Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: John 12:20-37
## Pastor Dennis Tuuri, Reformation Covenant Church

*Please stand for the reading of God’s word. John 12, beginning at verse 20.*

Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip who was from Bethsaida of Galilee and asked him saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus. But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.

But if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be also. If anyone serves me, him my father will honor. Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.

Then a voice came from heaven saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.” Therefore, the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself.

This he said, signifying by what death he would die. The people answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever, and how can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is the Son of Man?” Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.

These things Jesus spoke and departed and was hidden from them.

—

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this text. We confess our complete ignorance of understanding it apart from the wondrous, gracious, enlightening work of your Holy Spirit. And we confess that we have no hold on your spirit apart from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we have been brought here by you to understand this word, to hear it, to hear our savior speak to us through it.

We pray, Lord God, that you would do that. We pray that you would enlighten this text for understanding, that you would transform us, Lord God, by the power of your word. In Christ’s name we ask it, and for the sake of his kingdom, not ours. Amen.

Please be seated.

—

Well, we’ve moved through the adoration of Mary and through the acclamation of the crowd, and we get now to that section that concludes the first half of this gospel where the Greeks wish to see Jesus.

I remember hearing years ago this text referred to as the desire of the people of God to see Jesus in the context of the preaching of his word. It’s my great desire today that we would see Jesus in the context of this text and that it would help us, seeing him, to see ourselves.

Jesus says just a remarkable thing, and he says so many remarkable things recorded in these gospels. But you know, if you understand what’s going on—this triumphal procession and everybody’s exclaiming him as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and Hosanna, and here he comes, and this is great, and even the Greeks are seeking him—and you know, his response to all of this is, “Now is the hour that the Son of Man will be glorified.” And wow, that’s good news because as we’re sitting there—two years ago, listening to him speak—we know that the Son of Man is a reference to the book of Daniel, and there are all these various kingdoms that come up that can only be described as savage beasts. Not ten.

And then at the end of all that succession of world empires, we have the Son of Man coming and establishing his kingdom by defeating all these savage beasts and replacing them with a man, a restored image of man. So we’re thinking, well, that’s great news. That he’s telling us we’re right to exclaim it as king. And this is all changing now. And now the Son of Man—the hour has now come for him to be glorified.

And they’re just excited as can be, of course, because now all the enemies will be repulsed. The kingdom will be established with great pomp and splendor. And then he immediately says, “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it doesn’t bear any fruit.” He immediately dashes all hopes that were raised so high by their expectation of the Son of Man coming by saying that the hour of glorification is not going to be what you think it is.

It’s going to be my death.

So Jesus gives us an amazing text here. Remember that this book is his exposition of the father. The father is exegesis of who the father is. We’re not just seeing the human side of Jesus and all of his death. We’re seeing the nature of God at work itself.

I saw an interview on C-SPAN a week ago Saturday—just fascinating. I don’t know this man really. His name is Bernard Lewis. I’ve given you his name there. He has a book out that I just bought. I don’t recall the name now, but it’s about the events of the last century—well, actually the last millennia, really—of Islam and what’s happened to them.

And the interesting thing is that at the same time I was watching this interview, I also saw an email on the BH list from a man who said a reporter named or had been to Egypt and read these various daily papers about a month ago or so, and they were astonished that in all the daily papers of Egypt there are all these articles about conspiracy theories about how Mossad—the Israeli intelligence—are putting metal strips in cigarette packs because they know it’ll cause radiation and cancer to Arabs.

And I mean, you know, just dozens of these kind of kooky, nut-like conspiracy theory stories in mainline Egyptian newspapers. And it’d be like our newspapers—it’d be like the Oregonian, you know, publishing all these kooky right-wing conspiracy theories or the left-wing conspiracy theories. Why does this happen? Well, Lewis explained it by saying that you really have to understand that Islam had been in ascendancy, and then you know, beginning really probably in the 16th and 17th centuries, had gone into quite a situation of declension—loss of power and influence in the world—and the Christians had been kind of raised back up again. And why? What happened to us? They said. And instead of answering the question, “What happened to us?” they began to ask a question: “Who did this to us? Who is conspiring against us?” And that’s the mindset now that pervades much of fundamentalist Islam. There’s conspiracy theories abounding.

But why did they tend toward that? And the difference Lewis said—and I think he is right on the money—is you have to look at you know, Jesus and Muhammad. Jesus, God of the Christians, real God. Jesus died for his enemies and Muhammad killed his enemies. Islam has no concept of the suffering Messiah. They have no conception of the God who portrays himself in this text as being glorified in the death of Jesus Christ.

They have no conception of that.

Now Christians, we do. And our conception of that helps us to understand that Jesus gives us, at this kind of closing section of the first half of the Gospel of John, he gives us a picture of who he is and a resultant picture of who we are, mirroring this great text about himself—dying, that he might bring the whole world to salvation. Death is the means of world conquest, is what Jesus teaches here.

And he says that this isn’t a definitive, once-for-all act only, but that this process really works its way through in our lives as well. It is through setting aside and even hating our own lives that we really find our life in him. It’s death to the old man that produces resurrection in the new man. And so we understand: when the church goes into declension, we’re not all hung up in what somebody else is doing to us.

