Grace Bible Church
Basic Training in Doctrine
Guest Speaker: Pastor Joe Sugrue
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Here is divine protection. They came to do Him violence and they stayed to hear this wonderful message.
When it says “they answered” it is an aorist passive indicative of apokrinomai, which means to discern so that you have an answer for yourself. They heard His message and they received an answer for themselves.
The only ones who generally taught in the temple were from Sanhedrin and the guards are saying in effect to their faces, “You’ve never taught a message even close to this man.”
The guards went to arrest Jesus and they in turn were arrested by His message, and so much so that they had no fear in telling their bosses all about it.
This is the old argument from personal authority. Don’t ever fall for this line. “Do the scientists believe? Do the Ph.D’s believe? Do the professor’s believe?”
The Law was designed for the prosperity of Israel through divine establishment laws and it was designed to reveal the Messiah to them through the Levitical offerings.
They say the crowd is under a curse because they don’t know the Law yet they are under the biggest curse – the curse of spiritual death through rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior.
They do what any arrogant megalomaniac does when their views are confronted – they insult you.
In their last statement – no prophet arises out of Galilee is false – Jonah was from Galilee.
The earliest Greek manuscript known to contain the passage is Codex Bezae, of the fifth century. Manuscripts from the 3rd and 4th centuries do not contain this passage (John 7:53 – 8:11).
Jesus Christ is the most controversial person in the world because He is the only perfect One sent from God to ever come into the world while it is in the grips of the angelic conflict.
Satan, our Lord’s archenemy, not only seeks to discredit the person of Christ with lies but he also tirelessly seeks to destroy the freedom of mankind so that they cannot make that decision.
To accept His message and believe in His person was to fulfill all that man lacked, but to reject His message meant believing in any number of lies and excuses.
When they heard the message the temple guard stood there unable to do a thing. The message hit home with them.