John 20:21-23

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

John 20;21-23 NIV

εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν· Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν· καθὼς ἀπέσταλκέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ πέμπω ὑμᾶς. καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἐνεφύσησεν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον· ἄν τινων ἀφῆτε τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἀφέωνται αὐτοῖς· ἄν τινων κρατῆτε κεκράτηνται. (John 20:21-23 SBL Greek Testament)

Therefore Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me off, so also I am despatching you.” Having said this, He breathed into them and said, “Receive Holy Spirit. Whoever’s sins you should loose, they (the sins) have been loosed for them; whoever you should master, they have been mastered.”

(John 20:21-23 in a more plausible rendering)

A couple of introductory comments, and then the main point.

Why does Jesus speak peace to them “again”? He has just shown them His hands and His (pierced) ribs; the disciples are filled with joy to see Him, but Jesus clearly sees the need to calm them before imparting what He has for them. I have been asking myself why, earlier in the chapter, Peter and John saw an empty tomb, but Mary sees and hears angels – and Jesus Himself. I suspect the answer is this – Peter and John (we assume it is John) are trying to work out what had happened, and the writer says “for until then they had not understood (known) the scripture that it was necessary for Him to rise from the dead.” In other words, they are grappling with a huge tectonic shift in their thinking, which may be why they didn’t see anyone. Mary on the other hand is just weeping (and try seeing straight when your eyes are swollen with tears); she just wants to know where the body is and no big thoughts blind her to what is actually there – two figures in white in the tomb who ask her why she is crying; and another behind her who asks the same question. And all it takes for her to see clearly is Jesus speaking her name. Likewise the disciples now, shut away in their room: they are understandably excited to see Him, but Jesus needs them focussed in order to receive what He gives and what He tells.

Which suggests that what follows might be important. (As an aside, it also suggests to me that hearing and fully receiving what Jesus has to say to me is always going to be way more important than me working it all out.)

Secondly, a question. Jesus uses two different verbs for sending – ἀποστέλλω and πέμπω; is this significant? As the Father ἀποστέλλωed me, so I πέμπω you (as it were). We would be more comfortable if Jesus had used ἀποστέλλω for both, not only because of the symmetry but because of the obvious connection with their being apostles (someone who has been ἀποστέλλωed). Which of course might let us ordinary, non-apostlic, folks off the hook (which I don’t believe for a moment, of course: what Jesus says is for all those who follow Him and receive His Spirit). Maybe there is no significance in the choice of words – they do overlap significantly in their usage. The nearest might be that ἀποστέλλω is more like “sent off” or “sent away”, whereas πέμπω is just sent; Jesus was sent away from Heaven to earth, we are sent out into what is already our world.

Thirdly, that wonderful word ἐνεφύσησεν. “Breathed upon” seems fairly unlikely; this is a word for blowing into a flute or blowing in to inflate a bladder or other skin bag. If so it would appear that Jesus didn’t just stand in the middle of the room and go “whoooofff” (try it; it is hard to do without seeming rather odd). Rather He must have done something like the Maori hongi – come close to each one and shared His breath with them. And of course Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον is untranslatable in English – it is at both and the same time, all permutations of “receive Holy Spirit” and “lay hold of sacred breath”.

So then what? The loosing and retaining of sins? That is how everyone from Jerome onwards seems to have read verse 23, in particular the last phrase: “if you retain the sins of any they are retained.” One of the reasons – the other reasons constitute so many cans of worms we would bring the internet to its knees trying to mention them all – one of the reasons everyone has translated it this way is that they have taken the last two phrases as a balanced pair. The last phrase lacks most of the features of the previous phrase, but they supply those missing parts to make it “if you loose the sins of anyone…/if you retain the sins of anyone”. The first problem with this is that in the Greek text, there are three phrases, separated by the Greek equivalent of a semi-colon (a period above the line, so: “·”). The first is “receive Holy Spirit”. The second is “should you of anyone their sins loose or remove, they are removed from them.” The third phrase is admittedly a puzzler, but the commonly accepted reading seems to me the most vanishingly implausible option, for many reasons, including everything else Jesus ever said; but the obvious one would be that Jesus had at His disposal other words which would have made His meaning plain if this was actually His intention – for example δέω, I bind.

Let’s look at those last two phrases in parallel:

ἄν τινων ἀφῆτε τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἀφέωνται αὐτοῖς·

ἄν τινων κρατῆτε κεκράτηνται.

If we decide that the last phrase should be read as including the missing parts from the former phrase, it would then read

ἄν τινων κρατῆτε τὰς ἁμαρτίας κεκράτηνται αὐτοῖς.

That still wouldn’t be “whosoever’s sins you retain, they are retained.” It would be one of the following:

Whomsoever’s sins you conquer, they are conquered by, for or to them.

Whomsoever’s sins you repair, they are repaired by, for or to them.

Whomsoever’s sins you prevail over, they are prevailed over by, for or to them.

I hope you see my point.

And in fact, “the sins” and “by, for or to them” are omitted from the Greek, so I am not sure we should be reading them at all.

What does that leave us with? κρατέω is the verb “I am strong or powerful” – hence conquer, master, prevail over, and so on. We are looking for a meaning which allows us to use it with the genitive, τινων, and a number of such meanings exist. That is why I used “whoever you should master, they have been mastered” in the opening translation of the passage above. Achieving mastery over others doesn’t fit very comfortably over other things Jesus said about lording it over one another; but of course, while forgiveness in the previous phrase refers to people, this last phrase may reference powers and principalities – in which case conquer / have been conquered would fit very well.

