John 12

Note: This transcript was made automatically from the class recording and lightly edited. Comments and questions from the class are not always clearly audible. Words in [brackets] are uncertain.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Sunday morning Bible class, and we’re going to continue studying in the book of John chapter 12. That’s where we left off a few weeks ago. John chapter 12. We’ll just pick up there and talk a little bit about that. Does anybody need a handout for John chapter 12? I think I handed them out three weeks ago, but…

All right, so John chapter 12 is where we’re at. Let’s have prayer together, and then we’ll pick up with the study. Father, we’re grateful this morning for another opportunity to study Your Holy Word. We’re thankful, Father, for the book of John and for the message it contains about Your Son, Jesus.

We are grateful for Him, and we ask Your blessings on our study this morning. Father, thank You for all who are in attendance today, and we ask Your blessings to help us to know more about Your Holy Word, and then to take it and apply it faithfully to our lives. Father, we’re grateful that You haven’t left us without guidance, but You’ve given us Your instruction and teaching so that we can learn how to walk in Your ways.

And, Father, as we contemplate spiritual matters this morning, we pray that You’d help us to look into our hearts and to make the changes that we need to make. Help us to take the message to those around us in the world. Help us to exemplify Your Son, Jesus Christ, within our lives every day.

And we pray, Father, that you would bless our congregation here. Please be with those among our number who are having illnesses at this time, not feeling well. Help them to get better. We also ask, Father, that you bless those who have lost loved ones recently, and please help them as they work through the grief issues.

And Father, we’re thankful that You’ve given us Your Son, Jesus, that He died for us, that He’s risen to sit at Your right hand, that we have wonderful hope of eternal life through Him. We ask, Father, that You forgive us of our wrongs and help us to do better in the future than we have in the past. It’s in Jesus’ holy name we pray. Amen.

All right, so John chapter 12, and we had talked about how this was six days before the Passover here, verse 1. And Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who had been dead, whom He had raised from the dead.

There they made Him a supper, and Martha served, but Lazarus was one of those who sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a pound of very costly oil of spikenard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of oil.

But one of His disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, who would betray Him, said, Why was this fragrant oil not sold for 300 denarii and given to the poor? Then he said, not that, or I’m sorry, this he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief and had the money box, and he used to take what was put in it. But Jesus said, let her alone. She has kept this for the day of my burial. For the poor you have with you always, but me you do not always, do not have always.

So, we did discuss those verses, verses 1 through 8, and just noted the various things here, and how that this was a gift that she was giving for Jesus’ burial, and also helped with, you know, smells of one kind or another, and the feet were very dirty in this day and time, and they used to wash their feet.

And we’re going to see that come up again here in chapter 13 when Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. And it wasn’t a very pleasant job at all to do that. And so this was something that the servants usually did.

So by Mary doing this, she demonstrated that she had a servant mentality and that she was someone who wanted to honor Jesus by washing and putting this oil on His feet. It was very expensive, and the criticism that Judas offered was, well, we could have done something a lot better with this money, you know, and seemingly on the surface of it.

That seemed to be what He was saying. And that kind of surface argument, you know, would resonate with a lot of people today who care a lot about money, you know, that we could do better with our money, and this, that, and the other. But Jesus didn’t seem to buy into that. You know, He was more concerned about the attitude that was behind it.

And remember that this belonged to Mary. It didn’t belong to Judas. You can’t do charitable acts with other people’s money, okay? That’s not the right attitude. That’s not the right thing. It’s easy to say, somebody else’s money, we could use that. Well, what about your own? Why don’t you worry about that first?

And see if you can do something with what you have before you start spending other people’s money and other people’s possessions. And so that in and of itself is something that could be considered. But Mary had the right attitude, and Jesus wasn’t going to criticize that. He was going to accept what she had to offer, and He did. And he blessed her for it. So, all right, let’s pick up with verse 9 then, unless anybody has any comments they want to make about verses 1 through 8.

We’ve pretty much discussed it, I think. But let’s get into verse 9 then. Now, a great many of the Jews knew that He was there, and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead.

