Signs and Belief - 2

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. (John 2:23)

One thing is becoming more and more crystal clear for me. It is something that would have glazed my eyes over a few years ago but now is at the center of my attention. But it is something that has to be perceived much more with the heart understanding than with an intellectual assent only. Otherwise it just becomes another opinion, an assertion that can be debated, questioned, analyzed and discounted.

But as my heart has begun to awaken under the warm glow of the incubation light of God's love and it begins to peck at the very thick, hard shell surrounding it to break out into freedom, I am coming to understand that there is really only one issue that is really important in all of life. This one crucial issue is the hub around which every other problem, proposition and belief revolves if they are to be perceived in the light of true reality.

This is the central issue that explains everything else I have ever attempted to understand. It is the fact of reality that it is God's reputation and character that has been assaulted, maligned, misrepresented and blackened by every means possible. As a result, the whole struggle that we are caught up in, the battle over our souls totally revolves around our own opinions about who God really is, how He feels towards us and how He treats us both past, present and future.

When I take everything else and place it into this context it suddenly becomes much clearer and easier to know how to relate to them. Much of the confusion that has clouded my understanding all of my life dissipates like low fog in the hot morning sun as I focus on how to relate every issue to this one central theme. As I apply this principle of defining reality to everything I view like a clarifying corrective lens over my eyes, things then begin to become distinct and sharp and make so much more sense.

From this perspective I now see this verse as pointing me to this fundamental principle. John, more than any other disciple, finally got a rather clear picture of the real issues, the grander scale of the struggle going on in the universe and thus was able to more clearly spell out plainly what we need to understand about reality and why Jesus came to this earth. Every book that John wrote has profound insights that are clearer than anything else found in the Bible or anywhere else. John was so clear-headed about this that Jesus entrusted him with the amazing insights and grand perceptions that can be found in the book of Revelation.

I spent most of my life puzzled about this insistence in the Bible on my need to “believe”. But over the past few years and increasingly even over the past few days, it is becoming more and more clear what this really means for me and what I need to understand about this word. This is because the whole concept of a “name” in the Bible was intrinsically tied up with the identity and character and personality of an individual. A name in biblical context was not simply a label slapped on to a human in order to be able to call them something different than everyone around them. A name was associated with who they were. Thus, anytime the Bible talks about a name it almost always has a much deeper significance than just a label attached to them artificially.

This is never more true than when it comes to our perceptions about God. This repeated reference in the gospels to belief in Jesus goes far beyond the shallow ideas floated around in popular religion today. It goes straight to the heart of what it is that we really believe at our deepest gut-level about God, far deeper than simply the nice-sounding professions we mouth or even the tirades that we may spout at Him in our ignorance and profanity.

I say this because I know people who apparently have wanted nothing to do with God or religion because of damaging experiences they have had throughout their life with religious people misrepresenting God. On the surface they seemed like people who are irreligious, profane, vulgar and hostile toward God. But I have at the same time seen past that coarse exterior to perceive an honesty, a hunger, an openness of heart of which even they were completely oblivious.

But even as I write these words one of these very people is suddenly opening up as they are exposed to the real truths about God that were never seen before. And as I share with them the incredible beauty and attractiveness and clarity of the real God that could never before be found in religion, this person is opening up quickly like a flower drinking in the light and warmth of the sun, like a parched sponge beginning to soften and absorb the freshness of the presence of new water. I myself am stunned as I am watching God melt away the lies, the prejudice and the misconceptions and begin to warm their damaged heart and introduce healing love and truth that is breathing new life and hope into their soul.

This verse also alerts me to one of the most important ways that God uses to change our opinions about Him (which is the real definition of belief). This happened in Jesus' day by people observing the signs which He was doing. That also tells me that this thing about understanding the real meaning of what a sign is has to be directly linked to inspiring belief in the real truth about God. And one of the most important ways this is going to happen is through the living example of a life filled with the same Spirit that compelled the life of Jesus.

This takes me directly back to one of the basic concepts of how we as Christians are to fit into this whole scene. Instead of thinking we are the focal point of the battle going on we need to realize that we are called to be witnesses. We are not the ones that the trial is all about – that is focused entirely on God and the allegations against His character. We have all been solicited to be character references for God in His trial in order to vindicate His reputation. This was the sole purpose of Jesus coming to this earth and is also to be the sole purpose of every true follower of Jesus.

We need to get away from the ego-centric thinking of salvation revolving around getting us into heaven and instead, putting everything into the context of God as the focal point in this great battle taking place in His trial. When we begin caring more about God's reputation instead of thinking about ours, then we will begin to get aligned with the real purpose for which we exist on this earth. Everything is going to make much more sense when we get a proper understanding of our true position in relationship to God and to everyone around us.

How can I encourage more belief to grow in my own heart? According to this verse that is very likely going to happen as I too focus and observe on the signs that are to be found in the way Jesus acted and how He treated people. That is the reason that I decided to do a more careful and thoughtful examination of this book. The main reason that He came to live on earth as a human was to demonstrate in our vernacular, in ways that we could relate to, how God really feels about us and wants to relate to every one of us. If we want to know the real truth about what God is really like, we must always find it first and primarily in the life and teachings and example of Jesus. Any other approach is bound to cause confusion and create potential for false ideas about Him to be perpetuated.

