Clough John Lesson 48

Eleventh Hour Appeal and Warning – John 12:20-50

Turn to John 12, seeing this is the last Sunday for many of the university students this is a fitting Sunday to have as your last Sunday in the Gospel of John because this is the end of a major section. John 12 is the finishing section of the Gospel as far as the presentation of Christ is concerned. After this the Gospel is all private; it’s all ministry, particularly to the disciples and not at all to the world. Christ, right here, just throws up His hands and says it’s all over as far as the world system is concerned. This is His formal turning away and His rejection of mankind. For this you can also read in the other Synoptic Gospels.

But John, when he describes Jesus turning away from the world, describes it a little differently than the other three Gospel writers. And he does this because as an old man John writes with hindsight. He writes with perspective of what actually did happen after Jesus Christ died. So John is more sensitive to certain things that Jesus said than the Synoptic writers, the authors of the Synoptic Gospels. And there are two basic answers that John apparently is answering in this chapter. The first question that he’s trying to answer is why is it that God shifted from Israel to the Gentiles; why was that shift? Now by John’s day, in his last days, while he wrote this Gospel, the shift had become very evident. The Christians had lost their legal status in the Roman Empire, they were no longer considered a Jewish cult, they were off and by themselves. And obviously something radical happened in history. So John is trying to explain why did God shift from Israel to the nations.

A second question that he has been answering all through this Gospel and it comes to a crisis here and he answers it quite clearly, is why is it that Israel failed to recognize her own God? Why is it that if Messiah really was Yahweh incarnate that Israel never recognized Yahweh when He came to them. These are two questions that He is trying to answer. But these two questions have applications that apply to us in the Church Age.

And the first application, harping back to the first question, is why is it that God does not concentrate on just the Christians own personal life but is concerned with the Christian’s role in the world? The second question that we have to ask ourselves based on the second question John is asking and answering is that why is it that men who often received the clearest witness to the Gospel, see all the evidence displayed before them, are precisely the men who turn away. For example, take this country. In this country we have a vast amount of revelation available to the population. If the revelation was being responded to the way it was in the first Greek community, in the first century, you wouldn’t recognize this country. There’d be a tremendous shift in the whole lifestyle of the country. Now the fact that there isn’t a shift in the lifestyle of this country as the Word of God has gone forth is simply stating that there’s an inherent rejection to the Word of God. The same horrible kind of rejection that is described in this kind of passage. This passage, finishing up the 12^th chapter of John has one of the most sobering passages in the whole Bible about unbelief, some of the harshest words against unbelief, so harsh in fact that many times, particularly seminary students back away from taking the text at it’s full value, realizing if they do the theological implications of what Jesus is saying here.

The episode begins in John 12:20; remember that Jesus has had the triumphal entry; Palm Sunday has come and gone. Jesus is now in Jerusalem, as He is in Jerusalem He has presented Himself to the people, the people have misconstrued His character and His claims entirely, they have begun to chant as they tore off the palms and of the palm trees and as they came around the south side of the Mount of Olives and then across the valley of the Kidron. As He did so the people ripped off the palm branches; they were worshipping as a political Messiah, and they began to yell and chant, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, which is save I pray, save I pray, save I pray, save I pray. And as John so frequently does it’s irony; irony that the very people who are going to shortly be saved spiritually are the ones who hours before are demanding a political salvation. They’ll get their salvation but it won’t be the kind that they thought they were getting.

Then in John 12:20 John interrupts the narrative with a very strange notice, a notice that is not repeated in any other Gospel and a notice that’s doubly strange because this notice not only is not repeated in the other Gospels but it’s not carried on in the Gospel of John. These people who are introduced as Greeks show up just for an instant, a fleeting instant in the narrative, they disappear never to be heard from again. Why does John choose to introduce these people, change the whole course of the narrative for these people act as a trigger device and now Jesus is going to be making some titanic claims and He makes them, apparently, in response to this incident.

Now by way of background, if we chart the Gospel of John alongside the Synoptic Gospels and study the chronology, as John introduces the Greeks, the other writers of the Gospel introduce the second cleansing of the temple. Jesus cleansed the temple twice; He cleansed it once in John 2 at the early stage of His career, and the Synoptic writers say that He also cleansed it at this time. Now it’s significant that the Apostle John doesn’t mention the second cleansing and in the place of the second cleansing he mentions instead this rather strange incident of Greeks coming to Jesus. John, of course, as we have recognized by now, always has a method in his madness; he always has a reason for these little, what look like diversions from the text that turn out after all not to be diversions at all but part of the main beautiful argument of this apostle.

He says, “And there were certain Greeks among them that came up to worship at the feast: [21] The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we wish to interview [would see] Jesus.” The word “see” means not just see, they saw Jesus, they had just watched Jesus come in riding the donkey, they didn’t need to see Him again. It’s the verb “see” all right, but in this context it doesn’t just mean see; in this context it means we want to see to discuss with Him. This Jewish Messiah that we saw coming up the road, what is He, we want to know more about Him. And John notes that they are not proselytes, they’re Greeks. You see, in the ancient world there were three kinds of people in the Jewish community. There were Jews, there were proselytes and there were Greeks. The proselytes were Gentiles who had submitted to circumcision and a ritual cleansing of washing. The Greeks were men like Cornelius and others who did not want to submit to circumcision or ritual washing and therefore were never accepted as full members of the Jewish community but nevertheless they were monotheists and apparently saved individuals, or at least people who were attracted to the Word of God. They saw in contrast to the Hellenism, the paganism, the mystery cult and all of the Roman Caesar worship, in contrast to all that they saw that these Jews, these people that stood out like a sore thumb in society, that never seemed to blend in, to paraphrase the judge that we quoted this morning, who had a philosophy of social conformity. The Jew never has had a philosophy of social conformity, that is when he’s been spiritual, when he’s been alive to the Word of God.

