Classic Christianity – Book of John p13 (11-07-18)
Welcome to Class Christianity Radio with Bob George, the clear, timeliness teaching on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus, that will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing love. Let’s join Bob as he continues sharing through the book of John. Currently, we are studying John 5:19-30. Bob begins the lesson showing how modern day church organizations and denominations so often are not operating by the Spirit of God, with Jesus as the head, but as religious activities for God to bless. He presents several examples of religious activities and briefly retells the story of the religious Pharisees from yesterday’s sermon. He then re-explains the concept of the Trinity, with emphasis of how Jesus lived on earth in total dependence on His Father. Bob then further explains the function of the Holy Spirit in a believer. He particularly focuses on the role of the Holy Spirit as counselor, to help a believer to identify error in thinking, and replace such error with truth. Bob then further explains man’s most basic problem is not that he is a sinner, but that he is spiritually dead and in need of life. He emphasized the purpose of the law was not so much to show that man is a sinner but that he is dead already. He further explains the source of our spiritual life is Jesus Christ and how God is perfectly loving and justice, providing insight how best to answer the question: “What about those who have never heard?”
When Bob spoke about religion in today’s world, he spoke about a common error in how churches function. They make plans and then ask God to bless their plans. This is not how a church is to operate. This is where the body takes on the position of being the head and telling God what to do. Instead, the church is the body, and the church is made of individual parts each listening to the voice of the Spirit of Christ, who is the head. He shared this as an example of what is contrary to how Jesus lived in dependence on His Father.
John 5:19-20
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.
So Jesus, though being God, did nothing of his own initiative but only did what he saw his father doing. Jesus lived as a man to show you and me how to live under the control of the Holy Spirit, who is alive, living in you, your only hope of glory.
Bob mentioned how religious people, devoid of the Spirit of God, react to truth. From John, one reads how the Pharisees, the religious leaders in Judaism in Jesus day, could not receive truth.
John 5:17-19
17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.
The Jews, even today, quote from Deuteronomy 6:4 without understanding the Trinity or how the Trinity works together. They will not, and many still today, refuse to accept Jesus as God. In the mind of many Jews, how can a man proclaim himself to be God? The Pharisees accused Jesus of the sin of blasphemy for by his words he was making himself equal with God.
Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
John 10:30-36
30 I and the Father are one.”
31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?
Yet, if you were to look at scripture more closely, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, although you may never understand the Trinity fully, you can apprehend the Trinity through revelation to you from God’s word.
John 10:30
I and the Father are one.
Luke 1:35
35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Matthew 3:16-17
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Colossians 1:15-17
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
John 4:24
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
The Holy Spirit is a person, with a mind, a will, and emotions. The Father instructs the Son, the Son listens for the Father’s voice and only does what he sees his Father doing. Jesus Himself is full of the Holy Spirit and listens to the Spirit’s voice. As one comes to understand how the Trinity works together, what applications can be drawn in how God wants to work in you by His Spirit?
Bob shares the function of the Holy Spirit at work in a believer. What do we know from the scriptures concerning what the Holy Spirit does?
John 16:12-15
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
John 14:26
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
The Holy Spirit is our guide and counselor. He will take things and make them known to you. What does a counselor do? He detects errors and helps someone replace error with truth. That is what the Holy Spirit does for a believer; teaching your mind, controlling your emotions, and directing your will to match up with the will of God.
But what do we typically want to do, and is also how sin entered the world? Do we not try to come up with our own ideas of right and wrong. God came to dwell in an earth suit to show us how to live our life on earth in total dependence on God. Why did Jesus heal somebody? Father told him to. Why did Jesus feed the 5000? The Father told him to. Jesus did nothing of his own initiative, modeling how a man was designed to live, totally dependent of the Father through the Holy Spirit. Does God tell us to heal or feed the 5000? No, but he could, not by our power but His. But the point is God directs each person individually in what he wants him to specifically do.
How then can man live without the Spirit of God? He really cannot for he is spiritually dead. A dead man cannot live what he does not have, life. So how then can man be raised from the dead?
John 5:24-26
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
He first must come to understand he is dead. What produces death? Sin. We understand spiritual death through sin. What can be learned from Genesis in the account of Adam and Eve, the first created humans on earth, the only humans that were never born. They never saw death until after God told them the day they eat of the knowledge of good and evil they will die. When they disobeyed God’s instruction, they died spiritually, and eventually physically also. Sin demands a sacrifice. God sacrificed a lamb to clothe the sinfulness of Adam and Eve. But that was only a temporary covering for sin. Jesus became the lamb of God who took away the sins of the world. One cannot separate sacrifice from law.
But in religion, what does man do? Go to confession for sin or quotes 1 John 1:9 to keep short accounts with God and man justifies his sin by saying “well, after all, we all sin”. Until law shows you why you sin, the law has not finished its work. If you steal that is a sin. Sin is what God calls sin. But your sinful actions, such as stealing, shows you evidence of your condition, that you are dead. So you do not come to Christ because you are a sinner, but because you are dead. Why would Jesus emphasize the finer points of the law, that which points to what is inside a man?
Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus wants you to see what is wrong with you, that you are dead and in need of life. Then the message of life in Christ can be presented.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
What is new? The Spirit of God living in you. What is the old man? me without the Spirit of God
This is the message Jesus Christ brought to the world!
John 5:24
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.
Romans 8:1-2
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Romans 7:4
So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.
The source of our spiritual life is Jesus, of whom all authority to judge has been placed. The Father has life in His Son. Authority to judge has been given to the son of man, Jesus Christ. Have you ever tried share about sin and death and the offer of life in Christ Jesus to hear someone say, “What about those who have never heard?” He is really throwing up a smokescreen, a tactic to get the attention off himself and onto someone or something else so as to avoid the reality of his need of life. He can be overcome with the weight of sin and death, which is not a comfortable feeling, an under-statement. He is looking for some excuse to not have to approach God in his sinful state, beginning to see that he is condemned, but not fully understanding the free gift God has to offer in Jesus Christ.
Bob shares this insight. Sinful human beings in a human court are judging other sinful human beings. At times, judgments correctly laid on the guilty but at other times, the innocent are incorrectly judged. But God is a righteous judge. His judgment is absolutely correct. So, all I know is that such decisions of God judging man is in the hands of a holy God, who is perfectly loving and just. Where someone goes is God’s business, and he judges righteously. So I need not worry about such things. Instead of worrying about those who have not heard, what about you who has heard? What I do know, telling you how to be saved, and you will have no excuse, for you have now heard.
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