Jesus knows you’re gonna fail him.

John 2.23-25.

At the end of John 2 there’s this odd statement, which ties right together with chapter 3, which I’ll talk about at that time. It’s where John discusses Jesus’s new fans.

John 2.23-25 KWL

23 While Jesus is in Jerusalem,

at Passover, at the feast,

many trust in his name,

seeing his milestones which he did.

24 Jesus himself isn’t trusting them with himself,

because of the knowledge he has of everyone,

25 for he has no need of anyone testifying about people:

He’s aware of what is in people.

Some Christians read this passage and immediately think, “Ah, it’s the divinity. Jesus doesn’t trust people because he’s God, and still has God’s infinite knowledge of who people are, what they’re like, and what everyone’s secret, selfish motives are.”

Others read it and figure, “Ah, Jesus understands basic human depravity. He knows all humans are inherently selfish, and without the Holy Spirit that’s all we’ll ever be. So he knows better than to trust any of ’em.”

So which of the two does Jesus have?—full divine knowledge of the cosmos, or a generic understanding of a typical human trait? Well, I believe when God became human, he had to surrender his divine power, which includes his full divine knowledge of the cosmos, because all that data cannot physically fit into 2 pounds of brain matter. Your brain holds 2½ petabytes max. That’s a lot of data (it’s 20 quadrillion bits), but it’s nowhere near enough to know everything about ancient Jerusalem, much less the whole ancient world, and even less the 8 billion humans on today’s world.

Yeah, some Christians balk at that idea, because to their minds, God is power. Jesus without power wouldn’t be God. Problem is, Jesus with all that divine power wouldn’t authentically be human. He’d only be pretending to be human, and that’d make him a hypocrite, and hypocrisy is the one thing which annoys Jesus most.

So Jesus surrendered his power. But he can still tap God’s power same as we can: He has the Holy Spirit without limit, Jn 3.34 and the Spirit is just as infinitely powerful and knowledgeable as ever. If Jesus wants to know anything about anyone, the Spirit knows and will tell him. If Jesus wants to know just what kind of darkness lies in the heart of every other human being, the Spirit can give him a quick summary: Human depravity. We’re all messed up because we prioritize ourselves over other people and God.

And whether Jesus gained his knowledge through divine omniscience, or simply knowing about basic human depravity, it really doesn’t matter: He knows. He can’t trust other people. Not fully. They will fail. Even the best of them will fail him. Even his best student, Simon Peter; even the students who were family members, like James and John; they mean well, but they’re only human.

Even us. Even me. Even you. You will fail him. Sorry, but don’t kid yourself.

And don’t beat yourself up about it either. He already knows you’re gonna fail him. He loves you anyway. Wants you to follow him anyway. Wants you, once you fail, to repent, come back to him, and keep taking care of his sheep, same as Peter. Jn 21.17 Try not to fail, but if you do fail, you still have Jesus. 1Jn 2.1 Who won’t fail.

But other than Jesus, people fail. So don’t be so gobsmacked when they do!

Those who are stunned when people stumble.

I’ve heard way too many stories about personal heroes who screwed up. I still hear those stories from time to time: A great Christian leader will develop a nice following of fans. Then the dirty little secrets will come out: The leader is a jerk, or otherwise has serious defects of character produced by a deficiency of the Spirit’s fruit. Or he actually broke the law: Molested or raped people, or stole money, or otherwise committed fraud. Or he didn’t break the law, but your average Christian really isn’t gonna approve of him having threeways with his wife and the pool boy.

I fully believe when these secrets get out, it’s because the Holy Spirit makes the truth come out. He doesn’t want hypocrites in the leadership of Jesus’s church. He wants them to repent and quit sinning. And often they do! But when they won’t, he outs them. He did it in the bible; he’s still doing it.

So it’s up to us to reject them. Not go into denial, claim the devil’s spreading lies about them, then let ’em get the Republican nomination all over again. Do your duty and remove the unrepentant evildoer from leadership. Or face the eventual consequences right along with them.

But when the secrets get out, we also see a lot of Christians who are just crushed. They put a lot of their hopes and dreams into these leaders. Not Jesus, where they rightly belong; these guys. They made idols of ’em. Maybe didn’t mean to, but that’s exactly what they did, otherwise they wouldn’t be so demolished and demoralized when they watch the Holy Spirit knock their idols down.

Some of ’em even quit Christianity. Or use the fallen leaders as their excuse to quit Christianity: They were gonna do it anyway, but this just gives them a handy way of saying, “See? Y’all are hypocrites. Lookit that guy. And he was one of the best of you.” And out the door they go, but really any excuse to leave would’ve worked for them. Because they don’t know Jesus. If you know him, you’ll love his people regardless.

I know, and know of, many Christians who quit Jesus. And they might have no skeletons in their closets, might have no terrible secret sins they’re withholding from the public; the only secret they had was they stopped believing in Jesus long ago, or never really believed and just stayed in leadership for the paycheck and the fandom. That itself is evil too. It’s fraud, ’cause they were regularly advising people to follow a Jesus whom they think is imaginary. It’s hypocrisy. But there are still tons of these people out there, in Christian leadership, stealing the jobs of authentic believers, and contributing to the apathy we see in so much of Christendom because they don’t trust Jesus enough to really follow him.

It shouldn’t startle us when we discover such people. But it does, because we keep forgetting people fail. Everybody fails. Everybody falls short of God’s glory.

So what do we do, trust no one? Well no; go ahead and trust people when you find ’em trustworthy. (And sometimes trust ’em when they’re not. In order for people to become trustworthy, sometimes we gotta take risks on them.) But never pin all your hopes and dreams on them. They’re fallible people. They might not mean to fail you at all, but circumstances come against them, and despite their best efforts and wishes, they do. Life happens!

But Jesus is infallible.

Yeah, there are grumblers who claim he failed ’em. No he didn’t. They believed wrongly about him: Some Christian taught ’em some falsehood, or named and claimed a promise which really doesn’t apply, or they thought they heard from God but didn’t really. Lots of rubbish masquerades as Jesus these days. It’s why it’s important to read those gospels and follow authentic Jesus.

And one of the truths about authentic Jesus, is he knows people. Knows we’re fallible. Didn’t put his faith in them; he kept it in his Father. Now be like Jesus.