Basic Recap of Sunday’s Sermon: “Roadblocks to Believing in Jesus” John 12:37-43

Why don't people believe in Jesus? There are two reasons given in John 12:37-43. First, people do not believe in Jesus because God's sovereign righteous judgment has come upon them (John 12:37-43). The rejection of Jesus comes in fulfillment of ancient prophecy (cf Isa 53:1). And this ancient prophecy speaks of God intentionally blinding the eyes and hardening the hearts of unbelievers. And that's exactly what is happening with Jesus here. One of the things God did through Jesus was to essentially seal people in their unbelief as part of his righteous and sovereign judgment upon them (note v.39, "Therefore they could not believe").

The fact that God does this troubles many people. There tend to be two major objections. The first is that it is unfair for God to this. However, to say it's unfair is to assume that God is doing this to innocent people. However, our passage notes that people still did not believe in Jesus even after he did signs before them (v.37). The people should have believed in Jesus even without signs. Being Jews they had over the course of their history a special relationship with God and been given many special revelations of him. Jesus was the high point of God's revelation to his people. But they rejected Jesus, and continued to reject him even with the extra grace of signs being given to them. Thus, God's judgment upon them was fair and just, in keeping with continued rebellion against him.

The second major objection is that God is violating people's free will. In answer to this we should ask why this should be God's concern? If God is a holy and righteous judge, then his judgments are holy and righteous. Asking, "what about free will" is the equivalent of a guy on death row eating his last meal and asking, "What about my dessert? It's not fair for me not to get a dessert!" The guy on death row has been judged and tried and now faces execution because of his crimes. What's fair isn't him getting a dessert, what's fair is him being executed, anything beyond that is grace. Thus, the real issue for us in this matter is whether or not those who reject Jesus can be held responsible for their rejection of Jesus. And the Bible's answer is yes – we can be held responsible. There is some mystery to this, but one example is helpful. Imagine your 5 year old daughter is sitting in her room. She's been rude and doesn't care that she has been rude. In her anger and stubbornness she sits in her room refusing to come out. However, as her parent you are punishing her and have locked her in her room in order to discipline her. This means that she couldn't leave the room even if she wanted. However, she does not, so your punishment coincides with her willful rejection.

This illustration is imperfect, but it is an attempt to get at a biblical truth, namely, that God is righteous and just because he sovereignly judges and condemns guilty sinners in accordance with their willing rejection of him. What we see in our passage is the ultimate culmination of his judgment. God is patient, but he is no pushover. He will judge, and when he judges there will be no escape. This should serve as a huge warning to us then. God will sovereignly judge those who continue to defy him by their sin and he will do so by allowing them to fall deeper and eventually permanently into their sin. Hardened, stubborn unbelief is part of God's perfectly righteous and fair judgment upon human beings. As the New Testament scholar Herman Ridderbos writes, "[God] abandons unbelieving people to themselves, thus confirming them in their evil."

This is the first reason people don't believe in Jesus according to our passage. But a second reason people don't believe, that comes as a kind of subcategory to the first reason, is because any belief that they do have is compromised by a stronger commitment to things other than Jesus (John 12:42-43). There are some who may appear to believe in Jesus. But it is not a deeply rooted belief. It is superficial belief, shown by how little impact their belief has upon their lives. It's a belief in Jesus, but only up to a point. This was the case with the religious authorities mentioned in our passage. They loved the glory of man – the comfort of being accepted by their peers in the synagogue – more than the glory that comes from God – the comfort of being accepted by God because of faith in Jesus. Their real commitment was to their social status rather than to their heavenly status

The very nature of who Jesus claims to be demands a total reorientation of your life. It means a change in habits and choices. It means sacrifice and loss so that you can gain something much greater. Unfortunately, for many people this is all a bit too much. As Jesus tells us in the parable of the sower, there are some for whom "the cares of the world" will eventually rise up and choke out the word of Christ within them.

These are all very stiff challenges to belief in Jesus. In view of these, we might ask then how can anyone believe and be saved? To answer that we look to Ephesians 2:8, which says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." God's grace to save us is a gift from him, along with the faith to take hold of that grace. The message of the cross is inherently foolish and silly. It is a ridiculous notion, one that we are naturally predisposed to dismiss. That's why we need God to give us this gift of grace and faith if we are to have any hope of understanding this message and believing in it. And fortunately, we have a God who likes to give this gift. We have a God who is patient in judging and abundant in loving and showing grace and mercy to sinners like us.

Practically speaking, this is what makes our prayers matter. No one prays for God to give people only enough insight into the gospel so that they can then decide for themselves if they want to believe. No, we pray that God would snatch people out of the fires of hell, jumpstart their hearts, breathe life into their souls, and plant them firmly in his kingdom! We are right to pray like this and we must pray like this if people are to be saved.

This also is what makes witnessing matter. We must tell people about this message, because we know that God has the power and the will to plant this message into people's hearts if we are willing to them this message.

This also is what makes us know that our faith is real. If our faith depended on our feelings, we would spend parts of every day worried that we have perhaps fallen out of God's kingdom. But our faith is not from ourselves, it is a gift given to us by God, which means it is not dependent on us but on God. And since God is strong and reliable, eternal and unchanging, we can trust that as long as we depend on him our faith will also stay strong, reliable, eternal and unchanging.

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