My personal favourite (and it is no more than that, but to me it does fit with the words of Jesus elsewhere, and the notion that we are sent just as He was) is this:

“And of whomsoever you lay hold, they have been firmly grasped.”

Which sounds a lot like John 10:28-29 – “all whom the Father has given me… no one can snatch them out of my hand…(because) no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.”

So to summarise, somewhat freely but for sense:

Therefore Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you. Just as the Father sent me off, so also I am despatching you in My service.” Having said this, Jesus breathed into each of the disciples and said to them, “receive Holy Spirit; whoever’s sins you release, they have been set free; whoever you lay hold of, We’ve got them.”

John 16:33 and John 19:30

Last few weeks I have had several passages I wanted to write on, but haven’t managed to get a space in which to write. In the meantime I have been reading on and have nearly reached the end of John 19. But here is an interesting question which ties some threads from John 16-19 together: at what point did Jesus have victory over the world and its ruler?

I suspect most of us would say (and I would have said), “on the Cross”; or possibly “when He rose again.” But that doesn’t seem to be His own view. Look at John 16:33 first:

ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν ἵνα ἐν ἐμοὶ εἰρήνην ἔχητε· ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ θλῖψιν ἔχετε, ἀλλὰ θαρσεῖτε, ἐγὼ νενίκηκα τὸν κόσμον.

These things I have spoken to you in order that in me you may have peace; in this world you have pressure, but take heart: I have conquered (or vanquished, or routed) the world. (John 19:33, my rendering)

A couple of notes: θλῖψιν is a specific word meaning pressure, not trouble. Pressure only becomes trouble when you don’t know how to handle it; and I do mean that in all seriousness (that is why we don’t just need to know stuff, but rather how to walk it out). And νενίκηκα is the perfect of the verb meaning I conquer/ vanquish / prevail / win, so it really does mean I have already conquered. And the point is, this is before Jesus is arrested, tried and crucified.

Of course, if you don’t believe Jesus means what He says, that is a different problem; but as far as I can see, Jesus was saying He had already won and had already conquered the world and, therefore, its ruler. I see no way you can turn this into a future projection, ie “take heart because after I have died on the cross, I will have conquered the world.”

So Jesus went to the cross, knowing He had already won. And as it happens, that is how we are meant to face challenges and pressure: knowing that we too have already won.

But what is the cross for, then?

Well the answer is exactly what He tells us. The last word Jesus spoke before He died, according to John 19:30, is Τετέλεσται. And with apologies to the NIV, about the one thing it doesn’t mean is “it is finished”. Likewise τέλος is not “the end” in the sense that we mean a movie or a play is finished; but rather that an intended goal is consummated or accomplished. Hence teleological, which references the belief that events are guided towards an intended end.

So for Τετέλεσται “It is accomplished” is possible, and some other translations favour this; but I think it is even more specific than that. Τετέλεσται means “It is legally executed“; or if you prefer, “it is done”, in the sense that the legal agreement, or piece of legislation, or will or covenant or whatever, is fully enacted and is now and henceforth the legal basis upon which those within its scope are to operate.

So, based on His own testimony, Jesus faced the cross knowing He had already won; but His death was necessary in order to give legality on earth to His Father’s plan and intention. And if we have paid attention to anything we read in the Gospels, we should know what that is: “it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom“.

And that is why Paul is able to say that “if the rulers of this age had understand the plan of God, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8). They were already beaten, but now they allowed – insisted upon – an action which meant God’s plan for men and women to inherit, enter into, and enjoy the Kingdom, would be given full legal effect in the earth realm.

Whoops.

John 15:1-7

John 15 has always been a favourite chapter for me; apart from anything else, I memorised most of it in French while staying in Provence, among the vineyards of the Vaucluse – a long, long time ago. But there are some things worth noting…

Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή, καὶ ὁ πατήρ μου ὁ γεωργός ἐστιν· πᾶν κλῆμα ἐν ἐμοὶ μὴ φέρον καρπὸν αἴρει αὐτό, καὶ πᾶν τὸ καρπὸν φέρον καθαίρει αὐτὸ ἵνα καρπὸν πλείονα φέρῃ. ἤδη ὑμεῖς καθαροί ἐστε διὰ τὸν λόγον ὃν λελάληκα ὑμῖν· μείνατε ἐν ἐμοί, κἀγὼ ἐν ὑμῖν. καθὼς τὸ κλῆμα οὐ δύναται καρπὸν φέρειν ἀφ’ ἑαυτοῦ ἐὰν μὴ μένῃ ἐν τῇ ἀμπέλῳ, οὕτως οὐδὲ ὑμεῖς ἐὰν μὴ ἐν ἐμοὶ μένητε. ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ἄμπελος, ὑμεῖς τὰ κλήματα. ὁ μένων ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ οὗτος φέρει καρπὸν πολύν, ὅτι χωρὶς ἐμοῦ οὐ δύνασθε ποιεῖν οὐδέν. ἐὰν μή τις μένῃ ἐν ἐμοί, ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα καὶ ἐξηράνθη, καὶ συνάγουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ εἰς τὸ πῦρ βάλλουσιν καὶ καίεται. ἐὰν μείνητε ἐν ἐμοὶ καὶ τὰ ῥήματά μου ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ, ὃ ἐὰν θέλητε αἰτήσασθε καὶ γενήσεται ὑμῖν· (John 15:1-7, SBL Greek NT)

At the risk of being pedantic, the world is full of vines, so Jesus does definitely say “I am the true grapevine”, and not any other kind of vine. Secondly, He says His Father is the man who works the soil (ὁ γεωργός, which is often taken as ploughman, but not in the context of a vineyard). Gardener is a bit inexact.

