Synoptic Gospels - John 12:37

There we go.

Why We Must Not Skip Difficult Texts

Normally keep people for a lengthy period of time, but I think it's important that we don't skip over important sections that have difficult sayings in them because those end up being the very ones that are used to trip people up at a later point in time.

And I also think there's some important application that can be made of certain of the statements that are found here. Specifically, verse 36, while you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become sons of light, and this is followed with these things Jesus spoke and he went away and hid himself from them, and so remember the context, the Greeks coming seeking Jesus, the fact that Gentiles are coming to seek him prompts this discussion.

This is the last public teaching of the Lord in the Gospel of John, chapters 13 through 17 are the private ministry of the Lord to his disciples, incredible chapters filled with incredible material, but they are not public.

They are done in private to the disciples, and it makes up really the heart and soul of the Gospel narrative itself as far as the Gospel of John is concerned. There is relatively little of this kind of private, very private teaching contained in the Synoptic Gospels, but here in John you have much more of it.

And so he hides himself from them. He doesn't meet with the Greeks. And so in this context then, we have the statement, but though, in spite of the fact that he had performed so many signs before them, they were not believing in him.

Now, that might mean that you, instead of it's just the Greeks, they're included in this, but it's just hid himself from them, the observing world. All those who have been watching and listening, look, the number who follow Jesus is very small, very small.

The greatest teacher that ever lived, a man with divine power, and yet at times large followings, and yet what were the people following him for? And how fickle could they become? How quickly would they abandon the following of Jesus?

John chapter 6, they like what they've seen. They're willing to row across the lake to hear more of what Jesus has to say, but it's really not hearing what Jesus has to say. That's just something you do so that you can get the special food, the miracle food.

You can be in on what's going on. It's amazing the reasons why people do what they do, and we have to keep these things in mind, especially in a day where we have so many people who are willing to say, look, we look around and we see the polls and we see that the number of people in the next generation who doubt the existence of God has increased a good percentage over the preceding generation, and it's getting worse and worse.

And so, we've got to do something about this. In fact, I mentioned to someone recently, I'm sick and tired of seeing all of these articles lamenting the continuing secularization of our society and saying it's all the church's fault.

It's all the church's fault. Well, I would want to ask them, what is the church, in your opinion? What do you think the church is? I'd like to know how willing they would be to identify false churches and false Christianity and everything else in the process.

But the assumption is that, well, as long as we just, if we would just do what we're supposed to do, everything would be hunky-dory.

Really?

Is there a biblical foundation for that? I thought God did with nations as he chose to do with nations, and when a nation turns against God's truth and abuses his gifts, he's going to bring judgment to bear on that nation.

And that seemed to happen a lot in the Old Testament, and it happens even in the minor prophets talking about nations that are not God's nation, and yet God holds them accountable to his moral law and to treating the orphan and the widow in a fair way and so on and so forth.

So I'm tired of hearing about that because you have Jesus here, he's the greatest preacher there ever was, and yet the vast majority of people who heard him teach, well, there's only 120 in the upper room on the day of Pentecost.

That does not say that there were not many others in Galilee and other places that were prepared to hear the gospel, but the fact of the matter is the people who were so excited when Jesus entered into Jerusalem and were singing out, Hosanna, Hosanna, were the first people who want him crucified later on.

And so truth is very rarely a majority report, and if we have a meaningful understanding of the nature of man, we will see that. But though he had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in him.

They were not believing in him. Now, it's interesting, sort of keep your mind there. Let's skip over the Old Testament stuff that we're going to be looking at and go down to verse 42. Nevertheless, many even of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

The Insider Movement and Secret Christianity

Now, I heard, this is a text that is being used today to substantiate what's called the insider movement. The insider movement is a devilish movement. It is a evil movement that has eviscerated many missions, agencies that are seeking to spread the gospel in the Muslim world.

And it's the idea that you can become a Christian, but you don't really have to be one outwardly. So what you do is, well, I believe in Jesus, but what I'll do is you continue to live like a Muslim, and you continue to do the Muslim prayers.

