SERMON: “Heeding Christ’s Words” (John 12:44–50)
“Heeding
Christ’s Words” (John 12:44–50)
Series: “John:
Life in Christ’s Name” Text:
John
12:44–50
By: Shaun
Marksbury Date:
February
25, 2024
Venue: Living
Water Baptist Church Occasion:
AM Service
I.
Introduction
We’re always interested in the final words famous people
have spoken. For instance, Sir Isaac
Newton, the famous physicist, said, “I don’t know what I may seem to the world.
But as to myself I seem to have been
only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then in
finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, whilst the
great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” Such words cause us to reflect upon the character
of the lives which accomplished so much.
In this passage, we read something of a last-words moment with our Lord. While we have many more chapters of the Book of John before we get to the crucifixion of Christ, this text contains the last recorded words of public teaching from our Lord. After this, His teaching will be restricted to His disciples, as we’ll see in chapters thirteen through seventeen, and then His arrest comes after that. So, these remaining words, apparently given in the temple (the text doesn’t say exactly), are the last ones our Lord gives to a public gathering.
As we would expect, He chooses the words that are most
important for us to hear. He perfectly
summarizes His message throughout His earthly ministry. He doesn’t provide anything necessarily new,
then; His is a review of His teaching, comprising His most prominent
points. He presents His message, the one
that people have been ignoring.
We must not ignore the words of Christ. We’ll note three reasons why we should heed
Christ’s words this morning. His words
are God’s Light (vv. 44–46), God’s Judgment (vv. 47–48), and God’s Commandment
(vv. 49–50). Let’s look at the first of
these.
II.
First, Christ’s Words are God’s Light (vv.
44–46)
And Jesus cried
out and said, “He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who
sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who
sent Me. I have come as Light into the
world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.
We last read that Jesus hid Himself from the crowd (v. 36). Perhaps some time has elapsed (the text
doesn’t say exactly how much), but Jesus now speaks up again. In fact, He speaks loudly, for all to hear
His final appeal.
His first words remind us of the importance of believing in Jesus. So many people want to see in Jesus’s words
teachings of works. They see in the
teaching of the rich young ruler, for instance, the need either keep the
commandments or to sell property and give it to the poor to earn eternal
life. However, Jesus only used the
weight of moral duties, our failure to maintain a godly standard, to drive us
to believe in His work.
His preached faith.
In fact, that message is essential for anyone who wants to claim belief
in God. He says that the believer in Him
“does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me.” For the sake of clarity in translation, we
might add back in “belief in Me only.”
In other words, a person doesn’t come to Jesus Christ alone when
believing in Him, but a believer is also coming to the one who sent Him.
Remember that He identifies the “sender” as the Father. As one commentary notes, “The verbs for ‘sent’
(apostellein and pempein) form a continual refrain in the Gospel (e.g., 3:17, 34;
4:34; 5:23, 24, 30, 36–38; 6:29, 38–39, 44, 57; etc.). Behind this type of statement stands a concept
of Jesus as an agent of God in the carrying out of God’s purposes on earth.”[1] Still, Jesus is saying more than He’s an
apostle, an ambassador of sorts, for He equates belief in Him to belief in the
Father.
If you want to understand Scripture, you must understand
that Jesus links Himself to God the Father.
Consider how the Apostle John started this letter; He said, “No one has
seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father,
He has explained Him” (John 1:18). Later, the Apostle Paul picks this up and
says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” In Hebrews 1:3, we read, “And He is the
radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds
all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He
sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Those who would see Jesus as less-than-divine
fail to understand biblical teaching.
Jesus taught this of Himself. This confused people; in John 8:19, they
asked “ ‘Where is Your Father?’ Jesus
answered, ‘You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My
Father also.’ ” He said plainly in John
10:30, “I and the Father are one,” but the next verse there records that the
“Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.”
There are more examples which prove the point — Jesus claimed unity with
the Father, and we must accept His words.
So, in v. 45, Jesus says, “He who sees Me sees the One who
sent Me.” The term “seeing” operates
like a Jewish parallel here to “believe.”
Of course, He meant those who see Him physically back then see the
Father, and those now who spiritually see Him through belief likewise see the
Father. This is, incidentally, why it is
so dangerous to watch fictionalized versions of Jesus, especially ones like The
Chosen where the producers are proud of the fact that most their material is not
biblical! We should want to get to
know the biblical Jesus more, the one that shows us the Father.
The real Jesus is the light of God’s truth. He says in v. 46, “I, I have
come as Light into the world,” using the
emphatic pronoun. No one else is the
Light of God — only Him. This is why the
apostle labels Jesus as “the Light of men” (John 1:4), saying He “enlightens
every man” (v. 9). Jesus utilizes this
imagery, warning a twice now that the light will not always be with them (John
7:33; 9:4), and in John 12:36, demonstrating just how quickly the light can
leave.
