Discovering Jesus in the Gospel of John part 30
John 12:35-50
13/03/2011
Colin Beavis
Introduction
In the passage we are dealing with today, we read some of the most terrifying words; some of the most tragic words in the whole of the Bible.
And they are John 12 verses 39-40
“He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted and I heal them.”
What do these verses mean?
As we go through this passage this morning we will find out what they mean and what a tragedy it is for those who allow themselves to get into this position.
Two weeks ago Michael gave us a message from the verses immediately prior to the ones we are dealing with today.
He reminded us of how Jesus had set his eyes on the cross and would not be sidetracked.
Jesus had come to die on the cross and although His followers wanted to see Him take over His kingdom immediately Jesus knew He had come to die that we may be saved.
In fact He said in verse 24 of this chapter 12 of John:
“Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies. It remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit.”
Then Michael reminded us that we need to die to self, to serve Jesus and in this way we will bring glory to God in our lives and then we too will bear much fruit.
The last 2 verses Michael dealt with in that message were John 12: 35-36 and I will read them again:
35So Jesus said to them, "For a little while longer the Light is among you Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.
36"While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light. These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.”
I want you to note particularly These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.”
As this was to be the:
THE DAY THE LIGHT WENT OUT
This was the end of the public ministry of Jesus as far as these people were concerned.
It was the finish of His appeal to the religious leaders and to the people of Israel of that day.
But it was in these final words to these people that Jesus again was appealing to them to turn to Him as He was telling them there was still the Light.
Jesus had a relentless love for these people. After all He came into the world to save sinners. So here He is making a final plea, a final invitation.
For three years He had been telling them He was God, that He was the Living Christ. That He was the Living Water, that He was the Bread of Life, that He was the Light of the World, that He was The Good Shepherd and that He was the Resurrection and the Life.
He substantiated these claims with many miracles- Turning water into wine, giving sight to the blind, making the lame walk, causing the deaf to hear, stilling the waters, calming the winds, walking on water, raising the dead.
And yet they still refused to believe on Him or acknowledge Him.
In fact they doubted Him, they resented Him, they denied Him, they hated Him, they tried to kill Him, they plotted His execution, and finally they did execute Him
And even at this time, with only a matter of hours before He went to the cross Jesus in all His love for mankind makes a final plea to these people.
The light was about to go out for these people.
From this point on His ministry will be with those who already know Him and love Him even to His death and His resurrection.
How long have you heard the truth and refused to believe?
That’s an important question because the Bible tells us in Genesis 6:3,
God says, “My spirit shall not strive with man forever.’ And then again in Psalm 103:9 it says, “He will not always strive with us.”
And God meant what He said because we read that after he said what was said in Genesis He sent the flood which destroyed all but 8 people.
There other times I could quote but it is suffice to say God does not endlessly strive with man. There comes a time when grace is over, and when grace ends and judgement begins.
So we see that despite all the miracles:
THEY WOULD NOT BELIEVE In Verses 37-38 we read 37But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.
38This 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 passage says “despite all the miracles “they were not believing in Him.”
In the NIV translation it says, “They would not believe in Him.”
What a tragedy!
Jesus had taught so persuasively and had done so many miracles but they still refused to acknowledge Jesus as the King of Kings and Lord of their lives
And John is, in these verses making us fully aware of our responsibility to respond to the claim Jesus has on our lives.
You and I have been given a free will to either accept or reject Jesus and if we reject Him we have no-one but ourselves to blame for the consequences.
And that consequence the Bible tells us is eternity in hell.
If we reject Him if we end up in eternal damnation we have nobody else to blame but ourselves.
But there is another part to this passage. Verse 38 says,
“This was to fulfil 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?”
Here it says, they would not believe in order to fulfil the word of Isaiah the prophet found in Isaiah 53:1 which says: LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?"
Just what is being said here? And remember it was 700 years before Christ.
