15 Our Lord's Disbelief in Many Who Believed in His Name

XV OUR LORD’S DISBELIEF IN MANY WHO BELIEVED IN HIS NAME

John 2:23-25 The evangelist completely disarms us when he anticipates The somewhat startling title of this sermon, as it may sound to some, is nevertheless the literal translation of the original text. The text as it stands in our English translation is in reality a comment on the Greek original. It is a most excellent comment, but still it is a comment rather than a literal rendering. The absolutely literal and word for word rendering is this :-"Many believed in His name, when they saw the miracles that He did. But He did not believe in them, because He knew what was in them." The evangelist completely disarms us when he anticipates us and admits to us that there are many other things our Lord both said and did but for which he has failed to find room in his book. And among the many left-out things we would have been most thankful to-night for a little about our Lord’s miracles and about His preaching on that Passover-day. It would have greatly assisted us to-night had the evangelist told us just what kind of miracles they were that our Lord worked with such effect that Passover-day. And still more, just what sermons He preached and on what texts, alongside of His miracles. As well as what manner of men they where who, so immediately, and in such numbers, believed in His name. How many there were of them, and what way they took to tell Him of their faith in His name. And other things like these. But no. About all such things as these the evangelist is silent and tells us not one word, with one exception. With one well-known and notable exception. And that well-known and notable exception was this.

There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; the same came to Jesus by night, and said unto Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that Thou doest, except God be with him. Like so many more, Nicodemus had seen the miracles of that Passover-day, and had so far believed in His name who worked the miracles. But with all that, as our English has it, our Lord did not commit Himself to Nicodemus; at any rate, at the opening of their interview. Our Lord received all the old ruler’s certificates and civilities with a lofty and a severe reserve. And not with a lofty and severe reserve only, but almost with absolute repulse and dismissal. It completely took the old ruler’s breath away when our Lord turned on him twice over with this sudden sword-thrust Except a man be born again, he cannot enter, or even see, the Kingdom of God. At the same time this man of the Pharisees was ordained to everlasting life, and our Lord did not finally dismiss him that night till He had told him some things that he never forgot. One thing Nicodemus never forgot all his days: As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." You can yourselves feel with what tremendous force these words would come back to Nicodemus when he stood on Calvary and saw the Son of Man lifted up; the very Son of Man who had said these words about Himself that Passover-night in Bethany. And then after the Son of Man had been so lifted up, and after He had in that finished the work that had been given Him to do, our Lord committed His dead body to the care of Nicodemus and another lest it should suffer an indignity and a destruction that is not to be thought of.

You will scarcely believe me, but it is literally true. And the more literally we take the whole of this remarkable passage the more lessons will we learn out of it. What do you think is the evangelists exact and literal word about all the hearing and all the believing of that Passover-day? It was not true believing at all, says the evangelist, it was all so much mere theorizing. Yes; our so familiar and somewhat contemptuous word, mere theorizing, is the evangelist’s literal and exact word about the men of that day. And with such disbelief in them did our Lord meet them, and all their theorizing about Him, that even when their theorizing were right, as they were in this case, He did not commit Himself to them. He had come to save them from condemnation, for they were all condemned already, and He indignantly and sharply resented all their compliments and all their certificates both about His miracles and about Himself. The Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to heal the broken-hearted, but those patronizing hearers of His were as far as possible from being broken-hearted. And thus it was that He so reserved Himself for those to whom He was sent. And so it is still. The Son of God resents all your praise and all your blame alike. He will have none of them at your hands. He was not sent Himself, and He does not send His servants, that you may talk to one another about them, and theorize on them and on their message, and pay them your fine compliments. When once you are born again, as Nicodemus was, you will come back to Jesus Christ and to His servants with new eyes and new ears and new principles of judgment. But meantime, and till you are born again, your Judge resents you, and all your insolent patronage, as He that night resented Nicodemus.

It was out of His own accumulating experience as a preacher, and it was out of Passover-days like that day, that our Lord composed His great parable of the sower and the seed and the various kinds of ground, good and bad, into which the seed fell. Some seeds fell upon stony places, He said, where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprang up, because they had no deepness of earth. And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root they withered away. Now, those who forthwith spring up under our preaching easily deceive us preachers. We easily believe in those who believe in us and who praise our preaching. We commit ourselves to any and every man the moment he begins to believe in us in that way. But both in committing Himself and in reserving Himself, our Lord had this immense advantage over all other preachers, before or since, that He knew what was in the hearts of all His hearers, and whether they heard Him for the good of their souls, or for some other motive than that.

