People’s Unbelief
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 8 August 2021
We are in the week our Lord is crucified. Let’s read verse 35 till verse 43, “Jesus replied, “My light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can, so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they are going. 36 Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.”
“After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them. 37 But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him. 38 This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted: “Lord, who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?” 39 But the people couldn’t believe, for as Isaiah also said,”
40 “The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and have me heal them.” 41 Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he said this, because he saw the future and spoke of the Messiah’s glory. 42 Many people did believe in him, however, including some of the Jewish leaders.”
“But they wouldn’t admit it for fear that the Pharisees would expel them from the synagogue. 43 For they loved human praise more than the praise of God.” We live in a twisted world where everything is reversed. It’s a twisted world where sins have become rights, iniquities have become virtues. Evil is considered personal freedom. There is, however, one perversion that we should consider in this passage.
In our culture and in our time, there is an exaltation of anger. Anger has somehow become a virtue. Anger has become justified, anger that leads to vengeance and violence. Hatred, a vicious kind of hostility and retaliation are being expressed all the time. And they are expressions of the condition of the human heart. But the truth is that anger is a reaction of the pride of our sinful natures.
People in our culture lack compassion on those who have offended them. Forgiveness comes hard if it ever comes at all. When people have been offended, they demonstrate little grace and mercy. They’re anything but slow to anger, and they are not patient. That is exactly the opposite of God. God is compassionate, forgiving, gracious, merciful, longsuffering, slow to anger, and astonishingly patient.
God is the one who is offended by every sin. God, who is absolutely holy, is offended by every violation of His Word, law, nature, name. That’s what makes His patience so amazing. God said, “I’m going to destroy the world in a flood.” But before the destruction came, God established Noah, who was a preacher of righteousness, and he preached judgment and called for repentance for 120 years.
In Revelation in a future time called the Great Tribulation when judgment begins to be wrought by God in the world, and you have some martyrs who are crying out to God saying, “How long? How long?” It always seems that judgment is delayed with God. Of course, Paul says in Romans 2 that the forbearance and patience of God is meant to lead you to repentance.
Eventually God runs out of patience, and that is where we are in John 12. Apostasy, disobedience, idolatry, dishonoring His name, blaspheming Him was a way of life, and it finally came to an end. 2 Chronicles 36:16 says, “They continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, scoffed at His prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people until there was no remedy.”
The end came in the Babylonian people that came and massacred tens of thousands of Jews. The text in John 12 is like that in Chronicles. God has run out of patience. It’s Passion Week. Verse 35, “Jesus replied, “My light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can, so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they are going.”
Verse 36, “Put your trust in the light while there is still time; then you will become children of the light.” After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them.” That is the final call to unbelievers. They’ve had hundreds of years since they were recovered from their captivity and brought back to their land to rebuild it, to demonstrate their love and obedience to God.
But they have not been obedient. They have continued to kill the prophets. The people have given their verdict. So, on Monday they were saying He was the Son of David, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” They all knew about the miracles He had done and capped it off with the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. As Jesus came into the city, thousands of people acclaimed Him “Messiah.”
But on Tuesday, Jesus attacks the temple. He attacks their religious system, not the Romans, and creates doubt in their mind. Then He says He’s going to die, and that’s the final straw for them. They shift from seeing Him as the Messiah to seeing Him as an imposter. “Who is this Son of Man who is going to be crucified?” And within hours, they scream, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
“My light will shine for you just a little longer.” The prophet Isaiah called for repentance. The prophet Jeremiah called for repentance and faith on the brink of judgment before the darkness fell. That’s the same picture here. For a little while longer, the light is among you. He who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where to go. It pictures the coming judgment when the Son of righteousness is killed.
Walk equals believe. Make the journey of faith, believe, and once the light of the world is no longer present, the unbelieving world will be dark. In John 8:21 Jesus said, “I go away and you will seek Me and will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come.” Verse 24, “That is why I said that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am who I claim to be, you will die in your sins.”
How does that translate to us? I don’t know when the darkness falls for you as an individual. I don’t know when the darkness falls for us as a culture, as a nation. I don’t know when the final darkness falls in judgment, divine judgment on the world, but I know that God’s mercy doesn’t last forever. That’s a dire warning. Receive Him while you are alive and able.
He is a gracious and compassionate God, but He has limits. Genesis 6 just before the flood, God said this, “My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh.” And then He drowned the entire world except eight people. Jesus was warning Israel, and through this God is still warning us, warning anyone who hears not to go beyond the limits of God’s patience.
