Amen, Amen, Your Eternal Life Is Certain :: John 8:42-59

Jesus said to them, Amen, Amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will certainly not see death forever (v 51).

How many legs would a dog have if you called his tail a leg? The correct answer: Four. Just because YOU say a tail is a leg that doesn’t make it a leg. Your word is only your word. 

But when the Word of God speaks, it comes to pass. It comes to pass because the Word of God makes it so. When God said, Let there be light, light came to be. When Jesus said to men, women, and children that your sins are forgiven, their sins truly were forgiven. In the same way, when Jesus takes the cup, gives thanks, and gives it to his disciples saying, this is my blood of the new covenant poured out for you for the forgiveness of your sins (Mt 26:28), that is exactly what comes to pass. 

So today when we hear Jesus say, Amen, Amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will certainly not see death forever (v 51) ... guess what? ... You have the Word of God on the matter. Jesus said so, therefore it will be so, and those who have faith know so. Faith clings to the Word of God in Christ. He is in the water with his Word. He is in the bread and wine with his word. Those who do not hear and believe what God says do not know God (v 47) ... That is to say, they do not hear or see the Gospel ... As John writes, Jesus is hidden from them (v 59). 

This begs the question for us ...

HOW HARD IS IT TO BELIEVE THE WORD OF GOD? 

This is our theme. The world wants you to believe something very different about the Word of God. But when the Holy Spirit gives you ears to hear and eyes to see, the Word of God will set you free into eternal life. God’s promises always find their yes in him.

I

The problem is, people look for God in all the wrong places. They look within themselves ... imagining that their feelings and traditions must reflect the truth. They look to public opinion, thinking if others have believed something long enough, it must be good (v 37). And they look to their own works, thinking they can earn an inheritance in heaven (v 41). 

In their search for truth, they then begin forming their own gods, fashioning them with their own opinions ... in their own image ... in an effort to confirm their own word. Before you know it, they start saying things like ... Jesus wasn’t really born of a virgin. And Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead. ... They say, I can live the way I want to live just as long as I am a good person. ... They tell themselves, I can love whoever I want to love ... however I want to love ... whenever I want. My definition of love is all that matters.

I pray you heard the common thread here. The world takes heed only to its Word; they make it up as they go. They eliminate or ignore entire passages from scripture ... especially those that say repent. 

II. 

There are many man-made religions. Most of them revolve around the creation of self, better known as me, myself, and I. When we look to ourselves, we are turning away from God. And that is sin. God says you will have no other gods before him, which means that we should fear, love, and trust in Him above all things ... most notably ... ourselves and our opinions. As Paul tells us in Romans, we are quite prone to exchanging the Word of God for this lie ... we then worship and serve the creature rather than the creator (1:25). 

That’s exactly the problem Jesus is confronting in our Gospel reading from John 8. The Jews were serving themselves. In their petty and shallow insults against Christ, the Jews prove that they thought they knew God ... much like many self-described Christians today. But as John tells us, they weren’t able to hear his Word (v 43). They didn’t understand his Word. While boasting in their so-called knowledge of God’s Word, they demonstrate that they are actually more than eager to call evil good and good evil, even suggesting Jesus is possessed (v 48). That’s what the world does when they bow to transgenderism and abortion, worshiping creatures.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, make no mistake: Jesus is the eternal Son of God ... begotten of his Father before all worlds, God out of God, Light out of Light, very God out of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made. He is the one who sees to it that we have all we need, just like he did for Abraham (Gen 22:14). He is the one who shows us the creator. Christ is the fulfillment of all the promises of God, first given to Adam and Eve in the garden (Gen 3:15), and to Abraham on the mountain of God (Gen 22:14). He makes this clear in no uncertain terms, declaring ... Amen, Amen, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am (vv 54-58). 

The Jews knew exactly what Jesus was saying of himself. They became so infuriated that Jesus called himself God incarnate, they picked up stones to kill him, nevermind what the Word was saying. But they could neither see him nor hear him ... as John wrote ... he was hidden and he left the temple without them even being aware of it (v 59).

III

But you hear and see the truth, don’t you? 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, your Lord Jesus Christ is here in your midst whenever two or three of us are gathered. The Word of God has bound himself to his promise. He comes into our midst to be seen and heard. He comes to provide all he said he would provide ... most notably the only sacrifice that matters. 

For Abraham that was a ram in the thicket on the mountain of God. 

For you and me, it is a Lamb nailed to a cross. 

Our readings today are all a Word of God’s Gospel that presents Christ to us as our Savior. And now ... Amen, Amen, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will certainly not see death forever. This is the Gospel in our reading today. And what a wonderful claim he makes! Although you may experience temporal death before our Lord Jesus Christ returns on the clouds in glory ... you who keep God’s Word ... that is, you who treasure it, holding it fast, watching over it and protecting it, allowing God’s Word to work in your life ... which is what this word keep really means ... then you will repent, every one of you in the name of Jesus. 

In repentance you will mourn your sin and see your need for a savior. You will join our psalmist today, asking the Lord to send out his light and truth ... to lead us back to his holy hill and his dwelling place here in our midst. You will look to the cross and be able to praise our True God and True Man ... our Lord Jesus ... knowing that you will have eternal life in his name.

Your salvation is sure and certain on account of this word. 

IV

Thus Jesus says, Amen, Amen, I say to you, you will then never see death into the ages. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ has come to you for this reason. He has come so that you can hear that the faith he gave you to begin with actually does save you. As the evangelist to the Hebrews proclaimed to us in our epistle reading: For if by means of the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hb 9:13-14). This is the Word at work.

Jesus ... our great high priest ... has done this for you. He was born without sin. He lived life without sin. He then carried your sin to the cross. There, God built his sacrificial altar ... a cross on his holy mountain, the one called Calvary ... and poured out his righteous wrath upon his son, his only son ... the beloved son (Gen 22:12). God saw to it that your sin died with him on the cross. Finally, after his three-day rest in the tomb, Jesus rose into eternal life, giving all who believe in him the same. On account of this, he is the mediator of a new covenant so that, since a death has occurred for redemption of the transgressions of the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the everlasting inheritance (Hb 9:15). 

This is all in fulfillment of his Word. Christ has done for you what you could not do for yourself. What he gained for you on the cross, he gives to us in the words of the Gospel he speaks to us today. 

Through his word he announces the forgiveness of your sins. Hold fast that word. Through the water of baptism, he washes away that sin, making you holy ... making you a temple of the holy spirit. Hold fast to that word. And through his Supper, he leads you to the altar to receive forgiveness he won for you. Let us always hold fast to that word in his Divine Service. 

As we continue to hear him, we learn he is no longer hidden in earthly elements, and we will see him always in our midst delivering life and salvation. To this we can then say, Amen, Amen ... we now have a certainty on top of certainty that will calm our troubled consciences and set us free into the eternal bliss of everlasting life ... in Jesus’ name.