The Gospel of JohnSample

John’s Gospel was written so people would believe in Jesus as God’s Son and Messiah (20:30–31). In the closing section of John 12, which draws the public ministry of Jesus to a close, we are treated both to John’s observations about unbelief in spite of the “many signs” Jesus had done “in their presence” and to Jesus’ own observations about faith. There are two complementary approaches to faith in this passage. But each expresses the cry of Jesus for his generation to trust him as God’s Agent of Light in this world.

Faith can be confusing at times. Something Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote can clear out the smoke:

While it may seem more respectable to approach faith as an intellectual exercise or more satisfying to approach it as an emotional one, our relationship to God is not simply a matter of what we think or how we feel. It is more comprehensive than that, and more profound. It is a full-bodied relationship in which mind and heart, spirit and flesh, are converted to a new way of experiencing and responding to the world. It is the surrender of one set of images and the acceptance of another. It is a matter of learning to see the world, each other, and ourselves as God sees us, and to live as if God’s reality were the only one that mattered (Taylor, The Preaching Life, 44).

With those words dancing in our bodies, especially “as if God’s reality were the only one that mattered,” we move now to the closing of John’s twelfth chapter.

One can begin to believe in Jesus because of the “signs”, but it’s not enough. Those who had seen many of the signs chose not to believe in Jesus in spite of the signs. For many first century Jesus-believers, the unbelieving response to Jesus by their contemporaries confounded them. John begins to explain that lack of faith by working with two passages from Isaiah, the first from 53:1 and the second from 6:10.

First, Isaiah’s experience of his contemporaries not trusting his prophetic words anticipates how the leaders of Jerusalem would respond to Jesus’ mighty signs (John 12:38). Isaiah extolled the glories of the “good news” that “Your God reigns!” (52:7) because God will redeem Israel, but when God’s Messiah enters Jerusalem, the leaders do not embrace the Messiah. They reject him.

Second, John appeals to a correspondence between divine purpose and human response in John 12:39–41 by turning all the way back in his Bible to Isaiah 6. There the prophet Isaiah was given a vision of “the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne” surrounded by “seraphim”. Then, after confessing his own unworthiness to glimpse the throne room of God, he is sent to tell the people of God—notice that—their response would be dull and inadequate until “the cities lie ruined” (because of exile). But he turns at the end of Isaiah 6 to announce there will still be life in the stumps that remain. Their condition of unbelief would end with belief.

In citing this passage from Isaiah John explains (1) the unbelief of the leaders as divine discipline but also (2) that their unbelief is temporary. Kevin Quast sums it up perfectly: “God intends persistent unbelief to lead to decisive judgment, consequent repentance, and ultimate deliverance.” Too many forget the context of Isaiah 6 and see here a brutally unfair god. The Father of Jesus, however, would never hold someone responsible for unbelief if he both determined and caused unbelief. Never. John is here suggesting the unbelief of these leaders will someday be turned into faith.

In fact, “many even among the leaders believed in him” (12:42), indicating another dimension of faith: humans remain responsible. Sadly, John continues, these leaders who do believe in Jesus would not declare their allegiance to Jesus because of the social pressure put on them by the “Pharisees”—and John says they “loved human praise more than praise from God” (12:43). Perhaps we need to give some grace by remembering that faith is a journey, and they were just beginning.

Believing, if you remember from the first passage we discussed, combines elements of discernment, decision, dependence, and obedience. Here one element is emphasized and there another, but each says something true about faith. At the end of our passage Jesus turns the entirety of faith in a new direction, and it should stun anyone who imagines themselves standing in Jerusalem listening to Jesus. Jesus, in fact, “cried out”—an expression of exasperation and pathos flowing from the depths of his heart.

Believing in Jesus means believing in the Father (12:44) but then he goes radical: “The one observing me observes the One who sent me” (12:45, my translation). Jesus, to switch categories, is himself the Sign of all signs, and the one who gazes at him sees the Father. That is an astounding claim, worthy in fact of being blasphemous were it not true. Jesus embodies God (cf. 1:14). Such faith requires keeping, or obeying, the words of Jesus (12:44). Bonhoeffer said this well: “Faith is only faith in deeds of obedience.”

Faith for Jesus is believing in the Father by believing in Jesus: he is the “Light” who can lead people out of the “darkness” (12:46). So much is faith through the revelation of Jesus that he says he does not judge those who reject him. He did not come to judge but to save (12:47) because God’s mission flows from love (3:16–17). No, his “words” will do that (12:48), which also shows that humans are held responsible for their response. We might pause and wonder if this isn’t a bit of sleight of hand. Aren’t his words an extension of Jesus? Hold on a second. Not entirely. Jesus pins his words on the Father who gave them to him (12:49– 50). Jesus’ teachings are the Father’s teachings, and he is the Father’s Agent.

To believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father. It is a faith-in-the-Father faith in Jesus. If we fail to balance Father and Son, we commit what David Ford calls “Jesusolatry” (Ford, John, 249). If we fail in the other direction, we commit “Fatherolatry.”

Respond

• How does John explain people’s unbelief in Jesus?
• What does John indicate about the future possibility of these unbelievers turning to belief?
• How does your understanding of Jesus shape your understanding of the Father?
• Consider the Bonhoeffer quote: “Faith is only faith in deeds of obedience.” What are your acts of obedience that show your faith?