What is Old Testament “Law”?

[On Sunday we return to the sermon series on the book of Psalms, The Songs of the People of God, with the first of several sermons on Psalm 119. This longest of all psalms begins: “Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the LORD!” The Hebrew word translated “law” is “torah.” This devotion on the meaning of “torah” is edited from the introduction to a sermon on Malachi 2:1-9 preached March 16, 2008. You can listen to the audio here – Coty]

What is Old Testament law?

Most English translations use “law” to translate the Hebrew word “torah.” But torah is not “law” in the sense of a speed limit or the internal revenue code. Indeed, three times in Malachi 2:7-9 the ESV translates “torah” as “instruction.” That alone shows us we might benefit from investigating the meaning of the Hebrew word.

So what is “torah”?

Torah is the revelation of God to man, fundamentally communicating His character, and consequently instructing us how to live in light of who God is. It is thus the source of joy and well-being, the foundation of any right view of the world, the foundation of any wisdom, any knowledge, any insight. Through torah we learn who God is, who we are, how we can be reconciled to Him, and how we can live every day before Him to our joy and His glory.

As the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament puts it: “The true purpose of torah is to lead man into a fruitful, abundant life of fellowship with God.” I would add “and thus fellowship with each other, and with the created order.”

Therefore:

  • Don’t think of torah as a list of rules or laws that we must keep in order to earn God’s favor
  • Don’t think of torah as a set of hoops He requires us to jump through
  • Don’t think of torah as arbitrary standards God sets up.

But think of torah as precious revelation from God given to us for our good.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13 is helpful here:

“Now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?” (NIV)

This is torah – God’s commands given to us for our good:

  • He tells us to fear Him; that’s the right response when coming before a majestic, perfect King.
  • He tells us to walk in His ways, His paths, His road – and on no other road, not turning off that road but observing His commands.
  • He tells us to agree that He is wise – much wiser than we are – and thus to follow His ways even if doing so doesn’t seem to make sense.
  • And He tells us to do all this from a heart devoted to Him. Thus we are not just going through the motions, but our outward behavior flows from an inner change, from hearts that love Him and thus serve Him wholeheartedly.
  • Finally, He tells us doing all this doesn’t limit us, doesn’t keep us from true life, but rather leads to our good.

Many of the same ideas come out in John 15:1-11 as Jesus elaborates on His statement, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” That is, “I am the source of all that is good in you. If you are to accomplish anything of value, you must depend on Me. So abide in Me, remain in Me, depend on Me always. If that is to happen, My words, My torah, must abide in you. As you keep My commandments, my torah, you abide in my love. And all this is to your great joy; all this leads to life, to fulfillment, to peace/shalom. Furthermore, all this leads to My glory – to your creating alleluia.”

The bottom line is this: God does not set up hoops for us to jump through, and then say, “On your marks, get set, go! Jump through those hoops! Show Me that you deserve eternal life! If you succeed, I’ll give you that life!”

Nor does God set up barriers to joy: “If you want heaven, you have to prove to Me that you can give up everything that you enjoy, everything that is good, everything that leads to life.”

No. We are to desire God because He is the greatest joy. He is true life. He is peace/shalom. His torah is the way to the greatest happiness imaginable.

Our task is not to prove our worth, but to help each other to turn away from cheap, momentary pleasures that never satisfy and to turn to the greatest pleasure of all: Knowing God through Jesus Christ, knowing the King of the Universe through the King of kings and Lord of lords, knowing the heavenly Father through the crucified Son.

This is torah. This is the torah that leads to peace/shalom. This is the torah that leads to our joy and God’s glory.

Abide in His Love by Karl Dauber

[Karl preached this sermon on John 15:1-11 March 22, 2020]

At Desiring God Community Church, one of our stated core values is being “Joy-Pursuing”.  Specifically, we pursue joy in God.  Our Mission Statement reads: “We exist to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples”.  So, the pursuit of joy is a big part of who we are as God’s people.

But we are broken people who live in a broken world.  As a result, life is often filled with disappointment and a sense of emptiness.  And very often, what we feel is a strong desire to just feel better.  And this impulse can drive us to worldly things that appear to offer satisfaction.  OK, maybe not really satisfaction.  Maybe just a way to escape for a while and get away from that sense of disappointment and emptiness.

