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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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John 12:42
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Nevertheless, there are some green shoots as we come to conclusion. ‘Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him’, certainly not the majority, but many of them. Nicodemus was one of them who came to him by night. Joseph of Arimathea was another one. There were others too. We read of some of them in Acts 6. Not a few, many of the priests believed on him or had believed on him. And yet they were infant in their faith, and they were afraid and they did not want to be excommunicated, so they were secret believers. It was only later that they were filled with shame and they took a stand and they came out in the open, and confessed Christ and really yielded to him.‘But because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.’ The ruling had been made. The Pharisees had proposed it in the Sanhedrin council. It had been passed that anybody who confessed Christ would be excommunicated.
Application
That is another pastoral lesson, friends. Sometimes we come to Christ and we really find him and depend upon him and love him, and yet for a time, it is almost as if we were half-Christian. We would not speak a word at the office. We hide our light under a bushel. We do not want to be obvious as believers. We do not have an avenue of service. We worship minimally. We do trust him. We do love Christ, we do depend upon him. We do realise that we are eternally lost without him. We want him, we pray to him, we read his word. But we are still undercover, half secret.
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