The Lord carries the pressure of the cross before He carries the cross and it's all for you and me. John 12:27-31; Psa 110:1

The Lord Jesus Christ has been dealing with the Greeks, and now He switches over to the entire world.

 

John 12:27 "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.

 

He had no sin, therefore He had never worried. The verb to be troubled is the perfect passive indicative of parassw [parasso].

 

It means to be agitated, or stirred up within, but it is in the passive voice here. It means to receive agitation, to receive trouble without any sin being involved. It means to be under pressure so that your soul is stirred up or agitated.

 

The perfect tense means that this had begun some time before with the result that it was now building up. It was less than a week from the cross.

 

 

 

The passive voice: He has received this because as God He is aware of what the cross means. As true humanity, having mastered the Old Testament scriptures and all other doctrines, He was aware of the significance of the spiritual death which He would have on the cross when He was bearing our sins.

 

The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that He was under great pressure to avoid the cross. The perfect tense indicates He was agitated to the point that He gave serious thought to accomplishing God’s plan some other way, but came to the conclusion that there was no other way, which intensifies the agitation.

 

John 12:27 "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.

 

“and what shall I say?” - aorist active subjunctive of legw[lego]. That is, how can Jesus communicate pressure, the horror of coming into contact with human sin? How can He express to us as a sinless person?

 

Nothing could be worse than bearing the sins of the world. He will come into contact with every sin that has ever been sinned up until the time that He dies, and every sin that will ever be sinned in the future, including all Millennial sins until the end of the Millennium.

 

He contemplates this; He anticipates this. No one hated sin more than Jesus Christ and no one was better qualified to hate sin.

 

So this is approached from the standpoint of His hypostatic union. He despised the very thought of coming into contact with what was not even His own sin—actually bearing the sins of others.

 

There is no way to really illustrate this principle. Have you ever been completely innocent and taken the rap for a sin someone else committed? That’s as close as we can come.

 

There is a build-up of pressure, not sinful pressure but sinless pressure. No sin was ever involved in His soul being troubled. Our Lord could never really explain how He felt on those few days before the cross where He would bear the sins of the world. There is no way He could explain it.

 

How can Jesus explain this? He is going to try, and He picks a short, hypothetical prayer to express it. He picks a prayer which He knows cannot be answered in the affirmative. Here is a prayer that could not be answered, because of us.

 

“Father save me from this hour” - that is the hypothetical prayer that could never be answered. He is going to try to explain to you and to me what it was like for Him to face the cross.

 

Imagine knowing that you’re going to take the rap for something horrible that you didn’t do and you knew that no matter how much you asked God to deliver you from it that He would just say no.

 

Now imagine the sinless one coming into contact with every single sin that everyone would commit. There are no words to explain it.

 

 

When He said “Father” this is the humanity of Christ speaking. This is a prayer of His humanity. Now He didn’t say, “Save me.” This is the aorist active imperative of swzw[sozo] which means also to deliver. The aorist tense is what is called a timeless aorist, and in effect He is saying deliver me in eternity past since that is when it would have to occur.

 

But if that decision was made in EP it would have been prophesized in the OT. But instead of deliverance from the cross we see the suffering of the cross in the OT.

 

Therefore, we know that Christ makes this hypothetical prayer for us, in order to maybe get us to understand how troubled His soul really was.

 

Here is a prayer which is not a prayer. It is an enigma. It has no intent of being answered but is designed to explain how He feels. That is all.

 

This is a prayer that could not be answered because it was totally incompatible with the plan of God. It was totally out of phase with grace.

 

At the same time that He prays this prayer He also establishes a principle for our Christian lives.

 

People get on the panic button. The Lord Jesus Christ was not on the panic button but people do get on it and they often ask for something incompatible with the plan of God.

 

This pressure of soul will be expressed again in Gethsemane when He said, “Father, if it be thy will let this cup pass from me,” then adding, “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.” He will be under great pressure for the next four days. His soul is under maximum pressure.

 

This prayer is an illustration to remind us of the tremendous pressure that He faced.

“from this hour” - e)k, out from this hour; away from, entirely away from. This hour refers to the cross.

 

The humanity of Christ shrinks from the cross because the cross means bearing the sins of the world, and He is impeccable, perfect.

 

There are three doctrines that help to explain the principle here: the doctrine of divine essence which presents us the character of God; the doctrine of divine decrees which presents to us the plan of God; the doctrine of reconciliation which expresses to us the grace of God.

 

Now we have a conjunction to indicate that this prayer just uttered is incompatible with the Father’s plan—“but,” adversative conjunction of contrast.

 

“for this cause” - diaplus the accusative, “because of this.” This refers to the cross; “I came” - aorist active indicative of e)rxomai, used here for the first advent.

 

The whole purpose of the virgin birth, the whole purpose of living on earth for 33 years is to come to the cross.

 

Now in the next verse He prays a true prayer. That in verse 27 was an illustrative prayer.

 

John 12:28 "Father, glorify Thy name." There came therefore a voice out of heaven: "I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."

 

“Father.” This is a prayer that will be answered immediately because it is according to God’s will.

 

It is the will of the Father that Jesus Christ be glorified.

