Dennis Tuuri

Please stand for reading of God’s word. John 12, beginning at verse 37.

But although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, “Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Therefore, they could not believe because Isaiah said again, “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them.” These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him.

Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. Then Jesus cried out and said, “He who believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness.

And if anyone hears my words and does not believe, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told me, so I speak.”

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for your most holy word. We thank you for the Holy Spirit that indwells us individually and corporately. And we pray that your Holy Spirit would take this text, open it to us, Lord God. Transform us by it. Assure us of your great love and exhort us and encourage us, Father, in acts of faithfulness and obedience to you. Help us, Lord God, to hear our Lord Jesus in this text, to see him, and to be transformed by him. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

We have in this text before us a strong, very strong statement of the sovereignty of God. We have a statement here that talks about God’s eternal purpose in not allowing certain men to hear the truth and in actually hardening their hearts so that they would not come to belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and to give it over instead to reprobation. This has been a strong theme in the gospel of John already, but it is here put forth in very bold terms.

However, if we take this unit as a whole, I think there’s some very important understanding of the context for this very explicit statement of the sovereignty of God. As we approach this week our celebration on Thursday of the Reformation, we think of the Reformation in terms of the text before us and we can say that this truth stated here—the ultimate sovereignty of God and his causality really of all things—is at the heart of the Protestant Reformation.

It’s been said that the three great works to come out of the Reformation were Luther’s Bondage of the Will, Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, and the Book of Common Prayer, a result of the reform in England. And as we know from last year, part of the work of Martin Bucer’s latest and closing works of his life were done in England just prior to his death. So these are the three great documents to come out of the Reformation. And in each of them, the sovereignty of God is stated in very clear and articulate terms by these three great works of the Protestant Reformation.

So we come to a text here that really is of the essence of what reformation, revival, and renewal is all about. And that is the exaltation of the sovereign God of all creation and understanding his ultimate sovereignty in all things.

Having said that, God’s sovereignty and his sovereign actions in history are certainly described in this text. However, they are put in juxtaposition. They are put in the context of cosmic salvation. The first half of this narrative—the description of the men not believing in Christ—it has a definite beginning point and ending point to it. They didn’t believe, and then at the end, even though many of them believed in a sense, they didn’t confess Christ. And then the text tells us the reason for that. That’s one unit of this text.

And the second unit is Jesus crying out again. And in the midst of that summation of the gospel of John’s gospel that concludes this first half of the book, Jesus says that again—that he did not come to judge the world, but he’s come to save the world.

So God’s sovereign actions in history, and these particular actions of the blinding of the Jews, is put in the context of the cosmic salvation that he is affecting through these things. So the text wants us, God wants us, the Spirit wants us to place the sovereignty of God in conjunction with his saving acts to bring the world to salvation. So ultimately, the end result of his sovereignty is not the destruction of men, the causing of some not to come to believe, but his sovereignty is placed in the context of understanding that these are part of the ways that God brings the world to salvation.

Now, that’s real important for us, and it’s very practical for us as we go about living our lives and trying to submit to the sovereignty of God in all things, being patient, persevering, forbearing the difficulties that come up. Ultimately, we see God’s sovereign hand over all things. And if that’s where we leave it, it probably is not as efficacious in terms of administering grace to us as if we remember this text as we go through the week—that God says the very purpose of his sovereignty, even as blinding of some, the purpose of all that is cosmic salvation, the salvation of the world, which is the heart of the second half of this narrative.

So I want to talk about these things today. I want to talk about God’s sovereign acts in history having their relationship to cosmic salvation and looking at the context for what is otherwise, and what is certainly to the natural man, a stone of stumbling before him—the sovereignty of God in this action, in these actions.

So let’s look first at the first half of this narrative. As I said, verses 37 through 42 (or 43 rather) form the first half of this conclusion. And then verses 44 to the end of the text, 51, form the second half. And you can see, look at verse 37: “Although he had done so many signs before them, they didn’t believe in him.” And then drop down to verse 42: “Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they love the praise of men more than the praise of God.”

So there’s a definite bookend of this particular section. The failure of the men—they did not believe—and then the conclusion of that describing well, they had partial belief, but it was not a saving belief. They did not confess him. And very importantly, the text at this conclusion of the first half of John’s gospel very importantly tells us the reason why men stumbled and why men did not believe.

Now, that’s the beginning and end. The culpability, the full horrific culpability of the Jews and others who saw Christ and yet rejected him. But in the context of that, we see in the center of this first half of the narrative the sovereign actions of God. We find out that this was part of the predetermined council and foreknowledge of God—that he is actually said to harden their hearts so that they would not turn and would not be healed.

