If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham

 

 They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone.  How can You say, 'You will be made free'?"  Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.  

"I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."  They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father."  Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God.  Abraham did not do this.  You do the deeds of your father."  

 

Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father -- God."  Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.  Why do you not understand My speech?  Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  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."

 

- John 8:33-47 

 

In our recent readings, Jesus is at the Feast of Tabernacles, an autumn festival; it is the final year of His earthly life.  He has been disputing in the temple with the religious leaders, particularly the Pharisees, and in front of the crowds.  We recall that the term "the Jews" is used as a type of political term for the religious leadership, and not for the Jewish people.  Yesterday we read that then Jesus said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin.  Where I go you cannot come."  So the Jews said, "Will He kill Himself, because He says, 'Where I go you cannot come'?"  And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I am from above.  You are of this world; I am not of this world.  Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."  Then they said to Him, "Who are You?"  And Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.  I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him."  They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.  Then Jesus said to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.  And He who sent Me is with Me.  The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."  As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.  Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."   

 

They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone.  How can You say, 'You will be made free'?"  Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."  The religious leaders continue their questions to Jesus after He tells them, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (see yesterday's reading, above).  Again, John's Gospel uses worldly or earthly terms to denote spiritual things, and the resulting confusion asks us to learn to distinguish what Jesus is saying, and especially through an understanding of faith.  My study Bible comments that truth refers both to the virtue of truth, and also to the Person of Christ Himself (see John 14:6).  It adds that to be free refers to freedom from darkness, confusion, and lies, and also the freedom from the bondage of sin and death -- upon which Jesus expands here in today's reading.  Jesus speaks of the faith through grace, and the power of the Spirit to come to help to recollect His word, His teachings, and to follow.  Note that He is also speaking of the sense of adoption through the Son into the life of the Resurrection.  In the letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes, "Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?  Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4). 

 

 "I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."  They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father."  Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God.  Abraham did not do this.  You do the deeds of your father."  My study Bible comments that to be a child of Abraham, it is not enough to be simply related by blood.  On the contrary, Abraham's true children are those who share Abraham's faith virtue (Luke 3:8).   According to St. John Chrysostom, our Lord wanted to detach them from racial pride, and to teach these leaders no longer to place their hope of salvation in being of the race of Abraham's children by nature -- but to come to faith of their own free will.  My study Bible explains that their idea that being a descendant of Abraham was enough for salvation was the very thing that prevented them from coming to Christ.  

Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father -- God."  Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me."  My study Bible notes that proceeded here refers not to the Son coming eternally from the Father, but Christ being sent from the Father to His Incarnation on earth.  Once again, Jesus returns to the essential theme of love for God in the heart, a requirement for recognizing Christ and "hearing" His word.

"You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  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."  Just as being a child of Abraham is based on sharing Abraham's attributes, my study Bible explains, so here Christ is saying that those who convict Him of sin share the same attributes as the devil (and in particular, this is distinguished by a hatred for truth), are rightly called the devil's children.  

If we are to understand Christ clearly, everything begins with a love of God the Father.  As the Son, He is sent by the Father, and in His word, Christ presents His identity and serves His Father with obedience.  He tells the truth about who He is, and His relationship to the Father, and what His mission is.  In this, He is rooted in truth, the truth of His being and identity, His relationship to the Father as the Son, and even in His teaching about what is to come; that is, the Resurrection and the Spirit who will sent to the faithful.  In the stories of the Gospel, we read about all kinds of motivations for Christ's rejection, not least of which is that these leaders seek to protect their places and their authority.  He is not one of them, He is an outsider.  Moreover, He has acted to shake up the ways that things are done in the temple (see this reading).  There is a clear distinction made in John's Gospel between those rulers who want to cast Him out and plot against Him, and others who believe (see, for example, John 12:42).  Moreover, the actions of the leaders do not reflect the choices or decisions of the common people, who are afraid to speak in front of them.  But, more importantly for us, these questions of truth remain.  The questions of a love for God in the heart remain.  However, in today's reading, our focus shifts to the question of the rejection of truth.  What makes people embrace lies?  What ulterior motives can get in the way of a love for God?  It is clear that in the presentation of Christ's words and teachings, we look to the image found in the Old Testament, and also quoted by St. Paul, of God as a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29); therefore the love of God acts as a union with this fire.  In its original context in Deuteronomy, this phrase comes with the teaching against worshiping idols.  In St. Paul's letter to the Hebrews, he writes of the call to the Kingdom.  In both cases, the understanding of God as a consuming fire -- and therefore the love of God in our hearts as union with the same -- speaks of allowing everything else to be cast aside that cannot stand in that fire or would get in the way of this union.  St. Paul writes of Christ, "See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, 'Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.'  Now this, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain" (Hebrews 12:25-27).  St. Paul expands with consistency upon the teaching from Deuteronomy, indicating that, like the "carved image" forbidden ancient Israel, so "things that are made" should not and cannot stand in the way of the consuming fire of God's love and being.  When Christ speaks of the refusal of truth, this is what we should understand -- that nothing will stand in the way of the truth of God.  Not the things we cling to that become our desires on earth, not the false image of ourselves we make in hopes of our own glory in the eyes of others, not the attachments or falsehoods we feed ourselves that stand in the way of who we are in that fire -- that which is eternal and does not burn away, which cannot be shaken.  It is that truth of who we are that meets the truth of Christ there, and the love of God -- and whatever would take us away from that is of the one who hates truth and acts against God.  And so, we come to this same question we are called to ask ourselves every day:  Who are we in Christ?  What is the identity He holds for you, for me, for each of us?  In the Revelation, we're told that the Spirit has a white stone for each who overcomes, with a new name written upon it (Revelation 2:17).  Let us think about the place to which Christ calls us, and what fond desire might stand in the way.  What is being shaken in you?  What might you be asked to cast aside, or which is consumed by that fire, in order to more fully participate in the energies of God and the identity to which you're called?  Power and social acceptance, our image in the eyes of others, forms of "worldly glory," will always be with us, despite a changing scenario and the moving history of life in the world and what it offers and looks like.  He still asks us to remember a love of truth, and to leave aside the stumbling blocks that are put in the way of its embrace in us.  In today's reading, Jesus uses the image of Abraham, a man whose righteousness was credited to faith: "And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).  Abraham, whose love of God is apparent from the stories we know of him, sacrificed so much that he knew in order to follow God, and to receive the promise of God for himself and all those who would follow him, including we who also call ourselves faithful.  This is the power of the love of God in this first ancestor of faith, whom Christ cites as the example for the religious leaders.  For Abraham, the "consuming fire" led him through all things, far away from his home, through the stories we know from the Bible.  But we should also "remember Lot's wife" as Christ has said (Luke 17:32).  This is the story of our faith, and it remains so today.