So these Greeks saw something, it says they would come up, they were coming up to worship at the feast so obviously they were open to the Word of God. They come up and they begin to go to Philip. Now you remember that in the early chapters of John, Philip is a very interesting one of the disciples, he’s probably one of the stupidest of the disciples, not a very bright man. Philip is pictured as very dull or at least if he’s not dull he’s the kind of guy that can never make a decision. He wakes up in the morning and he has trouble deciding what pair of shoes to wear, he has a real problem. And Philip, every where you see him he is indecisive, the doesn’t know what to do, he hesitates, he forms opinions and so on. And I said when we introduced Philip that that should give a lot of you great assurance that God can use anyone, even Philip. Philip is a tremendous encouragement really, he’s a tremendous encouragement because Jesus accepts Him fully. He may not be all there as far as being compared to a man like John; he may not be articulate like Peter, but Philip has its place and it’s very significant for John points this out that when the Greeks were looking for some sort of communication link they did not go to Peter. They did not go to John; they went to Philip. Why do you suppose they went to Philip.

John doesn’t tell us exactly what caught their eye but he does mention something about Philip. He say that “Philip was of Bethsaida, of Galilee.” We can only speculate why that notice is there. Perhaps it was because Philip, being a Galilean was far more open to the Greeks. Remember, this is an area where the commercial trade group went and maybe while Peter and John had their own little Jewish fishing business and they kind of kept to themselves, maybe it was Philip who developed this rapport with the heathen that would go up and down through the land of Israel. Maybe it was Philip who had an openness to Greeks, he entertained less of the legalism of the Jewish community toward them. Whatever it was, these men thought well, if we want to see Jesus and really want to talk to him, we’ve got to obviously crack the inner circle, and this guy Philip over here, he looks like he might be the one to talk to. So the come, and they ask him. Now just as quickly as these Greeks appear in the text they disappear, because not ever in the rest of these verses are they mentioned again. John has Jesus talking on about something that seems utterly unrelated to these men.

How are we to relate this? These Greeks come to Jesus, apparently just as He had cleansed the temple and remember what the typology, the big picture, the smashing of the Jewish temple, what does that connote in history? The destruction of the temple at this point? The replacement of that physical temple with a spiritual temple of the Church, and therefore John says you know, there was something else that Matthew, Mark and Luke didn’t tell you people, I want to tell you that, that at the time Jesus was cleansing that temple there was a little incident that happened, and most people never noticed it. But these Greeks came up one day and they wanted an audience with Jesus, and He said as we listened, this seemed to trouble Jesus, and Jesus launched off into this big long lecture that had some very strange words to it. He says I don’t know exactly all the connections, all the links but John tells us that whatever it was these Greeks deeply troubled Jesus, not that they were Greeks, not that there was something wrong with them, but just the mere incident itself bothered Jesus immensely. Now to appreciate this one has to understand Jesus deity and His humanity.

In Jesus’ humanity He was led by the Word of God analyzing circumstances. In Jesus humanity this was a circumstance and in Jesus humanity this was a guiding sign from His Father. Jesus, this Passover you’re never going to get back again; all the other Passovers that you’ve come to Jerusalem too you escaped and you got away from the crowd. Not so this time; the Greeks coming to you is a signal that Jesus, the world is ready for you; the Jews are rejecting You, yes; the temple rejects You, yes, you had to cleanse it, but the fact that now Greeks want to seriously dialogue with you shows that the hour has come for you to transcend Israel, go out beyond the boundaries of the Jew and go out to the Gentiles. So that is the link.

The Greeks coming to Jesus precipitate in His humanity the recognition that now is the hour for His death and now He makes the dramatic announcement that has been postponed, has been postponed, has been postponed, time and time again in this Gospel. Time and time again we read it, we read it in John 2, we read it in John 5, John 6, every time something significant would come He would say “My hour has not yet come.” Remember His mother coming to Him saying Jesus, this bride, this groom, they ran out of wine at their wedding. And Jesus turns to her in a very strange expression and says woman, what have I to do with you, My hour has not yet come. And then later on John introduced “My hour has not yet come,” and time and time again we’ve seen this. But those times have stopped, right here with the Greeks; now Jesus takes an entirely new tact, all as a result, apparently of this Greek visitation.

To appreciate the shift that we’re about to witness we have to go back and examine our history, the history of how God has worked in the world up until this time. There have been various large scale ages or dispensations from creation on through till the time of Abraham. There was the time of the Gentiles. During this time of the Gentiles God worked with all men. How did God work with all men? Apparently by direct revelation, we had prophets, men like Melchizedek, we had apparently if the research of Cise [sp?] and Spencer is correct that many of the constellations were named for portions of the gospel so apparently there was a great deal of information, including information that the Messiah would be born of a virgin so we have the constellation Virgo, and we have the ship of Noah in the constellations and so on, so before there was the astrological mix-up in these constellations and the signs of the zodiac, there apparently was quite a bit of gospel information. Now we don’t know, that’s been lost in history.

But men did know a lot about the gospel in these days. Job is an illustration of this; if Job was written very early and we think it was, before the Law, what has learned about God and about the fact that one day I will see Him in my flesh, the doctrine of the resurrection. In the book of Judge we recognize that even in Noah’s say they were discussing such questions as the second return of Jesus Christ, for the epistle of Jude records some of the sermons given in the antediluvian era and those sermons speak very clearly of Christ’s coming again with His angels to judge the world by fire. So information between creation and Abraham was given by prophets, that’s all we know; we don’t know anything else. Conceivably during this era Genesis 1-11 was written on various plates that maybe were transmitted into later history by Noah. Maybe Adam gave, maybe Adam was the chief compiler of the early chapters of Genesis, we don’t know, but those sources fell into Moses hands in some way, still not known, and from that we have the book of Genesis.

