Turn with me to the gospel of John chapter 12. This is of necessity, part one of a two-part sermon. You notice by the title it deals with the topic of reprobation. Will the blind see? Perhaps you're not familiar with the term reprobation. It is not so unique a term that I trust you haven't heard it, but nevertheless, reprobation is the negative side of that doctrine which we love and embrace predestination. We typically use that term predestination to refer to the positive action of God's calling forth and guaranteeing the salvation of His children, of His flock, the ones whom Jesus referred to. And He said, I have many sheep that I need to bring into my flock. And all of those whom God puts in my hand will remain secure. We love this doctrine. It is our security and our confidence. But just as we might say, and when we see a duck, then anything that is not a duck is something else. So those who are not predestined for life, we call the reprobate, those who are lost, those whose destiny is hell. And this can be a place of consternation. It can be a place of argument. It can be a place of disenchantment with a gospel, a questioning of God, and at the very least arguments between men and women. The church is at times encounter difficulties concerning God's sovereignty, a man's free will. But even among those who are in agreement regarding the sovereignty of God, even though there is a natural dislike of surrendering our sovereignty to anything, at all, to anyone, even God, among those who embrace God's sovereign choice and will and purpose and salvation, this idea of a double predestination or the doctrine of reprobation still can set on fire the conversations of men. It still remains an uncomfortable, and what we would consider to be an unfortunate consequence of God's sovereign action. And as profound as this is, and as egocentric as our interpretation of the scriptures typically are, there is something even more amazing in the passage which we will read today together. Let's turn our attention there now. John chapter 12, beginning at verse 36, John 12, verse 36. The transition, I remind you of Jesus from his public ministry to where he will no longer speak in public, but only with his disciples. Speaking now to the group, while you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of light, when Jesus had said these things, he departed and hit himself from them, 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 hearts, lest they see with their eyes and understand with their heart and turn and turn, and I would heal them. Isaiah said these things because he saw the glory and spoke of him, 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 for man, more than they loved, the more than the glory that comes from God. The Lord blessed the reading of his holy and inerrant word. There is much that has to be said that will form the foundation of our understanding of God's sovereignty in both aspects of man's spiritual life, the salvation of man as well as his being blind and unable to see the salvation of God. These things we read in the first verses that we read in verse 36. When Jesus had said these things, what things? Basically, here, this is meant to summarize all of his public teaching because this is now a permanent transition. So when Jesus had completed his public ministry, when he had said these things, all of these things related to the kingdom of God and the gospel and concerning the light and the incarnation and his being there to do the will of God. When he had said these things, he retires from their presence. He retires and hid himself from them. He departed from them. This departing from them is something that we can't simply understand in the sense of a physical walking away because the verses we just read, if you'll trace your finger right back up, you'll read where it says walk while you have the light. Let's darkness overtake you. When Jesus who is the light of the knowledge of God, the revelation of God in his incarnation before men, when that light of God departs. For them and for their understanding of God's purpose and calling and salvation, the sun has set. And so now in his departure, they are left just as the sun sets on any of our days to be standing in the twilight and eventually in the darkness that will surround them. Jesus, after he had conducted his public ministry, now departs from them and is hid from them and they cannot see him anymore. A very deliberate way of phrasing these things. Jesus has now turned himself to only be with his disciples. The people, that is the nation, had refused to believe. They had believed in his miracles but not in his person like Moses's generation of which we read in Deuteronomy chapter two, verses three and four. The great trials that your eyes saw, the signs and those great wonders, but to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or hear and so it remains in Jesus's day and so it remains in hours. That it is the Lord God that must implant in the dead person's soul, eyes to see and ears to hear in a heart that would understand and receive. They were not believing we are told. