SEEING, BUT NOT BELIEVING – John 12:37-43

Posted by Angella Diehl, Webmaster on June 26, 2013 under PM Bible Study |

PM Home Bible Study Group; June 26, 2013

John 12:37-43

Theme: This passage describes how it is that some see Jesus, but do not believe on Him.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

John 12:44-50 is a fascinating passage. It constitutes the very last words—according to the Gospel of John, at least—that our Lord spoke publically. It contains a bold affirmation of His identity, and gives a final call for those who would believe on Him to come to Him.

But as that passage stresses, some would hear but not believe. He would say in it that "if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day" (John 12:47-48). It’s a powerful way for our Lord to have ended His public ministry—and it’s a section of John’s Gospel that we’ll take up in our next time together.

But before we are told of those closing words of our Lord, we find that the apostle John pauses in the narrative and—as it were—inserts an important theological commentary that helps explain why it was that so many did not believe on Him. It answers a question that we often have today: "Why is it that, when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ, seeing does not always result in believing?"

Not every miracle that the Lord performed is told to us in this Gospel. As John tells us near the end of his account, "And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:30-31). So; why then didn’t people believe after they saw these things He had done? Why would it be that they still would not believe even after He gave His bold testimony at the end John 12? And why is it that people didn’t believe even after He rose from the dead?

This passage shows us that, when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ, "believing" is not simply a matter of looking the facts over and making a decision. It tells us that the reason people didn’t believe in our Lord’s day was . . .

I. SO THAT THE WORD OF SCRIPTURE MIGHT BE FULFILLED (vv. 37-38).

A. John tells us, "But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him" v. 37). Stop and think of the many things that we have read already about our Lord in the Gospel of John:

1. Implied in the first few verses of the Gospel, for example, was His remarkable conception. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). The stories we’re told of His miraculous conception in Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospel, and the angelic announcement to the shepherds and the testimony of the Magi, all testify to this.

2. Then, there is the clear testimony of John the Baptist concerning His identity. "Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" he said (John 1:29), after testifying that the Holy Spirit identified Jesus at His baptism and the voice of the Father testified of Him (see also 3:22-36).

3. Jesus was able to prove Himself by His witness to the very thoughts of Nathanael as he sat under the fig tree (John 1:50-51).

4. There was the miracle of the wine at the wedding of Cana; showing Jesus’ authority over the created realm (2:1-12).

5. There was the cleansing of the temple; showing His authority over His Father’s house (2:13-25).

6. There was the way He revealed His identity to the woman at the well—so that she ran into the town of Samaria and declared "Could this be the Christ?" (4:29), and thus drew the whole town out to meet Him and believe on Him.

7. There was the our Lord healed a nobleman’s son in Capernaum from a distance,showing His authority to heal by merely speaking the word (4:43-54).

8. The Lord Jesus demonstrated Himself in the healing of the infirmed man at the pool of Bethesda (5:1-18) in such a way as to cause the religious leaders to want to kill Him—as ridiculous as it may seem— for performing a miracle on the Sabbath (v. 16).

9. He revealed Himself in the feeding of the five-thousand (6:1-14) in such a way as the people sought to make Him king and declare, "This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world" (v. 14).

10. He testified of Himself in such a way as to cause those who sought to arrest Him to fail to do so (7:10-39); saying, "No man ever spoke like this Man!" (v. 46).

11. He healed a man born blind (9:1-41) in such a way as to cause the man to fall down and worship Him as the Son of God (v. 38).

12. He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44) in such a way as to cause many to believe on Him as ‘the Resurrection and the Life’ (v. 45).

13. And most recently in the Gospel of John, there was the way He rode into the city of Jerusalem in fulfillment of the prophecies of Zechariah (12:12-36); in such a way as to cause the people to cry out, "Hosanna! ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’ The King of Israel!" (v. 13).

B. These events, of course, only describe the things that are told to us in John’s Gospel They say nothing of the other miracles that are mentioned only in the other Gospel accounts. And yet, though some believed, many did not. Those of His own people for whom He came and presented Himself so disbelieved Him as to eventually crucify Him. And clearly, it wasn’t for lack of evidence that they did so. John tells us the surprising reason for such disbelief. It was "that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’" (v. 38).

1. This is a quote from one of the most beloved passages of the Old Testament—Isaiah 53. It’s a passage that describes our Lord’s suffering for us in vivid terms; and also tells us of the redemption that was accomplished by it. The prophet Isaiah begins that passage by saying,

Who has believed our report?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant,

And as a root out of dry ground.

He has no form or comeliness;

And when we see Him,

There is no beauty that we should desire Him.

He is despised and rejected by men,

A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him (Isaiah 53:1-3).

2. That passage from Isaiah is describing the dismay of the prophet Isaiah over the fact that so few believe the testimony God had given His servants regarding the promised Christ. Dr. Edward J. Young in his commentary on Isaiah writes, "The unbelief that Isaiah here depicts is the same unbelief found all about us today. Men say pleasant and complimentary things about the Lord of Glory. They will praise His ethics, His teaching, declare that He was a good man and a great prophet, the only one who has answers to the social problems that today confront the world. They will not, however, acknowledge that they are sinners, deserving of everlasting punishment, and that the death of Christ was a vicarious sacrifice, designed to satisfy the justice of God and to reconcile an offended God to the sinner. Men will not receive what God says concerning His Son. Today also, the Servant is despised and rejected of men, and men do not esteem Him" (The Book of Isaiah, Vol. 3 [Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1972], p. 344). It was given to God’s prophets and apostles to tell us the true meaning of Jesus’ life and sacrifice for us; but ‘who has believed their report?’ As Dr. Young writes, "The passage clearly teaches that faith is a gift of God and not a work of man’s unaided power. It also teaches that unless God manifests His power, men will not be converted. We must ever depend upon God to work that His kingdom may be extended" (p. 341).

