The One Who Knows Our Hearts

“Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all men. He did not need man's testimony about man, for he knew what was in a man.”

Jesus knew that people are fickle. They’re mercurial. Today, I believe in this. Tomorrow, I believe in that.

They were putting their trust in the God-man, in the Son of God, in the Messiah. The perfect One. The only One who is worthy. But he knew their hearts. Even though their trust was well-placed, they could and should completely trust him, he knew that he could not ever trust them.

God-man. What a contrast. What an equation. God and man. On one side, the perfect, unblemished God. On the other, the sinful, human man. Who can you trust? A perfect God or sinful man? One knew the other perfectly. The other knew the other through flawed vision, imperfect senses, a reliance on inadequate human understanding.

People needed man’s testimony about Jesus in order to have any chance to believe. Even then their trust was subject to conditions. But Jesus did not need such testimony about people for he knew their hearts already. He knew their sinful nature, their base desires, their blind wandering and questioning. Their wonderment at everything, all of which he understood perfectly.