Unbelief (John 7:1–13) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

0:01 Our Scripture this morning is from the seventh chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, reading verse 1 through verse 13. Hear now the Word of God. After these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. And His brothers therefore said to Him, Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. And if You do these things, show Yourself to the world. For even his brothers did not believe in him.

1:03 Jesus said to them, My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me, because I testify of it that its works are evil. go up to the feast, I am not yet going up to the feast, for my time has not yet fully come. And when He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee. But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were, in secret. And then the Jews sought Him at the feast and said, Where is He? And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, He is good.

1:57 Others said, No, on the contrary, He deceives the people. However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews. He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let them hear it. Let us pray. Father, now condescend to our weakness by the help of Your Holy Spirit who inspired this text in the first place, that we may be gripped by the revelation that is contained within it. For we ask it in Your name. Amen. You may be seated. It seems like every Saturday night I say to Vesta, you might as well be prepared, I don't have a good sermon prepared for tomorrow morning.

2:52 She says, you always say that. And I say, I always feel that way. And then I said, you know, one of the principles I teach in the seminary to students who are learning how to do this, I said, when you come to the text of Scripture before you decide what to preach, look for the drama. Because in every passage of the Bible that God the Holy Spirit inspires, there is drama. And I have to confess to you, I struggled a bit with this text this morning, searching for the drama, which seems almost like a travelogue about where Jesus was going to go, whether He was going to be in Galilee or whether He was going to go down to Judea for the feasts and so on.

3:44 But as I thought about this text, read about this text, I found this to be one of the most troubling texts that I've ever found in the New Testament because of one small phrase that is contained with it. And that phrase is this. It's a parenthetical comment added by John to the narrative in verse 5, for even his His brothers did not believe in Him. I want to think briefly with you about that comment from the Word of God, that at this juncture in the life of Jesus, in the ministry of our Lord, it wasn't just that many of His disciples as we have read in recent weeks departed from Him and walked with Him no more after the bread of life discourse, but now we are told that even His brothers at this point were unbelievers.

4:56 Now there are those who argue historically that Mary was a virgin perpetually and only had one son, Jesus, and had no more children after Him, but the text clearly teaches here and elsewhere that Jesus had younger brothers, one of the most important of which was James the Just, who was the author of the epistle James in the New Testament. And in his testimony we discover that James did not become a Christian, a believer in his older brother until after he was an eyewitness of his brother's resurrection. This is an amazing thing to grow up in the home of Jesus and to follow His earthly ministry up to this point, and even though it's only the seventh chapter of John's gospel, we are really approaching the end of the life of Jesus.

5:59 I told you when we started this study of John that two-thirds of this book is devoted to the last week of Jesus' life. And so Jesus is already approaching the cross, and still members from His own family are not believers. But when we read the beginning of this text, it sure sounds like they're believers. Listen again to what it says. After these things Jesus walked in Galilee. He didn't want to walk in Judea. He knew that the Jews in Judea and the southern kingdom there in Jerusalem were plotting to kill Him. And so He was staying up north in Galilee. But it was time for the Jewish Feast of the Tabernacles, and that required that all Jews from all parts of the nation make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of the Tabernacles.

7:01 So obviously it was Jesus' responsibility under the law to come to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Tabernacles. But the brothers of Jesus come to Him and said, let's leave now, depart from here, go Go to Judea, that your disciples also," that is, your disciples down in Judea, may also see these works that you are doing. For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. See, the brothers are the managers, the self-appointed managers of Jesus' political campaign. You're never going to get anywhere up here in Galilee if you want to be king, if you want to be the Messiah, you're going to have to go down to Jerusalem and do your stuff down there in Jerusalem and not hide your lamp under a bushel.

8:04 You want a public ministry? You want public acclamation? Then you can't operate in the obscurity of Galilee. You must needs go to the public headquarters in Jerusalem. Doesn't this remind you of what happened earlier on the occasion of the first miracle of Jesus at the wedding feast of Cana when in the midst of the embarrassment of the host, Jesus' mother, His own mother, comes to Him and said, you know, do something. The steward's embarrassed. Go do your stuff here. And He has to rebuke His mother. Woman, what are you to Me? My hour has not yet come. And then no sooner does He rebuke her for that, but He goes and does it and performs the miracle that saves the host from His embarrassment.

9:01 Well, the same kind of thing happens here. He tells the disciples, you know, I'll determine when I come to Jerusalem. You guys run ahead. My hour has not yet come. Your hour is here every minute. The world doesn't hate you. They can't hate you. But they hate me because I bear witness to their evil. So, He implies He's not coming. But then no sooner did they leave, but we read in verse 10, but when the brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, but not openly, but as it were, in secret. And all the buzzing takes place, you know, the people come around and they say, where is He?

9:58 Is He hiding? Is He a good man? Is He a devious man? And they were afraid to speak openly for fear they would get in trouble. But I want us to come back to this verse, that even though the brothers of Jesus are imploring Him and counseling Him to go down to Jerusalem that He might make Himself known there They're not even believers. They're doing the same thing that the other disciples had done. They're doing the same thing the rest of the multitudes had done. They're following Jesus for the bread that He provides, for the hope that they have in their hearts that He will deliver them from the oppressive yoke of Roman bondage, because their understanding of His mission is completely distorted. They don't know who He is, and the trust that they have in Jesus is a false trust.

