<p>12:42- see on Rom. 10:9.</p><p><i>Nevertheless even among the rulers many believed in him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue</i>- Why then did they turn so quickly against Him? The answer, I suggest, lies in the way that they misunderstood Him. They liked Him; the Jewish authorities despaired even just prior to His death that &ldquo;the world is gone after him&rdquo;, because so many of the Jews were apparently &ldquo;Believing in him&rdquo; (Jn. 12:11,19); His popularity seems to have resurged to an all time high on his final visit to Jerusalem. The crowds liked some aspects of the idea of this man Jesus of Nazareth; they are described in John&rsquo;s Gospel as &ldquo;believing on him&rdquo;, and yet John makes it clear that this was not the real belief which the Lord sought. John makes this point within Jn. 6:14,26: &ldquo;When therefore the people saw the sign which he did, they said, This is of a truth the prophet that cometh into the world&hellip; Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw signs, but because ye ate of the loaves, and were filled&rdquo;. The crowd appeared to respond and perceive the significance of the sign-miracles; but the Lord knew that they had not properly understood. They apparently &ldquo;believed&rdquo;, but would not confess Him before men (Jn. 12:42)- and such &lsquo;confession&rsquo; is vital for salvation (Rom. 10:9,10 s.w.). For all their liking of Jesus and some of the things that He stood for, they willingly closed their hearts to the radical import of His essential message of self-crucifixion, of a cross before the crown, of a future Kingdom which inverts all human values, where the humble are the greatest, the poor in spirit are the truly rich, the despised are the honoured...</p><p>Any who openly confessed Jesus as Messiah were put out of the synagogue (Jn. 9:22). The chief rulers are described as believing on Christ (Jn. 12:42), even though their faith was such a private affair at that time that it was hardly faith at all.&nbsp; The positivism of Jesus counted them as believers. Perhaps Jn. 1:12 alludes to them: &quot;<i>Whoever</i> accepts him, those who believe in his name, to them he gave the right to become children of God&quot;. The &quot;whoever&quot; would then be implying that even if their faith was so weak that they would not publicly confess it, all the same they were counted as God's children. Yet we could read Jn. 12:42 the other way- belief alone is not enough, there must be public confession. It could be that we are to see a parallel between not confessing and not believing. We were called and converted <i>so that</i>&nbsp;we might give light to others. These Jewish leaders who believed wanted praise / glory of men (:43), and this desire to receive praise from men was exactly what led men <i>not</i> to truly believe (Jn. 5:44). The expositional choice before us is purposefully ambiguous- was the 'faith' of these leaders accepted, or was it nullified by their refusal to 'confess'? The ambiguity is to exercise our own consciences, as we naturally look within to enquire whether we have simply believed but not confessed... for we all will have a tendency to do this. In any case, there was a terrible outcome of not confessing their faith publicly- the condemnation and crucifixion of God's Son. Whether or not their faith was counted as acceptable, this was the outcome of not confessing it. And it is John who demonstrates how Joseph and Nicodemus 'came out' publicly after the Lord's death. See on 12:46 <i>So that whoever believes in me may not remain in the darkness</i>.</p><p>Note the grace reflected in the record here, where we read that some Jews were credited with having believed in Jesus, even though they did <i>not</i> confess Him (Jn. 12:42), presumably because those who confessed Jesus as Christ were excommunicated from the synagogues (Jn. 9:22). Those will not confess Jesus are antichrist (1 Jn. 4:3)- and yet the inspired record is so eager to note that these weak 'believers' were still believers, and their weak faith appears still to have been credited to them. This is a comfort to us in the weakness of our faith- and yet also a challenge to us to accept weak believers as believers. It seems that the record is prepared to accept that some achieved a valid faith in Jesus, even though they didn&rsquo;t confess Him. And yet there are abundant reasons for understanding that unless we witness to our faith, it isn&rsquo;t a faith that&rsquo;s worth much. And yet the record still accounts these who didn&rsquo;t testify as they ought to have done as &lsquo;believers&rsquo;. This is a comfort for us in those times when we know we chose a far lower level than we should have done, and simply kept quiet about the wondrous hope within us. Perhaps the idea was and is that an initial belief can be worked upon by the Lord, in order to bring it to open confession. We see several examples of this in John's Gospel, e.g. Nicodemus. And perhaps multitudes of these secret believers 'came out' in baptism on the day of Pentecost a few weeks later.</p>