Selective
hearing is the phenomenon that occurs when we only hear what we want to hear.
It’s a type of mental filtering in which we tune out someone’s opinions or ideas,
when they don’t agree with our view of seeing things. Science
has proven that our brains are able to tune out conversations. Our brains provide
us with the ability to focus on specific conversations, while multiple
conversations compete for our attention. I live next to busy highway with vehicles
equipped with varying decibels rumbling by, some which seem to be coming
right through our bedroom. Generally though, my brain and my hearing have
learned to shut out the traffic noises.
In
this passage we find a classic case of selective hearing by the Jews when it
comes to hearing what Jesus has to
say.
10:22-24 The
Setting - The Feast
of Dedication
From
John 7:2 we know that Jesus came to the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles) which is in October, and now it is
the Feast of Dedication which happens
about two months later – in December, in winter. The Feast of Dedication is not
one of the ancient feasts of the Jewish faith. This feast was started by Judas Maccabaeus a Jewish priest in
commemoration of the cleansing and rededication of the Temple, after it had
been desecrated by Antiochus IV (Epiphanes)
the Seleucid ruler of Syria and
Palestine from 175-164 B.C. Antiochus IV attempted to hellenize the Jews by
force. He killed thousands that resisted him. And then he did something utterly
horrendous. He desecrated the Jerusalem temple by putting a statue of the Greek
god Zeus in it. He sacrificed pigs in
the holy of holies and he forced the Jewish priests to eat the meat. [1]
Judas Maccabaeus the temple worship in 165 B.C. and from this the feast of Dedication (or Hannukah) had its
origin.
Jesus
is walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon[2]. This
was an area in which rabbis would meet and teach their disciples. “The
Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in
suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.’” This is really a strange request since nothing could have been clearer than that, which Jesus had done and said thus far. He had
in fact been exercising the ministry of
the Messiah. No man ever did the things
that Jesus did by way of
supernatural manifestations. No one ever
spoke like Jesus (John 7:46), and so
this question, ‘Are you the Messiah?’,
is in fact not one of clarification, but merely a seeking for more ammunition for accusation against Jesus. These Jews here have already made up their
mind that Jesus is not the Christ – the Messiah, and if He now makes such a
claim, then they will have reason to kill Him. There are none as deaf as those
that will not hear. Selective hearing, hearing what you want to hear is a very scary phenomenon. They have their minds tuned out of Jesus. They
are looking for a warrior personality like Judas Maccabeus, whom they are
remembering now at this feast of Dedication. They want a political Messiah who
will lead them in the overthrow of the oppressive Romans. This blinds them to the fact that God has chosen
a very different way to save
Israel.
John 10:25-26:
The Rebuke
Jesus
knows this and therefore He responds to them very bluntly. “I
told you, (i.e. you heard me) and
you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, bear witness about
me, but you do not believe, because you are not of among my sheep.”
Incidentally,
the whole matter of the lack of hearing is rooted in the prophecy of Isaiah 6:9-10. Jesus told His disciples
in Matthew 13:11-13 concerning these
Jews, “To you it has been given to know
the secrets of the kingdom of heaven,
but to them it has not been given. 12 “For to the one who has, more shall be
given, and he will have abundance; but from the one who has not, even what he
has will be taken away. 13 “This is why I speak to them in parables; because
while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they
understand.”
As
we have been making our way through the Gospel of John we have seen that there
is ample evidence concerning His identity as seen in John 1:1ff. But they refuse
to believe the evidence. And so Jesus
now plainly points out the reason for their unbelief: “… you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.” Their selective hearing is influenced by a
hardened heart.
John 10:27-29: The True Sheep
of Jesus
Who
then are the sheep? What characterises them? Jesus describes the character of
His sheep: “My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal
life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to
snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
Jesus
had described the nature of His sheep earlier in John 10:1-18. Again, He points
out that His sheep hear (not selective hearing- but real hearing) His
voice. And correspondingly He says, “As
shepherd I know them”, and therefore Jesus is saying to these Jews here,
“I don’t recognise YOU as being my
sheep.” Jesus then points out that
His sheep follow Him.
Following is the consequence of listening to
Jesus. I followed Jesus in June1978 when I first heard His voice. But these
Jews at Solomon’s colonnade were neither listening to nor following Jesus. They were not sheep.
Jesus tells us
now in 10:28 that there is a
particular blessing attached to this hearing and following of Christ. The true
sheep of Jesus are given eternal life. All human souls will exist
eternally, but only those that are Jesus’ sheep will spend eternity with Jesus.
