Lifting Jesus
The Trial of the Christ • Sermon • Submitted
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· 14 viewscentrality of the cross in the glory of Christ and His saving work.
Notes
Transcript
A paradoxical statement appears at the beginning of Dickens Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
We listen to such statements, and we thing to ourselves how can it be so. How can the same thing be the best and the worst? How can something be foolish and yet wonderful beyond belief? How can you be in the darkness, hope, and despair all at the same time? How do winter and spring pass simultaneously? It seems absurd. How could this be so?
These things seem to contradict themselves, don’t they? Each of these pairs are exact opposites that cannot coexist in the same time, at the same place. We struggle with things that we find standing as contradictions. Our minds struggle to understand them. But the beauty of a paradox is that when we examine them, we find that they are true.
And might I submit to you this morning, that there is no greater paradox than the cross of Jesus Christ.
Turn With me, if you will, to the Gospel of John, chapter 12. That’s the Gospel of John, chapter 12. And as you find your place, let me remind you, beloved, that the last time we were together, Jesus was telling us that it is one thing for us to come and see Jesus, but it is something else to follow Him, and that it is those that follow Jesus that are going to be with Him in His Kingdom and honored by God the Father...
“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
“Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die.
The crowd then answered Him, “We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”
So Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.
“While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”
These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.
But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.
Pray.
John 12:
There is no greater paradox in the history of the world than the cross of Jesus Christ. In every way, and from every angle, what we see in the cross is a contradiction of terms-and yet what we walk away with is absolute and utter truth.
The cross was meant to be
And what Jesus chooses to talk about it His death.
For the enemies of our Lord, the cross was supposed to be God’s great defeat...
Crucifixion was an instrument of absolute shame (opposite of glory)
The cross was an instrument of death (they killed the Son of God)
Crucifixion was the pinnacle of malice and cruelty (not written of by Romans)
The cross was meant to tear down all that God sent Christ to accomplish. But, instead, the cross was at the very center of God’s plan. And in today’s passage, we find at least three purposes of God in the cross that stand in paradox to man’s purposes for it.
For the enemies
“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
“Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
In the cross, Jesus is glorified as He glorifies the Father
In the cross, Jesus is glorified as He glorifies the Father
In the cross, Jesus is glorified as He glorifies the Father.
In the cross, Jesus is glorified as He glorifies the Father.
Sometimes, we forget that Jesus didn’t want to die. He was fully God, yes, but He was also fully man.
Verse 27 alludes to a prayer from David in , when David says that his soul is in anguish. If Jesus were going by His own will, He would have asked the Father to save Him from death, as David prays in . But that isn’t what Jesus does.
The emptying of Himself, even to the point of separation of the Father, is the ultimate act of obedience and is glorifying to the Father.
Jesus’ dying to self is the opposite of ours. Our death to self is a death to our pleasures and sin so that we can be one with God. But Jesus was one with the Father. Yet, for our sake, He gave that up to take on our sin and to take on God’s wrath.
Verse 32 is central to our passage and to our understanding of the cross.
“Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
“Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 12:27
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
How is God glorified in Jesus? Is it not by Christ’s obedience, that He would be lifted up on the cross.
The word that is translated here as “lifted up” is the Greek word Hypsoo. You all know that I’m not one that usually throws a whole bunch of word studies at you, unless I think It’s important. But Hypsoo here, I believe has a double meaning.
It is the same word we that Jesus used in
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.
Jesus is drawing on an image that should have been clear in the minds of His listeners. They would have known the story of Moses from the book of Numbers, how God sent fiery serpents among them because of the people’s complaining against Him…
-Central verse (Verse 32)-Hypsoo “lifted up refers both to the exaltation of Jesus and His crucifixion.
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he will live.”
And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived.
In t
The serpent was a symbol of the people’s rebellion against God. And when a man was bitten, his only cure was to turn to look upon this bronze serpent, this symbol and public acknowledgement of their sin .
Of the 20 times this word is used in the Bible, it is only used to mean “lifted up” 5 times. All five of them are in John and all 5 of them refer to the crucifixion. God is glorified by Christ’s humility in being lifted up on the cross to cure our rebellion.
But this word also has another meaning. It also means to be “exalted” or “to be made great”
Is this not what happened to Jesus? Through this moment of great humiliation, does Jesus not draw men to himself? Isn’t this what Paul tells us in Philippians 2:8-11
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
When Jesus tells us that the son of man will be lifted up, He is lifted up in humiliation and exaltation in one singular act on the cross. He glorifies the Father and Himself in one horrible, wonderful act.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name,
And on that day of His resurrection, Jesus Christ was glorified forever!
Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.
Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Philippians
This was the whole reason that Jesus came. The purpose of the cross, above all else was the glory of God.
And and does the Father say in verse 28?
“Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
God accomplished His will and was glorified greatly by Christ and in Christ and with Christ.
And as amazing as that is, it only gets better for us. Look at verses 30-32 with me:
Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
“And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”
Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.
“Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.