That was one way that God worked. And then there came the radical shift in the time of Abraham when God rejected, and so if you’ll turn back to Genesis 12 we’ll refresh our minds about this radical shift that occurred at that time. In Genesis 12 God elected a new nation. God chose a tribe, Abraham. And this tribe was to develop a divine viewpoint counter culture in the world. It was to be a new stage in the program of God; we’ll say stage two. And at this time, this new dispensation the Lord said to Abraham three things. Many of you are familiar with them but still it’s a good chance to go back and let your eyes see the text once again. “Get thee out of thy country, and away from thy tribe, away from thy father’s house,” God demanded a cultural separation. Why else get out of your home, leave, geographically separate. Why do you have to do this? To maintain the home situation. Some of you who have non-Christian parents understand; you understand that in a way you’re like Abraham and you have to leave your father’s house and your mother’s house, in a way that the Christian couple doesn’t have to, because there’s a clash of culture. And sometimes a geographical separation is called for on the part of a couple, particularly when they’re newly married, that they do not have the in-law interference.

Well, it was more than just in-law interference with Abraham, it was an entire cultural religious influence with him. And so God said get out. That’s the prerequisite… [small blank spot]… that culture, separate from your in-laws. Then he says [Genesis 12:2] “I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing.” But the Jews, while they often remembered verse 2, did not read very carefully the last part of verse 3. “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curses thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” The outcome of this period, from Abraham to Jesus, the age of Israel, the outcome of all that era, with its subcategories and sub dispensations and so on, the outcome of that whole era, according to verse 3 was not just for Israel. The outcome of that entire era was that the previous problem, Genesis 1-11, the problem of all human races, the whole tribes, that these people might have the Word of God. In other words, Israel was to be a mediating nation to the rest of the nation. Israel did not just exist for itself but it existed for a greater end. It was Gods priestly nation. And therefore the meaning of the Jew in history is that he is a mediating person. In the millennium when Christ returns, again the Jew will be the mediator of the Law to the nations of the world. That’s his function. We may not like that, some people do, some people don’t, but that’s the way God has designed history and that’s the way it will be. So God designed this era in which the Jew would develop his culture and then the ultimate goal would be a pouring out.

But when God made this election He also did something else. Turn to Deuteronomy 4:19, as He told Abraham to get out and form a separate counterculture that implied the other problem, the thing that some of you that have been around Christian circles for a while will quickly recognize as the issue of double predestination. If God predestined the elect to heaven does He predestine the non-elect to hell? Well if God is going to choose some and not choose others, if He has a design to history, the fact that He chooses some automatically has a corollary that He must not have chosen others, and verse 19, there we see it. As God chose the nation Israel so it also implies He did not choose the nations. And so Moses in telling his people, he says, “Lest you lift up your eyes unto heaven, and when you see the sun, and the moon, and the stars and all the host of heaven, should be driven to worship them and serve them, which the LORD thy God has divided unto all nations under the whole heaven. [20] But the LORD has taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto Him a people of inheritance, as you are this day.” And the implication is that Israel has been called forth culturally; the Gentile nations were left in their apostasy because what verse 19 is talking about is demonic worship systems. Demonic worship of the creature more than the Creator and as the Bible makes very clear, the calling of the heavenly bodies and the worshiping of these bodies, as if you’ve studied mythology and classical Greece, Zeus, Jupiter and so on, the naming of the planets, the naming of the stars, all of this has a demonic tone and a ring to it.

So the corollary of the calling out of Abraham to form a new counterculture, the corollary was that the Gentiles out beyond this are left; left in darkness, and because they are left in darkness it means that they have to be relieved of this darkness. And because the darkness is satanic, then whoever relieves the darkness must deal with the Satan problem. Therefore, having all this background, now let’s go to the words of Jesus.

John 12:23, he begins his discussion, Philip has come, notice in his typical Philip way he has to get an audience with Jesus vial his brother, Andrew. [22, “Philip comes and tells Andrew; and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus.”] “And Jesus answered them,” notice the word “answer,” He answered, Jesus considered this an answer to the Greeks. Now if you study verses 21-22 you’ll see that at no point, apparently, did the Greeks ever ask Jesus personally. Isn’t this interesting? Jesus said for His disciples to go out only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Here’s Jesus, here are His band of disciples, Philip, Andrew, and here are the Greeks. The Greeks want to get in to see Jesus but Jesus never talks completely and freely to the Greeks. The message goes indirectly to Philip, to Andrew, to Jesus. And apparently when Jesus answers them He expects them to take the message back. In other words, Jesus never did grant the interview. Jesus has come to the lost sheep of the house of Israel exclusively, but Jesus does have a message for the Greeks; your time is coming, in fact it’s coming sooner than you think and so this is the message He wants passed back to the Greeks and by the way, He wants it apparently passed to the disciples too because it applies to them.

“Jesus answered them, and said, The hour has come,” first time in His career He’s every said this; every other place He said no, the hour is not yet. When threatened that the police were going to capture Him or the crowd was going to mob Him and kill Him, always John said but His “hour was not yet.” Now His hour has come, “that the Son of man should be glorified.” Notice what title Jesus calls Himself by now; not the Son of God, not the Christ, but the Son of man. Jesus deliberately saves the Son of man terminology for dealing with Gentiles. Why does Jesus call Himself the Son of man?