It gets better; τὰ κλήματα are the twigs, not the branches (which would be κλάδοι). Every κλῆμα (twig) in me which doesn’t bear fruit, He (the γεωργός) takes, and every one that does bear fruit, He tidies up, so it will bear more fruit. Yes, you can say καθαίρει is “prunes”, but then you won’t get the sense of the little joke in v.3. Literally καθαίρει is cleanse or clear, with the focus more on “what is taken away” than on “how clean you are”. You can καθαίρει a space or a room. So pruning is clearing away the bits you don’t want to leave. When, in verse 3, we meet the cognate word καθαροί, we shouldn’t be reading “cleansed”, at least in its theological sense. (Really? The disciples are cleansed by His word, while the rest of us require His shed blood on the cross?) Nor is “pruned” really either appropriate of people, nor is it a meaning specifically associated with the adjective καθαροί, although “free of weeds” is! It is more like “you have already been tidied up (or sorted out) by the word I have spoken to you” – with the, as yet unspoken, implication, “so you are good to go, ready to bear fruit”.

Here are a couple of more “weighty” issues, both of which should be blindingly obvious, but which somehow, don’t seem to be.

First off, in the second part of v.4 we find: “Just as the twig is not able to bear fruit from itself unless it remains in the grapevine, likewise neither can you unless you remain in me.”

I fear many of us would totally agree with the words I have in bold there – “we can bear no fruit of ourselves” – and yet completely miss the whole point, which is “unless you remain in me”. In other words, we should not be saying, “we can’t do anything of value, which is why we are waiting for God to do something;” on the contrary, we should be saying “because we remain in Jesus, we absolutely can bear fruit from ourselves”, which is what Jesus says here.

He then repeats Himself, in case we missed the point.

ὁ μένων ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν αὐτῷ οὗτος φέρει καρπὸν πολύν, ὅτι χωρὶς ἐμοῦ οὐ δύνασθε ποιεῖν οὐδέν.

“The one remaining in me, and I in him, this one bears much fruit, because without me, you are not able to do anything.”

The converse of His statement is “with me, you can do anything.” Which should be obvious, but it is not what I hear believers saying.

The second matter is related, but goes a step further.

ἐὰν μείνητε ἐν ἐμοὶ καὶ τὰ ῥήματά μου ἐν ὑμῖν μείνῃ, ὃ ἐὰν θέλητε αἰτήσασθε καὶ γενήσεται ὑμῖν·

“If you should remain in me, and my words (the things I have spoken) should remain in you, ask (and “ask” is a command!) whatever you are willing (to ask), and by you, it shall be done.”

That verse is huge however you look at it. And please note, γενήσεται is middle voice, not passive, hence my rendering above; it isn’t just “it will be done for you, so watch your mailbox and it will turn up”.

But my big question is actually this:

“Whose words?”

Yes, yes, the whole of scripture is God’s word. But Jesus says here “the things I have spoken”. Worth asking yourself if the words of Jesus are your constant study and meditation; He implies they might be quite important.

Especially if you want to move past simply “waiting for Godot…” and instead, lay hold of that Kingdom which it is “the Father’s good pleasure to give you…”

John 14:29-31

This short passage highlights a principle that Jesus observed all of the time and which we would do well to imitate; namely, that you share information on a need-to-know basis, and that your enemy needs to know nothing.

I will confess that when I first heard this principle taught, I thought it was well “over the top” and completely ridiculous – until I started to observe how many deals (for example) that I told others were happening, then proceeded to fall through; the ones I kept to myself, actually happened. And once you see it, you recognise that it was the constant practice of Jesus.. Paul refers to it when he says “None of the rulers of this age understood it [i.e. God’s plan], for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Exactly; because then, where would we have been?

Let’s look at this short passage in John:

καὶ νῦν εἴρηκα ὑμῖν πρὶν γενέσθαι, ἵνα ὅταν γένηται πιστεύσητε. οὐκέτι πολλὰ λαλήσω μεθ’ ὑμῶν, ἔρχεται γὰρ ὁ τοῦ κόσμου ἄρχων· καὶ ἐν ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἔχει οὐδέν, ἀλλ’ ἵνα γνῷ ὁ κόσμος ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν πατέρα, καὶ καθὼς ἐνετείλατο μοι ὁ πατὴρ οὕτως ποιῶ. Ἐγείρεσθε, ἄγωμεν ἐντεῦθεν. (John 14:29-31, SBL Greek Testament)

Literal-as-comfortable rendering goes like this:

“And now I have said [this] to you before it happens, in order that when it happens you will trust. I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world comes; and he understands nothing in me, but [this is happening] in order that the world may know that I love the Father and just as the Father has authorised me to act, that’s what I do. Get up, let’s go from here.” (John 14:29-31, my rendering)

So a few notes: first, most translations have something like “so when it happens you may believe.” This comes back to two points, one about translation, the other about context. πιστεύω (as in πιστεύσητε) is fundamentally “I trust, put my faith in, or rely upon a person, thing or statement”. When we render this as “believe”, we are in danger of jumping over a whole process and simply portraying “the Christian believer”, filled with faith and the Holy Spirit.

