²⁴ But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men,

²⁴ But Jesus did not commit [entrust] Himself to them,

There is a play on words between verses 23 and 24. “Many believed in His name” but “Jesus did not entrust Himself to them.” Their faith was clearly spurious to Jesus. They could not dupe Jesus with their apparent spirituality.

Temporary excitement about Jesus did not impress Him at all. A faith that rests on “signs” (v. 23) is not adequate. Many of these people would reject Him later.

Jesus could not bring Himself to entrust Himself to those with superficial belief. Jesus trusted His disciples but He could not trust superficial religionists. People are generally untrustworthy.

because He knew all men,

Jesus knew human nature; He read men like an open book. He knew the fickleness and instability of people. He understood that people can operate on their emotions rather than the facts. He was no sensationalist. Jesus knew not only men generically but He knew men as individuals. Jesus thoroughly understood who and what people were and are because He was omniscient.

PRINCIPLE:

Confidence without content is inadequate faith.

APPLICATION:

There is nothing honorable about trusting people who should not be trusted. There is no wisdom in trusting phony charlatans who make outrageous claims about Christ. To do so is to operate on spiritual superficiality rather than on clear principles from the Word.

Belief based on seeing wonders is an inadequate faith. Confidence in an idea without adequate perception of the content to be believed is a bad belief.