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“Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” John 8:24 NASB
Believe – John uses the Greek “believe” in one form or another ninety-two times in his gospel. It is never once a noun. Pisteuo is a verb, a verb that implies action. In John’s case, there is no pistis (faith) in the good news. There is only pisteuo—doing something about the claim of Yeshua. John’s idea of believing is not mental assent, reciting a creed or saying the sinner’s prayer. John’s idea is a change of life including the choices, rituals, behaviors and goals of the follower of the Messiah. And it begins here, with the action accompanying recognizing that Yeshua is the Messiah. The reason these Pharisees are going to die in their sins is not because they don’t believe in the Messiah. It is because they refuse to alter the course of their lives to live in accordance with Yeshua, the Messiah. They refuse to accept his authority as delegated by God. They will not adopt him as their leader and so they will not follow in his footsteps. Therefore, they will die in their sins.
John’s use of pisteuo makes it absolutely clear that acknowledging Yeshua as the Messiah means trusting him for direction, practice and deliverance. This is considerably more than simply asking for forgiveness. For John, pisteuo means betting my life on the directions given to me by the Jewish Messiah. It means doing what he says.
The Pharisees Yeshua addressed did not trust. They did not change their stripes. Yeshua faults them for their obstinacy. Of course, we agree. Perhaps too quickly. Look again at Yeshua’s remark. “Unless you believe that I am he.” What does this mean? It means that you and I must act on the fact that Yeshua is the one, the one and only Messiah of the Jews. It means that we are required to conform to the image of this divinely appointed ruler of the earth, the head of the Kingdom that will never end. It means that we do not follow “Jesus,” the universal savior of the Church, someone without ethnic heritage. It means that we put our trust in this Jewish man, sent from God to the lost sheep of Israel. For us, it’s not “all about Jesus.” It’s about a first century Jew, born to a Jewish mother, adopted by a Jewish father, teaching Jewish disciples in a Jewish context about returning to a compliant life under a Jewish prophet. It means that we are called to understand him in a Jewish context and to practice what he taught as if we too were first century Jewish followers.
There are a lot of Pharisees in the Church today. They do not believe that Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah. They have converted him into the non-man, the universal man—an idea, not a person. An idea that satisfies their longing for justification without commitment to a particular way of life. The Church has a Roman Jesus, altered by deliberate syncretism so that he can appeal to everyone everywhere. “Jesus” is the perfect fit for a God who is not a person but rather an essence. “Jesus” is the essence of forgiveness without the messiness of Jewish heritage. “Jesus” is the nobody-man. And according to his words, if you want him to be anything but the Jewish Messiah, you too will die in your sins.
Topical Index: Messiah, pisteuo, believe, faith, John 8:24
A few days ago I saw a Facebook status posted by someone that read, “Do you know what the opposite of faith is? It’s not disbelief! The opposite of faith is works!” They then cited Galatians 2:16, which states that no one is justified by works of the law, but by faith.
The whole thing was such a sloppy, terrible misinterpretation (or deliberate twisting? I hope not.) of scripture that I literally wanted to find the nearest brick wall and beat my head against it.
This idea that faith and belief are only cerebral and cognitive is so pervasive in our society and in the church. But I really think it’s not sustainable, it’s not a foundation upon which you can build anything solid. Constantly I see articles in Christian culture magazines and blogs that seek to answer the question, “Why are people leaving the church?” And I think this issue is a large part of why it’s happening! Religion without context is irrelevant and meaningless. Belief without practice is hollow, and boring. How many people are immersing themselves in church culture, always consuming but never satisfied?
The church has turned the Messiah into a cartoonish cut-out paper doll. Praise and worship has been relegated to a twenty minute rock concert following a feel-good pep talk once a week, with free coffee and childcare as a perk.
God has made us to worship Him with our whole selves, to crave and desire Him, to know and experience that there is nothing that can satisfy us but Him, but we can’t ever just fill up on Him once and walk away. We must return, again and again, to Him, our Source. The agony and ecstasy of worship is that we were made to offer our whole selves to Him, and yet we are confronted with the reality that our offering of ourselves is not enough, because we are not whole. That recurring realization is the thing that brings me to my knees and makes me most thankful for grace, and for the sinless, perfect Lamb of God, who walked out Torah in his life, lacking in nothing, not so that I could give up trying, and sit on my hands, but so that I could KEEP trying without lugging around the unbearable weight of my own inadequacy.
How can you worship using only your head? How can you offer yourself to your God cognitively, while cautiously refraining from anything resembling works, believing that works is diametrically opposed to faith? It won’t work! It doesn’t work. It is utterly against our design. We keep trying to separate our mind-body-heart out into these Greek boxes but it will never work. Our Father loves us too much to let it work. This idea that we can say some words and just believe an idea in our heads without actively and physically walking in the footsteps of our Redeemer will never hold up. Whether we resist or embrace this truth will show us, in time, to be either weeds or wheat.
I pray that those who are searching for something in religion and coming up empty will give God the opportunity to meet them at the exit doors of the churches as they leave and lead them by the hand to his table, full of the food that satisfies. I pray that he continues to patiently take my hand and redirect me when I stray from the table and go mindlessly scavenging through the pantry for junk food.
“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food.” -Isaiah 55:2
Well said, Alicia!
Language is the foundation of any culture. Take away the language, and you destroy the culture. That’s why American Indian children were sent to schools off the reservation and forbidden to use their native languages. After centuries of translations and mistranslations, we have gotten far away from the original meaning of the wording of scripture. The culture of the Kingdom cannot be understood by our English mistranslations of words. I think the contrast between “Jesus” and “Yeshua” is a prime example of this. That’s why Today’s Word is so valuable. “Believe” is a cognitive function in conversational English, but “believe” means “do” in Kingdom talk.
Maybe Yoda had it partly right . . . ” Do or do not.” There’s life and there’s death. Your action demonstrates which you reside in. Pick life by faith-ing in Yeshua’s ways – Torah living. The choice is living in Yeshua or dying in sin. Choose this day.
If there is no Name under heaven by which men can be saved, then there is also no other definition of the love we are called to perfect in our lives than that which is outlined in the Torah. Another Jesus calls for another definition of love, but there is none. What are sins? Actions outside love. What is faith? Actions within love. There is no escaping the Law, which outlines those actions of faith for us. I will never be able to project true faith into the next breath of the present if I do not have the love in my heart necessary to generate it. “I love, therefore I am.” To be re-created in the image of my Saviour is to be continually stepping out in the faith it takes to love. Love always requires a leap of faith. Always. Everything else is just a reaction to the past. Dead works.
By faith we live and are renewed. These are all actions. Faith IS the step into the future. Faith shapes the future. Fear does, too. Fear is the devil’s counterfeit for faith. Fear is his attempt to control the future. So often we agree! YHVH help us! Fear is a work of death because it can kill us. Fear holds us, spirit, body and mind, in a state of diminished freedom of choice, and drives our bitterness and despair. All sin. All killers. All works of death. All to be repented for. We were created to run on trust. Everything else is sin. But 100% of actions, whether they are actions of thought, or actions of being, are either generated by trust, or the lack thereof. We must examine all our thoughts because as a man thinks in his heart, SO IS HE. We are called to live. A call for a return to faith is a call for a return to LIFE! Amen!
What a great teaching today. I always want to share with church family, but they seem to just get offended. Guess i will try Facebook. Delma
The churches today believe, and the way they demonstrate that they believe is service at the church. The service proves they are believers……………work, work, work.
Wow Skip, you hit a home-run this time!!