The spiritual death of Christ is the only means of righteousness. John 12:27-34; John 16:1-8

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.

 

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."

 

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.

 

He reminded His disciples of this so that they would make it the heart of their own ambassadorships as witnesses for Him.

 

John 16:1-8

"These things I have spoken to you, that you may be kept from stumbling. 2 "They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. 3 "And these things they will do, because they have not known[the hurting, the helpless, the arrogant, the crazy stupid, don’t know who He is] the Father, or Me. 4 "But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. 5 "But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, 'Where are You going?' 6 "But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 "But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper shall not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. 8

 

John 16:8-11

"And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment; 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you no longer behold Me; 11 and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

 

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

 

Satan, the loser, 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.

 

John 12:32 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth [cross], will draw [magnetism, fishing lure] all men [unlimited atonement] to Myself." 

 

The cross brings grace and grace therefore becomes a magnet for those with PV. All men have been atoned but not all men who are introduced to the cross see their need of it so they go on NV.

 

Those who see that they can solve their own depravity issue will stand before the slain Lamb. Books will be opened. These books contain what the world without grace would call righteous deeds. Christ will compare those works to His work and His offer of His own +R to them, over their lifetime and it will become plain that whatever they did and whatever they thought about doing did not add up to the +R of Christ.

 

Those who reject are without excuse since all men were drawn and called.

 

Remember that whenever you are witnessing, performing as an ambassador to anyone, that it is the Lord who draws all men. It is the Lord who is the magnet and the fishing lure. You must have Him at the end of your fishing line and not any Madison Ave techniques. Whenever you witness, make the issue out of Him; not sin, not lifestyle, not performance, not success, not anything else but Him lifted up on the cross and Him now at the right hand of God.

 

John 12:33 But He was saying this [kept on saying it] to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die [the special spiritual death on the cross].

 

Physical death does not draw man to God. The physical is not our problem, nor is physical death a problem. What is a problem is spiritual death. This is the special death of our Lord by which all men may be saved if they simply believe.

 

John 12:34 The multitude therefore 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?"

 

The multitude in this verse are not the Greeks who were seeking Christ, their discourse ended in the previous paragraph.

 

Instead we have Jews, who were in the audience, and not Jews who were positive, as many of them were; these are negative.

 

Therefore their answer to what the Lord just said means they have been waiting for Him to stop so that they might have a chance to discredit Him.  

 

They are in the audience but they are not there to learn.

 

There are always people in crowds who want to put down the one who is teaching. Jesus Christ has been teaching the truth, teaching Bible doctrine. He is the greatest teacher of all time—the God-Man, the unique person of the universe.

 

Consequently, these people when they finally had an answer had a purpose which was to discredit the Lord Jesus Christ. They always begin by citing scripture. This is typical of religious people who try to use the scripture against the Lord Jesus Christ.

“We have heard” - there is more than meets the eye to this aorist active indicative of a)kouw.[akouo]

 

They are indicating that other people have taught them too, and that they had accepted the authority of these other people. The teaching was the Old Testament scripture—“out of the law.” This is why, for example, Jesus is going to quote Isaiah three times in this section.

           

“that the Christ” - o( Xristoj[ho Christos]- “is to remain forever” - present active indicative of menw[meno] indicating the eternity of Messiah, or Christ.

 

They had heard this from Isaiah 9:6, also from Psalm 110:2-4; Daniel 7:14; and this emphasises the deity of Messiah.

 

ISA 9:6

For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;

And the government will rest on His shoulders;

And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps 110:2-4

The Lord will stretch forth Thy strong scepter from Zion, saying,

"Rule in the midst of Thine enemies."

3 Thy people will volunteer freely in the day of Thy power;

In holy array, from the womb of the dawn,

Thy youth are to Thee as the dew.

4 The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind,

"Thou art a priest forever

According to the order of Melchizedek."

 

DAN 7:14

"And to Him was given dominion,

Glory and a kingdom,

That all the peoples, nations, and men of every language

Might serve Him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion

Which will not pass away;

And His kingdom is one

Which will not be destroyed.

 

Their problem is that they are really seeking to put down Jesus Christ and so they haven’t really heard or understood anything that He has said.

 

 

 

One should never approach Christ with preconceived notions, nor His word. You should be open to be shocked by the person of Christ no matter how long you’ve known Him and no matter how well you think you know Him.  

 

Jesus has announced in the previous paragraphs to the seeking Greeks that the seed must fall into the ground and die and it is the death of Messiah that they are going to use against Him.

 

The death that is necessary to save them; they are going to try to use against Him.

 

And this is a part of the temptation that satan has been attacking the Lord with since the beginning of His ministry - to use His deity.

 

The crowd is quoting verses about His deity and satan uses this as a temptation for Christ to show it off in order to shut them up.

 

But the Lord knows that first off, that is not a part of the plan of the Father, secondly, they’ve already seen plenty of miracles from Him so it wouldn’t matter, and third, He has to pass His plan on to us and we don’t have deity as an option, therefore His plan would be of no use to us.

 

Nothing will make Him do it. This is the doctrine of kenosis.

 

He has announced the cross, the fact that He is going to go to the cross and die for the sins of the world. Immediately they think they have Him now, they have been waiting for this opportunity with their ears closed to the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ. Deity is not subject to death and this apparently the Jews understood.

 

So they knew enough theology with their negative volition to be antagonistic and to look for an opportunity to put down the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Really, the questions they are about to ask are not seeking information. They are really trying to put down the one who is teaching. The more that Jesus Christ taught with authority the more the Jews who were negative tried to put Him down.

           

There are four doctrines which resolve the questions coming up: the doctrine of divine essence, the doctrine of the eternal decrees, the doctrine of the hypostatic union, and the doctrine of soteriology.

 

In other words, Christ has to become true humanity to fulfil Messiahship. This is clearly taught in the Old Testament but they have ignored these things.