Unbelievable

Intro:

Chapter 12 review

6 Days before Passover

Mary pours expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet

Judas begins to to show his true colors

Pharisees add Lazarus to their hit list

Triumphal Entry

Jesus makes predictions about his death

God speaks as a voice from heaven

Jesus makes a plea for people to walk in the light before the darkness comes

John 12:35–36 NIV

Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going. Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.” When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.

That word believe is going to play an important role in what we talk about today

Read John 12:37-50.

1. John offers up some commentary on the unbelief of some of the Jews.

-He notes that there were miraculous signs that Jesus had performed.

-He’s asking us to consider all of the things He’s mentioned so far.

water into wine (ch 2),

healing of officials son (ch 4),

healing blind lame man at pool (Ch 5),

feeding 5000 (ch 6),

walking on the water (ch 6),

healing the blind man (ch 9),

raising Lazarus from the dead (ch 11)

John specifically mentions 7 miracles (what do we know about the number 7?)

Of course that’s not all the miracles Jesus performed.

John 21:25 NIV

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.

It’s hard to believe that someone, after all that, would still not believe.

-John’s commentary offers some insight from the prophet Isaiah.

The prophet offers up the question and then the matter of fact.

Isaiah 53:1 NIV

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Isaiah 6:10 NIV

Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

The important part of looking at texts like this is that we not look at them in a vacuum. We have to look at the context and sometimes that a couple verses before and after, sometimes that’s a whole chapter and sometimes it the even greater than that.

For example when reading the whole of Isaiah 6 you realize that the lord has commissioned Isaiah but has also warned him that his ministry will encounter all sorts of rejection and scorn from the people he is sent to.

If a superficial reading finds this harsh, manipulative, even robotic, four things must constantly be borne in mind:

(1) God’s sovereignty in these matters is never pitted against human responsibility (cf. notes on v. 38);

(2) God’s judicial hardening is not presented as the capricious manipulation of an arbitrary potentate cursing morally neutral or even morally pure beings, but as a holy condemnation of a guilty people who are condemned to do and be what they themselves have chosen;

(3) God’s sovereignty in these matters can also be a cause for hope, for if he is not sovereign in these areas there is little point in petitioning him for help, while if he is sovereign the anguished pleas of the prophet (Is. 63:15–19)—and of believers throughout the history of the church—make sense;

(4) God’s sovereign hardening of the people in Isaiah’s day, his commissioning of Isaiah to apparently fruitless ministry, is a stage in God’s ‘strange work’ (Is. 28:21–22) that brings God’s ultimate redemptive purposes to pass. Paul argues rather similarly in Romans 9:22–33.

Romans 9:22–25 NIV

What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people; and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

John then quotes Jesus once again.

2. Jesus then goes on to explain his mission and his origin once again.

Jesu leans in heavy on this word believe.

-When you believe in Jesus you are also believing in God.

This is statement of unity

John is moving into a very intense part of his gospel and he once again emphasizes the fact that Jesus is not working alone here.

This also forces us to clearly define the word believe.

The Greek word used for believe (pisteuo) carries with it the idea of strong commitment of self. ie. reliance.

When you believe in Jesus, his words, his teaching, his mission you are saying you believe that this is true for God as well.

Now look at how Jesus teaches here...

-Jesus continues the metaphor of darkness and light to describe his mission.

-Jesus also revisits his teaching on saving and not judging.

John 3:16–18 NIV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

-He closes out with reminding everyone that all that he says comes from the Father.

“If I say it more than once, it’s probably on the test!”

His emphasis on the unity that he has with Father is not something to be over looked either.

IMPLICATION/APPLICATION

1. How is it that someone can be faced with the poof (miracles of Jesus) and still not believe?

The rejection of the gospel is as clear proof of moral depravity as inability to see the sun at noon is proof of blindness.

Charles Hodge

Dealing with a hardened heart (ours our others) can be difficult to wrap our minds around.

The significance of this is twofold.

(1) It underscores the urgency of coming to faith. The natural state of the world we inhabit is darkness, which God’s light has penetrated in Christ. Those who refuse the light will find it extinguished and the darkness closing over them.

(2) It assures us that when we are confronted with hardened unbelief, it does not mean that God has lost control, but that God is “active in judgment as well as in salvation.”

Gary M. Burge, John, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 2000), 359.

When studying the Greek word for hardening used here I learned that...God is the author in Jn. 12:40, but God’s hardening is also a self-hardening, so that personal responsibility remains and a call can go out for repentance (Ezek. 18:31). Sin and unbelief are the punishment of sin and unbelief, but renewal by God is still a possibility

Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1985), 817.

It’s almost as if they have turned off their minds ability to learn, grow or understand.

2. How is it that someone would believe and yet not confess their faith due to cultural pressure?

This is someone who is not like the the hard hearted. They believe but do not confess.

In John’s commentary they feel the pressure of the religious leaders and the the possibility of not being allowed to enter the temple.

What does that look like in 2023? Where are Christians being fearful of the confessing Christ because the culture has leveraged something against them?

The problem being, I care more about what others think than what pleases God.

The church needs people to stand up in the courage of their faith. We need men and women like the 3 Hebrew boys of Daniel 3. or the like the disciples who all died gruesome deaths because they refused to be quiet. All but John, though boiled in oil and survived only by the grace of God, were stabbed with swords, run through by a stake, beheaded, thrown to the ground from great hights and crucified.

Which leads us to the final point...

3. What we believe, regarding Jesus and his teachings, has a direct impact on our eternal reward.

The Greek word used for believe (pisteuo) carries with it the idea of strong commitment of self. ie. reliance.

Many will say “I believe in Jesus, I believe in God”

James 2:19 NIV

You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

Look at Romans 10:9-13

Romans 10:9–13 NIV

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”