Calvary Road Baptist Church
“CHRIST HONORED BY SOME OF THE CHIEF RULERS”
John 12.42-43
From John 12.1 through verse 41, we have been blessed with the evangelist’s record of five insightful and exemplary accounts of the Lord Jesus Christ being honored. In several of those accounts the Savior first honored those who honored Him, by granting them audiences and graciously spending time with them. This happened with Mary.[1] This happened with the multitudes on the occasion of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem.[2] This happened when He received the Greek-speaking Gentiles.[3] And this happened in Isaiah chapter six when, seven centuries before His incarnation, He granted an audience to Isaiah, who saw Him high and lifted up.[4]
Each of those accounts also showed the Lord Jesus Christ being honored in turn, as well as when the Savior prayed to His Father in Jerusalem in front of multitudes and was answered in an audible voice.[5] The challenge for us after considering these five accounts that record the Lord being honored is to presume every occasion of our Lord Jesus Christ being honored will rise to the level of the accounts John has presented thus far.
Sadly, that is not to be. We live in a fallen world among fallen men and women. And though the first five examples of the Savior being honored are incredible and stimulating to the child of God, we arrive at a passage in John’s record that shows very lackluster performances by those with stellar training and reputations. I speak of the chief priests, those of the Aaronic priesthood, whose positions were held by inheritance.
In John 12.42-43, prepare to be disappointed, for disappointment is what we will experience as we first read and then reflect on the conduct of highly placed men who should have known better and done better:
42 Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:
43 For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.
While it is true that some honor was given to our Lord Jesus Christ by these religious rulers since a number of them believed on Him, were convinced that He was sent of God, and received His doctrine as divine, they did not show Him proper honor. They did not exhibit appropriate respect. It did not cost them.
The passage before us shows men of power and prestige who seemed to have drawn the right conclusions from the evidence available to them about the Savior, which is the essence of faith. But their faith did not rise to the level of conviction, and therefore they had not the courage of conviction.
There may be some here today who fall into the same category as those we will study about. Not that we have any chief priests in the auditorium today, but perhaps we have among us some who may be persuaded about the Savior to be intellectually convinced of His identity. But there is no profession, no public identification, no courage born of personal conviction about Him. There is no skin in the game, to borrow a phrase from the business world regarding those who think something is a good idea, but they have no investment in the venture.
We have two verses before us for consideration, but there are three things for us to ponder; the description of the chief rulers, the description of the Pharisees they were themselves afraid of, and the dynamic that was at work to so poorly honor the Lord Jesus Christ:
First, THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CHIEF RULERS
It is likely that the evangelist is referring to the Jewish Sanhedrin when he uses the Greek word translated “chief rulers.” Though there is no consensus among scholars concerning the composition of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem during our Lord’s earthly ministry, it completely ceased to exist when the Romans leveled Jerusalem in 70 AD.[6]
It is very likely that the Sanhedrin was mostly comprised of both high ranking priests of the party known as Sadducees and some religious zealots belonging to the sect known as the Pharisees.[7] Nicodemus was a Pharisee if you recall.[8] That being the case, the natural animosity existing between the two groups deserves some mention. Those in the priesthood occupied inherited positions as direct descendants of the first high priest, Moses’ brother Aaron. John the Baptist’s father, Zecharias, was such a man.[9]
Anyone who was an Aaronic priest would be almost immune from any prosecution related to his official Mosaic Law positions, except for crimes of blasphemy and serious moral offenses. However, these men were vulnerable in their synagogues and social circles. The religious establishment was so strongly opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ that any inclination to speak or act favorably toward Him would certainly be met with hostility.
Is it not ironic that, with the chief priests occupying almost unassailable positions in their priestly offices, and with most of them being Sadducees who denied the resurrection, their belief in Christ was squelched by Pharisees?[10] The wonder is that those who had nothing to fear were so afraid of others’ opinions about them that there is no record in Scripture of any Sadducee being saved, while a number of the Lord’s most strident opponents, Pharisees, did come to saving faith in Him.[11] The Apostle Paul, himself, had been a Pharisee.[12]
Next, THE DESCRIPTION OF THE PHARISEES
Pharisees are not mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament. They did not even exist before the Babylonian captivity. Though it is likely there were no more than 6,000 Pharisees in our Lord’s day, they were a strict sect of influential religionists who rose up after the first Temple was destroyed, and who took pride in their legal purity and possession of traditional lore, with all that it involved.[13] This despite the fact that Pharisees held no official status under the Mosaic Law.
