Read John 8: 42-59
The Jews were totally deceived. They thought God was their father but Jesus told them that the devil was their father because they obeyed him rather than God. The proof was in how they accepted the son sent by the father. The son looks, talks, feels, and acts like the father so much that they are one in every way. You can't have one without the other.
They don't like that so they tell Jesus that HE is demon-possessed. Jesus tells them that he is not demon-possessed but he honors God and they don't. He continues to explain that he doesn't seek his own glory but there is one that will seek them out and judge them one day. If they will believe in what Jesus says they will not see death. (I think he throws hard things at them just to get them mad.) Not see death....hard to swallow. Of course the Jews stumble over this one. Who wouldn't without God's help. Now they are convinced he is demon possessed. How can he say a man will never die. Their great father and hero Abraham is dead along with all the great prophets.
Jesus answered by explaining that it is God that honors him - the same God they are claiming to have. Then he claimed to know God and Abraham who looked ahead and saw his day coming and was excited about it. That was another hard thing to swallow. How did he know Abraham? He gives them the punch line: Before Abraham was, I am. That was the same answer Abraham got when he asked God who he was: I am. They couldn't take it anymore and picked up stones to kill him but Jesus did the Holy Ghost slip and disappeared.
It is amazing to me that Jesus spent so much time with the Jews whose spiritual eyes were so closed. I guess it was so that they would one day look back and see how blind they were and all the chances they had to accept the truth. We get to read it with our spiritual eyes opened and it is not hard for us to see the truth. But looking through their clouded eyes I can see how stupid the things that Jesus said must have looked to them.
I am so thankful that God has given me eyes to see and ears to hear. Let's be good stewards of these eyes and ears we have been so graciously given.
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