 

He is again making a demand of the Father in the imperative mood. the aorist active imperative of docazw, the verb to glorify, to honour.

 

This glorification starts with the cross and resurrection but it will continue to the ascension at the right hand of the Father.

 

“thy name” - refers to the essence of the Father. The name refers to His person and therefore His essence. This can only be fulfilled by Jesus Christ going to the cross.

 

The Father is the source of grace and because of Christ His grace can now come directly to you.

 

God the Father cannot be inconsistent; He cannot compromise any part of His character. Because God so loved the world He cannot save the world just arbitrarily because that compromises His righteousness and His justice.

 

It compromises His immutability and also His veracity. So the hour must come when Christ will be on the cross with +R satisfying the righteousness of the Father and protecting that righteousness from compromise by bearing our sins.

 

By spiritual death He will satisfy the justice of the Father and keep the justice of the Father from being compromised.

 

Because of propitiation love and eternal life can come from the Father’s will to the human race but only by way of the cross. This is the only way that the Father can glorify His essence, His name, His person. Any other way compromises some other part of His character.

 

The only way that people can be saved is by believing in Jesus Christ, and when they do they are saved without compromising the character of God.

 

“Then [after the prayer] came there a voice from heaven” - e)rxomai. This time the voice from heaven is the Father’s answer which is twofold. We have a repetition of docazw. The first time we had the aorist active indicative, and it is translated like a past tense. This is that timeless aorist. Aorist means an occurrence and this was an occurrence in eternity past.

 

The second use of doxazo by the Father anticipates the cross.

 

When the Father designed every part of the plan by which grace provision is given to the believer in phase one, phase two and phase three, He glorified His name right then and there. The Father is perfect, therefore His plan is perfect. And since the plan excludes all human good, all human ability, all human personality, the Father will be glorified by the grace plan. Grace glorifies God because grace provides under grace. Nothing depends upon who and what we are; it all depends on who and what God is. The active voice: God the Father produces the action - He pours the sins of the world on Christ and judges them. The indicative mood is the reality of this in the Father’s plan in eternity past and/or the doctrine of divine decrees.

 

The reality speaks of something we saw last time and the reason why our Lord’s first prayer to be delivered could never be answered - there was no other way besides the cross.

 

The future tense indicates the plan of the Father is moving on no matter what—“and I will glorify,” means that Christ will be on that cross despite all the forces of the KOD trying to stop Him. It also means that Christ will be resurrected, ascend and seat at the right hand of God victorious.

 

The deity of Christ is omnipresent; the humanity of Christ must move into the third heaven in a resurrection body.

 

When the Son comes into the presence of the Father the Father will say to the humanity of Christ, “Sit down.” He doesn’t say it to the deity of Christ because the deity of Christ does not sit down. Posture does not belong to deity; posture belongs to humanity.

 

PSA 110:1 The Lord says to my Lord:

"Sit at My right hand,

Until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet."

 

The Father spoke openly and verbally at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry and now at the end.

 

   

Luke 9:35 And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My Son, My ChosenOne; listen to Him!"

 

John 12:29 The multitude therefore, who stood by and heard it, were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, "An angel has spoken to Him."

 

John 12:30 Jesus answered and said, "This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.

 

Again, the grace of God is magnified. The Lord’s prayer was answered because He prayed in grace terms.

 

We must all remember that. Whenever we pray it must be based on grace - unmerited favor. The Lord didn’t pray selfishly but that God’s name, God’s essence would be glorified. Because this prayer is by grace and because it lines up with the Father’s will it is answered in the positive and answered immediately.

 

Now the Lord turns to the Cross, which He will accomplish in four days.

 

John 12:31 "Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out.

 

 

 

The judgment is the work of Christ, it is Christ. Through His work judgment has come against all sin and evil. Those who reject the free gift of salvation will have no way out of being judged since Christ made heaven come through Him and Him alone.

 

Satan will (future tense) be cast out, or as the Greek word says “thrown out.” But this is yet future.

 

It begins with the cross, which breaks the back of Satan, but after the cross he is still the ruler of this world.

 

At the Second Advent he will be dethroned and Jesus will sit on the throne of David as the ruler of this world. Satan will be incarcerated for 1000 years and then released. After his last effort to take the world again at Armageddon fails he will be finally cast or thrown out of the world and into the Lake of Fire.

 

Because of Christ all enemies of God will be judged, this is operation footstool.

 

The cross must come before the crown. This was challenged when Jesus first began His public ministry. He was tempted to take over the kingdoms of this world. He rejected it. Satan offered the kingdoms of the world without the cross.

 

Jesus Christ is judged on the cross before Satan is judged at the Second Advent. Christ must be judged for our sins before the judgement of Satan can occur. So the judgment of sin must precede the judgment of Satan because Satan is the author of sin in the human race. So the sequence and the chronology of God’s plan is important. There are no mistakes; Jesus Christ followed the correct chronology.

 

There are no mistakes or accidents in the plan of God.

 

God is perfect, His plan is perfect.

 

Jesus, therefore, will not succeed Satan but will overthrow him. The only way Satan can be overthrown is to have sin judged first.