The Paternity Debate
The Paternity Debate
John 8:31-47
Main Idea: The children of God abide in the word of God because the Son of God has set them free.
I. Depart or Abide (8:31-32)
"It is probably significant that Jesus does not say "you will be," but "you are" disciples. He is not laying down a condition of discipleship, but telling them in what discipleship consists. When a man abides in Christ's word, then he is a true disciple."
~ Leon Morris, NICNT Commentary (John)
II. Slave or Free (8:33-36)
"At times a man's slave, worn out by the commands of an unfeeling master, finds rest in flight. Whither can the servant of sin flee? Himself he carries with him wherever he flees. An evil conscience flees not from itself; it has no place to go to; it follows itself. Yea, he cannot withdraw from himself, for the sin he commits is within. He has committed sin to obtain some bodily pleasure. The pleasure passes away; the sin remains. What delighted is gone; the sting has remained behind. Evil bondage!”
~ Augustine, Homilies on the Gospel of John
III. The Lovely Lord (8:29-30
“They voluntarily choose to do His will. "To do" is continuous and points to an attitude. Their difficulty was not primarily intellectual, but spiritual."
~ Leon Morris,“NICNT Commentary (John)”
1 Corinthians 2:11-14: For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
“One’s heart goes out to the children of such fathers, and those of us who are fathers ourselves know that we too are far from perfect. But God the Father is not called Father because he copies earthly fathers. He is not some pumped-up version of your dad. To transfer the failings of earthly fathers to him is, quite simply, a misstep. Instead, things are the other way around: it is that all human fathers are supposed to reflect him — only where some do that well, others do a better job of reflecting the devil.”
~ Michael Reeves, Delighting in the Trinity