I don’t think Jesus can be saying this; and if He was, then He must have been disappointed. Not one of the disciples saw Him die on the cross and then leapt up and down saying, “Yes, now I believe! Hallelujah!” (This is the contextual part). Surely He was saying, “there is some unimaginable stuff coming down the line towards us, but I am telling you as much as I can now, so that – since I told you it was coming – you will keep trusting me, even though every logical faculty will be telling you it is all over.” And that happened; I see no evidence that any of the disciples got angry because they felt Jesus had been lying to them and had betrayed them – which would have been a perfectly reasonable response to what happened, otherwise. They still trusted Him, even when they thought He was gone for good.

Second, Jesus has explained as much as He can, but now He will say little more to them. Why? Because the ruler of the world is coming, who understands nothing in Jesus, and Jesus intends to keep it that way. So He won’t be talking in any more detail about what is going to happen.

Most translations have something like the NIV’s “he has no hold over me”, and it could be that (more properly “he has nothing in Me”). But the use of the verb ἔχω in its sense of “understand” is much overlooked in our NT translations (in my opinion). The original meaning of ἔχω is “check”, as in stop something in its tracks by grabbing it, from which “have”, “hold” and “understand” all derive. We have a couple of similar idioms in modern English – grasp (with the hand or with the mind); and get (get the cup, do you get it?). And as I suggested above, this then makes sense of why Jesus will no longer speak much with the disciples; Satan is coming and Jesus wishes to maintain his ongoing lack of comprehension about what is going on.

So let me ask you, as I have had to ask myself too often in the process of learning not to be a blabber mouth: why do we feel we need to tell everyone we meet what we are planning to do?

Insecurity. We don’t really know if we have got it right, but we are hoping someone (everyone) is going to say, “wow! that’s really amazing”. We will then feel better (momentarily); until the next person comes past and we try again to bolster our self-confidence.

Would you be surprised if I said this was not an issue for Jesus, and in the Kingdom, it shouldn’t be for us either. Jesus, having referenced the ruler of the world, says this is happening so that the world (currently ruled by Satan) will know a) that He loves the Father; and b) that exactly as the Father has authorised Him to act, just exactly that is what He does.

Assuming you are married, hear what God is saying by His Spirit, be in full agreement with your spouse, and that is as far as it needs to go, until God tells you otherwise (and even then, pay close attention to what He says: “tell Fred and Mary” means just that – not your or their ten best friends as well). Keep your powder dry, and your enemy ignorant. If you are single, ask God to show you who you have in your life, who should know and be in agreement with you – your parents, a couple who mentor you, or someone else. Love the Father, and whatever He has authorised you to enact, you do it. Just like He said.

And stop worrying about whether everyone else you meet will approve your plans: if Jesus had done that, none of us would be here.

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (NIV)

As it stands in most of the English translations, this three-verse pericope could be summarised as follows: neither calling on the name of the Lord, nor performing great miracles and other supernatural acts is any guarantee of being accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven, but only doing the will of the Father.

This doesn’t seem at face value to be unreasonable; but it is an unreliable reading of the text; one which rather misses the point Jesus is making. 

The core wrong assumption, which skews our reading of this passage, is the idea that the Kingdom is a matter of “qualifying to be admitted”. What Jesus is actually saying is the opposite: that nothing else will avail you if you fail to take up the free invitation to come into the Kingdom.

I am sure that will seem an absurdly discordant thought to many, but that illustrates our problem. We think we know what Jesus should be saying, so we often miss what He is actually saying. Let’s look at a more literal rendering of the passage, with the Greek first.

Οὐ πᾶς ὁ λέγων μοι· Κύριε κύριε εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν, ἀλλ’ ὁ ποιῶν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρός μου τοῦ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. 

πολλοὶ ἐροῦσίν μοι ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ· Κύριε κύριε, οὐ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι ἐπροφητεύσαμεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δαιμόνια ἐξεβάλομεν, καὶ τῷ σῷ ὀνόματι δυνάμεις πολλὰς ἐποιήσαμεν; 

καὶ τότε ὁμολογήσω αὐτοῖς ὅτι Οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς· ἀποχωρεῖτε ἀπ’ ἐμοῦ οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι τὴν ἀνομίαν.

Matthew 7:21-23, SBL Greek

“Not all of those saying [literally ‘the one saying’] to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter for themselves [εἰσελεύσεται is middle voice, not active or passive] into the Kingdom of the Heavens, just the one bringing forth the pleasure of my Father in the Heavens.”

“Many will say to me in that the Day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many [manifestations of divine] power?”

“And then I will agree with them, that ‘I never knew you. [You] Depart [or withdraw defeated, retire] from me, the workers of lawless conduct [or lawlessness, i.e. the opposite of  δικαιοσύνη, righteousness]’”

Matthew 7:21-23, my literal rendering

I will give you a smoother rendering at the end of this chapter, but for now let’s look at the key elements in this passage.

