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Death
.
John
Piper
Scripture: John 8:48–59
God
directed you to this sermon, I believe, so that you would know,
first, that
you don’t have to die, and,
second, so that
you would know that Jesus, who makes this promise to you, is God — the God of
Israel, the God of all.
And, third, you are here because God wants you to see the
implication for your life of knowing you will not die.
There
is another great reality in John 8:48–59 —
namely, the opposition Jesus gets from the Jews.
The
purpose of showing the opposition in this text is not because it’s pleasant to
watch.
It is
tragic to watch. These are his own people calling him demonized.
The
reason for describing the opposition is that it’s the opposition that brings
out the greatness — the mystery — of who Jesus is.
They
demand it.
Look at the end of verse 53: “Who do you make yourself out to
be?”
And
it’s the final answer to that question that brings this story to a fierce
conclusion, because they take up stones — their form of capital punishment for
blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16)
And
Jesus hid himself, because his time was not yet come, and stoning was not the
way he must die.
Deity and Deathlessness
And
let’s discover the astonishing implication of our deathlessness for our lives.
The
text starts with opposition because the conflict in the first part of the
chapter has already been intense.
It ends in verse 47 with Jesus’s words: “Whoever is of God
hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not
of God.”
So,
they have already shown themselves deaf to the meaning of Jesus’s words. His
words only offend them.
Our
text begins with their indictment of Jesus.
Verse 48: “The Jews answered him, ‘Are we not right in saying
that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’”
The
Jews despised the Samaritans and half-breeds who had intermarried with Gentiles
six centuries earlier and now followed their own version of Old Testament
religion.
Calling
Jesus a Samaritan was a kind of racial slur with the innuendo that his real
father was unknown.
And to
make the insult clear, they said he had a demon.
So,
this is vicious opposition. It is amazing that Jesus continues to talk to them.
He answers them in verses 49–50, “I do not have a demon, but
I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there
is One who seeks it, and he is the judge.”
Jesus
says, in effect, I don’t need to defend myself, because God the Father seeks my
glory.
In
other words, if you dishonor me, instead of glorifying me, you set yourself
against God. If you oppose me, you oppose the one who is committed to honoring
me.
Judgment and Salvation
And then he says, “You don’t want to do that because God is
the one who judges” (verse
50).
In
other words, ultimate things are at stake in the way we respond to Jesus.
Almighty God defends his glory.
And
when it comes to final judgment, the criterion is going to be the glory of
Jesus — what did we do with Jesus, the glory of Jesus?
And if
we turned away from him, or turned against him, God will be our judge.
So,
verses 49 and 50 are a warning.
But all
through this whole book the message has been: The Son of God did not come for
judgment, but for salvation.
He did
not come to condemn, but to save.
John 3:17: “God did not send his Son into the world to
judge the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Jesus finishes his response to their indictments like this “Truly,
truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” (verse 51)
In
other words, you have gotten to the point where you are blaspheming me, calling
me a half-breed and demonized.
And you
are in great danger of God’s judgment, but I hold out to you once more the gift
of salvation. If you will keep my word, you will never see death.
Now that is a remarkable promise. It’s amazing because he
doesn’t say, “If anyone keeps my word, he will never die.”
He says, “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
What
does that mean?
In verse 52, his adversaries repeat what he said with unbelief
and change the word “see” to “taste”: “You say, ‘If anyone
keeps my word, he will never taste death.’’’
And
Jesus doesn’t correct them.
So, Jesus is saying, If you keep my word — if you believe
what I say about myself, and my Father, and our great work of salvation — you
won’t see death.
You
won’t taste death.
This
Gospel ends with Jesus being killed and rising again. And the death of Jesus is
explained as the substitution for sinners like these adversaries — like us.
“I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:15; 11:52; 1:29).
So,
keeping the word of Jesus is to receive the words he speaks about himself, and
his Father, and their work of salvation through his death and resurrection.
Never
see death. Death is all around us.
Yesterday,
Harmon Killebrew wrote a blog announcing that esophageal cancer has beat him.
He is entering hospice care at 74 to prepare to die.
There
is a statue of a golden glove outside gate 34 at the new Target Field across
town. It is exactly 520 feet from home plate — because that is the longest home
run ever hit by any Twins player — and Harmon Killebrew hit it.
It is with profound sadness that I share with you that my
continued battle with esophageal cancer is coming to an end. With the continued
love and support of my wife, Nita, I have exhausted all options with respect to
controlling this awful disease. My illness has progressed beyond my doctors’
expectation of cure.
Harmon
Killebrew is going to die. And so are you. And so am I. Death is the great
leveler. It doesn’t matter how glorious your career was. You die.
Do Christians Die?
Or do you? Verse 51: “Truly, truly, [not falsely] I say to
you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
He will
never taste death.
One of
the most powerful moments in my seminary days was at the funeral of Jaymes
Morgan, my 36-year-old systematic theology teacher.
Lewis Smedes was preaching the sermon, and at one point he
lifted up his majestic voice and cried, “Jaymes Morgan is not dead!”
So, if
Jaymes Morgan was not dead at his funeral, and a few months earlier he was not
dead as he taught my theology class, what happened in between?
Did he
die? Let’s let Jesus answer from John 11:25–26.
He says to Martha at Lazarus’ grave: “I am the resurrection
and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall
he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall
never die.”