So this lack of belief that we see in the gospel, and that we see round about us, we have to understand that’s part of the sovereign actions of God as well. And so the text brings us to that kind of conclusion based upon this full culpability of people.

Now, this culpability of men is described for us in verse 37. And what we could say is that verse 37 tells us that men do not believe. And then the explanation of verse 37, beginning in verse 39, tells us that they cannot believe. So these men do not believe in him, and they have full culpability for that. They are responsible. And they cannot believe because God is sovereign.

And the scriptures over and over again make these same sort of statements to us—that men both will not come to faith in Christ, they will not understand spiritual things, but they cannot understand them either. Men are both fully culpable before God as well as his sovereignty being real in the lives of men.

So that’s what the text tells us here. Their full culpability in verse 37 is tied to their perception of the signs that he did. So they saw these signs, but although he had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in him.

We are tempted to think of signs as pictures—right, kind of little outlines of something but not really the thing itself. But as we’ve talked about both in terms of communion and baptism, and we talked about in terms of the gospel of John, signs that are going on have real effects on the world. Jesus really is ushering in a new creation. It’s not just a proof of his being the Messiah—it’s partly that certainly—but what’s really happening is the new creation has now come into the context of the old, and everything is changing.

Now, this gospel is pointed out for us in seven great signs, and the eighth will be the resurrection of the Savior. Each of those signs shows that Jesus is changing the world. He’s changing the reality. He’s bringing about the new creation.

Now, the old creation that we see around us perishing, as we read in Romans and in other places, is a full revelation of God. The Bible says that men are without excuse because the creation everywhere around us—God’s image-bearing nature of the creation, the created order itself—is a picture that there is a God that he should be worshiped and thanked. And it tells us a lot of things about this God. So men have culpability, full culpability, because they see the created order itself.

But these particular group of men that are described in John’s gospel not only have rejected the witness of the first creation—now they are explicitly said to reject the witness of the second, the new creation. The signs that Jesus did, picturing the fact that he had now brought into human reality, into cosmic reality, the new creation—healings, miraculous feedings, crossings of seas, et cetera.

So they’re doubly culpable. They reject both the old creation and they reject the signs, the active work of the Lord Jesus Christ in affecting the second creation. They reject both those things. And of course, what they also reject is a double revelation of God. They’ve rejected God’s word in the scriptures. He quotes Isaiah here. They’ve rejected that. And now they reject the word of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as Isaiah will tell us here shortly, there is no difference between that and the Lord Jesus speaking in the Old Testament. Now Jesus comes to these men and speaks in their hearing in this summation of his gospel message in our text. He draws this unity between him and the Father and the Father’s command—the word of God and his word. He just speaks what he’s commanded. It’s all of one unit. And so they’ve rejected both the witness of Christ speaking in the scriptures that they had and they reject the witness of Christ in his speaking in their context—both his actions of creating new things as well as his words. They’ve rejected.

This is told explicitly to us that this is really in fulfillment. First, there’s the parallel drawn to the gospel spoken by Isaiah (so to speak, the words of Christ in Isaiah), but the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke: “Lord, who has believed our report?” So words being spoken—report—and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Jesus’s signs are the revelation of the arm and the power of the Lord and bringing about a new creation. In his words they rejected, and his signs, and this is fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah.

And then verse 39: “Therefore they could not believe because Isaiah said again, ‘He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them.’”

Now this passage from Isaiah is quoted very literally here. Isaiah—in the Septuagint translation of this section of Isaiah, the word is softened somewhat. The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Old Testament common during the time of the writing of the New Testament. And in two other synoptic accounts, that Septuagint version is translated, and it sort of softens all of this. Here in John’s gospel, the great capstone of the four gospels, there is no softening of the language from Isaiah.

And not only is this to fulfill the prophecy, not only will they not do these things, but it says explicitly that he has blinded their eyes or hardened their eyes rather. He has hardened their hearts. They don’t do it to themselves.

Now, there’s a sense in which, as we know with Pharaoh, he hardens his heart and God hardens his heart again. So there is a hardening. There is a culpability of fallen man—he will not do what he’s supposed to do. But he cannot either. And this text very clearly tells us that God hardens their hearts. He blinds their eyes so that they do not turn and become healed.