Turn to Daniel 7, here’s where Jesus got that title and here’s what that title means. Whenever you see the “Son of man” in the Bible it carries a load of data with it. It’s a signal, it’s a code word known only to those who are careful students of Scripture. The cursory person will just simply go by and say oh, that’s interesting, very fine, but when we get here and we notice the Son of man in Daniel 7 we say yes, now I see what You’re saying Jesus. You remember that Daniel has given us a vision of the kingdom of man. Notice in Daniel 7:3 the “four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse from one another. [4] The first was like a lion….” Verse 5 there was the beast like the bear; verse 6 there was the leopard, and verse 7, “a fourth beast dreadful and terrible, strong exceedingly, and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet….” What are those four? Why are they pictured as monsters when in another chapter in Daniel they’re pictured as harmless metal? Because in Daniel 7 you have the ethical qualities of the future kingdoms on earth, and so first is the lion, that’s the Babylonian kingdom; and then the bear, the Persian kingdom; then the leopard, the leopard being the high speed animal that strikes quickly and moves away, and who was it that conquered the world, the known world in his day in a rapid amount of time as a young boy? Alexander the Great. And then in verse 7 that fourth beast; he says the fourth beast has a peculiar character to it in that it’s iron and what is iron? Man-made, and so the fourth kingdom that comes in this series which is Rome and Roman fallout to the Italian Renaissance, the fourth beast is something that is man-made, and therefore most horrible. The others are animals, they are kind of subhuman, they don’t come up to the high level of human society but at least they aren’t horrible. But the fourth beast, made artificially by man whom you would think would make something on his high level of man and not on the low level of animal, it turns around that what man makes disintegrates until it’s a level below the animals.

Those of you who have had a chance to read some of Dr. Arthur Custance’s writings, he has one excellent writing called The Fall was Down in which he compares human behavior and animal behavior and he notes that isn’t it strange that in the zoological world there’s not one animal known to fight and to kill out of vengeance. Animals fight for territorial claims, they will fight for physical survival but they don’t fight for vengeance, there’s only one creature during that, that’s man. Why? Because man is the image of God and part of the image of God is to demand justice and when that is perverted then man becomes very much less than the animal.

Now in all this momentum of Daniel 7 he heaps one imagery upon another to explain to us, look people, this is the content, the moral ethical content of these kingdoms. And then in Daniel 9:7, “I beheld till the thrones were cast down,” the end of the kingdoms has come, “and the Ancient of days did sit,” the Father. And in verse 10, “A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him…the books were opened,” and judgment was given. And in verse 11 the beast was slain and in verse 12 “the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.” He’s pointing out the cumulative effect of these kingdoms, Babylon went down but she had her life prolonged in Persia, who came up, and had her life prolonged in Greece, who had it prolonged in Rome, but when Rome is ended and the Roman fallout, when Christ returns again, it’s all over.

But he says then, when it was all over, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,” now there’s the originating verse in the Bible for the title, “Son of man.” Now in the context what does that title tell you? What has been all the other symbols here? Animals, machines, that’s how you can describe the fourth kingdom, that’s the way Daniel described it, mechanistic. It’s mechanical and it’s horrible, it crushes men. But he says when I saw the fifth kingdom it was “like,” notice the word “like,” it was “like the Son of man,” Beni Adam, it means it was like a human. That’s what the Son of man originally means in this context; it’s not a proper noun here, he’s just describing it like that was a lion, that was a leopard, that was a bear and that was a man. So the symbol of the fifth kingdom, the final kingdom of history is that it’s human. It is the only era of history worthy of human society, where humanity is really going to blossom, it’s the millennial kingdom going into the eternal state. This is when man comes into his own. We haven’t seen man come into his own yet in history, we haven’t even begun to see what we as men are capable of doing, ethically good, when under this proper supervision and obedience to the Word. We haven’t even seen human creativity; we can go to a Michelangelo, we can go to a Leonardo DaVinci and there get a little bit of a glimpse of what it is that’s in a human being but in this kingdom it blossoms forth. And so it’s known as one that’s human-like, worthy of it.

And then Daniel 7:14, “it was given unto him,” so it’s obviously more than just a symbol, “it was given unto him, dominion and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him,” notice “all,” not just Jewish, all. So in the context of the Son of man as it arose I that stream of revelation, that was a signal that when you see that, you are looking at Messiah through His cosmic side, that Messiah is going to fulfill the original Adamic Covenant, not just the Abrahamic Covenant in the sense of the Adamic mandate to subdue the earth, it’s going to be Messiah seen as He is over all nations, not just over Palestine.

All right, that’s the background; now turn back to John 12 when Jesus makes this dramatic announcement. He hasn’t used this title much in the Gospels. In fact, the last time I believe He uses it was back when he was talking to Nathanael; remember Nathanael said I believe Thou art the Christ, and Jesus said you do Nathanael, that’s very good but you haven’t seen anything yet until you see the Son of man, placing obviously the Son of man at a higher level than even the Christ. So Jesus said, “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be manifest [glorified].” And how is the Son of man going to be manifest? By providing for men of all races, all languages, all nations.

And now in John 4:24 He predicts how this is going to happen: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Unless a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit.” Jesus claims now that He must die for the world, not just for Israel and that in fact the “much fruit” cannot be brought forth until He does die. In fact, He’s arguing, the door to the Gentile is slammed in My face until I die; in fact, Jesus says, I won’t even grant an interview to these seeking Greeks, much as I know their heart longs to talk to Me I can’t; the door has slammed shut. And what is the door that has slammed shut? Why is it that revelation up unto the last part of the Gospel is locked down into the nation Israel. Why is it that Jesus refuses permission in Matthew 10 to send His disciples to any Gentile village in the land, only Jewish villages? Why is it that Jesus is such a segregationist, because that’s what He was in this situation? Why was He? Because what have we said from Deuteronomy 4, here was Israel among the nations, all the other nations surrounding Israel, and what was true of all the other nations? God had given them over to the sun, to the moon and to the stars, that is over to demonic religion, and who was the god of the Gentiles? Satan. And therefore the Prince of this world rules over the Gentiles; it is not Christ’s domain. Legally Christ had no domain over us, for most of us come from Gentile backgrounds. Most of us, at this point in history your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was under the prince of this world, closed off in this cultural way from God’s revelation as it was occurring through the nation Israel. And this is why Jesus said the “much fruit” can’t happen until I die; I must do that. Somehow He’s tying His death with the destruction of Satan.

