John 12

John 12:1-19

The Gospel According to John John 11:1-57 - John 12:1-19 John 11:1-27. It will readily be conceded that the story found in the first fifty-three verses of this eleventh chapter of John is one of the most wonderful in all the records of our Lord’s ministry. It is full of colour, of life, of movement. In it there is a remarkable merging of pathos and of power. It is at once a threnody of sorrow, and an anthem of victory. In this story are manifested essential human conditions, and the power and glory of the Lord.

In the first twenty-seven verses (John 11:1-27) we have the story leading to the account of the final sign, the raising of Lazarus. From verse twenty-eight to fifty-three (John 11:8-53) we have the story of the sign itself.

We are now considering the story leading to the sign. The movement alternates between Bethany and the region beyond Jordan. Verses one to three take us to Bethany. Then we cross over Jordan in verses four to sixteen. Finally we return to Bethany in verses seventeen to twenty-seven (John 11:17-27).

In Bethany there was trouble, and Jesus was not there. That tells the story of the first three verses. The trouble was that Lazarus was sick. Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha. John is careful to identify Mary: “It was that Mary which anointed the Lord with ointment.” The account of that anointing is found later, in chapter twelve. John was writing long after the event, and in his mind was the memory of that which marked Mary out, and made her supremely remembered among the twelve.

We know something of these sisters, because Luke has given us a glimpse into that Bethany home. At the end of chapter ten we have the story. Luke, in speaking of the sisters, makes it plain that Martha was the house-keeper, when he says that she received Jesus into her house. To Mary he simply refers as the sister of Martha. John puts Mary first, and suggests by so doing that the whole village belonged to Mary. A good woman may own a house, and run it, and herself to death; while another sort of woman will hold a complete village by her love and ministry. It is quite evident that this was a home to which Jesus loved to go, as it seems to me, the one place where, if I may use that wonderfully familiar and yet beautiful phrase, He was “at home.”

And now Lazarus was sick, and Jesus was not there. I think we are warranted in thinking that Lazarus was younger than the sisters. He never appears as having any responsibility. Lazarus was sick. Jesus was not there. If He had been there, everything would have been different, so the sisters thought, and probably they were right.

In their trouble they did the natural and beautiful thing, they sent a message to Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick.” It is interesting to note that they did not make any request. They simply told Him the facts, showing that they knew Him; showing that they felt quite confident if He knew that He would come.

The word they used to describe the love of Jesus for Lazarus, was the Greek verb phileo, which is the verb which describes affection and emotion in its fullness. We notice this now, to return to it presently.

Now, from verses four to sixteen we find ourselves beyond Jordan. There the messenger arrived, bearing the message. Then we have a most amazing thing, a most startling thing, the sort of thing that challenges faith, and raises every kind of suspicion and question in the heart, in what we read next. When Jesus received the message He said; “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.” The statement, “This sickness is not unto death” did not mean that Lazarus would not die. As a matter of fact Lazarus was dead when the messenger arrived. The word of Jesus meant that death was not the final word.

He knew Lazarus was dead. The distance between Bethany and the place where Jesus was took a day to travel. Jesus stayed there two days. Then He took the day’s journey back. That makes four days. Presently Martha said, “he hath been dead four days” already.

It is evident then that when the messenger arrived with the message, Lazarus was already dead. Yet the Lord said, “This sickness is not unto death.” Death is not the last word in this matter.

Then what was the last word?" This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified thereby."

In dealing with the story of the opening of the eyes of the man born blind, I changed the punctuation, and read thus, “Neither did this man sin, nor his parents. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him, We must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.” I gave the reason for the change that the other punctuation necessitated the view that the man was born blind and allowed to remain blind in order that God might have an opportunity to show His power. This is absolutely unbelieveable. Now it has been suggested that this statement about Lazarus gives that same view. But the difference is infinite. In the one case the idea would be that a man was born blind, and allowed to live until he was of age, seeing nothing, and waiting for an hour when God’s power should be manifested in him.

Here was a sickness which ended in death. Of that fact that Lazarus had died Jesus said, “This sickness is not unto death,” that is not the end. The end will be the glory of God, and the glorification of the Son of God.

The cases are entirely different. Nevertheless it was a remarkable statement. Lazarus was already dead. What Jesus said was practically this; Yes, he is gone, and the fact creates an opportunity for the display of the glory of God, in that the Son of God may be glorified thereby.

At that point in his narrative, John interpolated this statement; “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus.” Undoubtedly he did so because of what he was going to write next; “When therefore He heard that he was sick, He abode at that time two days in the place where He was.” Mark the “therefore.” He stayed because He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus.

Here we return to what we said about the word the sisters used concerning the love of Jesus for Lazarus. It was the verb phileo, which speaks of emotional affection. That is how they thought of the love of Jesus for their brother. But when John writes this, “Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus,” he employed a word having an entirely different significance, the verb agapao. That is love, but it is the love of intelligence and judgment and consideration. It is not easy to draw the distinction between the Greek words in our English language.

I am inclined to think Dr. Goodspeed comes nearest to a true interpretation of agapao when he uses our word devotion. Devotion means much more than mere emotion. I am resolutely going to use that word here-Jesus was devoted to Martha and Mary and Lazarus. They knew the affection Jesus had for Lazarus. Hence their message, “He whom Thou lovest is sick.” John now shows that His love for them was more than that.

He was devoted to them; and therefore, He did not hurry. He stayed where He was. He let enough time to elapse for the death to be so certified that there could be no doubt about the power manifest.

After this, when the two days were over, He said to His disciples, “Let us go into Judæa again.” Judæa was the centre of hostility to Him, the place where, as these disciples said, they had taken up stones. “Rabbi, the Jews were but now seeking to stone Thee; and goest Thou thither again?” That was a natural and beautiful protest by His lovers. They loved Him, and they did not. want Him to go back into the danger zone.

Now observe the majesty, the calm dignity of His answer.

Judæa was hostile. He knew it. His disciples knew it. He was going back. His disciples said, They want to kill You. Now listen to Him. “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world. But if a man walk in the night, he stumbleth, because the light is not in him.” Applied to Him, it meant; I certainly am going back to Judæa. You need have no fear. There will be no stumbling. There will be no accident. Hostility cannot touch Me until My hour has arrived. I am walking in light, and not in darkness. I am making no experiments. Do not be anxious about Me.

Then He told them, “Our friend Lazarus is fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” Sleep, said the disciples, that is a good thing; if he is asleep, he will recover. Then He used their language, came down to the level of their apprehension, “Jesus therefore said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.”

That does seem to suggest that the sisters were right, if He had been there, Lazarus would not have died. “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there.” But why was He glad? “To the intent ye may believe.” His view of what we call death was sleep. Their view is revealed in what He said to them, which literally was not “Lazarus is dead,” but, “Lazarus died.” When He talked He talked in the present tense. He was thinking of Lazarus in the essential fact of his personality. He said, He is asleep. When He had come to their level and had to speak in a past tense, and the experience through which he had passed, He said, Lazarus died. That is what happened. That was their language.

“I am glad for your sake.” The tarrying was for their sake. The disease had been permitted to run its full course, and snap the vital cord, and the man was dead. For their sakes, always that. He is always saying “for your sake.” He tarried because He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. He went because He loved Martha and Mary and Lazarus. For their sake, the tarrying. And now for their sake, the going.

