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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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John 10:32
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We see here a great lesson in witness, a great lesson in preaching. Christ does not just rap out to them the facts of salvation – you are a sinner, you need a Saviour. This is all true, but he does not only do this. I am that Saviour, believe in me, and you will be saved. He does not just do that. He calls them to reason and to think. His appeal to them is persuasive and reasoning. He wrestles with them. He is calling them to think. Look, he says to them, I have done many wonderful things. Think about it. How do you explain them? Have you taken account of them? Tell me this, for which of those works are you stoning me?Now this could have a variety of meanings. Can you say that any one of my miracles was phoney? Can you say that any one of my miracles did not hold, did not last? Can you point to a single person miraculously healed, withered limbs restored to fullness and strength and vigour within a second? Can you point to anyone who has reverted to their diseased state? For which of my miracles do you stone me? It suggests he is challenging them. Can you find a single flaw? Think, think what you are doing. Before you stone me, he is not pleading for his own life, he is pleading for their souls.
Application
We are to imitate his methods. We do not just ram out the Gospel, as it were. We call people to think what they are doing with their lives: the great inferiority of the worldly life and the eternal superiority of being in Christ and coming to him for conversion. Wrestling is a word the Puritans used to use. Preaching the Gospel, they said, is wrestling with the souls of people, urging, persuading, remonstrating, appealing, and reasoning. Even though we believe it is God who must move the heart, that task falls to us.
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