The human side of salvation
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 8 January 2012
Salvation is both an historic fact that happens in time and at the same time an eternal choice that happened before time began. In Scripture we sometimes read about the human side of salvation, the idea that whoever wants to come to Christ may, and that is true. For Jesus said in John 6:37, "and the one that comes to Me I will by no means cast out."
But more often in Scripture we read of the divine side, election before the world began. "All that the Father gives to Me shall come to Me," is the other side of the verse I just quoted. And so, salvation is a balance between the will of God and the will of man. Salvation is the will of God in action, bringing about a response from the will of man.
Salvation always demands a divine initiative. Man could not design to die himself for his own sin, God has to do that. The grace, mercy, forgiveness and love that initiated salvation had to come from God, yet it demands a human response. Salvation is the work of God and at the same time it is the activity of man as he responds to the work of God in his heart.
We are saved by the sovereign act of God, and we are also saved by an act of our will. We don't attempt to justify the two; we accept them both because they are biblical. From my own standpoint, when I came to Jesus Christ I came to Him because I wanted Him as an act of my will. But what I didn't know at that time is that prior to the time that I decided that, God had long before chosen me in Him.
And that is exactly what salvation is. It is my will responding to the will of God. And those are the two sides of salvation. That's the balance. I do not of my own will seek God, says Paul, until God has sought me. Augustine said, "We will never seek Christ unless God had already found us."
And so, Scripture presents two sides to salvation, the balance between the seeking soul and the seeking Savior. And we shall see it tonight as we examine our text for in verses 38 to 42 we have the emphasis on the seeking soul and next Sunday in verses 43 to 51, we have the emphasis on the seeking Savior.
Now we see Jesus Christ calling out two groups of disciples. These are the first two groups of disciples that He ever called and there are six in all. Remember that the Apostle John is writing this gospel to present Christ as the Son of God. So from this first group of disciples before John the Apostle leaves, he collects their testimonies as to who Christ is.
Now we have already met one witness, John the Baptist, right? He said, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." When he met Christ he witnessed as to who He was. Now we are about to meet the next two disciples of Christ introduced in verses 35-37, “Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. 36And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold Lamb of God!” 37 The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.”
So at the end of verse 37 they move toward Christ and the whole picture changes. John the Baptist fades from the scene and we begin the narrative of Christ at verse 38. Now we're going to see the two sides of salvation and the balance of salvation, the seeking soul and the seeking Savior.
Notice first the seeking soul in verses 38 to 42. In verse 38 we read this, "Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them," stop right there. Here we are introduced to the seeking soul. We have heard nothing about the Father drawing them, yet Jesus says in John 6:44, “no man can come to Me unless the Father draws him.”
Nobody comes to Jesus Christ unless he's been convicted by the Holy Spirit he is a sinner. We don't even hear about that. Did it happen? It certainly did, the Father drew them. They were convicted of their sin and they knew they needed a Messiah. Now John wants us to see the human side of salvation, the seeking soul.
Now they were probably shy, I mean they wouldn't just walk up to Him and start a conversation. Maybe they just couldn't believe who He was. I don't know what the reason was but they just kind of followed along. And then Jesus did something, He turned around to face them and He said something to them.
Jesus was opening the door to their salvation, in effect. And here again you have the divine initiative. A man could try to follow Jesus Christ for a long time, but if Jesus never turned to talk to him he'd never know salvation. So even here is an indication of the seeking Savior which is developed further in verses 43 to 51.
This is a beautiful realization that where there is an honest soul, Christ will meet that soul. Please don’t ever forget this principle; we're going to see it in Scripture right here and in a couple of other passages that are really critical. If you don't come to Jesus Christ honestly, He won't meet you. And I'll show you what I mean by that.
When the soul of man is really honest, Jesus knows that, that's why He said to Nathanael in John 1:47, "There is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit." Sure Nathaniel said in verse 46, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" That wasn't sarcastic, he was honest.
So when a man really comes searching for Jesus Christ, God will reveal it to him because he wouldn't be searching unless God had already drawn him. He wouldn't be coming because natural man is bent toward sin and does not seek God, Romans 3, unless God spins him around and turns him toward Himself.
And when a person says I want to know myself, I want forgiveness, I want freedom from guilt, I want to repent of my old life, I want peace, love, joy and meaning in life, Christ will turn and meet him. So when somebody comes to me and says, "Well I'm trying, I'd like to give my life to Christ but I can't seem to find it," I'll say, "Well okay, what are you holding back? Level with me because you're not being totally honest.”
If you really want to know Jesus Christ and you really want to be what He wants you to be, He'll meet you in that moment with all your doubts, with all your misunderstandings. When a heart longs sincerely to meet the Christ in a real experience of salvation, He will not disappoint. And so Jesus didn't leave these two fumbling, He turned.
And just the opposite was true in John 2:23-25 and I want you to see what Jesus does with the insincere hearts. “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.” There's a difference between believing easily and receiving sincerely. They weren't ready to repent; they just followed Him like those the two disciples.
You might say, surely He turned to them also. No He did not, look at verse 24, “But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, 25 and had no need that anyone should testify of man.” He knew everything that was in their hearts and that they weren't really honest. Verse 25 continued, “for He knew what was in a man.”
You see, Jesus does not commit Himself to an insincere heart. And if you're searching hypocritically for Jesus Christ and you can't seem to find Him, it's not because He doesn't want you to find Him, it's because if you're not sincere He can't meet you. And so the honest heart is a prepared heart.