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. This not believing is in the imperfect tense, which is a constant and a progressive unwillingness to accept Jesus. All throughout his ministry, the more intense city was brought into his signs and miracles as he went from changing water to wine to raising Lazarus at the very end. The greater the miracle, the more amazing the work, the more constant and the more deliberate their unbelieving became. Faced with greater and greater evidence, their heart became harder and harder against him. Their unwillingness to believe was constant and progressive. They would not accept Jesus with a genuine or a living faith, but this is just what John predicted at the very beginning in chapter 1, verse 11. He said that his own people would not receive him and indeed they did not. What follows in verses 38 through 40 is a difficult description of what we will call the judicial hardening and unbelief of people. A judicial hardening is a judgmental act by God. This judicial hardening and unbelief is hard for us to read. It's hard for us to fathom. It's hard for us to understand and receive. But to understand this, let's walk carefully through John's text on this because he reminds us of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah and he takes us back to chapter 6. Let's look in verse 41 of our passage. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory. So much of our understanding is going to be based upon Isaiah's experience as he gave those first prophecies which we read now in the Gospel of John. John is saying that Isaiah saw Jesus's glory and he spoke about him. And Isaiah 6, verse 5, here we have Isaiah who entered into the temple to perform the ministries in the temple. And while he was in the temple, the glory of the Lord filled the temple. As you remember and the seraphim were in the cherubim were there with wings covering the eyes and they were singing that great hymn, holy, holy, holy Lord God Almighty, holy, holy, holy. And Isaiah saw that and even though Isaiah was a good and righteous man who loved and followed and served God, he fell to the ground and he said, whoa is me, I'm a man of unclean lips because in the presence of the glory of God, he recognized his own black and his own worthlessness. And Isaiah describes that as the Lord's glory and now it is interpreted for us that he saw Jesus's glory. How is that so? How is it that he saw the glory of the Lord and yet that is Jesus's glory? When it says that he saw the glory of the Lord, the word Lord is in fact Yahweh, the proper name for God. He saw the glory of the Lord identified as Yahweh or Jehovah might be translated in your Bible. John is telling us that way back in the time of Isaiah that when he saw the glory of the Lord, he was seeing Jesus Christ. The Son is revealed as the incarnate Word, isn't he? The incarnation of God. God took to Himself, appropriated to Himself the flesh of man. But we know that the Word was eternally existing with God. The Word has always been the second person of the Trinity is eternal and always has been in existence. In fact, the Word, the logos, the Word of God is the revelation of God to man. It is God showing Himself to man. It is God manifesting Himself and His glory to man. And so Jesus, as incarnate, is the revelation of God to man. But He's always been the revelation of God to man. That is the second person of the Trinity, the revelation of God to man. Chapter 12 verses 44 to 45, which we didn't read yet. Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in Me, believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me and listened carefully. And whoever sees Me sees Him who sent Me. Jesus is always the revelation of God. The second person of the Trinity is to show us God. Paul makes this perspective clear in Romans 10, 13, which is a quote from Joel 2, 32. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Lord in Hebrew and in Joel is again Yahweh. Paul equates the two. He equates the two. Jesus Christ calling out on the name of Christ and calling out on the name of God. Calling out on these will be salvation. In Hebrew's 11, we find even more clarity brought to it. Verses 23 of Hebrew's 11 begins a discussion of Moses as we go through the great roll call of faith or the great hall of faith if you want to call it that. And as it begins to describe to us Moses, in verse 26 it says that He, that is Moses, considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt for he was looking to the reward. Moses considered the reproach of Christ. Moses considered the reproach of Christ. That takes us and points us back to realize that all throughout since the beginning of creation, the revelation of God is the one who we know as the incarnate Jesus Christ. Many Christians prefer to think of God, the Father and the Old Testament. You'll hear many say, well, that was God of the Old Testament. He was an angry God. I prefer the God of the New Testament when He sent Jesus to do all of the interaction with man. When it was just man and God, things were a little tense. But when God stepped aside, so to speak, and sent Jesus to interact with man, then things got nice. We prefer to deal with the God, the Father, perhaps, in the Old Testament. And then we bring Jesus off the bench in the New Testament and put him into the game. But the New Testament makes it clear that when the Jews encountered the Lord, it was the second person of the Trinity that was revealing God to them. Now we know what Jude means in the book of Jude, when he writes, now I want you to be reminded although you once fully knew it that Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those who did not believe. It was Jesus