You go to the Muslim mosque, but in your mind, secretly, you just change everything to Jesus. So there's no profession. There's no church. It's all secret Christianity.

And they just go here.

See, there it is. Now, these are the same folks. I heard this in a conference that was held actually here locally at a large Calvary Chapel up on the freeway that you drive by when you're somewhere around Cactus Road.

And it was part of a presentation of anti-lordship beliefs. You know, you can be saved, but you don't have to repent. Repentance is a good thing. It'd be good to repent, but, you know, that's an optional thing.

Actually, that's sort of for super Christians.

But faith does not include repentance. Which is what happens when you reject Reformed theology, and yet you want to affirm Sola Fide and Sola Gabatia. You end up with all these amazing imbalances and things like that.

But anyway, they were using this, and they were saying, see, these people, they believe. Bible says they believe. What they're missing is the fact that in verse 37, they were not believing in him, is one form of the word pstuo.

But then, pstuo, which means to believe. Then in verse 42, it uses a different form, which in the book of John, this is the Aorist form, refers to just the simplest form. When John refers to saving faith, he refers to it almost always in the present tense, ongoing, participial action or present tense verb.

So, these individuals, for example, remember in John chapter 2, you had the people who saw the signs and they believed in him, but Jesus did not believe himself to them, literally, because he knew it was in the heart of man.

They had this kind of point-action faith. In John chapter 8, after hearing Jesus argue with the Pharisees, many believed in him. They're amongst the people who are picking up stones to stone him within about 20 or 30 verses.

So, this kind of point-action, non-ongoing faith is not true saving faith. Unfortunately, once you embrace the anti-lordship, no-repentance viewpoint, any faith is a saving faith. It's next to impossible for them.

They'll say, oh yeah, there are people who don't really believe, but there's no way of differentiating. There's no way of explaining what the differences are in that particular system. And so, you have individuals who are convinced by what they've seen.

This must be the Messiah, but point-action, non-ongoing, we would say non-spirit birth type of faith does not change the heart because they continue to love the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

And what these folks were actually saying at the conference was, it doesn't matter, you can love the approval of men rather than the approval of God, and you're still a Christian. It's okay, it's all right, you're going to make it.

And yet, Jesus then, in verse 44, Jesus cries out and says, the one believing in me, ha-pestuum, present tense, ongoing action, the one believing in me is not believing in me, but in the one who sent me.

And he goes on from there and corrects the error. So, we see that John is saying, even though Jesus said all these things, he had done all these things, he performed so many signs, they weren't believing.

This was clearly a problem for the early church. Clearly, one of the arguments that were being made, Paul deals with this, John's dealing with it here is, look, if Jesus was all these things you say he was, and these people are running around with the Bible.

I mean, I just listened to a debate just a couple weeks ago. This was the argument of a Muslim against a Christian. If the Old Testament was so clear about these things, why did so many of the Jews reject Jesus?

That's sort of silly for the Muslim to be arguing that way, but they just sort of borrow arguments from other people. But clearly, this was a Jewish argument in the early church against Christianity. Look, you're in the minority.

The vast majority of God's people do not accept what you're saying. Now, we face the exact same type of argumentation today. You're in the minority, and we better recognize we are. I mean, I know the polls say, well, 60%.

Oh, come on. Seriously? What would this nation be like if 60 of the people in this nation actually lived under the Lordship of Christ, or at least even acknowledged it and attempted to do so? I mean, it would be paradise.

We all know that people will answer polls and, well, yeah, I'm a Christian. But they haven't darkened the door of a church in 10 years, and they have no interest whatsoever in the Lordship of Christ or anything like that at all.

And so to identify those folks as Christians is just from a biblical perspective to rip entire sections of the New Testament right out and say that they are completely irrelevant. But we are in a minority.

I mean, we all know. I mean, all I've got to say is I'm going to Chick-fil-A this week. I don't know about the rest of you. And I don't even know if you've been seeing the absolute insanity flowing from elected officials.

It's just getting more and more shrill every day.

About this kind of stuff.