Now, that tells us something about what salvation is. Salvation is a turning, a repentance, a change of life, and a healing from God. But what I want to point out here is that we have in this conclusion of the first half of John’s gospel an absolute statement of the sovereignty of God—the causality of all things really being intimated at here. And very specifically, he hardens particular men’s hearts so they do not come to salvation. And there’s just no way around the clear teaching of this text to that effect. It is a strong statement, a very strong statement of the predestination of God to prevent the salvation of some.

But as I said, the context is their full culpability. It’s not as if these men wanted and God said, “No, you can’t turn.” They do not want to. They are both unable as well as unwilling to come to the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the state of men. That’s the state of these particular men. But what we’re to read into this is that this is our place as well. We cannot and we will not come to saving faith apart from the active work of God bringing us to himself.

We’ve seen this already in the gospel. We’ve seen the description that no one can come to the Father unless he drags him, and the implication is against our own will. Now there’s a transformation of our will by God. But apart from that transformation of who we are, we do not choose God. He chooses us.

We’re going to sing that as the offertory today: “It’s not that I did choose thee. That could never be. God has chosen us. To God be all glory, honor, and power.” The ascription of it here by those of us who recognize his sovereignty. If the Reformation was about anything, it was about once more exalting the sovereign God of all creation and saying that because he is sovereign, we are saved totally by grace through faith—that not of ourselves, lest any man should boast. It is the sovereign actions of God.

So we have in this opening section a clear statement of human responsibility, but also divine sovereignty in the salvation or lack of salvation by various men. So the sovereignty of God is clearly taught here.

This same thing is taught in 1 Corinthians 2:14. The natural man, the old man, the man apart from the grace of God—the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. So it’s the same thing. Fallen man will not, does not receive the things of the Spirit, and neither could he. So both his own culpability—he refuses to understand these things, they refuse the message of Jesus—and God’s ultimate sovereignty and decree are both stated for us here in 1 Corinthians 2:14.

Romans 8:7 has a very similar language. Turn to Romans 8:7.

“The carnal mind here is being described: because the carnal mind is enmity, hatred against God. It is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.” Same language. It is not subject—it refuses to subject itself to the mind of God. And it cannot as well. So human responsibility and divine sovereignty are placed for us here very closely related.

And in this text in conclusion, the first half of John’s gospel, we see those same truths told to us.

Jeremiah describes it as, “Can a leopard change his spots?” Well, no, he can’t. Apostate man will have choice. He has the ability to make determinations. He will not subject himself to the mind of God. It’s a decision that he makes. But apart from the grace of God, he will always answer that question the wrong way. He will always choose against God. He is in a position of hatred toward God. He’s not neutral toward God.

So this is the assertion of the great sovereignty of God and the need for us to worship him as sovereign and to understand the one with whom we have to do here—the sovereign work of God in bringing men to salvation or not.

Now, the text tells us that, and the text tells us also something I think that’s quite important in the context of describing this. And I alluded to this briefly, but Isaiah’s words being fulfilled—the conclusion of that in verse 41—is so, he said that you know they don’t believe, they can’t believe, and he cites Isaiah to that effect. And then in verse 41, he says, “These things Isaiah said when he saw his glory and spoke of him.”

This morning we came into the courts of God with praise, and three different times we sang basically the song of the angels that Isaiah sees in that heavenly throne room. And we read the text as well to drive home this point. This is what’s being referred to here by John in his gospel—that section Isaiah 6, the first few verses. Isaiah sees and is transported into the heavenly throne room, and he sees God and the glory of God there, and that’s why he falls down as dead. And the seraphim apply the work from off the altar—the work of the Lord Jesus Christ ultimately—to Isaiah. So Isaiah sees God.

Now we have a tremendous temptation. This is what we do, and this is peculiar, I think, to the world in which we live—modern evangelicalism at the end of the 20th century, moving to the 21st century. We have a tendency when we read the Old Testament and these revelations of who God are to think of the Father, and then we come along to the gospels and we think of Jesus. And the Father is, you know, stern and frightful and all that stuff, and Jesus is kind and meek and mild, and so we sort of think of things that way. And we’re Christians, and our relationship to Christ then—a personal relationship to Jesus Christ—sort of is affected by all of that.

But what this text tells us is that who Isaiah saw in that heavenly throne room, the glory that he saw, was the glory of none other than Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity. And not only are we told that in this particular text, but we’re really told that in a whole number of other texts as well. And I want to reference some of these briefly to drive home this point: that really, the manifestation of God in the Old Testament is the second person of the Trinity.

