João 2
Steven Cole · Citado em PreceptAustin
João 2
Cole - Saving faith begins with God by accepting His evaluation of our fallen hearts. The reason that Jesus didn’t entrust Himself to these “believers” was that He knew what was in their hearts. But the implication is that they didn’t know their own hearts. Since this section serves to introduce the interview with Nicodemus, he is an example. He thought that he was a good Jew, but Jesus stunned him by telling him that he needed to be born again. His goodness was not good enough to get him into the kingdom of God. Note two things: A. Only God truly knows the human heart. In 1 Samuel 16:7, the Lord tells Samuel, “For God sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Solomon prays (1 Kings 8:39b), “For You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men.” (Also, see 1 Chron. 28:9; Ps. 139:1-18, 23-24; Jer. 17:10; Heb. 4:13.) So when John tells us that Jesus knew all men and knew what was in man, it is a witness to His deity. Jesus could peer beneath the surface and evaluate the thoughts and motives of hearts (Jn 1:47-48; 4:17-19, 29; 6:15, 64 16:30; 21:17; Luke 16:15). Now, here’s the scary part: B. We need to ask the Lord to reveal His evaluation of our hearts to us. Proverbs 21:2 states, “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the hearts.” Jeremiah 17:9 says, ““The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” When the Lord saves us, He gives us a new heart (2 Cor. 5:17), but the old man or flesh is not eradicated. There still lurks within us the bent to do evil. The problem is, we don’t realize just how powerful and deceptive this monster within really is. That’s why Peter denied the Lord. He thought that he was stronger than he was. In fact, he denied the Lord’s prediction of his denial because he thought he knew more than the Lord did! Later, when the Lord restored Peter with His threefold question, “Do you love Me?” the third time, Peter replied (Jn 21:17), “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” The Lord knows our hearts better than we know our hearts. We have to allow Him to reveal our hearts to us. He does this gradually (thankfully-we couldn’t bear it all at once!) as we read and study God’s Word. The more you see how weak and prone to sin you really are, the more you’ll trust in the Lord to deliver you from temptation and sin. If you’ve never done so, you must ask God to change your heart through the new birth. Christianity is primarily a matter of your heart before God, not of rituals or keeping rules. As you walk openly before the Lord, letting His light shine into the dark places of your heart, you will grow in grace. If you’re hiding some secret sin from others, remember, you aren’t hiding it from the Lord. But you won’t gain the victory over it until you expose it to Him. Until then, you’re just playing games with yourself, because God knows the true condition of your heart. So, we need to be careful because there is such a thing as superficial faith that does not result in salvation. Saving faith begins with accepting God’s evaluation of us on the heart level. 3. Saving faith means having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him as the One who saves you from your sins. Many people make a decision to follow Christ, but that decision is not an indicator of the new birth unless it springs from the right motive, namely, a desire to have our sins forgiven through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. R. V. G. Tasker (The Gospel According to St. John [IVP/Eerdmans], p. 65) wrote, “[Christ] regarded all belief in Him as superficial which does not have as its most essential elements the consciousness of the need for forgiveness and the conviction that He alone is the Mediator of that forgiveness.” So, what does it mean for Jesus to believe in you, or to entrust Himself to you? It has to do with a personal relationship. Trust is at the heart of all relationships. If you don’t trust someone, you will not be close to him. You will keep him at arm’s length, or just cut off all contact. To entrust yourself to someone, you must trust him. For Jesus to entrust Himself to you, He must trust you. But how can He do that in light of our propensity to sin? First, there has to be the new birth where He imparts new life to us through the Holy Spirit. Only then is there anything in us worth trusting. Jesus did not entrust Himself to these superficial believers because He did not see their faith as the work of God stemming from the new birth. Then, we need to walk in obedience to Him. In John 14:21, Jesus states, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” He adds (Jn 14:23), “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” The Lord entrusts Himself to those who obey Him and it is only those who have been born again who are able to obey Him from the heart (Rom. 6:17). Some of the scariest verses in the New Testament are Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” These people professed faith in Jesus. They called Him “Lord.” They were even involved in impressive ministries. But Jesus didn’t know them personally. Their disobedience showed that although they “believed” in Jesus, He didn’t believe in them. At the final judgment, Christ’s evaluation of us will be the determinative factor. (Does Jesus Believe In You?) JESUS KNOWS It’s easy to believe when there is excitement and everyone else seems to believe the same way. But sooner or later the opportunities will come to discover whether our faith is firm when it isn’t popular to follow Christ. It is comforting to know that Jesus sees through our efforts to be more confident or perfect than we really are. In fact, we will not fully appreciate his grace until we recognize that he sees us and knows us exactly as we are, and he loves us anyway. Part of trusting Jesus is acknowledging that he understands us better than we understand ourselves. (LAC)
