Three Truths About Jesus Christ That Most People Reject

In John chapter 8, Jesus makes three claims about himself that have enraged people for two thousand years. They still do. The question is what you are going to do with them.

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There are two words you are not supposed to say in polite company anymore. Not profanity. Not slurs. Two perfectly ordinary words that ignite a firestorm the moment they leave your lips on a public platform.

Jesus Christ.

In January 2010, a television commentator on Fox News Sunday recommended Christianity to Tiger Woods as the remedy for his very public personal crisis. The backlash was immediate. The following day, the commentator said it plainly: Jesus Christ are the two most explosive words in the English language. You can use four-letter words on the airwaves now. Nearly anything goes. But not those two words. Unless, of course, you are using them as an expletive.

None of this should surprise anyone who reads the Gospels carefully. If Jesus Christ were walking the earth today, the response would be the same as it was two thousand years ago. They crucified him then. The impulse has not changed.

In the closing verses of John 8, the people who claim to believe in him question him three times with barely concealed contempt. Three times he answers. In those answers are three truths about Jesus Christ that most people, in every era, have flatly refused to accept.

He has power over death. He has honor from God. He has always existed.

Truth One: Jesus Has Power Over Death

The first scornful question comes in verse 48. They call him a Samaritan and demon possessed. In the Jewish world of the first century, there was no more cutting insult than to be called a Samaritan. It was a racial slur, and they knew it. Rather than engage his claims, they attack his character. His response is to ignore the ethnic charge entirely and answer only the accusation about the demon. He does not trade insults for insults. He says simply: I honor my Father, you dishonor me, and I do not seek my own glory. Let the Father judge.

A promise is only as good as the character of the one making it. Politicians have promised not to raise taxes and then done exactly that. Men have been praised from platforms only to disappoint later. Character is the issue, and it is Jesus’ character that stands behind what comes next in verse 51: if a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.

That word “never” is a double negative in the Greek for emphasis. In other words, there is no way, under any circumstances, that the man who keeps his word will face death. He says the same thing in John 11:25-26: I am the resurrection and the life. Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. He is talking about the second death, the eternal one. Everyone faces the first death physically. But those who trust in Christ will never face the one that lasts forever.

This is possible because of what Jesus himself went through. Hebrews 2:9 says he tasted death for every man. He did not only die physically as all people do. He experienced the penalty of sin upon himself in a way we cannot fully comprehend, so that those who trust in him never have to.

Truth Two: Jesus Has Honor from God

The second question, in verse 53, is: are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? Jesus answers by pointing to the two figures these men claimed as their own. In verse 54, he says his glory comes not from himself but from “my” Father, the one they claim as their father but do not actually know. Then in verse 56 he points out “your” father Abraham rejoiced to see my day. He saw it and was glad.  You, on the other hand, see me face-to-face in my day and are angry!

God does not bestow honor on someone who might later embarrass him. Men do that all the time and live to regret it. That will never happen with Jesus Christ. The Father glorifies him at every turn: angels at his birth, the voice from heaven at his baptism and at the Transfiguration, the empty tomb, Stephen’s vision of him standing at the right hand of God, and ultimately the worship of all creation for eternity in Revelation. He is glorified because he always does those things that glorify the Father. He has never disappointed us (and will never disappoint us).

Truth Three: Jesus Has Always Existed

The third question is in verse 57: you are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Abraham lived eighteen centuries before this conversation. The question is meant to close the argument. His answer blows it open instead.

In verse 58 he says: before Abraham was, “I am.” You would expect Jesus to say, “I was.” That is what grammar demands. But the Greek says “I am.” Present tense. Absolute, timeless existence. Abraham came into being. He was born. He became. Jesus’ existence is not bound by time. He is the great I AM, the same name God gave Moses at the burning bush when Moses asked who had sent him. Jesus is claiming to be that God.

Isaiah 9:6 calls the son born to us the Everlasting Father. Psalm 90:2 says from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Micah 5:2, which directed the wise men to Bethlehem, says the one born there has goings forth from of old, from everlasting. He did not begin two thousand years ago. He always has been.

If there is any doubt about whether his audience understood what he meant, verse 59 settles it. Then they took up stones to cast at him. Under Jewish law, claiming to be God was blasphemy punishable by death. They knew exactly what he was saying. He hid himself and passed through their midst because his hour had not yet come. The cross was appointed. Nothing was going to rush it.

The Question that Cannot Be Avoided

Throughout history, the response to these three truths has always been one of two things. Worship or anger. There is no neutral ground when you are standing in front of claims like these.

Either he is a liar, as the people in John 8 concluded, or he is telling the truth. And if he is telling the truth, you have a decision to make. That is the inescapable logic of the text.

But the promise still stands, unchanged, as solid as the character of the One who made it: If a man keeps my saying, he shall never see death.

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Dan Unruh is the pastor of Westside Baptist Church in Greeley, CO.

This article reproduces a sermon preached on Feb 22, 2026, which you can listen to here. We used Claude.AI to turn the transcript into the article. Pastor Unruh has reviewed and approved the final form of this article.