It is also called “the feast of lights” because of the lighting of lamps and candles in Jewish homes during the eight days and the so-called “miracle of the cruse of oil” with the temple’s menorah. The story of this miracle is that a small amount of oil, one day’s worth, lasted eight days to light the menorah in the Jewish temple.

There’s a joke about Hanukkah that goes: “Imagine if your cell phone battery was on ten percent and it lasted for eight days. Congratulations. You understand Hanukkah.”

The Jews considered the supposed miracle of oil and the victory of the Maccabean revolt as acts of God.

Christ went to the feast because His ministry was drawing to a close and people would be there, not because He celebrated and recognized it in the way the Jews did.

It was now December and winter in Jerusalem at this time. And this account takes place about 3-4 months before the Lord’s crucifixion and resurrection.

Because of the inclement weather that accompanied that time of year, “Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch.” The word “porch” means portico or colonnade.

Solomon’s porch was a 200-yard long, covered walkway on the east side of the temple complex (Acts 3:11; 5:12), named after Solomon who built the first temple. The long porch served as shade from the hot summer sun and shelter from the cold winter rains.

As Christ was walking under this porch in the temple, a crowd of Jews came up to Him and gathered around Him, literally surrounding Him. They hemmed Him in because they were determined that He not get away from them without answering their questions.

The Jews asked the Lord, “How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.” They wanted a straight, plain answer from Him as to whether or not He was the Christ or the Messiah.

They wanted a clear statement by Christ as to His identity and they did not want to be kept in suspense any longer.

But the motives of these Jews were not that they might believe it if Christ told them the truth, but rather that they could justify attacking Him if He did declare His identity openly, as we see them do.

John 10:25-31: “Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:

“And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.”

The Lord answered the demand of the crowd by saying, “I told you.” What the Lord meant by this is not that He had made a previous plain and public statement.

Rather, by “I told you,” the Lord meant that He had told the Jews who He was by His entire ministry in and through both His teachings and deeds.

The witness of Christ’s words and works—all He had taught and shown by His miracles—gave clear testimony to His identity.

But Christ said, “I told you, and ye believed not.” The proof was overwhelming, but they did not believe and the Jews rejected Him, and thus they did not know who He was or if He was the Messiah and they had to ask their question about His identity. They wanted a plain answer when the evidence was plain to see and pointed in only one direction.

Christ told them that “the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me.”

The powerful and undeniable miracles that Christ did in His Father’s name, which were consistent with the Father’s character, according to His will, for His honor, they bore clear witness and substantiated who Jesus Christ is, that He is the Messiah, the Son of God.

“But ye believe not,” Christ told them. And they believed not “because ye are not of my sheep.” Since they did not believe in Christ, they did not belong to Him.

If they had believed they would have been His sheep. But these Jews had rejected the good Shepherd, thus, they were not His sheep. They did not know Him, recognize Him, or follow Him, and so they HAD to ask their question about His identity. Their question gave evidence that they were not Christ’s sheep.

The Lord added, “ye are not of my sheep, AS I SAID UNTO YOU.” Three months earlier Christ had been at the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem and He taught the Jews that “I am the door of the sheep” and “I am the good shepherd.”

In that discourse Christ taught about His sheep knowing the voice of their shepherd, and that the Shepherd of the sheep, “goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him; for they know His voice” (v. 4).

But these Jews who surrounded Him in Solomon’s porch did not believe in Him or know His voice and thus they were not His sheep.

But in sharp contrast, Christ said that those who were, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” Hearing and following was the opposite response of these Jews in their unbelief. They would not hear or follow Him in their rejection of Him.

His sheep, however, were those who did hear His voice, or His words of life and truth, and they responded to it. They believed what He said.

They recognized who He was and believed that He was the Christ, or the Messiah.

Knowing and believing who He is, they then followed Him and obeyed His teachings as a sheep followed their shepherd.

And as the Lord said in verse 14 of this chapter, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”

It’s a special thing for Christ to say of believers, “and I know them.” This is referring to His knowledge of knowing those who belong to Him versus those who do not.

But even beyond that, when Christ says, “I know them,” out of His love, He knows each believer deeply, knowing everything about us, knowing about our highs and lows, our lapses of faith, doubts, and fears, and our burdens and struggles and everything we go through. He knows it all, He knows us individually, and He will never forsake us.

For those who believed in Jesus Christ as the Messiah and the Son of God and followed Him, Christ said, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

Christ gave His sheep life, and having life, the sheep have it eternally, and they shall never perish. As John 3:15 says, “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Christ’s sheep would never be lost, and no one could pluck or snatch them or take them out Christ’s hand. As the Good Shepherd, Christ loses none of His sheep.