Father, I want to experience much deeper what it really means and feels like to truly believe in you and in your Son Jesus. I want to know what you mean when you talk about “signs” in these passages. And even more, I want to have those signs have their intended effect on me at the heart level. Fill me with fresh revelations about who you really are and the real truth about your attitudes towards me. For this is all about your reputation that is on trial. Fulfill your word and your promises in me so that my life will become an authentic witness to the truthfulness of your claims to be able to turn rebellious sinners into joyful, humble saints. Do that in me and I trust you to do it completely because you are always faithful.

Signs and Belief

So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken. Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. (John 2:22-23)

I know that I seem to jump around a bit at times in my study, but that is part of discovering hidden links and insights. I continuously move back and forth as I meditate on passages to see connections and clues both back and forward from what I am looking at to see how it all fits together. As I do so, I often perceive something rather compelling in previous verses that I hadn't noticed so much before and want to take the time to follow that trail to see what exciting place it might take me.

It is very obvious to me that this chapter, in fact the whole book for that matter, seems very intent on talking about several words repeatedly. What I am seeing here is a focus on three words in particular:

Signs

Authority

Belief.

I also sense that I really don't have a very good conceptual grasp of how important any of these words are. That is much of the reason I have decided to focus intently on the book of John for awhile. I believe that this focus will greatly enhance my relationship with God and my understanding of His ways and His feelings about me personally. Because of this desire I want to have a much deeper sense of why these words keep coming up so often. Since John more than any other disciple had the kind of intimacy with Jesus that I want to have, if I can begin to pick up on what he is trying to tell me about Jesus maybe I can begin to enjoy more intimacy like he had with Jesus for myself.

In this first verse I see John referring to the metamorphosis that most of the disciples experienced after the resurrection of Jesus in their perceptions about what is really real, about the much bigger picture of reality and the truth about God than what they were used to thinking about. As a result of their spiritual blindness being opened to see reality completely differently through the new revelations about God in the life of Jesus, they were infused with an irrepressible enthusiasm to share with everyone possible the incredible good news about God as revealed through Jesus His Son. I want that experience for myself as well.

What I notice in this verse is that John differentiates between believing the Word of God in the Bible and believing the words that had come directly from Jesus Himself. I find that interesting and instructive and want to know more about why he said this.

I believe that God intends for us to have more than one source of truth to help us to define what real reality is just as the disciples did in those early days of the New Testament church. Jesus promised that when He left the Holy Spirit would take His place in sharing with everyone who was willing to listen, words directly from Jesus for them personally. But this role of the Spirit in no way diminishes the importance and validity of our need to depend on the Scriptures as an objective check by which to test the message from every spirit including the Holy Spirit. Otherwise people will be very susceptible to being deceived by counterfeit spirits pretending to be God's Spirit and sounding religiously correct while misleading us away from real truth.

What I like here is the fact that saving belief will come from using both of these sources to hear the truth about God and about reality. But then the question that I have been posing for most of my life comes back up for reexamination again – what exactly is it that I am supposed to believe? This is a most crucial question to understand or else I am still very open to being deceived even while trying to find truth from the Bible and listening to impressions that I feel inside of my head.

I really don't want to spend a lot of time and energy reviewing all the things that have confused me most of my life about this issue. I have covered them many times and I am now more inclined to focus on what God has made clear to me as real truth so that I can make more progress instead of reviewing all the things that kept me confused all my life. What I am clearly beginning to see recently is that the core belief that all of us must come to grips with is the ideas we have about what God is really like and how He feels toward us and treats us.

As I look again at these verses that becomes even more evident in the very next verse. When it says that many believed in His name, the real significance of the word name in the Bible relates to what someone is like, their personality and character. What is becoming crystal clear to me is that the sole purpose that Jesus came to this earth was to change our opinions about what God is like. Everything He said, did and communicated in every way was designed solely to change our perceptions about His Father.

Now as I think about this I realize that this is directly linked to the issue about authority. If Jesus came to challenge and wrest control of this world away from Satan through the sacrifice of Himself on the cross as a human, then it is crucial that we come to believe in both the truth about the character of God and properly understand the actions that He has carried out to demonstrate His unconditional love toward us. For it is only as we come to believe in the real nature of the love that God has for us will we ever be willing to properly live under His authority without feeling resistant to it.

Submission to authority without first being filled with love and gratitude always leads to legalism and counterfeit obedience.

This then ties back into helping me have more clues about this concept of what the word signs means as used by John so frequently. I still want to clarify what he really is trying to get across about this word though, because I still don't think I have a good grasp on the real significance of this concept, especially at the heart level. I intend to keep this very much in mind as I go through this book over the next several months. I want to have a much clearer grasp of what the Word and the Spirit has for me and see how they can help me to believe even more deeply from the heart as happened to those who first encountered it.

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.