But we're in the minority. And we're in the minority in the religious community as well. People who try to create, well, we're right because of a majority of and then name it type argumentation. Those folks scare me because very rarely is the truth in the majority.

Jesus' own teaching was men love what? Darkness rather than the light. And what is the biblical teaching about mankind's bent? He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. When are we going to take that seriously?

I mean, if we really believe that, then we're not going to be taken in by arguments that, well, the majority of folks think this. Well, the majority of folks don't ever acknowledge God. The majority of folks are pots running around denying the existence of the potter for crying out loud.

So why do we think that those arguments are somehow going to mean something? So we have this introduction. And the issue that John is dealing with here is why in the light of all these things that Jesus has done, the fulfillment of prophecy and the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

I mean, that's the immediate context. You go back to John chapter 11. I mean, power over death itself. The light has come into the world, and yet they were not believing in him. Now, does this sound familiar?

It should. John chapter 6. Jesus begins his discussion with the men who rode across the lake to hear him speak by saying, you see me, yet you're not believing in me. And what comes after that? A whole discussion about how, well, those the father gives me come to me and I will lose none of them.

Raise them up the last day. No one's able to go to me. I was supposed to be draws him or, you know, the whole nine yards, which results in all those people walking away. And so here you have a repetition of that theme.

Isaiah’s Report, Blindness, and the Hardening of Hearts

But now you have this very interesting use of Old Testament texts. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet,.

Which he spoke,.

Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? That's how the suffering servant passage begins. And it begins with a question. Lord, who has on end our proclamation?

Who has believed?

But then notice, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? That's revelation from God,.

The arm of the Lord,.

The strength of the Lord there. Isaiah recognizes he's in the minority. It's not the godly who are the majority. Now, remember, Isaiah is in a very religious nation. There are men walking the streets and in robes with tassels, and you have the high priests, and you have the priests offering the incense and the sacrifices, and he's in a very, very religious setting.

And yet he recognizes he is in the minority. Lord, who has believed our report? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For this reason, verse 39 says, they could not believe. For Isaiah said again, he is blind in their eyes, and he's hard in their heart, so they would not see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.

That's from, that is from the commissioning of Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter six. When God says, who will go? I will go. And the commissioning to Isaiah is go and go to this people and proclaim to them judgment.

I'm going to harden their hearts. I'm going to blind their eyes and close their ears. And you are going to be a messenger of judgment. That's not a lot of fun. What this does is it causes us to think, very clearly, I hope, about what it means to be a faithful people in an unfaithful generation.

Because that's where we are. I don't care what you do. I don't care how old you are. I don't care what your calling is. I don't care where you're going to school, work, working in the home. Whatever your calling is, we are in a faithless generation.

We are in a day of apostasy, false teaching, and a culture that abjectly hates the message that we proclaim and the life that we say is the very basis of our right standing before God. I mean, I hope you realize that.

I mean, it's easy to see this stuff and see it afar off. But think about what's happened this week. From the cultural perspective, a Christian man said, and if you actually looked up what he said, he simply talked about the fact that he supports the God-ordained form of marriage.

And that that's best for people. And that children grow up best with a mom and a dad. And that marriage is one man and one woman together. This is the foundation of the home.

Oh, tragedy!

Horror!

What hatred!

And yet, elected officials, Mayor of Boston starts off, then the Mayor of Chicago, in between dodging bullets, find it more important to comment upon this. And then a councilman from Philadelphia. And then last night, it was the Mayor of Washington, D .C.

Hatred! We don't, you know, calling it hate chickens,.

I mean, these people have become unhinged, is the only way to describe it.

Just frothing at the mouth.

Insanity!

Moral depravity on a level that just makes you go,.

Excuse me,.

And they're elected officials. And you just go, what is this? It is the hatred of the world for the message that there is a God, and he created us, and he will judge us for living in the way that he created us to be.

And so we see that,.

And we go,.

You know, God has blessed us for a long time. It used to be you could,.

Used to be,.

That was pretty much what everybody said. I mean, one man, one woman, father, mother, children, stable home, that, it wasn't long ago, I mean, I'm not that old. I remember when that was pretty much mainstream.