We know that either for our sins or simply for the glory of God, he is purifying his church. He is maturing us and developing us. And so really, these two worldviews that are now coming on the world stage in heightened forms—Christianity and Islam—this is a very insightful moment for us to understand the differences between the true biblical faith and these counterfeits, and now this one, Islam. And the difference really is in the nature of God himself.

Muhammad is a picture of a god who destroys all enemies. And Jesus Christ is a picture of a God who dies for those who are his enemies and brings them to life in him. And therein lies the difference between these gods.

Let’s look at Jesus, then, in the context. Let’s be these Greeks. You know, the Greeks are the ones who are always seeking after things—kind of like Bono, you know, in that YouTube song, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” The Greeks, they never thought they were looking for. Well, here they go, seeking Jesus. And we come here seeking Jesus. I hope that’s why you’re here. You want to see Jesus today. And how does he portray himself?

I’ve given you an overview of the text that we’ll talk through briefly, and then just four basic comments. Okay? And the way this text, I think, is structured is it begins, of course, with this very pregnant statement that these Greeks come wanting to see Jesus. And that’s given to us in the first few verses: the Greeks wish to see Jesus. They talk to these disciples. The names of the disciples come back to us.

Now, they really haven’t—it’s like the disciples have been absent for most of this book. But just like we talked about this sequence of days beginning with his next-to-last supper in Bethany reminding us of the sequence of days at the beginning of the book reminding us again that we’re in these days of the new creation—we’re in the last week of the old world. The first week is coming now of the new world. Well, here we have the disciples again. The way they were kind of enumerated and named, and here we have them again, drawing us into kind of an understanding. This wraps up a particular section of this gospel—the first half.

And maybe it’s because they had Greek names or where they were from. It’s noted here that Philip was from Galilee. And so, you know, maybe—I don’t know—maybe the Greeks have been excited because Jesus, while John doesn’t record it, we know that the other gospels do record that in terms of the triumphal entry, he then—the next thing he does in the context of the synoptic gospels—is to cleanse the temple. And you remember it’s the outer court, the court of the Gentiles, that he cleanses. So he restores the temple as a place for the Gentiles, the Greeks, to come to.

So maybe that’s got to—we don’t know why. But the way John has structured the text, the important thing is that now world mission takes center stage in this narrative. We see that he’s not just the king of the Jews. Now the Greeks are going to seek him. And at the end of the text, he tells us that if he’s lifted up, he’ll draw all men to him. So we have this kind of bracketing of the sections—the beginning verses and then the concluding verses.

The Greeks are seeking Jesus, and at the end, the lifting up of Jesus produces the drawing of all men to himself. And so that’s kind of how this begins and ends.

There is an evaluation immediately after that in verses 34 to 37. So, you know, we have this kind of description of what happens. And then there’s the Jews’ response again. And as it’s been so often in this gospel, it’s an unbelieving response. It’s the one that says, “Oh, Son of Man, you’re supposed to be a conqueror. You’re going to die. What is the deal here? Who are you really?” And so there’s an evaluation, but the text sort of has these bookends of the importance of world mission now reaching center stage and this sort of the Gentiles coming and seeking Christ.

His response to that is that now this is the hour—the hour in which the Son of Man will be glorified.

So, moving in from the Greek seeking Jesus, we have verses 23 and 24: Jesus and death. Jesus’s death and glory is at hand. So that’s talked about in verses 23 and 24: “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain.”

So he tells them here, in response to the seeking of the Gentiles—that the Greeks want to see Jesus—he says, “Here’s how I will be manifested. The hour has come and I will be glorified through my death.” Now, the glorification of Christ is, of course, linked to his death, resurrection, ascension—the entire event. We’ll talk about that in just a little bit. But here, very explicitly, you have to get this. You have to understand this, folks, because to see Jesus and to see the father, you have to understand that the hour of glorification is here, clearly tied to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that’s what he says in verses 23 and 24. His death and his glory are at hand.

And then as we get to the middle of the section—at least what I believe, and I’ve structured it this way—he talks about the implications of that for the Greeks who would seek him, for the Gentiles who would see him, who would see him and follow him. The implications of how he is glorified has something to do with how we are honored.

And he says in verse 25: “He who loves his life, now speaking of disciples, right?—will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me.” Follow him where? Well, he’s just told us his path is the path of the cross and the crown. No cross, no crown. No death, no glory. And so he’s telling us that we’re going to follow the same path. We have union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ. We have fellowship with him in his sufferings as well as in his honor and exaltations.

You see, “If anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, then there my servant will be also”—lifted up on the cross and exalted. “If anyone serves me, him my father will honor.”

Now, this is the Christian life. I suppose that if we had a class on discipleship for new believers, this may be one of the places you’d want to start with them. This is what it’s all about. It’s come to a summary form now in the context of this first half of the gospel. This is what it means to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. To be with Jesus means both loss, but it also means honor. I mean, it’s amazing. It’s as amazing as the second half of this—as when he said, “The Son of Man will be glorified now in this hour by death.” And now he says, “Let him follow me. Hate your own life. Take up my life and the father will honor you.” Can you believe that?

