Beholding Christ, Yet Rejecting Him!
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27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28 Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29 The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33 He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34 So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35 So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36 While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. 37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”
41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. 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.
Opening Prayer
Opening Prayer
Setting the Stage
Setting the Stage
Christ is in the last week of His earthly ministry pre-Cross.
Christ has raised Lazarus from the dead…
And, it has caused quite the stir in Jerusalem and the surrounding area.
The RL’s have met behind closed doors and decided to kill Jesus.
Now, they are just waiting for the opportune time to arrest Him.
With all that Christ has done and taught in the midst of the people of Israel.
All that He has done and taught in the hearing of the RL’s.
And, even now as they speak to Him with contempt…
Christ urges them to take hold of Him as the incarnate grace of God.
In spite of it all, we read…
37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him,
We have seen throughout John’s gospel that unbelief in Christ proves unbelief in God & His Word.
Christ is God and He is the Word.
Now, John moves us to the OT to show us what God spoke through the prophets about the coming of the Messiah.
Now, there are some truths being stated here that can be hard to hear.
Especially, if we try to define them using fallen human logic…
—> Rather than letting God define these truths.
When we read…
39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart,
lest they see with their eyes,
and understand with their heart, and turn,
and I would heal them.”
So, we need to understand this truth biblically.
How Does God Blind & Harden?
How Does God Blind & Harden?
This is an important truth to define biblically and not by human wisdom, human logic, or human philosophy.
We let the Word of God speak for God.
What does it mean to blind and harden?
How does God blind and harden?
Let’s look at Romans 1 and bite off a few chunks at a time…
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
So, what the Bible is teaching here is that God has revealed Himself to every person born…
And, He has revealed Himself so clearly…
Through creation
Which includes conscience
Our ability to know right from wrong
That every single person is without excuse.
This means there is no such thing as a true agnostic.
Agnostics are just claiming the title in their rebellion & rejection of God to soothe their conscience.
This means there is no such thing as a true atheist.
Atheists are just claiming the title in their rebellion & rejection of God to soothe their conscience.
The reality is that mankind makes a choice to reject God.
In spite of the overwhelming and convincing evidence:
They reject God willingly.
They reject God joyfully.
So, in the courtroom of God no one will be able to claim ignorance.
The evidence will point to a willingness and joyful, free choice, to reject God.
Now, Paul goes on to tell us how this looks in the lives of man…
21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
So a few things that manifest themselves in the life of man since the fall:
The choose to not honor God, which is to dishonor God.
They choose to not thank God, which is to be ungrateful to God.
And, the result of such rebellion towards God is:
Man’s thinking becomes futile.
Man’s heart, the seat of affections, intellect, and decisions, are drawn toward evil.
And, in this whole system of injustice and rebellion towards God:
Man claims to be wise.
Yet, in reality, are expressing the ultimate foolishness.
Which is in reality rejecting true glory from God, and settling for lesser glory…
Which is no really glory at all.
It’s like choosing to drink from a mud puddle instead of a pure fountain of water.
Paul goes on to tell us how God responds to such rejection and rebellion…
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
So, here we have the first response from God towards man’s rejection of Him…
And, their ungratefulness to Him.
He gave them up to their desires.
He gave them over to pursue the sinful desires of their God-hating hearts.
And, so the actions of mankind were not only sinful…
But they continued in a debased trajectory to even go against what the natural realm knows to be wrong.
And, so we read…
26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions.
Then Paul tells us, further in…
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.
There is a progression of sinfulness that leads mankind so far away from God as to go against a natural logic and reasoning…
That even wild beasts don’t go against.
It’s such a tragic rejection of God that image bearers act lower than the beasts of the field.
But, what we see here in God giving them up…
Is a blinding and hardening of sinful man.
God removes His common grace which keeps people from sinning as much or as horrifically as they might.
Common grace is God’s activity in the every day life of mankind to give rain, sunshine, etc.
God is not obligated to do such, by anything other than His promise to do so.