Now you say that, and you're a hate-filled bigot, and intolerant, and the whole nine yards. How dare you? You are not allowed to speak in this society.

Hatred.

Perversion.

A pure perversion of what's right and true. But at the same time, within what calls itself Christianity, you have people supporting that very idea. You have entire denominations that can't figure out what the Bible actually says.

At the same time, you have people who once believed as you and I believe, who now are on the other side. I'm not talking about the homosexual issue here. But they've abandoned the Gospel. They've abandoned the sufficiency of Scripture.

And they follow after false religion. And they used to be right where we are. I woke up this morning to discover that someone that I spoke at a conference with just two years ago, gone off and become a Roman Catholic.

I met with a Presbyterian minister just a couple months ago in my office. He actually flew all the way out here. His church paid to fly all the way out here. Just talked to me. He talked to a bunch of other people.

I was the last person he talked to. And he announced last week that he's gone ahead. He's gone off to Rome. No, he couldn't answer any of the stuff I was saying. They don't join up with Rome for those types of reasons.

There are other things that draw people away. They go out from us so it might be demonstrated they were not truly of us. We've talked about that before. But we see these things. We see apostasy abounding.

And a lot of Christians are like, oh, but you've got to realize, the disciples saw that. Jesus was clearly stating, here they saw. They saw the truth right before them, and yet they were not believing.

And there's a reason for that. There is a Hebrew word. Normally it means a small portion of what was once there that now remains. Lima is the Greek term if you're looking for it in the New Testament. You'll find it, for example, in Romans chapter 11.

Reminds us of Elijah's experience. Here you have a prophet of God, mighty in word and deed. He has been used of God to bring judgment against an apostate people. He has called down fire out of heaven.

And yet now, he's depressed.

He thinks he's the only one left. I'm left, oh Lord. And you know, sometimes we feel that way. Sometimes there's temptation to think that God just isn't in control anymore. And I'm the lone one that still believes.

But I want you to remember what God said to him. And it's interesting. In fact, I'm going to pop over there and look at it if you want to look with me to Romans chapter 11.

It's verse 2.

God does not reject his people whom he foreknew or do you not know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah how he pleads with God against Israel. Lord, they have killed your prophets. They have torn down your altars and I alone am left.

And they are seeking my life. Lord, your plans are about to collapse. Just in case you wondered, you know. Have you noticed what's going on? Things are really bad. But what is the divine response to him?

I have kept for myself 7 ,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. I have kept for myself. Now, I'm not sure how your translation does this. The phrase for myself isn't in the Greek Septuagint. Paul has put that in there to emphasize, shall we call it an apostolic interpretation of the Old Testament text.

His point is, God is the one who chooses and saves the remnant. I have kept for myself.

I've done this.

It doesn't say,.

Well, I'm really lucky.

Because there's 7 ,000 really good, especially holy people in Israel who have kept themselves and have not bowed the knee to Baal.

No.

God kept.

There's a remnant.

And Paul's using this in the very context in Romans 9, 10, 11 of God's sovereignty in answering the question that starts in Romans chapter 9. Well, have the promises failed? May it never be. May it never be.

Far be it from God for his promises to fail. His promises have always worked themselves out in this remnant formula. This way of keeping for himself a special people. And that's why they can't boast that's why they can't say,.

Oh, I'm, you know,.

Well, look at all this apostasy around me, but not me. I've kept myself pure. I've kept myself strong.

What foolishness.

The elect know their absolute dependence upon grace. In the same way, then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. Paul says, I'm one of them.

I'm one of them.

Yeah, I know that amongst the Jewish people, we're the minority. But the majority of those who call themselves God's people have rejected the message of Christ. But you know what? God has his remnant people.

He always has.

And he always will. Now, Elijah lived in a day where God's judgment was coming upon the people.

What were they doing?

They were engaging in syncretistic religion. They were bringing the religion to the people. They're doing everything that the people of Israel had said they wouldn't do back in Deuteronomy 28 and 29. Remember the blessings and the cursings?