The dispersion of the Jews by the Babylonian captivity six centuries before Christ was a more complex phenomenon than many of our day realize, with Jews moving not only to the East and Babylon, but also to the West, taking up residence in the cities of Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Antioch, and others. The Pharisees were linked by language and association with those who had been taken to the East and were openly hostile to the Greek-speaking Jews who had settled to the West, who not only spoke Greek but who had been influenced by Greek thought. This prejudice, you might remember, was carried into the lives of new Christians in Jerusalem and spilled over into the Jerusalem Church, as can be seen in Acts 6.1 when Greek-speaking widows were discriminated against in favor of Hebrew-speaking widows. Sometimes grace takes time to address problems of discrimination and prejudice.
The beliefs and practices of the Pharisees are interesting. They were meticulous about keeping the Law, to the point of being quite hypocritical about it (since no one can consistently keep any law). They were also keen students of Scripture, though eventually coming to place more weight on the opinions of their religious teachers than the teachings of God’s Word. And they strongly believed in both tithing and the resurrection, our Lord even commending them for that.[14] Thus, they were caught in the conundrum of seeking to honor the God of Israel while refusing to honor the Son of God.[15]
The Lord’s strong denunciations of them centered on them omitting “the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith,” as well as their hypocrisy, and, of course, their unwillingness to honor Him while conspiring with the Sadducees and Herodians to oppose Him and seek His death.
Third, THE DYNAMIC THAT WAS AT WORK TO SO POORLY HONOR THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
Consider two things as we reflect on the situation John presents to us by taking an overview:
First, the power of the Word. Attend, with me, to the power of the Word in the convictions that many of the chief priests seem to have held. Our text suggests there were many highly placed men who did not wilfully shut their eyes to the light of truth and the evidence pointing to Christ as God’s answer to the heart’s cry. Like Nicodemus, it seems they believed on Him and received Him as a teacher come from God. This might suggest to us that the truth of the Gospel has more credibility in the consciences of some than we are aware of. Many people inwardly acknowledge the truth, though they are reluctant for whatever reason to openly admit what they inwardly accept to be true. Of course, time is the revealer of this kind of secret, because faith eventually displays itself, such as when Paul declared,
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek,”
in Romans 1.16. Faith that might not be immediately courageous is, if it is genuine, eventually courageous. Perhaps these chief rulers were true believers, though very weak, and their faith was like the smoking flax Matthew referred to in Matthew 12.20, where he rehearsed the prophet, Isaiah:
“A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench.”[16]
Small embers of faith will grow in size and intensity if they are genuine. As an aside, remember when Elijah thought he was left all alone as the only one faithful to God, while there, in fact, remained seven thousand faithful worshippers in Israel that were unknown to him?[17] Some people are better than they seem to be, though the prophet might have conducted himself differently had he been aware of their existence. What do we learn about the power of the Word? Evidence of the power of the Word of God in a person’s life is not always immediately detectable.
Next, the power of the world in the smothering of their private convictions. Our text declares many of the chief rulers believed on Christ, but because of the Pharisees, who had it in their power to publicly oppose them and subject them to ridicule, they did not openly confess Him. Observe here, their failure and their defect. They did not confess Christ. There is legitimate cause to question the sincerity of anyone’s faith which is either afraid or ashamed to show himself. Those who believe with the heart ought to confess with the mouth, Romans 10.9:
“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”
What those believing men feared was their possible excommunication from their synagogues, which they thought would be a disgrace and damaging to them. Or perhaps ostracism by their neighbors and families would result. But what harm had actually been done to the man born blind the Lord healed when he was expelled from the synagogue? Would it do anyone harm to be expelled from a synagogue that had made itself a synagogue of Satan? Or to be shunned by people who themselves were rushing headlong to perdition? What was at the bottom of their fear? They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. They chose men’s approval as being more valuable, and pursued it more than the blessing of God. Of course, that is idolatry, Romans 1.25, worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator.
They considered these two options and proceeded accordingly. They set the praise of men on one side of the balance and considered how good it was to defer to the opinion of the Pharisees. On the other side of the scale they put the praise of God. They seemed to recognize that by confessing Christ they would both give praise to God, and have praise from God and that He would be pleased with them, and say, “Well done.” But they preferred the praise of men, and this tipped the scale. Sight prevailed above faith and represented it as more desirable to stand right in the opinion of the Pharisees than to be accepted of God. Love of the praise of men can be a very strong motive related to the power and practice of religion and godliness. Many come short of the glory of God by having too high a regard for the approval of people. Loving the praise of others can make someone a hypocrite when a display of religion is in fashion, and some social credit is to be gained by it. As well, love of the praise of others can make someone an apostate when the display of religion comes to be viewed negatively by the world.
