John 8:20 begins with Jesus escaping His enemies because His time had not yet come. We find this three times in the gospel of John. Jesus knew when and how He would die and He would not be captured until the right time.

Instead of leaving the area after saying something that angered the Jews, Jesus stayed there and continued speaking. He must have had great confidence in His power and abilities because, at this point, an earthly person would have found a place to hide. With no army and in the midst of hostile people, Jesus continued His preaching and teaching because He loved the people and wanted to point them to His Father.

In verse 21, Jesus begins with a prophecy. He tells the Jews that He is going away. They understand this as more than a temporary exit because they ask whether or not He is going to kill Himself.

While reading and studying the scriptures, if we want to understand Jesus’ words in context and if we want to fully understand their meaning, it’s good to analyze the reactions of His critics and His listeners. They often highlight what He is saying and they leave us no doubt that, not only was His point made, but He was conveying to them that He was the Christ, God’s Messiah. For instance, some say that Jesus never claimed to be God. However, if we look at the words and reaction of the Jews in John 10:31-33, we know that Jesus said He was far more than ordinary and, in fact, the Messiah.

Jesus continues and tells them they will look for (or seek) Him, but they would die in their sins. This is contrasted with true belief in verse 24. The Greek word for look is “zeteo” and it can be used to convey “a plot against one’s life” (Strong’s Greek Dictionary). However, we find a very different word used by Jesus for actual belief. When He said, “if you believe not . . . you will die in your sins”, the word for believe is “pisteuo” and it means “to have faith” and to “entrust one’s spiritual well being to Christ.”

In verse 23, Jesus explains to the Jews His spiritual origin and their worldly origin. Jesus tells them that they are “of this world” and He is “not of this world”. This is a contrast that is echoed throughout the New Testament. Although we must live in this world, we cannot be of this world. Christians must be set apart for Christ and heavenly minded, but not so heavenly minded that it makes them no earthly good for the cause of Christ.

We find another of Jesus’ claims and an emphatic warning in verse 24. Interestingly, we read an emphatic claim in The Message translation of the New Testament. It reads, “. . . I am who I say I am . . .” In light of the “I AM” statements recorded by John, it’s interesting that The Message, although it is a paraphrase and shouldn’t be used for studying the original languages and such, has two of them in this single verse.

Whenever we see something repeated, we can conclude that God intended to emphasize that message through the device of repetition. All of God’s words and commands in the scriptures are authoritative, but we should always take pause when we see something repeated; especially when Jesus is speaking. This is what we find in verse 24. Jesus tells the Jews that they would die in their sins if they did not believe in Him. He repeated this for emphasis, so they would be without any excuse, so they wouldn’t forget, and so we would see our emphatic need to trust in the Savior before we die in our sins.