The Holy Spirit was beginning to move in new ways and even drawing Greeks to Christ. Jesus speaks of His sacrifice and the discipleship of believers under the power of the Holy Spirit that will follow.
John 12:27-36
"Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to him." Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, "We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?" So Jesus said to them, "The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light."
Jesus was repulsed by what He was going to need to do to pay the price for our sins. He was made sin who did not know sin. We are comfortable with sin but Jesus was repulsed by it. Jesus continually makes it clear that He is going to willingly laying down His life and that it is not being taken from Him. His soul was repulsed by the prospect of bearing your sins but He rejoiced in the work of creating the universe. I think that contrast helps keep the seriousness of our sins and the holiness of God in clear view. This is the third time that the audible voice of God was heard in confirmation of the works of Jesus. The first was His baptism (Matthew 3:17), then at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:5), and here as He prepares to offer Himself up.
Note that the word "draw" is a forceful word. Pray for salvations with confidence and faith that God will accomplish it by His power and not by your power.
The crowd didn't like what they heard. It didn't fit with their preconceived notions of what the Son of Man was supposed to do. They had the light of the Word but they refused it and fell back on a broken understanding. They didn't embrace the Messiah because He didn't look and act in the manner they thought He should act. They couldn't be instructed because they wouldn't bow their understanding to the Word. So they stumbled through unbelief. They were ready for an earthly king who pushed all their enemies out and gave them what they wanted but they weren't ready for a Lord who would confront their sins head on.
Some of this attitude exists today and we see it surrounding Christmas. Many of the feelings and concepts of the incarnation are acceptable but the lordship claims of Christ are not. The "Peace on Earth" is a product of Christ's sacrifice. The lack of peace with God is what required the incarnation. We also use it as a prayer for peace on earth among mankind and that is a good thing to pray for. However, peace among men when those men are at "enmity with God" (in rebellion against God) is a hollow peace.
We often underestimate the Holiness of God and the seriousness of our sin. We begin to think, erroneously, that a just God can forgive us and accept us as we are. Our acceptance before God is because of the payment for our sins that Jesus makes for us and the merit of His perfect life lived for us.
He is our high priest, familiar with the weaknesses of His people constantly making intercession at the right hand of the Father on our behalf, constantly sending forth the Holy Spirit to glorify God in our justification and sanctification as we each work out our salvation. I pray we'd yield with complete abandon to the Holy Spirit.
John 12:37-43
When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them. Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
"Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"
Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
"He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them."
Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
People do not spontaneously regenerate and we need a revelation of His glory to respond because apart from that revelation we choose to remain our own "lords". It is fashionable to make fun of early scientists who thought that life came from rotting fruit and meat spontaneously because they saw flies emerge. It was called spontaneous generation. It is even fashionable in some Christian circles to make fun of Darwinists for similar reasons. But at these Scriptures, and many others, we modern Christians can stumble because God makes it clear that there is no spontaneous regeneration either.
When sinners are left to themselves they hear without understanding, they see but don't recognize what they see, and they become more blind, deaf, and hard of understanding. We simply will not ever turn from sin apart from God's Holy Spirit. We desperately need revival sent from a Holy and Sovereign God. That is what we are called on to pray for this spring.
What a message for a prophet and what a shocking understanding for the Apostle John. Unlike Jonah, this preaching from God incarnate would not bring general repentance in the Jewish people. Isaiah's question was, "How long?" and God's answer was grim. God would only save a remnant. Only a burned stump would remain. But even in judgment on a nation, our God keeps a people for Himself. There is no such thing as spontaneous regeneration but there is such a thing as regeneration.
It is God's will to keep His people. We can pray for God's action in the life of the unsaved and not worry about the hard heart of the unsaved. We know the heart of the father in the story of the prodigal and see the sovereign hand of God in the events that brought him back to the father. We can see God do great things in the life of those we pray for and we must not be guilty of the sin of prayerlessness.
John 12:44-50
And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me."
Jesus is "THE" way and not "A" way among other ways. He is a perfect representation of the Father and has God's authority in all He says. His perfect obedience is the basis of our merit before God. We don't come to God on the basis of our own merit and qualifications. We come, "dressed in His righteousness alone".
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
—Edward Mote (1797-1874)
We will be faultless as a result of the sacrifice that the Son made for us and the work of the Holy Spirit on earth to glorify God. It is amazing grace and an underserved blessing that we receive from God. The majesty of His grace is something we only comprehend in hindsight after He makes us spiritually alive. However, it is something we should meditate on constantly. The puritans had a form of meditation called "discursive meditation" in which you would take a verse and essentially preach it to yourself. We need this in our lives. Take a verse or a psalm or a hymn and tell yourself about it to the praise and glory of God.
John 13:1
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
John is amazed, as we should be, that Jesus didn't withdraw to Himself and become uncommunicative. If you knew you were going to die then I suspect you'd like a little time alone. Jesus ministered with no moment wasted and He was teaching until the end. He didn't stop loving Peter knowing what He knew about Peter or John and all the other disciples. How would you have acted toward Judas having the knowledge that Jesus did of what he was going to do to betray him. Jesus loved them (actively not passively) until the end.
John 13:2-5
During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
Once again John is amazed at Jesus' response to the situation. Given that Judas was in the crowd, that all authority was in Christ's hands, that He was from God, that He was returning to God … He took the role of the servant or lowest disciple and washed their feet.
John 13:6-11
He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, "Lord, do you wash my feet?" Jesus answered him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand." Peter said to him, "You shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you, you have no share with me." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!" Jesus said to him, "The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you." For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, "Not all of you are clean."
Peter didn't have a problem speaking up. Because of the roads and footpaths, feet got dirty and so rather than a full bath the custom was to wash feet because they were dirty. Some compare this process to baptism but it really doesn't fit that well. This process has a greater analogy in our daily fellowship with God in which we turn from the world and He cleanses us again from our interaction with sin in the world. It is hard to avoid sin in this world but you should be taking all of that before God daily. For the Christian – those who are clean – then you need this daily foot washing before God. Daily fellowship isn't an option. As James says, "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" (1:27).
But this is not just a verse that we spiritualize to Jesus ministering to us each day – even though that is important – Jesus was teaching a key point to the disciples.
John 13:12-20
When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But the Scripture will be fulfilled, 'He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me.' I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me."
We are to serve each other with humility and without worrying if a job is important enough for us to do. Foot washing isn't a sacrament but Jesus has commanded humble service to each other. I don't have anything against foot washing in churches but it misses the point. The point is real practical humble service. When those gifted in helps change the oil for widows then that is foot washing. People don't walk around with dirty feed anymore. We've just about paved our whole county. People do walk around with practical needs that men with servant hearts can meet. You are not greater than your Lord and He served as an example so you serve.
Jesus told them these things and they only partly understood. But they were seeds planted in those He chose so that they would recognize Him as the great "I am" later on. I love verse 20. Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." After declaring Himself the "I am", then He says that whoever receives the one He sends (The Holy Spirit), receives Him (Christ), and then as a result receives God the Father. We get to participate in this process with evangelism and become the one sharing the Gospel and seeing this happen before our eyes.
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