Or, Glory Too Brilliant to See
Scripture: John 12:37-43
Date: June 2, 2013
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We could sooner stop the earth from spinning than we could stop men from seeking glory. God made humanity, stamped men and women with His likeness, and that includes a love for glory. Because all reality originates with Him, our denial of how things are equals rebellion. The reality is: we love glory. The question is not if we will love it but where we will get it. God also tells us how to get it, showed us how to get it in His Son. We could sooner cause the earth to spin the opposite direction than we could successfully get glory another way than the way God has determined. The way to glory is death.
The fingerprints of glory smudge every verse in John chapter 12. The immediate context of our concern this morning dawns after the so-called Triumphal Entry when the “world” went after Jesus (verse 19), represented by some Greeks in town for the Passover who wanted to get together with Jesus (verses 20-21). Philip and Andrew tried to get everyone in the same room (verse 22). But Jesus said He had another appointment: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (verse 23).
The last fingerprint touches verse 43, “They loved the glory that comes from men more than the glory that comes from God.” Verses 23 and 43 burn the same candle from different ends. The Son of Man would be glorified as the sons of men rejected His glory. His glory was unexpected at best, and much to hard for rebels. Their rejection of His glory made His glory greater.
John already told us that Israel rejected their Messiah.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. (John 1:10–11, ESV)
Yet the widespread rejection of Jesus concerns John so much that, in the middle of his gospel intended to provide evidence for believing, he stops to give another explanation for unbelieving. The Jews, during Jesus’ time and in John’s day, expected that the Messiah would get glory from men, would be received and praised by men. How could the Messiah be rejected as the One and simultaneously the One? Wouldn’t the Christ be recognized by the crowds? Wouldn’t the Son of Man be known by His glory? He was, just not the kind of glory that blind men look for.
The second half of verse 36 through verse 43 provide John’s perspective on the glory of Jesus’ rejection, or how God planned to save the world by unbelieving.
Jesus just told the crowd that “the light is among you for a little while” (verse 35). It got dark really fast.
When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. (John 12:36b, ESV)
Other than verses 44-50, the warning about darkness and invitation to light in verses 35-36 are the last public words of Jesus until His trials and crucifixion. He has rounded third and headed home, even while John takes a third of his Gospel (chapters 13-20) to recount the final four or five days of Jesus’ earthly life.
Jesus hid from them , He made Himself unavailable. Rather than desperately pleading His case to overcome more unbelieving in His last days, He decisively removed Himself to seal their unbelieving. John caught the picture and that led to his explanation.
In order for Jesus to get glory there wasn’t anything else He needed to do except be rejected. The Jews’ executed their part right on cue.
Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 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?”
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
“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.”
(John 12:37–40, ESV)
What else could the people ask for? Though he had done so many signs before them . The entire gospel of John presents the case. “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book” (John 20:30). “There are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). We have a curated record (20:31) including a 38 years-paralyzed man now walking, a man born blind now seeing, and a four-days-dead man now living. But the Jews couldn’t see the broad side of the barn because they were staring at their feet. They still did not believe in him .
The should have believed. That’s the point of repeating that He had done so many signs. They should have believed and verse 43 exposes a pathetic, foolish, idolatrous motivation. They should have believed, they were responsible to believe, and they wouldn’t.
But they wouldn’t because they couldn’t. They should have but sin prohibited them. They should have but God promised that they wouldn’t. They still did not believe in him, 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?”
The answer to Isaiah’s rhetorical question is: not many, if any. This quotation begins one of the most well-known chapters in Isaiah, chapter 53 verse one. Isaiah wrote about the suffering servant, the one with “no form or majesty,” “no beauty that we should desire him.” “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (verses 2-3).
This is the hour for being despised and rejected, the same hour that Jesus said is the hour for Him to be glorified. This was the hour for Him to be despised, for Him to die. But don’t forget the fruit.
Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
(Isaiah 53:4–5, ESV)
He had to die. Why would anyone want to kill Him? They had to deny. The denial led to His death. That is too brilliant to grasp.
The rejection of the Son of Man by the Jews proved that He was their Messiah. The rejection of the Servant led to the suffering which was the place He bore our sins. The rejection of Israel’s Messiah led to the spread of the Messiah’s message to all nations, and even that will boomerang back around for Israel’s blessing. Paul ended three chapter’s worth of explanation of this with “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33).
John says the same thing a different way, Therefore they could not believe . Or, they were not able to believe. It’s an imperfect tense, so a determined direction, “the course now in progress” (Lenski, 884). It’s also passive, so they were in a state of being unable to be able to believe. A negated active would be, their ability wasn’t powerful. A negated passive is, their ability wasn’t present.
John quotes Isaiah again.
”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.”
This declaration comes in what may be the second most well-known chapter in Isaiah, chapter 6 verse 10. I follows after “I see the Lord seated on the throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (verse 1). Isaiah saw the glory and God sent Isaiah with a glory too bright to see.
Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory! (verse 3)
Which picture is glory? Seated on the throne or pierced and crushed for our iniquities (53:5)? Yes. Filling the temple or buried with the wicked (53:9). Yes. But they can’t be separated.
While the men are responsible for their unbelieving, God did not make them disbelieve against their will, He is sovereign over it. God intended that most of His chosen people (as a nation) rejected His promised Savior. God blinded the blind. God hardened the hard hearted. In fact, if He is not sovereign over their disbelief, there is no hope for asking Him to do something about disbelief. No man has eyes to see or a heart to understand unless God gives them.
Isaiah 6 and 53 (and all the rest of Isaiah and the OT) meet in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. (John 12:41, ESV)
Seeing his glory isn’t necessary the same as seeing a pre-incarnate manifestation of the second Person of the Trinity. Maybe he did. But what’s hard to escape is that Isaiah said these things about the rejection of the Messiah as belonging to His glory.
That only makes sense if God is God, if God defines glory by His nature. Glory suffers for the joy of others. Glory sacrifices for the life of others. Glory gives to share glory with others. The rejection of Jesus by the Jews belongs in the pro-glory column, it does not diminish His glory at all.
What initially presents as a good thing gives birth to ugliness.
Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. (John 12:42–43, ESV)
We’ve seen believing like this before, shallow believing like seed growing up only to be choked out by weeds. The nevertheless may indicate that it’s not as if no one paid attention. There are a lot of ways to reject Jesus. Rejection hits on a continuum from angry dismissal to sympathetic distance.
The Pharisees excommunicated the man born blind from his local synagogue (9:35) and those authorities weren’t willing to “give up their lives in this world.” They wanted the connections, the security, the peace, even if it killed them.
Many tragedies are precipitated by the cowardly weakness of those who are silent in the hour in which they should speak. (Lenski, 891)
The reason comes in verse 43. for they loved the glory that comes from men more than the glory that comes from God . In other words, spray tan is stupid. In other words, everyone wants glory and some gods put out more easily. In other words, valuing the esteem of men is like a bunch of prisoners deciding to hold a fashion show and compare orange jump suits. In other words, trying to preserve your life in this world is like trying to spin the planet the opposite direction. In other words, they worshiped a different god.
Calvin called earthly honors “golden fetters.” The fear of man lays a trap. The need for reputation ruins.
For us, we must count the cost of following Jesus.
If we go with God’s flow, note what we get:
We will also not be believed. We will be rejected, kicked out, and despised. And that will be our glory because that’s who God is.
Where do you get your glory from? It is weak to get glory from men. If you do want glory from God, you’ll have to die. But that’s the only way to live.