Barry Metz 3/22/15

Jesus’ Public Ministry Comes to a Close

John 12:27–50

As we come to the end of John 12 this morning, and I invite you turn there with me, Jesus’ public ministry comes to a close.

If you were with us last week,Mary anointed Jesus for burial at Bethany and then Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey to the acclaim of Passover attending crowds crying out, ‘Hosanna, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” John 12:17 tells us that the crowd who had been present when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, back in John 11, continued to bear witness about (what happened in Bethany with Lazarus). And all of this seemed to exasperate the Pharisees, John 12:19, who basically threw up their hands and said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, theworldhasgoneafterhim.”

As we have seen several times in the book of John, characters will often say way more than they know. In this case it turns out the whole world willsoon begin to go after Jesus. In fact, one verse later, John 12:20,some Greeks, probably Gentiles[1] appear out of nowhere and approach Philip seeking Jesus. (Why Philip? We don’t really know. Philip had a Greek name—but many Jews at the time also had Greek names. It may have been that Philip was from a place near the Gentile region of Decapolis[2] and these Gentiles may have been from that area. Again we can’t be sure)

The Gentiles said to Philip, “Sir we wish to see Jesus” (One author said that he had seen these words inscribed on a pulpit in a church facing the preacher—‘The Greek’s request says exactly what waiting congregations most long to ‘see’ and hear from their pastors and teachers at each gathering’[3]…Sir we wish to see Jesus.

As far as we know Jesus never meets with the Greeks; at least John doesn’t tell us that he did. What John emphasizes is what the information about the Greeks seeking Jesus evoked in Jesus. Look at Jesus’s response in verse 23 to the news that Greeks are seeking him… “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”

You see Jesus knew the plan. Jesus knew that there were other sheep—Gentile sheep—who needed to be brought into the flock (John 10:16). He knew that his death would gather into one place ‘the children of God who (were) scattered abroad’ (John 11:52). And so when the Greeks came seeking Jesus, he said, “It’s time….the hour has come….” (We’ve been waiting for the ‘hour’ to come throughout the book of John haven’t we? Way back in chapter 2, Jesus looked into his mother’s eyes—when she wanted him to get an embarrassed anonymous groom in Cana out of a pinch with his power—and he said, “My hour has not yet come”)… Well it’s finally time!

So you’re a student wondering if you should graduate now…. you wake up one Saturday morning to the ring of the doorbell….You answer the door and standing there are twenty-five students in cap and gown. “Maybe you should graduate.”

Or you’re a ministry-minded personwondering if you should go to seminary… you preach a sermon… ten people get saved… “Maybe seminary is right.”

You’re a gardener and you’re wondering if you should plant a garden this spring…It’s February….there’s been snow on the ground for a month. You look out your kitchen window one Saturday to the location where you always put your garden… and you can’t believe what you see… stalks of corn, heads of cabbage and tomato plants…popping right up out of the snow…. “Maybe you should plant a garden”

Andrew and Phillip come to Jesus…”there are some Greeks seeking to see you” (one author suggests that in the book of John “to come and see” is almost a formula for discipleship[4])… “There are some foreigners who stand ready to join your flock Jesus”…. and we can imagine Jesus’s eyes got really big? “The only way that foreigners can become part of my flock is if I am lifted up on the cross and die.” So Jesus said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified”

In the opening chapters of Matthew’s Gospel we read that wise men from the East came to see Jesus—the Magi right? --and here in John, shortly before the cross, we see wise men from the West coming to Jesus. Gentiles framed both sides of Jesus’ life.[5]

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Look at what Jesus said next, verse 24…he explains the ‘law of the kingdom of God’[6]….“Truly, truly I say to you…unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit”

“Without the death of the seed, no crop; without the death of Christ, no world-wide gathering of mankind. This strikes the key-note of the whole discourse”[7]

“What looks like the grain’s demise is in fact its harvest. So (it is with) Jesus’ cross. What looks like the perfect proof against Jesus’ authenticity—(Jesus’) capital punishment—proves by longer exposure to it to be the supreme argument for, and the major display of, God’s profound love for the world.”[8]

And this same ‘law of the kingdom of God’ applies to disciples, verse 25. “To relinquish one’s hold on life, to give it up, to ‘hate one’s life in this world’, by making Christ one’s first priority[9], is the key to participation in the kingdom.”[10]

The church father Augustine paraphrased it this way: “If you want to keep your soul safe forever, you have to hate it for a time.”[11]

Verse 26… Following Jesus means serving Jesus and serving Jesus brings honor from the Father.

