John 12:44-1
Notes
Transcript
Recap:
Recap:
vv 40-55) Final appeal
vv 40-55) Final appeal
[44] These are the last words in Johns gospel from Jesus to the public. Jesus’ emphasis is on the things He has taught so far.
Do you notice any themes that He taught on prior?
His teaching, a challenge to decide, a warning to those who decided against Him and a promise to those who decided for Him.
From what we see in Jesus “crying out” is in the imperfect tense and that signifies that the shouting was persistent.
As a rule our Savior did not shout. He did not cry or lift up His voice in the streets. But now and then, in some exalted hour, the Gospels tell us that He did.
This should tell us that what He is saying is important and should be taken seriously.
Again Jesus taught His absolute union with God the Father. It was impossible to believe in One without believing in the Other.
To believe in Christ is to believe in God the Father. One cannot believe in the Father unless He gives equal honor to the Son.
It was going to be this that gets Jesus crucified. Yet He doesn’t back down, He retracts nothing of what he had spoken, but strongly reasserts it.
[45] Nobody can see God the Father. He is Spirit, and therefore invisible. He doesn’t have a body like a men.
But the Jesus Christ, the second person of the trinity, had come into the world to let us know what God is like. By this we do not mean that He let us know what God is like physically, but morally. He has revealed the character of God to us. Therefore, whoever has seen Christ has seen God the Father.
[46] The illustration of light was apparently one of Jesus’ favorites. Again He referred to Himself as a light coming into the world in order that those who believe in Him should not remain in darkness.
Apart from Christ, men are in the deepest darkness. They do not have a right understanding of life, death, or eternity. But those who come to Christ in faith no longer grasp for truth. because they have found the truth in Him.
[47] The purpose of Christ’s First Coming was not to judge the world but to save. He did not sit in judgement on those who refused to hear His words or believe on Him.
You see it would not have been necessary to incarnate the Son of God if Jesus came only to judge. He didn’t need to add humanity to His deity to do that, but He did need to do it to rescue humanity.
Again this does not mean that He will not condemn these unbelievers in a coming day, but that judgement was not the object.
[48] There are inescapable consequences for rejecting Jesus.
These words are not one of condemnation. It is one of tender appeal.
In John’s gospel we are exposed to two important truths. The love Jesus has but also the judgement that has yet to take place.
[49] The things He taught were not things He had made up Himself or learned in the schools of men.
Rather, as the obedient Servant and Son, He had only spoken those things which the Father commission Him to speak. This is the fact that will condemn men at the last day.The word that Jesus spoke was the World of God, and men refused to hear it.
The Father had told Him not only what to say but what He should speak. There is a difference between the two.
The expression “What I should say” refers to the substance of the message; “what I should speak” means the very words which the Lord should use in teaching the truth of God.
[50] Jesus knew the Father had commissioned Him to give everlasting life to those who would believe in Him. Therefore, Christ delivered the message as it was given to Him by the Father.
We now come to a distinct break in the narrative. Up to this point Jesus has presented Himself to Israel. Seven distinct signs or miracles are recorded, each one illustrating an experience which will result when a sinner puts his faith in Chirst.
Changing the water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-12). This pictures the sinner who is a stranger to divine joy being transformed by the power of Christ.
Healing the nobleman’s son (John 4:46-54). This pictures the sinner as being sick and in need of spiritual health.
Healing the cripple at the pool of Bethesda (John 5). The sinner is without strength, helpless, and unable to do a thing to remedy his own condition. Jesus cures him of his infirmity.
Feed the five thousand (John 6). The sinner is without food, hungry, and in need of that which imparts strength. The Lord provides food for his soul so that he never need to hunger.
Calming the Sea of Galilee (John 6:16-21). The sinner is seen in a place of danger. The Lord rescues him from the storm.
Healing a man blind from birth (John 9). This man pictures the blindness of the human heart until it is touched by the power of Christ. Man cannot see their own sinfulness, or the beauties of the Savior, until enlightened by the Holy Spirit.
Raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11). This, of course, reminds us that the sinner is dead in trespasses and in sins and needs life from above
All these signs are intended to prove that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.
Chapter 13 v 1) The last meeting
Chapter 13 v 1) The last meeting
“Nowhere else is His speech at once so simple and so deep. Nowhere else have we the heart of God so unveiled to us… The immortal words of which Christ spoke in that upper chamber are His highest self-revelation in speech, even as the Cross to which they led up is His most perfect self-revelation in act.” -Alexander Maclaren
This verse gives us a time reference. Jesus was about to share a meal with His disciples, and there is a lot of disagreement on whether this meal was actually on Passover, or if it was the Passover meal, but celebrated the day before.