What a wondrous truth that as we walk this walk of Jesus with death—putting aside our own interests for the sake of the interests of the king and of the father—ultimately God honors us. I mean, the creator of all things, the father honors you and I. And so we have that Jesus says that his glory and his cross are tied here. And now he tells us, as his disciples, that our relationship to him is to follow, and into both loss as well as gain.

You know, it’s interesting. I didn’t plan it this way, but in the responsive reading from the Psalms, we had that verse that I preached on a couple years ago: “All you who love the Lord hate evil.” Remember? We talked about the importance of hating evil. It’s as important as loving God. It says it’s a corollary. If you love God, you’ve got to hate what’s evil. You know, we’re all guilty of hate crimes today—thought crimes of hating something. We hate evil. And here, the text, what does it tell us the evil is? It tells us to hate something here. What is it? It’s our life. Our own life. In other words, our life apart from Jesus Christ. Our life lived in independence from him.

We’re not just supposed to want to move away from it. We’re supposed to hate it as we hate evil. We hate abortion. We hate homosexuality—the act. We hope these people repent, but we hate that sin. It’s an affront to God. We hate, you know, when men kill innocent people by the thousands—this happened a year ago. We hate our own life. Jesus says that’s the core of Christian discipleship.

So he says that, and then he goes back to talk about his own death again. So in verse 27, he says, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. Then a voice came from heaven saying, ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.’ Therefore, the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered and said, ‘This voice did not come because of me, but for your sake.’”

Now, I’ve got this listed on the outline as John’s Gethsemane account. You know, in the synoptic gospels at Gethsemane in the garden—the night of his betrayal—our savior is praying. His soul is deeply troubled. He sweats blood, so to speak. He cries out to the father, you know, “If you can take this cup away, take it away, but nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.” One of the things I think Luke says is that angels come and minister to him in the context of that. So that’s the Gethsemane account.

We don’t have that in John’s gospel, but we have kind of a picture of what that will be here. This account, if we take it and parse it out and look at all the specific terms, is very much a Gethsemane-like account. The same way we had kind of a next-to-last supper, you know, at the home of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Now we’ve got kind of a pre-Gethsemane thing going on here. His soul is troubled. It’s greatly disturbed. In other words, it’s all worked up.

This is the same word that’s used about him when he encountered death with Lazarus. His soul was troubled. Remember that? And he weeps. This is the same thing. He’s very much in turmoil as he sees the horrors—the horrors, the absolute horrors—of death. We don’t probably fear death enough in some ways. I mean, we don’t have the kind of realistic appreciation of what death is and its horribleness. And our savior does here.

And he, as he talks now—he said, “I’m going to die. This is going to be the way you’re going to live.” And now he considers his death again. And when he does that, we have language here that is very similar to Gethsemane language. “Father, what am I going to say? Father, save me through this hour, but for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

See, Jesus is going to be glorified on the cross because he seeks the glorification of the name of the father. It’s our life, right? How does the Lord’s Prayer start? “Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Glorify your name in our lives.” And our savior says this here.

It’s interesting because, as I said, angels minister to him here. And here comes people who think it’s an angel that’s talked to him. This reference to angels ties this account again to Gethsemane. And so there’s these various accounts, and we have you know, the way to think of it, of course, is that what’s going on here is Jesus again talking about his death—that the hour of his glorification is the hour of his death.

And he struggles with Gethsemane-like verses portrayed for us here in this section of the text. And then, as that’s resolved, and as he you know, we have this wonderful blend of the horrors of death and the ardor of desire to glorify the father’s name, right? Fully grasping the horrors of death and yet pushing through with a tremendous ardor and zeal to see the father’s name glorified. What is he telling us?

He’s telling us that at the center of the text that he’s giving us here, he’s letting us see him so that we can see who we are and how we are to behave. He tells us that we’re to push through the difficulties of dying to ourselves and taking up his life by having a great ardor and zeal for the glorification of the father’s name in all the earth. And that’s why we pray that Lord’s Prayer all the time. It’s the beginning of everything else for us. It is what will sustain us through the difficulties of dying to ourselves through real problems.

And Jesus says this is what’s happening. And then, and then, as the savior pushes through that agony and has this tremendous zeal for the father’s name being glorified, the father then gives this voice—this booming voice from heaven—saying, indeed, he will do that very thing and he has done it. And the specifics of that we don’t need to talk about at length. But what we want to see is the father’s assurance to the son that he will indeed be glorified through this event. The hour of his deepest need—like an hour—moment, the father comes and brings reassurance that indeed the purpose of all this is the glorification of his name and by implication the well-being of his son.

Very important lessons for us sketched out in this text.

And then, at the conclusion, as we talked about earlier of the actual narrative structure itself, he then says that now is the judgment. “Now is the judgment of this world.” They’re going to judge Jesus by putting him on a cross and thinking they’re judging him. But as he goes to the cross, as he goes to the hour of his glorification, he says, “Now is the judgment of this world. I am judging the world from the cross. He reigns from the cross. Now the hour has come. Now his death and crucifixion will be the judgment of the world. Now this hour, by his death, the hour of his glorification, the ruler of this world will be cast out. So the Gentiles can see. Again, things will change. The new creation will be instituted. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself.”

The lifting up of Jesus and the drawing of all men—the dragging of all men—is what is the other bracket to the Gentiles or the Greeks wishing to see Jesus. He says, indeed, not just these Greeks, all the world will see me. They’ll see me from the cross reigning, and they will be drawn to me. He gives us tremendous hope in the context of this text about his death.