Why do you think the Apostle John was led by the Spirit of God to include these two verses in his series of accounts showing different individuals honoring the Lord Jesus Christ, culminating with my Lord being honored by His heavenly Father with an audible voice? Is it not a display of irony?
On the one hand, you have the chief rulers, many of them priests, whose entire lives were given over to various Mosaic Law rituals, and that displayed every day prescribed patterns of honor acted out in the ceremonial worship of God. If you had asked any of them if honoring God was important, they would have been shocked that the question was even asked of them. Of course, honoring God is important. Displaying respect and reverence toward the God of Israel was part and parcel in worshiping Him.
On the other hand, you have the Pharisees, a group of unauthorized religious bullies whose influence was all out of proportion to their numbers and legitimacy. They had no Scripturally authorized role in Jewish life but took it upon themselves to adopt a strictness of adherence to the requirements of the Law of Moses that they leveraged against the much more relaxed practices of the Sadducees who held legitimate office and performed sanctioned duties.
The Pharisees could not honor the God of Israel by performing Law of Moses rituals as priests, because most of them were not priests. So what did they do to enhance their prestige in the community to distract the multitudes from the fact that they were not officially sanctioned? They publicly, openly, and in high-handed fashion, prayed in public settings,[18] tithed on everything from personal income to herbs that they grew,[19] and forced their views on everyone around them.[20]
The Pharisees were the nit-pickers of first-century Jewish society. They were the ones who scrutinized and passed judgment on everyone, except for themselves, of course. They made great shows of their activities to honor God. After all, honoring the Lord with the first fruits of your increase is called for in Proverbs 3.9:
“Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase.”
Do you see the irony? The chief rulers performed the sanctioned rituals of the Jewish religion in a display of honoring the LORD. However, when they had the opportunity to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s Son, they deferred for fear of the Pharisees. They were willing to honor God when it cost them nothing, but when there was an associated risk they decided to pass.
And on the other side of the situation, the Pharisees, who made a very big display of religious strictness, and public praying, and tithing (which is to say, giving ten percent of everything to God), refused to show the least amount of respect to the Son of the living God, despite our Lord’s purity of life, miraculous deeds, and the undeniable fulfillment of prophecy associated with every aspect of His life and ministry.
The single issue that the chief rulers and the Pharisees would have publicly agreed on was the importance, the duty, and the privilege of honoring God and His chosen Messiah. The cowardice of the chief rulers and stubborn blindness of the Pharisees guaranteed that the Lord of glory ended up being honored by neither group. At least not openly, publicly, or courageously.
Where are you concerning honoring the Lord? Do you honor Him by acknowledging those truths about Him that are taught in the Bible? Do you honor Him by turning from your sins to trust Him as your Savior, for the forgiveness of all your sins? That’s good. That’s important. That’s necessary.
Do you further honor Him by publicly owning Him as your Savior and not being ashamed of Him in front of others who might disapprove? Will you honor Him in believer baptism upon a satisfactory testimony of your saving faith in Christ? More good.
How about also honoring Him with the first fruits of your increase? Do you honor Him by giving to the cause of Christ? And do you honor Him with your obedience, your service to Him, and your ministry in His Church?
Purpose in your heart to honor the Lord after a fashion that is better than He was honored in John 12.42-43.
__________
[1] John 12.2-3
[2] John 12.12-18
[3] John 12.20-23
[4] Isaiah 6.1-13; John 12.41
[5] John 12.27-28
[6] https://www.britannica.com/topic/sanhedrin 7/9/19
[7] Ibid.
[8] John 3.1
[9] Luke 1.5
[10] Acts 23.8
[11] Acts 15.5
[12] Acts 23.6; 26.5; Philippians 3.5
[13] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah: New Updated Version, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1993), page 5.
[14] Matthew 23.23; Acts 23.8
[15] Proverbs 3.9
[16] Matthew quotes Isaiah 42.1-4 to explain the Savior’s conduct in this circumstance.
[17] 1 Kings 19.10, 18
[18] Luke 18.11-12
[19] Matthew 23.23; Luke 11.42
[20] John 9.13-41
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