The same moral is continually exhibiting itself in the great action of human life. Distance of time makes no difference. The energies at work are still the same. There is the way of God and the way of Satan, the principles of light and of darkness.
It is instructive to mark this—to notice how the most distant scenes of action in the book of God are quickened by the same instincts and energies. Thus in John 8 we find Gen. 3 again; the great opposing elements of the garden of Eden taking their several course, and doing their different work, in the temple at Jerusalem four thousand years after.
The serpent, or the serpent's seed, is in this solemn scene, and exactly in the old character. The serpent had found a pure creature in the garden, and had corrupted and destroyed her, and then did what he could to destroy the one who had undertaken her cause. He had murdered the woman, and conceiving enmity to her Seed was to bruise His heel. After which pattern his seed, in John 8, seeks the full ruin of the poor adulteress, and then also the life of Jesus, because He had taken up her cause, and the cause of all such ruined sinners.
And, still further, the serpent who entered the garden had worked by a lie; the weapon in his murderous hand was a lie. And so here, the serpent's seed are found utterly destitute of truth. Jesus was speaking the truth, as He tells them again and again (ver. 14, 37, 45, 47), just as the Lord God was speaking it when, in the garden, He told of death upon the eating of the tree. But the Jews do not understand Jesus. They have no faculty to comprehend the language of truth. “Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my words.” So deeply, so thoroughly, so awfully, were they departed from the power of the light and truth of God. Thus do they indeed take the place of the seed of the serpent in his two characters expressed at the beginning, so that the Lord has only to say of them, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do; he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him; when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it.”
But, again, in the garden man destroyed himself, and then hid away from the presence of God. The voice of promise, the glad tidings about the woman's Seed, however, draw him forth, and Adam walked again in “the mother of all living,” and receiving from God's own hand the pledge or seal of righteousness by faith. And so in John 8. The poor adulteress is a self-minded sinner. She is detected and sentenced to death. She hides herself and is silent. But she hears, like Adam, the voice of the Son of God, the woman's Seed, and she is at peace, and walks forth again in “the light of life.” That voice had again overthrown the serpent, or the serpent's seed. There was enmity between it and them, between the woman's Seed and the serpent's seed, according to the promise. And, like Adam in the garden, the poor adulteress finds life, where she deserved and might have expected death.
In this also the scene in the garden of Eden stands revived or reflected in the scene in the temple at Jerusalem. Four thousand years have made no difference. The moral energies, the principles of light and darkness, are the same in the world's infancy or age, in the earth's eastern or western borders.
These similitudes are very exact; but so also in Jesus, the Son of God, the Seed of the woman: as we read of Him, as we see Him, “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.”
In Gen. 3, the promised Seed of the woman is evidently from God, for the sinner and against the serpent. And such are most blessedly and most clearly the relationships which the Lord Jesus fills and assumes in all the action and argument of John 8 He is God's provision for dead and ruined sinners, in defiance of all the malice and wrath of the enemy.
And, further, He is this at all personal cost. The serpent was to bruise His heel, according to Gen. 3; and the serpent's seed, according to John 8, was “to lift him up,” the very same thing as bruising His heel. (See ver. 28.)
But, further still, though bruised, He was to get the victory and bruise the head of the serpent, according to Gen. 3 And so in John 8 He lets the Jews know that continued resistance of Him would be their doom and final destruction; that it would prove, as another scripture expresses it, “a kicking against the pricks;” or a bringing of utter ruin on themselves by the very enmity they vented against Him.
And, finally, He was their only hope (see ver. 24); as in the garden fig-leaves were insufficient, and there was no return to life through the sword—all rested on the woman's Seed.
These similitudes are very marked, and it is interesting to the soul to trace them. But there is another thing suggested to me. The words “I am” (ἐγώ εἰμι) occur three times in John 8. This expression is to be made definite, I judge, according to the force of the context. And it may, therefore, intimate different glories or characters in Christ. It is used in Mark 13:66For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. (Mark 13:6). “Many shall come in my name,” says the Lord, “saying, I am.” But in this place it is properly defined by the italic word “, Christ,” the context very clearly showing it.
It is used in John 13:19,19Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am he. (John 13:19) and there properly defined by the translators, “I am he,” meaning to identify Himself with the One prophesied of in Psa. 41, against whom the companion's heel was to be lifted up.
So in our chapter (in John 8:24, 2824I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24)
28Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. (John 8:28)) the words are found again, and again correctly defined by the italic word “he.” Because the Lord was teaching the need of their believing now, and the certainty that they should know hereafter that He was the One whom He had been presenting Himself to be. But in verse 58 the same words, “I am,” are left as they are found, indefinite. And I judge most correctly so, because at the close of a long and trying conflict with the Jews, the Lord announces His high personal glory as Jehovah; and so they understood Him, because they immediately deal with Him as they would with a blasphemer of the unutterable name.
All this is very distinct, and very simple too, when, by a little meditation, we get on the right track with the solemn words “I am.”
But, again, in connection with Gen. 3, I ask, who is the “he,” or the “I am” of John 8:24, 2824I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins. (John 8:24)
28Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. (John 8:28)? Plainly, from the whole discourse, “the light of the world,” or the One who had “the light of life” for dead sinners. And then again I ask, who is He that carries “the light of life” for dead sinners, but “the Seed of the woman'?” This we have seen. It was faith in that promised Seed which enabled Adam to walk again as alive from the dead in the divine presence; and it was faith in Jesus, the “light of life,” which enabled the convicted adulteress to do the same.