Though
he die, he never dies.
Yes, We Die — And, No, We Don’t
Yes, we die: “Though he die, yet shall he live.”
No, we don’t die: “Everyone who lives and believes in me
shall never die.”
Lazarus’
body lay dead in the grave. But Lazarus was not dead. His body was dead. But he
was not dead. He had not died.
Even more important is the way Jesus says it in John 5:24:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent
me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has
passed from death to life.”
Believers
on Jesus have passed already from death to life. They have now already an
eternal life.
Eternal
life cannot — cannot by definition — end. Believers do not see death. Do not
taste death.
Our Bodies Die, But We Do Not
Our
bodies die.
They
lie — looking like they are sleeping, which is why the New Testament sometimes
calls death falling asleep — they lie in the grave until the last trumpet.
“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised
imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians
15:52).
But
when our bodies die, we do not die. We have passed from death to life. Eternal
life. Unbroken, unending life.
What
that means is this: When we were born again, we received the gift of life.
Spiritual
life (John 3:6–8).
When we
were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive (Ephesians 2:4–5).
This
new life is eternal life.
In this
new spiritual life, we are able to fellowship with God, know God, experience
God, speak with God, hear from God through his word, sense the love of God shed
abroad in our hearts (Romans 5:5).
This is
the work of the Holy Spirit.
This
fellowship that we enjoy with God cannot be ended. It cannot be broken. It is
eternal.
When
our bodies die, we do not experience any break in our fellowship with God
through Christ.
Our
fellowship, in fact, in that instant is perfected (Hebrews 12:23).
The
life we have with Christ in God today, because of the new birth, will never
end. We will not see the end of it. And we will not taste the end of it.
Because there is no end of it.
We will
come back in a moment and talk about some implications of this for how we live.
But
let’s take a look just briefly at the majesty of the person who has spoken
these words to us and who has made this eternal life possible.
Jesus Is Mocked for His Promise
His
adversaries mock him because of this promise (are you?).
Verses 52–53: “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham
died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never
taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the
prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
The
answer to this question comes in two stages, both of them are breathtaking, and
will eventually get Jesus killed for blasphemy.
You
need to realize that as you hear this, you face the same choice they did —
either he is a blasphemer, or he is God.
Stage
one is verses 54–56:
Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It
is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have
not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be
a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham
rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.”
He what? Abraham saw my day. He saw the time when I was alive
and reigning. It was my day. The day of my rule and glory. He saw it. He
rejoiced.
Commentators
go all over the map trying to decide what vision or promise or event this
refers to in Abraham’s life.
We
don’t know. And Jesus didn’t pause to explain, because these adversaries didn’t
care either. They saw the implication and pressed in on it.
Which
leads to stage two in the answer to their question: Who do you make yourself
out to be?
Stage
two is verses 57–59:
“So the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and
have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before
Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid
himself and went out of the temple.”
If he only wanted to claim pre-existence, he could have said, “Before
Abraham was, I was.”
But he means to say more than mere pre-existence. He says, “Before
Abraham was, I am.”
Exodus 3:14: “God said to Moses, ‘I Am who I Am.’ And he
said, ‘Say this to the people of Israel, “I Am has sent me to you.”’”
Eternally Relevant
The
implications of this are staggering for your life and for this world and for
eternity.
But the
one focus of its relevance in this passage for us in this message is: Because
Jesus is God, his work on the cross and his word of promise will be totally
successful.
So that when he says, “You will never see death,”
you will never see death.
God has spoken. And his word never fails.
Yahweh promises, “My counsel shall stand, and I will
accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:10)
— that
is what it means to be God. He speaks, and it is. And Jesus is God.
So, when he promises in verse 51, “Truly, truly, I say to
you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death,” that person
will never see death!
Fear Is No Longer Your Master
Let’s
end with one huge implication for our lives now.
Hebrews 2:14–15 describes
the effect of Jesus’s death in our place. Listen how he puts it:
“Since therefore the children [that’s us] share in flesh and
blood [since we are human], he himself likewise partook of the same things [he
became human], so 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.”
The writer to the Hebrews says that the whole human race is “subject
to lifelong slavery through the fear of death.”
In
1973, Ernest Becker wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book called The Denial of Death.
His thesis agreed with Hebrews:
The
main thesis of this book is that the fear of death haunts the human animal like
nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity — activity designed largely
to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it
is the final destiny for man. (xvii)
Becker
had no answer for the massive human denial of death.
And in
this way free us from the life-long bondage of the fear of death.
Hebrews
and Becker both say that the fear of death produces a pervasive, lifelong
bondage — even when we don’t realize it, fear is haunting our choices, making
us cautious, wary, restrained, confined, narrow, tight, robbing us of risk and
adventure and dreams for the sake of Christ and his kingdom and the cause of
love in the world.
Without
our even knowing it, fear of death is a slave master binding us with invisible
ropes, confining us to small, safe, innocuous, self-centered ways of life.
Becker has no solution for this bondage, but Jesus does. “Truly,
truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
Or as he says in John 8:32,
“You will know the truth [about death], and the truth will set you free.”
The
world desperately needs the courage and the Christ of fearless Christians who
know they will never taste death. Be one.
John Piper (@JohnPiper)
is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College
& Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church,
Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books,
including Desiring
God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist and most recently Coronavirus and
Christ.
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