The chronology is an issue because in some passages, it seems that Jesus was crucified on the day of Passover. In other passages, it seems that Jesus was crucified the day after Passover. There are scores of potential solutions to the problem, but it’s hard to say which one is the final answer.
The verbs for ‘reclining’
One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side,
suggest that, although this meal fell ‘before the (official) festival of the Passover’ (verse 1) it was nevertheless treated by the participants as a Passover meal.
This debate has contributed to one practical difference among Christians.
“From time immemorial western Christendom uses for the Eucharist unleavened bread, eastern Christendom has from time immemorial insisted on the bread being leavened. The East asserts, and rightly, that the Last Supper was eaten on the night before the nation ate the Passover, and infers that it was, therefore, eaten with ordinary leavened bread. The West asserts, and rightly, that the Passover eaten by our Lord and the Twelve was a genuine Passover, as He Himself calls it
And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
and as all the Synoptists agree in calling it, and infers that it was, therefore, eaten with full Mosaic ritual and therefore with unleavened bread.” -Trench
What really matters is that this was the day before the death of Jesus.
This is the Upper Room Discourse. Jesus was no longer walking among the hostile Jews. He had retired with His disciples to an upper room in Jerusalem for a final time of fellowship with them before going forth to His trial and crucifixion.
This is why John 13 through John 17 is one of the best- loved sections in the entire NT.
The Lord knew that the time had come fro Him to die, to rise again, and to go back to heaven.
He had loved His own, that is, those who were true believers. He loved them to the end of His earthly ministry, and will continue to love them throughout eternity. But He also loved them to an infinite degree, as He was about to demonstrate on the cross.
There is a love Jesus has for all people, and then there is a love for His own. It isn’t so much that Jesus’ love is different, but the dynamic of the love relationship is different. The love of Jesus for His own is greater because it has a response, and love answers to love.
It is important to note that Jesus has done some things for all men. He has also done all things for some men.
These disciples and all disciples were and are really His own, belonging to Jesus.
They are His own because He chose them.
They are His own because He gave Himself to them.
They are His own because His Father gave them to Him.
They are His own because He would soon purchase them with His blood.
They are His own because He conquered them.
They are His own because they submitted themselves to Him.
Family Jesus is never going to stop loving His own. When it says He loved them to the end. The Idea behind the phrase is, “To the fullest extent, to the uttermost.”
Jesus poured out the cup of His love to the bottom for us.
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
vv 2-3) Comparing hearts
vv 2-3) Comparing hearts
You might notice that verse 2 might be different in your translation. I’m going to give you my opinion.
Some ancient manuscripts have supper was now in progress instead of supper being ended. This probably makes more sense, and the difference is one letter in the ancient Greek.
Supper was now in progress is a probably the more accurate. Because the John 13:12-30 makes it plain that supper had not yet ended.
The point is that supper had already begun when Jesus rose from the table and began to wash the disciples feet.
Satan looked for a man to betray Jesus, and had probably cultivated Judas for a long time. The devil sowed the thought in the heart of Judas that the time was ripe to betray Jesus.
Judas had plotted evil against the Lord long before this, but he was now given the signal for carrying out his foul plains.
[3] Several years before in Jesus’ early ministry:
The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.
But here this means that at this particular time, and in this particular circumstance, it was important that Jesus knew the Father had given all things into His hands.
What made this hour so important?
The hour:
Jesus was about to face the agony of the cross and the terror of standing in the place of guilty sinners before the righteous wrath of God the Father.
At the same time, Jesus went into this situation as a victor, not as a victim.
The circumstances:
Jesus was about lower Himself, literally stooping in humble service to His disciples. As He served in this humble way, He didn’t do it from weakness. He did it from a position of all authority.
The Gospel accounts often don’t tell us the notice or the thinking behind what Jesus did. This is different. John told us exactly why Jesus washed their feet and spoke to them with so much love in the following chapters.
Jesus didn’t only know His authority, He also knew His relationship with God. He knew His identity, as one who had come from God, and as one who was going to God.
Sometimes in demanding better treatment people think or say, “Do you know who I am?” Jesus knew His greatness more than anyone, and it made Him give better treatment to others instead of expecting it Himself.
Think about this for a second: It was not in spite of but because of His consciousness of His divine origin and destination, that He rose from supper, and assumed the dress and posture of a slave; for a servant in truth He was, being none more than the ideal Servant in Isaiah’s prophecy.
The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.