The next scene is just outside the village of Bethany. He had arrived. Lazarus had been four days in the tomb. “Jesus saith, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord, by this time he stinketh; for he hath been dead four days.” Four days dead meant that in that Eastern land corruption had already set it. No doubt Martha was right. He had raised the dead on two earlier occasions. Jairus’ child, swiftly after the spirit had left the body, He called her back. The son of the widow of Nain, only a few hours after the passing of the spirit, as they were carrying him out to burial, He had called him back. But here He waited until the thing should be absolutely supreme in its evidence of power.

Martha hurried from the house to meet Him. In doing so she violated the conventionalities of the East. Mary observed them. She sat in the house, remaining in the seclusion of the home. Martha, honest, angry, as I cannot help believing, hurried to meet Him, and when she met Him, she said, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Of course it is very difficult to interpret dogmatically, but when Mary came she said exactly the same thing. But surely there was a tremendous difference between the intention of Martha and the intention of Mary.

I have no doubt whatever that Martha’s intention was that of honest, sincere, protesting disappointment. As though she had said, Why did You not hurry? “If Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” But she still believed in Him. She still had confidence in Him, and that in a very wonderful way, as witness her words; “And even now I know that, whatsoever Thou shalt ask of God, God will give Thee.” She had tremendous confidence in Him, and yet, as a matter of fact, she did not quite mean that. She thought she did. She was perfectly honest, but she did not expect her brother back. This is proven by the fact that when presently the Lord said, “Take ye away the stone,” she said, It is no good.

He has passed into the realm of corruption. Evidently she did not expect the thing was going to happen which did happen.

Then Jesus said to her, “Thy brother shall rise again.” Possibly in saying this, our Lord was not referring to the fact that He was going to raise him from the dead. I think rather it was a general reference, and a reminder to her of the fact of resurrection, and a reminder that this life is not all. As though He said to her, Martha, it is not all over when death comes. There is resurrection. Of course He may have referred to what He was going to do. I do not so understand it. I think it was a general reference, and so Martha evidently understood it, for she refused the comfort of a postponed resurrection. That brought no immediate comfort.

Thus we reach the sixth great “I am” of Jesus, which John has recorded; “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am”-the eternal present tense. Wherever I am there is resurrection; and more than that, for resurrection is but an incident. The greater part of the statement is not “I am the resurrection,” great as it is. The greater part is “I am. . . the life.” I am warranted in saying that, because He went on to interpret what He had said, and His interpretation was not concerned with resurrection. It was concerned with life.

“He that believeth on Me, though he die, yet shall he live.” That is a very simple sentence, but let it be most carefully read. Jesus did not say, He that believeth on Me though he die, yet shall he live again. That would be resurrection. He said, “Though he die, yet shall he live.” In other words, he that believes on Me, though he die, by all the appearances as interpreted on the level of the earthly, he is not dead. He was saying, Your brother is not dead. He that “liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.” That is the great Christian declaration.

We have hardly grasped its significance. We say, What has become of So and So? The reply often is. He is dead, She is dead. We still talk that pagan way. They are not dead. “He that believeth on Me, though he die,” the death is a fact so far as you see, but he is alive.

When our Lord recalled Lazarus He talked to him as though he could hear Him. He muttered no incantations over him. He said, “Lazarus, come forth.” He expected to be heard, and He was heard. Lazarus was not dead.

Then He locked at Martha, and He said, “Believest thou this?” Very tender and very beautiful, and I think perfectly wonderful was her answer. She said, “Yea, Lord,” and then as though she halted and was almost afraid of what she had said, “I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even He that cometh into the world.” She made the full confession there, but yet she seems to have hesitated. “Believest thou this?” What? That there is no death to those who believe on Me; that though he die, yet shall he live; and consequently he that liveth and believeth in Me never does die. There is no death for such. “Believest thou this?” “Yea, Lord”; and yet she could not affirm belief in that definitely, but she affirmed the faith she had, the faith that was hers, gloriously, “I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, even He that cometh into the world.”

In these preliminary things two matters impress us. First the disciples. We do not see the critics here, though the Jews were round about. Hostility is not manifest so far. The twelve were there. Thomas has spoken, and so has Martha. What do you see? Faced by death, they were groping in darkness, and filled with despair. Over against them we see the Lord, the Lord of life walking in the light, and inspired in all He did by love. John 11:28-53. This paragraph completes the story which began at the first verse of the chapter; that of the last sign in John’s selection, namely, the raising of Lazarus.

The meeting and converse with Martha had taken place outside the village of Bethany, as the thirtieth verse in parenthesis makes clear; “Jesus was not yet come into the village, but was still in the place where Martha met Him.” During all this time Mary sat in the house. Martha, with splendid honesty, had violated the conventionalities which demanded that those thus grieving for their loved ones should remain in the seclusion of the home at least for a period of seven days.

Martha came to Mary, unquestionably sent by Jesus, for she said, “The Master is here, and calleth thee.” That is enough. We know perfectly well that Martha would not have said that if it had not been true. All the conversation between Martha and our Lord is evidently not recorded. Having said to her what He said, and uttered His great claim, “I am the resurrection and the life,” He told her to go and call her sister. Martha came to her, and said secretly, evidently with the intention that she should find her way to Jesus, without there being anyone else there. But, as the Eastern custom was, there were friends in the house, to mourn with her and comfort her; and when they saw her quietly get up and leave the house, they followed her; and so were present when she and Jesus met.

So we have, before the actual sign, that matchlessly beautiful picture of Mary and Jesus. She uttered the same words as Martha had; “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” But it is evident that there was a different tone in Mary’s voice than in that of Martha. I am not criticizing Martha. I never do. She was magnificently honest. But I think that Martha meant, Why didn’t You hurry when we sent for You? I think Mary meant, I wish it had been possible for You to be here. The same words, with a different emphasis, and intention.

When Mary arrived she went to His feet. Martha did not. She stood upright. Mary went to His feet in the attitude of adoration and discipleship. I think we only get the value of that, if we go back to the incident Luke records, the only glimpse we have of these women before this occasion, when Jesus came to the house, and was entertained in the house of Martha, who also “had a sister called Mary.” “Mary sat at His feet.” She had taken her share in the work of the house. Then, prosperity was their portion; then the sun was shining.

Jesus was a doubly welcomed Guest in that home. Martha magnificently tried to express her love in service, and broke down. If amid the pressure of service there is no time for quietness and meditation, we always break down. Martha became distracted herself, and then she grumbled at her sister, and criticized her Lord. Mary took time to sit at His feet. Now, when the clouds had blotted out the sunshine, when sorrow had come, and her heart was breaking, she went back to the same place, back to His feet.

Presently we shall find her there again.

At His feet she expressed her regret, but she was swept with grief. If we glance on for a moment, to the thirty-third verse, we read, “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her.” Observe that Mary was weeping, and the Jews were weeping. In verse thirty-five (John 11:35) we read, “Jesus wept.” The words are not the same. The word that described the weeping of Jesus is not the word used to describe the weeping of Mary and of the Jews. We ought to translate the word used about Mary and the Jews as wailing. It was a moaning, wailing expression of grief. Not so with Jesus. The word translated weeping about Him really means that tears were running down His face. Mary went to His feet wailing, but it was to His feet.

When Jesus saw her wailing, and the Jews wailing which came with her, “He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.” That is a most unfortunate translation, missing the whole point. The word rendered “groaning” has one particular signification, which is missed entirely by the translation. Moreover the word “was troubled” is a reflexive verb. Let me render the statement in another way. “When He saw her wailing, and the Jews with her wailing, He was moved with wrath, and troubled Himself.” There is no sentence in all this New Testament more full of revelation. He was moved with indignation. He was angry. And being angry. He troubled Himself. It was then He said, “Where have ye laid him?” This is the only occasion in all the records of Jesus asking anyone for information. One does not imagine for a moment He needed the information. It would seem to have been a question indicating that He was now going to act. Then follows the sentence, “Jesus wept.” Many things have been written about that brief sentence. How are we to understand it? The whole situation was that He stood in the presence of death.