“This he said, signifying by what death he would die. Oh, we could spend, you know, hours talking about that. I don’t think it just means crucifixion. The word “lifted up” here—a single word in the Greek—really summarizes everything that he does in his earthly ministry. He’s exalted. He is lifted up on a cross, but he’s lifted up as well in glory. You see, it is the hour of his glorification. And all the aspects of our savior’s ministry—the death that Mary anointed him for, in order for his burial, the proclamation of the Old Testament and his agreeing with that by riding the prophesied donkey that he is king of all the world—those things come together in his being lifted up. A single word, one word in the Greek, describing for us the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The sum of all his ministry and also—this text tells us—the sum of what is our obligation and our duty as Christians and our joy and honor as well: to follow him in being lifted up, death and exaltation.

And he says the end result will be dragging all people to himself.

Then we have an evaluation at the end of the text. “The people answered him, ‘We have heard from the law that Christ remains forever. And how can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up?’ They understood he was talking about death now. How can you say this? Who is the Son of Man?”

Then Jesus said to them, “A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he’s going. While you have the light, believe in the light that you would become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, departed, was hidden from them.”

Thus ends the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. The next time these people will see Jesus is when he’ll be on his way to the cross for his crucifixion. And so this is the culmination of these acts.

Now, there’s another section we’ll be preaching on in three weeks at the end of John chapter 12. And it really is an editorial insertion that explains why all of this has happened this way. But we’ve now reached the end of the first half of this account of the gospel. You remember that in John 1, we saw Jesus would come to his own, but his own receive him not. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God. And so that’s what’s happened. The first half is: he comes to his own, and they don’t receive him.

The last half will be him spending his time with his disciples, his own who are the children of light. And so the passage that kind of gave us the outline of the book early on has now been fulfilled in the first half of the book. And Jesus now withdraws from the crowds. And this will be the end of them seeing him until he actually is at the cross itself.

Okay, so that’s the text. Now let’s talk about the text a little bit in terms of what it means to us. I have some comments here. Okay. First of four comments.

—

## First Comment: Gospel in the Death of Christ

In this closing narrative of the first half of John’s gospel, there is ironically much gospel. And I say ironically because this is a passage about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet there is much gospel in it.

As I just said, in John 1:9-13, it describes the flow of the book. And I’ll begin reading in verse 9 of John 1:

“That was the true light which gives light to every man coming in the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. The world did not know him. He came to his own. His own did not receive him. But as many as received him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God.”

God’s sovereignty. Light is being described in chapter one. We have light here at the end of the first section of God’s gospel. The first half—Jesus says—they can become children of light, sons of light. They can be children of God through belief. But here the Jews don’t believe in him. We’ll get that editorial comment in three weeks in the very next verse.

And so we have the darkness of the Jews compared to the Gentiles, the Greeks, who are seeking light. So here we have the culmination and really the header for this first half of the gospel: “His own did not receive him.”

And here in this concluding narrative, we have at this—at the middle of it—the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and Gethsemane-like verses that describe the coming crucifixion of our savior. But it is surprisingly gospel, right? It is good news in spite of its emphasis upon the rejection of the people and its way of the emphasis upon the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What we saw here in this text that we’ve noted is that the Greeks at the front and all men—he’ll drag all men to himself, draw all men to himself—bracket the work of the savior with world mission. So what we see in this concluding first half of the book is tremendous gospel. It’s the good news that the Lord Jesus Christ will bring all nations to conversion and salvation.

You know, it’s interesting. People have pointed out that the magi come and visit Jesus at his birth, and now at the end of his life we have the Greeks coming and visiting him. His whole ministry is bracketed with all the nations of the world represented. And so world mission—the gospel, the good news that world mission will be worked through the Lord Jesus Christ—is at the middle of this closing narrative of the first half of the gospel. It has tremendous gospel here. The work of the savior will affect and produce world missions.

We’ve got the adoration of Mary, we got the proclamation of the crowds, and now we have the Greeks seeking Jesus, and the impact of that will be that all the world will be brought to the Lord Jesus Christ.

I have a note here about India and St. Petersburg. Praise God. But I have comment that over the last few years at this church, we continue to mature in our approach toward world missions. At the height of the gospel—this first half—we have world missions emphasized to us again. We have the great confidence of India and Russia, Poland. These are all places where the gospel will continue to bring light to men and will continue to convert them.

If Jesus is lifted up as we see him here today—Jesus Christ, savior king—he will draw all in India. He will draw all in Poland. He will draw all in Russia to himself. This is what he has told us. “Now is the ruler of this world cast out. Satan has now been cast out of the rule of the world and is bound, and world missions will be accomplished.”

I want to just, by way of exhortation here—we’ve talked about money the last couple of sermons: the tribute to the King, the offerings of adoration. You know, we would really like it if we could support a seminary student in St. Petersburg who understands the significance of what we’re talking about today. That Jesus Christ is affecting world missions. That’s a seminary that understands all of what we’ve been saying in the context of this gospel. That Jesus has brought about a new creation and that the proclamation of his word manifests that new creation in the context of Russia.