And it wasn't that they were saying, oh, we're not going to worship Yahweh at all. But they were bringing in the foreign elements of worship of other gods. The Yahweh is not so small as to have to have all the worship himself, you know.

He's big enough to let us do a little bit more than that. Come on. And so today we have in liberalism, this syncretism, this, well, we can't really believe everything the Bible says. Or you have people come like, well, the Bible's not enough.

We need to have these other traditions. And all these traditions have developed over the years. And so, you know, I still believe the Bible's the word of God, but I'm going to start praying to Mary. I know that what I'm now believing about Mary, nobody in the early church believed.

And none of the apostles believed.

And it's completely foreign.

But, you know, that's just what I'm told to believe.

It's apostasy.

Absolute, abject apostasy. And yet, what happens is we see it happen. And because we have not recognized this truth, Paul's announcing it here. Jesus announces it in the Gospel of John. Because we don't see that, then it's very easy for us to become discouraged.

To say, well, you know, if it happened to that guy, then I guess it, you know, maybe it's not as clear. Maybe we need to sort of back off a little bit. And we need to rethink some things. Or, you know, maybe it'd be okay to, you know, look at what other religions are saying.

And no, these people who had seen Jesus perform so many signs before them, they had all the clarity of truth before them that anyone could ever have. And yet, they were not believing in him.

Why?

To fulfill the word which Isaiah the prophet spoke. Lord, who has believed our report. And for this reason, they could not believe. What does that mean?

Verse 39.

There's no other way to translate it. Diatutah, for this reason, Uk-e-dunan-tah pishchuayn. Pishchuayn, to believe. Dunamis, power. Dunamis, to be able to do something. They were not able to believe.

Well, wait a minute.

You know, faith is just simply the capacity of anyone. Everybody, if God's going to be fair, then everybody has to have the same starting point. You know, it's got to be fair now. Where do you get that from scripture?

I know where you might derive it from some philosophical system or political system or something like that. But where do you get that from scripture? And I'm only speaking to Christians here. People actually call themselves Christians.

Where do you get that from scripture? Where does that come from? I mean, I look at the Old Testament. And I look at Pharaoh. And I look at Moses. Now, was it fair that Moses had the advantages he had over Pharaoh?

Was it fair that the Jewish people were treated in one way and the Egyptian people were treated another way? And then there are all sorts of other people that, well, they weren't treated any way at all in the sense that there were no prophets sent to them.

There was no, there was nothing. At least there were some, not many, but some Egyptians that went out. There were some Egyptians who heard. But how about the people next door to Egypt or the people south of them?

Or where's this quote unquote fairness thing? The whole idea of fairness is based upon that somehow man isn't the condemned rebel who could be justly destroyed by God at any moment. The vast majority of people who call themselves Christians really don't believe what the Bible says about sin.

They really don't.

They believe what secular humanism says about it or a religious form of secular humanism, I guess. But well, secular humanism is religious. So anyway, they believe something sub-biblical about it. But it's very rare that we actually believe experientially what the Bible says about God's holiness in man's sin.

Because when you really boil it down, the objections to God's way of salvation almost always come down to, yeah, but he's got to give everybody the same chance.

No, he doesn't.

He already did in Adam. Well, I wasn't there. Do you think you'd do better?

Yes.

Really?

Honestly? Yes.

I mean, that's what people really, if they're honest, that's what they have to say. Yeah, I think I could have done better than that. And I don't like this idea of being held accountable for what he did.

I like the idea of getting righteousness from Jesus even though I didn't do what he did. So I like the positive side. It's not like the negative side. You push most evangelicals and they don't like what the Bible says on this subject.

They just don't. What they've done is they've accommodated the Bible to what's comfortable for them from a cultural perspective. Well, once you give a cultural perspective that kind of religious authority, it's not very difficult to understand why so many people can collapse in so many biblical doctrines because their foundation is actually not the scriptures.

It's what's going on in culture. And guess what?

That changes.

And man, it can change fast. In fact, it's changing so fast for most of us, our heads are spinning.

We're behind.