Death was the outcome of sin. All the wrath of God surged through Him in the presence of the whole of human misery, resulting from human sin, and issuing in death, and the breaking of hearts. He was moved with indignation. Then He “troubled Himself.” He took into His own heart all the agony, the reason for which moved Him with indignation. He made Himself responsible, and gathered up into His own personality all the misery resulting from sin, represented in a dead man and broken-hearted people round about Him. This was voluntary indentification with the sorrow that issues from sin, and was the outcome of righteous wrath against the sin that caused the sorrow.

It is a most remarkable unveiling of the heart of Jesus.

Then He wept. What were those tears? I do not hesitate for a moment to interpret those tears. They were the tears of sympathy with Mary, and Martha, with all the sorrow caused by sin and death. It may be said that they could hardly be tears of sympathy, because He knew that within, shall I say half an hour, perhaps less, but at any rate immediately, He would remove the cause of those tears, and bring joy in place of mourning. When we are inclined so to think, and to say, we are revealing our lack of understanding of the sensitiveness of the heart of God to all human sorrow.

What I mean is simply this. Supposing-forgive the absurdity of the supposition-but supposing I could come into your house where the loved one lay dead, I do not think I could shed tears of sympathy with you if I knew that I was going to give you back your loved one. That is because I am dull, and callous, compared with the keen sensitiveness of the heart of God. “Jesus wept.” “The Word made flesh,” weeping is a revelation of God’s sympathy, so quick, so sensitive. In a little while He will wipe all tears away; but while they are there, even though He will dry them, and end the sorrow, He enters into fellowship with the sorrow. That is true to-day. This is microcosmic; make a macrocosmic application of it.

Our sorrows God is sharing with us. His ultimate purpose is to wipe the tears from all eyes, and He knows that presently, as we look back, it will seem so short a time, this time of sorrow, when all the agony is over, the rapture of eternity has begun. That does not mean He is not with us in our sorrows now. And if I may put it so, in those tears of compassion there was relief for Him also in the hour when He was ploughed to the depths with the sorrows of indignation. He was angry; He troubled Himself; and He wept in sympathy with those who were sorrowing.

That leads us to the account of the sign itself. It is very interesting to follow the Jews, and listen to them. When they saw those tears, they said, “Behold how He loved him!” They felt they were tears Jesus was shedding because He had lost Lazarus. They were very blind. Look at those tears; they said, they prove He loved Lazarus. He did love him, but that was not the cause of those tears we have seen.

Then some of them said, “Could not this Man, which opened the eyes of him that was blind, have caused that this man should not die?” I do not think anyone can be certain as to what they meant, or why they said that. It may have been a cynical remark; or it may have expressed their unbelief in that earlier miracle. Or it may have been a very sincere statement. We have seen Him do that, open the eyes of a man born blind, and could not a Man doing that, prevent this man’s dying? Whatever the motive, the question remains, Could He not have prevented this man’s dying? Of course He could!

And yet He could not! If it is a question of power, yes. His power was unlimited. But it is not a question of power; it is one of purpose. There are things in which God is limited, limited by His own purpose. Listen again to what He had already said: “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there; to the intent ye may believe.” Purpose means the resolving of all that appears to be discord into the harmony of God’s perfect will and perfect action. Following on we read, “Jesus therefore again groaning “-the same word-“again moved with indignation within Himself.” He was in the presence of everything that marked human failure. Death is the final thing; sorrow the resultant thing, and blindness characterized the attitude of all those round about Him. He was angry, He was moved with indignation, and so He moved towards the tomb. Now watch the process. He acted in the raising of Lazarus against unbelief, or rather, in spite of unbelief. I am not now thinking of the unbelief of His enemies, but the unbelief of Martha.

He had said to her, “Believest thou this?” She had said, “Yea, Lord; I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God.” Honestly she could not make the full affirmation for which He had asked, but she made the great confession. Now we come to this moment, the crucial hour, the critical moment.

Christ stood in front of the grave, and the dead body lay within it, four days dead. He said, “Take ye away the stone.” Immediately Martha protested. She had not grasped the full significance of the things He had previously said to her, showing that she was still lacking in perfect understanding of Him. So Martha failed in faith. But He went straight forward. Then “Jesus lifted up His eyes, and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou heardest Me.” Evidently He had been holding communion with His Father all the way through. But what made Him say that? All we have to do to find the answer to that question is to read on.

He was still speaking to His Father, and in doing so He revealed the reason for what He had said: “I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the multitude which standeth around I said it, that they may believe that Thou didst send Me.” If I may reverently say so, it was as though our Lord said to His Father: Father, I am not surprised, I thank Thee. Thou hearest Me always; but because of the multitude which standeth around I said it that they may believe that Thou didst send Me. He was about to work a sign, but He was doing it in fellowship with God, and He took this means of making the multitude face that fact. All the way through we have seen that to be His claim. Nothing by Himself; He and the Father together. He and the Father one. Perfect co-operation.

“And when He had thus spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.” Someone says, Why did Jesus have to cry with a loud voice. That is a child’s question, and therefore it is the sort of question that admits to the Kingdom of heaven and truth. It does look as though He had to cry in a loud voice to make Lazarus hear. But we know that is not so. Profundity is in the simplicities. He raised His voice that the crowd might hear.

He had prayed to His Father that the multitude may believe, and now that all may hear what He does, He raised His voice. With a loud voice He spoke. Moreover, the habit of that time, and indeed of to-day in the case of all sorts of sorcerers and wizards communicating with the dead, was and is that of muttering incantations, that nobody understands but themselves. I am not sure that this was not also the reason of the loud voice. “He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.”

But far more important than that, He spoke as to somebody who could hear Him. Martha would not have thought of calling Lazarus. Mary in her wailing might have called upon her brother, 0 Lazarus, Lazarus! But she would never have dreamed that he could hear her. Jesus spoke as to one who could hear. He knew that Lazarus was not dead. That is what He told Martha, he was asleep, he was not dead. When He went into the house of Jairus, He said, “Talitha cumi,” that exquisitely beautiful little phrase, so badly rendered, “Damsel arise,” which should be, “Little lamb arise.” He expected her to hear Him. She did I That was His attitude now. His was the voice which needed no raising for that purpose; but that carried over the borderline, and could be heard on the other side.

Immediately there was response. Lazarus “came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes.” How could he come forth, if he was bound with grave-clothes, someone may ask? It depends on the method they took in the sepulture of Lazarus. If they had taken the Egyptian method of swathing the limbs separately, and not bound all together, he could move, but he could not loose himself. He struggled up by himself, a living man, and he “came forth,” but found it difficult to go further. Jesus at once said, “Loose him, and let him go.”

That was the great sign. What did Jesus do? Was that a resurrection? No, not in the sense in which our Lord’s was resurrection. That was the calling of the spirit back to the body; but that was not resurrection in the full sense; that was resuscitation. When Jesus was raised, He needed no loosing from grave-clothes.

When John and Peter went to the tomb, they saw the grave-clothes all in their wrapping as they had been round His body, and the napkin about His head, but He was not there. That was resurrection. We-talk about the raising of Lazarus. That is correct, but it was not a raising in the sense in which our Lord was raised from the dead. It was the bringing back of the spirit to the same body; and in the coming, the healing of the body, with all that had happened to it, to which Martha had referred. “These things are written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” That was a sign of God acting through Him.

