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So then what I've been trying to do today, gentlemen, is to draw out the major lines of thought, or some of the major lines of thought, that link, uh, the end of chapter, uh, that link chapter eleven and twelve, and then again the story of the arrest, crucifixion of Christ in chapters eighteen and nineteen. In this final thing, I come back to chapter twelve to comment on the second half of that chapter that we haven't considered today.
We considered the first bit in which our Lord came to Jerusalem. They made a supper, uh, first at Bethany, and then he came riding on the donkey in Jerusalem as Jerusalem's king. And then how there came certain Greeks, presumably ethnic Greeks, wanting to see Jesus, which led our Lord to say, the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Very soon now, so to speak, in time, would the gospel go out to the whole world, not merely to Jews.
And Greeks would come along with Jews and put their faith in him. But with the coming of the Greeks, the hour come for him to be glorified, and now he faces what must be done. His analogy, a grain of wheat, except it fall into the earth and die, it abides alone, but if it die, it bears much fruit. He that loveth his life loses it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there also my servant shall be.
If any man serve me, him will my father honor. He is facing the fact that the cost of this victory will be his death. And confesses in verse twenty seven, now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. That's not a question, it's a statement. But then it's a- added at once, but for this cause I came to this hour. If now he doesn't go through with the experiences of this hour, that is with his arrest, crucifixion, and then resurrection.
Then the whole purpose of his coming is frustrated. He therefore says, Father, glorify their name. And the voice came and says, I glorified it and will glorify it again. The crowd thought it thundered. Some said an angel spoke to him. Christ answered and said, this voice has not come for my sake, but for your sakes. To show the crowd that Christ was in touch with the Father and the Father with him. As he now faces his being lifted up. His being lifted up is not just an unpleasant necessity that will lead on to his glorification.
It is a part of his glorification, gentlemen. And you responded to my question in an earlier session. That is so in your own estimation. It's not that Jesus was glorified, and therefore I believe in him. It runs with you that it Jesus died for me, and that is the glory in it. And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to him. That is the very means of his doing it. So far from then the Pharisees, with their intention and Caiaphas leading them, intention to put him to death, to stop people believing in him.
His being lifted up and crucified would be the means of people believing in him. Notice, therefore, what he says. Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out. This is to be the victory over the prince of this world. That phrase he goes on to enlarge upon in chapter sixteen. Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world co- come. The Holy Spirit, when he has come, will convict the world of sin. What do you mean by sin?
Because they go on drugs too much or get drunk too much. No, no, no. Convict the world of sin because they believe not. This is the cardinal sin. The sin of unbelief. Of course, it was the sin in the Garden of Eden, was it not? The sin of unbelief. You'll see. The sin of unbelief in refusing to believe in Christ. Christ's death and now resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin because they believe not on me, of, uh, righteousness because I go to the Father.
Again, that doesn't mean that now we can have a perfect righteousness given us by God through the death of Christ. It means what Isaiah would mean. Or the Messiah speaking through Isaiah of s- of righteousness because I go to the Father. His resurrection and ascension would demonstrate that Jesus was right, and they who condemned him were wrong, of course. You listen to Peter, he knows he's stuffed by this time, in the Acts of the Apostles, when Christ had risen and had spent on and off forty days with them.
And here's Peter going out to the crowd and to the Sanhedrin. You crucified Christ, your Messiah, says he. Wow. And God, the very Christ whom you crucified, he has raised. And the the Sadducee and high priest gnashed their teeth. That was the message. This is what Christ is saying. When the Holy Spirit will come, he will convict the world of sin because they didn't believe, and convict them of righteousness because I go to the Father. I am right. The coming of the Holy Spirit will demonstrate it.
And you committed the ghastly sin of murdering your Messiah, and God has vindicated me by his resu- the resurrection and ascension. Yes. Of judgment because the prince of this world hath been judged. In what sense has he been judged? Well, of course, he's been judged in this sense, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. The prince of this world, engineering the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Is, of course, his judgment.