Men can be trained in this way of understanding the scriptures to plant churches—churches that aren’t just treading water until the end of everything, but are actively pursuing the flowing out of the gospel of Jesus Christ so that it might fill their particular region, calling men and nations to convert and to come and worship the Lord Jesus Christ.

They have the opportunity. It takes $500 a month to support one seminary student at Blake Seminary in St. Petersburg. I want to do whatever I can this next year to pledge some money toward that goal so that we can tell them, “Yeah, go ahead and add a seminary student, add another potential pastor in Russia”—because our church wants to step up. We understand that the Greeks coming tells us that world missions will be effectual, and it’s very important for the mission of our local church to support missionaries in the context of other lands.

That’s why we’re sending twelve people—not in some romp in the park, but going to one of the darkest places of the world, really, in terms of the difficulties, the social struggles, the lack of the gospel and resultant curses economically, agriculturally. Dark places. India is not going to be a fun thing for the kids we send over there, but they’re going because they understand the importance of taking the light of Christ and wanting to see that happen.

Continue to urge the congregation to support them. And I would ask if there are those of you who feel it’s very important and you’ve got the resources to do it—that you would consider committing to giving maybe $50 a month or $100 a month to help the work of Blake in Russia. If you want to make that kind of commitment on the basis of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the importance of sending out pastors who know this stuff, please talk to Elder W. over the next couple of weeks.

We would like to be able to give Blake an account that we’re committed to doing this sort of work in the next year. And I’m talking about offerings above and beyond the tribute, the tithe that you give to the local church. I’m talking about offerings to affect missions in the context of Russia, the way that many of you have given to help the work of the kids in India.

So if you have that—if God lays it on your heart today in the context of his word—please talk to Elder W. If you could donate or commit to maybe just $5 a month, I don’t know—but if you want to commit this next year to helping support a seminary student in St. Petersburg, please talk to Elder W.

Great gospel here. The Greeks and all men bracket the work of the Savior with world mission.

—

## Second Comment: Now is the Judgment

Secondly, “Now is the judgment. Satan is now dethroned and Christ is enthroned.” That’s what he’s saying here. “Now is the judgment of the world. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ is not some, you know, defeat. It is the very means of victory over all things. Satan is dethroned and Christ is enthroned. The cross judges the Jews, not the Jews judging Jesus by means of the cross.”

The cross crushes the skull. You know, Jesus will be crucified at Golgotha, the place of the skull. Whose skull was it? Well, some say Adam’s, probably more likely it’s Goliath’s skull. We know David took it back. Goliath is the picture of the savage men, the empires of the world that the son of man would defeat. Jesus will be crucified, and that cross will be at Golgotha. It’ll be, as it were, him stepping on the head of the serpent or a picture of it—Goliath. He’ll be crushing the skull of the serpent at the cross itself.

And that is great news. That is the gospel of this text—that the cross indeed ushers in the kingdom of God. That Jesus is enthroned and the skull of the serpent is crushed by the Lord Jesus Christ. The new creation is at hand.

This judgment that Jesus talks about is unto life. It’s unto life. It’s not simply the judgment of the world and the powers of the world being cast out. Rather, it’s the establishment of the new world.

In John 3:14, we read: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” His lifting up, as in our text here. And then verse 16 says: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Hating our life, we love the Lord Jesus Christ and we get everlasting life.”

“For God did not send his world into the world to condemn the world. John 3:17 says, ‘but rather that the world through him might be saved.’”

You see, it’s the same message. The lifting up of the Lord Jesus Christ provides the life that we need in him. And it is the assurance that the world, through the judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ, is being brought to salvation.

The cross is the eschatological event par excellence. It is the determining factor of the flow of all history. “Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the ruler of this world cast out. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself.”

Revelation 12 says that this is the way the kingdom advances. How is the dragon overcome? He’s overcome by the blood—by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is pictured for us in Revelation 12.

Jesus will draw all men, not to his cross ultimately, but to himself. He is the sovereign ruler of all history. He has brought about his saving sovereignty into the world and now establishes it. So this message, focusing on the glorification via the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, is also tremendous gospel for us. It assures us of the expansion of the kingdom of Jesus.

—

## Third Comment: Seeing Jesus

Second comment—seeing Jesus, we see his divine self-giving death, his exaltation as king, and his sovereign control of all history. Okay, so we see three things in this text as we look at Jesus. We see his divine self-giving death.

We see death being linked to glorification. Let me read you a couple comments here by two different commentaries on this text:

“The connection between verses 23 and verses 27 and 28—to say nothing of the intervening verses 24 to 26—shows that the hour of the glorifying of Jesus relates to his death. He says the hour has come, grain of wheat will fall into the ground and die and then come back. Then he talks about us. Then he goes back to his own agony, his Gethsemane-like agony. He says that he will die. So this text is the central text in the Gospel of John that clearly tells us what has been intimated throughout the gospel—and that is that the hour of glorification being referred to here, while it certainly has full application to death, resurrection, and ascension, in this text, the hour of Christ’s glorification is tied explicitly to his death on the cross.”

“His death on the cross here is not a death of shame or humiliation. His death on the cross in the Gospel of John is portrayed as the hour of his glorification. The single Greek word ‘lifted up’ reminds us of that—lifted up in crucifixion but lifted up in exultation at the same time. This is the hour that is spoken of in the book, and here it is clearly identified as the hour of his death. This is the glorification of the Son of Man.”

