Further Attempts To Kill Jesus

SINCE it is wintertime, Jesus is walking in the sheltered area known as the colonnade of Solomon. It is alongside the temple. Here Jews encircle him and begin to say: "How long are you to keep our souls in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us outspokenly." "I told you," Jesus replies, "and yet you do not believe." Jesus had not directly told them that he was the Christ, as he had told the Samaritan woman at the well. Yet he had in effect, revealed his identity when he explained to them that he was from the realms above and had existed before Abraham.

Jesus, however, wants people to reach the conclusion themselves that he is the Christ by comparing his activities with what the Bible foretold that the Christ would accomplish. That is why earlier he charged his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. And that is why he now goes on to say to these hostile Jews: "The works that I am doing in the name of my Father, these bear witness about me. But you do not believe.

Why do they not believe? Because of lack of evidence that Jesus is the Christ? No, but for the reason Jesus gives when he tells them: "You are none of my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give them everlasting life, and they will by no means ever be destroyed, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is something greater than all other things, and no one can snatch them out of the hand of the Father.

Jesus then describes his close relationship with his Father, explaining: "I and the Father are one." Since Jesus in on earth and his Father is in heaven, clearly he is not saying that he and his Father are literally, or physically, one. Rather, he means that they are one in purpose, that they are at unity.

Angered by Jesus' words, the Jews pick up stones to kill him, even as they had earlier, during the Festival of Tabernacles, or Booths. Courageously facing his would-be-murderers, Jesus says: "I displayed to you many fine works from the Father. For which of those works are you stoning me?"

Next time: Conclusion of Further Attempts To Kill Jesus

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991