who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, the second person of the Trinity that manifest Himself to the people. Not only was the God who dwelled with them and the desert and in the wilderness our Emmanuel, which means God with us. But in 1 Peter 111, we learned that it was Christ who spoke to the prophets. The prophecies that they brought to the people were prophecies coming from Christ, the Word of God. Inquiring in 1 Peter he says, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and subsequent glories. Robert Rayburn of Faith Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, Washington makes this observation. Surely the church's father Eusebius was right when he wrote all the old patriarchs might properly be called Christian. Rayburn concludes, we have but one God of wrath and love. There is but one holy scripture, God's Word. There is but one redeemer, one covenant of grace. There is one gospel, one faith, one church, one people of God, one law, one hope, one Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. This is the Christ that they would not believe in. This is the Christ who had was the revelation of God and all of the Israel's history when they turned their back on God. When they turned their back on God, they had been turning their back on Christ all throughout their history because each time they encountered the living God, whether it was a pillar of fire, whether it was in the tabernacle, wherever it might be, that God was revealed to them in a cloud or in a fire or a burning bush. It was the second person of the Trinity of the revealing God to the people. The ultimate and the climax of that revelation comes in the incarnation. But unless we are going to believe which we do not, that Jesus was born at the incarnation, then what was the second person of the Trinity to be about and all of the time before the incarnation? He was about then what he was about at the time of the incarnation and what he remains about now, the revelation of God to the people, this word of God that makes God known, the Jews of their own fault were refusing Christ. In Isaiah, they refused the prophet's message. They arm of the Lord which Isaiah talks about and describes the mighty acts of God which the people were denying. The more God shown Himself, the more God manifest Himself, the more deep into denial they went. The God of Israel had shown them His power and He called them to Himself and they said no. Jesus, which is God in flesh, had shown them His power and called them to Himself and they said no. Such is the wickedness of a man and such is the hardness of a man's heart that even the resurrection of one who is dead to life will not move them to worship God. John finds Jewish unbelief unbelievable. He's amazed. The Jews reject even as the Gentiles are responding. The Gentiles are now turning to Christ even as the Jews themselves are saying no to Christ. Paul and Romans 9 through 11, which we'll deal more with next week. Paul works through a lot of tough questions regarding that. I commend those chapters to you to read between now and then, perhaps it'll help you in your understanding. He answers a lot of tough questions about Israel's rejection and the opening of the door to the Gentiles. And it concludes that Jewish disbelief is in fact for the purpose of opening the door to the Gentiles. John's amazement is that they don't believe in the face of all the teaching and all the signs. Lord, who has believed what He heard from us, the preaching and the teaching, the scriptures made clear, the scriptures explain and to whom as the arm of the Lord been revealed, they heard with their ear the scriptures opened up and they saw with their eyes Mighty acts and miracles and yet, and yet, they could not believe. Peter records the same paradox of unbelief in Acts 2, 22 and 23. Men of Israel hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through Him in your midst as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. And consequently, this is also how we understand the warning that attends to the table, to not eat and drink in an unworthy manner, because we know that those who are outside of Christ are the ones who crucified Christ by the hands of lawless men, to reject Christ as to crucify Christ even though it was done by the hands of others. Since man has walked away from God and Eden, he's continued. He has continued to receive Him again as Lord. They have refused Him in the past. Man refuses Him today. In Acts 28, Paul arrives in Rome and he speaks with the Jewish leadership that is there. He speaks to them for morning until evening. He gives all day and he's teaching them we're told about the kingdom of God and he says this, the Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers to Isaiah the prophet, go to this people and say, you will indeed hear but never understand. You will indeed see but never perceive for this people's heart has grown dull and with their eyes they can barely hear and their eyes have closed. Therefore, let it be known that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles because they will listen. The people of God who had been so blessed by Him and delivered by Him had grown dull of hearing and their hearts had grown hard and so the gospel was now turning to the Gentiles. The testimony is that God has revealed Himself in Christ that He has taken full punishment for the sin of our own rebellion and