The killer blow in this scenario, which Jesus is painting for His listeners is the phrase, 

ὁμολογήσω αὐτοῖς

“I will agree with them”. This is a terrifying statement, and it is no wonder that at the end of Matthew 7 we hear that the crowd were out of their minds with fear at His teaching (ἐξεπλήσσοντο οἱ ὄχλοι ἐπὶ τῇ διδαχῇ αὐτοῦ). This is a moment any sentient being wants to avoid: explaining to Jesus all the things we have done in His name and hearing Him say in reply, “You are quite right: I never knew you.”

In case the point is eluding you, put yourself in the scenario. You run to Jesus, saying “Lord! So much we have done together and walked out together, and now I finally see you face to face! This is the best!” And He replies, “You bet! We have so much to talk about! Go on in, they are expecting you. I just need to deal with these folks. They have been doing all kinds of random stuff, and claiming they did it for me…”

Now do you see? Who do you want to be? The well-known and loved son or daughter of the house, or person trying to establish the right of entry based on their CV (or maybe their LinkedIn profile)?

What about this question: confronted by a stranger who has led an exemplary life and can prove it, on the one hand; and your own child who has made endless mistakes, on the other; who do you let into your house?  I am pretty sure it is your child.

Please note, I am not unaware that some parents have very difficult relationships with their children; I am simply restating what Jesus says, that it is about whether you belong in the household or not. Are you known?

Will the child of the household have done amazing things (prophesying, miracles, sending demons on their way)? Of course! How could they not have, when they have been walking with Jesus. But what would a parent think if their child stood outside the front door crying out, “can I come into your house? I cleaned my room and I did my homework…” Your child barges straight in, saying “I’m home!”

Panning back in this passage in Matthew, we also need to recognise that Jesus is not (despite numerous commentators to the contrary) the bringer of a new and better set of instructions (i.e. better than the Mosaic Law). His instructions to his Disciples are to equip them to operate in the Kingdom. So just doing stuff which appears to comply with those instructions, but failing to be in the Kingdom, is to miss the whole point, and to miss the boat as well.

“Not all of those saying to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will take themselves into the Kingdom of the Heavens, just the one who has nailed what pleases my Father in the Heavens.”

“Many will say to me in that the Day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many miracles?”

“And then I will agree with them:

 ‘I never knew you! 

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”

John 14:1

One of my favourite phrases in the Gospels: Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία·

The third person imperative is shrinkingly rare in English (Wilfred E. Major and Michael Laughy’s excellent Ancient Greek for Everyone suggests “someone help him!” and “nobody move!” as examples) and is more usually rendered with “Let”, as in “Let not your hearts be troubled”. The problem with “let” is that it softens the force of the imperative. So what about,

“Your heart is not to be churned up!”

The rest of the verse can be read as 2nd person present indicative active or as 2nd person imperatives – or even a mix. But something like “You trust yourselves to God; so trust yourselves to me, also.” (Rendered for sense rather than word for word exactitude)

But that’s not the most telling thing about the passage (and yes, I love the next bit about the Father’s house being full of apartments, just as much as you do; but that isn’t it). It is the verse before “Your heart is not to be churned up” that gives us context.

If you are saying, but it is verse 1! then please remember, chapter breaks (and verses, themselves) are later additions. Jesus never said, “Okay – take this down: ‘ Verse one…'”

So what does the previous verse say?

Jesus is replying to Peter and says, “You will lay down your (singular, meaning Peter) life for me? I tell you the truth, the cock won’t crow until you will have disowned me three times. Your (plural, addressing all the disciples) heart is not to be churned up; you trust into God, and you must trust into me.”

Now what Jesus says to Peter is even more devastating than it appears at first glance. Remember that Jesus has just told the disciples, “one of you is going to betray Me.” They don’t know who He means (even though Judas has already been identified by Jesus), and now He tells Peter that before cockcrow he will have disowned Jesus three times. Peter must have been thinking, “No! I’m the one who is going to betray Him? No! No! Why? How… …but He knows everything…”

So here is the full force of Jesus’ words. Right at the point where Peter’s whole world is threatening to fall apart (and of course, things only get worse, before they get better); right there and then, Jesus commands Peter and the other ten (since Judas has already left) Your hearts are NOT to be troubled! You trust yourself to God, and you are going to trust me, too.

If you have ever doubted the power of Jesus’ grasp, such that He can say “and no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28), then hear Him now. How tough is the situation you are facing? Very tough? Worse than the one Peter faced?

Well I hope not, but even then, Jesus is still able to command you: “You are not going to be troubled, shaken or stirred, let alone churned up inside by this: I’ve got you.

John 12:25

If you have read the previous post on John 12:24, especially if you did so with your Bible open, there is just the faintest chance that you have been shouting “hey! you! What about the next verse?” Because here is how it reads in the NIV:

Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

And actually, it is a lot stronger than the NIV suggests: it isn’t “will lose it”, but rather “DESTROY IT, UTTERLY”.

So shouldn’t we conclude that Jesus is in fact setting the bar at the level of “be ready to die, because that is what you are called to…”?

Let’s dig a little deeper though. Here is the sentence in Greek:

ὁ φιλῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπολλύει αὐτήν, καὶ ὁ μισῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον φυλάξει αὐτήν.

