“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Isaiah 55: 6-7
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Understanding John 8: 12-30 Correctly
Understanding the message in John 8: 12-30 requires a lot of information that is not explained fully in the Bible. Below, I will present what the New Testament says and what it means.
John 8: 12
12 Then Yeshua again spoke to them [Pharisees], saying, “I am the Light of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
In verse 12, the Messiah is talking to Pharisees. It is called one of His “I AM” statements. They are statements that He made claiming to be Yahweh. Verses 13 through 29 are a conversation between the Messiah and a group of Pharisees.
John 8: 13
13 The Pharisees said to Him, “You are testifying about Yourself, so Your testimony is not true.”
Today, we call Pharisees “ultra-Orthodox Jews” or “Pharisaic Jews”. In Israel, they are called “Hasidic Jews” or “the Hasidim”. They control Judaism today, just as they did during the Messiah’s day. Other Jews were standing around listening to the discussion, but the Messiah was not talking to them.
John 8: 14-18
14 Yeshua answered and said to them, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh. I am not judging anyone. 16 But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. 17 Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. 18 I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.”
In verse 17, when Yeshua said, “Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true,” He was not referring to the Torah, Prophets, and Writings or the Old Testament/Tanach. He was talking about Halacha. It is also called the Oral Law and the traditions of the Jews. Halacha comes from the Talmud, the Mishnah, and the Gemara.
Deuteronomy 19: 15 says, “A single witness shall not rise up against a person regarding any wrongdoing or any sin that he commits. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a matter shall be confirmed.” Thus, two witnesses are required by Yahweh’s Law. If both of them testify that something happened, their testimony is deemed to be conclusive proof of reality. One witness presents a “he said-she said” situation. But again, Yeshua is not talking about Yahweh’s Law in verse 17. He is talking about “your law” or Halacha.
Halacha has a Two-Witness Rule as well, and according to Halacha, the Oral Law supersedes Yahweh’s Law. That’s why Yeshua referred to “your law” in verse 17. If He had meant Yahweh’s Law, He would have said so just as He did on many other occasions.
This is not a trivial matter. If you read the gospels carefully, you will see that the Messiah challenged the Pharisees regularly by doing things that they thought were wrong to make the point that Halacha is not from Yahweh.
For instance, the Messiah performed many miracles on the Sabbath, because the 4th Commandment explicitly forbids working on the Sabbath. Each time He did it, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes who witnessed the miracle accused Him of working on the Sabbath. In their minds, healing was working and, thus, a violation of Halacha, but it did not violate Yahweh’s commands.
In response to that accusation, the Messiah scolded them by saying something like this: “You hypocrites! Each of you works on the Sabbath day! Don’t you untie your ox or your donkey from its stall on the Sabbath and lead it out for water?” (Luke 13: 15)
Sometimes, He would ask them a question like this one: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” (Mark 3: 4)
The Messiah was telling the Jewish religious leaders that they had subverted Yahweh’s commands with their Sabbath restrictions. To drive the message home, He made that point repeatedly.
Most Bible translators make an attempt to distinguish between Yahweh’s Law and Halacha by using an upper case “L” in the word “Law” when it refers to Yahweh’s Law and a lower case “l” in the word “law” when it refers to Halacha, but candidly, they don’t do a very good job.
People who want to know what the Bible actually says need to understand that in the New Testament the word “law” has 2 very distinct meanings. In the gospels and Paul’s letters, that distinction creates quite a problem. The Messiah and Paul attacked Halacha, but many times, translators don’t understand which law they were talking about, so they mislabel it.
It is a sad commentary on seminary education, but few preachers are equipped to discuss this issue intelligently. Therefore, misunderstandings about the meaning of the word “law” creep into their sermons and perpetuate false Christian doctrines.
Misunderstandings about that distinction have even led some preachers to label as “Judaizers” people who believe that keeping Yahweh’s commands is important. They are totally oblivious to the distinction between Yahweh’s Law and Halacha. If you doubt that, ask a few preachers to explain what Halacha is. Many of them, maybe most of them, don’t have a clue.
If preachers don’t understand the difference between Yahweh’s Law and Halacha, they certainly can’t deliver Yahweh’s message correctly. It’s like the blind leading the blind. The Messiah said that when that happens, both of them will fall into a pit. This is not a semantic issue. It’s a serious doctrinal issue.
This is the bottom line: Halacha is not binding on anyone, either Jews or Gentiles, but Yahweh’s Law is just as binding today as it ever was. As the Messiah said, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!” (Matthew 5: 18)
John 8: 19-24
19 So, they [Pharisees] were saying to Him, “Where is Your Father?”
Yeshua answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” 20 These words He spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come.