II. BECAUSE THEIR EYES HAVE BEEN BLINDED (vv. 39-41).

A. So; one reason we’re given for why people didn’t believe on Jesus is because it was promised in the Old Testament that they wouldn’t. But why is that they wouldn’t? What caused them to fail to believe when such overwhelming evidence of His identity had been given to them? John goes on to tell us, "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them’" (vv. 39-40). Here, John not only lets us know that the Scriptures promised that they wouldn’t believe, but that God Himself blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that they could not believe.

1. This points us back to the story in the Old Testament of Isaiah’s vision of the Lord "high and lifted up" at the very beginning of his prophetic ministry in Isaiah 6. At that time, the prophet was called by God to a very difficult task. God told him, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return and be healed" (Isaiah 6:9-10). What a dreadful task! Isaiah asked, “Lord, how long?” (v. 11)—that is, how long would he have to proclaim a message that the people wouldn’t hear? God answered, “Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, the houses are without a man, the land is utterly desolate, The Lord has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land" (v. 12). In other words, the proclamation of truth from God would itself reveal the hardening of the heart and would lead to judgment. But inherent in the judgment would be the promise of mercy. He said, "But yet a tenth will be in it" (that is to say that, in the population, there would remain a remnant through which God would work), "and will return and be for consuming, as a terebinth tree or as an oak, whose stump remains when it is cut down. So the holy seed shall be its stump" (v. 13). Jesus Himself is that promised "holy seed". But eye were blinded back then; and hearts were hardened to the message of His coming. Only some would hear and believe it.

2. Jesus Himself testified to this very thing in His earthly ministry. In Matthew 13, when the disciples asked Him why it was that He taught the people in what seemed like confusing parables, "He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand" (Matthew 13:11-13). Jesus went on to quote this passage in Isaiah; saying that "in them"—that is, in the people who were even then hearing His teaching and were not understanding—"the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled" (v. 14). But He then went on to tell them, "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; or assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it" (vv. 16-17).

B. John tells us this remarkable fact: "These things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of Him" (v. 41). The thing that Isaiah saw in that passage was the marvelous vision described in the first four verses of Isaiah 6; "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!’ And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke" (Isaiah 6:1-4). John is letting us know that it was none other than our Lord Jesus—in His preincarnate glory—that Isaiah spoke of seeing. People did not believe on Him because, in His sovereign wisdom, this very same glorious Lord did not give them the ability to do so. He decreed that the preaching of His identity would harden their hearts—at least for a time, in order that His purposes might be served. Paul also mentions this same passage from Isaiah (see Romans 10:16). And it led to his marvelous explanation that "blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in" (Romans 11:25). God still loves His chosen people; and their blindness is only temporary—so that the Gentiles might hear of the Redeemer and believe on Him. But the point is that the whole matter of seeing and not believing is a work of God—in some cases as a judgment from Him, and in some cases as a means of drawing others to Him.

III.THROUGH LOVING THE PRAISE OF MEN MORE THAN THE PRAISE OF GOD (vv. 42-43).

A. It’s important to stress that this speaks only of the sovereign purposes of God. It does mean that someone who genuinely wants to come to Jesus is prohibited from doing if they are not "chosen". All people have the freedom to come; and all who come prove that they were given the grace to come by the fact that they do so. This is important to stress; because John next goes on to say that some did indeed believe on Jesus. John writes, "Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in Him" (v. 42a). Among them we would certainly count Nicodemus—one of the rulers of the Jews who spoke with Jesus—seemingly secretly—at night in John 3. We would also count Joseph of Arimathea, who we’re told was "a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, for fear of the Jews" (John 19:38).

B. But this leads us to yet one more reason why some do not believe. Even among the rulers of the people who did believe, we’re told, "but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God" (vv. 42b-43). One reason that people do not believe on Jesus today—and even why some who do believe are hesitant to testify of that belief—is because of the fear of man. Proverbs 29:25 says, "The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe." Jesus Himself once spoke to the religious leaders and asked them, "How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?" (John 5:44). In Mark 8:38, Jesus said, "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." We must beware of loving the praise of men so much—or fearing their anger so much—that we hide our faith in the Lord of glory!

* * * * * * * * * *

As this passage shows us then, ‘seeing does not always result in believing’. Those who had the most visible demonstration of our Lord’s identity did not believe on Him. And even in our own time—when there is the clearest declaration possible of the testimony of Jesus, and when there is the record of His works over the past two-thousand years among those who trust Him—many still do not believe.

But whatever the reasons may be that others disbelieve Him or hide their faith in Him, let’s make sure we believe Him. Let’s make sure we do not hide our faith from the sight of men. Let’s have the attitude of the great old hymn, "Ashamed of Jesus"—a hymn that, we could be sure, the old prophet Isaiah, who saw the Lord high and lifted up in heavenly glory, would have agreed to wholeheartedly:

Jesus and shall it ever be,

A mortal man ashamed of Thee?

Ashamed of Thee whom angels praise,

Whose glories shine through endless days?

Ashamed of Jesus! Sooner far

Let evening blush to own a star;

He sheds the beams of light divine

O’er this benighted soul of mine.

Ashamed of Jesus! that dear Friend,

On whom my hopes of heav’n depend?

No! when I blush be this my shame,

That I no more revere His name.

Ashamed of Jesus! Yes I may,

When I’ve no guilt to wash away,

No tear to wipe, no good to crave,

No fears to quell, no soul to save.

(by Joseph Griggs and E.O. Excell; Public Domain)