John 13:31-38

vv 31-32) Glorification, not humiliation

Something interesting to note is, as soon as Judas left, Jesus began to speak with the disciples more freely and intimately. As if that tension was gone.

With Judas leaving it was setting everything into motion: Jesus’ arrest, trials, humiliation, condemnation, beatings, crucifixion, and burial.

How many times is glory mentioned in these two verses?

What does glorification mean?

doxazō: Refers to praising someone for their high and exalted status, or to entering into a state of glory and exaltation.

Captures how a person’s deeds or entire life “glorify” God when carried out with love in obedience to the will of God; that is, one’s actions, in themselves, can be said to glorify God when they are guided by His will and carried out in order to please Him. Here it is specifically talking about Jesus’ salvific actions.

What is the glorification pertaining too?

He is speaking about His coming death on the cross. He made mention to it in the previous chapter:

John 12:23 ESV

23 And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

Jesus uses the word glory five times in these two verse with a good reason.

The world looked at the cross and could only say, humiliated, disgraced, cursed. Jesus looked at the cross and knowing what would be accomplished at it and could truthfully say, glorified.

That is because the Lord was anticipating the work of redemption which he was about to accomplish. His death might seemed like defeat, yet it was the means by which we lost sinners could be saved.

His death would be followed by His resurrection and ascension, and He was greatly honored in it all.

The cross revealed the heart of Jesus. The love of Jesus was about to be revealed in a new way. This is truly a humble glory, that was going to be displayed.

“He calls his death his glory, esteems his crown of thorns more precious than Solomon’s diadem; looks upon his welts as spangles, his blows on the face as ingots, his wounds as gems, his spittings on as sweet ointment, his cross as his throne.” -Trapp

God the Father is glorified in the work that He accomplished too. It proclaimed Him to be a holy God who could not pass over sin, but also a loving God who did not desire the eternal separation of the sinner; it proclaimed how He could be a just God, yet be able to justify sinners. Ever attribute of deity was wonderfully magnified at Golgotha.

Something else that makes this absolutely incredible is that fact that this wasn’t plan B. It wasn’t as if Adam’s sin surprised God, He knew that they were always going to rebel against Him. The Trinity of God found it good to redeem mankind. God would send Jesus Christ His Son into the world to take on mortal flesh and die for sins. Jesus dying for the sins of the world would satiate the just wrath of God. And after the resurrection and ascension the Holy Spirit would regenerate the hearts of men that would repent and believe in Jesus. Unreal.

v 33) Jesus’ departure is soon

This is the first time Jesus addressed His disciples as little children. Now that wasn’t an insult but a term of endearment. He meant it with a sense of tenderness, care, and recognition of their present dependence and immaturity. And He used it only after Judas had departed.

He was only to be with them a little while longer, and that would have been like an earthquake to the disciples. They had literally left everything to follow Jesus, and expected to be high-ranking officials in His government when He took political control of Israel as Messiah.

They still didn’t understand what His real purpose was, despite Him telling them.

They would seek Him then, but would not be able to follow Him, for He would return to heaven.

Remember that Jesus had told the same thing to the Jews:

John 7:34 ESV

34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.”

Pertaining to the Jews He meant it in a different sense. For the disciples, His departure would only be temporary. He would come again for them, and we will see more of that in chapter 14.

For the Jews, His leaving them would be final. He was returning to heaven, and they could not follow Him because of their unbelief.

vv 34-35) A new commandment

Now this specific Greek word here used for new implies freshness, or the opposite of outworn, rather than recent or different. It isn’t that this commandment was just invented, but it will be presented in a new, fresh way.

Why give them a new commandment?

During His absence, the disciples will be governed by this commandment of love.

This commandment was not new in the point of time because the Ten Commandments taught love to God and to one’s neighbor. It was new in the sense that the Holy Spirit would empower believers to obey it. It was new because it meant not only loving your neighbors but also your enemies.

Why should we answer the call for a higher degree of love?

Because He loved us. Therefore we love one another. We might find it strange that Jesus didn’t command His disciples to love Him more… He directed them and us to love one another, emphasizing that there should be a special presence of love among the believers of Christ.

This command to love wasn’t new but the extent of love just displayed by Jesus was new, as would be the display of the cross. Love was newly defined from His example.

