B (3:49)

Yeah. The bulk part of our conversation was talking about verses in the Synoptic Gospels where Christ is calling for people to repent. For Matt, he was saying, well, the Gospel of John might be talking about believe and have everlasting life, but then the same guy, Jesus, is talking about repenting before the kingdom in the synoptic. So clearly he. He said both. So we have to do both.

C (4:13)

Yeah, and this is a common problem that we have to deal with when we're sharing our faith, when we're helping people deal with this issue of assurance is how do we harmonize verses in the Gospels that call to turn from your sins, to follow Christ, to count the cost of discipleship. And yet in John, it's simply believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you believe in him, you'll never perish, you'll never hunger, you'll never thirst, you'll never die, you'll never be cast out. And the simple way to harmonize it is the Lord Jesus taught both. He taught, believe in him for everlasting life, to be secure forever and follow him in order to have fullness of life. Be someone who counts the cost of discipleship so that your life can be meaningful and significant, that your life can be more than simply, okay, I know I'm going to heaven when I die, but I'm making a mark in life that's pleasing to God. And of course, once a person learns this they can learn about eternal rewards too.

B (5:28)

Yeah, so we talked about that for a little bit and then there were two big, I think, moments in the conversation we had. This was an hour long conversation and very pleasant talking to him. And at the end he had very kind things to say about Ges. But there were two big things I think that had an impact on him. And the first was when I told him that the Gospel of John never uses the word repent and Christ never told the people he was evangelizing to repent. I don't think he believed me at first, but I told him, you know, you can go look for yourself. And so I think that had a huge impact on him because I think in his mind he was probably like, well, even if it's not emphasized in John, it's there somewhere. It's still the same guy. But I think that that really impacted him heavily and it, you know, that made a big difference for me. I was raised with the free grace message, even if I didn't hear that term. But I didn't realize he never talked about repentance in John. So that's pretty significant. There's two, I think key verses to analyze. I was reading an article of yours before we started this. The phrase go and sin no more does appear twice in John and actually appears only in John. Yeah, that blew my mind that he never even said that in the Synoptics. But if we want to look at those verses real quick, it's John 5:14 and John 8:11.

A (6:46)

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C (7:18)

Gesseminary.org you mentioned how Matt was saying, well, surely repentance has to be there somewhere. Even if the words repent, repentance don't occur, the concept must be there. He's not alone. There are a lot of pastors and theologians who have said in the Gospel of John the concept is there and they cite various verses. Well, I have an article if you go to faithalone.org where I shoot that idea down. Besides, surely if we know that Jesus preached repentance, right, and we find it in Matthew, Mark and Luke, then if John's writing an evangelistic book and repentance is a condition for being born again. John's not going to just give some kind of vague, maybe allusion to repentance. He's going to mention it. And so he didn't. All right, so let's go to your two verses. What are they? John chapter five and John chapter eight.

B (8:13)

Yes.

C (8:13)

So which one first?

B (8:15)

Yeah, we'll do five, 14 first. This is the man who's healed at the pool of Bethesda. And I think it's a little while after he heals him. But Jesus talks to him again and he says, see, you have been made well. Sin no more lest a worse thing come upon you.

C (8:30)

So what's interesting here is Jesus doesn't say stop your sinning so that you can have eternal life. He doesn't mention eternal life here. He doesn't mention believing in him here. What he's talking about is something worse happening to you in the future than what's already happened to him in the past. And he's not talking about his eternal destiny, he's talking about his well being in this life. What this verse should tell us is, look, if a person is delivered by God from some difficulty in their life that was caused by sin in their life and then they turn back to that sin, they could expect that that difficulty in their life is going to come back and even worse. And so the issue here is not his eternal destiny. We don't know if this man was born again or not. But what we do know is that this man needed to avoid sinning more lest something worse would happen to us. Now this, by the way, doesn't guarantee that the reason he was paralyzed in the first place was due to some sin. But it is to say that as God grants mercy to this man, God does not want him to go into a life of sin.

B (9:49)

Yeah, I think the same. In 8, 11, the woman caught in adultery, they try to stone her, Christ stops them. In verse 11 he says, Neither do I condemn you, Go and sin no more. And it's the same as the man at the pool of Bethesda, except for here she actually is caught in sin and he's telling her that sin almost caused your death. Don't go into and do the same thing, sin no more to avoid that.

C (10:15)

Right. And it wouldn't have to necessarily be adultery. It could just be. Anything that's in rebellion against God was going to lead to calamity. Now again, like the man at the pool of Bethesda, we don't know if this woman was born again or not. But what we do see is the Lord does not talk to her about everlasting life or believing in Him. Neither one is an evangelistic passage. Possibly one or both of them were already born again. Possibly the Lord evangelized them after these incidents. But John doesn't go there and neither do the Synoptics. These incidents aren't even found in Matthew, Mark or Luke. I think, Matt, you've raised a good point. There is an issue here concerning sin. My book Turn and the Power of Repentance talks about the fact that repentance is life restoring. So if we're walking in rebellion against God, to repent is a good thing, but it doesn't give me eternal life.

B (11:17)

Yeah, I'd say don't take our word for it. Go read the Bible for yourself. Read God's word, pray, ask the Holy Spirit to help you discern. But just keep in mind the evangelistic book of John doesn't mention repentance. So maybe when I read Matthew, Mark and Luke, I can read that. And when I encounter the word repentance, just think, is this talking about everlasting life or is this talking about discipleship or the nation of Israel or any number of other things?

C (11:45)

Right.

B (11:45)

And pray about it. And I think you'll see, if he wanted these people to have everlasting life, he would have said, believe in me for everlasting life, because that's what he did in John. But the writers of those other books, their goal wasn't to teach their readers how to have everlasting life, because they were already disciples, right?

C (12:02)

Now, of course, he does want everybody to have eternal life. But I think the point is well taken that he doesn't always evangelize in every encounter he has with every person. And sometimes he realizes the person needs something else for the time being, or that they're already born again. But the point is, he did evangelize a lot and the people of Israel knew his message. The message was well known in Israel that Jesus promised to save or to give eternal life to all who believed in him. And even at the cross, people were mocking him about that. Matt, this is a great question. And it shows that Matt is a person who's seeking the truth. We all should be praying about these matters. Not just assurance of eternal life, but everything related to the Bible. Because ultimately it's the spirit of God that opens our eyes so that we can understand the Word of God.

B (12:55)

Amen.

C (12:56)

Alright, well, thanks so much. And remember, keep grace in focus.

A (13:02)

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