Lent 5

1  The Lord Can Provide Atonement

There’s something I don’t like about today’s text.

It’s the bitter fighting.

Yet as this argument unfolds, God teaches us a few things.

First, these men dishonoring Jesus with name-calling,

don’t really believe in the God of holy scripture.

They only claim to.

Second, their attack upon Jesus comes not only from spite,

but because He has their number.

He knows the truth and is not afraid to say it.

Third, Jesus kept responding to them because

He kept trying to help them.

Most people wouldn’t bother, but He did.

Another thing we learn is the greatness of Jesus.

He knows the Father, He knows Abraham, He is true God.

This argument took place in the Temple,

the only place God authorized for the sacrifices of His people.

Only once each year on Yom Kippur, the day of Atonement,

only one man was allowed to enter the Temple’s Holy of Holies.

The High Priest performed this duty in fear and trembling,

because the Holy of Holies contained the holy presence of God.

Taking that lightly meant death for a sinner.

Well, the very Man that these angry Jews were attacking

is the only one qualified to enter the Holy of Holies any time.

He’s perfect.

Holy Scripture calls Him a High Priest

“In the order of Melchizedek.”

While the other High Priests had to keep making atonement each year,

Jesus was able to do it once, for all.

Even for men like these angry Jews in the temple. Even for sinners like us.

We’ll meditate on two reasons that the Lord can provide atonement.

Because He glorifies the Father in His work. Because He enters the holy place on our behalf.

2  John 8:46–59

“Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.”

Then the Jews answered and said to Him, “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?”

Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges. Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.”

Then the Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’ Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Whom do You make Yourself out to be?”

Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.”

Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?”

Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.

2.1  Because He glorifies the Father in His work.

Our text is picking up this argument right in the middle.

Jesus had been asking why they don’t believe Him.

His answer was that they are children of the devil,

and so they believe only lies.

Hard and strong words!

In our time of relative values,

almost nobody can stomach them.

But Jesus wasn’t softening the truth.

He was speaking straight out,

That was one of the main irritants for these men. They didn’t want the truth known. They wanted to discredit Him,

but couldn’t.

Jesus said, Which of you convicts Me of sin?

The answer was that none of them could convict Him. Later, when He was on trial before the high priest and Pilate,

He was accused falsely by men like these.

At this point, they didn’t dare accuse Him,

because any accusation would be known to all as false.

Jesus was perfect.

Though He was accused of things,

and to the Jews, these were terrible things,

Jesus knew they were not true.

They were ridiculous attempts to dishonor Him.

Meanwhile, Jesus honored the Father every day of His life.

The Father had given Him work to do, as He said in a similar argument in John 10:

“I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.”

Before that, in John 5:36, He said:

“But I have a greater witness than John’s; for the works which the Father has given Me to finish — the very works that I do — bear witness of Me, that the Father has sent Me.”

So whenever Jesus went about His work,

He was honoring the Father.

It must have been frustrating,

because at the same time, He had to bear such dishonor from others.

They responded to the Gospel by saying,

Now we know that You have a demon!

What a sad, horrible, untrue, low thing to say

when Jesus was showing them the way to eternal life.

Yet Jesus bore this disgrace patiently, not complaining,

because He honored the Father.

We hear more about hate speech and hate crimes these days.

The men in our text seem to have hated Jesus,

which made them irrational, bitter, resentful, and jealous.

How do you deal with somebody like that,

somebody who would like to see you dead?

Thankfully, we don’t often experience that,

but then we don’t usually honor the Father

and speak the truth as openly as Jesus did.

How do you defend yourself against a gang of bullies,

when nobody else will come to your aid?

Some of us might just leave and never look back. Some of us might use force to defend ourselves.

Jesus continued speaking with them,

bearing their foolish insults, trying to free those captivated by a lie

with the plain, honest truth.

Finally, when they tried to stone Him to death,

He didn’t even knock them down. He used His almighty power to hide from their notice,

and He left the Temple.

Just in our text alone,

isn’t it plain that Jesus truly honors the Father?

Who else would have done so well?

He is the only one who can provide atonement.

2.2  Because He enters the holy place on our behalf.

The other reason the Lord can provide atonement is that

He enters the holy place on our behalf.

Not everyone understands or believes it.

Some read a text like this and become angry — at the Jews. But Jesus is one of them!

The problem of these wrathful men is not that they were Jews,

but that they were sinful.

Jesus didn’t have their problem — not because He was a Jew,

but because He was a sinless man.

The men in our text had every reason to believe in Jesus,

because they were Jews.

They had the holy scriptures,

which Jesus said, “testify of Me.”

They had the Temple with its sacrifices, clearly teaching

that without shedding of blood there is no remission.

They had the covenants God made with Abraham

and the children of Israel.

But despite it all, they did not believe.

Now, if the Jewish experts in the Law rejected their Savior, Then how can anyone be saved?

It would be easy enough for us to rest easy,

thinking that we believe everything we need to, and that our piety is enough for us to reach heaven.

But that would make us exactly like these hateful men.

They thought they believed everything they needed, and that their piety was sufficient.

They had no need for Jesus.

What need do we have?

We need Jesus because of what God taught by the Temple itself:

that without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins.

Even our sins are enough to condemn us,

whether we know about them or not, whether our intentions are good or not, whether we are Jews, Gentiles, Black, White, or Brown.

We would perish forever without the shedding of blood.

The Old Testament believers had the sacrifices of the Temple:

forgiving them anew, year after year after year.

God’s Temple was destroyed 1,938 years ago.

Now, the only blood that speaks to God on our behalf

is the blood of Jesus Christ.

When He was crucified on Golgotha,

His cross became the Holy of Holies,

We may well wonder how anyone can be saved,

and this is how it happened:

through the atonement made by the Son of God, when He entered the holy place on our behalf.

By the power of His atoning death, His words to you are true:

Most assuredly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.

This is because these words of His are also true:

“Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

Jesus is true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity. Yet He is also true Man, born of the virgin Mary.

No doubt, this truth is offensive

to those who think they already believe all that is needed, or that their own piety will get them to heaven.

Because it won’t.

What was needed was far more than we could provide.

Hebrews 9:11 says, Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

In one stroke, God tells you that you are not good enough,

and also tells you that He has done what you could never do.

It’s a humbling message,

and it doesn’t fit the sinful human heart — our hearts.

But what else would you rather place your trust in:

Your own good intentions? The power of positive thinking? Some smooth talker with a big smile?

No, Jesus provides the atonement we need.

For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

By contrast with the men who made themselves His enemies,

Jesus is faultless, and full of mercy.

By contrast with the saviors and gods invented by mankind,

Jesus is almighty and everlasting God.

He alone is our perfect High Priest,

so when He offered His own life

upon the Holy of Holies called Golgotha,

Jesus accomplished what nobody else could:

Atonement: once, for all sinners from Adam to the End.

You, too.

Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!