Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. Very truly, I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death.”(John 8:50-51)
The Judgment Through Truth
On what testimony will the case against us be determined? In the days of Adam, the first man, God condemned his son Cain who had just murdered his brother Abel: “What have you done? Listen, your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground! (Genesis 4:10)” There is a witness of blood spilled, that is, the testimony of the life-giving fluid that courses in human veins. The shedding of blood out of the evil intentions of the human heart are heinous and despicable. We are viscerally averse and hate this act. However, blood that is shed is viewed as a sacred and righteous act if it is for the highest good. The sacrifice of one’s life for another’s sake is viewed as the ultimate act of love and courage. Such heroes are revered for their valor. In the ancient days, covenants and treaties between peoples and nations were sealed with the sacrifice of an animal. There also, neither the shedding of blood nor its implications and responsibilities upon the two parties of the covenant were something to be taken lightly. The killing of an animal is a sacred thing; this meaning is lost upon us today when our consumption of meat is industrialized and mechanized. The modern meat industry knows no value of life, and our extravagant consumption of meat ignores the inherent value of life in all God’s creatures. This leads to our ignorance of the value of life and therefore our disregard of both human life and the natural world. Yet the self-offering of His life by the Lord Jesus is God’s extravagant display of the value of life. It is the greatest expression of selfless and unconditional love. Here God the Son, in complete harmony with the will of God the Father, approached the event in unparalleled humility and faced unspeakable humiliation. The nature of the humiliation is amplified due to the nature of Jesus Christ: the divine and eternal God underwent a humiliation in the flesh that very few humans have experienced. The gap between the glory of the divinity and the degradation of the humanity within Jesus Christ is so great a chasm that we can only understand it in the context of the infinite love of God.
This is the truth which God revealed through Jesus Christ. Those who accept this truth will come to life-after-life, and the life abundant. But the Jewish people in the days of Jesus, and many today, are unable to accept that. They do not want to accept the spiritual truth that explains the physical reality also. They seek something else but God did not come into this world to give them what they wanted. God came into this world to give us what we needed. We need the truth. But Jesus Christ went beyond just speaking the truth. If He had only spoken the Word of God, we would only revere His as a prophet and rabbi, just as millions today do. Jesus had prophesied, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (John 3:14-15)” How is a prophet and their prophetic words evaluated? The LORD taught the Israelites through Moses the canonical rule to discern between true and false prophets: “If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the thing does not take place or prove true, it is a word that the Lord has not spoken. (Deut 18:22)” The Lord Jesus fulfilled the prophecy in His own life, when He willingly went for crucifixion. In bringing the prophecy of ultimate truth to its fulfillment, Jesus of Nazareth proved that (1) He was sent from God, (2) He spoke the true Word of God, and most importantly, (3) He is the True God.
In the final post, we will the personal implication of the reality of Christ, the living Truth, upon our life.