“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.” So the Jews were saying, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” {John 8:21-24}.
A friend recently spoke to me of a relative who was dying and how horrific it was. There are multiple types of ways people die from, such as to die in their sleep, through illness, injury and a host of others. We all would probably pick dying in our sleep as it speaks of dying without pain and none of us like pain. Death comes to us all the Bible teaches and graveyards testify and no matter how “pretty” some look with beautiful bouquets of flowers dotting beautifully manicured gardens the reality is beneath each bouquet of colored flowers was laid a person, cold stoned death. How ever way they died differs but all end in that hole in the ground, put away, hidden away from society and all now somewhere in eternity, Heaven or Hell,the Bible teaches.
As disturbed, troubled as was my dear friend at watching the death of a loved one the hope was they entered into His presence having trusted Jesus Christ as their LORD and SAVIOR, and death for them was an entrance into His glorious presence. We all have been to funerals where not a bad word is said about the person who died, and somehow try and laud their “good works” as though that should somehow appease GOD, which the Bible teaches it doesn’t!
“The person who sins will die.”-{Ezekiel 18:20}. Always remember no matter how a person dies the worst way they can die is to die in their sins! Three times in the passage (8:21, twice in v. 24) He warns the Pharisees that they will die in their sins. He tells them this so they know, that they will face God’s judgment for their sins.
“To die in your sins…” is to die un-forgiven by God!
4 Ways People die in their sins because of…
1. SELF RIGHTEOUSNESS
“So the Jews were saying, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” -{John 8:22}.
They did not see themselves as sinners nor did they need a Savior, especially not Jesus, who had pointed out their hypocrisy and self righteousness on more than one occasion. There mocking Him about taking His own life as the Jews according to the Jewish Historian, Josephus believed that those who took their own life would go to the furthest part of Hades and far removed from the bosom of Abraham where they believed they would be as that is where The “righteous” went! The self righteous trust in their own character, intent, to get them to Heaven, their rituals, works…any person who trust in self, their good works, religion as opposed to exclusively trust in Jesus Christ alone.
Like the Pharisees who went to pray and told God all of his “good works” and how he was better than the other man who prayed also. Jesus was saying of them in Luke 18:9,”To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else…” They were trusting in their own self righteousness, in the passage he falsely believed he was good enough to get to God and his “good works,” were his evidence to present how good he was! Self righteousness will assure you die in your sins. It is to fail to acknowledge your sin against God and need of deliverance from the power, penalty of sin and deception of believing falsely you and you alone are sufficient to save, merit salvation outside of the work of Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Paul had trusted in his own self righteousness and came to realize it was all “dung” and he said,
“…But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,” -{Phil 3:7-9}
The self righteous, will die in their sins, BECAUSE they trust in them-selves!
Self righteous people exclude the righteousness of Christ. While the righteousness of Christ exclude the self righteous!
Then He said again to them, “… where I am going, you cannot come.”-{ v22}. They were so sure they were on their way to Heaven. He tells them “no!” This was offensive to them, so filled with self righteousness were they. “Where I am going you cannot go!” He would return to heaven after the Crucifixion, resurrection, ascension. He was going back to heaven and they could not go be with Him on their “terms,” of self righteousness. There is no room in heaven for the self righteous only those who are clothed in the righteousness which God supplies through the LORD Jesus! “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”-{ 2 Cor 5:21}.
2. TRUSTING IN THE WORLD SYSTEM
“And He was saying to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.“-{John 8:23},
They are from below, and the system of earth! Love the world system, live for it and what it promises, promotes, the ideologies, thought patterns, attitudes that runs this world, and the people in it.
They are bound to the realm of this “world” which speaks of the system that is devoid of God and falsely believed that trust in this worlds system which believes that humanism is the ultimate authority, that humans have the spiritual answer, like the tower of Babel, the people believed they were sufficient within themselves to get to Heaven without God through their own means. The world as used here is not speaking of the physical but the unseen realm of evil that is manifested in materialistic, humanistic teaching and believing, as the means and end of living and sufficient for the spiritual need of all humans!
“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. “-{1 John 2;15}. Here we see what ‘the world’ is characterized by lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and boastful pride of life!
“You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”- {James 4:4}. “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.”-{John 17:14}
3. UNBELIEVING
Jesus said the reason people die in their sins is their willful, refusal, rebellion to believe in Him! – ” Jesus says, “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins. “-{John 8;24}.The word “for” gives the explanation, reason, He tells them WHY they will die in their sins!
Unless you believe Jesus is who He says He is you will..die in your sins… un-forgiven! Reject Jesus Christ guarantees you will die in your sins!
They said that what He said about Himself was not true,- {v 13}. They said He was lying, that He was a liar! In Matthew 16:15 Jesus asked His disciples “He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” The Pharisees said he was lying, a liar! He told them three times “you will die in your sins,” and they believed falsely they were God’s representatives on earth and that they were going to Heaven and then to be told, no- You are going to die in your sins! How many times have you said that to someone, who were convinced they were “‘righteous” and God would let them in because of their “good works” which out weighed their bad works and besides they were better than others. And Jesus though meaning well, could not stop them getting to Heaven because of their deeds of self-righteousness!