Now since He has brought up the question of death there’s another theme that we can now pull one of these loose ends together. As we come now toward the end of the Gospel of John I’m going to start doing this, every so often we’ll take all these themes that we’ve been tracking and start pulling together so you can see what the Apostle John has done. Now over and over I’ve stressed Jesus going up to Jerusalem; Jesus went up to Jerusalem in John 2; Jesus went up to Jerusalem in John 5, Jesus went up to Jerusalem in John 7-10. And then you remember in the last few chapters, for example, in John 10:40, after the episode in John 7-10, these are the chapters, 2, 5, 7-10 and at the last of chapter 10 where did Jesus go? He went beyond Jordan where John first baptized. I made a big point about Jesus, I showed the slide, He went out there in that wilderness area and got completely separated from Jerusalem. Then what happened in John 11? He comes to Bethany, He comes back toward Jerusalem, so we have another trip to Jerusalem. And how does this trip end again, at the end of chapter 11? Verse 54, “Jesus, therefore, walked no more among the Jews but went into the wilderness,” and so in John 12 He comes in for His triumphal entry. Do you notice what John is doing? Time and time and time again He says Jesus comes in and He retreats. He comes into the city and He backs off. How many times has He done this? Five times, and what has been the theme? The theme has been He comes to Jerusalem and what happens? Let’s see what happens?

Turn back to John 3, that first trip to Jerusalem. He came to Jerusalem, He made His claims known. His claims were partially accepted but Jesus didn’t make any deal about it. Yet in the middle of this first visit to Jerusalem He made a cryptic announcement. John 3:14, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, [15] That whosoever believeth in Him should have eternal life.” A very interesting statement, He doesn’t elaborate on it much, what He’s saying is I’m going to die, we know what He’s saying now. What has John shown us? Jesus has come to Jerusalem and He’s announced the cross.

Now let’s look at John 5:25, He says, “I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Con of God; and they that hear shall live.” He’s talking about live giving, He talks about the greater works in verse 20-21, and we know how that life is going to come about; it’s going to come about by death. And so Jesus comes to Jerusalem and again makes a cryptic announcement that He is the life-giver of the world.

In John 10, the great shepherd discourse, what does the good shepherd do for his sheep? He gave his life for his sheep, and so with greater precision now the announcement isn’t so cryptic any more, now it’s becoming clear, a shepherd died for his flock. And so He comes to Jerusalem and He announces the cross.

Then in John 11 what did Jesus do? He came to Jerusalem and He caused Lazarus to rise from the dead. He gives life from death. And so more and more the strain of not only the cross but the subject of resurrection; it was there all along but it’s getting bigger and bigger and finally in chapter 12 He comes to Jerusalem and what happens? Mary anoints Him for death and He is anointed for His own funeral. He comes to Jerusalem and the cross is there again.

And so what has John done? Remember John wrote this Gospel after the Church had started; he has just presented the life of Christ in five segments, each segment of which itself is a gospel presentation. He has so organized his material that whenever you see Christ He’s coming to Jerusalem to die to give life to the world. And so now this last and final episode that we’re reading tonight in chapter 12 is it; this is the fifth and final gospel within the gospel. There are five little gospels in the gospel of John and so Jesus announces in terms of the grain of wheat in verse 24, the same theme of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, speaking of the resurrection.

John 12:25, “He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” Notice the phrase, “in this world.” In these verses Jesus is drawing a line between mortal history and immortal history. He is saying that in immortal history, the resurrection, you are free. He is saying that in mortal history your life is not all over. Your life goes on and on and on, you are made for eternity, you’re not made for time.

If you read Charles Colson’s recent biography of how he became a Christian, he called his book Born Again, it’s very well worthwhile reading to see what happens to men in power and his description not as a Christian of what happened during the last days of the Nixon administration and he says one day he was visiting a friend who happened to be the executive vice president of Raytheon Corporation in Massachusetts, one of the great weapons produces in our country and this man witnessed to him and gave him a copy of C. S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity, and he said he read me the first chapter to make sure I got hooked, and then as he began to read C. S. Lewis he says the argument that struck me the hardest as a man in the inner councils of government was a very simple statement that C. S. Lewis made and it was this; he said: it has been argued by totalitarians that the state transcends the individual because after the individual dies the state goes on and so therefore the state is worth more than the individual and the individual must sacrifice to the state. Then C. S. Lewis went one step further and he said now let’s take this argument a little bit beyond where we’re used to stopping and ask ourselves, does any state last for eternity? No, the individual lasts for eternity. So using the same logic can’t we thus prove that the individual is more important than the state. And suddenly Colson goes on to relate how all of a sudden all the pieces came flying apart to his own personal philosophy that he had thought in terms of the state, he said without knowing it I, a Jeffersonian Democrat, had become a statist, simply because I held the tools of power in my hand and daily, day after day, night after night, we couldn’t think of anything else but power and how we’d use power. I had become a statist in which the state is more important than the individual. And then C. S. Lewis disarmed him.

And Jesus is doing the same thing here, He’s arguing that he that loves his psuke, that’s the word for mortal life, in our present pre-grave state, “He that loves it will lose it; but he that hates his life shall hold onto it.” The word “keep” means to grab hold of something and lock onto it, you will actually hold the psuke until by resurrection the psuke life goes into eternal life. And of course He’s discussing the issue of trusting in Him, though it’s phrased here in terms of hating. Human viewpoint loves this present centered world, that’s the concept.

