Living Faith

Let’s revisit our ongoing discussion of faith. It’s how humans, once dead, come alive to God.

John’s gospel is a workbook on faith—or, as he prefers, on “belief” in Christ. Early in John’s gospel Nicodemus came to Jesus for spiritual coaching. And Jesus, citing Numbers 21, simply told him to “look and live” in John 3:14-15. Most readers are much more familiar with what Jesus said next—”For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” [3:16]. Yet this text speaks of God’s motivation—his love—but it isn’t the action step to faith, given in the prior verses.

John’s entire gospel, as we just noted, calls readers to believe: “[all] 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” [20:31]. So in chapter three Jesus pointed to the substance of faith—the act of believing—before the much-loved text of 3:16.

Let’s set some context. The word, “believe,” is too compressed to stand on its own. It’s often mistakenly treated as a simple decision we’re to make. Like a vow expressed at church, or signing a church creed. Or it may be viewed as obedience—as works, linked to James’s warning that faith without works is dead. Again, it might be seen as transmitted culture—as in, “I grew up as a Christian,” or “I was raised in a Christian home.”

All of these may display features of faith, yet each variation misses the defining basis.

John was conscious of the need for more to be said. His was the last gospel, composed after Matthew, Mark, and Luke. When John made faith the aim for his writing it tells us that even in his day professed Christians were still missing the focus and function of belief.

In his prolog John gave readers a remarkable set of truths about Jesus: he “was with God…” and “was God.” Yet “his own people did not receive him …. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” [1:11-12]. Nathaniel, for one, believed at the outset—“Rabbi, you are the Son of God!” Others took more time.

It’s not as if Jesus kept a low profile. His ministry was noticed, as in John 2 where many early followers “believed” in him. But this belief was flawed; too limited as people saw him as a prophet, like figures from Old Testament; or like John the Baptist. But in John 2:23—with John making sure we notice—we read that “many believed in his name when they saw the signs [miracles] he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them…”

The last point is crucial. In the underlying Greek it reads, Jesus “disbelieved” their belief. The problem was that their view of him—as a miracle worker—was true, but not enough. Jesus called for more. To recognize and receive him as God’s Son, sent to save the world.

Nicodemus, the Pharisee, was an example of the kind of belief Jesus didn’t embrace. A chapter-break blinds readers to this event as part of a continuing narrative. The bridge between events is the term “signs”—miracles. Nicodemus also saw Jesus as one who could do “signs” so he was, therefore, “from God” [3:2]. But Jesus wasn’t satisfied. Nicodemus, even with this belief was still spiritually dead. Instead Jesus called him to be “born again.” By means of saving faith.

And that brings us to the action-step we started with. In 3:14-15 Jesus cited Numbers 21:4-9. On that earlier occasion many Israelites—already chastened by God for their widespread lack of faith—were dying from snake bites. So God told Moses to make a bronze model of a snake on a pole. Probably as a reminder of the first gospel message of Genesis 3:15, that God would eventually crush the Serpent’s head. So, for anyone dying of a bite, the cure was simple: “And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” [v.9]. The function of faith, in other words, was a simple reorientation: of looking away from the snake bite and to God’s cure offered by the bronze model of an elevated, skewered snake. That’s all! God did the rest.

That’s the underlying imagery, then, of John 3:16. When Jesus was “lifted up”—referring to his death on the cross—one only needs to look at Jesus on the cross to have death removed. Jesus reinforced the simple point in John 6:40—“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” The promise in the Old Testament (and in Isaiah especially) was that the Christ would suffer or swallow death, particularly in Isaiah 25 and 53, for all who looked to him.

In the promise of the suffering servant in Isaiah 52:13-14 we find an anticipation of the cross and the Son’s crucifixion, including the language of his being lifted up. “Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance…” Chapter 53 follows, with a prophetic summary of his atoning death. Look and live.

Some still missed faith as a singular focus on God’s purpose to cure death. So John wrote his gospel, offering examples of failed responses to Jesus. Interspersed with some dramatic conversions. Nicodemus walked away—although later glimpses suggest he later came to a living faith. Yet the skeptical Samaritan woman, in John 4, displayed a full response once she realized Jesus knew her unseemly history. A crummy life-history isn’t an obstacle to faith. Jesus offered her a vision of living water and eternal life. And she believed.

Later Jesus challenged two sisters, Martha and Mary, by waiting until their brother Lazarus died before he came to town. They believed Jesus was a healer—doing “signs”—but for them death was an absolute boundary. And it was another too-small form of belief. Jesus shattered it by raising their brother from the dead, so that Lazarus became another object lesson of faith.

Jesus also challenged the creedal commitments of Jerusalem Jewish leaders by giving sight to a lifelong blind man on the Sabbath. Which raises a sidebar question. Why did Jesus keep challenging the Sabbath by often using it for his “signs”? It tells us, at least, that faith-as-religious compliance isn’t the point. This blind man “worshipped” Jesus after his Sabbath healing, despite an imposing and hostile clan of religious authorities. Ironically the once-blind man got to see Jesus after his healing both physically and spiritually.

Let’s end with one final example—the disciple Thomas. He watched Jesus do sign after sign. Yet Christ’s resurrection was too much for him. “So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe’” [Jn 20:25].

Jesus then appeared to Thomas and invited his inspection. Thomas responded. “My lord and my God” And Jesus concluded the moment by saying, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Paul captured this point in later years as he prayed for people to have the “eyes of your hearts” opened. Again setting out relationship with Jesus as the vision of life.

So John’s portrayal of believing is remarkably clear and simple. And he treats salvation as a work only God achieves, through the Son, and by the Spirit. Our simple role? To “look and live.”