Colossians two will take it up and talk about the way that Christ stripped the principalities and powers. Yes? So that these three things are involved, and our Lord, uh, uh, foresees it, of course, and says this in chapter twelve. He is now advertising them that he's going to die. The corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die, otherwise it abides alone, but this method is going to lead to, to thousands of people believing on him.
Do you see? It's going to spell the, uh, victory over Satan, and so forth and so on. Righto. So that comes to, um, uh, verse thirty three. By this he said, signifying what manner of death he should die. The multitude therefore answered, we have heard out of the law that the Christ abides forever. How sayest thou the Son of Man must be lifted up? And who is this Son of Man? Jesus said unto them, he doesn't appear to answer what they asked. Yet a little while is the light among you. Walk while you have the light, that the darkness overtake you not.
He that walketh in the darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. Our Lord had said the same thing in John chapter nine before he healed the blind man. We must work the works of him that called, uh, sent me while it is yet day. The darkness comes when no man can work. Walk while you have the light. You imagine, gentlemen, the darkness of this world in the three days that Christ lay in the tomb. Walk while you have the light, says he, that you might become sons of the light.
Believe in the light. I hope. But then the end of verse thirty six, these things spake Jesus, and he departed and hid himself from them. But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they believed not on him. And now there follows an analysis of why that happened. The gospel, after all, is written. John is going to tell us at the end of the chapter twenty. These signs are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name.
Well, if all those signs were meant to lead people to faith, how is it that having done so many signs, they didn't believe? And the great majority of his contemporaries didn't believe. How would you account for that? And if your atheist friend said to you, you cite me all these miracles. Perhaps you didn't, you just gave him the Gospel of John. And your atheist friend to you said, I read that funny book you gave me. Oh yes, what did you think of it? He said, you're very funny. I'm surprised to hear you recommending the fact that Jesus made gallons of wine as a your, as a reason why I should believe in him.
That was a very funny thing you, you gave me to believe. And if he added, and the Jesus did all these signs when he was here on earth? Yes. Oh, they weren't very effective, were they? The multitude of his contemporaries didn't believe on him. In spite of the signs, they weren't convinced. What would you say to that? Hmm. Here is gospel writer John now analyzing the reasons why. And having analyzed it himself, he then records the words of our Lord from verse forty four onward.
Yet they believed not on him, this is verse thirty seven. that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom hath the law- arm of the Lord been revealed? For this cause they could not believe, for that Isaiah said again, he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and should turn, and I should heal them. Now, whatever has happened to John as he suddenly turned extreme Calvinist or something? Whatever has happened to the man.
Do see. That would ask us, wouldn't it, to go back to Isaiah and look why Isaiah said these things in the first place. The first, uh, quotation, uh, who has believed a report comes, as you remember, later on in the gospel. But for this cause they could not believe, Isaiah says again, he had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, and so forth and so on, comes in chapter six. To read the context in Isaiah, this was what the theologians call God's judicial hardening because of Israel persistence in unbelief and disobedience.
And when people, and the people of God in particular, persist in unbelief and disobedience, there comes a point when God says, have it your own way then. And he hardens their heart in the attitude that they themselves have first adopted. And if you will say, why did the majority of his co- uh, his contemporaries not believe on him? Well, John won't necessarily tell you in his gospel. Matthew will tell you in his. In chapter twelve, for instance, he will discuss it at great length, and that was halfway through our Lord's ministry.
And, uh, our Lord, uh, uh, uh, faces them out with it himself. Our Lord deliberately healed a man on the Sabbath because the time had come to expose them. And they, not being able to deny that he had done this by supernatural power, said, ah, but by Beelzebub he cast us out the demons. By the devil himself he casts out demons. Now that was so outrageous that you might have expected our Lord to turn on his heel and say, that is talking absolute rubbish, gentlemen, that's not worth talking to you, and walk off.
He didn't. He stood and argued with them. We'll talk about the final judgment and what he will do at the final judgment. To show to them, as they stood there in front of him, that because they were determined to reject him as Messiah, they now had to say... what they knew to be absolutely perverse, and to call that black, which in all other circumstances they would have called white.
