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THE STONING OF CHRIST
By A.
Prentice
PART THREE
THE STONING BEGINS
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Scripture references are to the King James
(Authorised) Version
Many good works have I shewed you from my Father;
for which of these works do ye stone me?
– John 10: 32 –
Recap: The preceding instalment addressed the one-ness
of the relationship between the Father and Jesus and how this was reflected in
the one-ness of Jesus and His elect Church. In the drama on Solomon's Porch the
Jewish hierarchy attempt to turn the people against Jesus and His disciples.
Jesus warns them off, appealing to the power of God, which is on His side. His
followers, He affirms, are in the protective grasp of the Father's hand and can
never be ʻplucked outʼ. He and the Father are united as one in purpose and
mission and whoever attacks the Son attacks the Father. Whoever wounds His flock
wounds Him. As the doctrine of the Trinity does not adequately explain Jesusʼ
statement in John 10: 30, ʻI and [the] Father are oneʼ, we will dissect the
verbal sparring between Jesus and the mob which now makes a move to stone Him.
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John
10
30. I and [the] Father are one. 31. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32.Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of these works do ye stone me? 33. The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35. If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36. Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
It is usually asserted that the crowd threatened to stone Jesus because they were outraged by His statement, ʻI and [the] Father are oneʼ, which they understood to mean, ʻI am God.ʼ But is this assumption correct?
What Did Jesus
Really Mean?
It is evident from v. 31 that this was not the first occasion on which the ʻJewsʼ shorthand for certain elements within the Jewish hierarchy had tried to kill Jesus. Indeed, this was the talk of the town (John 7: 25). The Gospel of John records several instances:
John 7 – 1. ʻJews sought to kill himʼ; 19. – ʻwhy go ye about to kill me?ʼ; 30. – Jews ʻsought to take himʼ; 32. – ʻPharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take himʼ.
John 11: 57 – chief priests and the Pharisees issue general instructions for Jesus’ whereabouts to be revealed so that they can arrest Him.
And in John 5: 17, 18 we read of the Jewsʼ murderous intentions, precipitated by His healing the crippled man on the Sabbath:
17 . . . Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. 18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
In this instance the Jews raise two complaints against Jesus. First of all, that He profaned the Sabbath day by healing the invalid and thus He was guilty of ʻworkingʼ on the sacred day. And second, that He claimed God as His Father, which they construed as making Himself ʻequalʼ with God. The accusation is identical to that of John 10: 33 ʻthou makest thyself Godʼ. However, the official indictment against Him when He was later brought before Pilate, accurately reflects what He actually said (John 19: 7):
We [Jews] have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. [emphasis added]
The idea that one could be a ʻsonʼ of the Most High was alien to traditional Jewish thought. The nation of Israel had been formed under a theocracy, with an impassable gulf between them and a holy God. Their relationship with God was defined by an aloofness typified in the Tabernacle in the wilderness, and later the Temple. God resided in the Most Holy, high and unattainable. The Israelites belonged to a house of servants and it was for them audacious to imagine they might ever approach the omnipotent God with the intimacy and familiarity of sons. With the advent of Jesus, all that was about to change (John 1: 11, 12):
11. He came unto his own [the Jews], and his own received him not. 12. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
Elaborating on the theme, the Apostle Paul later writes (Gal. 4: 4-7):
4. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, 5. To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. 6. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. 7. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
And again, in 1 John 3: 1:
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world
knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Each believer is a son of the Father as Jesus was a son of the Father: separate and distinct from the Father and yet ʻoneʼ with the Father. This is reflected in Jesusʼ prayer of John 17: 21: ʻthat they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.ʼ
For Jesus to claim to be ʻthe Son of Godʼ or associate Himself in the same category as God ʻI and the Father’ would be viewed by a first-century Jew as heretical, tantamount to an assertion of equality. It as if one classed oneself with royalty ʻI and the Queenʼ. Jesusʼ innovation was extraordinary: a mortal could now be regarded as a son of the Immortal One. This truth could only be grasped by faith.