In Romans 10:13, Paul concludes the demonstration that salvation is by faith in Christ by citing Joel 2:32: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” And we know that’s referring to Jesus, right? Everyone who calls on the name of Jesus, the Lord, will be saved. But in Joel 2:32, Lord is the Hebrew name Yahweh. So in Joel 2:32, it says, “Everyone that calls on Yahweh will be saved.” Jesus, in other words, is identified by matching the citation up with the original verse. Jesus is Yahweh. He is that demonstration in the Old Testament. It was the Son of God.

John’s gospel has already told us this—that it is the Son of God, Jesus Yahweh, who created all the world. See, we tend to think of that in terms of the Father, but John’s gospel has already told us early in chapter 1 that Jesus is the creator of all things.

In Hebrews 11:26, you know, it’s the story of Moses forsaking the favored position in the Egyptian court. And he chooses instead to be mistreated with the people of God because he regarded, quoting now, disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward. Now, Jesus’s name never appears, of course, in the story of the Old Testament of Moses and his identification with the people of God. Yahweh appears repeatedly in the text, but not Jesus.

But here the New Testament tells us in very clear terms, in no uncertain terms, that Moses was serving Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity in his decision. We read explicitly: he regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ of greater value than all these other things that Egypt had to offer. That’s important as we come to the end of this section—the text that tells us the reason why men willfully reject the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember this text when we get to that.

In Jude chapter 5, we read in the NIV, “The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt.” Now Jude verse 4 says that Jesus Christ is our only sovereign and Lord. So Jude 4 says that Jesus is only sovereign Lord, and then Jude verse 5 says that the Lord—in other words, Jesus, who we just identified as the only Lord and sovereign—Jesus delivered his people out of Egypt.

So the scriptures tell us that when we think of God delivering his people out of Egypt, it is the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, who led them out of Egypt. Explicitly it tells us that. And in fact, there are some translations, and many manuscripts, that actually have the word Jesus there—that Jesus led them out of Egypt instead of the term Lord. And this is certainly the meaning of the text. If not the right translation, it is certainly the meaning, and it may be the correct reading of that particular part of the New Testament as well. We are to at least see Jesus, if not read Jesus, in Jude verse 5.

The very same one we know as Jesus Christ was the Almighty God who brought Israel out of bondage on eagle’s wings. This was Jesus Christ.

In 1 Corinthians 10:4, we read that Jesus Christ followed Israel in the wilderness and provided food and drink for them in the desert. And we’ve looked at that text before, but that text says that it was Jesus that was with them. It was Jesus who fed them in the context of the wilderness.

In 2 Corinthians 3, we’re told that it was the glory of Jesus Christ that shone on Moses’ face when he came out of the tent of meeting.

In Hebrews 12, if you read Hebrews 12 carefully, the one who gives the law seems to be identical to the Lord Jesus Christ that’s being described in the text—the one we come to in Lord’s Day worship, the one who delivered the law on Sinai. You know, December is coming up. We’ll sing Advent songs. We sing, “Oh come, O come, Emmanuel.” We’re clearly thinking of Jesus. And one verse says: “Oh come, oh come the Lord of might, who by thy tribes on Sinai’s height in ancient times did give the law, did give the law in cloud and majesty and awe. Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

So again here in Hebrews 12, it’s not the Father giving the law. It’s Jesus giving the law to his people on Sinai’s height.

In 1 Peter 1:11, we’re speaking of the prophets and their prophecies of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the grace that was to come to you, as Peter puts it. But he says this: “They were trying to find out or discern the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ. They were trying to discern what the spirit of Christ was saying through them in terms of their prophecies.”

Again, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.

You see, the Old Testament is the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. The early Church father said this: “All the old patriarchs might properly be called Christians.”

See, we make that mistake sometimes. We’re talking about Old Testament saints and we call them Christians. Then we think, “That was a stupid thing to say.” But Irenaeus said, “No, that’s a perfectly proper thing to say, because they were believing in the manifestation of God who was the second person of the Trinity, not yet by name Jesus Christ, but they knew him as their Savior. They knew him as their God.”

The manifestations of God in the Old Testament—the awesome, sovereign, powerful, extensive sovereign God we see there—is none other than the same Jesus Christ. And he is the one speaking in Isaiah who is hardening the hearts of people.

You know, we think of that phrase and we think, “Well, the Father is the sovereign one. No, Jesus comes to appease the Father.” No, Jesus, if we read this back into what we read in Isaiah, is the one that is hardening the hearts of some so they will not believe. He is the one telling Isaiah, sending Isaiah on this mission. Isaiah saw his glory and heard his word. And Jesus’s words was, “I’m going to speak through you, but I’m going to harden their hearts. They will not believe you.” Well, there’ll be a remnant, but most I will not bring to saving faith and what you are proclaiming to them. That’s Jesus speaking. Jesus hardening the hearts of people.

