The next, harshest words of Jesus are addressed to... Jews who had believed in Him. Evidently, they believed in some way other than the Lord wanted. Therefore we too need to think: do we believe rightly or not? They proudly declare that they were born free, being children of Abraham, the chosen people. Therefore they do not need freedom, for they are not slaves, and they do not need the truth, for they already know it. They call God their father, but this already follows from their belonging to the holy people; no step is required of them in order to be adopted by the Lord.

And what is most frightening is that all this is characteristic not only of the Jews. Do we not believe in the same way? Do we not consider ourselves chosen people who have freedom and truth in our pocket, and who have long since been God’s own people? If so, why do we need to believe in Jesus? Let us think about this...

What made the people listening to Jesus pick up stones? Obviously, His words about Abraham and about Himself. "I Am" (or, in modern Russian, "I am the One Who Is") meant a reference to Himself as the One who bears within Himself the fullness of God. Such a thing was not forgiven: in the eyes of any religious person, it was outright blasphemy. One could be a prophet or even the Messiah, but one could not be God. Whoever declares such a thing is either mad or a pagan, for pagans believed in the "divinity" of certain people, meaning their supernatural qualities or their connection with the world of the gods. This Man does not look mad, so, as can be seen, He must be an apostate who has imagined Himself to be some supernatural being in the pagan sense of the word. In any case, apostasy and blasphemy were evident, and they were punished by death.

It would seem that one might expect something like this from the Messiah; for example, Isaiah of Jerusalem did call the Messiah "father of eternity." But in the Judaism of Gospel times, these words were understood in the context of ideas about the Messiah whom God had conceived from the beginning of time. Naturally, no one considered the Messiah to be God.

And Jesus, as can be seen, wants to bring precisely this truth to His listeners, a truth inseparable from His earthly ministry. Indeed, He came into the world in order to bring the Kingdom into it, and in all its fullness. The Kingdom that from the very beginning He carried entirely within Himself, since, according to His own words, it is "not of this world" - nowhere in the world, except in Him Himself after His birth into the world, could the Kingdom exist. And the fullness of the Kingdom of God and the fullness of God are, in essence, one and the same: the One who contains within Himself the fullness of the Kingdom also contains the fullness of God.

This, apparently, is what Jesus wants to explain to the people listening to Him. And He does this not in order to exalt Himself somehow, but in order to make them understand what the Kingdom is, what it is really like. But to understand this, one must go beyond the frames of one's own religiosity. And they do not want to do this, or cannot do it - and they pick up stones.

Addressing the Pharisees who are listening to Him, Jesus keeps trying to bring them back to the very foundations of what is called spiritual life. He tells them: you see what I am doing, and still you dishonor Me - that means you are not from God.

At first glance, the argument may seem somewhat strange: Jesus Himself understands perfectly well that His listeners doubt Him and do not trust Him. To declare to them, when they have this attitude toward Him, that He is from God and they, if they do not accept Him, are therefore not from God, may seem somewhat naive at first glance. Making oneself the criterion when people do not believe you appears completely absurd. But Jesus is not speaking about Himself in isolation; He is speaking about His works - the very works about which even many Pharisees could say nothing except that they were from God. Simple logic should then have forced them to acknowledge that the One who performs these works is also from God. But nothing of the sort happens.

What prevents those listening to Jesus from acknowledging what is obvious? And what does He mean when He tells them that "their father is the devil"? Of course, when false witness is involved, that is, a direct violation of the ninth commandment, and a violation of which the offenders have no intention of repenting, one can already speak of direct submission to the devil as the spirit of lies.

But why does this happen? After all, these are deeply and sincerely religious people, for whom a conscious violation of the commandment means betrayal of their own religion. True; but, as can be seen, all this is valid only as long as religion itself is not at stake. If someone appears who encroaches on religion as such, that person is considered an enemy by definition, and the commandments no longer apply to Him: in their eyes He has placed Himself outside the religious law that they follow. There is nothing to discuss with such a person. "He is a Samaritan" (it would be hard to imagine a worse insult in the Pharisees' religious language), "He has a demon," and it does not matter that He works miracles: miracles are no proof if the One who performs them does not conform to religious norms.

And Jesus again and again tries to bring His listeners back to a normal, not religious but spiritual, vision of the situation: look not at your religion, He tells them, but at the One who does God's works; look without prejudice, with unblinded eyes, or else you will fall into the snares of the father of lies and lose everything, despite all your religiosity.