The word which the NIV translates as “life”, ψυχὴν, does indeed mean life… except that what I just said is highly misleading. Words in one language don’t mean anything in another language. Plenty of times there is enough obvious equivalence in what two words in different languages reference, for us to get away with saying “x means y”. Just be careful not to say that in front of a philologist or semiotician.

But ψυχή is one of the many exceptions. We really don’t have a single word in English that encompasses what ψυχή means. Depending on context, you might see it translated as “soul” or “life” or “self” or “mind” or “departed spirit” (i.e. ghost) or “personality” or “emotional self” – and it is actually sitting in the midst of those disparate concepts but without a single English equivalent.

And as we can see also in this verse, Jesus does know the word that just “means” life, as in “the state of being a living being”, because He says εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον -” to (or for) life eternal”. So why doesn’t He use ζωή throughout, if He means to say “the one who loves his life…”?

There is a big clue at the start of verse 27: Νῦν ἡ ψυχή μου τετάρακται – “now my ψυχή (same word) has been churned up.” Are we going to read that as “Now my life has been churned up”?

I doubt it. “Soul” might be the easy way out, except I think it is a cop out – I am not convinced most of us understand “soul” in the way the ancients used it, we just think we sound more spiritual if we refer to it from time to time. “Self”- the bit of me that is really me – is usually the best compromise for ψυχή, and it works here… and in verse 25.

So in verse 27 you might drop the word and keep the meaning by saying simply “Now I am churned up inside”.

In verse 25 you would probably say this:

The one loving his “self” (or possibly “self identity”) will destroy it; and the one hating his “self” in this world, will guard it to eternal life

(v 25, my rendering)

What is this saying? Very much as we read John 12:24, I think: if you put all your energy into maintaining yourself, your opinions, your ways of doing things, because you have allowed your sense of self to become paramount and untouchable, you (YOU) will end up destroying your “self”; there won’t be a “you” left to talk about. But if you hate (which in the Greek has some flavour of refusing to countenance something) your “self”, you will actually end up guarding “you” so that there is a “you” left to engage with eternal life.

And that to me sounds exactly like “unless a seed falling into the ground should die, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” If you are a seed, preserving your identity means you will rot and end up with no existence; only the seed who “dies” actually has a life!

John 12:24

ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἐὰν μὴ ὁ κόκκος τοῦ σίτου πεσὼν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἀποθάνῃ, αὐτὸς μόνος μένει· ἐὰν δὲ ἀποθάνῃ, πολὺν καρπὸν φέρει.

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (NIV)

This is another of those simple but always-mistranslated verses (as I shall explain); but there is more to see here than just that.

Starting with the mistranslation, this verse does not say “unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies…”.

Instead it says “unless the grain of wheat, falling to the ground, should die…”

What is the difference? In the NIV and most English versions I have looked at, the implied “choice” is between “fall to the ground and die” and “don’t fall to the ground and die”. So if the seed chooses “not”, where is it? Stuck on the plant, up in the air and away from the soil.

The Greek is clear, however: Jesus is talking about the seed which is already falling to, or into, the ground. The choice is “die” versus “don’t die”. And as Jesus says, if it chooses “don’t die” then it remains alone – not on the plant but in the ground.

If you are tempted to say, “so what?” then you may be missing the force of what Jesus is saying. He is speaking of Himself in the first instance, of course – but also of us. He has come on assignment to the place God sent Him. If He chooses now not to embrace what His assignment demands, then He will just remain; and remain alone, despite all the people who surround Him. If He dies He will bear much fruit; He will reproduce and there will be many more men and women living up to the same life that Jesus modelled and which God intended to be “normal” for humankind.

The same applies to us: how many of us reach the place God has sent us, for a purpose; and then refuse to allow anything to change in us? We refuse to allow what would actually turn us from a dry seed to a fruitful plant.

On this occasion, I honestly can’t tell whether this is misdirection for effect (a strategy you can see over and over again in the words of Jesus, preventing the enemy – and those around Him – from catching what is going on); or simply the effect that the word “death” has on us, as people.

Because that is what we focus on: the dying. And so we have sermons on dying to self, dying to ambition, dying in accidents or through illness (because God intends to work out His purpose through us by removing us completely?) and who knows what else.

Now yes, I am aware of how the story continues: Jesus dies, for real, on the cross. But I think He is challenging our understanding of death here. (This is the potential “misdirection for effect” piece.)

Does a seed actually die – in our human sense of “game over, gone and never returning” – in order to germinate? We now know that dormant seeds are actually alive, a life which is measurable because they are respiring (taking in oxygen, emitting CO²) – very, very slowly. So what happens when they germinate? The embryo that the seed has been keeping alive through that slow respiration now comes fully alive, pushes out a radical and either pushes or pulls its way to the surface. What was an apparently static seed is now a fast-moving plant.

So does the seed die? Well yes, the hard coat of the seed splits and is lost, and the food store is consumed in powering the new plant until it can commence photosynthesis, so if you go looking for the seed as it was, you can only find bits of its remains.

But you don’t need to know 21st century biology to find nothing to mourn in the death of a seed. Do you think farmers followed the sower across their fields, weeping for the loss of their precious seed? “O my lost seeds, how I miss you; if only I had held onto you”?

Are you crazy? The farmer already sees a mighty harvest in his head, he isn’t mourning, he is celebrating (on the inside; yes, yes, I know farmers) – even before the first green shoots appear.