As we do not come in this study of the Gospel to another incident like this, I pause to say that it is a significant thing that whereas He went about doing good, healing the sick, casting out demons, and bringing all kinds of blessing to men in the physical, He is recorded as having only raised three from the dead. There seems to have been a reticence in the operation of His power in that direction. It would seem that our Lord was very reluctant to bring back those who had escaped from the earthly life. He knew He was bringing them back to limitation, bringing them back probably to sorrow.

This last sign was wrought when death was certified at its worst. He raised that man from the dead, resuscitated the body by calling the spirit out of the spirit world to take up its residence again in the temple that had been left.

Finally John recorded the effects of the sign. There was division. “Many. . .believed on Him,” as the result of what they saw. Some reported to the authorities. That report ensured His arrest finally on the human level. The result of the report to the authorities was the calling together of the council. It was a very special gathering of those in authority.

We read, “The chief priests therefore and the Pharisees.” Who were the chief priests? They were Sadducees, every man of them, diametrically opposed in philosophy and religion to the Pharisees. They made no terms with each other as a rule, but that which had manifested itself earlier, now came to a final activity; a coalition between Pharisees and Sadducees. It is a very brief report of what went on, but it is complete. First of all the council, then the consultation, and finally the counsel.

The council held a consultation, which resulted in the counsel. The subject under discussion was, What were they going to do about this Man Jesus? What could they do to stop the whole business? We have no detailed report of the speeches made. I have no doubt they were characterized by confusion. At last Caiaphas spoke.

In all literature, there is on record no more clever and damnable speech than that! It was the voice of the politician at his worst who was not prepared to say with blunt brevity what he means, but would clothe a dastardly intention in elegant phrases. Caiaphas began very cleverly. I never read it without thinking it is a wonderful way to begin a speech, if you are taking part in a debate, or are on a committee. He begins by saying, “Ye know nothing at all.” That is the way to dismiss the previous speakers. Well, what do you know, Caiaphas?

Now mark the elegance of the phrasing. “It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.” That is all. A very brief speech. It simply meant; There is only one thing to do, kill Him, get Him out of the way at any cost. It would not do to put it like that, so he put it on the ground of political expediency and national well-being. It was the most dastardly speech, but it won on the human level. Pilate at last consented to that policy.

When Pilate saw that a tumult was arising, he gave Jesus over. It is expedient! What devilry can be done in the name of expediency!

What was the counsel they took? They determined to kill Him. That is how it ended. “From that day forth they took counsel that they might put Him to death.”

Now observe that marvellous comment which John inserted. It is as radiant with light and beauty, as that speech from Caiaphas’ standpoint was dark with sin and iniquity. He declares that Caiaphas had said more than he understood, more than he intended. “This he said not of himself.” That is, he did not mean what John now said. “But being high priest that year,” God over-ruled and compelled him, when he was uttering a thing of diabolical obscenity, at the same time, in the same words to utter a prophecy full of light and beauty. “This he said not of himself; being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation; and not for the nation only, but that He might also gather together into one the children of God that are scattered abroad.” Caiaphas was a politician, and he said something characterized by political sagacity, indicating the right thing to do. John in reporting it, said in effect; Yes, and what he was saying was more than he knew. He was uttering a great word. It was expedient that He should die, and not for the nation only, but for all the world, that He might also gather together into one the children scattered abroad. Thus we have the most tragic and dastardly and diabolical speech on record; and side by side with it, a statement that the devilry is gripped and mastered by God, until the very thing said is transfigured, and becomes the statement of the Gospel of hope for a dead world. John 12:54-57 - John 12:1-19. The raising of Lazarus had intensified the hostility of the rulers to Jesus. That in itself is an amazing fact and a terribly revealing one. Two notable instances of it have been seen before. One occurred in the first year of His ministry. When, passing through Bethesda’s porches, He healed the derelict who for thirty-eight years had been in his infirmity, the rulers were angry because, according to the technicalities of their traditions, He had caused this man to break the Sabbath day by carrying his mattress. They seem to have been entirely indifferent to the wonder wrought for the man.

Again, in the case of the man born blind, exactly the same thing was manifested. The creation of sight for a man who had never seen was of small moment to them. They excommunicated the man, and their whole objection was to the fact that Jesus had wrought the wonder on the Sabbath day. A derelict for thirty-eight years given back to life and health and strength, and moral cleansing. A man born blind, gaining his sight. A dead man brought back to life.

To these they were indifferent. What a picture we have of what traditional religion can do. It had killed their capacity for compassion. They were concerned because their traditions were violated. Moreover, they saw that these signs wrought by Jesus, and very especially this last and supreme one in many senses, were drawing men after Him. The multitudes were coming to Him, and they felt they were losing their hold upon them.

It was because of these things that the council had been gathered together, and the counsel had been decided upon to kill Him. Therefore Jesus withdrew, until His hour came in the economy of God. In this passage we have the story of that withdrawal; then the story of His coming back, and the supper at Bethany; and finally that of His coming to Jerusalem for His hour, for the final things.

The reading breaks up quite naturally into three sections, and we may mark the sections by geographical names. In chapter eleven, verses fifty-four to fifty-seven (John 11:54-57), we are in Ephraim with Him; in chapter twelve, verses one to eleven (John 12:1-11), we are in Bethany with Him; and from verses eleven to nineteen (John 12:11-19) in the same chapter we are in Jerusalem with Him.

Ephraim. “Jesus therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into the country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there He tarried with the disciples.” We have no means of knowing how long that tarrying was. Possibly for forty days. During that period He was with His disciples, in quietness in the country. A period of quietness with His own before the storm broke upon Him, and the billows swept over Him.

Then John carries us to Jerusalem, and tells us what was happening there, towards the end of the time that Jesus was in Ephraim. “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand; and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover, to purify themselves.” Arriving from all that countryside, from over Jordan, and from Galilee-as they did at the Passover season, when Jerusalem became crowded with pilgrims,-they sought for Jesus. Jerusalem is seen without Jesus. This seeking of the people shows the place He occupied by this time in the public thought. They were familiar with His name, and largely with Himself. Now they sought Him here at Jerusalem, centre of the national and religious life. The interest was general.

They were seeking Him-the verb should have that rendering-and they were speaking one to another as they stood in the Temple. All these people, gathered to celebrate the Passover, seeking ceremonial purification for the observance of the feast, were discussing the situation. “What think ye?” they said one to another. What they were inclined to think is revealed in the fact that they put the next question in the negative form. They did not say, Will He come to the feast? They said, “That He will not come to the feast?” John reveals immediately why the people talking about Him, put the question in that form. “The chief priests and the Pharisees had given commandment, that, if any man knew where He was, he should show it, that they might take Him.” Quite evidently this was an authoritative proclamation issued by the Sanhedrim that if any one found the location of Jesus, he should signify to them, and they would arrest Him. The people knew it, and were wondering, and talking about what He would do.

Would that proclamation keep Him away?

In the wilderness Jesus was quietly spending the period with His disciples, while the city was beginning to fill with the crowds coming up to the feast, and He was the subject of discussion.

So we turn to chapter twelve, and now He was coming. John selects three incidents from the events of these final hours of Jesus’ public ministry. First that of the supper at Bethany; secondly that of His entry to the city, coming to it for His hour; and finally that of the coming of the Greeks. In this paragraph we have the first two.