Now, I’ve kind of belabored the point. I could say more, but I think what I’m trying to get at here is that our perception of the Christian faith, again, is somewhat deficient when we think of Jesus as something other than this declaration of who God is included in both testaments. It is wrong—woefully wrong—to domesticate the Lord Jesus Christ, you know, to make him nicer than the Father in some way or other.

The whole point of John’s gospel that’s repeated in our text today is that when you hear Jesus speak, you hear the Father speak. What the Father says, he says through the Son. And that is true in the Old Testament as well.

So it’s wrong for us to think that somehow now we have an age in which we have a nice, kind, gentle God who will not deal with us as the severe God of the Old Testament. Now it works both ways. I mean, it works to us to remember with whom it is we have relationship. It is that sovereign God of the Old Testament—and that humbles us. It makes us more cautious of the way we approach Jesus.

But it works the other way around as well. It means that same perceived as stern, fearful, majestic, holy God in the Old Testament is none other than the Savior who comes to die for your sins. You see, it’s the powerful God who delivers the people from Egypt, that brings plagues upon them, that speaks forth his word to Isaiah. His sovereign word brings some to salvation and some not. It’s the sovereign God who leads his people out of Egypt, who gives the law on Sinai’s height. It’s that same God. It’s Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, that died on the cross for you, that brought you to salvation.

You see the wonder of this gospel representation—completing our understanding of who this Creator and Redeemer is with whom we have to deal. So it’s a very important part. It’s really kind of a climax here, as I said, at this end of this first half of John’s gospel. It’s very important for us to comprehend the nature of this God with whom we have to do.

And there’s two ditches in the road. And we are, in our day and age, the huge ditch we’re perpetually falling into is treating Jesus as somehow kinder, gentler than the God of the Old Testament. In reality, he is the God of the Old Testament.

Now, the text tells us then in the end of this first half of the text, it tells us very explicitly—you know, so God is sovereign, but still men are responsible. And it tells us in very plain terms what is our most difficult temptation, or how is another way to say it. It tells us why these men refused to submit and to believe in and confess the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ve seen this kind of language before by the way. They believe, but they didn’t confess. The scriptures don’t know of a saving faith that doesn’t lead forth in public confession of Jesus. This should be a warning to some of us, right? You believe, you come to church, you never tell anybody outside of the church that you’re a Christian.

Now, I know that we understand that a lot of the work of evangelism belongs to the ministers of the church. But you need—you know, this text reminds us that if you say you believe in Jesus and don’t make confession of him, secret Christians are ultimately, if they remain secret Christians, no Christians at all. These men are described in parallel fashion with those that didn’t believe at all. And this has happened before in the gospel. We’ve seen men come to believe and immediately go away.

So this is a warning to us to make confession with our mouths of the Lord Jesus Christ in the context of our lives. I mean, I think if you think about it a little bit, how could we go a week, how could we go a month without speaking the fact that we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to some person? How could we do that other than to the people at church?

I mean, if it is as central to our being as this text tells us it is, then surely it would find expression in a confession of it. Why don’t we? Well, the text tells us here, and I think it’s treating with unbelieving men in general, the same thing is true. The text tells us that the problem is they didn’t want to be put out of the synagogue.

Now, we’ve seen this before in John’s gospel, right? The blind man’s parents—remember, the heart of that story was their failure to speak, to confess Christ because of their fear of man being put out of the synagogue. But now the text takes us another level deeper. It doesn’t explain the ultimate motivation as being the fear of being put out of the synagogue. Why don’t they want to be put out of the synagogue? It tells us the root sin here is that they loved the praises of men more than the praise of God.

And I think that what it means is that it’s not they don’t like to praise other men. That may be true. But I think the real truth going on here is they want other people praising them. That’s more important to them than to have God praise them.

Now, this is an amazing statement. First, it’s remarkable that the Lord God, this Jesus, this second person of the Trinity who created all things and is miraculous, powerful, holy beyond imagination, beyond human imagination, sung of in our service today as being “holy, holy, holy.” This God praises us. He tells us that he gives us praise. We read in various texts that he gives us honor, he gives us glory.

And in fact, the prime motivation for men who reject Jesus Christ is because they’re seeking praise, honor, and glory from the wrong source. They’re seeking it from other men instead of seeking it from God.