Those who reject Him and refuse Him will
spend their eternal days apart from Him,
in the agony of hell [3]. Hell among many other things is truth known too late!
Jesus not only gives eternal life to His sheep, but He
guarantees them eternal security: “No one
can snatch them out of my hand.” That promise is further guaranteed in 10:29, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one
is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. This is double
security. Secure in Jesus and secure in the Father.
In fact it is actual triple
security, because John will tell us later that we are kept by the Spirit (cf. John
14:15-26;16:5-15).[4] If
you are one of Jesus’ sheep, then you are safe in the shepherd’s hands, for the
security of your salvation is bound up in the very character, nature and work
of the Tri-une God Himself. Absolutely nothing, including yourself, can take you out of His
hands once you are there.
In
saying this, Jesus is continuing to declare what He has said over and over again
to these Jews. The work that He is doing is the Father’s work. It is a
declaration of His identity as the Messiah. It is a declaration of His deity.
But since they are not hearing Him, He is now willing to say it very plainly!
John 10:30: The Bold Declaration
“I
and the Father are one”.
This is as plain as you can have it. There is no ambiguity in this statement.
Here we have the nature of the relationship between Jesus the Son, and God the
Father revealed. They are different persons, but of one essence. Jesus is not
the Father, but He has complete equality with the Father, being of the same
substance and essence. Jesus is God. Again , connect this with the
opening verses of John - “ In the
beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).
John 10:31:
Their Response
They
said, “Tell us plainly”, and Jesus
tells them plainly, and now what do they
want to do? They want to stone Him (cf. 8:59)
John 10:32-33:
Jesus’ question and their accusation: Jesus faces them and asks them: “I
have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going
to stone me?”. They respond, “It is not for a good work that we are going
to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself
equal to God.” They had heard Him absolutely right! They had heard a claim
to Deity. But still they regarded
Jesus simply as a man making a blasphemous claim to be God. They had their
minds made up.
John 10:34-38:
Jesus’ next level of defense
“Is it not been written in
your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he
called them gods, to whom the word of God came - and Scripture cannot be broken- do you say of Him, whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world,’ You are
blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?
Jesus
is here quoting from Psalm 82. Here God rebukes those He had placed in
authority in Israel, because they had been unjust in their judgments, and He warns
them that they will face His judgment. In verse
6, in speaking to these judges of Israel, God says, “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High.”
The argument Jesus makes is this. God Himself calls these judges “gods” (Elohim) because they were appointed by God as judges
in Israel’s Theocracy. Jesus then contrasts Himself with them. They had only
received a divine commission to rule according to God’s law. But Jesus did not only receive a divine commission. He
was the divine Commissioner! Jesus is
from God Himself. He is the Word of God in human flesh (John1:14). Jesus is saying that they would not accuse a judge of
Israel for applying Psalm 82:6 to Himself because of the position they held as
God’s representative, so how could they accuse Jesus of blasphemy when He has
an infinitely higher position as the one sanctified and sent by God into the
world? But Jesus does not stop there. He goes back again to the proof of His
claim to be the Son of God in John 10:37-38:
“If
I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe me; but if I do them, though
you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that
the Father is in me, and I in the Father. ”Do you see what Jesus is doing
here ? He is being very, very patient
with these rebels against God.
John 10: 39 - Their Response
Still
they did not hear Him. They sought to arrest (note - not kill!) Him - and again He escaped from
their hands. They couldn’t, for Jesus’ time had not yet come. It would be another four months
before Jesus’ time would come and they would seize Him and bring Him to an
unjust trial where He would once again be accused of blasphemy.
John 10:40-42 - The Response of Others
John
concludes this section by showing that not everyone in Israel was responding to
Jesus in the same way. The religious leaders had rejected Jesus, and so would
the majority of the people. However, God always has a remnant that will follow Him
in faith. That is what we see now in these last verses.
Jesus left Jerusalem to
go to the place where John the Baptist had first been baptizing at Bethany,
about 75 kilometers away. And there, many believed in His Name. Here, unlike the temple there is soil in which faith can grow. This was the place where John’s message was first preached and embraced and respected. John did not draw attention to himself, but to
Jesus (John1:29-34; 3:22-36). No wonder that it was here that faith in Jesus flourished.
Tell
me plainly, is the preaching, the pointing to Christ producing the fruit of
faith and the following of Jesus here among us at Eastside? Does He know you? Let every man, every woman,
every child examine themselves.
[2] John
10:23; Acts 3:11; 5:12), was a colonnade, located on the eastern side of the
Temple's Outer Court (Women's Court) in Jerusalem, named after Solomon, King of
Israel.
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