JESUS RETURNS TO JORDAN.
John 10:37-42.
JOHN 10:37. Jesus insisted upon the evidence of “the works of my Father” which He was doing. By this He meant that the miracles that He was performing were signs of the veracity of His claim to be the Son of God. Without the proof of His miracles, people might well doubt and call Him a blasphemer: but confronted with things which only God could perform, they should believe.
JOHN 10:38. So even if the people to whom He was speaking did not believe His words, they should believe the works that they had witnessed. Thus they might “know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in Him.” Jesus once again spoke in such strong terms of the unity of the Godhead: the Father and the Son are displayed to be one in purpose, and equal in power.
JOHN 10:39a. The reaction was becoming predictable: “Therefore they sought again to take Him.” There is a particular hostility and hardness of heart demonstrated by people who have been exposed to the truth, but who go on wilfully resisting it. They would sooner persecute the righteous - and even lay violent hands on the Righteous One – than be challenged in their comfort zone, and be exposed as the sinners that we all are outside of Christ!
JOHN 10:39b. Jesus’ time was still not yet, so He once again miraculously escaped from their hand. However, their season of opportunity was all but finished, as Jesus withdrew from His public ministry in Jerusalem for the last time.
JOHN 10:40. Jesus went away “again” beyond Jordan, to where John at first baptised. This was the place where Jesus had begun His ministry, and where John had pointed to Him with those momentous words, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world’ (cf. John 1:29). Here Jesus “abode,” perhaps taking up temporary residence there.
JOHN 10:41. “And many resorted unto Him,” much as they had done to John the Baptist. Their testimony is singular: “John did no miracle; but all things that John spake of this man were true.”
That was John’s ministry in a nutshell: ‘a voice crying in the wilderness.’ Now John the Baptist was dead, and here was Jesus, to whom John had pointed, and those who had heard John recognised in Jesus the truth of John’s testimony.
JOHN 10:42. “And many believed on Him there.” The seed that John the Baptist had sown, Jesus began to reap. It would remain to Jesus’ disciples, and His preachers and witnesses down through the ages, to continue this work, and to take the message of the gospel at last to the ends of the earth. Amen.