As God, Christ has the authority to give eternal life, and as God, He has the power to keep them eternally safe. And Christ’s sheep would never perish in hell but are eternally safe in His hand. The security of the sheep depended on the Shepherd, not on the sheep.

As one commentator stated about this verse, “Eternal security rests not on the believer’s ability to cling, but upon Christ infinite power to keep His own in His hand.”

And Christ stated that His Father also, also stood behind the sheep’s security. They are safe in the hand of the Son and they are safe in the hand of the Father, doubly secure in two infinitely powerful hands.

Christ said that the Father who is “greater than all,” holds them in His hand. No one is stronger than the Father. He is more powerful than any foe.

And He secures the sheep by His power and protection, and as with Christ, the Son, no one can possibly pluck them out of His hand.

The word “pluck” means to seize, pull, or take by force. The word was used for a predatory animal’s attack to seize and carry away its prey.

No person, problem, circumstance, enemy, or sin has any force or power to attack and pull the sheep out of the grip of God the Father or the grip of God the Son.

No outside source or foe of any kind will ever rob us of our salvation. No one has the capacity to do so because no one and nothing is stronger than God.

This is an assuring and beautiful picture of security for the believer. Though found here within God’s program with Israel, the principle of security is just as true for us the Church, the Body of Christ.

We, like Christ’s sheep, who is believing Israel, are in God’s grip. And God is never letting go. Our salvation, like theirs, can never be lost or stolen.

Salvation is guaranteed. We will never perish. We are headed for glory. As our Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 3:3: “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Then in verse 30, in relation to the security and protection of the sheep, Christ said that “I and my Father are one.” But more than that.

These Jews had asked Christ for a plain, clear answer as to His identity (v. 24), and they got it. They said they did not want to be kept in suspense any longer; they wanted clarity, understanding, and a straight answer, and so Christ gave them one.

“I and My Father are one.” As to all that the Father is and all that He does and all that the Son is and all that He does, “I and My Father are one.” They are equal in every way.

Christ said that God the Father is “greater than all” (v. 29), then He said, “I and My Father are one,” because Christ too is greater than all (3:31).

“I and My Father” are one does not mean that Christ and the Father are one and the same Person. Rather, the Father and Son are two distinct Persons in the Godhead, but they are “one,” one in equality, united perfectly in purpose, will, action and word, and eternally one in nature and essence. The Son, as the Father, is God.

Who is Jesus? Jesus Christ is God. He, God the Son, is one with God the Father.

This is one of the clearest statements in Scripture as to the Deity of Jesus Christ, and the Jews perfectly understood what He was saying by it, as they stated in verse 33, “that Thou, being a man, makest thyself God.”

And just like when Christ had made another clear statement as to His deity in John 8, when He told the Jews, “Before Abraham was, I am,” the Jews here “took up stones again to stone Him” (v. 31).

These Jews did not believe Christ was who He claimed to be, and in their rejection of Him, they did believe that He was guilty of blasphemy, which carried the punishment of stoning under the law.

Being under foreign rule of the Romans, the Jews did not have the right or authority to carry out capital punishment (18:31). But in their rage at Christ’s claim as to His identity, they took up stones anyway to kill Him.

John 10:32-39: “Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?

“The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

“If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?

“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand.”

As the Jews looked around in the temple for stones to stone the Lord with, He calmly questioned them and made them face His works once again.

He asked, “Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?”

The Lord asked them which miracle called for the death penalty? His miracles were from the Father, as He did them in accordance with His will. They were in keeping with who God is and they reveal His heart.

And this being so, Christ’s works and miracles were all good, helpful, merciful, and kind. Christ had harmed no one, instead He healed the sick, cast out demons, gave sight to the blind, made the deaf to hear, He raised the dead, fed the hungry and on and on.

The Lord asked, “Which of these good works made Him deserve to be put to death?”

Christ’ miracles of power and mercy reflected His divine commission and origin, and should have been the basis for accepting Him and not stoning Him.

The Lord tried to make them take stock of what He had done along with what He claimed. He tried to reach them by causing them to remember what He had done, and He confronted them as to why they would want to put Him to death for doing good.

In their blind unbelief and rage they don’t see or make the connection between Christ’s claim and His works and they replied that they were not stoning Him for a good work but for a blasphemous claim and “because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.”

Not believing He was God, the Jews desired to stone Him for blasphemy (Lev. 24:16).

They understood correctly that Christ claimed to be God when He said, “I and My Father are one.” That is what He meant, and He did not correct them.

