God’s Sovereignty and Our Salvation
On January 20th, 2019, we canceled our worship services for the second week in a row due to the weather. If I don't get this message out I would likely overwhelm some poor soul with a sermon that's been slow-cooking for two weeks. So I have decided to post a revised version of it here. Friendship UMC has been studying the Gospel of John for quite some time now. This Sunday the passage came from John 12:37-50.
It's safe to say the John 3:16 is one of the most famous passages in the Bible. Most everyone, whether Christian or not, can quote it on demand because of its popularity. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." This verse makes a powerful statement about the nature of God. He is motivated by his great love, a love that is so great that sending his only Son into the world seemed like a reasonable thing to do. If you study other religions you will discover that this is often what separates the Christian God from other gods. The Christian God loves and, as we learn in other verses, is love. This is what John 3:16 states. This is why the passage is so beloved, because it paints a picture of a God that we can all embrace; a loving God, not a vindictive, or angry, or curmudgeonly God, but a loving one.
The passage also makes a claim about us, about humanity; a claim that is not so readily explored or embraced. That is, humanity is in a state of perishing. That may actually be alarming to hear. Perhaps that's why we focus on the part about God, but not the part about us. Perhaps that's also why we don't quote John 3:17-21, because what we find there isn't particularly nice to hear or to share. Indeed, a part of me is glad that I don't have to look people in the eyes as I'm sharing this message. How do you look at someone and say, apart from God your life is actually withering away and failing, no matter how it appears on the outside or how you feel about it personally. But that is the predicament we find ourselves in according to the Bible, and this is precisely the kind of world God sent his Son into to bring salvation. That is, a world filled with people who are perishing but a) don't know it, or b) don't care.
In John 12:37-50 we find a very interesting moment in this Gospel. These are the last public statements of Jesus before he is arrested. He has spent around 3 years preaching, teaching, and demonstrating what life in God's kingdom is like. One would expect a crescendo of people rushing to experience God's salvation, almost like what happened when Peter preached in Acts 2, but instead we read, "Although he had performed many signs in their presence, they did not believe in him."
I used to spend time praying that God would give me a sign, maybe a visitation from angel or a vision, or maybe allow me to see a miracle in person so that I could really believe. And there are people who have come to faith in Christ because of dramatic experiences like that, the apostle Paul was one of them. But by and large this is not the case. By and large most of us would not believe even if something miraculous happened to us (see Luke 16:27-31). I believe the reason for this is because humanity is trapped under the power of Sin. As Martin Luther said in his Lectures on Romans,
Our nature, by the corruption of the first sin, [being] so deeply curved in on itself that it not only bends the best gifts of God towards itself and enjoys them (as is plain in the works-righteous and hypocrites), or rather even uses God himself in order to attain these gifts, but it also fails to realize that it so wickedly, curvedly, and viciously seeks all things, even God, for its own sake."
This is what happened with the majority of those who were around Jesus in his day. Indeed, not even those who believed, including the 12 apostles, were able to stand faithfully with him, and it's all because of Sin's power. In other words, Sin, which causes one to make themself the center of the universe, keeps people from accepting and experiencing the fullness of salvation that Jesus comes to offer, because in order to fully receive the salvation Jesus came to bring one is required to deny the self. So, even though the message Jesus came to bring was wonderful to hear and behold, it was not so readily embraced because of what it required. And so even though people enjoyed Jesus' company, and enjoyed to question him, even though they loved to see his miracles, they still refused to believe.
But there is a danger in being a hearer of the Word only. The danger is that the very thing that is addressing you, namely the word of God, has transformative power. In other words, it does something to you. A person cannot listen to the word of God passively, something is happening on the inside. It is like a fire that heats and softens or heats and hardens.
Look at the transition that is made in the sequence of verses. First, "they did not believe in him." Then, in verse 39, "they could not believe." Did not lead to could not, and surprisingly the very thing that ushered them into their obstinacy was the word that was spoken to them. This is why the author refers to Isaiah ch. 6. In this chapter the prophet Isaiah hears the Lord asking who will be his messenger into the world. When Isaiah volunteered to go and preach he was basically told that his preaching would, "Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed."
