SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/11/2016
9:55 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: Jesus’
Perception or Reality
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
John 2:23-25
Message of
the verses: “23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the
Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs
which He was doing. 24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25
and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in
man.”
Now I want to quote the following statement from the
beginning of John MacArthur’s commentary on these verses as they are very
important for us to understand: “These
three verses serve as a bridge between the account of the cleansing of the
temple and the story of Nicodemus, which immediately follows. Though brief, this section has profound
implications concerning the nature of saving faith.” In another statement MacArthur made in a
sermon on these verses from the 1970’s he stated that he felt that these verses
should have been included in chapter three in order to help us better
understand the contents that are in chapter three, that is the story of
Nicodemus.
Now remember that it was required for all males to
go to three feasts and Passover was one of them so we can be sure that Jesus
stayed for the Passover feast along with the seven days of unleavened Bread
that immediately followed the Passover.
Another thing we can be sure of is that while in Jerusalem at the
Passover feast He had done some miracles for John writes that “many believed in
His name, observing His signs which He was doing.” John calls the miracles of Jesus signs do to
what he writes in John 20:30-31: “30 Therefore many other signs
Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in
this book; 31 but these
have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of
God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” John does not mention any of these signs that
Jesus did at this Passover but states that some were done.
People believed in Jesus because of the signs that
He was doing, but that does not mean that they were believing in Him for
salvation, realizing that He is the only One who could take their place to
suffer and die for their sins, they just were believing because of the signs
that He was doing. Jesus did these signs
because He loves people, but He also did them to prove who He was. MacArthur writes of this faith: “But such faith was shallow, superficial, and
disingenuous. It was not true saving
faith, as John’s play on words indicates.
Believed in verse 23 and entrusting in verse 24 both come from the same
Greek verb, pisteuo. Though they believed in Jesus, Jesus did not
believe in them; He had no faith in their faith. Jesus ‘regarded all belief in Him as
superficial which does not have as its most essential elements the
consciousness of the need for forgiveness and the conviction that He alone is
the Mediator of that forgiveness’ (R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel According to St. John, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries
[Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975], 65).”
James writes on belief in his letter the following
in James 2:19 “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also
believe, and shudder.” In the parable
that Jesus tells in Mathew chapter thirteen He talks about seed following on
different types of grounds and only one of those types of grounds results in
true saving faith, others believe but did not put their faith in Christ for
salvation.
MacArthur writes “Without question, the difference
between spurious faith and saving faith is crucial. It is the difference between living faith and
dead faith (James 2:17); between the wicked, who ‘go away into eternal
punishment’ and ‘the righteous [who enter] into eternal life’ (Matt. 25:46);
between those who will hear, ‘Well done, good and faithful slave…Enter into the
joy of your master’ (Matt. 25:21) and those who will hear, ‘I never knew you;
depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness’ (Matt. 7:23).”
Now the reason that Jesus did not embrace these who
say that they believed is because “He knew all men, and” therefore “did not
need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” Jesus Christ knows the true state of everyone’s
heart as we remember what He said about Nathanael “"Behold, an Israelite
indeed, in whom there is no deceit!’”
This is one of the proofs that Jesus Christ is truly God come in the
flesh and this is the point of John’s entire gospel, the very reason that he is
writing this gospel.
John MacArthur writes “Jesus’ lordship goes hand in
hand with His deity. As the God of the
universe, He is worthy to be worshiped and obeyed—reverently adored as the King
of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:6; cf. Phil. 3:10-11). The three vignettes in this passage (vv.
12-25) underscore His deity with unmistakable clarity. As God He single-handedly cleansed the temple
with messianic zeal; as God He accurately predicted His own resurrection; and
as God He truly knew the contents of men’s hearts.
“At the same time, these three accounts also picture
the process of salvation. The first
scene, the cleansing of the temple, graphically depicts God’s hatred of sin and
impurity. The second scene, the
discussion of Jesus’ resurrection, reveals that God provides new life in
Christ, who ‘was raised because of our justification’ (Rom. 4:25). And the final scene, the shallow belief of
the people, reveals that God’s provision of salvation comes only through
genuine saving faith.”
In our next SD we will begin looking at the third
chapter of John, which has probably the most famous verse in the entire Bible
in it, John 3:16. A few years ago when
Tim Tebow was playing in the National Championship game for college football he
had the blackened under his eye as John 3:16.
After that game there was more hits on Google of John 3:16 in a day than
any other thing asked for as the shame of it was that people had no idea of
what John 3:16 was. We will look at this
verse and the rest of what is found in the third chapter of John, as we
continue our journey through the gospel of John.
Spiritual
meaning for my life: I am thankful for the saving faith that John
speaks of in this section of John’s gospel.
My Steps of Faith
for Today:
I want to think about what the Lord would have me to do about fasting,
which was the theme of our Pastor’s sermon yesterday morning.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Mary” (John 12:3).”
Today’s Bible question: “Who said, ‘Fear not to go down to Egypt; for
I will there make of thee a great nation?’”
Answer in our next SD.
1/11/2016 10:48 AM
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