NOTES for Joh 8:39-40
Jesus' conversation with the Pharisees listening to Him looks at first like a simple misunderstanding. An argument over words that each person understands in his own way. Meanwhile Jesus Himself, as it were, is not especially trying to resolve this misunderstanding. On the contrary, He speaks in such a way that some questions are joined by others, and new perplexities and misunderstandings are layered onto the old ones. At first glance it can look as if Jesus is trying to confuse His interlocutors as much as possible. In fact He is trying to help them see both themselves and the life they live in a way entirely different from the way they are accustomed to seeing all this. They are accustomed to seeing themselves and their life from the point of view of the religious tradition whose bearers they were.
For a believer, religiosity can in a certain sense be considered a natural state, and therefore it is no surprise that such a person perceives everything around him through the prism of his religion. The Pharisees were no exception; on the contrary, Pharisaism as a special movement within Judaism can in a certain sense be called the quintessence of religiosity as such. And the Pharisees' view of the world, of their life, and of their history was naturally religious.
Jesus is trying to lead them beyond the frames of this religiosity. For example, He says to them: you think you are free? But what about sin? Or do you not consider slavery to sin to be slavery? You are descendants of Abraham? Then being a descendant of Abraham means continuing the work he began, not declaring your loyalty to tradition. And what are you doing? You want to kill Me because I testify to you about what has been revealed to Me by God? And you consider this a work worthy of Abraham? Jesus is constantly trying to lead the people listening to Him beyond the frames of their own religiosity.
He wants to make them understand what spiritual life is in all its purity and fullness. A life not limited by any human frames, including religious ones. He says to the people listening to Him: Tradition is not religion. Tradition is life with God and in God. Everyone who lives such a life continues Tradition. Abraham is not the founder of a new religion; he began the Tradition of communion with God and life with God.
Only in this way can his work be continued. Genuine Tradition, Tradition with a capital letter, is the Tradition of life with God. And the fullness and completion of this Tradition is life in that very Kingdom which He, Jesus, brought into the world. It is this life that the Savior is trying to tell the Pharisees listening to Him about, plunging them into complete bewilderment. Bewilderment that gradually grows into irritation, and then into hatred. And that brings Christ's earthly path to the outcome natural in such a situation.