So often we think that unbelief is due to lack of evidence. When discussing with our friends who are not Christians, we often think if we marshall enough evidence about the reliability of the Bible, the resurrection from the dead, and the miracles of Jesus, we will persuade them. Similarly, we often hear people say “I’d believe in God if he revealed himself to me,” or “I’d believe if I saw a miracle.” Our passage from John challenges this idea.
Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, and many people have put their faith in him. So the chief priests and the Pharisees call a meeting of the Sanhedrin:
“"What are we accomplishing?" they asked. "Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." ” (John 11:47-48)
Here, more evidence of Jesus’ power and authority –and hence identity as the Son of God – does not lead to greater faith, but to greater hostility. We should notice that there is no doubting the miracles – Jesus’ opponenents were persuaded that the miracles really happened. But as they understood more and more of Jesus’ authority and identity, they understood more and more what a threat he was to them: “everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” (John 11:48)
Perhaps they believed that Jesus was indeed the long-promised Messiah – but like the rest of the people thought of God’s King only in political terms: someone who would challenge the rule of the Romans. Whatever they actually thought of Jesus, their concern was that a popular uprising following Jesus would lead the Romans to clamp down on the Jews – taking away the temple (our “place”) and ending the semi-autonomy of the Jewish “nation.”
The repeated use of “our” shows something of the motivation here. The chief priests and Pharisees are not concerned about the well-being of the Jewish people – they are concerned about their own power and prestige. They are the ones in charge of the temple (and in a sense the “nation”) and they are desperate not to lose this.
(There is an irony here: if Jesus is indeed who he claims to be (as backed up by the miraculous signs) then he is the one who has authority over the temple and the nation, not the Romans.)
What does this passage tell us about unbelief, and rejection of Jesus?
It shows that for this group of people, more evidence did not increase their faith ,it increased their rejection of Jesus. In particular, the more they understood about who Jesus really was, the more they realised that he would challenge their own autonomy – their desire to be in charge of themselves and others.
This attitude isn’t restricted to the chief priests and Pharisees then; it is the default setting of the human heart. All of us, when we see who Jesus really is, rebel against him as we don’t want to lose control of our lives.
Kings don’t really mind much when a peasant claims he should be king – but has no credentials to back it up. But if someone can prove they have a better claim to the crown than the man who is currently king… that is when people start being locked up in towers, or killed in their beds.
We are all naturally kings – on the throne in our own lives, ruling ourselves and doing what we think best. (Some of us are fairly moral kings of our own lives, others very immoral kings.) But when we are confronted with Jesus, we see that he has a claim to be king of our life, instead of us. The more we understand of who he is (and in particular the more we understand that his claims are real claims that can be backed up), the more we naturally resist him. For those of us who are Christians, it is only God’s spirit opening our eyes and softening our hearts that has led us to bow the knee before him, and enthone him in our lives.
So we must beware thinking that if we give enough evidence, people will turn to Jesus. More evidence will lead many to resist Jesus more strongly. We should also gently challenge the claim that “if God revealed himself to me I’d believe,” or “if God did a miracle I’d believe.” As Jesus said: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)
We must remember that unbelief is not just a question of lack of information. It is a spiritual issue. To put it another way, there is no such thing as a purely “intellectual” objection to Jesus. There is always a moral component to it.
This should mean we are more prayerful as we talk to our friends and family about Jesus – knowing that they need the Holy Spirit to be at work within them. It should also lead us to praise God for saving us – for his remarkable act of new creation:
“For God, who said “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ!”” (2 Cor 4:6)
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