Let me read another commentary here:

“In as much as the death of Jesus on the cross is not regarded as the death of shame from which he is raised to glory but the death itself is the moment of glory wherein God is glorified and one with his exaltation to the throne of God, linked to it as it were.”

One more commentator: “That the crucifixion of a man should be the ultimate manifestation of the glory of God is a scandalous thing to Jewish religious messianism as it is absurd to Greek philosophy. But it is true, for the glory of God is the outpouring of love which is supremely revealed in the obedience of Jesus to death and in the action of the father who gives his only son for the life of the world and sustains him to the end in his obedience. This is the moment of his glorification.”

See, if you’re going to see Jesus, this is who he is. This is what his glorification is.

Now, we go back to Philippians 2. And I’ve talked about this before, but I want to really drive it home. You know, again, the reason why men blew into the World Trade Center a year ago is because they serve a different God. Jesus portrays to us a God who is glorified through self-sacrifice. That’s what he is.

Now, it’s a horrible thing that in the New American Standard Version of the Bible, Philippians 2 says this, beginning at verse 5:

“Have this attitude in yourselves, which also is in Christ Jesus, who although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of man. And found an appearance, because of many, humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Wherefore God has also highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.”

We know the text. The unfortunate part here is the word “although.” Jesus—have this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who although existed in the form of God, humbled himself to the point of death. That word “although” is not in the Greek text.

In other versions, the American Standard Version says it this way:

“Who have this mind in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who existing in the form of God counted not the being on an equality with God as a thing to be grasped or held on to.”

It doesn’t say “although.” It says because he was existing in the form of God, he humbled himself to the point of death. Various other translations could be read, and the point is those translations are better.

And we may want to even look at it this way. We might ought to say that verse 6 should start with a “because” to make sure we don’t get it wrong. “Because Jesus was God. Because he existed in the form of God, not equal with God—makes it sound like God was something else. Because he is God, you see, because he exists in the form of God, he is God. That’s why he did this.”

And so if the Greeks today, if we today come to see Jesus, we must see that Jesus doesn’t do something on the cross in spite of him being God. He does something on the cross because he’s God. It is the nature of our God that we serve to be self-giving and self-sacrificial. That’s what the text tells us. That’s what seeing Jesus is in this text. That’s how he displays himself to the Greeks in his answer to their coming.

He says that he’s going to go to the cross and die. This is the revelation of the father. That’s what the son is doing. And it is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so Jesus Christ—we see his death and his glorification. We see his being lifted up. And as I said before, the sum of his work really comes together in the context of this. And we have passage after passage, of course, about the exaltation. Philippians 2 goes on to talk about that. So because he did this, you know, was raised up on high and exalted—so you know, we’re not just seeing a God who sacrifices and never accomplishes. The whole point is in that sacrifice and his glorification. He accomplishes, and in that being lifted up, he accomplishes the judgment of this world.

We see him being Jesus, savior, again in this text. And we see him being Christ, lifted up and exalted. Not two different people, but two different pictures of what’s going on here.

And the other thing we see here is his sovereign control of all history. “He will drag all men to himself.” You know, it’s interesting that this “lifted up” thing—and remember, when Joseph is in prison, and there’s a baker and a cup bearer, and they have dreams, and Joseph interprets their dreams—he tells them both that they’re going to be lifted up. He tells the cup bearer, “Your head’s going to be lifted up and you’re going to be returned to your place.” And he tells the baker, “Your head’s going to be lifted up. In fact, it’s going to go so far up it’s going to come off your shoulders, and you’re going to hang there, and the birds will pick off your flesh.”

So this “lifted up,” the two aspects that are portrayed in our text are really portrayed in that dream of Joseph. Jesus will suffer the curses that are rightly due us. He will die on that cross, a real death. If there’s no real death—coming in separation from God—his agony is ridiculous. But there is real death. He will do that. The birds of the field, so to speak, will pluck out his eyes. He will suffer the curses for us, curses rightly due to us.

But he will be lifted up to give us the wine of heaven as well, in the context of who he is. This is the lifted upness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And we see here his sovereign control of all history. “I will drag all men to myself,” he says. “Draw” is the way the text translates it. It’s used five times in this gospel, and we’ve talked about this before. But it’s used when the disciples are fishing, and he tells them later on in his resurrection appearance, he tells them to draw—throw out the net on this side—and the net’s so heavy they can’t drag it in. They can’t draw it in. Same Greek word. And then he talks to Peter, and Peter himself draws it in, which is interesting. But when we get to that, that’ll be fun.

Disciples couldn’t draw it in. Peter draws it in. But the point is it’s heavy. Peter had a hard time drawing a sword out of its sheath in the garden. That’s another place the word is used. Same Greek word. You see, it’s heavy. It’s difficult. That sword isn’t moving by itself. It’s not moving to gentle persuasion. It is dragged, kicking and screaming, to its duty.

Jesus Christ is the sovereign controller of all history. And he will draw—slash—drag all men to himself.

So we see that Jesus Christ is Lord. That’s the revelation in this text. He is Jesus, saving us from our sins. He is Christ, the reigning one who is lifted up. And he is the Lord of all history. We see the Lord Jesus Christ in all his glory, in all his pomp. And that pomp includes his self-sacrificial death for his people in the context of the cross.