I mean, really, honestly, it should not shock us. The mayor of Washington or someone in Philadelphia or Chicago or Boston are saying, it shouldn't shock us.

It did shock me.

But it shouldn't have.

It really shouldn't have.

It just shows how, you know, things didn't change this fast when I was younger. And I don't want them to change this fast. And so it's easier to believe that they're not.

Well, they are.

So we have to deal with this phrase. For this reason, they could not believe. And it's not the first time you run into it. Like I said, John 6, there was an explanation there. You're not believing.

Why?

Because the Father hasn't given you to me.

You're not of my sheep.

Remember, we're in John 12 here. Since we've been doing the synoptic study, we've been jumping into John. And so you might lose chronologically where you are. But this is at least the third time directly that John has introduced us to this concept.

He did in John 6. Why are they not believing? Father hasn't given you to me. Actually, it's the fourth. John 8, why do you not believe? Why do you not hear what I'm saying? Because you're not of God. John 10, you're not of my sheep.

We're not to John 17 yet, where Jesus is not going to pray for the whole world. He's going to pray for those that God has given out of the world. So it's a repetitive... I mean, if you ask yourself the question, is John trying to get something across to us here?

The answer is, uh-huh. Sure is. He's trying to get something across to us. And it's not very popular. I mean, I just wonder how many people today are preaching on John 12, 39. I'm not saying you should preach John 12, 39 every Sunday.

I mean, that would get just a little bit on the heavy side of things. But what are we really saying when we shy away from these texts? What are we really saying? We're wiser in the Spirit of God. Or that the Spirit of God didn't actually put it there.

The Spirit of God put it there. He put it there for a reason. And when we shy away from these sayings, what we're saying is, I don't think his reason was good enough. And there are a lot of people today,.

That's exactly what their attitude is.

So there is something about judgment. Because first you have the Isaiah 53 text, and it's basically stating there is a lack of belief. There is a lack of faith in regards to divine revelation. Lord, Yahweh, who has believed our report?

Who has believed this divine message which has been delivered? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Well, it's a remnant people. There were some who believed, but the vast majority do not.

For this reason, they could not believe. And then you have this, and boy, have I heard some amazing ways of trying to get past this text.

But I mean, people have said,.

Well, what you've really got going on here is, it all ends up coming down to, well, they harden their heart first. And if you harden your heart first, then God will keep trying. But eventually, you know, you just get to a point where He just lets you go on in your hardness.

That's the standard way around it. That's the standard way around it. But notice what it says. He has blinded their eyes. He hardened their heart so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted.

And I healed them. He closed them off from the path of repentance. Even though the message was preached and the remnant hear and believe, there are others that He hardens. That's why I just said what I said.

Because the message that is proclaimed is repent and believe. Here's that and acts upon that. Those that God reserves for Himself. I have reserved for myself 7 ,000, not about the need to be up. So, the message is proclaimed.

And those to whom God is gracious hear that message and they act upon that message. The idea is, the idea that people, I think, put into this text is, well, that means everyone has this capacity in and of themselves.

The idea is that the message is proclaimed, that they be converted and I heal them if they would do what? If they would see, if they would perceive, if they would repent and believe. We can say, since we are not given the knowledge of who the remnant are, that anyone who repents and believes will find Christ to be a perfect Savior.

That's our message because we don't know. We proclaim the message to all people, repent and believe and you will find Christ to be a powerful Savior. But, in judgment, even amongst the religious, God blinds eyes and hardens hearts.

What a lot of people say is, well, if they're already blind and dead, He doesn't need to do this. But, that's missing the point that when we say someone is blind and dead, we're not saying that they are a corpse lying on the ground.

They're actually in rebellion against God. I mean, what are the pictures? I mean, as far as capacity is concerned, the picture of the Scripture is the dead bones, the hard heart, so on and so forth. But, as far as Paul puts it, for example, in Ephesians chapter 2, he says, what were you once?

You were the sons of disobedience. You reveled in your sin. You loved your sin. The fact is that in our sin, we are active and we are suppressing the truth of God. As far as capacity goes to do right and justice and to love righteousness, it's not there because of our slavery to sin.