Knowing But Not Trusting

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man. (John 2:23-25)

I am having questions about the deeper meaning of these verses. I sense that there is much more than meets the eye at first or even second reading. I have pondered these verses before and have puzzled over the seemingly cryptic way that this is written and wondered why it almost seems out of place. I know that whenever I come across something like this that just doesn't seem to obviously fit in where it is placed, that upon deeper examination there is always some incredibly profound insights to be discovered and experienced.

I do remember several years ago when I first looked at this right after beginning the practice of inductive study that I noticed its close connection with the following verses. It was not originally written with any chapter separations, those breaks very often causing a lot of problems seeing the unbroken flow of an idea in many passages. I have tried to practice the habit of ignoring the chapter breaks and even verse divisions as much as possible to try to perceive more readily the original flow of thoughts that got artificially chopped into pieces inadvertently by the translators. This has been very beneficial and enlightening for me many times.

I began to see that this was maybe a preface for the following story about Jesus and Nicodemus. It is letting us know ahead of time that Nicodemus was not able to affect the opinions or feelings of Jesus with his flattering or confusing words because Jesus knew what was inside of him. Jesus was always ready to discern sincere hearts even when masked behind words that didn't necessarily reflect that and He always was far more interested in going straight to the heart of a person and their situation than He was in following someone's lead in trying to steer the conversation in typical social or religious directions. Jesus came to reveal the secret thoughts of the heart according to the prophecy of Simon when He was a baby, and that is what He did much of the time.

But even beyond the fact that this is a very good preface to the story of Nicodemus, I sense that this insight is only the tip of the iceberg. I am praying for much deeper understanding of these words because I believe they will have a powerful impact on me personally when I see the deeper significance of whatever is hiding here.

Right now the only thing that seems to be in my mind as a clue to possibly follow is a concept connected to what I explored earlier about the bigger context of the answer Jesus gave to the Jews in the previous verses. What is really being addressed here is the power struggle over who was going to be in authority over this planet. Satan was becoming enraged that Jesus was defying and challenging his position as authorized ruler of this world. But Jesus was unflinching in His assertion that that Satan's rulership was at an end. Then right on the heels of this discussion comes this passage about knowing what is in all men but never entrusting himself to any human.

There is another clue that seems to be part of this mix as well. That is the repetition of the idea of signs which is always closely linked to people believing on Jesus. Just laying these various pieces out for examination is already beginning to give me more clues as to how they possibly begin to fit together more significantly.