So we’ve got gospel. We’ve got gospel because we have the revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in that revelation, we see ourselves.

—

## Fourth Comment: Seeing Ourselves

And that’s my third comment. Seeing Jesus, as Christian, seeing Jesus, we see ourselves following him in self-sacrifice, having through life, receiving honor from the father.

Our one purpose in life is the same purpose as our savior: to glorify the father. You know, he prays, “Father, glorify your name” through what I do. And if this is who Jesus is, this is who we are.

Christian, do you hate your life apart from the Lord Jesus Christ? Now, we read that, and you know, we don’t want to make it into a platitude. That’s what we tend to do. We don’t want to say, “Well, it means, you know, hate means don’t love as much as something else, right? So God hates—he says to hate your parents. He really mean hate your parents. He means don’t love your parents more than God.” And that’s true. That’s certainly true. But we don’t want to take the edge off of what our savior says here.

I mean, he literally says, “If you love your life, you’ll lose it, and you have to hate your life in order to gain it eternally.” Do we hate our life apart from the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are we buddies with that part of our life that we live apart from Jesus?

Now, you know, there is much to hate in our lives. You know that. You know that this last week you had many moments in your life—maybe long stretches of this last week—when you lived your life apart from seeking the honor and glory of the father. Now, sanctification is gradual, and we have to understand that. But sanctification comes. Our savior says the heart of the Christian life is hating ourselves—hating our life apart from him—and finding our life only in service to him.

We see here Jesus, and we see if those who have been called Christians—who have been baptized, who have been brought into his kingdom—we are those who are characterized by this principle of life that is at the very center of the text in terms of the way I’ve structured it here, and I think the way it lays out. We see that worldwide optimism. We see the death, the exaltation of Jesus Christ, and at the center, we see the call for his disciples to hate their own life, to take up their cross, as it were, and to follow him.

Our one purpose is to honor and glorify the father. And he will indeed honor those who seek him.

So we have then this great truth: To be self-centered is to be to exist in the context of death. To be self-centered, Jesus says, is death. To be God-centered is the key to life. This is the way the world works. The opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ—principalities and powers—are those who attempt to organize the world for its own self-interest.

Why are you here? Why do you want to see Jesus? Is it so that you can organize your life for your own self-interest? Or is it so you can give up self-interest in your life and embrace God-centered interests in your life? Are you going to take up the life of the Lord Jesus Christ that seeks to honor the father? Or are you going to exist in the context of independence from the life of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Life cannot be preserved. It must be given away. That’s what Jesus says. He says here that this is the very principle of the Christian life.

Hoskins in his commentary on this said that obedience to Jesus—talking of Jesus in Gethsemane—the glorification of the father’s name constitutes the very foundation of the Christian religion.

Remember Melville’s or Moby Dick—the film version of it. Orson Welles is giving a sermon to the people, and he says, “You know, people, Jonah thought it a hard thing to do what God wanted him to do, and he said, ‘It is a hard thing, brothers. It’s always a hard thing, doing what God wants us to do, because it means not doing what we want to do. It means death to ourselves—to live to the mission that God calls us to do.’”

We have the Adamic nature that seeks its own life apart from the Lord Jesus Christ and has the foolishness to believe that there is life. And what Jesus tells us clearly is only death.

Doing the work of the Lord Jesus Christ is hard work.

We went to a funeral yesterday, right? You know what I mean? What a joyous, wonderful event the wedding of the covenant children is. What an absolute delight. But it’s a death, is it not? Those two young people were dying to themselves to live in the context of their new married life as one person together in Christ. And we rejoiced in that death, did we not? Yeah, we did. It’s a glorious, joyful thing.

Richard’s remarks were wonderful about how God is restructuring things. And you know, he restructures things through dying and resurrection. The first marriage involved a funeral too, right? Adam got laid out cold by God—into deep sleep, it says. Decreed death-like sleep. And then he’s presented his wife. Great joy.

So the joy of Jacob and Talia’s wedding yesterday is really that they gave us a picture yesterday of what this text is about. Jesus says if you try to hold on to your life, your individuality, and refuse the restructuring of marriage as you’re called into it, you see, you abide in death. But as you lay aside your life to embrace the other, now you’re going into life and into joyous life.

We saw death and resurrection yesterday through structuring and restructuring. And that’s what the scriptures tell us is at the heart of the Christian life. And we saw two young people in the context of that restructuring pledge themselves anew to fidelity to the only one who can make it work: the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if we saw the beginning of a blessed event—and I’m sure we did—then we saw the beginning of many years of death, many years of laying aside their own self-interests for the sake of the other. And ultimately for the sake of Jesus, and ultimately beyond that, Jacob loves Talia and Talia loves Jacob, and they’ll sacrifice for each other for the sake of the honor of the father, that the father’s name might be glorified through that marriage, through that household.

We saw this text played out. This text is a text of death, but it’s not a text of sorrow. It’s a text of great delight—that this death itself, and the disciples who will follow him in that death and laying aside and hating our own life, will indeed be the means whereby the world is brought to life and the new creation becomes manifested and Jesus reigns from the cross, as it were.