Everyone has an opinion about Jesus.
There are people who hear the Word of God, the GOSPEL and instead of embracing , submitting to it, refuse and Jesus says of them “Now this is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the Word of God. The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message, only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from believing and being saved.”-{Luke 8;11-12}. The rejection of what He says through His Word and allowing the evil one to snatch the seed often by focusing on the “cares” of this world. A willful Refusal to believe Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to the Pharisees that those who reject Him “will die in [their] sins” (John 8:21). Jesus is sent by God the father (John 8:16), He comes from heaven (John 8:23), and He does the will of God (John 7:28–29), those who reject Him cannot be saved, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”- (John 3:36). To reject the LORD Jesus is to turn your back God Himself ,”Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.“ -(John 6:29). And for the rest of us we read, “…but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.“-{John 20:21}.
4. DEFIANCE, STUBBORN!
“So they were saying to Him,“Who are You?” “ Jesus said to them, “What have I been saying to you from the beginning?“- {John 8:25}. It’s not a genuine question of inquiry but can be written as a statement of “Who do you think you are!”
But He knew who He was and declared to them…
From the beginning He had said,”For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. “-( John 1:17).
The “I AM” is about Deity!
“I am the bread of life” (John 6:35), “he who believes in Me will never thirst” (6:35), “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”- (John 8:12), “I am the good shepherd” (10:11), “I am the door if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” (10:9), “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”– (11:25-26), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Fathers EXCEPT Through Me.”- (14:6).”
They were defiant in their objection and rejection to the LORD Jesus!
People die in their sins because of…
Clinging and trusting in their own self-righteousness while rejecting the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Clinging, trusting in a world system.
Clinging to an unbelieving heart, that rejects Jesus Christ.
Clinging to Defiance, Stubbornness. They die in their sins from willful defiance, they will not have Him rule over their lives!
To cling to any of these 4 will guarantee you die in your sin!
The root of their problem and with every person Jesus says is “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” This is the root problem with every individual who is born. We are born in sin, mastered by sin, pursue sin and separated from God because our sin, which is offensive and a crime against God. We don’t Know Him or Jesus Christ, whom He sent to bear our sins! And since we don’t know Him as He is Holy, Righteous, Just, we do not know ourselves and how sinful we truly are! We compare ourselves against one another and create a “god” of our own imagination rather than bow to the One True Living God, and we cling to our sin of self righteousness, the world system, unbelief, defiance and these will guarantee we will die in our sins, having rejected God’s SIN BEARER, the LORD Jesus Christ. And the outcome is eternity in Hell “…where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’”-{Mark 9:48} ” He is quoting from Isaiah 66:24: “They will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” In both texts the word translated as “worm” literally means “grub” or “maggot.” A maggot would have an obvious association with a dump like Gehenna where dead bodies are thrown; however, the maggot Christ speaks of “will not die.”
Taken at face value, this text is one of the most horrific descriptions of what hell is like. The thought of eternal torment, likened to maggots eating away at a rotting corpse, is undoubtedly ghastly.” -{ got questions.com}
“And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.'”-{Luke 16:24}
They said To Jesus “who are You? And He replies “what have I been saying to you from the beginning?” They were hard- hearted, rebellious , stubborn, stiff-necked! He had told them…He would not always strive with them but would remove Himself and they were left in their sin, by choice and they would die in their sin and they at this moment are just as much as alive as you who read this. They live eternally in torment, they died in their sins. Will you?
To die in your sin is to commit to self righteousness and refuse to repent.
To die in your sin is to commit to the world system as opposed to God’s Kingdom.
To die in your sins is to commit to rejecting Jesus Christ rather than receive Him.”But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,”-{John 1;12}.
To dies in your sins is to commit to being stubborn, defiant, rather than submitting and trusting Him and being liberated through the power of the LORD Jesus.
To die un-forgiven is to die in your sins and that is by choice having rejected the Son of God, the Cross, the resurrection, the Word of God and His messages you have heard, or read… and no matter what “niceties” is said at your funeral…it will not suffice. For truth be known you have died in your sins and are paying the consequences for your sins! And as the rich men who cried out ‘send someone to my brothers and tell them to REPENT unless they come to this place.” Hell cries out to you repent towards God and place your faith in Jesus Christ…but the self righteous, the worldly, the unbelieving , the stubborn will refuse… and so they are guaranteed to die in their sins. How frightening, how warped is sin that people choose to reject God’s provision Jesus Christ. “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.“- {1 Timothy 1:15-16}.
On the physical side there are some very very painful deaths that people die in, but the good news is at death that pain ends, mercifully. But while that pain is temporal, to die in your sins is eternal…
But to think beyond death and what happens next is what needs to be considered.
To die in your sins is the worst death of all!
To die in your sins is needless as provision for your sins has been made by the LORD Jesus Christ!
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” -{ 2 Cor 5:21}.