5th week in Lent, Tuesday – 23rd March 2021 – John 8,21-30
Differences in Origin and Outlook
Once again Jesus illustrated His perfect knowledge of the future. He has already mentioned about His leaving them (Jn 7,34), but the Jews had misunderstood what He said. Now He tells His critics that He is going away – referring not only to His death and burial, but to His resurrection and ascension and back to heaven. Once again, the people misunderstood His teaching. They thought that He is planning to kill Himself. Suicide was an abhorrent thing to a Jew, for the Jews were taught to honour life. If Jesus committed suicide, then He would go to a place of judgment, and this was the reason why they could not follow Him. Actually, just the opposite was true: it was they who were going to the place of judgment, because of their rejection and unbelief. In fact, what Jesus meant was: He was returning to His Father in heaven, and nobody can go there who has not trusted Him as Saviour. The reason Jesus and the Jewish leaders were going to different destinations was because they had different origins: Jesus came from heaven, but they belonged to the earth. Because they were from beneath, they had no spiritual understanding. They had a very low outlook on things. They could not rise above the literal things of time and sense. In contrast, Jesus was in the world, but He did not belong to the World. Being from above, His thoughts, words and deeds were heavenly. All that they did relished of this world, whereas Jesus’ whole life told that He came from a purer land than this world.
