JOHN 12:44-50 THEN JESUS CRIED OUT AND SAID, "HE WHO BELIEVES IN ME, BELIEVES NOT IN ME BUT IN HIM WHO SENT ME

  John 12:44 Then Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me.

45 "And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. 46 "I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. 47 "And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him--the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. 49 "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. 50 "And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak."

 Jesus really wants people to be saved.  In Luke 19:10 it says "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. “The consequence of rejection is going to bring ultimate condemnation.  John 3:17-19 emphasizes the same thing.  Jesus the Word comes and people are condemned because they don’t believe it. 

 The purpose of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ is a positive offer, verse forty-seven.  “To save the world.”  You may not like the law of gravity. Gravity has no respect for persons and if you step off the top a building, the gravity will not even care or shed a tear as you hit the pavement.  It won’t care. Over and over again Jesus has told them who He is and they need to be saved, the truth has been revealed and they will not embrace it.

Whether or not people embrace it or reject it is their responsibility.  Do not blame the medical community if you have lung cancer.  Do not blame the medical community if you have diabetes.  Do not blame the physicist and the guy who figured out the laws of gravity.  You and I make a choice to go against what we know.  And that’s exactly what God saying to us here. 

 Put it another way, no one will be in hell who did not have ample opportunity to know how to be saved.  There is not a person who will go to hell who did not have ample opportunity to come to trust in Jesus Christ.  I believe Scripture teaches it throughout.  Jesus is speaking to His Father and He is speaking loud and the religious leaders are quiet because they’re afraid. How about you, what will you believe?

 44 Then Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me.

We cannot tell for certain when and where these final words of our Lord were spoken. In verse 36, John tells us that Jesus “went away and hid himself from them.” Verses 37-43 are John’s words, explaining Israel’s unbelief. Verses 44-50 are our Lord’s final words, which seem to be placed here out of chronological sequence. John is not so concerned about the timing of these words as their impact. In many ways, verses 44-50 sum up the message of the Gospel of John, and of our Lord. We find nothing new here, but a repetition of what has been said many times before. Since these are our Lord’s final words, spoken publicly to the Jews in Jerusalem, this makes good sense.

I would point out that our Lord’s words here are not only applicable to the Jews, who are already rejecting Him as their Messiah, but to the Greeks, who are seeking Him as their Messiah. Jesus intends for these words to be heard because He shouts them out (verse 44).[1] I believe the backdrop for these final words of our Lord is found in John chapter 10, where our Lord says,

37 “If I do not perform the deeds of my Father, do not believe me. 38 But if I do them, even if you do not believe me, believe the deeds, so that you may come to know and understand that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”

Jesus’ words here are spoke