Remember the time that Jesus fed the multitude and then He went across the sea and they all followed Him. I heard a preacher say, "Isn't that wonderful? He had given them food, He had met their need and they all followed Him." No they didn't follow Jesus; they followed Him because they just wanted more food. Oh yes, there were a lot of hypocrites.
Jesus said to the Jews in Luke 6:46, "Why do you call Me Lord, Lord and not do the things which I say?" A lot of hypocrites followed Him who just wanted to see what He did. They never wanted to commit their lives to Him and that same crowd also ended up killing Him after that Palm Sunday.
And there are also people in church like that. They like to think of church as a facility where they can meet friends and have parties and just think, it doesn't even cost as much as the YMCA, and that way they can sprinkle “a little divine salt” on their human activity. And then they wonder why nothing ever happens to change their lives.
If all you want out of the church is entertainment and friends and parties, then you've got the wrong idea of what the church is all about. Jesus Christ knows who the honest seekers are. He knows the real searching soul because that soul has already been prompted by God the Father and convicted by the Holy Spirit and Jesus knows all that.
So Jesus says to them in verse 38, "What do you seek?" Well if He knows everybody heart what's He asking them that for? You see, He's not asking them for His benefit, He's asking them for their own benefit. What are you coming after Me for?
It does not say if Jesus asked that question of Judas or not, but Judas was in it for the money. And we know he didn't end too well. You’ll never be very successful when you go into the ministry to become rich. What were their motives?
I think they were a couple of simple guys trying to figure out if this was really the Messiah, and if He was, they wanted to give Him everything they were. You see, they had doubts. Isn't that a beautiful thing? You'll never know all about Jesus Christ till you actually meet Him.
Some people say, "Well once I get rid of all my complications and I really understand it, then I'll meet Christ." You'll never meet Him that way. They were puzzled but they knew that if this was Messiah they were ready to give their lives to Him right then.
What are you seeking? What do you want out of Jesus Christ? What do you want in life? Do you want self-glory, self-will, prestige, power, popularity, money and health? Sorry, Christ doesn't guarantee you any of those commodities.
What does Christ guarantee? Oh, a few things like love, peace, joy, meaning, purpose and hope. It all depends on what you want. What do you want? If you want what Christ can offer, He's there if you're honest.
They said to Christ in verse 38, "Where are You staying?" They could have said, "Could we go with You?" But they didn't say that. Maybe they were just going to find out His address and come and see Him at a later time. But look what He says in verse 39. He says to them, make an appointment next Tuesday at three. No, what does He say? "Come and see,” in other words today is the day of your salvation.
Christ is never was too busy. You never have to worry about Christ having time for you. He stood over Jerusalem and cried because they wouldn't come to Him. Jesus Christ has to worry about the whole universe and yet He's got every second of every day for me and you. Fantastic, isn't it? “Come and see.”
Listen, you can stand around and wonder who the Messiah is, you can have a lot of theological discourse about it but finally you just better go and see who He is. How do you do that? You sit down with Him and you have to spend time with Him.
Revelation 3:20 says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear My voice and open the door, I'll come in and have supper with Him and he with Me." You want to get to know Him, meet Him. You can stand on the outside looking in but you miss the whole point. Come with your doubts and invite Christ to be real to you and He will be.
John 1:39, “They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour).” They saw a lot more than the house that He happened to be using for that day because the next day He left for another place. It's a good thing that they saw Him not only physically but also spiritually.
At the end of verse 39 it said, "Now it was about the tenth hour," Why does it say that? Who cares what time it was? Who wrote this letter? John. So you know who cares what time it was? John does. Why? Because ten o'clock one January morning on a Galilean day his life got transformed. John is writing about this 60 years later. What happened at ten o'clock, John? Everything happened. At ten o'clock that day, John said, my life changed drastically.
For me it happened at seven o'clock at night on a summer day in 1994 in Denver, that I met the Lord Jesus. I had just been through a divorce and a break-up of my firm and family, and when God got ready to talk to me He made sure I listened. And it was that day at seven o'clock that I met Jesus Christ, the dividing line in my life. I'll never forget that, neither could John.
Salvation is no religious process, it is a historical event. It may take time for the Holy Spirit to bring you to that point but when it happens it happens. I believe John always uses Roman time (same as our time). You'll find it again in the times around the cross. John will differ with the other writers and that’s why some translations are wrong. If you take it as Roman time it's ten o'clock in the morning. The reason that makes sense is that they stayed with Him the rest of that day.
Verse 40 tells us who one of them was. "One of the two who heard John (the Baptist) speak and followed Him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother." So we automatically know the other disciple was John the Apostle because he never mentions his name. He never even mentions his family’s name. But we know it is John.
Now Andrew was Simon Peter's brother. If we didn't call him as Peter's brother, nobody would known him because he is not mentioned much but everyone knows Peter. Andrew just was always in the background but there's something great about Andrew. The three times we read about him in the Bible, he's always doing the same thing.
He is bringing somebody to Jesus. Here he goes and gets Peter. In John 6 he goes and gets the little boy with the fishes and he brings him to Jesus. And later on in John 12:22 he gets some Gentiles and brings them also to Jesus.
Watch this now in verse 41, He says, "Simon, we have found the Messiah." He doesn't beat around the bush. And we read it in Psalm 2:2, God's anointed Son, the King of Israel, we've found Him. The search is over. Centuries of waiting for David's greater Son are over, He's here now.
Well, what happens when the seeking soul finds the object of his search? Well Andrew did not stop searching. He found Christ and then he took his brother to Him. And that is exactly what we should do also. How about you? Are you also bringing others to Jesus? Let us continue next Sunday to learn more of the divine side of salvation. Let us pray.