What do I mean? You say, gentlemen, that I, by the power of Satan and casting out demons, is that so really? Now, um, Satan, I suppose, has turned about destroying his own empire, has he? According to you? Is that your view of Satan? He destroys his own empire. And he's empowering me to cast out his demons or something. You really believe that? Uh, and you know, if it were a question of some tyrant in his castle, and he got a lot of prisoners, and you wanted to release the prisoners, how would you go about it?
Would you not have to bind the, the, the tyrant first before you could get the prisoners out? Um, but s- I'm working with Satan, am I? What, to release his prisoners. How absurd can you get, gentlemen? Oh, ah, occurs to me, says Christ, your sons sometimes cast out demons, don't they? Would you mind telling me by what power they cast them out? Do they cast them out by the power of Satan?
Well, no, they wouldn't say that, of course. No, no, no, no, of course, of course, of course they didn't. I see. Aha. Well, why do you say that I'm doing it by the power of Satan when I cast out demons? Well, there was one very good reason why they said it. Their sons didn't claim to be the Messiah. Jesus did. And if he were casting out demons by the power of God, that was an indication that he claimed to be the Messiah was true. And rather than admit the evidence that faced them, they were prepared to be as perverse as they were being.
And our Lord warns. Talk about shades of the f- final judgment. They won't just be cast into hell, you know. It will be demonstrated to them that in rejecting Christ and all the arguments they came up with, they were being deliberately perverse. I knew they were being. That is the lesson of the prophets, and Prophet Isaiah in particular. And of course, the lesson that was, uh, uh, demonstrated on Pharaoh.
It was when Pharaoh, first of all, hardened his heart, demanded evidence, and when God gave him the evidence time and time and time again, he refused to believe the evidence. But then God stepped in and said, have it your own way, Pharaoh. And f- hardened his heart. So here, John is speaking at the end of our Lord's ministry on earth, why the contemporaries as a whole didn't accept him. The story is given us in the other gospels, of course.
Notably in Matthew chapter twelve. But then, having said that, you see, but it's seriously enough, there did come a point where God stepped in and said, have it your way, gentlemen. But look at verse forty two. Nevertheless, John adds, even of the rulers, many believed on him. So learn to think and speak as the Hebrews thought and spoke when they said none of them believed on him. Well, they're talking like Hebrews.
I mean, the majority didn't, but now they're going to qualify that by saying that even on, even, even of the rulers, let alone the ordinary people, many believed on him. But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the glory of man more than the glory of God. You might think of the case of Joseph, uh, of Nicodemus, of course, who had come to believe, but in the Sanhedrin tried rather diffidently to, to appeal to their sense of justice and at least giving Christ a hearing.
But when our Lord was crucified, then Nicodemus came. He came with Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph of Arimathea, likewise, was a member of the Sanhedrin. He hadn't consented to their deed, but when he saw Christ crucified, then he plucked up the courage and took his stand and went to Pilate and buried Christ. You'll see some of the rulers. So that's John's analysis of it, the reason why many of the contemporaries, in spite of all the science, didn't see the point of the science, so they said, and didn't believe.
A good many did, you see. Now Christ comes. He said, 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. I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me may not abide in the darkness. And if any man, uh, 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 spoke, the same shall judge him in that day. For I spoke 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, uh, uh, is, uh, uh, is life eternal. And things therefore which I speak, even as the Father has said unto me, so I speak. Now this is our Lord's final comment. Rejecting him is not a personal question of his revenge. I've not come to judge the world. What I speak is the Father has, uh, told me to speak, and I know that his commandment is life eternal. I speak the way of eternal life.
What tremendous words they are from Christ a few hours before his crucifixion. I speak it into the world, what the Father has given me to speak, and I know that his commandment is life eternal. That's why I speak it. It offers life eternal. On the other hand, if you don't believe me, because the Father sent me, that's equivalent to not believing God. No less than that. If you behold me, you are beholding God. It was God incarnate. If you don't, uh, believe me, you have one that judges you. Not so much I judge you, but the word I spoke will judge you.
