the source of my desires

Some of the people in AD30 Jerusalem at the Feast of Tents did not know what Jesus was saying. Yes, they heard his speech. But why did they not know what he was actually saying to them? What was the reason behind their not-knowing?

Jesus told them the root cause of an absence of knowing what he was saying. “It is because you are not able to hear my word.” What did the words “hear my word” actually mean? Sure, his “word” was his “speech”. But was Jesus also – himself, in person, his whole being - his “word” to all humanity? 

I think so, But, in that case, why were these AD 30 Jerusalem people actually “not able to hear [the word that is himself]”? And are people still in that position today?

Sometimes, for instance at a funeral, we pray the “Our Father” which Jesus taught his disciples to pray. Jesus was saying in AD 30 that people had a different spiritual father. The children of one Father and of the other father both “do the desires” of the One or of the other one.

 

What do you think? Did Jesus draw a realistic picture of this unseen father, this “murderer” bent on human destruction and achieving his desires through truth-suppression and the fathering of lies.

This is quite a challenge. Jesus is stating that, inasmuch as he (always) “state[s] the truth”, it is an axiomatic consequence that some of those listening to him will “not believe” him because their spiritual father, who “was a murderer from the beginning”, “is a liar and the father of it”.

“The truth” has a dedicated unseen opponent as well as many opponents.

This simple question to those who did not, at that time, believe in Jesus demanded a response. Could any other man could have asked that of the mixed crowd in the Jerusalem Temple AD30 and not been accused? 

He asks them a second time why it is that they do not believe him when he says, “I state the truth”. These opponents (at that time) of Jesus – are they not able to see beyond their rejection of him? Are they not able to see that their rejection of him originates within their whole being, within their identity? “You are not of God", he says.

 

This considered reply relates to the challenge he had given them, “Which one of you calls me to account regarding sin?” They could not detect “sin” in him so they found other things so as to do away with him.

Earlier in his biography of Jesus, John the biographer had written “Jews have no dealings with Samaritans”. To them at that time, anyone from Samaria was totally despicable. Was Jesus not “a Samaritan”? Also, did he not "have a demon” – did he not possess an evil spirit? 

Jesus again sets out the truth about them (at that time). They “dishonour” him. They dishonour him so as to bury the “word” from above and so as to follow the “desires” of their father. And so it goes on…