By Hershall (Wes) Spradley
* “With a heart anchored in faith and a life devoted to service, Hershall Wesley “Wes” Spradley, II, entered his heavenly home on August 23, 2025, at the age of 79. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, on September 14, 1945, Wes was the son of Dollie Blanche and Hershall Wesley Spradley, and brother to Clarcee Mahan—all of whom preceded him in death” (Harrell Funeral Homes website).
Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed [episteusan] in His name when they saw the signs which He did. But Jesus did not commit [episteuen] Himself to them, because He knew all men (John 2:23-24).
A few years ago, one of the teachers of the Sunday School class I attend began his class with this Scripture. Almost immediately a woman sitting toward the back of the class said—in a stage whisper loud enough to be heard by most of the thirty to forty people present—“Yes, but did they really believe?”
Christian teachers have, no doubt unwittingly, taught us to question the truthfulness of God’s Word. We have been taught to doubt that God’s Word means what it says.
Let me give you a few examples. Alvah Hovey, in an 1885 commentary on the Gospel of John, wrote that John 2:24 “affords proof…that the Evangelist did not mean to ascribe saving faith to the many spoken of in verse 23” (p. 93). Verse 24 is, Hovey said, the evidence that though they believed, their faith was not “saving faith,” and they were therefore not saved. He wrote: “Their faith was mere belief on the ground of evidence, implying no radical change of character” (p. 93). According to Hovey, there was something deficient in the faith of those John mentions in verse 23. But Hovey, like too many others, was confusing things that differ. A “radical change of character” is a part of the discipleship process. Therefore, though the verse says that “many believed in His name,” and though the wording of 2:23 is identical to the wording of John 1:12, their faith, according to Hovey, was not saving faith. Hovey thereby planted the seed of doubt in our minds: God’s Word does not actually mean what it says.
A second example of a writer’s failing to distinguish things that differ comes from Ed Blum in his commentary on the Gospel of John in the DTS Bible Knowledge Commentary. He writes regarding verse 23: “The effect of these miracles…was to elicit faith on the part of many people. They believed in His name, that is, they trusted in Him. This was not necessarily saving faith as the next verse implies…Jesus knew that a temporary excitement or a faith based on signs was not sufficient”i (p. 280).
It is presumptuous to claim to know what was in John’s mind since the Scripture gives us no indication that John had in mind anything other than exactly what he said.
Blum calls the peoples’ response a “temporary excitement,” but this idea is found nowhere in the passage. The Scripture plainly calls the response belief.ii
Blum writes: “Until His death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the foundation for faith was not fully laid” (p. 280). That statement suggests that there was something deficient about the faith of all the people of God prior to the day of Pentecost in Acts 2.
One further example should be cited. F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on the Gospel of John, wrote regarding these verses: “There are two levels of believing in Jesus’s name—that spoken of in John 1:12, which carried with it the authority to become God’s children, and that spoken of here” (p. 78).
Though the language of John 2:23 is identical to the language of John 1:12, Bruce said that those in 2:23 who believed were only “superficially impressed because they saw the bare signs” (p. 77). In other words, there was something deficient in their faith.
With virtually no textual support, Bruce, Blum, and Hovey conclude that in verse 23, the faith of those who believed was not saving faith. All three indicate that a faith based on signs is deficient.
In other words, these three commentators say that those in verse 23 did not really believe.
Have they not put themselves in the rather awkward position of disagreeing with God? Are they not calling God a liar?
These three writers illustrate the all-too-common phenomenon of teachers saying that what the Scripture calls faith is deficient in some way. Hovey wrote that the faith of those who saw Jesus perform signs “was mere belief on the ground of evidence.” Blum, appealing to special knowledge of what John (and Jesus) knew—a special knowledge that he does not possess—writes that though many people who were in Jerusalem for the Passover believed in Jesus’ name, their belief was not genuine and thus not salvific. Bruce even writes that what the Scripture calls faith in John 2:23 was deficient and “superficial” because it lacked commitment.
What are these evangelical teachers doing? What are they teaching us? They are teaching us mere mortals that we cannot trust the Word of God to mean what it says. Rather, in order to understand what the Bible is saying, we’ll have to read their commentaries.
What happened? These writers rightly felt a tension between John 2:23 and John 2:24. The people at the Passover believed in Jesus’s name, but He did not believe in (entrust Himself to) them. Rightly, we want to know how to resolve the tension between the two verses. So did Hovey, Blum, and Bruce. However, they erred in their methodology. Assuming that they knew what verse 24 meant, they started there, then went back to verse 23 and explained it in light of the way they understood verse 24. In doing so, they made verse 23 mean the opposite of what it plainly says. A second mistake is that they attempted to interpret a very clear verse in light of their interpretation of a difficult verse.
The Bible, especially the Gospel of John, has much to say about our believing in Jesus. It does not have much to say about Jesus’ believing in (entrusting Himself to) us.iii
____________________
Wes had a BS from UT Arlington, Th.M. from DTS, and MLitt from UTSA. His love of language carried him through a lifelong journey of study. After the passing of his beloved wife, Donnie, in 2014, Wes continued their shared call to ministry, traveling to South Africa where he taught the Gospel of John at Union Bible Institute, and nurturing local Bible study groups in San Antonio.
__________
i Note that Blum feels the tension between verse 23 and verse 24 as did Hovey, but the explanation of that tension is found in the distinction between salvation and discipleship, not in redefining faith.
ii Editor’s note: Dr. Blum also calls the faith of the people of verse 23 “a faith based on signs.” Yet the reason why Jesus did signs and why John recorded the signs was to lead people to believe in Him (John 20:30-31). John indicated that there is nothing wrong with faith in Christ which results from people seeing signs.
iii Editor’s note: John 2:23 is the only place in John’s Gospel where the Lord Jesus is the subject of the verb pisteuō. Pisteuō occurs 246 times in the NT and 100 times in John’s Gospel. It is translated as believe in all but eight of those uses. In those eight verses it is translated as entrust (or commit). John 2:24 says that Jesus did not entrust Himself to them, that is, He did not give them further instruction. Paul says that Christ entrusted him with a stewardship (1 Cor 9:17), with the gospel (Gal 2:7; 1 Thess 2:4; 1 Tim 2:11), and with preaching His word (Titus 1:3). The Lord Jesus said that God will entrust believers with true riches if we are faithful with unrighteous mammon (Luke 16:11). Paul said that God entrusted His oracles to the Jewish people (Rom 3:2).