“Six days before the Passover” Jesus came to Bethany. This was a purely social gathering. That was the intention. “They made Him a supper.” Matthew and Mark tell us that the supper was given, not in the house of Martha, but in the house of one Simon. It was a happy occasion. It is arresting and remarkable how often during the ministry of Jesus, they invited Him out; and it is more amazing that He went. He knew the motives in the invitations. Apart from the day when He went to the house of Martha and Mary this would appear to be the only occasion when the invitation was that of pure hospitality.

Look at the gathering. What was Martha doing? Serving! Martha would serve to the end. That is what she was doing before, in the incident recorded by Luke. That is all we are told about her now.

It was not her house, but she was acting as hostess in Simon’s house. Is that all there is to say? No. When we met her in Luke, so far as we have any means of knowing, she was preparing a meal for Jesus, and Mary, and Lazarus, and herself; four people. How many had she here? Jesus, and twelve disciples, that is thirteen, and Mary, fourteen; and Lazarus, fifteen; and possibly Simon, the host, sixteen, and Martha herself, seventeen.

Four only on the previous occasion; seventeen now, and there is not a word here about being distracted. Martha had learned something on that sad, dark day, when Jesus talked to her, when she came to Him in hot and angry protest, created by her very love. He had talked to her, and said strange and mighty things. She passes off the scene now, and we see her still serving, but there is not a word about being distracted. Her service had not ceased, but some secret had been learned, which kept her from distraction.

At this social gathering two things happened, two most revealing things, two things which stand in almost startling contrast to each other. The act of Mary, and the attitude of Judas are recorded side by side.

What did Mary do? And why did Mary do what she did? First observe that Mary is seen at His feet. She has returned to the old trysting place. In the day of sunshine, when Martha became cumbered with serving, Mary had learned the lesson that there must be time for quietness and disciple-ship and adoration. She sat at His feet, when the sun was shining.

Then when the darkness was round about her, and Lazarus was dead, and her heart was breaking, she came when He sent for her, and went straight to His feet. Now it was His day of approaching sorrow, and again she went straight to His feet. Do we understand what she did? Should we ever have understood if it had not been for our blessed Lord? After the protest of Judas, He said, “Suffer it now.” I like the old rendering here, “Let her alone.” She hath done it “against the day of My burying.” That is surely a revelation of what was in the heart of Mary. When that day she looked into His eyes, she saw the sorrow there.

In a very little while after we shall hear Him say, “Now is My soul troubled.” Mary saw that. She remembered the day of her own sorrow, how she had seen those eyes first flash with indignation in the presence of the dead; and then melt into tears of tenderest pity and sympathy; and on this day she saw, as did none other, the sorrow unto death; and she said to herself, I wonder what I can do to show Him that I see. Love then became prodigal, and according to the meanness of Judas, she became wasteful. “ Why this waste?”

The question arises, Had she done what she wanted to do? Had she made Him feel that somebody at least in this hour of approaching sorrow, sensed His sorrow, knew the darkness of the hour in measure, to which He was going, and was in fellowship with Him? Yes, He knew. That is what He meant. “Let her alone; against the day of My burying hath she kept this.” And if, with great daring, I may change the wording without interfering with the thought, it is as if He said, She sees and understands. Once a woman’s touch drew from Him virtue. Here a woman’s act gave Him comfort. I would rather be in succession to Mary of Bethany than to the whole crowd of the apostles.

Then, in contrast, Judas. She, perceiving, sympathizing, sacramentally expressing it; Jesus, accepting the offering, knowing the intention, and seeing a gleam of brightness in the wasteful and glorious act; Judas-“Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” Then John becomes sarcastic. “This he said, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief.” Judas, having no understanding of the situation, was blinded by selfishness, and spoke in criticism. Mary, seeing to the heart of things, expressed her sympathy in a prodigality of activity. A social hour; Jesus the honoured Guest. Round about Him the disciples. The radiant loveliness of Mary’s action shines like a rainbow of God over the dark clouds that were gathering about Him. In the words of Judas hell flashed itself out in deep and dire animosity. And now, the hostile priests see they have more to do than to put Jesus to death. It is very significant. Caiaphas in that council had said, “It is expedient that one man should die.” They are finding out now that one won’t do; “ Lazarus also.” That is a great phrase, “Lazarus also.” We shall have two to kill, instead of one. And that was but a beginning. Hostility to God as manifested in Christ, has been the characteristic of the world ever since, and it has ever been trying to get rid of Him. How many have they put to death in the endeavour?

Pilate probably thought he had done the business presently when he put Jesus on the Cross. When he handed Him over it was with a sort of sense of relief, that it was done with. Done with! Within a couple of generations the power he represented had to repeat the martyrdom of Jesus ten thousand times in Rome itself. “Lazarus also.” We do not know if they did put Lazarus to death. Probably not. He was, however, in peril.

This may be the reason of their passing out of the picture. We do not read of either of them at the Cross, or after the resurrection.

This hostility, how futile it is. It is expedient Jesus should die, it will suffice. No, “Lazarus also.” And following Lazarus, the long succession of the martyrs of Jesus; and “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Then, what next? John says, “On the morrow,” and there follows the story of our Lord’s coming to Jerusalem. He is now seen coming deliberately to Jerusalem for His “hour.” His foes had tried to take Him and trap Him, had issued a proclamation that if anyone should know where He was to report, that they might take Him. Now He was coming of His own volition for His hour. We speak of His entry as triumphal, and such it was from the side of the heavenly, the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.

There were three entries; the first day, He rode into the city, came to the Temple, and looked round upon all things, and left without saying a word. On the next day He went to the Temple and cleansed it. On the third day the rulers gathered round Him. John only records the first of these three entries, and that in a very condensed form. His purpose, undoubtedly, was rather to show the effects of that coming, than to describe its details. He tells of the greetings of the crowds to Jesus as He came. They took down palm branches, waved them, and flung them on the highway. As He approached, they sang sentences from the great Hallel. “Hosanna; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.”

“Hosanna,” being simply translated, means, “Save now.” And then, “Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.” It was a most remarkable thing for the crowds to sing, when Jesus was coming. The rulers were hostile, the crowds themselves were fickle; and yet there came this sudden outburst of enthusiasm. Another evangelist tells us that the rulers objected, and said, Command these Thy disciples that they be silent. To which Jesus replied, If these should hold their peace the stones would become vocal, would cry out. In that popular outburst of quotation from one of the greatest of the Hebrew songs, He was proclaimed as the “King of Israel.” It has sometimes been said that the very voices which that day cried “Hosanna” very soon after cried “Crucify.” I am not sure that they were the same voices. I am rather inclined to think the crowd that gathered around Him, and marched in with Him, and cried “Hosanna,” was a Galilean crowd; and that the crowd that hissed “Crucify,” was largely Judaean.

There is no proof of that, but it is more than probable. However, even though it was a Galilean crowd, they also all forsook the King of Israel they confessed, presently. And yet mark this, He accepted it, and rode in regally. He chose to ride in, in Kingly fashion. The ass was the beast of kings.

John declares that all this was in fulfillment of prophecy, and he gives the prophecy in Zechariah. Then he immediately adds, that at the time the disciples did not understand this, but when Jesus was crucified, when presently He was risen and ascended, when He was glorified, then they saw the relationship between the sign and the song, and understood what He did. John saw at last that however poor and paltry on the human level that entry was; nevertheless in the economy of heaven, it was the entry of the King. So He arrived. The hour was at hand.

John 12:21-50

The Gospel According to John John 12:20-50 John 12:20-36. This paragraph contains the story of the last incident in the public ministry of Jesus which John records. Moreover, it is the last incident on record. It took place later than that great day of question and answer in the Temple, which Matthew records so fully. It would seem that after this, He retired, possibly to Bethany. One can imagine those last hours spent in the quietness of Bethany.

