Seeking earthly glory and the glory of self blinds one to the glory of God. John 12:38-40; 5:43-44; Mark 6:5-6.

Verses 38-41, the explanation of rejection. He is an amplification and short discourse on reaction to the message of Jesus Christ.

 

Verse 38 - reaction involves human volition which is always free and it is not Sovereignty forcing a group to disbelieve anything concerning the status of Christ. This was documented by Isaiah.

 

John 12:38 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?"

 

“That” introduces a result clause. The word for “saying” here is simply o( logoj, [ho logos] literally, “the word [doctrine].” The doctrine is quoted now from Isaiah 53:1. 

           

“might be fulfilled” - aorist passive subjunctive of plhrow.[pleroo] The culminative aorist: the scripture has now been fulfilled. The passive voice: the scripture received fulfilment.

 

The scripture didn’t make them reject the Lord, but their rejection of the Lord fulfilled the scripture.

 

The subjunctive mood is used here as a result. As a result of their own negative decisions the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled.

 

Now the Lord Jesus Christ is going to depart from the public and have a private ministry to His disciples. Up to this time Jesus Christ has spent three years evangelising the Jews in Palestine.

From this point on He is going to spend His time in teaching the disciples with regard to the next dispensation.

 

So having the rejection clearly stated we now have a quotation from Isaiah” “Lord who hath believed our report [doctrine]?”

 

The report by Jesus Christ has been handed in, so to speak, to the Jews and to the Supreme Court of heaven. The Lord’s thesis to Israel is finished. It culminated in dramatic style with its last paragraph being the resuscitation of Lazarus and the prophesized entrance into Jerusalem on the young donkey accompanied by the hundreds of witnesses of the raising of Lazarus.

 

Some believed, but most did not. It is settled. Israel has rejected their Messiah and so the kingdom will not come now, but rather the Church-age will be inserted and the kingdom will have to wait.

 

The word a)koh[akoe] = report, means doctrine which was presented under the right conditions—academic discipline, training. In other words, He gained a hearing, made a presentation, and it was rejected.

 

John 12:38 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?"

           

 

 “and to whom has the arm of the Lord”—a title for the Lord Jesus Christ with emphasis on His authority and power, as per Isaiah 53:1-2.

 

ISA 53:1-3

Who has believed our message?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

And like a root out of parched ground;

He has no stately form or majesty

That we should look upon Him,

Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

3 He was despised and forsaken of men,

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

And like one from whom men hide their face,

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

 

“revealed” - a)pokaluptw[apokalupto] means to be clearly disclosed, plainly signified. The Jews of our Lord’s day had received full revelation of the Lord’s power and authority as the God-Man. They have received maximum exposure to the gospel, maximum revelation, a concentrated saturation of evangelism.

 

Principle: Maximum revelation followed by maximum rejection is followed by maximum national judgment, i.e. the 5^th cycle of discipline.

 

“Who hath believed our report?” indicates volitional involvement.

 

These people, are without excuse, they have heard the report or they have heard the doctrine.

 

The aorist tense of a)pokaluptwis a constative aorist, they have heard it over a period consistently for three years, seven instances of miracles of which are described in the Gospel of John. The passive voice: they have received this information. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that they have had clearly presented to them the gospel in the best possible form. So they are totally and completely without excuse.

 

John 12:39 For this cause they could not believe, for Isaiah said again,

 

This can seem like a difficult verse and a hyper-Calvinists dream, and so we must examine it carefully.

 

Why could they not believe?

 

Isaiah prophesized:

John 12:40 "He has blinded their eyes, and He hardened their heart; lest they see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them."

 

The Father sends the Lord into the world in order to reveal Himself with miracles as well as constant evangelism but then blinds some so they cannot see? This would violate His Justice.

 

Is it rather that the Father sends the Lord into the world in order to reveal Himself with miracles as well as constant evangelism and the unbelievers in question have continued to say no, no, no… for three and a half years and so they moved so far away from Christ, being eye witnesses, that they became blind?

 

In that scenario the Father is still the source.

 

The issue is again choice. We see in the next verse that many of the Pharisees believed in Him but were unwilling to admit it because they knew the consequences of excommunication.

 

And God makes it clear in His word that if you are seeking the world and the glory of self then you become blind towards Him.

 

In Mark 6:5 the Lord was in His own hometown of Nazareth. All the people saw was the carpenter’s son. As a result it was the Lord who couldn’t do something.

 

Mark 6:5-6

And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands upon a few sick people and healed them. 6 And He wondered at their unbelief.

 

The words can and could are often used in the Bible to denote the existence of such obstacles as to make a result certain, or as affirming that while one thing exists another thing cannot follow.

 

The emphasis I place here on this portion of the Jews who rejected Christ over and over again is, “that while one thing exists another thing cannot follow.”

 

John 5:43-44

"I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another shall come in his own name, you will receive him. 44 "How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

 

This is the real reason. They only seek glory from men and could care less about God and while that condition exists they are blind. Did God send the blindness? Absolutely; the Father is the source of the blinding light of Christ in that the Father decreed to send Him.

 

John 1:4-5

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

 

 

The Lord challenged them over and over, teaching for days at a time in the temple challenging them to see Him for who He was and this increased their hardened hearts as they rejected Him over and over.

 

Like Pharaoh, whom they hated, they hardened their own hearts through unbelief to the point where they had said no so many times that they could no longer say yes.

 

One last time Pharaoh was given the opportunity to repent and in sorrow over the death of his son he said yes to Moses and let Israel go; only to turn on this promise and chase them to the Red Sea in order to enslave them again. Pharaoh hardened his own heart first and then God, through miracle after miracle, cause a greater hardening of his heart. God in His foreknowledge simply knew that Pharaoh would never believe.

 

God knows the same about these religious Jews. They only seek their own religiosity, their own glory among men and after the final miracle, after the report has been finished, after the final entry on a colt as prophesized by Zechariah, they have said no so many times that they have become blind.

 

Could they change and believe, of course they could. Would they? God who knows the end from the beginning knows that they will not and so the prophecy from Isaiah.