"Now, I saw that there would be no answer to me till I had entire purity of conscience, and no longer regarded any iniquity whatsoever in my heart. I saw that there were some secret affections still left in me, which, though they were not very bad in themselves, perhaps; yet, in a life of prayer, such as I was then attempting, those remnant affections certainly spoiled all." That is to say, just what our Lord was in Jerusalem, just that He was in Toledo, and just that He is to-night in Edinburgh. Just what He was to Nicodemus the Pharisee, and to Teresa the Catholic, just that He will be to you the Calvinist. His eyes are still as a flame of fire, piercing to the thoughts and intents of the heart in man and woman. This will often happen to some of you. After you have taken your Lord’s way of it, so far at any rate as to watch one hour with Him as Teresa so continually did; after you have been again and again on your knees, and even on your face, as she so often was; when you put out your light your heart will be as dark and as dreary and as forsaken as if you had been spending the whole of the past hour in actual sin. Now all that is so, simply because at the very back of your mind, and at the very bottom of your heart, there is some remnant affection that has spoiled all. You have not fully and for ever forsaken all your secret sins; and all your tears and all your prayers and all your prostration’s will not purchase for you one moment of inward peace. He who alone is your inward peace does not believe in you, nor in your hours of prayer either. And He will keep Himself aloof from you, and will leave you to yourself, till you make you a clean heart. What avails all that praying, demanded poor Brodie of himself, as long as that secret lust of mine remains? It avails just nothing at all. It rather works the other way. David, who has an experimental and an autobiographical light to shed upon everything of that kind, has this long before Nicodemus, or Teresa, or Brodie, or you, or me; this: "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." But, on the other side of all that, listen to what our Lord says to us: "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will come to him, and will manifest Myself unto him. If a man love Me, he will keep My words; and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and will make our abode with him."

Now, this has been to us once more our passover-day. Christ, our Passover, has again this day been evidently set forth, crucified among us. And something like this will have taken place among us in this house this day. There will have been those here who sat down at the Lord’s Table to-day, and not without some faith in His name. And they sat down much needing some of the strength and some of the comfort that is dispensed to the true and sincere believer at the Lord’s Table. But no. Not one atom of strength, not one drop of comfort, came to them. Not one atom. Not one drop. They sat through the Action sermon, and through the Table services; they listened with an unusual attention to all that was said; and they strove and struggled to enter into some experience of God’s presence and peace with them. But it all came to nothing. To absolutely nothing. The heavens were as brass, and the earth was as iron. Till, with all they could do, they had to leave the table and stagger home, not only no better, but much worse; much darker, much drearier, much more sad, and much more desolate, than they were before. Now, there is no deep mystery in all that. There is no dark dispensation of divine sovereignty in all that. The reason of all that is as plain as plain could be. It is all already in the text. He did not commit Himself to them simply because He knew them. Because all their preparations and all their self-examinations were naked and open to Him with whom they have to do. When other intending communicants were at their book and on their knees last week, they were either fast asleep, or were worse employed. Take all the week together, and they did not watch with Him one hour, or spend one penny for His sake upon a spiritual and a preparation book. My brethren; from this Scripture, and from this day’s experience of this Scripture, lay this down as a first principle for you, that God is not mocked. And least of all is He mocked any more by those like you at whose hands He has been mocked so often. The whole miserable history of a thousand shipwrecked communions of yours is told to you, and to all the world, in these two or three plain-spoken words; He did not commit Himself to them because He knew what was in them. But your day of grace is such a long day that it is not even yet at an end. Nor is your present communion-day wholly at an end. And if you make a good use of its remaining hours, who can tell but Christ will commit Himself to you tonight before you fall asleep? As He committed Himself to Nicodemus that night before he fell asleep. And as He committed Himself to the woman at the well some days afterwards. And to Mary Magdalen. And to Peter, who denied Him so soon after the table. And to the thief on the Cross. And to so many more. Seek you the Lord, therefore, while He may be found. Call you upon Him while He is near. Behold, I stand at your door and knock. If you hear My voice to-night yet, and open the door, I will come in to you, and will sup with you, and you with Me.