We can tell our children that they shouldn’t seek praise or honor and glory from God. They’re just, you know, a worm, and their relationship is always submission to God. And he never treats them with kindness or love or praise, honor and glory. That’s wrong. The Bible says we’re made in the image of God. We need praise. We need honor. We need glory.

I heard Gothard on tape a couple of weeks ago. I was just struck by the fact that Gothard said, in terms of child rearing, you know, at least three praises or something like that for every criticism of your child—if you’re not praising your child lots, being Jesus’s voice of praise to them, you’re doing something terribly wrong. You’re not meeting a basic need of the human being created in the image of God.

And what we do—our sin at root, as this comes to its conclusion—our sin at root is desiring the praise, honor, and glory of other men as opposed to praise, honor, and glory from God. This was the first, I think it’s the first death penalty, was for this very purpose, this very reason, given to God in the context of the early days of the church. Ananias and Sapphira. What did they do? They wanted the praise of men. They wanted praise of men in the church. So, “Oh, we’re going to sell our land and bring everything to the church.” So they tell the church, they tell the apostles and the elders. They didn’t have to do that. What’s their motivation? They want to be praised. They want to be glorified by men, because they lied when they said that. And they kept back apart of the price.

See? And so as a result of that, they’re struck dead. The death penalty comes to Ananias and Sapphira as a reminder to us. I think that this text tells us that our ultimate cause for our eternal damnation, the cause for these men rejecting Christ, the cause for us rejecting Christ, is at its root a desire to be praised by men, to seek glory from a different source than what God has said.

Jesus has told us this earlier in the gospel of John as well. Remember, he told us back in John 5, “How can you believe on me when you seek honor from other men instead of from God?” He traced their root problem then as well.

I think it’s very important that we understand this text. The need that we each have for praise—it’s not saying don’t ever praise anybody. That’s not the implication. But what it is saying is don’t seek praise from men and not seek it from God. In other words, we want God to praise, honor, and glorify us through other men. But do not seek the empty praises of men ultimately. Seek the mediated praises of the Lord Jesus Christ to you. Seek our honor and glory by seeking Christ, seeking it correctly.

I think that this week we all at this church need to remember that we are going to be prone—today, here, now—we’re going to be prone to be motivated at heart by a desire not to receive praise, honor, and glory from God, but praise, honor, and glory from each other. And so we do things as man-pleasers. The Bible says a tremendous snare. Fear of man is a tremendous snare. Being a man who tries to please other men and to receive praise from them is, ultimately, at the root of what this text tells is the great sin of these particular people.

And it’s a reminder that these same things are true of us.

And as I said, the other side of that, in terms of application, is to remember the crying need that all men have for praise, honor, and glory. You know, God doesn’t tell us “well done” until we get to our eternal reward, but here on earth. But what he does do is use other people to tell us “well done, thou good and faithful servant.” We need that from one another. Our children need that from us. And if we don’t minister to that one to another in the name of our Savior—not you know, just shine one another on or something, but to say it in sincerity for jobs well done in the context of your ministry in your life—if we don’t do that, then we’re laying a stumbling block in front of men to seek that praise unmediated from Jesus Christ and from other men ultimately.

So a tremendous point of application here: remembering who we are, who our children are, who each other are, and then seeing life accordingly.

The Bible says the true Jews are those who, in Romans, it says, receive their praise from God. So we’re supposed to receive praise from God. Jesus said in John 5, “I do not receive honor from men.” And as I said in verse 44, “How can you believe who receive honor from one another? Do not seek the honor that comes from the only God.” This is the essence of their sin. And here it is again.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:6 and 7, Paul said, “Nor did we seek glory from men, either from you or from others, when we might have made demands as apostles of Christ.” So as apostles, they didn’t seek glory and honor from other men.

In John 12:26, “If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him my Father will honor.” We talked about this a couple of weeks ago from the same chapter, chapter 12. God intends to honor his people.

In 1 Samuel 2:30, “Therefore the Lord God of Israel says, ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before me forever. But now the Lord says, “Far be it from me. For those who honor me, I will honor. Those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed.”‘”

Romans 2 talks about there being eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good—how do we get honor and praise from God? Patient continuance in doing of good. We seek the motivation for patient continuance, seek for glory, honor, and immortality. Paul says that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have the motivation be glory, honor, and eternal life from God the Father, mediated through the Son.

That’s a good thing. And that’s the motivation for being patient and having a patient continuance in doing good. If we’re just trying to gin it up without this basic motivation of seeking the praise of God, you see, it’s not going to work.