“Death” in a seed is actually about all the constraints coming off. Instead of shallow little breaths on a cycle of months, the former seed is now snorting in air and powering its way up towards the Sun, photosynthesis and fruitfulness.

So how did Jesus see His approaching death? Extremely seriously. “Father, if it is possible for this cup to pass me by…”

But if Jesus, before His death, walked on water and healed the sick; Jesus after His death walks through walls and locked doors and receives all authority in Heaven and upon the Earth (and in the full sense of ἐξουσία, that includes all resource as well). Just think what He was already able to do with the measure of authority He had before He died; and you will realise this was a very, very bad day at the office for the ruler of this world. (ὁ τοῦ κόσμου ἄρχων, which is how Jesus refers to Satan several times in John’s Gospel)

Jesus died, once for all. And – to state the obvious – our authority in the earth ends when we die. So when we suffer physical death, that brings our part of the assignment to an end. But in life, as those who come to Jesus, to share in His death and in His resurrection life, and hear Him say “Go!…”, we are like seeds being carried into the ground, where God intends that we should be fruitful.

But: if we insist on maintaining our familiar selves, and refuse to embrace the change that becoming a fruitful plant demands, then we will remain alone. And eventually rot. It is God’s intention that the constraining protection of the seed be removed, so that we can be let loose and become who we really are.

Yes, that is a kind of dying; but who wouldn’t want that?

John 10:27

τὰ πρόβατα τὰ ἐμὰ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούουσιν, κἀγὼ γινώσκω αὐτά, καὶ ἀκολουθοῦσίν μοι

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

I am sure you recognised the passage from the title of this post. John 10:27 sums up a great deal of what Jesus has said in his dialogue with the Jews (meaning here the Pharisees) in the first part of chapter 10, where He identifies Himself as the Good Shepherd who sets down His life for, or even over (as a covering against the wolf), the sheep.

There is a recurrent theme in the first part of John 10 – His sheep hear and listen to Him, they won’t listen to a stranger, He knows them, they know Him, and He leads them out, and they follow.

He even goes on to reveal that He has other sheep, not from this courtyard (αὐλή is a courtyard before a house, whether that is a general purpose courtyard or a cattle yard surrounded by walls and farm buildings; and this matters because the temple had multiple courtyards also – for priests and Levites, Jewish men, Jewish women and children; and even (previously clogged with traders) a courtyard for Gentiles); and they too will listen to Him and follow Him, so that there will be one Flock, one Shepherd.

Easy then to miss that the first half of John 10 follows on directly from John 9. The NIV recognises this by adding in the word Pharisees in John 10:1 – they are making the point that the conversation is continuous across the (always artificial and not original to the text) chapter division. Jesus is still talking to the Pharisees who said to Him, “What, are we blind too?”

I mention this only because the main subject of John 9 – the man born blind – gives us a perfect example of what Jesus summarises in John 10:27. Starting from John 9:1 we read that:

• Jesus saw the man born blind (he wasn’t brought to Jesus, nor did he call out to him);
• The disciples asked a question which they presumably thought showed theological insight – “whose fault is this, his or his parents?”
• Jesus told them it was neither, it was so the works of God might be seen, and that they all needed to get on with those works while He, the light of the world, was still present;
• He spat on the ground, made mud and put it on the man’s eyes.
• He told him to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash.
• The man went, washed and came home seeing.

To summarise the story so far from the blind man’s point of view: a complete stranger rubs mud in his eyes and tells him to go and wash in a specific Pool. He does so and comes home seeing. At this point he has never seen Jesus; but he heard His voice telling him what to do, and obeyed.

There is a gathering uproar over the fact that the blind man now sees, hingeing on the fact that someone has broken the Sabbath and made mud to rub in the blind man’s eyes. The Pharisees are divided even as they try to nail Jesus for Sabbath mud-making – some at least asked, “how can a sinner do such signs?” They call in the parents of the man to grill them – they are afraid of being put out of the Temple so push everything back on their son. He in turn, having answered respectfully to begin with, becomes pretty sparky when he sees that the Pharisees aren’t actually interested in the facts, leading to “how dare you lecture us!” and his ejection (presumably from the Temple).

Jesus hears that he has been thrown out, so finds him and asks “Do you trust (the primary meaning of πιστεύω) in the Son of Man?”

Stop a moment. This man has received astonishing healing today, but he has had to put up with some serious trials with it. Someone, uninvited, rubs mud in his eyes, he gets dragged before the religious leaders of his nation, and ends up being exceedingly rude to them (I am not saying they didn’t deserve it), and thrown out on his ear; so it would have been entirely reasonable if he had said to Jesus, “Enough of the stupid questions, already!”

So why doesn’t he? He doesn’t know Jesus by sight (a faculty he only received for the first time after he left Jesus earlier). Did he literally recognise Jesus’ voice from one sentence spoken earlier? Quite possible. But even when he had never heard that voice before, he obeyed it. So now, instead of a snappy answer, he says “and who is He, Lord, in order that I might trust in Him?” Jesus replies, “You have seen Him; the one speaking with you, that’s Him.”

And the man says “Lord, I trust” and worships Him.

Jesus then says, “for a verdict (or decree or resolution) I have come into this world, in order that those not seeing may see, and those who see may become blind” – which leads to the Pharisees’ indignant question, “what, are we blind too?”

