John Chapter two's set up of three and the set up to four.

As I was as I was getting ready to spend some time in John again this morning I was thinking about what I found out yesterday in a couple of commentaries I read about the end of John 2. Both Don Carson and John Calvin look at Jesus' refusal to trust the crowd's faith as a sign that the faith was fake, it did not lead to salvation. I thought this was skeptical, I wondered how they could know that. There was alternatives in my mind. I was thinking that there individual faith was genuine but Jesus knew that on a corporate level the same would demand his death on the cross later and that is was he did not trust. I checked in with the study notes in the ESV Study Bible (I know these are all Reformed sources but that is my spiritual bent so no apologies.) It made the point that the word for the faith of the people Jesus Lack of faith in them was the same Greek root, (epistos). Basically the author is showing Jesus skepticism in the faith of the people through a word play.

Why would this matter? Because the next chapter, chapter three of the book of John is all about saving faith. “For God so loved the world that whoever [epistos] in him shall not parish but inherit eternal life.” (I typed from memory, so sorry if there was some version switching in there.) What chapter three emphasizes as faith that saves versus faith that is bogus is this one crazy idea. “You MUST be born again.” The acknowledgment that Jesus is Lord is recognized even by his spiritual enemies (book of James said so [don't tell my Lutheran friends I am referencing James]). What is different between those enemies and the converted believer is being born again.

The born again are made into something new. Believing in Jesus is not a convenience that makes their life better only to be discarded when he goes after their idols. Chapter two shows us what faith without being born again looks like chapter three defines saving faith, but Chapter four gives us a clear picture of what happens to people when the Holy Spirit in His sovereignty decides to pluck people out of their collision course with forever death, when he gives the new birth. “Come and see a man who has told me everything I have ever done.” That is all the sermon the woman at the well preaches. And the whole town comes out to see Jesus and is soundly converted.

What about you, are you born again? Does your faith in Jesus ask to follow him into the dangerous, the irrational? Has your walk with God proven to be inconvenient because it exposes your idols? Are you changed, knowing you can never go back? To know if you are here is the simple test, do you desire this? The sinners heart is in bondage to sin, Luther tells us. It can only desire its own death and destruction. The heart made free to follow Jesus, the heart of the born again person desires God. Its opposite desires to be God. Let us hear the plea of the great hymn writer when he says “Let not conscience make you linger, or of fitness fondly dream. The only fitness he requireth is that you feel your need of him.”

Sola Deo Gloria!