Firstly we have the question, “Who has believed our report?” And we find Isaiah is prophesying about all the things Jesus would do and say, all the miracles He would perform. And he asks the question “Who believes all this.” And the simple answer is very few.
Then we have the question, again by Isaiah “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed.” Meaning to whom have these miracles been revealed” And the answer is the people of Israel.
So in affect what was said is: “That the arm of the Lord was revealed to the people of Israel and yet only a few believed.”
And then in Verse 38 it says “this was to fulfil the word of Isaiah the prophet”
What does this mean?
Does this mean the people of Israel didn’t have a chance because God in His sovereignty had decided beforehand to stop them from believing?
The answer to that could be yes. God is God. He is sovereign. He can if he so wishes choose to do precisely that. But, is that what is happening here?
I believe that God in His sovereignty knew what was going to happen. And so the verse could be written this way: “They believed not; consequently the saying of Isaiah was fulfilled.”
John’s point in this verse is not that God made them disbelieve, but rather we should not be surprised by their disbelief, because God had prophesied it, long before it happened.
Anyone, who is away from God is away because of his or her own desire, will and decisions.
From as far back as Adam mankind had departed from God and remained cut off from God because they preferred their own free will to God’s will
Now we come to those tragic words I mentioned at the start and these are found in verses 39-41, where we see:
THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE –Verses 39-41 39For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again,
40"HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM."
41These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.
These words are from Isaiah 6:9-10. 700 years before John’s writing of the book of John. Words that God had given Isaiah to prophesy.
Suffice to say that again God in His sovereignty knew beforehand His plans and that the people of Israel would reject Jesus. That they would reject His son. That they would reject the Messiah
First they would not believe and now they could not believe. It was of their own free will that they would not believe.
Despite all the miracles Jesus performed. Despite all the words Jesus spoke. Despite all His teachings they just would not believe.
How did this happen? They were the chosen people of God and yet as we read the Bible we see time and time again they rejected Him. They sinned against Him. They ignored Him. They went their own way.
Time and time again God had to deal with them.
And now they were so used to rejecting Him and His word and His truth.
They thought they understood all the prophecies but they didn’t. They had it all wrong. They thought they were getting a King who was going to get rid of their oppressors, one who would get rid of the Roman opressors, one who was going to rule then and there.
But they had mistaken and misread all the prophecies. They had disobeyed God so many times and now the truth has come they were in no position to see it or understand it.
The people of Israel now had such a history of disbelief they just would not believe.
And now we see the words.
“ 39For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again,
40"HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM."
41These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.
What do these words mean and how are we to understand them?
Verse 39 says,”for this reason.” What reason? Because they would not believe, and as a result God has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.
It is simply this. For centuries Israel had hardened their hearts against God and now God hardened them so they could not believe.
God had given them chance after chance but they kept turning from Him.
The Bible tells us that God can, and will and does harden the hearts of people today, so they cannot believe.
I know that may sound extremely harsh. But we need to remember God is sovereign and if man constantly rejects Him and defies Him then God may act in this way.
As examples i mention:
In Romans chapter one, Paul says on 3 occasions, “God gave them over or God gave them up.”
In the book of Exodus God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. But it can be noted that 10 times Pharaoh hardened his own heart and 10 times it says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.
Now we come to another disturbing statement. Verses 42 and 43 which say:
42Nevertheless 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;
43for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.
Did you note that?
THEY LOVED THE APPROVAL OF MEN RATHER THAN THE APPROVAL OF GOD
Again, what a tragedy!
These men, rulers even, believed in Jesus, but I want you to notice three very important words used here. And they are believe, confess and love.
The Bible tells us quite clearly if we are to be saved we need to believe and in fact that is what we have been talking about this morning.
And it says in verse 42 that many of the rulers believed in Him. But when we come to the other 2 words they tell us a lot about these men.
Firstly they would not confess Christ for fear they would be put out of the Synagogue.
In John 9:22, We read
22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.
The parents referred to were the parents of the man born blind. You will recall Chris speaking on this a few weeks ago.