But the chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also, because on account of him, many of the Jews went away and believed in Jesus. The next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him and cried out, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt. His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him. Therefore the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of his tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. For this reason the people also met Him, because they heard that He had done this sign. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, you see that you’re accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him.”

All right. So let’s stop there. The resurrection of Lazarus in the book of John here is very much connected to the triumphal entry. And do you find that interesting? Or do you find that unusual? Or, you know, when we read about the triumphal entry in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it seems like it’s its own separate event, right?

But here in John, John connects the resurrection of Lazarus with the triumphal entry. What do you think about that? Just open comments. Anybody? Okay. So maybe because Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the disciples should have had more faith that Jesus was going to be resurrected. Okay. All right. Interesting thought. Anybody else?

So you’re talking about how they wanted to kill Lazarus because he was a living, breathing witness to Jesus’ power and to Jesus’ identity. And they thought, well, if we can kill Lazarus, that’ll take away that piece of evidence that’s in favor of Jesus. Okay. Yeah. All right. Any other thoughts?

It could be on anything from verses 9 through 19. It doesn’t have to be. So there seem to be a lot of people here who were curious and who wanted to know about Lazarus’ resurrection. Wouldn’t you want to visit with him? I would. I would be like, Lazarus, what happened? What did you see? What happened?

How did you come back? And I’d want to know all of that because it’s not every day somebody’s raised from the dead, right? So, yeah, and He would have been someone that you could talk to and you could see His body and, you know, maybe see where, you know, whatever it was that had, well, after His resurrection, then He had an opportunity to talk to He could tell other people and tell them what it was like. Maybe he remembers the dying process and he could tell them. And that’s a big curiosity, I think, that a lot of people have. What’s it like to die? And then what’s it like to come back from the dead? John doesn’t seem to explain that here, though, does he? He doesn’t really answer that question.

And the Holy Spirit doesn’t seem that it’s necessary to put that information in here, but I mean, you can know that’s probably what these people were curious about and what they were talking about. But what is the emphasis on in this passage? It’s really not on Lazarus per se, it’s on who?

It’s on Jesus, yeah. So the emphasis is on the fact that Lazarus witnessed that Jesus was the Son of God, and that other people who came to Lazarus to talk to him believed in Jesus. That’s the emphasis. And that’s what John’s purpose is. Remember John chapter 20, verses 30 and 31?

Many other signs, therefore, did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you might have life in His name. So that’s the point. That’s what this is about. It’s about showing faith in Jesus, showing belief in Jesus. And that’s what John is trying to emphasize here in this text.

I want to explain it. The chief priests, their attitudes, they were so set on opposing Jesus. They wouldn’t get clear to Jesus. And Lazarus was a testimony to the fact that Jesus wants to repent He was. They’re going to kill Lazarus, along with Jesus, without ever considering letting him get the truth.

Right. And that’s part of their prejudice is that they want to maintain their political power more than they want to believe the truth. And that’s the problem. And that’s a big problem today also. You know, people would rather have power, they would rather have what they want, as opposed to what God wants, and that’s the ultimate dilemma that each one of us has to wrestle with, right? Am I going to do God’s will, or am I going to do my will?

And, you know, that’s the same thing that’s going on here. But these chief priests, they wanted to silence Lazarus. They wanted to silence Jesus because they thought that these men were threats to their political power. Right. All right. Any other thoughts? Good thought. Yeah. And so that’s verse 10. The chief priests plotted to put Lazarus to death also because of him. And remember, there were a lot of people there mourning Lazarus when he died. There were already a lot of people present. And you know, they would have gone back and said, you’ll never believe what I just saw.

You know, and then the news that Lazarus had died had permeated Jerusalem and he’d been dead for four days. And so that was something that made it clear that he was truly raised from the dead. All right, so many believed in Him, and now the next day, so Jesus is in Bethany on Saturday, that’s verses 1 through 8, and then the next day is Sunday, that’s the day of the triumphal entry, and that’s what’s going on here in verse 12.

The next day, a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him and cried out. So they had come to the feast that was held in honor of Lazarus and Jesus at Martha and Mary’s house.

