Читать книгу New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of John vol. 2 - William Barclay - Страница 24

THE GREAT INDICTMENT AND THE SHINING FAITH

John 8:46–50

‘Who of you can convict me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe in me? He who is from God hears God’s words. That is why you do not hear, because you are not from God.’ The Jews answered: ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan, and that you have a devil?’ Jesus answered: ‘It is not I who have a devil. I honour my Father, but you dishonour me. I do not seek my own glory. There is one who seeks and judges.’

WE must try to see this scene happening before our eyes. There is drama here, and it is not only in the words, but in the pauses between them. Jesus began with a tremendous claim. ‘Is there anyone here’, he demanded, ‘who can point the finger at any evil in my life?’ Then there must have followed a silence during which the eyes of Jesus ranged round the crowd waiting for anyone to accept the extraordinary challenge that he had thrown down. The silence went on. Search as they like, none could formulate a charge against him. When he had given them their chance, Jesus spoke again. ‘You admit’, he said, ‘that you can find no charge against me. Then why do you not accept what I say?’ Again there was an uncomfortable silence. Then Jesus answered his own question. ‘You do not accept my words’, he said, ‘because you are not from God.’

What did Jesus mean? Think of it this way. No experience can enter into a person’s mind and heart unless there is something there to answer to it; and people may lack the something essential which will enable them to have the experience. Someone who is tone-deaf cannot experience the thrill of music. Someone who is colour-blind cannot fully appreciate a picture. The person with no sense of time and rhythm cannot fully appreciate ballet or dancing.

Now the Jews had a very wonderful way of thinking of the Spirit of God. They believed that he had two great functions. He revealed God’s truth to men and women; and he enabled them to recognize and grasp that truth when they saw it. That quite clearly means that unless the Spirit of God is in people’s hearts, they cannot recognize God’s truth when they see it. And it also means that if people shut the door of their hearts against the Spirit of God, then, even when the truth is fully displayed before their eyes, they are quite unable to see it and recognize it and grasp it and make it their own.

Jesus was saying to the Jews: ‘You have gone your own way and followed your own ideas; the Spirit of God has been unable to gain an entry into your hearts; that is why you cannot recognize me and that is why you will not accept my words.’ The Jews believed they were religious people; but because they had clung to their idea of religion instead of to God’s idea, they had in the end drifted so far from God that they had lost God’s true spirit. They were in the terrible position of people who were going through the motions of serving God.

To be told that they were strangers to God stung the Jews to the quick. They hurled their invective against Jesus. As our present form of the words has it, they accused him of being a Samaritan and of being mad. What did they mean by calling him a Samaritan? They meant that he was an enemy of Israel, for there was deadly enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans, that he was a law-breaker because he did not observe the law, and above all that he was a heretic, for Samaritan and heretic had become synonymous. It would be extraordinary that the Son of God should be branded as a heretic. And beyond a doubt it would happen to him again if he returned to this world and its churches.

But it is just possible that the word Samaritan is really a corruption of something else. To begin with, we note that Jesus replied to the charge that he was mad, but did not reply to the charge that he was a Samaritan. That makes us wonder if we have the charge of the Jews rightly stated. In the original Aramaic, the word for Samaritan would be Shomeroni. Shomeron was also a title for the prince of the devils, otherwise called Ashmedai and Sammael and Satan. So the word Shomeroni could quite well mean a child of the devil. It is very likely that what the Jews said to Jesus was: ‘You are a child of the devil; you have a devil; you are mad with the madness of the evil one.’

His answer was that, far from being a servant of the devil, his one aim was to honour God, while the conduct of the Jews was a continual dishonouring of God. He says in effect: ‘It is not I who have a devil; it is you.’

Then comes the radiance of the supreme faith of Jesus. He says: ‘I am not looking for honour in this world: I know that I will be insulted and rejected and dishonoured and crucified. But there is one who will one day assess things at their true value and assign to all people their true honour; and he will give me the honour which is real because it is his.’ Of one thing, Jesus was sure – ultimately, God will protect the honour of his own. In time, Jesus saw nothing but pain and dishonour and rejection; in eternity, he saw only the glory which those who are obedient to God will some day receive. In ‘Paracelsus’, Robert Browning wrote:

If I stoop

Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,

It is but for a time; I press God’s lamp

Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,

Will pierce the gloom: I shall emerge one day.

Jesus had the supreme optimism born of supreme faith, the optimism which is rooted in God.