BE WILLFULLY IGNORANT

Finally, we come to the fourth way to die in your sins:

BE WILLFULLY IGNORANT

When someone hears a speech about Christ, but doesn’t let it register, that person is willfully ignorant. The Jewish leaders had enough evidence about Christ, they just refused to believe, and in their chosen ignorance, even mocked Him. 

They were willfully ignorant of Christ’s identity: “So they were saying to Him, ‘Who are You?’” (John 8:25). Far from being an honest question, this could be paraphrased, “Who do you think you are, fella? These are some pretty ridiculous things you are saying, telling us that we’re going to die in our sin. Do you know who you’re talking to? We’re the spiritual elite. Who do you think you are? You’re some nobody from Nazareth, who has come down here to tell the leaders of Jerusalem how to run things. What gives you the right to assume the role of equality with God?” 

Such willful ignorance is manifested in other places in Scripture. John 8:19 says, “So they were saying to Him, ‘Where is Your Father?’ Jesus answered, ‘You know neither Me nor My Father.’” Jesus is saying, “You are hopelessly ignorant. You think you know God, but you really don’t. And you think that I’m a fake, so you don’t know Me either. You can’t recognize the truth because you are so dominated by sin.”

Do you recall the blind man healed in John 9, and all the Jewish leaders wondered how the blind man was able to see, admitting their disbelief in Jesus’ power? Verse 30 says, “The man answered and said to them, ‘Well, here is an amazing thing, that you do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes.’” This blind man had more sense than these Jewish leaders. Why? Those leaders willed to be ignorant of the truth. Hell will be filled with people who are there simply because they willed to be ignorant, not wanting Jesus making claims on their lives. They didn’t want to know the truth; they were satisfied with what they already believed.

To the close-minded Jews who questioned His authority, Jesus said, “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself” (John 7:17). In other words, for the willing heart the truth is available. But they weren’t willing. 

You say, “But how can people be like that?” The answer is simply stated in John 3:19. Men are like that because they love their sin: “Men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” Because of their sin, the Pharisees didn’t want to expose themselves. They were so smug in their self-righteousness and confirmed in willful ignorance that they turned their backs on the truth. That’s tragic, because that puts them right into the category of those who have heard enough information to believe the truth, have rejected it, and are going to receive a punishment more severe than others: “How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace” (Heb. 10:29). In other words, the greater punishment in hell is reserved for the people who knew the truth but trampled on it.

These Jews were also willfully ignorant of Christ’s authority: “Jesus said to them, ‘What have I been saying to you from the beginning? I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.’ They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father” (John 8:25–27).

Because the Jews refuse to accept what Jesus had been saying, Jesus doesn’t provide them with any further revelation. But He does say that He has words of judgment to speak concerning them, which come from the Father, who “has given all judgment to the Son” (5:22). Willful ignorance brings judgment, as do unbelief, earthbound attitudes, and self-righteousness, and the Pharisees were characterized by all of them. In their spiritual blindness, they didn’t recognize who He was or understand He spoke to them about God the Father. They just thought He was talking about some judgment on His own part. Judgment is a terrible result for those who continually refuse to hear the truth. That is why Jesus warned, “He who has ears, let him hear” (Matt. 13:9).

The Jews also gave evidence of their willful ignorance of Christ’s immortality: “So Jesus said, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me’” (John 8:28).

“How were the Jews going to know that?” you ask. What did the Father do at the death of Christ to verify the claims He had made? He raised Him from the dead. Repeatedly the Bible teaches that. In effect, Jesus says, “When My resurrection comes, then you are going to have to look honestly at My claims.” And many of the Jews did. When it became known that Jesus had been resurrected, the church was born, and literally thousands of people in the city of Jerusalem did see the truth and believe (Acts 2–3). There was a great response. Maybe out of the very crowd before Jesus there were some people who later became a part of that early church.

Finally, the statement in John 8:29 shows that many of the Jews were willfully ignorant of Christ’s unity: “And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.” The Pharisees could not comprehend Christ’s unity with God. So Jesus says, “You are going to know the Father is with Me and has sent Me and that all the claims I made are true, in the day that I am lifted up to be crucified, because the result of death is going to be the resurrection.” But for now, they didn’t know. Many of them never knew and consequently died in their sins to be separated from God for eternity.

I wish we could transport ourselves back in a time capsule and meet those people so we could understand the tragedy of rejecting Christ. You would get a little idea of the intensity and the fearfulness of such a warning as Jesus made here. Those self-righteous, earthbound, unbelieving, and willfully ignorant Jews didn’t need to die in their sins—there was and is another option: “As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him” (v. 30). Aren’t you glad for that?

You can’t always preach the positives; sometimes you have to preach the negatives, because the negatives are needed to bring some to Christ. If you have never committed yourself to Jesus Christ, you are separated from Him by a gulf that you could never span on your own. Not all of your good deeds, self-righteousness, or religion could do it. The only way that gulf can be spanned is for you to recognize your sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have a desire in your heart to do that today, just simply in your heart pray something like this: “God, I want Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I receive Him now. I don’t want to die in my sin. I want to go where You are.” And if you do that in sincerity, He will hear that prayer and your life will be “transferred . . . to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). If your faith is weak, ask Him to help you to believe. If you need more information so you can make that decision, and you truly want to know Him, ask God to teach you the truth about Christ.