Christ was a man, claiming to be God, because that’s the truth. That is truly who He is, God in the flesh. He is a man Who is God.

Christ then appealed to their “law,” which here referred to the Old Testament Scriptures.

And He said, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?” The Lord is referring to Psalm 82, verses 1 and 6. In those passages, God, the true Judge, called unjust judges in Israel, who were men, “gods.” And then He pronounced judgment against them.

In their position of authority, these judges in Israel’s past were given the title of “gods” (which is the Hebrew word for God, elohim).

Christ said that God “called them gods, unto whom the word of God came,” or to whom the Word of God was entrusted as judges in carrying out the law and justice by it.

And Christ added that, “the Scripture cannot be broken,” meaning one cannot evade the truth of this Scripture on this point or argue against it. In other words, the Jews could not avoid or dispute the fact that the Scripture called judges who were men “gods.”

And this statement that “the Scripture cannot be broken,” also reveals Christ’s high esteem for the written Word of God. The Lord made the truthfulness of His argument rest on the absolute trustworthiness of Scripture.

He affirmed that the Scriptures are infallible, inerrant, and cannot be deprived of their binding authority. The authority of the written Word is final and cannot be broken.

The Jews were upset that Christ a man made Himself and called Himself God. Christ said that God called man “gods” and showed that this title was used of MEN in authority.

Christ’s argument is from the lesser to the greater. He shows how the title “God” was applied to judges who were men, which is the lesser, and it can be applied to Himself Who is a man, which is the greater and the greatest.

The Lord asked them, why they would attempt to stone Him for blasphemy, because if God called human judges and men of authority that He commissioned, “gods”, then why should they stone Him for the title being applied to Himself when He was One with authority Who was commissioned by God.

If wicked, human judges in Israel can in some sense be called “gods” in the Scriptures, this designation was even more appropriate for Christ, “whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world” as Christ said in verse 36.

Christ added force to His argument when He said that the Father had “sanctified” Him, that He was set apart to the Father and consecrated to His work. And the Son was sanctified, or set apart, from all other men in authority who were called gods. He was greater than all.

And He, as true God, God the Son, was “sent into the world” by the Father, commissioned by Him to carry out His will.

Israel’s judges did not have that kind of authority and commission and yet they were called gods. Israel’s judges were merely men “unto whom the Word of God came,” but Christ was a man Who was the very incarnate Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John 1:1 says.

Since Scripture called men “gods” simply because God commissioned them, how much more should Christ be called by the divine title? And Christ had every right to claim and apply the title, “God,” in its highest and most complete sense, because that’s Who He is.

Then Christ again proved He was entitled to the title of God in the fullest divine sense.

He shows that it was wrong to say that He, a man, blasphemed and was worthy of death “because I said, I am the Son of God,” when His miraculous works backed up His claim.

He said, “If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him” (vv. 37-38).

Christ let the truth of His Person and identity stand or fall on His works and miracles. His miracles were windows into who He was and the truth of His words and claims.

He said that if His works did not substantiate His claim to be God, if the works were not conclusive proof that He was sent by the Father, then “believe Me not.”

Christ’s works were undeniable; they were absolute, undeniable proof that what He said was the truth: “I and my Father are one.”

In their evaluation of Him, even if they did not believe His own assertions or claims about Himself, He desired them to look at the hard evidence and then decide.

The Lord invited them to believe even if only on the basis of the miracles, because the miracles showed His unity and oneness with the Father, “that the Father is in Me, and I in Him,” and that Jesus Christ is God.

Christ shows here that to see who He is, one should examine the evidence honestly, being open to the truth. And He said that if one does this, they will see the truth of Who He truly is.

To Christ’s assertion that “the Father is in me and I in Him” the Jews again reacted in anger. They now tried to arrest Him to probably bring Him to trial for blasphemy.

But without explanation how He did, Christ “escaped out of their hand,” and evaded their attempt to capture and take Him at this time.

Norman Geisler said this, “Jesus Christ is the only One who lived who claimed to be God and proved to be God. When I compare this to all other claimants of all other religions, it is like the poet who said, ‘The night has a thousand eyes and the day has but one, The light of the whole world dies with the setting of the sun.’

“At the midnight of human ignorance, there are a lot of lights in the sky. But at noon time there is only one, and that is Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.

“So I cast my lot with Him, not with Confucius who claimed wisdom, or the one who claimed enlightenment like Buddha, or the one who claimed to be a prophet like Mohammed, but the One who claimed to be God in the flesh…and proved it.”