Paul says, “This is who we are.” And then he sets it in contrast in verse 8: “But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness—indignation, wrath, tribulation, anguish, and every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first and also the Greeks. But glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

Again, there you see that we have this picture: the condemnation, the judgment of certain men. But it’s placed in the context for and after the double witness of glory, honor, peace, and praise and eternal life to the called of God.

In the second half of our text today, as we move ahead then from verse 42, in the second half of our text, we see again that the correct understanding of God’s sovereignty—it’s somehow we do not have a correct understanding of his sovereignty unless we see that the end result of his sovereign actions in history, the end result, is cosmic salvation. That’s what Jesus says in the last half of the text.

Verse 44: “Jesus cries out.” Here’s wisdom crying out in the streets. This last section begins with Jesus’s crying out. And it ends with him talking about what he speaks. The word is speaking the word. And crying the word out, making it accessible to others. This is a picture of who we are to be in Jesus Christ as well—crying out, speaking, confessing the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that’s the bookends of this particular part of the text. And what does he cry out? “He who believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. He who sees me sees him who sent me.”

So again, he’s summing up now the entire message of John chapters 1-12. And the entire message is summed up in the ultimate unity and identity of the Father and the Son. The Son reflects the Father. He doesn’t come of his own initiative. And he returns to that at the end of the text in verse 49: “I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me gave me a command what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is everlasting life.”

Within the context of the eternal Trinity, there are commands issued one to the other. It’s not a bad thing to be under submission. It’s to image the Lord Jesus Christ to hear a command from our fathers here on earth and to fulfill those commands and to do them. It’s part of imaging Christ.

But Jesus again is drawing this unity of the Father and himself, and in the context of the command or laws of God. And the whole purpose of this is—he says that he knows that the command is life everlasting. You see, again, New Testament Christians think law is over here, grace and life are over here. Jesus says, “Oh no, I’m the one who spoke in both testaments. The command of the Father spoken by me, from Mount Sinai, that command is life.” Is life.

So Jesus draws this identity of Father and Son. So we’ve got Jesus speaking on either end, and we’ve got a reference to the unity of the Father and Son coming in toward the center of this particular text. And then verses 46 and 47:

“I have come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not abide in darkness. If anyone hears my voice and does not believe, I do not judge him. I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.”

So yeah, there’s a judgment. He’s saying on either side of this center that there’s a judgment that comes of necessity because of the proclamation of the life-giving word of God. But at the very heart of the matter is not judgment. At the heart of the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ is the salvation of the world. And it’s defined as not abiding in darkness. Jesus has come as a light to the world.

The message of John’s gospel is the world is being made new. His signs reflect that. And we are not supposed to take the unbelief of the Jews that will lead to his atoning death on the cross for mankind and for the world, and we are not to take that as some kind of indication that the world pattern will be one of remnant theology—there’ll always be a few people saved. No, the whole point now is that because he’s come down to the remnant, the Lord Jesus Christ is the only faithful Man, really, in this unity of the Father, and he does his work on the cross and He will affect the salvation of the whole world. That’s the message.

The sovereignty of God in human action and human history affects cosmic salvation. So when we get irritated at this or that or the other thing—can’t tie our ties right in the morning, minute details of life—we’re to remember that God’s sovereignty, including the things that irritate us, his sovereignty is at work not to frustrate us, not to make life difficult, but he is affecting the development of the new creation. He’s saving the world.

The text very clearly tells us the text is full of clear things. Commentators don’t like it. Many commentators say, “Well, it doesn’t really mean he hardened people’s hearts. Well, this must be something else going on. We don’t know what it is. Well, it doesn’t really mean he’s going to save the whole world. After all, most people don’t become Christians.” But the text is clear. This is the flow of history. This is the relationship of salvation and sovereignty to the salvation of the world. This is what the Reformation was all about.

The Reformation was all about not abiding in darkness. You know, we are not interested—our goal as part of the reformation that God is affecting now—our goal is not individual salvation, our goal is not living our lives in our workplaces, in our recreations, in our churches to get people to ask you know for the hope that’s in us and they become a Christian and then they just do their thing until they get another Christian becoming a Christian.

Our goal is not individual conversion of people. Our Savior gave us our goal. Our goal is the discipling of the nations. Now, individual evangelism, people coming to the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, is definitely a part of that. But it is not the end point. The endpoint is given to us here: the salvation of the world. And that means that when you go to work tomorrow, you don’t go just hoping that someone will notice who you are and how you’re a little more honest than the next guy and become a Christian. You’re to grab control, dominion over the workplace. You’re to do your very work differently than you would if you were in rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, its purpose is different. You’re affecting the discipling of the nations by bringing Christian principles and truths to the workplace.

