A holy God demands a holy people. One single sin is enough to keep you or I from heaven. To a just and perfect God, every sin is a capital crime. No one has the power to escape death and eternal damnation. Yes, God is holy and just, yet He is compassionate. 

Before He spun the world on its axis, He provided the perfect sacrifice for sin. Before He breathed life into Adam, He had already offered His only begotten Son as the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world. 

Christ came to earth, a baby both fully human and fully God. He lived a perfect life. He lived a sinless life. He gave Himself up on a cross. He raised Himself up from the dead on the third day, defeating sin and death, so that we may not perish… so that we may live in victory. 

He is the Resurrection and the Life. 

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King David, the preeminent king of Israel and author of many of the 23rd Psalm, had spent his youth as a shepherd. He knew well that the first qualification of the shepherd was to be willing to die for the sheep. He had faced death himself, fighting off a lion and a bear to protect his sheep. 

It is because the Good Shepherd has already defeated the lion that sought to devour us that we – His sheep – may fear no evil, even though we pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

Christ is our Good Shepherd. I shall not want…

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Now, it is early. The sky turns yellow, orange and red, hinting at a rising sun. It will soon be day. Jesus returns to the Temple and sits down to teach. He chooses the Temple not because it is a holy place. It has not been sacred for generations. No, He chooses to teach at the Temple because it is a place of concourse. Indeed, Jews from all over the Roman Empire gather there. Gentiles, too. Many of them have tender hearts and open minds. Some eagerly await the Messiah. A few are ready to take up arms and follow Him in rebellion against Caesar. Many are angry. As the sun smiles over the horizon, Jesus sighs at how little they comprehend. 

I would gather you together as a hen gathers her chicks. He sighs again and begins to teach. It takes no time at all to gather a crowd. The people are eager to hear Him just once more before they leave Jerusalem. 

The Pharisees are eager, as well. Unable to think of a snare that will trap Jesus, an opportunity falls into their hands: a woman caught in the very act of adultery. They plant a snare. Shall she be stoned? Only the Roman governor may order a death sentence. Of course, the Governor has extended that authority to the Sanhedrin, a body to which Jesus does not belong. If Jesus recommends stoning – and surely He will – they can charge Him with usurping authority. If He offers her forgiveness, as He has others, they can charge Him with heresy. The Pharisees laugh and smile and pat one another’s back. 

When they ask Jesus for a verdict, they see for the briefest of moments a hint of an upturned smile. He ignores their question and kneels to the ground. With his finger, He begins writing in the dust. 

They press Him for an answer, and for the moment, ignore his writing.

The Teacher stands and gives His verdict. “Let he who is without sin, throw the first stone,” says Jesus. He again kneels, returning to His writing. 

Now the Pharisees read what He writes. One by one, the they turn pale. Slack-jawed, they turn and leave, filtering into the crowd. 

“Where are your accusers?” Jesus asks the woman. “Does no one condemn you?” 

She hesitates, looks into the faces of dozens of interested bystanders. None condemn her. Her husband is no where to be seen. The Pharisees are trying to blend into the crowd, and avoid eye contact. She looks into the eyes of Jesus and sees only compassion. “No, Lord. No one.”

“Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” 

She turns away, but before she leaves, she hears Jesus say,

“I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

– John 8:12

She smiles. Something in her changeds when she considers His words. She will never be the same. Surely, she thought, this is the Promised One, the Messiah. 

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If Jesus agrees that she should be stoned to death, they will go to the Roman governor and accused Jesus of usurping the authority of Caesar. If He shows leniency, they will pronounce Jesus a heretic. Instead, Jesus simply puts the conundrum back on them. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” In the end, of course, no one throws a single stone.

“Go, and sin no more,” He tells her. He then turns to those who remain and proclaims Himself to be the Light of the World. 

The Pharisees are angry at such a pronouncement. How dare He? “Who bares witness to your claims?”

“The Father,” answers Jesus, telling them that they are from below, while He and the Father are of above, and that they can never know the Father because they have never known the Son. “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” 

Here I can imagine Jesus clapping his hands, as if to brush off the dust, and turning His back on the Pharisees to leave. “I am going away, and you will seek Me,” He says, “and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.”

The Pharisees laugh. “He’s mad.” “A lunatic.”  “He has a demon.” “He’s going to kill Himself.”

The discussion goes on, with the Pharisees working very hard to entrap Jesus and Jesus challenging them to name just one way in which He had sinned, just one – even the tiniest – sin. 

Jesus, though, is sinless, and – of course – they cannot. 

“I have no demon,” says Jesus. “I simply glorify my Father. It is He who judges.” At this, the Pharisees must be looking back at the woman caught in adultery and wondering if they are any better than she. 

“Only my Father is judge, but if you keep My words, you will never taste death,” He says. And it goes unsaid, but He could continue and say, “and never face the Judge.”

“Are you greater than our Father, Abraham, who is dead?” The Pharisees are dumbfounded at the claim of Jesus, but not as shocked as when they hear Him continue…

“Before Abraham was, I am.”

With those five words, Jesus declares Himself to be the Eternal, Almighty God, Yahweh. 

Note that He does not say, “I was.” He says, “I am.” He uses the same words that the translators of Exodus had used when they quote God telling Moses that His name is I Am.

One cannot believe that Jesus is just a good man. He is either who He says He is (God), or He was a lunatic. 

He is the Eternal, Almighty God, Yahweh. I  am.

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“Every knee shall bow,” declares Paul, “and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Those that think that Jesus was a good man, a venerable prophet, a sage, are sadly misled. He is God, the great “I Am.” He said so Himself many times, and he was declared so by those who knew Him well. We are forced to decide for ourselves. Is Jesus God, or was he a lunatic who has deluded himself and others for millennia? As for myself, I decided long ago that Jesus is indeed God, and I have made Him Lord of my life. 

We begin a study of Christology with a series examining Jesus’s claim to be God. The series is called “I Am.”

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