If your heart is still at all sensitive to the gospel, if you are feeling the pull of God to believe in Jesus Christ, confess Him as Lord, turn from your sin, repent of your sin, and follow Him. If you are feeling that, then now is your day of salvation, 2 Corinthians 6:2. Now is the time to believe. Don’t postpone your decision, postponement is the same as rejection, you don’t know what happens tomorrow.
While the gospel is still attractive to you, while you can still hear, believe and become, “Sons of Light,” little lights. God revealed Himself in the Old Testament as Light, Shekinah Glory. God is shining His light in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4. Jesus Christ is God incarnate. Anyone who comes to Christ then has the very light of God through Christ shining in them.
How short was the time? Go back to verse 36, “After saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them.” Luke 21:38 tells us that in the morning the people gathered to the temple expecting Him, but He wasn’t there. He had come unto His own, but His own received Him not. His words were fulfilled. “You will seek Me and will not find Me, and where I go, you can never come.”
His physical hiding was acting out the judgment. Israel saw all the evidence, they heard all the teaching and saw the miracles. In John 15:24, our Lord said this Thursday night with His disciples in the Upper Room, “If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father.”
The rest of John summarizes his insights inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he helps us to make some sense out of this dark day. We saw the final call to unbelief, and here are the fatal components. This is very important to understand. There are some Jewish commentators, who feel that the rejection of Jesus Christ by the Jews, by the nation Israel throws suspicion on His life.
The idea is this; they knew the Word of God. They were the people of God. They had the Scriptures in their hands. If Jesus had been the Messiah, they would have recognized Him. So, perhaps, the evidence wasn’t really as great as Christianity claims it was. If the proofs of His divine origin and mission were so obvious, then Israel would have believed. Israel would not have been so angry if He really had laid out the evidence.
So John wants to make sure that that argument is false. Verse 37, “But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him.” You say, well, that’s just John’s word. No, it’s not. John 11:47, “Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other, “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs.”
No one ever denied the miracles of Jesus. His enemies never denied His miracles. There is massive evidence, massive testimony confessed to not only by John, but by the Sanhedrin, the supreme court of Israel. They were public miracles for everybody to see. Many of them done in the most public place of all, in and around the temple, and still they refused to believe.
Verse 38-40, “This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted: “Lord, who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?” 39 But the people couldn’t believe, for as Isaiah also said, 40 “The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, so that their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and have me heal them.”
Verse 37 and 38 says they would not believe. Verse 39 says they, therefore, could not believe. Now, there are two fatal components to unbelief. Number one, the sovereignty of God. This is where John starts, with the sovereignty of God. That is exactly what Isaiah 53:1 said would happen, “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Isaiah 53:1, is written in the past tense. This is strange for a prophesy because it’s looking forward to Christ in the future. It describes Him bearing our griefs, carrying our sorrows in verse 4. Stricken by God, afflicted, pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, chastened for our well-being, scourged for our healing. Verse 7, being oppressed, He didn’t open His mouth.
It talks about His resurrection. It talks about His exaltation, but the interesting thing is it’s all past tense verbs. “They will not believe our message. We will not see the arm of the Lord revealed.” Why is it in the past? It’s in the past because this is the confession of Israel when in the future they believe. At some time in the future, Israel will believe and all Israel will be saved.
The first thing they will say is in verse 1, “Who has believed the message given to us? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” What does that mean? Now go back to John 12. Well, what they’re saying is we didn’t believe when Jesus came and gave us the gospel message. What is the arm of the Lord? Divine power. He came with divine miracle power in all His miracles.
We didn’t see the revelation. This is their heartfelt, wrenching confession sometime in the future when Israel looks back and they see that Jesus was their Messiah, He was bruised for their iniquities. He was crushed for their transgressions. They will see that, but the first thing they’ll acknowledge is we didn’t believe. We didn’t see it as the arm of the Lord, the power of God.
No, this doesn’t catch God by surprise. Isaiah said this would be the reason, they could not believe.” And this also parallels Isaiah 6, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so that they wouldn’t see with their eyes and perceive with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.” Then God says, “Whom shall I send?” Who is going to go to this nation Israel and preach judgment?”
Isaiah says, “Here am I. Send me.” Because they would not believe for so long, for centuries and the time came when they could not believe. In Isaiah 6:13 God says, “There’s a remnant.” That would have been true at the time of John 12, right? There were 500 believers in Galilee, 120 in Jerusalem. They were the disciples. God always has a remnant. But for the nation Israel, it was too late.
Verse 41, “Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he said this, because he saw the future and spoke of the Messiah’s glory.” We learn here that the vision of God in Isaiah 6 was none other than Christ Himself. So in Isaiah 6, it was Christ saying, “They would not, and now they cannot.” It was Jesus pronouncing judgment then. And it was Jesus giving a final invitation to a few who would believe then. Let us pray.