What a delight this week to have my son bring me a couple of books from Steve Sykes. I was talking to Steve a couple of weeks ago, and I was talking about how it seems like Proverbs is the thing that businessmen need to study. It tells you how to run things, make good decisions, tells you about different kinds of people and how you work with them. And Steve got me a couple of books, and I haven’t read them yet. I don’t know how good they are, but the fact that they’re out there is just a delight.

Management by Proverbs, and the book is about Proverbs and trying to affect how you change the management structure and style in your business based upon the wisdom of Proverbs. And the other one is called Business Proverbs. They’re daily devotions for businessmen, I guess, based on the Proverbs.

I mean, praise God, huh? See, this is what it’s about. This is about not abiding in darkness, but bringing our workplaces into the light of submission to the Lord Jesus Christ, discipling our businesses.

You know, what we’re about is discipling, changing how our families look—not just to affect the conversion of our neighbors, but because God wants us to see our homes, our businesses, our church, our political activities, and our recreational activities as places where the life of Christ flourishes. His commandment, by which we’re to subject our families, our workplaces, our entertainments, our politics, and certainly our church—his commandments are life. And we desire to see the discipling of the nations and the flourishing of life in everything that we put our hand to do.

We apply the same truths of Jesus. What we hear him command, as we speak, and that word is life. It’s a command word, but it is a life-giving word. And it’s a transformational word.

As we look forward to Reformation, this is really this text summing up, as I said, the whole first half of John’s gospel. It isn’t a bleak picture. It does acknowledge that men have not come to believe, but this is under the divine sovereignty of God, and it is for the purposes of affecting universal salvation. That’s the flow of history. That’s why these things happen the way they do, and that’s why they happen now the way they do.

God is still sovereign determiner of all things. He still calls some to salvation and hardens others and leaves them headed for hell. This is what his good pleasure is. The end result of all of this, however, is nothing short of the salvation of the world. God is working and affecting reformation.

It’s a delight to see businessmen trying to think through, “How do I make this light where I work?”—not just Christian morality and honesty and trying to bring men to salvation, but having this be a life-giving place and bringing God’s truths into the workplace, into our recreations. We bring life into them.

And we sent out a Christian, a biblical ballot measure, voter’s guide, and my, what a reaction I’m getting. Not good. This year very difficult reactions from some people. There’s a little thing in the Oregon. “Why do you think the Bible has anything to do with the laws of the state of Oregon? This is supposed to be government by the people.”

Well, that’s what we’re trying to do, of course, is get people to think and make decisions based on the scriptures. But you see, we’re trying to, in the political arena as well, we’re not the last word. We say in our voters’ guide, “We don’t know. Might be good arguments, other ways to look at these things.” But we must look at what we’re doing politically. When you vote this week or next week, or if you have voted, we must conform what we do in the political arena to the commands of Jesus Christ in terms of understanding the discipling of the nations that goes on as we apply ourselves in that sphere.

Delight to be over at Moscow, Idaho and have Boozer there—a place of entertainment and recreation dedicated to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, remembering this great Reformer, Martin Bucer, who attempted reform in the theater and all kinds of other areas of life.

This is a grand time to be living—grand time when the trumpet Jesus cries forth. It’s the blowing forth of the Jubilee trumpet, I think, is what we should see there in this last text. The trumpeting is going forth through the Lord Jesus Christ, crying out, saying that he’s saving the world. And today in churches after churches, we got together with a number of churches at the two conferences we were at this last week, men trumpeting forth the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ, trumpeting forth the truths of the great Protestant Reformation, trumpeting forth a call to the nations again to be discipled to Jesus and have this affected by the small little details over which God is sovereign, ministering the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to his people.

Jesus concludes this first half of the gospel of John by saying that the purpose of all things—the purpose of his coming, the purpose of all that he oversees, the purpose of all of our activities that we enter into this week—is the salvation of the world, and it’s affected by God’s overseeing the minutest details of the created order.

Let’s praise him for that.

Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Father, that when we come into your heavenly throne room, we see from a heavenly perspective, from your word, and our worries and anxieties melt away. We recognize that even the most difficult of circumstances that we might have gone through this last week, we know, Lord God, that your text tells us that through these very things, you’re affecting the salvation of the world, the discipling of the nations, and our discipling as well.

Help us to be a reformed people who anxiously look forward to what we can do tomorrow to bring the light of your law word, mediated through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, into every area of our life and thought.

In his name we ask it. Amen.