that He's kept perfectly His own law and for those who are reborn a new creation in Christ we are made acceptable in His righteousness but you must act today. Why the sense of urgency? Imagine that you were there as Jesus was talking about light and darkness and then Jesus after He said these things and did these things departed. When will be your last opportunity? When will that be? What day will it be? That will be your last opportunity to respond and serve the living God as He's been revealed in Christ? Do you know? Do you know when will be the last opportunity so that you won't be like the Pharisees which we read about who though they believed they refused to make a public acknowledgement and assigned themselves to His person? When will be your last opportunity to hear, perhaps this very sermon will be your last opportunity to hear and to respond to the gospel? There are plenty of religious people who remain unresponsive to the gospel. There are plenty who have remained committed in their works before the Lord but yet have not received the gospel of Jesus Christ and are not members and citizens of His kingdom coming under His rule and authority. They still belong to the city of man to flesh and you can tell because of their pursuits and because of their language and because of their activities. You can tell where their heart is by the way they conduct and live their life and yet when confronted with it they stiffen, the neck becomes more stiff and the heart becomes more hard and instead of receiving Christ they turn Him into their enemy. Isaiah 28, 24, does He who plows for sowing plow continually? Does He continually open and harrow His ground? A door has opened for you. The gospel light shines through but not forever, but not forever. The door remains open but we read in Isaiah 28 concerning the day of the Lord the last day when the door is closed. It will be sheer terror to understand the message. What a sobering fault to know that there will be a day that we will understand the message and if we have not responded to Christ prior to that day then the message will be terror to us. And then we will realize just what it is we have rejected. He's given us the seals of sacraments, the signs and seals of the sacraments to show forth the covenant of grace, His salvation, His guarantee of salvation like my own signature on a letter or on a check or on a contract, the suburb before us serves as an authentication of the gospel of grace. This Christ who has spoken forth the Word and will of God through all of human history, this Christ who has come to people over and over again has visited us again this day by the Spirit of Christ because the scriptures teach us that wherever the Word is taught, wherever the Word is preached and the gospel goes out, the Spirit of Christ goes with it, that it would not return void. And so we cannot say, oh, if I had just been there in the day of Isaiah, I would have responded. We can't say, oh, if I had been with Moses and I had seen the burning bush, well, I would certainly respond if I had a burning bush. We cannot say if I had been with those Jews and I had seen a man raise from the dead and Jesus was telling me about likeness and darkness and being careful of the day in which I live, I would have certainly understood and that would have made it clear and then I would have responded because brothers and sisters today, you have heard all of these things. And the Spirit of Christ working in you makes you to realize the truth of history because Christ is alive and revealing God at this very moment. The Word of God spoke through the prophets, the Word of God spoke through signs, the Word of God spoke in the incarnate man, Jesus Christ, and the Word of God speaks through the Word by the work of the Spirit this very day. He's given us sacraments as signs and seals to be reminded of these things. Let me simply ask you, have you heard the testimony yourself? Have you heard the testimony of Christ? Have you heard the Word preached? Have you heard of the salvation of Christ? Have you seen the signs which are offered? Have you seen the sacraments and been reminded of the cross? Have you been reminded of the salvation offered at Calvary? Have you been reminded of the work of Christ in our midst? And have you received the Lord as your salvation? The salvation that was offered to the Christians and all of human history, wherever there have been a people of God, they have been a people who are people of God because of the revelation of Christ. Scriptures teach us it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Everyone that calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And so as we go from here to explore the sovereignty of God working with the hearts of men to take those who were dead and to make them to see and to leave those who were dead to face the just judicial punishment for their sin as we go into the more theoretical areas of salvation, let us first be reminded that Christ has spoken and our ears have heard, will our hearts remain hardened as stone or will we of people alive in Christ who live to serve and to glorify God in the assembly of His people? Those are the only two roads to go. There are no marginal or halfway Christians. There are only those who belong to Christ and those who belong to the world. There are pretenders, but there are only those who belong to Christ and those who belong to this world.