11:01 They are not believing in Him in a saving way. because they're expectations of Jesus. were not at all what he was about. Now, here's why I say that text is troubling. These were people that were with Jesus during His earthly ministry, watching Him day after day. They were His blood brothers. and they thought they knew Him. They thought they were on His team. They were rooting for Him to go to Jerusalem to manifest His power, but they were still unbelievers outside the kingdom of God. Now, when people come to me and ask urgent questions, visceral questions about the state of their souls, and they'll say to me, R.C., how can I know that I am saved? How can I know that my faith and my profession of faith, that they are genuine? And I've gone over this with you. I ask them three simple questions.

12:25 I'll say to them, do you love Christ perfectly? And they always say no, because if they did, they wouldn't sin at all. I say, well, okay, then do you love Christ as much as you ought to love Him? Well, if the answer to the first question is no, the answer to the second question has to also be no, because we ought to love Him perfectly. And I say, okay, now they're getting nervous. And I say, now here's the third question, the most important question. Do you love Him at all? And usually they will say, well, yes, I do. I have some affection for Christ. And I say, that's wonderful. I said, but remember that in your natural state, in your fallen human condition, you have no capacity whatsoever in the flesh to have affection for Jesus. If you have any real affection in your heart for Jesus, that's proof positive that you are a converted person. And so you can enjoy the assurance of your salvation, but with one major warning.

13:32 When I ask you, do you love Jesus at all, I have to add this qualifier. Do you love the biblical Christ? I remember in graduate school there was a very important theological work that was issued by a radical, critical theologian, and it was titled, Jesus Means Freedom. And what this theologian was saying was, we can't know anything about the historical Jesus. He may not even have existed for all we know. But the word or the name Jesus has become a symbol of human liberation from any form of oppression.

14:25 So if you believe in liberation of people from political oppression, then you believe in Jesus. We saw this in the 19th century where the 19th century liberals transformed Jesus into merely an ethical teacher. And they said, do you believe in Jesus? They say, yes, I believe in Jesus. great moral teacher. With the advent of existential theology, they would say, yeah, I believe in Jesus. Jesus is a great existential example. But the mere ethical Jesus, the Jesus who's the symbol of liberation, and the Jesus who's the existential paradigm, none of those Jesus is the real Jesus. If you would have asked Jesus' brothers, do you believe in your brother? They would have said, of course. We just can't get Him to go to Jerusalem and do His stuff like we're trying to get Him to do and go public.

15:24 But the Word of God says they were unbelievers. And so that's why we have to ask ourselves the question all the time, is the Jesus we believe in, the real Jesus. Do you know how important I think doctrine is and truth is and the biblical ethic and all of that? All of those things are important. But bottom line, dear friends, what Christianity is all about is Jesus. It's all about Jesus. and the reason why I'm standing here this morning is Jesus, and the reason I trust you're sitting there this morning is that it's about Jesus. but we have to have in our understanding the real Jesus. the Jesus who cloaks His glory in humiliation, the Jesus who exchanges the glory He had in the beginning with the Father for His humiliation, for the disgrace of the cross.

16:40 the Jesus who is despised and rejected of men what kind of expectations do you come with to Jesus? This morning He has spread His table for us. And this I am confident of. That this morning we're about to meet the real Jesus. and it is the real Jesus who promises to be really with us in the celebration of the Lord's Supper. So whatever other ideas you've had of Jesus in the past, if they don't correspond to the biblical portrait of Jesus, lay them aside and come to this table and meet the real Jesus, because the real Jesus will give you real forgiveness if you come with a broken and a contrite heart, because that's what we need. We need the real Jesus. Anything less than the real Jesus will leave us disappointed. I can say this before God and before you as witnesses, that in my whole life, Jesus has never disappointed me.

18:08 I've never met a human being who hasn't disappointed me. But never has He disappointed me. but we disappoint Him when we bring expectations to Him that are not part of His agenda. We become just like His unbelieving brothers, who only look to Him for what we can get, and for worldly power and worldly success. I heard a preacher the other day talking about, you know, the prosperity gospel, the name it and claim it. Blab it and grab it, he called. You bring your expectation, and like magic, Jesus gives it to you. No, the only thing I can guarantee you, He'll give you. is forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation with the Father and eternal life.

19:14 If that isn't enough, I can't imagine what else you could ask for. So I remind you that in the night in which our Lord was betrayed, He met with His disciples in the upper room that had been prepared for Him, and He took bread, and when He had blessed it, He broke it, saying, this is My body, broken for you. And after they had eaten, He took the cup, and He said, now this is the cup of the new covenant in My blood for the remission of your sins. Drink ye all of it. And in His name, I invite every single person here who is a true Christian, who has examined themselves, who is not under the discipline of an evangelical church, one who comes not in pride, but who comes in a spirit of humility to come to this table to visit Him.

20:15 because He's here. If this were a symbol only, a memorial only, an empty and nude sign, as far as I'm concerned, it would be a Herculean waste of our time to attend to this table. But we come here not only to remember Him, not only to honor Him, but we come to meet Him in His resurrected power and glory. And so I bid you, come, for He will descend from heaven to meet you at this point. Let us pray. our Father and our God we pray that our faith may stand the trial of fire,

21:14 that our faith may indeed be a pure trust in the real Christ, who really has redeemed us. Prepare us now to feast upon Him, for we ask it in His name.