John 12:26, “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there shall also My servant be….” Now you see, John wrote this after the Church began and there’s a hint in verse 26 that the Lord Himself is going to be Lord in absentia, because He’s describing where He’s going to be. “If any man serve Me, let him follow Me; where I am, there shall My servant be, [if any man serve Me, him will my Father honor”]. Jesus is shortly going to elaborate that in that famous passage many of you have heard at funerals, in John 14, “If I go, I go to prepare a place for you,” it’s all going to be expanded but right now Jesus is cryptic, He’s quick, He’s topical, He’s just announcing this.

And then in John 12:27, the humanity of Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of John as it is portrayed in the Synoptics by His famous prayer episode in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.” Now verse 27 shows you the pure humanity of Jesus and it also refutes a very common thing that you get in Christian devotional literature that if you are really filled with the Spirit and if you are really walking close to the Lord you’ll never be troubled, you’ll have this misinterpreted phrase, “the peace of God that passes all understanding.” Are you going to say that Jesus doesn’t have that peace here? He obviously does. But notice, it doesn’t mean you are never troubled. Here is the perfect sinless man and He faces a torturous decision in space/time history. Jesus must decide whether He is going to voluntarily go to the cross or not and this reflects back. Those Greeks have been one of the confirming signs; when He heard from Philip and Andrew, hey Jesus, there’s some Greeks that want so see you, it was like His Father spoke to Him directly, as He shortly will here.

It was like His Father said okay Son, you hear that, that’s the cry of the world that needs you. Why was Israel brought into existence? To generate you and to generate your work; now you hear the cry of the lost men calling for their salvation, now it’s a different Hosanna, the other day when you came into the city and the people waved palm branches and said Hosanna, Hosanna, save now, save now, it was done with very little finesse, very superficial. But when you heard of the Greeks, they too were coming and singing their Hosanna, Hosanna, save now, save now. So Son, you now hear the voice of the world calling. And this is why His soul is troubled; it’s troubled because of a very obvious thing; the dilemma of why Jesus was troubled here and in His Gethsemane prayer is given prophetically in Psalm 22. Psalm 22 simply says that what troubled Jesus most was not the physical horrible things of the cross. That was bad enough. What troubled Jesus most was coming into contact with sin, and not just a little sin, but in some strange way that no one knows, and whether we will ever be told this by God we don’t know, but Jesus took on your sin and mine, all the sin of the world gathered in one big ball, plop on Him on the cross. That’s what He didn’t like.

Now the cross had it’s problems, there’s not a man alive that likes to have his clothes taken off so he’s completely naked and nailed to a cross in front of a mixed crowd. That’s what happened on the cross, Jesus didn’t have any clothes on and all these sweet pictures you see about the cross is just some artist’s conception. But that’s the way they crucified people; it was the height of humiliation. And so from the social point of view it was humiliating; form the physical point of view they had pegs instead of nails, this little deal about nails going through, it wasn’t at all; they had blunt pegs, they just smashed their way right through the wrist. That wasn’t very nice either. So physically and socially there were things that He didn’t like about the cross. But the Gospel writers are quite clear that what troubled Him most was touching sin. Now we, because we have sin natures we’re used to it and therefore to us this isn’t much of a hassle.

Now let’s reflect backwards for a minute; if touching sin bothered Jesus so much, can you imagine what existence would be like without our sin nature. In other words, it must be so radically different than what we’re used to that it causes this kind of a thing, it’s kind of an aversion to coming back into the atmosphere, it must be rarified air, to live in a situation where there is no sin. That’s the problem. So He admits in verse 27, as He does at Gethsemane and the Gethsemane accounts. But for this cause,” this is Your will for My life, “I came to this hour.”

John 8:28, “Father, glorify Thy nature,” the word “name” means Your essence. How is God going to glorify His nature? Like Paul tells us in his epistle to the Romans. God glorified Himself, says Paul, because God showed that He could be righteous and loving at the same time, that a loving God could forgive sin. By the way, exactly the reverse to what most people think; they say how could a loving God send people to hell. Have you ever thought that that question has two sides. What about the other side of the question: How can a just God send sinful creatures to heaven? If one question is legitimate then the other one is also. And so that dilemma is going to be satisfied as the Father glorifies His name. Now in verse 18 comes one of those great passages in the Bible, a passage that the modern man cannot understand, “Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” God speaks words that men can hear.

I don’t know how many of you saw the movie David, I mentioned when that film was shown on TV to watch very carefully because Dr. Friedman is an Old Testament scholar of great repute. When Dr. Friedman acted as the technical advisor for ABC’s film he gave them a lot of good things; archeologically the film was good; historically he had details in there that you wouldn’t expect, even in a Christian film. But those of you who were sensitive, you saw two areas in that film where he broke down; both involved divine revelation. First it was a case of Samuel anointing David, that was a minor mistake but the major mistake in that film, David, was when he had David praying in front of the altar. First of all, the altar was open and the thing should have been closed, but then he had David praying out, Oh Yahweh, let it be that my seed be eternal. Now David never asked that of God. If you read 2 Samuel very carefully that was exactly reversed to what was on David’s mind. Dr. Friedman, you see, is a neo-orthodox theologian so typical of most clergymen and most theologians today because Dr. Friedman could believe in the historic accuracy of Scripture, except at one point; here is man and here is history, space/time history, here is God and here is eternity. For Dr. Friedman and his other scholars there is no link between the two. There’s a solid brick wall between them.