One author encourages us toward following Jesus and serving Jesus… “The real Nobel prizes, Oscars, Emmys, and Awards are those eternal rewards to be given at the final judgment, and the eyes of the faithful want to be fixed on the that future great day more than any other day or any other conceivable honors and rewards.”[12]

Our passage this morning, from this point out,seems to have three movements.

Let me summarize them on a slide…

Jesus’ public ministry comes to a close.

Well we come to the first movement of the passage, “The Hour Has Come” (vs. 27-36a)

I. The Hour HasCome (vs. 27-36a)

27“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” 33He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. 34So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?” 35So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. 36While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”

Look at verse 27. Jesus says, “My soul is troubled”, possibly a quote from Psalm 6:3. This is Jesus’ ‘Gethsemane moment’ in the book of John. (You remember in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed that the cup of suffering be taken from him but then he tempered his request with ‘not my will but yours be done.’) He does the same thing here.

The word troubled literally means “to shake or stir up”…the pool of Bethesda, John 5, was stirred up.[13]The word is a strong word. It can signal anxiety, agitation, revulsion, and even horror.[14] “The anticipation of bearing the shame of sin, experiencing God’s wrath, and being separated from the Father”[15], in this moment, caused Jesus’ soul to recoil in anguish. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28Father, glorify your name.”

Living for the Father’s glory has controlled Jesus’ life and ministry up to this point.[16] And so living for the Father’s glory is on Jesus’ heart as he anticipates the cross.

As Jesus prays “Father, glorify your name” he in a sense is praying “Let your son be crucified.”[17]

Or we might imagine this longer paraphrase, “Father, help me this next crucial week to do everything you want me to do, and to do it all in the right way so that You, Father, will be most honored.”[18] Father, glorify your name!

Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” 29The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” 30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.

This is the only time in John’s gospel that the Father speaks audibly and directly from heaven to Jesus.[19] But we know from the other gospels that the Father spoke from heaven two other times in Jesus’ ministry. Do you remember when? Jesus’ baptism[20](“You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased!”) and Jesus’ transfiguration[21](“This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him”…noticethat at his baptism, the Father’s words were for Jesus, you are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased. But at the transfigurationJesus spoke to those with Jesus, This is my beloved son…listen to him. In each case we can imagine however the voice from heaven was deeply encouraging to Jesus. Why would the Father’s words from heaven here in John encourage the Son? The Father is basically saying: “Dear Son, I have received much glory from your life andI want to assure that I will be glorified by your death and resurrection.”

We talk about living to glorify God. What does that really mean? You and I glorify God when we bring attention to Jesus’ life and when we bring attention to his death and resurrection. “God’s glory is supremely manifested in world history wherever Jesus’s life and passion are brought to the attention of the human race”[22]

When the Father spoke from heaven saying “I have glorified it” he was speaking of Jesus’s life and ministry. When he said, “I will glorify it again” he was speaking of Jesus’s death and resurrection.

Some who heard the voice gave it a natural explanation---was that thunder?

Some who heard the voice gave it a supernatural explanation[23]—I think it was an angel!

Both were wrong. But isn’t this a picture of what has gone on throughout the book of John. Many don’t have ears to hear what the Father says!

Look again at verse 30….30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now what could Jesus mean by that given that no one at the time understood it? He probably meant that the voice came more for their sake[24]than even hiseven though he was encouraged by it. And secondly given that we now have the words from heaven in the Word, disciples all over the world can be encouraged that Jesus’ shameful death on the cross was not a defeat but a victory.[25]

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So let’s review the movement of thought in this section of John 12 up to this point. The arrival of the Greeks (vs. 20) has triggered in Jesus’ mind the recognition that his appointed hour has arrived (vs. 23). And because that hour encompasses the cross he is troubled (vs. 27). But even though he is troubled, his desire is that the Father would glorify his own name, even in this hour (vs. 28). Jesus prays. And Jesus’ ‘Gethsemane-like’ prayer evokes an audible response from heaven (vs. 28-29). What does itall mean? Verses 31-33 unpack what it means….

31Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Let’s look in detail at the four things Jesus emphasizes in verses 31-32…

1. Now is judgment of this world

When you and I think of judgment we often think of something coming down the pike at the end of the age, don’t we? And there will be judgment at the end of the age. But Jesus is telling us in these verses that judgment is inaugurated with the cross.

“The glorification of Christ on the cross brings catastrophic change to everything right now”[26]

Every time someone encounters Jesus, every time someone hears about his death on the cross for sins, and rejects His precious sacrifice for sins, that person condemns himself to the eternal judgment of hell.

As Jesus is lifted up on the cross as the light of the world, he forces a division between those whose evil deeds are exposed by his brilliance and those whose deeds prompt them to embrace the light.[27] Isn’t that the way it goes? The light of the world shines. Some, loving their sins, scurry away. Others, drawn to the light,forsake their sins and embrace Christ. Judgment has occurred.

There’s great irony in the passion of Christ. The world thought it was passing judgment on Jesus when they crucified him. In reality the cross was passing judgment on them.When mankind exercised judgment on Christ on the cross, it judged itself.[28]

Now is the judgment of this world.

2. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

The ruler of this world—Satan—lost his authority and influence at the cross.[29] His reign of tyranny was broken at the cross.[30] When Jesus was glorified, lifted up to heaven by means of the cross, enthroned, then Satan was dethroned.[31]

It’s interesting that the book of John includes only one exorcism—Satan’s exorcism because of the cross.[32] That’s the word here.[33] Satan was cast out, he was thrown out from over us. Yes the devil “still roams the world, works his wiles, seduces, tempts, tricks, but ever since (the cross), he enjoys no ultimate power or supremacy over believers”.[34] And although the cross might seem like Satan’s triumph, it is in fact his defeat.

3. Jesus will be lifted up on the cross and exalted to heaven.

The verb ‘lifted up’ is ambiguous isn’t it? I think it’s ambiguous on purpose. Jesus was not only lifted up on the cross, he waslifted up (i.e. exalted) to glory. So I think when John uses the term ‘lifted up’—and we saw it in John 3:14 and John 8:28 and now here in John 12:32—he means both lifted up on the cross and lifted up into glory. (There’s actually a verse in Isaiah—Isaiah 52:13—where the notions of being lifted upand glorification come together.[35] We won’t take the time to look at it but it’s beautiful and it leads right into the ‘suffering servant’ passage in Isaiah 53.)

4. Jesus will draw all people to himself.

The consequence of Jesus’ passion/glorification, his death/exaltation is that Jesus will draw all men to himself.[36] We saw this word ‘draw’ in John 6:44. There it was theFather who drew all men to give to the Son. Here it is the Son who will draw all people to himself.

The lifting up of Jesus—again by that we mean his lifting up on the cross and his lifting up into heaven glorified—is the ‘single most magnetic power on the planet attracting the filings of human hearts all over the world like no other magnetic force in the universe’[37]

You see Jesus had to die and be exalted to become magnetic. That’s why when Jesus heard that Greeks were coming to see him, he began to think forward to the cross when he would become magnetic for all the people of the world. And He had to die to become spiritually magnetic.

Now we know that not everyone is saved. So how do we handle this idea that Jesus will draw all people to himself? Most often it’s explained that ‘all people’ is ‘all people without distinction, Jews and Gentiles alike, (every kind of people but)not all individuals without exception’[38]

But could the text be teaching a magnetic universalism (all people will be drawn to Jesus, some to receive him and others to reject him) not a saving universalism (that all people will be saved)?Could the text be saying that all people will be drawn to Jesus to encounter him as the crucified and risen Savior but not be saying all people will be saved? I think so.

Well look at verse 33….33He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.