In this paragraph there are two very distinct movements; first the story of the coming of the Greeks which occupies verses twenty to thirty-three (John 12:20-23); and then John’s account of the questions of the crowd in verses thirty-four to thirty-six (John 12:34-36).

In the story of the coming of the Greeks, there are two things to notice; the request which they preferred; and the response of Jesus to that request.

These men were not Hebrews. They were Greeks. There are two different words in Greek, which are unfortunately translated the same way in the New Testament; the Greek words Hellenes and the Hellenistae. The first is always used of those who were Gentiles. Hellenistae were Greek-speaking Jews. The word here is Hellenes, which marks them at once, not as Jews, but as Gentiles.

But they were evidently Gentile proselytes, for they had come up to worship at the Hebrew feast. These men came to the place where Jesus was teaching, surrounded by the group of His apostles; and they preferred their request. They said, speaking to Philip, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The fact that they addressed Philip with the title of great respect, “Sir,” would at least suggest that there was something about this Jesus, Whom they had not seen, but of Whom they had heard, which commanded respect.

There we tarry a moment, wondering why they wanted to see Jesus. It may have been mere curiosity. It is possible that it was so. At that time Jesus was the supreme Centre of interest in all the countryside, and especially in Jerusalem. They were gathered from everywhere for the Passover feast, and as they gathered, they were talking about Him, “What do you think?” “That He will not come?” He was the subject of discussion throughout the length and breadth of the city; wherever they were crowding, they were talking about this Jesus, Who had been conducting His ministry for three and a half years, and to Whom their rulers had become bitterly hostile. These Greeks said, We want to see Him, possibly out of mere curiosity. On the other hand it may have been, if we could but know the history of these men, that disillusioned and disappointed in the religion of paganism in which they had been brought up, they had turned in their quest for God to the Hebrew religion. And it may be that their connection with the Hebrew religion had left them still disillusioned and disappointed; for the Hebrew religion at that time was utterly dead and degenerate within itself. They may have heard of some of the things Jesus had been saying and doing, and their very coming was a further quest for something they had never yet found.

It is interesting that they went to Philip. Philip is a Greek name. Andrew is a Greek name, and they were both dwellers in the same town of Bethsaida. Probably these men had known them before. Then we have the interesting hesitation of Philip and Andrew. Philip did not go straight and tell Jesus that there were certain Greeks wanting to see Him. He consulted with Andrew, and after consultation, they came. Why the hesitation? I do not know that there is a dogmatic answer to that question; but the possible reason was that they knew these men were Gentiles, and they were not quite sure, now absolutely convinced of the Messiahship of Jesus, as to whether He would be prepared to receive Gentiles.

The response of Jesus to the request was amazing. Glance at the end of the paragraph for a moment. It begins by Gentiles asking to see Jesus. How does it end. What is the last thing? The last thing is that He hid Himself. It opens with a request to see Him. It ends with a declaration that He hid Himself. I am not suggesting that these men did not see Him with the eyes of their flesh. I think they probably were near enough to see Him, and to hear all He had to say. And yet the last thing recorded is that He hid Himself.

His response to the request is not exhausted in verse twenty-three. We have no right to stay there. What follows? “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” Our Lord used the arresting formula “Verily, verily,” which ever meant that something was now going to be said of supreme importance.

“The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone.” First note His reference to an hour. The first occasion He made such reference was to His Mother, “Mine hour is not yet come.” Then to His brethren, “My time is not yet come.” Again, “No man laid hands on Him, because His hour was not yet come.” And yet once more, “No man took Him; because His hour was not yet come.” Now He said, “The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified."

All that follows interprets that statement. First the illustration of the grain of wheat with applications. Then the great cry of His soul in its travail, “Now is My soul troubled.” This followed by heaven’s voice; and certain human opinions. Finally the cry of triumph, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself.” Then John says, “This He said, signifying by what manner of death He should die.”

“The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified.” What hour? “Now is My soul troubled . . . now is the judgment of this world . . if I be lifted up out of the earth, I will draw all men unto Myself.” The hour had come to which He had been moving through all the public ministry, the hour which evidently, in His own mind, from the beginning, was the consummation and the culmination of everything. In that first year of His ministry they had challenged Him when He first cleansed the Temple, as to what right He had to do it; and He had given that mystical answer, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” He was then looking to the consummation and the culmination. Now He said that hour had come.

Mark carefully how He referred to it. It would have seemed natural had He said; The Greeks want to see Me; the hour has come in which I am going to die. But He did not say that; He said, “The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified.” Our Lord’s vision of that hour to which He was going was that it was the hour in which He would be “glorified”! The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says that He was “crowned with glory and honour, that by the grace of God He should taste death for every man.” It does not say He was crowned with glory and honour because He tasted death, but rather that God conferred upon Him the glory and honour of the right to die for men. He had already said, “No man taketh My life away from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment received I from My Father.” “The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified.”

Then continuing, He interpreted. He began with that matchless illustration from Nature: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.” In the realm of Nature that is perfectly true. Its application to Him is arresting. Jesus said in effect, These Greeks cannot see Me. There is only one way by which they may see Me, know Me, apprehend Me; and that is through the “hour” that has now come, and that is through the way of the Cross. That is the only way.

“Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone.” Have you ever seen a grain of wheat? Imaginatively put a grain of wheat in your hand. Are you looking at it? Can you see it? Of course you can see it. But really you cannot see it. How can you see it? Drop it into the earth, let it die, and wait and watch, and presently the grain becomes the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. That was all in the grain, but you could not see it. You have not seen it yet. Husk that grain, and get out all the grains, and put them back again, and watch, and if you keep the process up, one day you may see what lay hidden in the grain of wheat that lay hidden in the hand. My mind goes back to the Old Testament song, “There shall be abundance of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.” Christ was saying, These men cannot see Me. There will be a day when men will see Me. It will be the result of My going down into death, and of My emerging out of it; and of the process being carried on through the running centuries; through death into life, through death into life, through death into life. The harvest is not yet in its completeness. It is very remarkable that He took a natural illustration, Man in the Divine economy is not natural; he is supernatural. Man fell on to the level of the grain of wheat, of things that die to live. Man never would have died if it had not been for sin. He fell. Jesus never fell. He did not have to die.

He was transfigured. But now He was going down into the realm into which man had fallen, which can be illustrated in Nature, because man has become merely natural, and no longer supernatural.

Then He applied the principle. “He that loveth his life loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” There is marked difference here in the words rendered “life.” “He that loveth his life” (psuche) “shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world”-that is, life conditioned here-(psuche), “shall keep it unto life eternal” (zoe). Psuche refers to the mental. Whenever Paul talks about the “natural man,” we might accurately read “the psychic man,” the man living on the lower plane of the merely mental. If you love that life, said Christ, you shall lose it. If you hate that, mental activity conditioned in the cosmos, then you gain life (zoe) in all its fullness. Men who have fallen on to the level of the natural, must abandon all the calls and claim of the merely natural, if they would enter into the fullness of life.

Again, “If any man”-not the Greeks only-“If any man serve Me, let him follow Me.” My hour is come. If men want to see Me, they must come My way, “and where I am,” on this pathway to death, “there shall also My servant be.” In all that teaching, our Lord was insisting upon the necessity for that to which He was going; the necessity for the Cross, as the Cross leads to resurrection, and all the life that lies beyond. “We would see Jesus,” they said. Here was His answer. There is only one way to see Me. Men must come My way. It is the way of the Cross, through death, into life.