We’re called upon here to see ourselves in Jesus. You see, if you don’t understand that this is the nature of God—to be self-giving and self-sacrificial—then you won’t understand that’s your nature either. It’ll be a required duty at points in time for you. Sometimes I got to give up, and sometimes I got to, you know, do things I don’t like to do. No, brother and sister in Christ, we must always do what we in our old fallen nature do not want to do. That’s what this text tells us.

That’s what life is. To embrace life is to embrace the lifting up of the Lord Jesus Christ, and it’s hard work for us. You know, there’s things that you have a hard time bringing under subjection to the dominion of the Lord Jesus Christ. But understand that at the end of the day, you will receive honor from God.

Richard said that really well yesterday too—that Jacob and Talia honored God in their courtship, in their movement toward marriage, and God honored them yesterday. I suppose to some people that’s “Son, a little while. God honored them. What’s that?” God is God, you know? We honor him. No, this text tells us the same thing: as we’ve hidden our own lives apart from Christ and embrace life in him, we are honored by the father.

Central question today is the same one as the central question in the context of this text: What kind of God is your savior?

The Jews acted in unbelief because they had a different perception of God. They had the god of Allah. They wanted Muhammad. They wanted a savior who would not die to rule the world. They wanted a savior who would make everybody else die to rule the world. Okay? They wanted the imposition of physical force. We want a God—Jesus—who will serve our kingdom.

As we talked about last week, Jesus says that if you do that, you abide in darkness.

And I know, I know of myself, and I know you folks pretty well, many of you. And I know that each of us wandered around in the dark last week. We wandered around thinking we could have life, we could serve somehow and get by in life—whether it was our vocation, our family, whatever it was—that we could get by, okay, apart from a hating of our own independence from Jesus and other Christians. We thought we could get by with that without hating our own life. Rather, we wandered in darkness.

I know that some of you—a few of you probably—are wandering around in such darkness that all you’re going to get today is a little glimmer of light coming through the preaching of God’s word as to who Jesus is. You’ll see Jesus, not quite as bright as you saw him last week, because you haven’t decided that you want to hate your own life and embrace the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in obedience. You haven’t been willing to take up your cross and follow him because you think it’s going to hurt you somehow.

And I tell you today that if you’re in that state, you are on the verge of extinguishing the light. Jesus warns these Jews: when you have the light preached to you, abide in that light. Walk in the path that light points you to this week. And if you do not, the light may go out. And some of you, the light may be going out. Don’t assume you’ll see brighter next week necessarily. If you don’t apply this text, hating your life and following the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some of us are walking in darkness. Some of us more than others. God says, “Turn away from that darkness and embrace the light of the Lord Jesus Christ. Understand that’s what kind of God we serve. A God who serves from the cross. A God who serves not with the imposition of physical might.”

H. Fosdick wrote this poem:

*I saw the conquerors riding by*
*With cruel lips and faces won,*
*Musing on kingdoms sacked and burned,*
*There rode the Mongol Genghis Khan.*

*And Alexander like a god*
*Who sought to weld the world in one,*
*And Caesar with his laurel wreath,*
*And like a king from hell the Hun,*
*And leading like a star the van,*
*Heedless of upstretched arm and groan,*
*Inscrutable Napoleon went*
*Dreaming of empire alone.*

*Then all they perished from the earth,*
*All fleeting shadows from a glass,*
*And conquering down the centuries*
*Came Christ the swordless on an ass.*

We see the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ in the text last week. And we see today that triumph for the Lord Jesus Christ will be his exaltation, his glorification on the cross of Christ. This was the courage of the Lord Jesus Christ. He loved. He had such ardor and zeal to glorify the father’s name in what he did that he faced the horrors of death.

What horrors must you face this week? I don’t know. But I know that the father comes at the very time we need him most. When Jesus cries out to his father and takes the right step, the father gives this visible manifestation. Why? Jesus said it was for our sake—because he wants to remind us, he wants to encourage us—to walk in the light, to hate our life, to take up our cross and follow Jesus in serving our family, serving our employer without grumbling and disputing, not wanting what we want, but wanting the glory and honor of the father.

When we do that, the father honors us. And more than that, he comes at our deepest point of need and assures us of his honor. That’s what the voice meant. Jesus decides that the glory of the father is what he will do. And the father booms forth his approbation, his acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christian, God will honor you as you seek to honor him this week.

One last poem by Cowper:

*With all his sufferings full in view,*
*And woes to us unknown,*
*Forth to the task his spirit flew,*
*It was love that urged him on.*

*Lord, we return to thee*
*What we can.*
*Our hearts shall sound abroad*
*Salvation to the dying man*
*And to the rising God.*

—

Let’s pray.

Father, it is our great desire to honor and glorify your name this week. Father, help us to hate our lives of independence apart from the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that these words of our savior were spoken to his disciples—those who would cheer him, those that came together on the feast day and sang loud songs of praise like we have done this day.

Help us not to be foolish. Help us not to think that because we’ve been here somehow, we can live apart from trying to honor and glorify you this week. Drive home to us, Lord God, the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ, his tremendous love and sacrifice for us. And help us, Lord God, to take up his nature—to be those who see that glorification comes through service, self-sacrificial service. And in losing our life, we shall indeed find it.

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.