But, God can remove the rain, allow a famine, ordain a drought.
And, He can do so…because He is the Potter and creation, the clay.
He has the power and the authority to do so.
But, God can also remove common grace and allow men to pursue what they desire to pursue, which is sinful pleasure.
And, God can give common grace in which He can keep someone from sinning.
You’re most likely familiar with the story of Abraham and Sarah and King Abimelech.
Abraham pretended to be Sarah’s brother so that he wouldn’t be harmed.
The King took Sarah as his own.
And, God came to Abimelech in a dream that night and basically told Abimilech that he was a dead man if he touched Sarah.
And, Abimelech told God that he was tricked by Abraham to think Sarah was his sister…
And, that he hadn’t touched Sarah.
Now, listen to God’s response…
6 Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her.
God says, “Yes, I know you only took her because you thought she was unwed…
But, it was Me that kept you from sinning against me.
I kept you from taking her, says God.
If it were not for Me you would have sinned.
So, God can and does intervene to keep sin from happening.
But, God can and does also step away and let men pursue their sinful desires unhindered.
And, in both scenarios God is just.
So, to blind the eyes and harden the hearts…
—> It means to let them go the way they want to go.
To remove the common grace of God that restrains sin.
God also intervenes with salvific grace to change the heart from being a heart that does nothing but suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness…
—> Into having a heart that yields to God…
—> That is able to see the beauty and loveliness of God.
Listen to what Paul says in…
23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
What occurs normally at the preaching of the gospel is that it:
Irritates the Jew
Spurned by the non-Jew
But, Paul says…
If you are called by God then it is the power of Christ that calls you.
As Jesus states in…
45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— (Is. 54:13)
65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Because unless the Father teaches and draws as the New Covenant promises…
The gospel remains a stumbling block and folly.
The truth to understand in what is being said by John by his quoting Isaiah who is prophesying for God, is this…
The wicked suffer nothing outside of God’s most righteous judgment.
Every sin is their own.
Every rebellious act towards God was their own chosen act.
Every rejection of God, in every moment of a person’s life, is a rejection in which they choose lesser things over God.
So, with that biblical understanding undergirding us, we can see that when we read…
37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
Does God Cause Unbelief?
Does God Cause Unbelief?
John is not saying that God forced them to not believe, though they wanted to or would have without His forcing them…
So that God’s word through Isaiah would be true.
IOW, John is not saying they would have believed had it not been for Isaiah’s prophecy.
Rather, what John is saying is that the reason they could not believe is because they, like all unregenerate men, were in a condition of spiritual blindness.
Again, as Jesus states…
65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
The only time belief occurs is when God intervenes by regenerating a person and drawing them to Himself.
As we read…
37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
“Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.”
“Who has believed our report?,” says Isaiah.
And the answer from Isaiah is this…
13 All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children.
Who Has Faith?
Who Has Faith?
All the promised children of the spiritual seed of Abraham.
“Who has believed our report?,” says Isaiah.
No one, unless the Father teaches them, draws them to Christ.
No one, Jesus says, unless they’re born again.
And, if one is not taught by the Father.
If one is not drawn by the Father.
They are in no way treated unjustly.
They are simple allowed to follow the sinful pleasures of their lustful hearts.
They remain in their chosen state of:
unbelief of God
rebellion towards God
rejection of God for lesser things
They receive nothing that they do not want to receive.
Now, look at this intriguing statement by John…
41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.
What Did Isaiah See?
What Did Isaiah See?
Christ on His throne (Is. 6)
Christ incarnating (Is. 7)
Christ as the suffering servant (Is. 42, 49, 50, 52-53)
Christ crucified (Is. 53)
Christ resurrected (Is. 26, 53)
Christ as the Messianic King
the eternal King of righteousness (Is. 9)
Christ leading His people to Victory (Is. 42, 49, 54, 55, 59, 61)
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Let’s think about this...
Let’s think about this...
33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?”
36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Closing Prayer
Closing Prayer
