How do we go about trying to show the truth to people who would believe something true about God and yet either completely rejecting Jesus, or believing many false things about him?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Four Journeys to Jerusalem’ (2009).

It is important to notice that the second half of John 12 is talking about Christ's contemporaries. It isn't necessarily talking about all the Jews that ever have been since then. Blindness in part has happened to Israel. Yes, that is true, but there is a present remnant, says Paul (Romans 11:5). John is talking about the contemporaries that had heard Christ speak and knew what he said and heard his claims and rejected him for the reasons that are listed. A lot of Jews haven't got a clue about what Jesus said or taught. They've been taught all sorts of funny things, by their rabbis, about what he taught. They don't have a clue as to what Jesus taught.

As for Muslims, they also, thousands of them, just accept what the mullahs have told them. They haven't read the New Testament; they don't know really what Jesus said or taught. They hang on to what they have heard. That's another story.

As for multitudes of men and women round this world, there are multitudes of them that so far have never heard the name of Jesus anyway. And Christ is on record in John's own Gospel, of saying that people will never be condemned for not believing what wasn't there to be believed (ch. 9). So how do we go about helping people, like Jews, who are against the faith? And how do you go about helping Muslims who have their traditional notions about Jesus?

The gospel and Muslims

If you start with Muslims, for my own part, I would tend not to talk to them about the deity of Christ. Because if you say to them that Jesus is the Son of God, and they must believe this, they have been taught by their mullahs that what Christians believe about Jesus being the Son of God is that God came and had sexual relations with Mary, and the result of it was born a child called the Son of God. And they find that so hideous, morally, that they think Christians are a disgusting crowd. We know that isn't what it means, but that's what they think. If you try to tell them that Jesus is the Son of God, they think you are perpetuating what is, to them, blasphemy.

It is better to talk to them about the person of Jesus and get them to read some things about Jesus, simply because the description of Christ in the Gospels, and his words, show him to be marvellously attractive as a character, as distinct from Muhammad. You won't find Muhammad saying, 'Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest' (Matthew 11:28). So try to get Muslims to think about what Jesus said and did, and his attitude. Get them to think about Christ as a person.

Then the other thing that could be useful is to raise with them the matter of Jesus' death. If they are serious Muslims, they themselves will raise it anyway. I was in Jordan at one stage, with a Christian friend from this part of the world, and his fellow medics invited us to a dinner. They were prominent medics: specialists and consultants in various disciplines, and also one famous architect who had built buildings all round the world: New York, London, and goodness knows where else. And very gracious these Jordanians were, and not at all aggressive in our discussions. So they told me after dinner: 'All this strife and killing, and Christians killing Muslims, and Muslims killing the Christians: it's absolute nonsense. Why can't we live in peace? We all believe exactly the same thing, don't we? Except of course you say that Jesus died on a cross. Well, of course, he didn't die. You changed the Bible for that, to make it say that he died, and he didn't die.'

That's what they'd been taught, and my reply to that was to say, 'I see, so we've changed the Bible.' And I asked permission to read from the Bible and said, 'What I'd like to read to you was written six hundred years perhaps before Christ was born. So we Christians didn't write it, and we certainly haven't changed it.'

So I read them Isaiah 53, and when I finished they said, 'You're going to say that's Jesus, aren't you?'

'Well,' I said, 'I will do eventually, but I wasn't going to say it just now! My point now is simply that we didn't write it. We Christians haven't changed it, but this is God telling, through Isaiah, what would happen to Christ six hundred years before he was born: he would die.'

And I said, 'You know, the Old Testament' (they are supposed to believe the Old Testament, you see) 'it had a system of sacrifices. When you sinned, you had to offer a sacrifice. Do you think that the blood of those animals really put away sin?'

Well, they didn't think that at all.

I said, 'Well, what was all that about, then? Were they symbols of something?'

So, yes, it is helpful sometimes not to try and prove that Jesus is the Son of God, but to get them reading the story about Jesus. He is such an attractive character. And then, of course, to get them reading the Gospels about his death and why he died, in spite of their objection that Jesus didn't die on the cross.