21 Then He said again to them, “I go away, and you will seek Me and will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.”
22 So, the Jews [probably the people standing around watching] were saying, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?”
23 And He was saying to them [Pharisees], “You are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. 24 Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.”
In verse 24, most Bible translations add the word “he”, and it reads like this: “for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
The word “he” does not appear in the original Aramaic or Greek manuscripts. In most Bibles, the word “he” appears in italics to indicate that the translators inserted the word, because they think it is implied by the text. That is a serious translation error, because the Messiah was telling the Pharisees plainly that He is I AM, Yahweh, and that if they didn’t believe He is Yahweh, they would die in their sins.
John 8: 25-29
25 So they [Pharisees] were saying to Him, “Who are You?”
Yeshua said to them [Pharisees], “What have I been saying to you from the beginning? 26 I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true. The things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.”
27 They [Pharisees] did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father. 28 So Yeshua said, “When you [Pharisees] lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I AM. I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. 29 He who sent Me is with Me. He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
Again in verse 28, most Bible translations say, “…then you will know that I am he”, but again, the word “he” does not appear in the original Aramaic or Greek manuscripts, and it is not implied by the text. The Messiah was repeating His message. He was telling the Pharisees that He is I AM, Yahweh. In John 8: 58, He said it so plainly that they couldn’t miss it: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham existed, I AM.” In other words, the Messiah told the Pharisees that He is the Creator, Yahweh, and that He created Abraham. It took a while, but they finally got the message.
In the two SnyderTalk editorials below, I criticized The Lockman Foundation for not making much needed changes to the NASB in the NASB 2020 edition:
In this instance, I want to applaud their efforts. In John 8: 24 and John 8: 28, The Lockman Foundation’s translators corrected the “I am he” problem. The NASB 2020 says, “I am.” That is correct, but the translators have a lot more work to do.
There is no good reason not to translate Yahweh’s Name and His titles correctly. He is not “the LORD”, “the LORD God”, “the Lord GOD”, “LORD of armies (or hosts)”, or “God”. He is Yahweh, Yahweh Elohim, Adonai Yahweh, Yahweh Sabaoth, and Elohim. For details, read the two SnyderTalk editorials above.
Like bad habits, errant Christian traditions are hard to break. There is no better time than now to start correcting them. It is shameful to call them “time-honored” traditions, because they rip the heart out of the Scriptures.
I remain puzzled about why a business professor needs to explain these things to Bible “scholars”. Well, I may be puzzled, but I am doing it anyway. Somebody has to do it. Why not me?
John 8: 30
30 As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.
Verse 30 says that many of the ordinary Jewish people who were standing around listening believed the Messiah. The words “in Him” are not in the original Aramaic or Greek manuscripts. They were inserted by translators, because they think those words are implied by the text.
Be that as it may, this question arises: What did ordinary Jewish people believe?
The answer is simple. Ordinary Jewish people believed what the Messiah said, and He said that He is Yahweh. That message was loud and clear. Eventually, the Pharisees understood it, but it took them longer than ordinary Jews to get it.
The Pharisees knew that they had a problem on their hands, because the number of ordinary Jewish people who were coming to the Messiah in faith was growing rapidly. Keep in mind that He was healing the sick, casting out demons, cleansing lepers, and raising the dead. If He continued doing those things, even more Jewish people would come to Him in faith.
Additionally, the Messiah was telling Jewish people that the Pharisees had made up their own religion (Judaism) and their own law (Halacha) so that they could dominate the masses, get rich, and live lives of luxury. (See Matthew 23) If the Messiah continued, the Pharisees knew that the masses would reject Pharisaic Judaism altogether, and they would lose their political, social, and economic standing.
To prevent that from happening, the Pharisees wanted Him dead.
A Final Point
Yahweh made His promises to Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob/Israel.
Jacob/Israel had 12 sons. They are called “the Children of Israel”. Judah was 1 of them, not all 12 of them.
Does it make sense to believe that Yahweh endorsed a religion called “Judaism” for all the Children of Israel? Absolutely not.
Yahweh did not endorse any religion. He talked about faith, not religion. See “Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel (Part 4)” and The Trilogy for more detail.
This may be the most important issue we confront as the end approaches. Dealing with it won’t be easy, because so many people are fixated on religion, and they don’t understand the difference between faith and religion.
Faith and religion are not the same thing. I’ll have much more to say about this issue in the days ahead.
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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”
John 10: 14-18