I spoke it because commanded by my Father to speak it. That word, if you disobey it and refuse to believe it, that word will judge you in that day. This is our Lord, therefore, commenting, and it, uh, uh, serves to balance what John has just said. They didn't believe because of their perversity throughout our Lord's ministry, and particularly at that critical point that Matthew records in chapter twelve.
Some did, of course, but they didn't come out into the clear until teach- until after Christ was dead, and a lot of them till after he was risen again, do you see? Because they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. But some who resolutely, knowing they were perverse, deliberately rejected Christ. God stepped in, hardened their hearts. They couldn't believe. They didn't want to anyway. But that was that.
It is a very serious thing, knowingly, not only knowingly rejecting Christ, but making accusations against him, as the Pharisees did, to say it was of the devil. Mm-hmm. So this is, that was John's, uh, account of it, based on Isaiah. Now you have our Lord saying it's non vi- not victi- vindictiveness on his part. It comes from the fact that he was speaking the words of God, that he represented God.
It's useless for Pharisees to say, we reject Jesus, but we still believe in God. Factually, they didn't believe in God. If I might illustrate that, what I mean by that remark, take the case of Saul of Tarsus. He hated these Christians. Do you know what they said? That Jesus Christ was the Messiah? What blasphemy that was.
Didn't they realize that the Old Testament says whoever is hanged on a tree is cursed of God? And they're saying this Jesus that was hung up on a tree is the Messiah. Utter blasphemy. From me. And Saul of Tarsus thought he knew everything about God that was worth knowing. He didn't, did he? And when he was struck down on the Damascus road, with that light above the light of the sun, he didn't need telling who it was.
He said, who art thou, Lord? Knew enough to know that this was the Shekinah glory of God. Who art thou, Lord? And the reply came, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Paul thought he knew God before. He didn't, did he? God was infinitely bigger than anything Saul of Tarsus had imagined. Yeah. Therefore, when, uh, Christ spoke the very words of God that God had commanded him, when they saw Christ and saw him behave, the very image of God, when they rejected that, they were rejecting God, says Christ.
Mm-hmm. You can't reject Christ and suppose you're okay with God. Mm-hmm. That's not anti-Semitism. A lot of fuss is made these days, and in certain quarters I should be in grave trouble for saying what I've said today, that Pilate wanted to release Christ, and it was the Jews that secured his crucifixion. I should be accused of the anti-Semitism that led to Hitler's gas chambers.
That the real account is that, um, uh, uh, the Jews wouldn't have crucified Christ. It was the horrible Romans that crucified him, thinking he was a political insurrectionist. But that is not true. John says it's the other way round. Pilate would have released him. And that's why a lot of scholars don't like the fourth gospel, I might tell you. And as for the epistles and John's gospel be anti-Semitic, well, have a go at Isaiah and read a few chapters of Isaiah and see whether he's anti-Semitic or not.
And if you think he's pretty okay, well, read some Jeremiah then. And their denunciations, and Ezekiel. Were they being anti-Semitic? Well, that's nonsense. They were Jews. So was the writer of the fourth gospel. Accuse him of being anti-Semitic is rather silly. But it wasn't vindictiveness. Christ didn't instigate Hitler to gas Jews. The issue at stake is, did Jesus properly represent God?
Did Jesus properly represent the words of God? Was what he said true? Is it therefore true that if you reject him and reject his word, you are rejecting God. Christendom would be divided over that these days, wouldn't it? But that is the issue. Now, having said that, I must guard myself.
I haven't forgotten Romans nine, ten, and eleven. And I hope I've listened to the warning, don't be high-minded, but fear. Israel, the many branches were cut off because of unbelief. Be careful you, lest you also be cut off. That is to say, Christendom was be careful, for Judaism as a whole, many of the branches cut off because they continued not in belief, you see. Christendom, dear, oh dear, where has Christendom got to? As a whole, it too will be cut off because of unbelief.
Darkness, blindness has happened, hardness of heart has happened to Israel temporarily. It shall eventually be removed. But now I mustn't allow myself just to wander on. It is what old men do, you know, wander on, and I must bring it to a close. Thank you for your patience and, uh, sympathy in all the tribulation you have thus endured.
