Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Ten

                                                                                                                                              Verses 22-31

As Jesus walked in the Temple, some of the Jews came to Him and demanded that He tell them plainly that He was their Messiah. Jesus replied that He had told them many times that He was God in human form which also meant that He had to be their Messiah. He also told them that He had performed many miracles in His Father's name to prove that He was God in human form. But Jesus did not happen to be the kind of Messiah that the Jews wanted. They wanted an ordinary human who could use the power of God to liberate them from the Romans. They ignored the fact that their own scriptures prophesied that their Messiah would be God in human form, and who would sacrifice Himself for them to provide for them a spiritual salvation. Isaiah 9:6-7; Isaiah 53:1-12.

Jesus replied that He came as their Messiah to give them a spiritual liberation, not a political one. Jesus told them that He came to call His own sheep out of the sheepfold to follow Him, and these Jews were not His special sheep because they did not hear His voice. Jesus preached His spiritual message that these Jews did not want to hear. Jesus came to change the hearts of humans to make them loving and kind, not to cause them to wage political war.

Jesus then described His spiritual message. Jesus told them that if they would only believe that He was the Son of God and their Shepherd and follow Him, He could immediately give them eternal life that they could never lose. John 5:24. Jesus and His Father would provide absolute, eternal protection for them by holding them in His hand. No one can ever break the absolute power of God's hand. Jesus again proclaimed that He was God in human form because He said that He was One with His Father which could only mean that His hand and His Father's hand had to be the same hand. Since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are One, then the Holy Spirit can immediately give eternal life to believers in Christ in the Church Age just as Jesus could do while He was on the earth. The Holy Spirit is Jesus in spiritual form, and Jesus never changes. Hebrews 13:8. The Holy Spirit can provide a spiritual baptism which water baptism only symbolizes. Luke 3:16; I Corinthians 6:11; Hebrews 13:8; I John 5:6-8.

These Jews became enraged with Jesus' claim to be their God and spiritual Savior. They picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy. They did not want a spiritual Savior. They only wanted a Messiah to liberate them from the Romans so that they could possess even more ability to exercise their lust for wealth and power over the people. Even today, people often become angry when a Christian tries to tell them that they need Jesus and the spiritual transformation that only He can give them. They become angry because they feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they are wrong, and they need to be made right. John 16:7-11.