It seems strange to read such words, doesn't it? But we must remember the nature of God's word, it is active and transformative, it is not empty or void. So for those who have rejected God's offer of salvation the word of God comes to confirm them in their unbelief. As one commentator said, "Grace can be refused so persistently as to destroy the power of accepting it. 'I will not' leads to 'I cannot.'" It's not that God desires the destruction of his people. Indeed, we know the opposite to be true (see 2 Peter 3:9). The fact of the matter is God sends his word to us in so many different ways, because his word is our only hope for salvation. Even though the word of God serves to harden peoples hearts, it is the only thing that can soften peoples hearts. (I'd encourage you to study more of this on your own.)
This is why Jesus is so animated in verse 44, "Then Jesus cried aloud." It's almost as if he is making a final plea for people to hear and trust, rather than hear and find more reasons to doubt. He, as the Logos of God, the eternal Word of God, knows full what his presence will do in the lives of people. As Carson wrote in his commentary, the same message [the Word of the Father] that proclaims life and forgiveness to the believer proclaims condemnation and wrath to the unbeliever, and this judgment on the world is now impending." And so Jesus exclaims and urges them to believe! I better bring this post to a close, I know how hard it is to read rather than listen, just bear with me a little while longer because it's so important what Jesus is doing and saying here. For the last time he makes the claim that he has been sent from God, indeed that seeing him is just like seeing God. Or, to use Archbishop Michael Ramsey's quote, Jesus is saying, "God is Christlike, and there is no unChristlikeness in him." Therefore, if one is eager to have fellowship with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the best way, indeed the only way, is to have fellowship with Jesus.
From time to time I'll watch a movie where someone is being rescued from the water, a burning building, the edge of a cliff, or something similar. In almost all of those movies the one making the rescue says to the person being rescued, "I've got you!" Then they will say something like, "hold on to me." This is the message of Jesus, "I've got you, hold on to me." In Philippians 3:12 the apostle Paul says something similar: "It's not that I have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it, so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me..."If we understand that outside of Christ we are falling apart, or, as the hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing states:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander
Lord, I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart
O take and seal it
Seal it for Thy courts above.
Understanding this truth should lead us to run into the fellowship of Jesus regularly. Not to simply rest in the knowledge that we are held in Christ, but to hold on to Christ. To say to him, "hears my heart, O take and seal it..." But how do we do that, how do we hold on to Christ? Hebrews 3:7-19 is a summary of what happened to Israel in the wilderness. Verse 12 says, "See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called 'Today,' so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (italics mine).
So we cling to Christ through 1) awareness of our nature apart from him. And 2) engaging in disciplines of grace that help us become more and more the people we were meant to be in Christ. There is more to this lesson than I can capture in this posting. I'd encourage you to study what Paul has to say about this subject in Romans 9-11 (especially 11:25-36, it's so good!). Let me close with the final statement from Jesus' public ministry in John's gospel. "And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me" (John 12:50). Do not miss the implications of what he said. God's commandments are eternal life. They do not lead to eternal life, they are eternal life.
E. Stanley Jones understood this; thus he said, "When I met Christ, I felt that I had swallowed sunshine."
The commandments of God, as eternal life, are the opposite of perishing. Life lived on our word or the word of any one else, leads to perishing. And, as Jesus said, in the last day we will be judged according to the word we based our lives upon, and the Word we refused to base our lives upon. But if we want to experience the opposite of perishing, life eternal, now we can do so by becoming hearers and doers of the word of God. Each day you wake up realize that the old person would love to take the throne of your life again. But remember that under their dominion your life was a perishing one. Then submit to the gracious rule of Christ. Seek to hear his voice, commit to responding with faithful obedience, and you will discover that your life will begin to have the characteristics of his life.
I thank God for your time and attention.