I’ve seen a bad dynamic that can happen in my life:

  • I sin.
  • Then I feel disappointed in myself.
  • Then I hear the voice of the Accuser saying that God is disappointed too, and unhappy with me because of my sin.
  • Then the thought that God is unhappy with me makes feel even worse.
  • But I don’t want to feel bad – that’s what I was trying to escape in the first place.
  • So, I run away from God and toward something that promises to make me feel better, or at least makes me forget how bad I feel.

Does this sound familiar to you?  It’s like Adam and Eve in the garden.  They sin, feel guilt, and hide from God.

I have found that if the Accuser’s lies underlying this dynamic are not defeated, it is impossible for me to pursue joy in God.  If I am not convinced – not just intellectually, but at an emotional level – that God feels joy and delight when he looks at me, I will run away from him, rather than towards him.  Pursuing joy in God is impossible, unless I first know that he finds joy in me.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could say, like Jesus said in John chapter 8, that we always do what is pleasing to God, and therefore know that God is always with us?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could always hear God saying to us, as he said to Jesus: “you are my beloved child, with you I am well pleased”?

But how can this be possible, when we sin so much?  We certainly cannot claim, as Jesus did, that we always do what is pleasing to God.

The answer of course is the good news of the gospel.  Jesus became as one of us, a human being, and lived the perfect life that we should live.  And he died in our place on the cross, paying the debt we could not pay, receiving in himself the judgement we deserve.  Jesus took our sin and punishment and gave us his righteousness.

Therefore, we can say that we are always pleasing to God.  God’s joy in us is never interrupted or diminished by our frequent falling into sin.

This is not to say that our sin does not grieve God – it does.  But that is a very different thing than saying it affects God’s joy in us.  God can delight in us and be grieved by our sin at the same time.  We must make this distinction and hold onto both truths.  Otherwise, we will fall into one of two errors:

  • Thinking that our sin makes God unhappy with us, so that he is no longer “well pleased” with us. Our sin turns his smile into a frown.  That is anti-gospel, because it makes our righteousness, not Christ’s righteousness, the basis of God’s joy in us.
  • Thinking that our sin does not matter to God. Thinking that being saved is the important part.  Being obedient – well, it’s a good thing of course, but not absolutely necessary.  But we know from the scriptures that our sin is a very serious matter.  It is so serious that Jesus and the apostles warn us frequently that those who continue in sin have no reason to believe that they are in Christ and are saved at all.

Jesus’s words to his disciples in John 15 addresses this issue, and it helps us to see the importance of why our fight against sin is supremely important, and how we can fight sin, and how we can have joy.  The setting is the evening of the Last Supper.  Later that night Jesus would be arrested and next day crucified.  This is Jesus’ last opportunity to spend extended time with the 12 disciples.  Looking at this passage, we see:

  • Four truths
  • One command
  • Five results

Four truths

  1. (vs 1) Jesus is the true vine. There is only one vine, one source of life.  This entire passage is a picture of our dependency on Christ.  We are completely dependent on him. In verse 5 Jesus emphasizes this.  Without his life in us, we can do “nothing”.  It’s not that we will be less fruitful – we will be completely unfruitful, like a dead branch.
  2. (vs 2) All people are branches, both the fruitful and unfruitful. All people owe their very existence to Christ.  As we recently saw in Hebrews 1:3, Jesus upholds the universe by the word of his power, and that includes all of us.
  3. (vs 3) We have been made clean by the word of the gospel. Notice the word “already”.  Jesus doesn’t tell us to abide so that we can be made clean.    We are already clean.  Earlier in this gospel of John, Peter said to Jesus: “you have the words of eternal life”.  We heard the word of the gospel: the promise of Jesus that his sacrifice to pay our debt will save us from God’s judgment, redeem us from slavery to sin, give us life and set us free, and bring us into his Kingdom.  We heard that word, and by God’s grace we believed it, and that has made us clean.  This passage is not about how we can be saved.  It is about how we who have been saved should live.  How we can have joy.  How we can fulfill our purpose to magnify the glory of God.
  4. (vs 2) Our Father in Heaven is at work. He does two things:

First, He removes.

