John 20:30-31

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

Jesus did signs.  Signs point to a destination so that people don’t get lost.  If you’ve ever been driving and looking for a road or some destination, you know what it’s like to be seeking something.  But this isn’t the manner in which the Bible speaks of the signs of Jesus, nor is it the way in which the Bible relates to sinful man.  Man isn’t seeking God, he’s actually running from Him, hiding, avoiding Him and actively suppressing the obvious facts of reality.  This is the context of salvation.  A “seeker sensitive church” is a profoundly confused one.  It’s God who seeks sinners.  If man was seeking God, he wouldn’t be a sinner, right?  

God’s signs, like John’s gospel, should be understood in the full context.  God’s voice goes out through all the earth.  The heavens literally declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1).  The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.  There’s not a single speck of life, not a ray of sun, not a rolling wave, not a sunset over a high peak, that doesn’t show us that this is God’s world.  Sinners think that we need signs, that God owes them to us as if there’s some scarcity of evidence.  We’re like the thousands that were fed in John 5 that then found Jesus the next day and actually demanded a sign from him!  This we know about ourselves: we have a ruthlessly short memory and we’re monstrously unthankful.  We may shake hands and smile and play at this game of civility, patting ourselves on the back for how nice we are to others.  We hold doors for people and say, “Hello,” to strangers.  We’re nice to the stranger that passes us, who is never to be seen again by us and yet we ignore the God who sees all.  

It is to this proclivity that John’s point rings out.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is Lord of all creation and man must reckon with this fact either now or in the age to come.  The thing is, man is grotesquely unthankful precisely because he is busy trying to convince himself that he’s neutral in the whole affair of righteousness.  Every sinner is an expert witness as to why he/she is misunderstood or “really means well.”  We are thankless because we resent God.  His kindness and forbearance, showered upon us even now, at this very moment of life and peace, are meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4).  But man’s heart is hard and he refuses every single entreaty, convincing himself as he walks through his days that every blessing is his due and every pain, every setback and tragedy, is God’s fault.  

What man but the saved one stops to give thanks and literally wonders why anything good at all has come to them?  Man’s default position is that of entitlement due to pride and it’s to this that God’s general revelation (nature and all the wondrous gifts of life) come.  More still, it’s to this that John’s gospel comes.  It’s all so overwhelming when one sees reality for what it is.  God owes no sinner even a single joy or even a fleeting smile.  But He sends them nevertheless because He’s a merciful God.  He sends love and we take it and turn it into lust.  He sends family and we neglect our duties and tear each other apart.  Every good gift that He gives we abuse and then curse Him when the joy the blessing we didn’t deserve is lost through our folly.  We are angry because we can’t have God’s blessings on our own terms.  We want the gift but not the God who gives it.  

This, dear friends, is the state of the world and why Jesus says that on that last day there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  The gnashing of teeth is interesting in that it implies great anger and hatred.  It’s the state of the person that can’t accept their fate.   On that day they will see God for who He is, they will see His righteousness on that day, yes but they will hate Him all the more as there will be no more lies.  The gnashing of teeth will commence when He burns down the pathetic forts of human defenses and no longer allows the mocker and scoffer to use His gifts while they deride Him.  

The point to remember about John’s gospel is that man must meet the requirements of righteousness.  God is not mocked.  The choice is: the cross or our own righteousness. Every man and woman will give an account, that is to say, they will have to provide for God a perfect, personal and perpetual obedience to His law.  There is not one mistake allowed.  Not one slip, not one imperfection, evil word or thought, or neglect of duty, no matter how slight. In all, every soul will either stand on the gospel of Jesus Christ or they will proclaim their own personal perfection.  Every tongue will have to give an answer.  There will be no escape.  

This is what it means to say that from the gospel, that great and majestic story of grace and mercy, God’s righteousness is revealed.  For in it, God is shown both as just and justifier of the one who has faith in Christ Jesus.  To ascend into the glory of heaven God has not overlooked your sin in the way a person might ignore an insult or some debt.  No, He has punished sin on the cross and the One who bore that punishment was perfectly obedient forever.  Thus, when any man or woman, wherever they are, or not matter what they’ve done, comes to God in Jesus’ name, they have transferred their sin to Him and His personal, perfect and perpetual obedience to their own account!  This is the glory of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ!  He is both merciful and righteous!  Oh, how splendid is the story of Jesus Christ.  

So, we see the moral madness lurking in the heart of the unsaved.  They are never so bold as to declare that they are perfect – not even for one shallow moment in time.  But what they will say instead is that God isn’t so righteous and/or that He’s unjust as to make such demands on them.  This is the crazed insanity of sin.  It convinces a man that God’s grace, flowing outward in time from Calvary, and coming to their ears now in the sweet entreaties of mercy from His ministers, high and low, far and wide, is an insult.  The sinner, after all, is drenched in pride, awash in it and because of it, he calls God a liar.  He says, “it’s arrogant to say there’s only one way to Heaven,” and yet never stops to consider the arrogance of this statement itself.  To what standard does the sinner appeal?  How does he know anything about right and wrong, heaven and hell?  Ah, indeed, nothing is more arrogant than the prideful man answering back to God and despising the one way to salvation He graciously provided!  And, make no mistake, this is exactly why Jesus was crucified in the first place.  Sinners hate God and want Him gone from the world He created that they live in.  

This was you and me, Christian.  This was our heart before God poured His love into us through His Holy Spirit!  And this is why we aren’t shocked by the intransigence of pride and sin we see around us because we know it isn’t because of lack of information that a person won’t come to Christ, but because of pride.  The most obvious thing now in our lives is that we are sinners in need of grace and this is a necessity every day.  It’s a blessing to know the freedom in Christ and that there’s no condemnation for us through faith.  We know that if we confess our sins we are merely stating the obvious and that God’s great love for us is ours in Christ. We happily, tearfully, stand on the cross as our claim to Heaven and we pray humbly that others come to know this peace too.  We pray for the lost, we reach out to them, we endure their mockery and scorn, even their varied abuses in the name of Christ because that’s exactly what Christ has done for us.