The gospel and Jews

As for Jews, I've not a lot of experience with Jews, but I did give some extra-mural lectures in Queens at one stage, and someone brought a Jewish man along, and I got to know him. He came to dinner several times. He managed to escape Hitler from Vienna, just by the skin of his teeth, and he would constantly say to me: 'It's you Christians. You taught the Sunday school children that the wicked Jews murdered Christ, and this is what has caused the Holocaust. It's your fault.'

I said to him, 'My good man, I would never think of accusing Jews of having murdered Christ. Who do you think killed Christ? Why did Christ die?'

'Well, why did he?' he said.

I said, 'Well, I killed Christ.'

'What do you mean, you killed Christ?'

'Well,' I said, 'we Christians believe that when Jesus died on the cross, it was because of our sins. So it was my sins he was dying for. I wouldn't accuse you of crucifying Christ, any more than I would accuse myself. I was responsible for his death. He died for me and for my sins. He died for you, and your sins, as well.'

That began to get home to him. He told me eventually he could see that there were different kinds of Christians. He said, 'That's like some Jews are, you know. They profess to be Jews, and they're not really, and I can see you're different from some of these Christians. Perhaps they're not really Christians or something.'

So then I said, 'My dear friend. Do you pray for the dead?'

'Yes,' he said.

Well, I knew he did, of course. I said, 'What do you pray for the dead for?'

He said, 'So that God, you know, well, it's a nice way of remembering them.'

I said, 'Come off it. You do more than that, don't you, when you pray for the dead?'

'Well,' he said, 'yes, we do, really. We pray that God would let them out of the bad place, you know, and bring them to the good place.'

I said, 'I just don't understand you. I'm an old Gentile, you know. But I've been brought to believe. I don't believe in just any old god, I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, you know! And the one that led me to believe in him was the Jew that you won't have. You tell me of another Jew that has brought millions of Gentiles to believe in the God of Abram, Isaac and Jacob!'

Well, he couldn't. Of course there is none.

And I said, 'Take that beautiful Psalm: "The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Do you know how it pans out? "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the lord for ever"' (Psalm 23). I said, 'I believe that. I'm absolutely sure of going to God's heaven. How is it you're not sure? Don't you believe it? It's your Bible anyway.'

Our gospel witness

So, yes, what John is talking about, and our Lord in his Gospel, is Christ's contemporaries in particular who, though he had done many signs, persisted in their unbelief and then engineered his crucifixion. The principle is that there comes a point when, as our Lord put it, people commit the sin against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:32), and with their eyes open, and knowing they are being perverse, they reject the witness of the Holy Spirit. Well, that's another thing, for God doesn't have any extra power beyond that of the Holy Spirit, does he?

So that is what I mean. I don't think it's a wise thing to say, 'And you, trust Christ tonight. You mightn't get another chance!' Well, that is perfectly true. You might get run over by a bus tomorrow: that is perfectly true. But to say that, 'my spirit shall not always strive with men, and if you don't trust Christ tonight, God's Spirit might not strive with you again'. Well, that is a thought, but it's a complete misinterpretation of the very verse that they're quoting from Genesis (see Genesis 6:3 RV, KJV). That should read, 'My spirit shall not always abide in man'. Why not? Is it because he rejects the gospel? No, it is because he is flesh. But I mustn't start into that. But what that means is what Genesis is talking about, namely, that man is made of two bits: he is flesh, and he is spirit. And God calls it his spirit: 'And my spirit shall not always abide in man . . .' (notice the reason why not) 'for he is flesh'. It is not because he rejects the gospel, but because he is flesh. It is talking about man's constitution. And when men rejected the gospel, God drowned them (Genesis 7:17–24). He didn't burn them up like he burnt up Sodom and Gomorrah. In Noah's day, he drowned them. And you know what happens when you drown somebody? (Not that you do it every day.) But if someone is held under water, they don't have to be there very long. If they're under water for five minutes, and you bring them out, what has happened? The body is still there; the flesh is still there, but what has happened now? They start to go rotten. That's what Genesis is talking about: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever'. It is not: 'shall plead with man', but: 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh'.