What does he remove?  The unfruitful branches. The unfruitful branches are unfruitful because they do not believe and therefore do not abide.  In verse 4, Jesus describes such a branch as being “by itself”.  What does this mean?  During winter, you can’t tell which branches are alive and which are dead.  But when Spring comes and it’s time for the leaves to come out, then you can see.  There are branches that produce no leaves, no flowers, no fruit.  They are connected to the tree physically, and are supported by the tree, but they no longer have any connection to the life of the tree.  This is a picture of those who were created by God, and continue to exist only by God’s gracious provision, and yet do not acknowledge their dependence on him.  In rejecting their Creator, they reject the very purpose of their existence – which is to enjoy and magnify the glory of God.  It’s like a branch of an apple tree that stubbornly insists that it does not want to bear apples!  Such a branch no longer has any purpose.

What is the destiny of these unfruitful branches?  They are like the branches that fall to the ground in a strong wind because they are dead and have no strength.  Psalm 1 says that “the wicked will not stand in the judgment”.  In verse 6 of this text, Jesus says the dead branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  In the Bible, fire is always a picture of judgement.

Secondly, our Father in Heaven prunes.

What does he prune?  The fruitful branches.  Now, if you are someone not familiar with agricultural life, and most of us are not, this seems a bit unexpected.  If a branch is bearing fruit, why would you mess with it?  Leave it alone.  Don’t fix what isn’t broken.

And pruning sounds painful, doesn’t it?  It involves cutting and removing.  That doesn’t sound pleasant. In Hebrews chapter 12 the author says, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Verse 2 explains the purpose of the pruning:  the pruning produces “more” fruit.  What does this tell us about fruitfulness?  It tells us that fruitfulness is a progressive process.  The farmer sees a branch with some fruit on it, maybe just a little bit, and he thinks “Aha!  This branch is alive and well.  It’s worth keeping.  Therefore, I will prune it so that it reaches its full potential.”  This should be encouraging to us.

On his 20th anniversary sermon, John Piper said that upon looking back and reflecting on the spiritual growth he saw in himself and in the congregation, he was not impressed.  Our faith is not impressive.  But he also once asked: “If you are not running the race of faith, are you walking?  If not walking, are you crawling?  If not, are you at least facing the right direction?”

John Freeman of Harvest USA once visited our church.  And I remember he compared Christians to a glass of beer, in which there is just a little bit of beer in the bottom of the glass and rest is just foam.  But at least there is some beer in the glass.

If it seems like there isn’t much fruit in your life, don’t fret about that – the Father is working in you.  Instead, be thankful. Praise God that there is any fruit in you at all.  In this passage Jesus said that apart from him there would be no fruit.  So, the presence of even just a little shows that you are indeed in the vine, and the life of Christ is in you.

One command

There is only one command in this passage, and that command is not “bear fruit”.  The command is “abide”.  Specifically, abide in Christ.  Jesus uses the word abide 10 times in 11 verses.  You don’t have to be a Biblical scholar to see Jesus’s main point here.  There is only one command, but it is apparently really important.  Jesus wants us to abide in him.  Therefore, that should be our focus, not fruitfulness.  We should be looking at Jesus, not looking at ourselves.

But what does it mean to abide?  Consider verse 10:

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

For a long time, this statement by Jesus troubled me.  On the surface this verse seems to imply that we earn Christ’s love by obeying his commands.  But our obedience is not constant.  Is Jesus’ love for us therefore not constant?  Is our righteousness the foundation of our relationship with Christ?  But this is clearly contrary to the gospel.  In fact, this is no gospel at all.

Jesus’ love for us is constant.  Why?  Precisely because it is not contingent on our obedience.  In verse 16 Jesus reminds his disciples that Jesus chose them, not the other way around.  In Ephesians 2:1-6, the Apostle Paul writes that we were chosen when we were still sinners in rebellion against God.  Jesus’ righteousness, not ours, is the foundation of the love that He and the Father have for us.

Consider also Colossians 3:1-4 that speaks about us being united with Christ.  According to that passage, two things happened to us:

  1. We have died with Christ. This means that in God’s eyes, our sin has been punished just as surely as if we ourselves had died on the cross.  As our advocate, Jesus does not ask for mercy from the Father, he asks for justice because our sin has already received its due punishment and the debt has been paid.
  2. We have been raised with Christ. And where is Christ?  Seated at the right hand of God – the place of greatest honor before God!  That is where we are.  That is who we are.

In God’s eyes, we have the righteousness of Christ, and therefore he can continually delight in us as he delights in Christ, even though our obedience is not continual, as Jesus’ obedience is.

With that understanding then, let’s look more closely at verse 10.  Jesus is clearly expressing some kind of contingency that is dependent on our obedience. That’s clear from the word “if”.  “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love”.  What does this mean?  What is Jesus telling us?

