Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 8:45)

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The forty-sixth occurrence of the idea of faith in John’s Gospel is John 8:45, in which the Lord Jesus Christ says: “And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not” (KJV). So, what is the context of this passage, and what are some truths about faith in Christ that we can glean from it?

First, what is the context? Back in John 8:31, as we covered in the last post, Jesus told a group of Jews who believed on Him that they are truly His disciples (i.e., they are truly Christians-Acts 11:26) if they abide in His Word. He elaborates by saying, in the next verse, that, if they prove to be His true disciples by abiding in His Word, that they will know the truth, and the truth will make them free. These Jews respond by asserting that they are Abraham’s descendants and have never been in bondage to any man, all before asking Christ how He can tell them that they will be made free. Jesus answers by assuring them that whoever commits sin is a slave [1] of sin and that the slave does not abide in the house forever, but the Son ever abides. Therefore, Christ goes on to say, if the Son will make them free, they will be truly free, before going on to tell them that He knows they are Abraham’s descendants, but they seek to kill Him, because His Word has no place in them. He goes on to say that He speaks what He has seen with His Father, and that these Jews do what they have seen with their father, to which they repeat their prior assertion, claiming that Abraham is their father. Jesus replies by telling them that, if they were Abraham’s children, they would do the works of Abraham, but they seek to kill Him, a Man who has told them the truth, which He heard from God. He then reminds them that this is not what Abraham did. Then, He charges them with committing the deeds of their father, to which they respond by saying that they were not born as a result of sexual immorality and that they have one Father, namely God. Jesus then tells them that, if God was their Father, they would love Him, because He proceeded forth and came from God, and that He did not come of Himself, but God sent Him. He then rhetorically asks them why they do not understand His speech, and He answers this question by saying that it is because they cannot hear His Word. Then, He accuses them of being of their father, the Devil, and that they will do the desires [2] of their father, who, He says, was a murderer from the beginning and did not abide in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Christ continues His description of Satan by saying that, when the Devil tells a lie, he speaks from his own, [3] since he is a liar and the father of lies. Then, Christ tells them that, because He tells them the truth, they do not believe Him. This is the context of John 8:45!

Second, what are some truths about faith we can glean from here? First, the object of faith, or what is believed, is truth. Because, in John 8:45, Jesus tells the Jews that they do not believe Him because He is telling them the truth. But that begs the question: what truth? The context answers the question: the truth that God sent Jesus into the world to proclaim (John 8:38, 40). That answer may sound circular, but it does give us a clear way to know the content of this “truth”: whatever Jesus says, it is truth from GOD HIMSELF, and it is therefore to be believed. So, whatever Jesus says is the object and content of Christian faith; in other words, what Christ says is what the true Christian believes, and it is the Standard of authentically Christian doctrine. Second, unbelief in Christ is rejection of what Christ says. We have already gone over it, but Jesus tells these Jews they do not believe Him for the very reason that He is telling them the truth. In other words, Jesus told them what the truth is, and they rejected it. To put it even more clearly, when Jesus says something, faith says “I receive it,” while unbelief says “I reject it.” And the fact that Jesus told these Jews, whom verses 30 and 31 in chapter 8 tell us “believed” on Him, that they do NOT believe Him in verse 45 leads us to the third fact about faith. That fact is this: true faith in Christ believes ALL that Christ says, not just part of what He says.[4] Superficial faith believes some of Christ’s Word, but not all of Christ’s Word. These are some facts about faith we can glean from John 8:45!

[1] https://biblehub.com/greek/1401.htm

[2] https://biblehub.com/greek/1939.htm

[3] https://biblehub.com/greek/2398.htm

[4] This fact was reinforced by this Charles Spurgeon sermon: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=22151235577. Though I do not agree with how Spurgeon tries to distinguish between different kinds of faith by his focus on prepositions modifying the act of believing, I do owe him credit for this insight. Other sermons that have helped me come to this conclusion, if I have remembered the right sermons to cite here, are these: https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=127181014421 and https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=9123849203065