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Bible Notes - Tabernacle Commentaries
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John 12:44
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It says here, ‘Jesus cried,’ a big public heralding, ‘and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.’ Now many expositors think that verse 44 down towards the end are just a resume of his whole ministry, that they summarise the whole of the book. The reason that they think that is because everything that you read in those verses he does actually say in the course of the Gospel of John, before this chapter. But at the same time, while that is true, it is most likely that verse 44 adds to verse 36, and it fills out what Christ said to them before the last words. And the strong reason for believing this is that these words consolidate and add to verses 35 and 36. They develop that argument which is summarised in verses 35, 36. It is more extensively expressed in the final verses. So it is wise to transport verses 44 to near the end back to between verses 35 to 36. Not that they were written there, but that is the message that they are speaking about. What the apostle John seems to do is close the ministry of Christ, comment on the unbelief of the majority, comment on how suddenly some people believed in him, and then proceed with a resume of what he said up to the end of verse 36. Each statement, is a statement of his divinity.
Application
Somebody said to me, not so very long ago, ‘What did the Lord Jesus say, clearly, in John’s Gospel to claim, and to prove, his divinity?’ I was a bit puzzled that they should say that, because it is so obvious, through the gospel, but these last verses of chapter 12 crown everything, because every one of them is especially selected under inspiration by John because it is a statement of his divinity, and the way in which he expressed it to those Jewish leaders. ‘Jesus cried,’ verse 44, ‘and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me’ – only – ‘but on him that sent me.’ That is a statement of divinity, you see. ‘To believe on me, is to believe in the Father, and the entire Godhead.’
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