He then revealed the nature of the hour. “Now is My soul troubled,” not zoe, but psuche, that very realm of life, that man must be content to lose in order to find fullness of life. “Now is My soul troubled.” I hear Him say that, and am conscious of sorrows that I cannot fathom, of a travail that baffles me when I try to comprehend it. “My soul is troubled.” The trouble was such that He went on: “What shall I say?” Shall I say?-I am inserting these words to give the sense-“Shall I say Father, save Me from this hour?” But there was no hesitation. He declared: “But for this cause came I unto this hour.” What then did He say? Not, Save Me from this hour, but “Father, glorify Thy name.” It is true that John does not tell us about the Garden of Gethsemane, but he does here reveal Gethsemane’s experiences. Gethsemane was more than an experience of an hour or two in the darkness of the night. Gethsemane was the experience of His soul all the way to Calvary. Shall I say that?

Father, save Me from this hour? No, I have only one passion: to glorify My Father’s name, “Father, glorify Thy name.”

Very daringly let me say, and yet I say it resolutely, it seems as if God could not have kept silence then. Heaven answered, and the voice was articulate with words for those who were able to follow it. “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” “I have both glorified it.” All the past was in that, all the past of human history, specifically and specially in the ministry of His Son, in His revelation of the meaning of human nature, in His unveiling of the Divine heart in speech and word and deed. “I have both glorified it,” and what I have done, I will do. So heaven broke the silence for the third time in the course of His life.

But why did heaven break silence? Notice first the different opinions about what had happened. Some said that it thundered. Others said an angel had spoken to Him. It is an arresting illustration of the fact that people often hear the same thing quite differently according to what they are in themselves. Some heard the thunder. Some, perhaps with a little more spiritual perception, knew it was articulate, and said it was an angel. He knew. He heard. He understood. Then He told them that it had not come for His sake, but for theirs. The voice that broke through, which they heard as thunder or as angelic, even if they did not hear what was said, and understand it, was a supernatural manifestation, intended to arrest them anew.

The moment that voice had spoken, He continued, and the final thought of glorification was revealed. “Now is the judgment of this world.” Judgment? Yes, now the world stands judged; the verdict is found. Necessarily and unhesitatingly the sentence is pronounced on this world. There He stood. Presently they would take Him, and put Him on a Roman gibbet. In view of that, He said, this is the crisis in human history.

What next? “Now”-not has the prince of this world been cast out;-but, “Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” It is a process. It began when presently He bruised the head of the serpent. It is not over yet. The process is running on.

The way of the casting out is then revealed; “I, if I be lifted up from the earth.” That should be “out of the earth.” That includes more than the Cross. It includes the resurrection. It includes the ascension. It includes His exaltation to the right hand of His Father. “If, if I be lifted up out of the earth, will draw all men unto Myself.” That does not say that all will yield, but it does say He will be the gathering point for men, that men will be drawn towards Him.

Then it was that the multitude asked Him two questions. That is to say that somebody in the crowd expressed the attitude and thinking of the multitudes. The first was a theological question, and the second a personal one.

The first one was, “We have heard out of the law that the Christ abideth for ever; and how sayest Thou, the Son of man must be lifted up?” They knew the teaching of the law, that when Messiah came, that would be final. They also understood that Christ had claimed to be Messiah; and further, they understood that He said He was going to die. There seemed to be a discrepancy between the law, and the claims of Christ, and what He was saying about Himself. The law said Messiah abideth for ever; but He said He was going to die, and yet He claimed to be Messiah.

Therefore their second question. “Who is this The Son of man?” I put the definite article in, because it is in the Greek, and I think we have lost something by omitting it. Evidently they were quoting Him, for that was His name for Himself, and nobody is ever recorded as using it except Himself. They meant, What do You make Yourself? “Who is this, The Son of man.” It was a cynical question.

It is nevertheless an arresting thing that this crowd asked the very question He had made the test question of His ministry. John does not record it, but at Caesarea Philippi, He had asked His disciples Who the people said, He, the Son of man was. The crowd are now asking the same question.

Well, what did He say to them? He ignored their theological problem, and said, “Yet a little while is the Light among you.” In the Temple He had said, “I am the Light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Now He said, “Yet a little while is the Light among you.” They were going to put out the Light. They were going to put Him to death. So He said, “Walk while ye have the light, that darkness overtake you not; and he that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. While ye have the Light, believe on the Light, that ye may become sons of light.”

When going to the grave of Lazarus, He had talked about walking in the light. He was not walking in the darkness; He was walking in the light. He walked in the light all the way, even into the darkness. There did seem to come a moment presently when, for Him, the light passed; but that was when He was where I ought to have been, when the pains of hell got hold on Him.

In His answer, five times the word “light” occurs; four times with the definite article, “the light,” once without it, “light.” If you want to know Me, said Christ in effect, Follow the light, the light you have. To fail to do that is to go into darkness. Mystic, majestic, infinite in beauty. “Who is this, The Son of man?” they said. And He did not argue with them. He said, Follow the Light! John 12:37-50. In this paragraph we have the very last things in connection with the public ministry of Jesus. No incident is recorded here. John had already completed his account of that public ministry, and now before going on to tell of the last teaching which He gave to His own, he surveyed the field, and gave us two summaries. From verse thirty-seven to verse forty-three (John 12:37-43) he gives a summary of the results of the public ministry of our Lord, as he saw them. Having done so, from verse forty-four to the end (John 12:44-50), he gives a summary of the teaching and claims of our Lord, in words of our Lord Himself. John summarizes very briefly the results by saying, “Though He had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on Him.” John had selected from the many signs, eight in the realm of works. We have seen them as we have followed through; the turning of water into wine, the cleansing of the Temple, the healing of the nobleman’s son at a distance, the healing of the derelict in Bethesda’s porches, the feeding of five thousand, the stilling of the storm, the opening of the eyes of a man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead. In that little closing paragraph at the end of chapter twenty, with which we began our meditations, he says that they did not exhaust the story; “Many other signs did Jesus . . . which are not written in this book.” The ministry of our Lord had been a ministry of signs. Now John surveyed the field. He had been with Him through the whole period of that public ministry. He had seen Him and listened to Him.

Looking back to the period when it ended, when our Lord had said the last thing, and wrought the final sign of His earthly ministry in public, John said, “Though He had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on Him.” The statement has almost a touch of hopelessness in it; and yet we all know that it was by no means a hopeless statement, but it was the facing of a fact in the public ministry of Jesus. That was the general result.

Of course, there were those who had believed on Him. There was the group around Him of His own disciples, His apostles. There was a larger company we are familiar with; on the day of Pentecost, one hundred and twenty were gathered together; and as Paul tells us, five hundred brethren met Him after His resurrection. The ministry had not been without definite and positive results that could be tabulated. And yet if we add them all together, the result would still seem meagre. Twelve, and one of them a devil. So I think we had better say eleven. One hundred and twenty.

Five hundred. Statistically nobody would say it was a great success. But who is going to call the ministry of our Lord a failure?

There were also His signs in the realm of words, with all the discussions and the discourses gathered round about them. Six of them had passed His lips, “I am the Bread of life,” “lam the Light of the world,” “Before Abraham was, I am,” “I am the Door,” “I am the Good Shepherd,” “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” All of them great claims, uttered in the presence of the crowds, in the midst of discourses and discussions. There had been marvellous evidences that God was working through Him in the works; and evidences supremely that He was God, in the words that had thus fallen from His lips. Many signs, many signs, “Yet they believed not on Him.” NO sign had been wrought, or could be wrought, that could bring complete revelation and complete conviction. The sign equal to that had yet to be wrought. They had asked Him for a sign in the first year of public ministry, and He had replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The only sign that could bring complete revelation and create ultimate belief would be the sign of His Cross and resurrection.