In thinking about the word “abide”, the word “abode”, or residence” comes to mind, and what it means for Christ and the Father to be our abode.  Psalm 61 David said, “for you have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy”. This is a very helpful word picture.  Think of disobedience as leaving the strong tower of God’s love.  In vs 10 I think Jesus is saying: “when you continue in obedience, you are in effect staying within the strong tower of my love, where you will experience the full joy of that love.  When you fail to keep my commandments, you are in effect leaving the tower (no longer abiding in it) and therefore you forfeit the enjoyment of that love.”  Christ’s love for us is constant, but our enjoyment of that love is not constant because we do not constantly abide in it. You can’t enjoy a relationship which you walk away from!

Do you see what Jesus is saying?  He is urging us to remain in his love because that’s where life and joy are found.

So, what does it mean to abide in his love?  It means making a conscious decision about where you are going to seek life and joy.  Obeying Jesus’ commands is the outer result of an inner decision.  It is the outworking of a heart-felt conviction that I’m not going to find joy in this thing, or that thing, over there, or over there – but here, and only here, in Christ.

But this is not a one-time decision, is it?  It’s a decision we need to make continually, step by step, day after day, hour by hour.  How can we cultivate this together?

In 1 John 4:19, the Apostle John says “We love because He first loved us”.  God’ love for us comes first and our love for him is a response to that love.  By intentionally and prayerfully reflecting on the magnitude of God’s mercy and love for us, we cultivate a response of love for God.  In Colossians 3, Paul writes at length about putting to death earthly desires and instead living holy lives.  But he doesn’t start with that, does he?  First, he tells us to set our minds on things that are above.  Our joy in God is the power to overcome the competing allure of the things of the world.

So, ask yourselves: what do you desire?  And I mean, really think about it.  The question is not what the objects of your desire are, but why you want them.  You have to look deep down to find the desire beneath the desire.  What are you really looking for?

Do you want to be accepted and loved by someone who knows everything about you?

Behold Jesus, who knew everything about you before you were born, and chose you for himself before the foundation of the world.

Do you want affirmation that you matter?  That you have value?

Behold Jesus, who died on the cross and endured the punishment of Hell.  Why?  So that he could have you to be with him for eternity.

Do you crave security in a world where nothing seems certain?

Behold, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Behold, your life is hidden with Christ in God.  Jesus said he has given us eternal life, that we will never perish, and that no one can snatch us out of his hand.

Do you want rest and peace?

Behold Jesus, who frees us from all that would enslave us, and calls us to himself that we might have rest for our souls.

Do you hunger to see justice and righteousness in the world?

Behold, Jesus the King is coming, and he is going remove all causes of evil from the world.  He is going to destroy Satan with a word from his mouth, and he will rule in righteousness forever.

Do you hunger to finally be finished with your struggle against sin, and to be perfect in holiness, just like Jesus?

Behold, Jesus is coming, and the scriptures say that when he does we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is, and he is going to present us faultless and without blemish before the Father.

Do you long to be thrilled and amazed?  To see great wonder and beauty that brings tears to your eyes and makes you shout?

Behold, Jesus is coming and when he does he will come in clouds with great power and glory, and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

We need to set our minds on these things.  We need to see the big picture.  In this way, we will increasingly treasure what is invisible and eternal, rather than what is visible and passing away.  This is how we abide in Christ.

Five results of abiding

  1. We will bear fruit. Look at verse 5.  Note that this is a promise, not a command.  We don’t make this happen.  The life of Christ in us makes the fruit happen.  That’s why Paul refers to the “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:22-23.  And how does Paul say that this will happen?  He tells us in verse 16 to “walk by the Spirit”.  That’s just another way of saying: “Abide in Christ”.  The New Testament scriptures have much to say about this fruit and what it looks like, but generally this fruit will show itself in 2 ways:
    • As an increasing conformity to the character of Christ
    • And an increasing love for God and others.
  1. Our desires will be conformed to the will of Christ. Look at verse 7. This is implied by the certainty that we will be given what we ask for.  We will be given “whatever we wish”, because when we are abiding in Christ, our desires are in alignment with Christ’s desires.
  2. We will have the full joy of Christ. See verse 11.  This is not like the “joy” that the things of the world offer.  The joys of the world are very temporary, always enslaving, and ultimately destructive.  In contrast, the joy we have in Christ is lasting.  It can never be taken away.  Finding joy in Christ liberates us from whatever else is trying to enslave us.  And joy in Christ is life-giving, not soul-destroying
  3. We will prove to be Christ’s disciples. See Verse 8.

