We have had to study John 10 when we were concerned about something Jesus teaches about salvation. We are back in John 10 in this series for a different reason. Indeed, we have addressed the matter of the gods in John 10 in the past, but that treatment was brief and left much room for misunderstanding. The goal is to build on the earlier material while retaining the earlier blog entry as a standalone article.

Our ultimate aim is to understand Jesus’ comment to his Jewish interlocutors in 10:34 – 36:

John 10:34-36 ESV
[34] Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? [35] If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken— [36] do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

In this passage, Jesus references Psalm 82 to help his claim. This means that we need to understand the Psalm in its context to understand Jesus’ use of it in John 10. That will help us grasp what John 10:34 – 36 is all about. However, in order to understand Psalm 82, we need to address a few relevant points. We begin with the small matter of heaven and hell.