If We Don't Believe in Jesus, Will We Die in Our Sin?

Tom:

We’re continuing with the Gospel of John and we are presently in John:8:24I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
See All....Now Dave, anybody following along with us might say, “Come on guys, get on with it.”Here’s my recommendation.I think what they ought to do is read through the Gospel of John as many times as they can.My kids are all runners, they run track.I would ask our listeners to “lap us”, right?Keep lapping us and then come back and see if what we are—if our understanding of these verses—if they are agreeing with it from their study of the scriptures.They can’t lose that way can they Dave?

Dave:

No, it’s God’s Word and it has a depth to it far beyond anything that you and I are going to be able to come up with in our pitiful attempts to exegete the scriptures.I mean we are trying to understand, not exhaustively, but in a reasonable amount of time.

Tom:

Well you know that the scripture teaches plainly that he has gifted some to be teachers and they are held to a higher accountability than others.But what I’m getting at here is if I am reading through the scriptures and I am saying, “Wow, I wonder what such and such thinks of this,” I don’t mind going to commentaries, but you’d be surprised if you’ve got 3-4 different commentaries, these guys don’t necessarily agree.Now certainly with the commentaries I use, the fundamentals, the important verses and so on [do].But I find it interesting for example, to compare Matthew Henry with Charles Ryrie and so on.But I always pull back and say, “I don’t see it that way—my understanding is ….”Is there anything wrong with that Dave?

Dave:

Tom, I have never used a commentary as you know.I never even owned one until The Berean Call gave me one written by one of our board members.Because whenever I look into commentary, which I have on occasion, somehow I don’t seem to agree with them anyway.Now that doesn’t mean I’m right; they’re wrong.But this program is called “Search the Scriptures Daily”, and we emphasize that the Bereans searched the scriptures, they checked Paul out.Well I am going to check everything out from the Bible, so why don’t I just go to the Bible? There are many things that are difficult to understand, and I just get on my knees and say, “Lord please help me.”I find that the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself.I think it is very helpful to have a concordance so you can see what the Greek word or the Hebrew word is and then you can see where it was used in another context and you get a pretty clear idea of what it means.But most of it Tom, I think is very clear and to use a commentary like a crutch, you lose your critical ability to think.You lose confidence in that the Holy Spirit can teach you. [If] you just keep going to someone else to get their opinion all the time, how is the Word of God going to speak to you personally?Now look people out there, I’m not putting down commentaries.[If] you’ve got commentaries go ahead and use them.

Tom:

Dave, I want to interject this.I find the opposite is true.When I’m looking at a lot of commentaries, what this tells me is that even though these men have greatly blessed—I mean much of what I read on the basis of their other books and so on I am blessed by, just as God— as I mentioned from the beginning, God raised many up to be teachers.But that title “teacher” doesn’t give somebody carte blanche.It doesn’t make somebody the end all, be all authority.So what I find when I’m comparing—

Dave:

Well no one could be, because as you just pointed out, they disagree among themselves.

Tom:

And, that tells me well, wait a minute, I appreciate this insight that this individual has, but I notice it’s different from this other individual and it’s different from my conclusion.

Dave:

Tom, we better clarify this, otherwise we give the impression as the Catholic Church would give, well you Protestants (I’m not a Protestant, I am not protesting—I would call myself—).

Tom:

I am, I am a Protestant.

Dave:

I know, because you came out of the Catholic Church.But I didn’t.I would call myself an evangelical, a Bible-believing Christian.But they say we’re just all divided up.You get this idea that the Holy Spirit is your teacher and that just run off and everybody’s got a different idea.So I don’t want to give that impression.Look in your commentaries.They don’t all disagree with one another on most points.On most points they’re in agreement.

Tom:

Dave let me make one correction here.

Dave:

There are some difficult passages.

Tom:

That’s exactly right, and that’s really what we’re talking about.There are some things that are so plain and so simple that you would have to be blind to miss it.Spiritually blind is what I am talking about.

Dave:

The Gospel is what we all agree on.

Tom:

Right, but to go back to the Catholic Church.You see they make a certain strata.Some things you are to believe that are difidae, but there are some things they haven’t really come to [a] conclusion about because they are looking back to the church fathers and they can’t find that the church fathers agree on some issues.

Dave:

Right.

Tom:

So it is the authority, but with regard to Roman Catholics—

Dave:

Tom, we’ve got to get into the Bible here, but it makes me think an illustration that was given 300 years ago by a man named William Law.He talked about Academicus who was trying to study the Bible and his friend said, “Well you’ve got to read this ancient writer.You’ve got to read this church father; you’ve got to read this commentary.”“He says I lit my candle early, I put it out late, and I was going through a thorny wilderness of opinions.”And he says, “Finally I decided I would be like the primitive Christians who lived before all these commentaries were written and I would just go to the Bible.”Okay, anyway we’re not trying to—

Tom:

Well let’s do that.

Dave:

Right, we’re not trying to lay down rules here.

Tom:

Right, let’s pick up with John:8:24I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
See All..., “I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.”

Dave:

Tom, I am unhappy with the way you read that because that “he”—

Tom:

Was in italics.

Dave:

Was in italics, and was put in there by the translators.It does not exist in the original because Jesus is saying, “If you believe not that I Am”— and he is claiming that he is God.

Tom:

The self-existent one.I Am that I Am.

Dave:

Right.He is the I Am and that is very important because this is not some rule that some denomination laid down, or that you and I have laid down.We said in an earlier segment, if you believe the Gospel—Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, buried and rose again.But who is Christ?As Paul says to the Philippian jailer, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.”But that includes who Christ is.And here Christ is saying that “If you don’t believe that I Am (in other words), if you don’t believe that I am God, that I am the creator of the universe, that I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who has come to this earth through the virgin birth to become a man to die for your sins and to pay the penalty that my own justice required you are not saved.”You don’t believe that Jesus is God, you trusting someone less than God to be your Savior, and all through the Old Testament Yahweh, the I Am says “Besides me there is no Savior.I am the only Savior.”So there are certain things that must be believed about Christ.And there are so many people out there that call themselves Christians, but they would deny that Jesus is God.They put him on the same level as Muhammad, or some prophet or something.So Jesus says, “If you don’t believe that I am God, you will die in your sins and where I go you cannot come.”

Tom:

And again, Dave, the thing that jumped out to me in this verse is “believe”.Sometimes I think what a miracle!Only God could come up with salvation based on something.Belief—everyone from the youngest child to the most learned individual to walk the face of the earth.

Dave:

Because we can’t earn it.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

It’s a gift.And we just open our hearts to him and believe it.Believe his promise.