And they had all come there, and then those went back to Jerusalem, and on Sunday, they were involved with putting these palm branches to meet Jesus as He came into Jerusalem. And what is the significance of what they’re doing here? And the quotations from the Old Testament as well. What is the significance of all those things?

Well, that’s certainly part of it. But a king of peace, though. Kings who rode horses were warmongers. They rode a horse because a horse was an instrument of battle. You know, they used those to go out and fight wars and things of that nature.

But a king who rode a donkey was a king of peace. He wasn’t trying to start a war. He was declaring that he was a peaceful king. And so that’s the difference between the horse and the donkey here. And it was a young donkey, it says in verse 14. So the multitude of throwing down the palm branches and crying out, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the King of Israel. And that is a quotation from Psalm 118, 25 and 26.

So this is a fulfillment of prophecy. If you go back and you read Psalm 118, it is a prophetic Psalm, a messianic Psalm, about Jesus, how He would be king over Israel. So, let’s just take a look at that. Psalm 118. We won’t read the whole Psalm, but we just note specifically verses 25 and 26 at the end of the Psalm.

Save now, I pray, O Lord. O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. And notice also in that same Psalm, verse 22, the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes.

And there’s a lot of quotations from this Psalm in the New Testament. But this is a Psalm about the Messiah and how He is going to reign over God’s people. Zechariah 9:9 is the other quotation, right? Zechariah 9:9. Let’s take a look at that.

And this is also a Messianic prophecy. “…Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you! He is just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey.” A colt, a foal, the foal of a donkey. So this is the prophecy that Jesus is fulfilling here, declaring by His actions that He is the King. And because the prophecy is given here, people would put that together and they would understand the significance of those prophecies as it related to these things.

Now, the disciples, it says in verse 16, did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him. So, the disciples didn’t quite know everything that was going on, but then, sometimes it takes a while to put things together, you know.

You see things happening in the world, and you’re looking at them, and then you see it all taking place, and you don’t quite know exactly what’s happening, but then after you reflect on it, and after you consider it, then you start to put two and two together, and it makes sense, and that seems to be where the disciples were at, and it doesn’t say, it just says His disciples, verse 16, It doesn’t necessarily say who among the disciples, so it could have been a lot of people that didn’t understand what was happening here.

So yeah, so we have fulfillment of prophecy here when Jesus rides into the city of Jerusalem. And the people who were with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead bore witness. So, not only was this a time to declare Jesus as King, but it was also a time for those people who saw Lazarus raised from the dead to tell others. Sure enough, He was dead. Now He’s alive again.

And the people also met Him. And verse 18 says, for this reason, the people also met Him because they heard that He had done this sign. And so they wanted to meet Jesus who had raised Lazarus from the dead.

Now, the Pharisees are not happy about what’s going on. We have the chief priests earlier not happy, and now you see the Pharisees not happy in verse 19. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, you see that you are accomplishing nothing. Look, the world has gone after Him.

The Pharisees were very envious of Jesus. They wanted His popularity for themselves. That’s how they lived their lives, by being popular among the people, and they loved the praises of men, and so when they don’t get praised and they see Jesus being praised instead of them and all the work that they tried to do to contradict Jesus and to put Him down, and to say that, you know, He couldn’t be of God because He had healed on the Sabbath and things of that nature. You know, over and over again, Jesus has these conflicts with the Pharisees, but the efforts of the Pharisees can’t overcome the actual evidence that is being presented in favor of Jesus.

That He is, in fact, who He claims to be, and that He has the power to demonstrate those things. And He did demonstrate those things. So any comments about verses 9 through 19 before we move on? Yeah, go ahead.

Well, yeah, they are infighting a little bit there because they see all of their efforts to try to stop Jesus as coming to nothing. And they don’t know quite what to do about that. So, but they’re going to get together. I mean, the coalition is forming here between the chief priests and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Herodians. They’re all going to get together and they’re going to work to destroy Jesus. So their plotting is going to end up in turning the people against Jesus.

Any other thoughts? All right, let’s go to verse 20 then. Now, there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn, Andrew and Philip told Jesus.

