23 He said to them, j “You are from below; I am from above. k You are of this world; l I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you m would die in your sins, for n unless you believe that o I am he you will die in your sins.” 25 So they said to him, p “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge, but q he who sent me is true, and I declare r to the world s what I have heard from him.”
John 8.23-26 ESV

Jesus says that He is from above and the people are from below, but that did not make Him go away from them or leave them to die there. He gives them many warnings, and few are as plain as this “Unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins” The opposite of that is in Jesus, ie: “If you believe that I am he you will live in my righteousness”

God cares deeply for the people of His creation, enough to send the Son into our midst to teach and to save.

Jesus loves the Father so much that instead of saying what He wants to say, He only says what the Father tells Him to say. (8.26) Jesus’ supernatural supreme wisdom was wrapped up more in obedience and fellowship with God than in what we think of as wisdom. Jesus didn’t teach out of this idea or this conclusion developed from this series of ideas, He spoke what The Father told Him to speak. That is the ultimate wisdom that the Pharisees knew nothing of, which is why, besides their hard hearts, His teaching was so hard for them to understand.

That is exactly how the wisdom of man does not reach the folly of God. In Hebrews 8 it says “And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‚ÄòKnow the Lord,‚Äô for they shall j all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” We don’t need the repetitive teaching of “know the Lord, know the Lord” now, we can each go to our One Teacher and be taught! It really is available to the least and the greatest of all people.

The Pharisees, with their rules without a relationship, would die in their sin. Their steps and religious rules prevented them from coming to faith in Jesus. May that same religious spirit not blind us too.
(note: I hate to use the word relationship, because I think it’s been worn out in modern Christianity, but that is the real word with its real meaning that goes here.)

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