Now we have these rulers being afraid of this very same thing. They would not confess Jesus for fear of being put out of the synagogue.
May I remind you of what it says in Romans 10 and verse 9:
“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
And also what Jesus said in Matthew 10 verse 32:
Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.”
Were these people saved? It certainly doesn’t appear so. They believed but would not confess as they were afraid of losing their position in the Synagogue.
What about you this morning? Where are you at? Do you believe but are afraid to confess for some reason or another?
Is it because you may lose some friends?
Is it because you might miss out on a promotion?
Is it because you might miss out on a spot in some sporting team?
Whatever it is, it is not worth missing eternity for! It is not worth losing your own soul for!
Then the Bible tells us they would not confess for they (and here is that other word I mentioned). They loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.
Here were these people, they had seen the miracles of Jesus, they had seen or heard of the calming of the winds, the walking on the water, the healing of the blind, the lame and the deaf, the raising of Lazarus from the dead and yet they sought the approval of men rather than the approval of God.
What about you this morning? What is stopping you from seeking the approval of God?
Is it your sport that you put ahead of God?
Is it your studies that you put ahead of God?
Is it your career that you put ahead of God?
Is it some relationship that you put ahead of God?
Or is it the applause of men that you put ahead of God?
Now we come to the last 7 verses in this chapter and time does not permit us to look at these closely. But there are some points I want to make.
The first is that Jesus is not actually at this time speaking to anyone in these verses, but rather John is quoting some of the statements Jesus made during His ministry.
These statements include verse 46 which says:
I have come as light into the world and that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness.
Then he makes a wonderful statement, telling of His love for you and me.
And that is: Verse 47:
"If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.”
Right throughout His ministry Jesus in His love was seeking the lost. He was seeking mankind. He was seeking you and me. He did not give up on this. This was what He came to earth to do.
Remember back in verses 35 and 36, in these His last words to the crowds and to these religious rulers and before He went away and hid himself He was still pleading with people.
verse 35: So Jesus said to them, "For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you;
He came to save mankind and not to judge them.
But He did also in love remind the people in verse 48 that if they did not accept Him that they will be judged.
In fact in the last few verses of John 12, Jesus uses the word “judge” four times.
This is another reminder to us not to toy with this matter of eternity. The Bible tells us of the coming judgement where heaven or hell will be decided for each one of us.
And we know from other passages of the Bible the destination of those who reject Him, is a Christless eternity.
CONCLUSION
These have been challenging verses to deal with today.
But, these words are from the Word of God, The Bible and out of love we must warn of the consequences of not believing and how that can lead to not being able to believe.
We must warn of the consequences of not wanting to confess for whatever reason and we must warn of seeking the applause of man rather than the applause of God.
Where are you at today?
Are you continuing not to believe in Jesus or to accept even though you know what He has done for you.
Are you continuing to take a chance that one day (and that could be today) you will be unable to believe because He has darkened your eyes and hardened your heart?
Friend there is no guarantee of tomorrow. There is no guarantee of today for that matter.
2 Cor 6:2 says, “Behold, now is "THE ACCEPTABLE TIME," behold, now is "THE DAY OF SALVATION"
Just a couple of weeks ago there was that dreadful earthquake in New Zealand. I wonder how many of the people who lost their lives, thought they had many years in which to turn to Jesus Christ?
Or do you go on your merry way because you are afraid to stand up and be counted as one of Jesus followers?
Or is it that you are seeking the applause of man rather than the applause of God.
Jesus is seeking you. He loves you. He died for you? He suffered ridicule and shame upon the cross that you might come to Him.
Will you accept Him as your Lord and Saviour this morning? Don’t put it off any longer. You don’t know whether you will ever have another chance
In 2 Peter 3:9 it says “God is not willing that any should perish.”
And in Isaiah 55 verses 6 and 7 we find these verses:
“Seek the LORD while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
7Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the LORD,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.”
Call upon Him while He is near.
7Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the LORD,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.”
Will you do that this morning? Will you return to Him?