Who needs this proof?  Not God – he knows those whom he chose (vs 16).  So why is proof is needed?

    • For our own reassurance. In Romans 5 Paul taught that God’s pruning in our lives results in fruit that proves we belong to Christ and that this increases our hope and joy.
    • In Matthew 7 Jesus said that the fruit that comes from abiding is an important way to distinguish between good and false teachers.
    • At the judgment our fruit will bear witness to all of creation that we are indeed in Christ. And this leads us to the 5th result…
  1. God will be glorified. (Verse 8) The Father is glorified when we bear fruit.

By his rebellion, Satan declares that God’s glory is worthless, and he is constantly trying to use us to support his case.  Remember how he trued to use Job this way?  Satan claimed that Job feared God only because he gets worldly benefits.  Satan claimed that Job did not worship God for who God is.

We tend to think that our daily choices are a small thing. It’s just about us.  It isn’t.  Our choices have cosmic implications.  When we choose the world instead of the one who created it, we take Satan’s side of the argument, showing that we consider God’s glory worthless, and we join in the rebellion.  But when we reject the promises of the world and instead choose to find joy by abiding in Christ, we uphold the superior worth of God’s glory and our fruit bears witness that we have made that choice – and that magnifies God’s glory.  Nothing we do gives God greater glory than the day-to-day decisions we make to choose to abide with Christ rather than running off to find joy elsewhere.

How can we apply this?

First of all, based on this passage, what should you do when you sin?  The Father’s delight in you does not change.  What changed was that you walked away from his love.  So, go back – immediately.  There’s no reason to wait. No reason to hide.  Go back to Jesus’ love.  Go back to joy.

Secondly, think deeply and prayerfully with the help of the Holy Spirit on the following questions:

  1. When am I not abiding?
  2. What is hindering me or distracting me from abiding in Christ?
  3. Where am I abiding instead of in Christ? What captures my imagination and thoughts when I’m free to think about what I wish?  Where do I go to get a sense of well-being, or to escape?

And then, share this with a close brother or sister in Christ.  This is a fight, and we do not fight alone.

From the song “Stay” by Big Daddy Weave

I’ve seen the flash of lightning
I’ve heard the rolling thunder
I’ve felt the crashing of the waves
And though I’ve known Your presence
And been filled with wonder
Still there are many things that pull me away

I’ve felt Your hand of mercy through my darkest failures
And on the other side You’ve covered me with grace
And like a child lost and afraid, You come and find this runaway
And in Your loving arms You bring me home again
What’s it going to take to make me stay?

Break my heart with what breaks Yours
Until You’re all I’m living for
Show me what it means
Not just to believe but to remain

I don’t want to hurt You anymore
I don’t want to waste another day
‘Cause it breaks Your heart, it breaks Your heart
When I keep walking away

You know what it means to sacrifice
But You tell me that it’s better to obey
You’ve giving me a thousand brand new starts
Jesus, give me what it takes to stay|
Give me what it takes to stay
Let me stay, I want to stay

Jesus in His Own Words

[On March 11, Edward Vaughns, I’John Gatewood, and Wil Hester will prepare us for the Lord’s Supper by speaking on three of Jesus’ “I Am” statements from the Gospel of John. Prepare yourself for that service by reading through and meditating on all of those statements, listed below together with some context. I have included here not only the images Jesus applies to Himself – such as the bread of life, the light of the world, the good shepherd, the door of the sheep, and the vine – but also some other key statements He makes about His identity. So ponder these Scriptures – and worship Jesus as the only source of true satisfaction, true joy, and abundant life. You can download a pdf of these verses for printing or easier reading at this link – Coty]

6:35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.”

6:47-58  “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.  48 I am the bread of life.  49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.  50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.  51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”  52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”  53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.  56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.  57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.  58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

8:23-24 [Jesus] said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

8:28 So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.”

8:58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

9:4-5 “We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

10:7-16  So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.  8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.  9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.  10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.  13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.  14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,  15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.  16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

10:36-38  “Do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?  37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

11:23-27 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”  24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”  25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,  26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”  27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

13:13 “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am.”

14:6 Jesus said to [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

 14:10-11 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

15:1-11  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.  2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.  4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.  5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.  6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.  7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.  8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.  9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.  10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”