This has happened since Immanuel Kant and philosophy, the noumenal and the phenomenal, there is no break. Here, apparently there is a break, God speaks. God spoke to David. David didn’t dream up the Davidic Covenant. You see, if you look carefully in all these Biblical movies, it’s very interesting, by their Biblical stories you shall know them. And by looking at the Biblical merits you can always tell the theology of the producers. Remember not so many years ago there was another film: The Bible. John Huston produced that, excellent producer, and what did he do when he came to Noah’s ark? He had man closing the door with pulleys, precisely opposite to what the Scripture says. He violated the whole typology of Noah’s ark because his theology would not permit God’s intervening in history like that. All these men will talk God to you, they will talk Christ to you, they’ll talk resurrection to you, they’ll talk about the face of the Father and all the rest of it, but what they never reveal to the average communicant is that they really don’t buy God speaking in history like this. They will not buy this. And you have to be sharp and you have to look, but if you start looking, so to speak, underneath the rocks, you’ll find very few intellectuals today in the pulpit buy the concept of a speaking God in history. They adhere to the same theory as in verse 29, the people adhered to.

Notice John 12:29, [“The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spoke to him.”] and here, by the way is one of the heights of John’s Gospel; John has carefully laid the plan, He’s shown that time and time again the Word has come, time and again the people have had the light presented, and what do they do when they hear God the Father speaking from heaven? They still can’t interpret it correctly. So there’s two theories that arise, one said that it thundered, that’s the materialist explanation. And this is living evidence, some of you don’t be naïve just because you now know a little bit of the Bible, and you feel you’re spiritual curios that you can take on some unbeliever, and you know a little bit of the evidences of the resurrection and you start throwing around these evidences and you feel pretty good about this. Understand that ultimately this will happen to you. God Himself could speak and human viewpoint comes up with a reason to explain it. Human viewpoint cannot tolerate a speaking sovereign God, even when He comes, it can be reinterpreted as something else. You have to be aware of this, only the Holy Spirit can break this in a man’s heart; evidences yes, use them. Reasons, by all means use them. But when you’re through understand that even then men will not believe in the light of this; they will come up with one or the other. In verse 29 some said the naturalist explanation, it was a physical phenomenon that we saw, we can’t understand it, it was some sort of strange thunder that we heard. Like Cornelius Van Til telling about the proofs of the resurrection; you can prove the resurrection, fine. I’m Mr. Unbeliever and I take your proofs of the resurrection and I say back to you, that’s a fine thing, strange things happen in history, why don’t you send this in to Ripley’s Believe it or Not? And what have you proved? See. Water off a duck’s back, it hasn’t happened. This is what Cornelius Van Til has been thundering at evangelicals and they never listen to him, they think he’s a nut or something. He’s talking about the same point, you can use all the evidence you want to and not convince a soul, simply because man will not believe.

The other theory, an angel spoke to Him. This would be those who would be the spiritists; this is some strange new spiritual phenomenon, it’s not God, it’s a spiritual phenomenon. So we have the materialist and we have the spiritist, and both can come up with their alternate theories to explain God’s revelation in history. Verse 29 is a capsule summary of all theology written since the time of the Lord Jesus Christ that has denied Scripture.

John 12:30, “Jesus answered and said, This voice came not because of Me, but for your sakes. [31] Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” You see, this is His point, now He says those Greeks that want to get to me, remember, here was Jesus in the inner ring, here were His disciples, the Greeks were trying to penetrate, they couldn’t, Jesus resisted them because only Israel had the light and the Gentiles were under the Deuteronomy 4 curse, under demonic religion, under the prince of the power of the air, and what did Jesus say? Before the light goes to the Gentiles I must die to remove Satan’s legal hold… now Satan still has hold but the legal basis of Satan’s hold has been smashed by the cross, and that’s what He says, “the prince of this world is now cast out,” juristically, not necessarily experientially. And then he goes on to describe in great detail, tying together the images that John has so carefully laid before, [32] “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” That came from that first Jerusalem trip in John 3. [33] “This He said, signifying what death He was about to die.”

Now we have the response. John portrays the horror of unbelief. John 12:34, “The people answered him, We have heard out of the law that Christ abides for ever: and how say Thou, The Son of man must be lifted up?” And by the way, “Who is this Son of man?” Why does John report this? Because verse 34 tells us two things about these people. It tells us first of all that they envision the political Messiah correctly, once He came, to abide, but they had one little problem. What has Jesus hinted at? We said He was hinting at the fact that mortal history comes to an end, doesn’t it. I mean, do we want mortal history to go on forever and ever? What is mortal history? It’s the kind of history that God created Adam and Eve, the kind of history in which men are given a choice to obey or not obey, and what happens when you die? What happens when we get our resurrection bodies and go into immortal history, what then? It means the time of testing is over. The testing is only in mortal history, not immortal history. And so when those passages do arise in the Old Testament about Messiah abiding forever, such as in Psalm 110:4, it’s got to be talking not about mortal history but immortal history. You’ve got to go into eternity to abide forever. You cannot have this trial, this constant threat of sin hanging over the human race forever, there’s got to be something changed, radically changed. And how is it going to be? By death, but they don’t understand this and so that’s why they say how come the Messiah is going away, I thought when Messiah came He’d be here to stay. And then finally, “the Son of man,” they pick up that title in verse 34 and they apparently are unfamiliar with it, and they say, “Who is this Son of man,” tell us more about this. And that obviously shows the Jews thought of Jesus in a wholly nationalistic way, they were incapable of seeing the third point of the Abrahamic Covenant, that “in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed,” the universality of Christ could not have been comprehended by them. So now Jesus warns them

John 12:35, “Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walks in darkness knows not where he goes. [36] While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spoke Jesus, and departed, and did hide Himself from them.” The last warning, the light is not forever. Some man who was a Christian philosopher in the last century wrote this little ditty about verses 34-35 and he expresses it very well. “As long as God’s presence in the world and for the individual is regarded, more or less as a universal philosophical sun which is always available because it never rises or sets, and is without time and without history being of the same nature as ideas, it will surely be impossible go grasp the quality of the Johannine light which is always shining just for the present time and whose dawn always carries with it the threat of decline and withdrawal. Jesus warns them, the light is only for a fleeting moment; you’d better believe while you have the chance.”