By another evangelist the same thing is recorded in other words. On another occasion Jesus said, " An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the fish; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

Then John explained the unbelief: “That the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? “And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” It is as though John had said, Of course we need not be surprised; this is the fulfillment of prophecy. The prophetic utterance of old anticipated it. This is a most interesting sidelight on prophecy. When Isaiah wrote those words, or uttered them, there is no question that they had local application, but they implicated abiding principles. “Who hath believed our report?” that is our message, the word we have had to say. “And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?” The arm which is always the symbol of strength. Said Isaiah in those olden days, “Who hath believed our message?” Who has been convinced by the things of power seen? Jesus had wrought many signs; signs in the nature of a report from heaven, words spoken; signs in the nature of the manifestation of the activity of God; the arm of the Lord in strength.

They did not believe. John has now quoted that word from Isaiah, and says in effect: The principles that were manifested in the prophetic age, have now come to their ultimate fulfillment and expression in the ministry of the Messiah.

But he went further. “For this cause they could not believe, for that Isaiah said again,

He hath blinded their eyes, and He hardened their heart; Lest they should see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, And should turn, And I should heal them.

“That is a definite statement that these people could not believe because God had hardened their heart and blinded their eyes. But it must be remembered that God never hardens a man until the man has hardened his own heart. John has quoted freely from Isaiah. Let us go back and read it, in Isaiah, verse ten in chapter six (Isaiah 10:6): “Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.” That was the command to the prophet. Now look at the previous verse, verse nine; “He said, Go, and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.” It was because of this that He confirmed their own decision.

It is exactly the same in the story of Pharaoh. The Lord at last hardened Pharaoh’s heart, but not till Pharaoh had hardened his own heart. The word used for Pharaoh’s action and the word used for God’s is not the same. In all the earlier movements God made strong the heart of Pharaoh, that is, held him in the strength of his manhood to make his own choice. Pharaoh did not make strong his heart; he calloused it, he hardened his heart. Then there did come a moment when God sealed his own choice, and the other word is used of the action of God.

We are certainly not to understand by this summary of John that unbelief was the result of a Divine action, preventing belief. God does not do that. He does ratify human decision. If in spite of all the signs, men refuse the evidence of the signs, there comes the hour when that choice is ratified by God, and they pass into the realm of blindness. That summarizes the whole of that mission of our Lord. “Many signs” and the signs were intended to bring men to a recognition of truth, and to submission to it. “Many signs . . . yet they believed not.” The reason for the unbelief was foretold by Isaiah. God ratified a decision and an attitude, to which men had come of their own choice.

Then he ends, shall I say, in some senses surprisingly, after what he had said about not believing; “Nevertheless even of the rulers many believed on Him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess, lest they should be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.” That is by no means a contradiction. I think the most illuminative sentence concerning that came from the pen of Bishop Westcott, when writing of it, he said, “This complete intellectual faith is really the climax of unbelief.” That is what John has shown. It is the severest indictment of them. He said they knew, they believed the truth, they had been convinced of the truth, but they would not confess it; and they would not confess it because of that most unworthy attitude of loving the glory of men rather than the glory of God. So the outlook covers all the ground. During three and a half years of public ministry He had given them many signs, signs that would remain, signs that would be recorded, signs ultimately that would have their influence.

Yet He was refused, He was rejected. This record of the man who had been with Him all the time, is characterized by simple honesty.

When he wrote it he was looking back, and knew the ultimate. He knew the final sign of the Cross and the resurrection, the sign producing complete revelation; but looking back he says in effect: when our Lord came to the end of His public ministry, when He had uttered the last word in public, when He had wrought the last wonder supernaturally, they believed not on Him. All the teaching, and all the supernatural working of Jesus failed to bring about the final results. To-day when I am told that all we need is the teaching of Jesus, and a determination that we will obey His teaching, it is not according to truth. Or when I am told, on the other hand, all we have to do is to believe in the supernatural element in the doing and teaching of Jesus, that also is not enough. There is only one final sign that brings complete revelation concerning our Lord, and that is the sign of the Cross and the resurrection. Then we have the summary of Christ’s teaching. The question arises as to whether John is here recording an actual address of our Lord, or summarizing. In any case he introduces the paragraph by the words, “And Jesus cried.” The word “cried” we have noticed twice before. It is a word that reveals a manner and a method; it suggests a strong emotional appeal. I personally believe that John here was summarizing on the claims of Jesus. First, emphasizing the fact that these claims had been made so definitely and positively, that there can be no doubt about them; he said, “Jesus cried,” and then summarizing the claims so made.

Unquestionably these were the claims of our Lord. “He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me. And he that beholdeth Me beholdeth Him that sent Me.” That is the first movement. There we have our Lord’s definite claim to relationship with God. We have seen how He had insisted upon it. He was sent, and everything He had said had been on the authority of the One Who sent Him. So now.

He that believes on Me, believes on God; and he that seeth Me, seeth God. Later He said the same thing to Philip, “He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father.” Christ consistently declared that He stood before men in the place of God, and that if men believed on Him they were believing on God; and that if they had seen Him, they had seen God. That is the first movement in the claim; relationship to God insisted upon. Then followed the definite personal note. “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me may not abide in the darkness. And if any man hear My sayings, and keep them not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My sayings, hath One that judgeth him; the word that I spake, the same shall judge him in the last day.” We must not disassociate this from what He had already said. Nevertheless this is personal: I am come a light into the world. I have brought into the world that which it had lost, the light of life that comes when God is there, and is recognized. That is the light.

I am come a light into the world; and if any man hear My sayings, rhemata, not the word, but the sayings, the individual sayings; and keep them not, I do not judge; I did not come to judge. I came to save. But that man is judged. And how is he judged? By the very words that having heard, he refuses to obey. They are the words that judge him in the last day.

The last movement was a return to the first. He goes back to emphasize His relationship with God. “I spake not from Myself; but the Father which sent Me, He hath given Me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that His commandment is life eternal; the things therefore which I speak, even as the Father hath said unto Me, so I speak.”

What self-emptying all through. And yet what daring. He had been speaking. Men had heard His sayings. They were not His. They are the sayings of God. They are the words of God. Who else ever made that claim. For nineteen hundred years the sacramental host has grown and multiplied of those who have found it to be true, that in the words of Jesus they have heard the voice of God.

Thus the account of the public ministry of Jesus ends. Fourteen signs have been grouped, eight in the realm of works, six in the realm of words; and as John distinctly says, “many other signs.” We have no complete list either of His words or His works; but we have illustrations of them in this grouping of John. So many signs, yet they believed not. If we take this Gospel of John, and also Matthew, and Mark, and Luke, and end there, with their account of the saying and doing of Jesus in beneficence and in revelation, then we are face to face with failure. Yet we know the story is not that of failure. The Christian Church, using the word in its fine, catholic, universal sense, all down the ages proves that it has not been failure.

And why not? Because He did not end there. His teaching, wondrous teaching; His beneficent doing in the realm of miraculous exercise of power, wondrous and amazing; left the mass unbelieving. They were all unbelieving in a measure. You get little glimpses of it after the resurrection. In Matthew, in the last chapter when they went up to meet Him in Galilee, it is said that some disbelieved.

Ultimate saving faith only broke in waves of possibility and power after the death and the resurrection and the ascension, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon men.

So the story ends. The final sign was not yet. When the Greeks came Jesus had said, “Except a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but if it die, it beareth much fruit.” To the story of that final sign we shall come presently.