And everything Jesus says in the first part of John 10 is in answer to this question: sheep demonstrate their identity by who they are listening to and following; and they are known and know. The man born blind illustrates this perfectly; he hears Jesus and follows what he says and receives healing AND the knowledge of who Jesus is. His increasingly angry theological debate with the leaders gets him, and them, nowhere.

The proof of the sheep is in the listening.

(John 6:44)

We are looking at just one verse from a passage which begins with some of those who have been fed by Jesus in the wilderness asking “when did you get here” (ie to Capernaum); and ends with most of Jesus’ disciples leaving Him, on account of the “harshness” of His teaching about bread.

But verse 44 is pretty safe, surely? If you are as old as me, you sang Suzanne Toolan’s well-loved chorus, “I am the Bread of Life”, with its lines “no one can come to me / unless the Father draws him / And I will raise him up/…/on the last day.” – which is pretty close to the NIV:

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

Now I have always heard that “draws” in a rather soft, winsome sense, much as you or I might invite a stray cat to come and have some milk. “Don’t be afraid, come and drink.”

Which is all very well, except that the word used, ἑλκύσῃ, means (to quote Messrs Liddell, Scott and Jones) “draw, drag, with collat[eral] notion of force or exertion.” If you have been picturing gentle attraction (as I have), then we have it all wrong. This is the word used when a soldier grabs the body of his fallen foe by the ankle and drags him out of the fray so that he can strip him of his armour; it is a word for dragging someone along in chains. The “softest” application I can find is of drawing your cape behind you, or of drawing your sword; and both of those still speak of irresistible force applied. Neither the cape nor the sword has any say in the matter, nor in the speed at which they must move.

So what is going on here? Let us pan back one notch. The Jews speaking with Jesus have just started muttering among themselves, on account of Jesus saying that He is the bread that came down from heaven, when in fact they know who He is – “Jesus son of Joseph, and don’t we know His father and His mother?” (And in passing, this suggests strongly that they are from Nazareth, and that they had followed Him back from the feast in Jerusalem to the wilderness north of Tiberias, where they were fed with 5000 others, and then on to Capernaum; all because they were trying to work out what the heck was going on with someone they knew from childhood.)

And Jesus replies, “Don’t mutter with one another. No one is able to come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me drags him, and I will make him stand in the last day.”

Is it ‘make him stand’ or ‘raise him from the dead’; and what exactly does “ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ” mean – in the last day, in an absolute sense, or “in the most extreme of days” or “in the most difficult day”? All good questions, and worth exploring.

What isn’t debatable, is the demonstrated truth of this whole passage: no one is attracted to truth.

Let me soften the shock. Jesus says it over and over again: “I have told you the truth and you don’t believe me.” But if you read John 6 and find yourself getting uncomfortable about the statements Jesus makes about His flesh and blood being real food and real drink, and how only those who eat His flesh and drink His blood have eternal life, then you are in numerous company. Clearly, most of His disciples were so disturbed as to withdraw; and even Simon Peter never said “no, we’re good; we understand exactly what you are saying, and couldn’t agree more.”

When Jesus asked the Twelve if they didn’t also want to leave Him, Simon just said three things:

1. To whom would we go?
2. You have words of eternal life.
3. We have believed and we know that You are the Holy One of God.

Which sounds a lot like “I may not understand or even like what you have been saying, but I know I haven’t got any other options because I know who You are.”

Or “I am here because the Father dragged me to You; and that much I can understand.”

This latter part of John 6 is Jesus speaking absolute truth; and yet no one is saying “wow, that’s amazing, sign me up.” It seems to me that we can be far too concerned about what sits comfortably with our own opinions, political and social preferences and so forth. But the Kingdom of God is God’s Kingdom; He is the very definition of good and true, and He doesn’t need to consult your opinion or mine to establish how His Kingdom operates. But fortunately – and uncomfortably – for us, He is GOOD!

As I have reflected on this, I can see the truth of Jesus’ statement in John 6:44 in my own life. I did not want to become a believer, that did not fit with my preferences one bit. Once I had been dragged to Jesus, I got pretty excited (an understatement); but before I got there, I found the truth that “no one comes to the Father but by me” hugely distasteful. And in my walk with God since, I now find myself having arrived at a clarity about the Kingdom which I in no way wanted to find; I was very happy with “Oh, God knows what He is doing, He must mean it for the best” and I did not want to engage with the exercise of authority or the imperative to embrace prosperity or any other inconvenient truth. But once again, having arrived here I see that God is good, beyond my wildest understanding.

Jewish men used to cover their heads when they read the beginning of Ezekiel, in order to prevent Ezekiel’s vision of God and the whirling wheels driving them out of their wits. And yet these poor folks had to cope with Jesus, the One who came down from Heaven, telling them literal truth face to face. It was too much for most of them.

We can be attracted to some romantic notion of the Good Teacher, or “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” or Jesus the revolutionary or Jesus the whatever. But you cannot come to Jesus as He really is without the Father dragging you to Him. Truth – the genuine article – is just too confronting for us, and the sooner we can agree that we don’t head in the direction of truth under our own steam, the sooner we can stop leaning on our own understanding.

Or as Isaiah 53 has it:

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

(Isaiah 53:2b, NIV)

If God is dragging you, be sure it is for your good – and for the good of many others.