Jesus brings it back to believing in Him. Only those who believe in Him (and thus,
believe in the Father) will have the light they need. Those who don’t believe walk already in
darkness, but if they believe, they don’t have to “abide” (King James
Version and New King James Version).
They don’t have to stumble through life’s problems bound to sin, nor do
they have to remain under the condemnation of God (bringing us to the next
point).
III.
Second, Christ’s Words are God’s Judgment (vv.
47–48)
If anyone hears My
sayings and does not keep them, 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 sayings, has one who judges him; the word I
spoke is what will judge him at the last day.
Jesus honored the Word of God. Once, someone tried to venerate Mary (Luke
11:27), but Jesus also said in reply, “On the contrary, blessed are those who
hear the word of God and observe it” (v. 28).
His brother James picks this up; James 1:23–25 says, “For if anyone is a
hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural
face in a mirror; for once he has
looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of
person he was. But one who looks
intently at the perfect law, the law
of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an
effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” It is the Word that Jesus wants us both to
hear and to observe.
Even so, He treats His own word as vital. To give an example outside of John, we could
think about the Sermon on the Mount. He
said saying that the person who keeps His words is like a wise man who builds
His house on a rock (Matt. 7:24), while the foolish person who refuses to act
upon His words is like the one who builds his house on the sand (v. 26). We must hear and keep His Word.
In fact, He equates rejection of Him and the rejection of
His Words — one cannot claim to believe in Jesus but also reject His
teachings. There are many today who are
happy to cherry-pick a few of Jesus’s teachings and falsely paint Him as some
kind of communistic, disestablishment, social justice warrior and
revolutionary. Yet, even if you were to
concede the point to show them the rest of what Jesus said, they would reject all
His exclusivist claims where He says that He is the only truth and life. Those who twist some of Jesus’s words and
won’t countenance His divine claims or His high view of Old Testament Scripture
also reject Him, even if they think they are Jesus followers.
For instance, many have no patience for the view of hell, a
place of righteous judgment against sinners.
However, Scripture teaches we all deserve it. As such, a rejection of Jesus’s offer of
grace is a request to face judgment, to receive condemnation.
So, it isn’t just about hearing His teaching (say, on a
Sunday morning in church), but it’s also about keeping or observing it by
believing in Him. Interestingly, where
we would expect Jesus to then say He will judge those who don’t, He says here
that He doesn’t (at least, not at present).
As one commentary notes, “I do
not judge may be rephrased as ‘I do not execute judgment.’ ”[2] As Jesus explains here, “I did not come to
judge the world, but to save the world.”
There’s a strong disjunctive there — He’s not here to condemn, but He is
here to save.
This matches what we’ve already read about Him. In John 3:17, we read, “For God did not send
the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved
through Him.” He doesn’t deny that He
engages in judgment or that He will judge one day; in John 5, He says, “For not
even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son… and He
gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man” (vv. 22, 27).
Yet, here, He says His primary mission now is to save; it’s His words which
will act as judge.
This, again, is difficult for many to receive. As another commentator notes,
The mistake in the older liberal
theology was to see the Word of God as a message of love only, not also as a
word of judgment. Scripture is clear
that the Word of God is a sword with two sharp edges. It cuts with an edge of life and with an edge
of death. It always cuts with one side
or the other—in a saving or a judging manner (cf. Is 49:2; Jn 12:47–48; 2 Cor
2:15–16; Heb 4:12; Eph 6:17; Rev 1:16; 2:12, 16–17; 19:15). God’s Word is also likened to a fire which
devours all that stands in its path and to a hammer “which breaks the rock in
pieces” (Jer 5:14; 23:29).[3]
So, judgment comes through the word of Christ, just as it
does through the word of God. His words
are indeed the words of God. And it will
be the means of judgment on the last day. Note some of the last words of Scripture,
Revelation 20:11–15:
Then I saw a great white throne and
Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no
place was found for them. And I saw the
dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were
opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which
were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it,
and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged,
every one of them according to their
deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown
into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in
the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
The Father will condemn people through the Word of the Son
because theirs is the same message from the Triune God. Indeed, because the Father sent the Son, He
expects people to obey the Son. He comes
with the commandment of God, as we see next.
IV.
Third, Christ’s Words are God’s Commandment (vv.
49–50)
For I did not
speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a
commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life;
therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.