“We are to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we are to love our fellow-Christians as, Christ loved us, and that is far more than we love ourselves.” - Spurgeon

Jesus said that love would be the identifying mark of His disciples. It wasn’t that love for the outside world was not important or relevant, but it wasn’t first. There are other measures of discipleship, but they come after this mark.

Jesus would mark us as His disciples by our love for one another.

We can mark ourselves as His disciples by our love for one another.

The world can make us as His disciples by our love for one another.

The badge of Christianity is not a cross worn around the neck or a bumper sticker, or your NoTW T-shirt. You see anyone can profess discipleship. The true mark of a Christian is love for his fellow Christians. This requires divine power, and this power is only given to those indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

vv 36-38) Peter’s denial predicted

Oh Peter… Peter and the others did not yet understand what Jesus was talking about. He probably thought that He was going on some earthly journey and did not understand why he could not go along.

The Lord explained that Peter would follow Him later, that is, when he died, but could not do so now.

I love Peter’s devotion and enthusiasm. He expressed willingness to die for the Lord. He thought he could endure martyrdom by his own strength.

Later he actually did die for the Lord, but it was because he had been given special strength and courage by God. If you want to see how much Peter would change read through 1 & 2 Peter.

I believe Peter. He would have died for Jesus right then and there, but later he would fail because his devotion was based on emotion and in the soon to come crisis emotion would fail him.

Judas’ denial of Jesus was deliberate and planned. Peter’s denial of Jesus was spontaneous. Peter’s denial was terrible, but it wasn’t the same as what Judas did.

Again 1 & 2 Peter and Acts shows us a different Peter. One where His walk was no longer built on emotion, but the work of Jesus on the cross and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Peter here in our passage was so confident in himself that he would follow Jesus and even die for him. Yet when the test came he could not stand being laughed at for Jesus’ sake, or couldn’t stand the thought of dying also. Before the next morning dawned he would deny he even knew Jesus three times.

Jesus showed Peter and shows us that sometimes we think we know ourselves really really well, Yet Jesus really knows our every weakness lurking within better than we could ever know.

The denial was burnt in his memory. When Peter preached in Acts 3, he charged them with denying Jesus.

Acts 3:14 ESV

14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,

Toward the end of his life he described some dangerous men as those who denied the Lord.

2 Peter 2:1 ESV

1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Chapter 14 v1) The troubled heart

You see the disciples had a reason to be troubled. Jesus had just told them that one of them was a traitor, that all of them would deny Him, and that He would leave them that night. All of this would legitimately upset them, and yet He told them: “Let not your hearts be troubled.

Jesus never wanted us to have life without trouble, but He promised that we could have an untroubled heart even in a troubled life.

This was in some sense a command. The way this is written in the greek implies that they should “stop being troubled.”

Another way to put this would be to say, “Set your heart at ease.”

“He takes no delight in the doubt and disquietude of his people. When he saw that because of what he had said to them sorrow had filled the hearts of his apostles, he pleaded with them in great love, and besought them to be comforted.” - Spurgeon

Jesus tells them where they must place their faith. In God and in Him. This was radical call to trust Jesus just as one would trust in God the Father, and a radical promise that doing so would bring comfort and peace to a troubled heart.

i. “What signalizes Him, and separates Him from all other religious teachers, is not the clearness or the tenderness with which He reiterated the truths about the Father’s love, or about morality, and justice, and truth, and goodness; but the peculiarity of His call to the world is, ‘Believe in Me.’” (Maclaren)

ii. “One who seems a man asks all men to give Him precisely the same faith and confidence that they give to God.” (Meyer)

iii. There is some debate as how the verb tenses of this verse should be regarded. It is possible that Jesus meant, You must believe in God, you must also believe in Me (imperative) or it is possible that He meant, You do believe in God, you also do believe in Me (indicative). On balance, the best evidence seems to be that Jesus meant this as a command or an instruction to the disciples.

· “The verb believe both times is imperative.” (Alford)· “In view of the preceding imperative it is in my judgment best to take both forms as imperative. Jesus is urging His followers to continue to believe in the Father and to continue to believe also in Him.” (Morris)

iv. “Jesus’ solution to perplexity is not a recipe; it is a relationship with him.” (Tenney)

Numbers 6:24–26 ESV

24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.