João 2
Cole commenting on John 2:24 - Jesus never committed Himself to unbelief. (Jesus: True, Yet Rejected) William Hendriksen in Baker NT Commentary: Jesus did not look upon all these individuals as being true believers to whom his cause could be entrusted. The reason why he did not do this was because he knew all men; i.e., knew just what was in the heart of anyone with whom he would come in contact. G Campbell
João 2
Cole - Superficial faith may be the starting point of genuine faith, but the test is whether it perseveres and bears fruit. Believing on the basis of signs (miracles) is better than not believing at all. In John 10:37-38, Jesus tells His Jewish critics, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” But believing because of miracles will not result in salvation unless it is accompanied by repentance. Simon the magician believed, but he had not repented of his pride and love of power over the people. He was not saved. In the parable of the sower, it is only the seed that endures and bears fruit that is genuinely saved. (See, also, Matt. 24:13; Rom. 11:22; 1 Cor. 15:2; Col. 1:23; Heb. 3:12-14; 1 John 2:18-19.) Faith that perseveres sees with growing clarity the glory of Christ and what He did for us on the cross so that it perseveres when trials or persecution hit. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (The Path to True Happiness [Baker], pp. 159-161) points out that there are some who “believe” in Jesus intellectually, but their hearts and their wills have never been touched. They may be scholars, but their knowledge has never changed their lives. Others have their hearts touched, but their minds have not been in operation. In fact, they have been told that they should not try to understand. Often, they have not submitted their wills to Christ. Experience is everything. There is a third group where their Christianity is almost entirely a matter of the will. They don’t bother to understand and they aren’t interested in their feelings. They just want to be doing things to serve God. Lloyd-Jones argues that all three types have superficial faith because they have only picked out what appeals to them and believed in that. They haven’t seen themselves as lost sinners and Christ as the only one who can save them. Their faith is partial, based on what they like about Jesus. But when things don’t go the way that they envisioned, they fall away. Many of us believed in Jesus with a shallow or superficial faith. We trusted Him because we wanted healing or success or something other than salvation from sin. But to go on and develop into genuine saving faith, you have to see yourself as the Bible portrays you and see Christ for who He is.(Does Jesus Believe In You?) Bob Utley on believed in - John primarily combines “believe” with a PREPOSITION (John 2 Commentary) 1. eis means “into.” This unique construction emphasizes believers putting their trust/faith in Jesus a. into His name (John 1:12; 2:23; 3:18; 1 John 5:13) b. into Him (John 2:11; 3:15, 18; 4:39; 6:40; 7:5, 31, 39, 48; 8:30; 9:36; 10:42; 11:45, 48; 12:37, 42) c. into Me (John 6:35; 7:38; 11:25, 26; 12:44, 46; 14:1, 12; 16:9; 17:20) d. into the One He has sent (John 6:28–29) e. into the Son (John 3:36; 9:35; 1 John 5:10) f. into Jesus (John 12:11) g. into Light (John 12:36) h. into God (John 12:44; 14:1) John 2:24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, NET John 2:24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people. GNT John 2:24 αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας NLT John 2:24 But Jesus didn't trust them, because he knew human nature. KJV John 2:24 But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, ESV John 2:24 But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people NIV John 2:24 But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. ASV John 2:24 But Jesus did not trust himself unto them, for that he knew all men, CSB John 2:24 Jesus, however, would not entrust Himself to them, since He knew them all NKJ John 2:24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, NRS John 2:24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people YLT John 2:24 and Jesus himself was not trusting himself to them, because of his knowing all men, NAB John 2:24 But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, NJB John 2:24 but Jesus knew all people and did not trust himself to them; GWN John 2:24 Jesus, however, was wary of these believers. He understood people BBE John 2:24 But Jesus did not have faith in them, because he had knowledge of them all. was not entrusting Himself Joh 6:15 Mt 10:16,17 for He knew all men: Joh 1:42,46,47 5:42 6:64 16:30 21:17 1Sa 16:7 1Ch 28:9 29:17 Jer 17:9 Mt 9:4 Mk 2:8 Ac 1:24 Heb 4:13 Rev 2:23 John 2 Resources - Multiple Sermons and Commentaries SAVIOR SEES FALSE FAITH John 2:24-25 is one sentence in the Greek. But Jesus - Note the striking contrast with those who saw His signs. They may have seen His signs, but He saw their hearts. They saw only the external, but Jesus saw the internal. He saw their faith was fake! Though they believed in Jesus, Jesus did not believe in them --John MacArthur On His part, was not entrusting (pisteuo) Himself to them - These people believed in Jesus, but He did not believe in them! They were “unsaved believers” (Wiersbe's words)! It was one thing to respond to a miracle but quite something else to commit oneself from the heart to Jesus Christ and continue in His Word (Jn 8:30,31, cp Acts 8:13). He knew their hearts and knew their outward faith in Him was only superficial. Enthusiasm for the spectacular was present in them, but Jesus is always looking for genuine faith. See the interesting discussion of Simon the magician's "belief" in [Acts 8:13+] “He had no faith in their faith” -- Godet A T