Why did the voice from heaven come? Not for Christ, but for us. You would think that God was simply magnifying His Name all the more in this moment, and that aspect is certainly there.
Why? Why is this for our benefit?
The Father wanted us to know who Jesus was.
He wanted it to be clear for us because of two things that He was getting ready to accomplish in the cross.
In the cross, Jesus defeats the enemy and sin is judged
In the cross, Jesus defeats the enemy and sin is judged
Verses 30-31)
Satan holds his thumb over the sinners heart. He rules in the life of the lost.
But in the cross of Jesus, we find freedom from his tyranny. Sin is our crime against God. Sins are those things we have done to break God’s law that put us squarely in the enemy's camp
But Jesus is saying here that when He is lifted up, that sin is no longer a problem in Christ's blood.
Jesus judges our sin, declares us guilty, and then takes the punishment Himself.
I want to be clear here-Jesus became that bronze serpent. He became the object on which all of our rebellion of God was laid. The weight of every sin that ever has and ever will be committed was place on Him,
and then God the Father poured the full weight of His wrath out on Jesus.
The cross was where your sin was judged! The atomic bomb of God’s wrath fell on Jesus.
Jesus took that on Himself so that we who believe in Him, we who follow Him can be freed from our sins and have a way to the Father.
So Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.
“While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”
These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.
So Jesus said to them, “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.
Darkness is all encompassing. It is overwhelming. Even the most familiar of places is obscured by darkness.
Darkness is all encompassing. It is overwhelming. Even the most familiar of places is obscured by darkness.
But Jesus came as the Light of the World. He came to light the way for us.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
Jesus came as the Light in our darkness, He came to light the path. And even beyond that, He came to fill us with Light Himself.
“While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”
These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.
In the cross, Jesus shines the light that opens the door from darkness
In the cross, Jesus shines the light that opens the door from darkness
By His blood spilled on the cross, Jesus pays the death that we owe for sin, and opens the door to a relationship with God.
-By His blood spilled on the cross, Jesus pays the death that we owe for sin, and opens the door to a relationship with God. How are we sons of Light? As His adopted children, as His followers washed in His blood and made to be without stain or wrinkle.
How are we sons of Light? How do you become a child of the light? By belief in Him
How do children of light live in a world of darkness? We walk only in the Light. We stay where the light leads us.
As His adopted children, as His followers washed in His blood and made to be without stain or wrinkle. We no longer live in the dark, and so we mustn’t act like we do.
Now, you may have noticed, as we’ve discussed the centrality of the cross this morning, there are three verses in our passage we have danced around.
It was intentional, because in the midst Jesus so clearly telling us again who He is and why He came, and the central role His death and resurrection have, there is another glaring theme.
So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.”
God speaks to the people in a clear voice from heaven and no one understands Him.
Some at least attribute it to angels, but no one recognized God’s voice.
The crowd then answered Him, “We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”
Those that love the darkness are blinded by the light.
Those that love the darkness are blinded by the light.
Jesus just told them exactly what was going to happen to Him, and you can tell here that they understood what He was saying-but they didn’t get it!
They may have been confused because of a Targum of that paraphrased eternal Father into “He who lives forever” into Aramaic. While not wrong, it is more confusing.
Christ’s teaching should have helped clarify this, but they couldn’t see it.
But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.
Miracles and signs have been before us week after week, month after month, for more than a year as we have studied this together. The people witnessed these and many more miracles for over 3 years of Christ’s ministry.
And yet, they didn’t get it. And it draws us to a point.
Those that love the darkness are blinded by the light.
Those that love the darkness are blinded by the light.
There is a story from the end of the cold war. Mikel Gorbachev visited the United states and wanted to see a grocery store. He was taken to a Walmart ...
When it comes to the truth, we only see what we want to see. What do you see when you look at Jesus?
Do you see a prophet? A self-help guru? A personal miracle man?
Or do you see the cross? The Son of God? Do you see the light of the World that was lifted up so that you can become a child of the light?
Jesus is the Exalted One. He has glorified the Father! And He has taken the judgment you deserve. Jesus can free you from the chains of your sin and death.
if only You will choose to believe, You can be a child of the light.
Will today be that day? Will today be the day you finally step out of the darkness?
I’m going to be waiting right down front here. And if today, you are ready to follow the light of His glory, come to Him now. Come forward now, and we will exalt Him together.
Let’s go to the Lord in prayer: Lord, Jesus, thank you for your cross. Thank you for this beautiful, terrible cross. Thank you for this paradox where your humility became the source of glory, where God’s wrath for my sin was placed on your shoulders so that I could be filled with your light. We are hopelessly lost in the darkness without You. And so this morning, we are here so that we can become children of the Light. Lord you know which hearts among those of us that are here belong to you. And you know which ones do not. You know those that are walking in your light, and those that You would pull out of the darkness. Oh, Jesus, would you draw us into yourself. Would You make us Your own, would You fill us with Your light, that we may follow You, that where You are, there we may be also. We no longer want to be among those that are living in darkness. Would you light our path to You this morning. In Jesus’ Name we pray, amen.