Men don’t like to be told this; we like to postpone our decisions, we like to argue that we have all the time in the world, but God says no we don’t, I offer you the gospel for a certain time, and then people who constantly reject actually get themselves in a state where they can’t believe. And this is the most horrible situation this side of the grave that any man made in God’s image could ever be in. You see, at least after the grave…we’ve had a chance up to the time we die and then it’s all over; then no matter what, we may repent on the choices but it’s too late then. Now is the time to choose. But the gospel goes further than that; it argues that a man on negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, negative volition, finally can get himself in a position where he’s locked down and he is a damned person.

Now we don’t have omniscience so we can’t conclude automatically somebody is beyond redemption but let me tell you, there are times in history when this is clearly the case. The Canaanites who were destroyed from the face of the earth were men beyond redemption. That was why those horrible holy wars were waged in the Old Testament. In the Tribulation, in the book of Revelation it says the men who did not have their names written in the book of life could not but help to worship the beast; they were men who could not believe in those horrible last hours. Why? Because God somehow twisted their volition? Not at all, because God took hands off and said you people want to reject, just go ahead, but the net result of rejection is that you destroy something in the soul; we don’t know what the something is, it’s like a broken engine or a broken electrical component but something finally snaps and when that snap has happened the man is doomed this side of the grave and this is what this generation is in John’s terms.

John 12:37, “But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: [38] That the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed? From Isaiah 53. [39] “Therefore they could not believe, because that Isaiah said again,” notice they were unable… unable, that is a verb of capability, “they were unable to believe, because as Isaiah said, [40] God hath blinded their eyes, He’s hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.” Horrible ominous words but they’re there in the text, we can’t explain them away, we have to admit yes, at times in history God damns man this side of the grave; men who have the light, men who heard the Father speak and said oh, it’s thunder, always with their sweet little naturalistic explanations for God’s Word. Sometimes it doesn’t pay.

John 12:41, “These things said Isaiah, when he saw His glory, [and spoke of him.”] that’s in Isaiah 6, it shows, by the way, that when the Old Testament prophets, some of you had questions here, when the Old Testament prophets saw God who did they see? Well, verse 41 referred back to Isaiah 6 says, when he Yahweh he was looking at Jesus Christ preincarnate, the Son of God. Verse 42, “Nevertheless,” as the chapter concludes, because John wants to leave us with the state of the nation as Christ turns His back on the nation, “Nevertheless, among the chief rulers also many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: [43] For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” And people, we see that time and time again, Christians in high places who have the social rank to do something for the Lord and they are chicken to do it.

One of the problems and heartaches I’ve had as a pastor since I’ve been in this city has been the spectacle of watching one of the great campuses in this state, Texas Tech, have to be evangelized entirely by students. There are believers on the faculty over at that institution, but they’re all fading into the wall. It’s always the college student, the undergraduate or the graduate student, worse yet, who has to come out and take a stand and risk the academic repercussions of taking his position for Christ. It’s always the Christian student that does it. Where are the Christian faculty members? They’re hiding in closets, that’s where they are, because they’re chicken because as John says, “they love the praise of men more than the praise of God.” That happens in Lubbock, Texas. We have Christians in high places in various organizations that should be speaking out to the issues and they’re not, and it’s the outsiders that have to do it. Silent believers, too chicken to open their mouth for Christ, afraid of something.

This has gone on in history and it was John Calvin who said, when he commented on this verse: We must notice also that rulers have less courage and constancy because ambition almost always reigns in them and there is nothing more servile than that. To put it in a word, earthly honors may be called golden shackles, binding a man so he never can freely do his duty. And with that Calvin very aptly summarized believers of all time who have had the time, men who were on the council of the Pharisees, Nicodemus was there, Joseph of Arimathaea was there, and what were they doing? Letting them crucify Christ, never said a thing.

So finally John winds up the last few verses, he simply repeats the gist of all these verses, the same thing, that Jesus Christ has presented the light to the world very adequately. [44, “Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on him that sent Me. [45] And he that sees me sees him that sent Me. [46 ]I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should not abide in darkness.”]

Notice what he says in John 12:47, “And if any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. [48] He that rejects Me, and receives not my words, hath one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.” In other words, men will be judged in eternity by what they did with God’s revelation, and they’re going to come up before the Great White Throne… but God, I thought it was thunder, and God says come off it. But I thought it was an angel, I followed the spiritist’s explanation, there was some spiritual force operating in the universe that brought this strange phenomenon to existence. And God is going to deny it, Romans 1, you knew Me, don’t come up with this stuff. The Word that I have spoken will be the judge. And notice what Jesus says; that rejecting Christ and rejecting the doctrine of the New Testament is identical. Don’t get into this little charismatic bifurcation that’s going on, that you can accept Jesus but not the words of the New Testament. Huh-uh, it doesn’t work that way. Sorry. Verse 48, “He that rejects Christ,” it’s a synonym here, “He that rejects Christ rejects the words,” and the words are the words of the New Testament. Your attitude to the New Testament is your attitude to Christ. Don’t try to separate the two by saying well, I just love Jesus but I can’t tolerate all that doctrine. What you’re saying is that I love my juicy imagination that can conjure up all these sweet pictures of sugar Jesus but I cannot stand Jesus own teachings.

Finally, verse 50, he relates his ministry to the Father. He summarizes the entire ministry and this is the last announcement He says to Israel. [49, “For I have not spoken of Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.”] “And I know that His commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I am speaking therefore, even as the Father said unto Me, so I speak.” There’s the final message and it comes after a very sobering revelation of unbelief. From this point forward it’s all inner circle type doctrine. It’s all doctrine for Christians only, no more evangelism. As far as Jesus is concerned the light has blown out, it’s over. The nation Israel is not going to get more light until Jesus prays His famous prayer from the cross, Father, forgive them, and when He does that He opens up forty more years of light.