But Jesus answered them, saying, Now, what is going on here? It starts with certain Greeks who came up to worship at the feast. Why would Greeks be coming up to worship at the feast? Any thoughts? Wasn’t this a Jewish feast? The feast of the Passover? This is yes, this is no.

Oh, yes, okay. Yeah, it was a Jewish feast. The Greeks, there were Greeks who were adherents to Judaism, but they weren’t quite ready to commit to become what they call proselytes of Judaism. And so they were known as God-fearers, and the Bible talks about one of these guys in Acts chapter 10. His name was Cornelius. He was a God-fearer, and they liked to do everything that the Jews did, but they just weren’t ready to take that step into proselytization.

And a lot of times it had to do with not wanting to be circumcised. But anyway, there were certain Greeks and Greeks, of course, they were not permitted to come all the way into the temple. They had to stop at a certain point and they wouldn’t have been permitted to join the Jews themselves in partaking of the Feast of the Passover, they would have to have done that separately from the Jews.

But they were interested in Jesus. And so certain Greeks came to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip. Why would they come to Philip? And why does John mention Philip? Anybody want to guess? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Philip’s a Greek name. Philip, we don’t know. We assume Philip was a full-fledged Jew, just like everybody else, but evidently he had been given a Greek name for some reason. Maybe, you know, like Timothy, his father might have been a Greek, but his mother might have been a Jew, you know, so that Timothy’s mother was a Jew, but his father was a Greek, you know.

And maybe Philip was like that. We don’t know. But for some reason, they saw Philip as someone that they could talk to. I mean, he did have a Greek name. And it says that he was from Bethsaida of Galilee. And Galilee was an area where a lot of Gentiles and Greeks lived. And so maybe they saw him as somebody who might be sympathetic with them.

And so they asked Him, saying, Sir, we wish to see Jesus. So, Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn, Andrew and Philip told Jesus. So, Philip didn’t quite know what to do about it. He thought, well, let me talk to Andrew and see what he thinks. And then, Andrew said, well, let’s just go talk to Jesus about it.

And Jesus answered them, verse 23, saying, and how is this an answer? That’s the question we want to work on here. But this is an answer that Jesus gives. The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain. He who… So what do you think Jesus is saying? How is this an answer to the Greeks? What do you think? He doesn’t really answer their question, right? They said, we want to see Jesus. And Jesus doesn’t say, yeah, go ahead.

Let them come see me. But neither does He say, no, they can’t come see me either, right? So what is Jesus saying here? Well, we don’t know exactly what groups were wanting to ask, why they were wanting to ask.

That’s a good point. His answer could have something to do with what they were wanting to ask Him. It could. He could have been anticipating their question and answering it before they had a chance to ask it. That’s a good point. That’s a possibility. What else?

Isn’t that a prophecy? Yeah, it is a prophecy. And what kind of prophecy is it? What is he saying about? Who is he talking about, first of all? Well, he’s talking about himself, right? And what’s the point of this illustration of the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies? Okay, so Jesus’ death was what was going to create the situation where there would be more. And that’s the illustration he’s given here, is that when you plant a seed in the ground, the seed dies, but it produces a plant, and from that plant comes more seeds.

And so, you know, he’s saying that, yes, there’s going to be a greater production because of His death. So what does that have to do with the Gentiles, maybe, or the Greeks? Yeah, eventually, yes, they would be allowed to come to Jesus and be part of His kingdom, right? But right now wasn’t that time, was it? Because He hadn’t died yet.

So, His glorification hadn’t happened yet. He hadn’t died yet. But once that happens, then He was going to produce much seed. Many more people would come to believe in Him, and then they would have the opportunity to follow Him.

But the same conditions that He set for those who were going to follow Him among the Jews is the same among the Gentiles. And namely, what is that? Well, we’ve got to, you know, hate our own life, so to speak, in verse 25, so that we can keep it for eternal life.

