Paraphrase of John 10: Transposing the Person with His Word
Paraphrasing John 10. With scary results
Here is a little experiment. Don’t take it too seriously now, just open up your synapses and let the possibility sink in. Its a paraphrase of a part of the New Testament. I want you to realize if this is anywhere near the truth, it represents the depth to which we have been destroyed as a Church and how much we really resemble the enemies of Jesus.
John 10, without the Parabolic cover
“There was a division among the Jews about the suggestion of the central motivation of the Word of God in their religion pertaining to the Messiah (Jesus). Many of them said such an idea is from the Devil. Others said that it could not possibly be so, because the prophets foretold that the curing of spiritual blindness by it was the cure for all the sin spoken of in the Law, and they can’t accept that.
This Word of God itself then appeared before them. They asked it, “how long will you keep us in ignorance of this question?” If you are the most important religious motivation, just say it plainly, instead of using all these figurative expressions.
The Messianic Scriptures said, “I told you already, though these figures of blindness, sickness and miraculous healing. But you cant understand them. They speak of healing of heart, spiritual healing of your understanding about me. Because you don’t want to admit that I, the Word of God, am now being fulfilled, you are blind to them. Moreover, you don’t believe because you are not yourself one of those of faith that are now counted as righteous, or because you are not counted as such one as having received spiritual sight, since you have an inability and unwillingness to apply that cure to me, the Word of God. If you cannot see or accept the fulfillment of me, the Word, you cannot see the fulfillment of miraculous physical healing only by the prophetic Word of God.
“But my true messianic symbols of faith hear me, I know them, and they depend upon me exclusively in their religion. I also make them eternal, not just symbols, but permanent righteous testimonies of the triumph and singular importance of myself, the Word of God of the Prophets. No one can change this. My power as the fulfilled Promises of the Father alone caused in them this allegiance to me that you cannot see or choose to confess.
“They have now inherited their own scriptural promises through their confession of me as this their ground a faith. You are not so motivated. Now this bond between them cannot be changed unless those Promises were capable of being broken and untrue, which is impossible.
“All the messianic promises are now in its fulfillments and the fulfillments are in its promises: they are one unit and complete in me. If you acknowledge one, but you insufficiently acknowledge the other here standing before you, and you prefer to stick with this injustice, you have a big problem.”
“The false religious motivation tried to kill this Word of God by hurling the Law at it, but a Law which was also instituted chiefly as a Promise of the Word, that those who refuse its authority over them will be executed, which is a picture of the transgressors using a Word that is established only to condemn their corrupt faith as a means of accusing and killing off the only Word that heals it.
“The scriptural principle of the Prophetic Word of God over religion said to them, ‘what is it about me that makes you want to kill me since all I am is the fulfillment of the prophets?’
“They said, ‘for the fulfillments, we don’t kill you, but because we don’t like the religious concept of the prophetic Word of Messiah reigning over us. You are only an optional, minor, or antecedent part of the entire revelation, not its God.’
“The Prophetic Word of God said, ‘You complain that I said I am God over your religion, but by the same Law and Prophets you pretend are important to you, that you, in reality, treat dismissively, calls you gods when you are not. If you knew the scriptures you would know where this is used, and that this passage in Psalms 82 uses the Promises of the Father only to impress upon you your obligation to believe in me exclusively. This is the mantle of true religious leader that you fail to live up to. This Psalm is also a righteous prophecy of the triumph of me, the Word of God in fulfillment. It says ‘but ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.’ If me, the fulfilled Prophetic Word of God, does not show fulfillment, then don’t believe me. But if I do, although you don’t have at first confidence in my authority over your faith, believe that I am the fulfillment of the Promises, so that you will believe that one is in the other as an unbreakable unit never to be separated or weakened.”
“The false religious motivation tried again to kill this Prophetic Word of Messiah, but it escaped because it was not itself prophesied to be murdered by them at this time. But it went to the place where the great symbol of the Prophets (John the Baptist) who preached exclusively the Kingship of this Word, first started, who was also the first of a type of all the faithful who give authority to the Prophetic Word in their faith and practice.
“People came to the Prophetic Word there to learn within it. After they did, and examined the OT scriptures and found it fulfilled and true, they said that that this symbol of Prophetic faith in Messiah (John) did not fulfill prophecies of Messiah, but being the symbol of its first honest interpreter also did not admit or pretend his own righteousness through any other means, as the false religious motivation does. Everything that great symbol of the Prophets (John) said about making this Word primary as an expression of faith and internal righteousness was true, just as this Prophetic Word is true fulfillment.”
John 10, with the parabolic cover
Now, just try this. Reread this with the above in mind.
19 There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. 20 And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? 21 Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? 22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23 And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. 24 Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25 Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. 26 But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father’s hand. 30 I and [my] Father are one. 31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? 33 The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. 34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? 35 If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; 36 Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God? 37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. 38 But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father [is] in me, and I in him. 39 Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand, 40 And went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized; and there he abode. 41 And many resorted unto him, and said, John did no miracle: but all things that John spake of this man were true. 42 And many believed on him there. Joh 10:19-42 (KJV)
The Implications
Jesus is not only talking about persons but about the kind of faith needed to be in those persons to qualify them. That faith has to be driven by Truth. All you have to do in order to see this is to just be consistent in keeping the one who leads them, the Word of the Messiah in the messianic prophecies, which personal entity is Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah.
Is Jesus not the Word of God, and is the Word of God not that which is spoken of by Jesus and the Apostles the Old Testament, since the NT was not yet written? Is this Old Testament to which they refer not the prophets who foretold of Jesus Messiah? Do you think that the Bible is about you first and Jesus second, or perhaps about you primarily? Do you think it’s about religious concepts and statements? Do you think it’s about tradition, the authority claimed by humans, reason alone, feeling alone, “doctrine” which is conclusions over biblical evidence that does not need to come out of the prophets? Do you think its any combination of such things or others which you dream up or want? Who is Jesus, and what kind of truth does he really want to represent himself to the human soul for its healing?
The Warning
I remember hearing the host on a talk radio program once tell about the time he was a hot air balloon pilot. He made an interesting comment. He said he was afraid of heights. If he climbed up on a ladder more than three rungs, he would get vertigo. But when he was in a hot air balloon the fear of heights vanished. He could sit on the edge of the basket hovering 3000 feet in the air with no problem. He said that the difference was that when you’re on a ladder and looking down, you can see the ladder all along its length to its contact with the ground. Your brain then sees the actual distance between you and the ground, and there is fear. When you’re in the balloon, there is no such extension to the ground, and your brain abstractly conceives that distance. The message is that actual danger is minimized and little danger is maximized when you use only a depending on whether you use a concept to gauge the threat or facts.
If you’re not picking up on what I’m trying to tell you, you can at least listen to a nice song before I plant in your mind that actual distance between you and oblivion:
I close with the most horribly misinterpreted verse and simultaneously the most used verse in the New Testament, which speaks of the exclusivity of Christ, of not only who but what must be known and loved for salvation. Do you want to really be scared? Do you want to experience a panic attack? Do you want a huge revelation? Don’t miss the extra verse:
John 14:6-7 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
See this article:
Prophesying, Preaching, and the Prophetic: Passing by Nehushtan
