Anchor My Faith

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Author: Stephen Weller
842 words, 4 minutes read time

Who Will Believe?

Scripture: John 12:37-40

With this previous lesson we finished the section about Jesus being glorified through his death. With this lesson we begin the section about how people were responding to Jesus.

^{Jn 12:37} 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.”

The many signs or miracles that Jesus did was for the purpose of leading those who saw them to faith, and to provide proof of Jesus’ deity and messiahship, but because of the hardness of their hearts they rejected the evidence. This lack of belief was predicted by Isaiah on two different occasions: Isaiah 53:1 refers to the servant of the Lord, the person of Jesus, who was exalted three specific times by God but rejected by the people and Isaiah 6:10 attributes the hardening of their hearts to God himself.

An example of God hardening the heart of a person is found in Exodus 7:3 ESV: “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.” God was going to perform signs and wonders in the land of Egypt to reveal his power before Pharaoh, his people and the Jewish people. These signs and wonders focused on the various gods of the Egyptians and to ensure that these gods were covered a variety of signs and wonders were needed.

After each event, Pharaoh promised to let the people go but God then hardened his heart opening the door for the next sign. “But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them, as the Lord had spoken to Moses” (Exodus 9:12 ESV). Did God cause Pharaoh to sin or allow him to sin? When God sent the serpent to test Adam’s obedience, he did not cause Adam to sin, he allowed him to sin and as a result we learn about God’s love, forgiveness, mercy and grace. With Pharaoh, God allowed him to sin, which resulted in the exodus under the power of God.

With these Jewish leaders and the people, God allowed their sin to grow to where they finally rejected Jesus Christ and nailed him to the cross. In the case of Adam, Pharaoh, and the Jewish people, sin was present and the expression that God hardened their hearts was God guiding their sinful footsteps in the direction to accomplish his purpose. That hardening of hearts, or the guiding of their sinful hearts, was God using the evil of people to accomplish his purpose of fulfilling his love for us who he chose to be born spiritually.

Romans 3:10 – 12 (ESV) describes all people born into this world: ¹⁰ “None is righteous, no, not one; ¹¹ no one understands; no one seeks for God. ¹² All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” As sinners, God in his sovereignty is free to direct their steps to accomplish his purpose, and he has the right to choose those he desires to redeem. All deserve eternal death for their sin and only because of God’s mercy and grace are some brought to salvation.

The issue that we cannot fully resolve this side of heaven concerns the tension between “no one seeks for God” of Romans 3:11 and “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart” of John 12:40. It appears that God “has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart” because of their sin and as a result they cannot see with their eyes or understand with their hearts. God then chose Jesus his Son to die on the cross to provide the means of redemption and then because we were spiritually dead and unable to seek God, he chose those before the foundation of the world that would populate the kingdom of God, and at the proper time he caused them to be born spiritually.

Conclusion

Our text today brings to the surface some tension between the responsibility of man and the sovereignty of God. The statement, “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.” is profoundly deep. I do believe that no one can be saved apart from God’s choice, but at the same time no one who desires salvation will be denied. Understanding Romans 3:10 – 12 along with several other verses has resolved this tension for me.