What kind of faith is that?

The Hour Has Come – Three Sermons

Part 3: “An Hour of Death…”

(John 12:42-50, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, August 16, 2009)

John 12:42-50 42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. 44 And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment - what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me."

What is the Father’s commandment for the Son to speak and to accomplish?

A: “His commandment is eternal life.” (John 12:50)

The glory that men love (12:42-43)

In the twelfth chapter of John’s gospel, the public ministry of Jesus comes to an end as Jesus announces that His hour has come. In the next five chapters we have the details of our Lord’s closing words and actions privately with His disciples. The remaining chapters of the gospel tell us about Jesus’ arrest, trials, death, and His resurrection appearances. A turning point in the public ministry of our Lord came at the end of chapter six, when He said to a very large crowd, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” This statement was more than most people could take, and many stopped following Him at that point.

Despite this rejection of Christ, there still was a great crowd cheering Him on after the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. We have seen that most were in darkness concerning the fact that that the Messiah would suffer and rise again. We have also seen John’s assessment that a wave of unbelief seemed to settle upon Jerusalem in the days before Jesus death. John quoted passages from Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 6 about the rejection of the Messiah and the unbelief of the people as God’s own judgment upon them. As Isaiah had written, “Who has believed our report?”

Nonetheless there were some, we are told, even among the rulers, who secretly did believe in Jesus. Yet they were not willing to make their belief in Him known to others. What kind of belief is that? This unwillingness to be honest about the things that they were thinking about in their hearts was because of a fear that they had. We know that Jesus had faced many pointed attacks from the Pharisees. This religious party had vehemently disagreed with Jesus concerning His understanding of the Law, and especially concerning His identity. They were a powerful force against Him and had a very strong influence among the leadership of the community synagogues. They had already agreed to use their power to exclude people from the synagogues who had confessed that Jesus was the Christ.

This was a very powerful weapon. The synagogue was the center of community religious life. It was in the synagogues that daily and weekly worship took place. To be excluded from the life of the synagogue was to be considered an irreligious sinner. For those whose whole lives were built around their religious connections, to be excluded from the synagogue was a very shameful thing. Because of this, these leaders who secretly believed in Jesus, probably including men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, were unwillingly to publicly profess with their mouths that Jesus was the Messiah. In Romans 10, Paul says that saving faith is not simply a question of the secret belief of the heart, but also includes the confession of the lips. Some of the leaders had the first, but they were very cautious about the second.

The reason for their reluctance was obvious. They could not bear the shame and ridicule that would come upon them for making any secret belief of Jesus known to others. They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. We need to remember the words of Jesus from Matthew 10:32-33, “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” Peter did that, denying Jesus, after the Lord’s arrest, and we are still persuaded that God had the power to turn that around, which He did.

The question of who believes in Jesus is not an easy one. Only one Man has every trusted God perfectly. The rest of us say, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” The glory that comes from men is temporary and sometimes insincere. There are many flatterers and opportunists who find it within their interest to throw lavish praise at everyone. The glory that comes from God is stable, beautiful, holy, and completely true. It is a resurrection glory, and it is worth any momentary affliction that might come with it in the present age.

Him who sent Me (12:44-45)

Who does someone believe in when they believe in Jesus? Jesus says to the people that He is sent from the Father. He has come as an Ambassador from heaven. This is at least part of what He came to do, but He is more than an ordinary prophet. That is why He said in an earlier passage, “I and the Father are one.” His claims are divine.

The rejection of any representative from God in the Old Testament was always a rejection of God who sent Him. This was the case with the towering Old Testament figure Samuel at the end of the era of the Judges. When the people demanded a king, God told Samuel, “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me.” Jesus’ special position as the eternal Son of God made this all the more striking. To reject Jesus is to reject the Father in person in a sense. To blindly ignore Jesus is to ignore God. To believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father. To see Jesus truly as the One uniquely sent by the Father is to see God.

Jesus cannot be just a good moral teacher, or just another prophet. Good moral teachers don’t say, “Whoever believes in me, believes in God.” They don’t say, “Whoever sees Me, sees God.” That is what Jesus is saying here. The One who sent Jesus, the one He calls “Father,” is God. Jesus did not just say these things. We are told that He yelled them out. As Paul says in Romans 9:5, Jesus is “God over all, blessed forever.” He walked into an hour of death as the only One who could somehow face our hell and turn it into eternal life.

Not to remain in darkness (12:46-50)

We have said that this hour was an hour of darkness. Jesus came into a world of darkness and suffered through this hour of darkness in order to secure an eternity of light for those who would believe in Him. We have also said that this hour was an hour of unbelief. Jesus came into a world of unbelief and suffered through this hour of unbelief in order to secure an eternity of resurrection glory that will be fully seen by those who believe in Him. This hour of darkness, this hour of unbelief, was above all things an hour of death. Jesus came into a world of death and suffered death in order to secure an eternity of life for those who would believe in Him.

Jesus of Nazareth did not give His own message as just another man with an opinion. He gave the message of the Father; the message of God. That message came to Him as a commandment that He was willing to keep. The commandment was a mission. “Secure eternal life for my people, for Jews and Gentiles.” This mission required great sacrifice. The hour had now come for that sacrifice. It was an hour of death, and Jesus walked right into it, knowing that it was an hour of death. This was the path that He chose in obedience to the Father’s commandment of eternal life for you. To win eternal life He had to say “Yes” to the worst hour of all time.

To be a Christian is to follow this Man on the pathway of eternal life that He blazed for us. It is your privilege to follow Him into a dark hour, an hour of unbelief, even an hour of death. In that hour He said what the Father gave Him to say, and He did what the Father gave Him to do. All this took the greatest integrity. He did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. Has He saved you? He is not trying to judge anyone. Those who will not believe in Him will have the word of His mercy standing against them on the last day, because they decided to fight against the mercy of God for some reason. They decided to reject Jesus. I don’t know why. He never did anything to hurt them. He was willing to be hurt for them, and they just decided to keep their distance from Him for some reason. In rejecting the love of the Son they rejected the love of the Father who sent Him for them (see Luke 15).

For those who have wandered for some reason into darkness: Do not stay there. Do not remain in darkness. Jesus is calling you here today. Jesus is alive. He knows you, and He can bring you home again to Him. You know what kind of life He has called you to. Receive His Word as a word for you. Profess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and you will be saved. That’s what the Bible says to do, and I don’t know why anyone should object to that. It is a proposal of love. Receive it, and embrace Jesus.

For those who have belief but not the kind that would every cost them anything real: Do not believe one thing in your heart, say a second thing with your mouth, and do a third thing with your life. That does not lead to anything but confusion. Rediscover the heart of God in Jesus Christ. What man could say what He shouts? “Whoever believes in me, believes in God. Whoever sees me sees God. I am the Light of the world. Hear My word, and keep My word, or My word will come against you in the day of God’s judgment. I came to save the world. I am doing what God told Me to do. I am saying what God told Me to say. His commandment is eternal life.”

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. How can someone believe, but then not confess and live out their faith?

2. What is faith in Christ, and how does it relate to faith in the Father?

3. Why did Christ come to earth? How does His coming relate to the biblical concepts of judgment and salvation?

4. What is the connection between what Jesus says and what He does?