Jesus operates as the mouthpiece of the Father. Hebrews 1:1–2 says, “God, after He spoke long
ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these
last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things,
through whom also He made the world.” As
the Prophet, Apostle, and Messiah of the Father, Jesus the Son of God will
accurately communicate the message of God.
To reject the words of Christ is to reject God’s very teaching.
Christians struggle with this. They tend to think of the Old Testament and
the New Testament as presenting two different versions of God, perhaps even two
different gods! They want to focus on
what we might call “the red letters.” They
don't see that Jesus and the Father are one (as Jesus Himself said), so they
see His words as somehow at odds with the Law. The truth is that Jesus exalted all the Word
of God, writing and sanctioning everything we might describe to be as “the
black letters,” meaning that a rejection of any of it is a rejection of Jesus
and God himself.
Jesus says He doesn’t speak of His own initiative or, as the
English Standard Version translates, “on my own authority.”
Again, this is just as
He said several times (John 3:11; 7:16; 8:26, 28, 38; 14:10, 24). Jesus says that He has indeed heard from God,
and these are the words He speaks to the world.
In other words, He gives a true and faithful revelation (John 8:26, 28;
12:49; 15:15). And, it’s because of this
unity of message that Jesus says His words will be used as judgment on the last
day (here in v. 48).
This shows us the
oneness of God. There are not multiple
wills within the Trinity, where the Father sometimes wants something, but the
Son wants something else, while the Holy Spirit is holding out for a third
option. No, just as there is only one
God, there is only one will within God.
There is an ongoing debate right now as to whether the Son had to submit
to the Father in eternity past, but that suggests there are two wills within
God. It wasn’t until the Son took on
flesh that He developed a separate will that had to then submit to the Father;
otherwise, there is only the divine will.
This is the will
that Jesus represents, of course, in His earthly ministry. The Father commanded the words of Jesus, and
the Son obeys. His word is the word of
the Father.
In fact, note the
apparent repetition at the end of v. 49 — “as to what to say and what to
speak.” It is possible that this is
simple repetition. However, this also
may indicate the manner in which Jesus should speak.
The issue where Moses spoke harshly to the people before
getting water from the rock would exemplify this. God cares both with the words we sat and the
way in which we speak them. He calls us
to speak truth in love. Sometimes,
people excuse their own harsh words by explaining that they are just blunt or
“say it how it is,” but God calls us to speak the truth in love. Jesus modeled this, not breaking the bruised
reed. He also provides forgiveness for
our harsh words, thankfully, so let us follow our Savior in speaking words of
grace.
Because Jesus knows the commandment of God so well, He knows
it is eternal life (v. 50). Peter said
Jesus had the words to eternal life (John 6:68), but Jesus’s words are those of
the Father. Of course, we’ve already
seen the command — to believe. As one
study notes, “The commandment Jesus requires His disciples to keep is to
believe in His ability to grant eternal life.”[4] Those who believe in Christ keep Christ’s
word, thus fulfilling God’s command and receiving eternal life.
Jesus therefore gives this word. He desires that people come to salvation,
just as the Father does. He speaks a
command of eternal life because, without it, people would not have eternal
life. He calls, then, for belief and
repentance.
V.
Conclusion
People sometimes wonder why many of my messages from the Book
of John have focused on the gospel. Of
course, the Book of John is an evangelistic book, and people need to hear the
good news that Jesus died for sins and rose again for new life. There are always unbelievers in the
congregation, those who need to heed the call to believe, so it is obviously
worthwhile to preach the message of good news.
If they don't obey, there will be no hope for them.
Still, Christians sometimes forget that they need this
message, too. The message of the gospel
is not just for unbelievers. It’s also for
believers who have been in out the world, who have some dirt on their feet
which requires the cleansing of Jesus. We’re going to talk a bit more about this in
the next chapter, but it’s essential for you to remember that Jesus’s words are
eternal life to you, as well. Don't let
Satan in this world distract you from the beauty of this message. It is, after all, a summation of all that
Jesus taught during His earthly ministry; it must be important for us to know!
[1] Gerald L. Borchert, John 12–21, The New American Commentary, (Nashville: Broadman &
Holman Publishers, 2002), 25B:67–68.
[2] Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald Barclay Allen, and H. Wayne
House, The Nelson Study Bible: New King
James Version, (Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers, 1997), Jn 12:47.
[3] Donald G. Bloesch, The
Last Things: Resurrection, Judgment, Glory, (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2004), 183–184.
[4] John D. Barry, Douglas Mangum, Derek R. Brown, Michael
S. Heiser, Miles Custis, Elliot Ritzema, Matthew M. Whitehead, Michael R.
Grigoni, and David Bomar, Faithlife Study
Bible, (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Jn 12:50.