As for Jesusʼ being God, Jesus tells his hearers (John 5: 37), ʻYe have neither heard [God's] voice at any time, nor seen his shapeʼ, a statement He could not make were He really God, without some hedging. Besides, no one can see God and survive the experience (Exod. 33: 20-23). But as the perfect human representative of God on earth, Jesus could tell Philip ʻhe that hath seen me hath seen the Father: and [why] sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?ʼ (John 14: 9). Query: Why at this late stage shortly before Jesusʼ crucifixion did Philip not know that Jesus was God, when presumably the ignorant mob on Solomon's Porch already knew it, because Jesus had supposedly told them so?
Was Jesus
Disingenuous?
Returning to the confrontation on Solomon's Porch, John 10: 31, 32: If Jesus was indeed saying that He was God, then certain elements of the exchange don't fit, as though the parties including Jesus Himself do not understand each other.
For instance, did Jesus not anticipate the effect the revelation that He was God would have had on the crowd? Was He in this instance guilty of casting pearls before swine? Why didn't He reveal this astounding truth to His disciples first, and in private, as was His custom, before announcing it to unbelievers? And why would He express puzzlement at the mob's intent to stone Him? Did He not anticipate the mob’s response to the bombshell He had just dropped? Or was He only feigning to misunderstand their (natural) reaction. Did He really believe they wanted to stone Him for His good works?
These questions illustrate the problems in expounding John 10: 30 from a Trinitarian standpoint. The difficulty is further compounded when we analyse Jesusʼ response to their accusation that He was guilty of blasphemy:
33. The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35. If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36. Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37. If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him. [emphasis added]
In v. 34 Jesus harks back to Psa. 82: 6: ʻYe are gods [theos]; and all of you are children of the Most High.ʼ This text refers to magisterial mighty ones, who are gods and sons of [the] God. So, Jesus continues, ʻ[Why do you say of Me], whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?ʼ [emphasis added]
Apparently, what Jesus implied by ʻI and [the] Father are oneʼ is ʻI am the Son of Godʼ. It was this claim of sonship of the Most High that the Jews objected to. As already noted above, the charge which they levelled at Him to justify the death penalty is, ʻhe made himself the Son of Godʼ (John 19: 7).
Jesus Escapes – For A While
39. Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand, 40. And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode. 41. And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true. 42. And many believed on him there.
For now, Jesus had evaded the immediate attempt on His life. Quitting Jerusalem, He went to Jordan, a more hospitable environment, and stayed there. Verses 41 and 42 perhaps suggest that some of those who had heard the debate on Solomon's Porch were converted and followed Him to His new location.
But He would never be free from His persecutors. They pursued Him, intent that He pay for His perceived crimes with His life. In ancient Israel judicial death was carried out by communal stoning. But Jesus would not die that way. Prophecy demanded that He hang on a tree a cross of wood as a convicted malefactor. But stoning is a metaphor for the ultimate penalty. Thwarted by prophecy, His accusers were obliged to wreak their vengeance by other means, and suborned the Romans to do the deed. At the urging of Satan they bayed for blood outside Pilate's judgement hall.
At length, deprived of a present, breathing Christ, Satan and his cohorts continued their persecution of Him by proxy, hounding His followers – to the grave if necessary. The subsequent long and complex history of the Church is one of symbolically stoning those who dared claim the right to be sons of God.
We will explore the implications of this history in the fourth and final instalment of this series.
Continues
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Notes
Numerous Scriptures imply that Jesus is separate from God, but we will cite only a few here, all in the Gospel of John. Each is instinctively consistent with a Father-Son, Sender-Sent relationship:
5: 19: ʻThe Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do . . .ʼ.
8: 16, 26, 27, 42: ʻ[M]y judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent meʼ; ʻI have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. They understood not that he spake to them of the Fatherʼ; ʻI proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.ʼ
14: 23: ʻIf a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.ʼ [emphasis added]
15: 9, 10, 23: ʻAs the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his loveʼ; ʻHe that hateth me hateth my Father also.ʼ
16: 32: ʻ. . . I am not alone,
because the Father is with me.ʼ
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