In other words, we’ve got to follow His example in dying to self so that we can live for Him. And so, if anyone serves me, let him follow me. And where I am, there my servant will be also. And so, yes, the answer is Gentiles are going to be included in the kingdom. Now, this isn’t an out-and-out direct answer because this would have created great offense among the Jewish people to say that the Gentiles were going to be allowed to come and be part of the kingdom, the kingdom of God.

Now, they didn’t believe that. The Jews didn’t believe that. They didn’t want that. You know, and it took 10 years after Jesus died on the cross for Peter and the other apostles and the other disciples to take the gospel message to the Gentiles.

And the first Gentile was recorded there, Acts chapter 10, and they are so nervous about being in the presence in the house of a Gentile, Cornelius, they take multiple people with them as witnesses, they don’t touch them, and finally, it’s not until God touches the Gentiles when He sends the Holy Spirit on Cornelius [and?] his household. God touches them. And then that’s when Peter says, Okay, can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized? And so then he commanded them to baptize them.

And so that moment, you couldn’t say anymore, if you were a Jew, after seeing God touch the Gentiles, You couldn’t say, I can’t touch these Gentiles anymore because that was their hangup. Their hangup was, well, we can’t baptize Gentiles because we can’t touch them. We’re not allowed to touch them.

And so when God finally said, no, it’s okay, they were like, okay, we can go ahead and touch them to baptize them. And even after that, Peter had to come back and give an account to the people in Jerusalem as to why he went in among Gentiles and touched Gentiles. He had to give an account of that.

And so that’s how much they stayed away from Gentiles. They believed that was something that they could not do. And their prejudice prevented them from going to the Gentiles. But here, Jesus is in prophecy saying, eventually the Gentiles are going to be part of the kingdom. And they’re going to be included in it. Any other thoughts? Anybody want to talk about?

I guess Peter was there and he understood. Well, they were there. Philip and Andrew and Peter and the rest of them were there, but I don’t think they understood. But they eventually, John is writing, you know, and he’s writing many, many years after all these events took place, and he’s reflecting on it, and he’s probably thinking, oh, that’s what Jesus meant by that, you know, because he wouldn’t have understood it. None of them did.

No, they didn’t take the gospel to the Gentiles until, like I said, 10 years after Jesus died on the cross. Just before the death of Jesus, He’s still edging His head on how He’s going to die. It’s not just that He has to die. He doesn’t die for what? He doesn’t die at the hand of the Jews.

If they knew what was going to happen, they would not have killed it. Sure. Yeah, that’s right. Yet it’s keeping a secret from Jewish leadership. Yeah, and that’s right, that a lot of these things had to be kept secret because of the Jewish leadership and what they…

And because there was a lot of prejudice among the Jews against Gentiles as well, so it probably would not have gone over very well with all these Jews who were starting to believe in Jesus if he received a whole group of Gentiles in, you know, and then now they would be like, wait a minute, maybe this guy isn’t the Messiah if he’s going to take in all these Gentiles.

That would have created a big stumbling block for a lot of people. All right. Any other thoughts? Yes. Acts chapter 10 happens approximately 10 years after what’s happening right now. Anybody else? Well, let’s just read a few verses then, and we only got a couple of minutes left, but now my soul is 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 from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again. Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, An angel has spoken to Him. Jesus answered and said, This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of 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 peoples to Myself.

This He said, signifying by what death He would die. The people answered Him, We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. And how can you say, The Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man? Then Jesus said to them, A little while longer the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.

He who walks in darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them. So this is the last, this last little bit here of public ministry that Jesus is doing in this, you know, the Matthew, Mark, and Luke focus more on the public ministry of Jesus during the last week of His life, you know, and there’s multiple exchanges with the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians. There’s many last week parables that Jesus tells. John doesn’t go into that very much. There’s a repetition here in verses 27 through 36 of things that Jesus said earlier in the ministry that’s recorded in John chapter 3, especially this, if the Son of Man be lifted up from the earth will draw peoples, you know, that’s something that he mentioned also in John 3 as the serpent in the wilderness was lifted up, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, right?

And so this is very similar to that teaching. All right, we’ll come back and talk about these verses next week.

End of transcript. Thank you for reading along!