“But despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him. This is exactly what Isaiah the prophet had predicted: “ Lord , who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?”
John 12:37-38
The book of John is all about signs or miracles. Its very important to John to point out all the miracles Jesus did and all the opportunities to prove Himself to be God. This is one of the main themes of the book.
These verses, however, tell us that despite this fact, most people did not accept Him as the Messiah–the failed to BELIEVE! (“believe” is another key word/theme of John.)
John, now looking back as he writes, doesn’t find this fact to be strange-he actually finds it to be predictable! Isaiah (in chapters 12 & 63) had actually prophesied that Jesus wouldn’t be believed. He, in fact, remarked that they COULDN’T believe because God that allowed them to be given over to their traditions and their desires for the status quo (vss 39-40 & Rom 1:28).
So Jesus had shown up big and, had healed many of them, cast demons out of many of them and provided for them the Way to God (John 14:6) and had been Light for them (John 8:12), yet they still didn’t believe!
“Despite all the miracles, MOST didn’t believe . . ”
There’s good news here, though–were there’s a “most”, there’s also a “some”! The small “some” who did embrace Jesus as their Messiah, were present in the upperstairs room on the day of Pentecost that same year when the Holy Spirit and His power was unleashed upon the young church, empowering them to do the very acts of Jesus. 3,000 people were saved that day as Peter, the guy who a few days earlier was guilty of renouncing even knowing Jesus as He was being crucified (Acts 2) By week’s end, its estemated that 20,000 people had been saved in Jerusalem alone! As Christianity began to be persecuted, believers fled Jerusalem and Christianity spread like wildfire, so much so that some 15 chapters (in Acts) later, this small group of “some” believers were said to have “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:5)!
NEVER underestimate the power of SOME, who believe and who are filled with the Holy Spirit!
Think about it!
Leave a Reply