Jesus doesn't argue theology. He makes an issue out of the gospel only. John 12:34-37

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?"

 

So there are two questions.

           

The first of two questions designed to put down the Lord: “and how can you say” - present active indicative of legw[lego] plus the interrogative pwj[pos], “how,” which is really used to be insulting since it is an adverb. This is an idiom of opposition. Their question implies that Jesus was speaking contrary to scripture when He indicated His death.

 

“The Son of man must be lifted up?” Son of man is a title for the humanity of Christ. The word “must” is the impersonal form of the verb dew,[deo] and the form is dei.[dei] The purpose of that form is to bring in an obligation of necessity. “Why do you communicate the information that the Son of man must be lifted up?” To us, the words lifted up may not imply death, but they understood it that way because u(yow[hupsoo] means not only a commonly-known death at the time but it was the system of Roman death, and that in itself lead to other problems with them.

 

Moses lifted up the brazen serpent on the post. Anyone who looked to that serpent was healed from the bites of earthly serpents, representing sin and its results.

 

They should have known this and they should have known that the Messiah must be born of a virgin and suffer death for them to be healed of the ravages of sin and spiritual death. These scriptures were all there, but they ignored them.

 

Instead they take the scriptures referring to the deity of Christ and put Him down for His humanity.

 

Deity cannot die for the sins of the world, only humanity can die.

 

They understood it was the cross involved here. They are actually parroting back to Him exactly what He taught.

 

They have heard, but they haven’t really “heard.”

 

Matt 13:14-15

"And in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

'You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;

And you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;

15 For the heart of this people has become dull,

And with their ears they scarcely hear,

And they have closed their eyes

Lest they should see with their eyes,

And hear with their ears,

And understand with their heart and return,

And I should heal them.'

 

The Lord will quote Isaiah in a similar way to this crowd in a few seconds.

 

 

 

To them the Lord’s teaching is just subjective information, they aren’t even objective in their outlook, and they are simply accepting this information long enough to throw it back in His face. That is what they are doing.

           

The second question: “who is” - now they use the interrogative pronoun tij. This interrogative pronoun is a polite question, but when you start out with an interrogative adverb and follow it up with an interrogative pronoun it is an insult. They are being sarcastically polite; “this Son of man?”

 

They understand Son of God but Son of man is the basis for their attack. The answer to their question is the doctrine of the hypostatic union, which is in the same OT doctrines that they are quoting to discredit Him.

           

The Son of man is the humanity of Christ. Lifted up into heaven He goes as the God-Man; He goes in hypostatic union. He has a resurrection body after death, but before He goes to the cross He has only a human body. So the Son of man emphasises His human body in the hypostatic union. When He goes to the cross He goes as the God-Man but it is the humanity that dies. 

 

 

John 12:35 Jesus therefore said to them, "For a little while longer the light is among you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.

 

“Yes a little while” is an accusative of the extent of time of a word for time, xronoj, referring to time in the sense of one moment followed by another moment, one minute followed by another, etc.

 

This is where we get the word chronology. The extent of this time can be broken down as follows: first of all, there are four days before the cross—John 12:12. Then there are three days in the grave—Matthew 12:40. Then forty days on the earth in a resurrection body—Acts 1:3. So the accusative of the extent of time is 4 days plus 3 days plus forty days. In other words, Jesus, when He has uttered these words in verse 35 had forty-seven more days on the earth.

           

“is”—present active indicative of e)imi, “keeps on being.”

           

“the light” - the light is Christ as a manifest person of the Godhead, John 1:17; 6:46; 1 Timothy 6:16; 1 John 4:12.

 

Jesus does not argue theology but gets to the issue of salvation; “is with you.”

 

Light is used also in the sense of who and what He is—essence box. God is light. Jesus is referring to His deity as well as His humanity.

           

No He is saying they don’t have the light with them much longer, the God-Man is not going to be around. But that doesn’t mean deity will not be around. In omnipresence Jesus Christ will always be around. When Jesus Christ ascends His humanity goes to heaven and He is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will return at the Second Advent. So He is only going to be there for a short time and this is a great opportunity for these Jews. Therefore He says …

           

“Walk” - present active imperative, and should be translated, Keep walking or Keep advancing toward the goal.

           

“while you have the light” - the have is present active indicative of e)xw[echo] and it means to have and to hold the light. This is the opportunity to receive Christ as saviour. Advance toward the goal. While the credit cards of Messiahship are being presented this is a perfect opportunity to receive Christ as saviour. Walk or advance toward the goal when you have and hold the light.

           

“that” introduces a negative purpose clause: “that darkness does not take overtake you [or take you by surprise]” - aorist active indicative of katalambanw. [katalambano]

 

Darkness refers to religion and legalism. Religion hates grace, but they have grace and truth standing in front of them, and He will hang on the cross right in front of them, so they must keep advancing towards Him and away from religion.

 

But He is warning them that religion can come like a thief and surprise attack. Many of them are under religion now but the Lord is calling them out from under its hold of their souls. He wants them to walk out of religion and walk towards Him. And if any of them consider walking to Him, while they are considering the good news of the gospel, they must be careful because darkness and come quick and by surprise.

 

This is another way of communicating what He already did in the parable of the sower.

 

Mark 4:14-20

"The sower sows the word. 15 "And these are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them. 16 "And in a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; 17 and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away. 18 "And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, 19 and the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 "And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it, and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."

 

John 12:35 Jesus therefore said to them, "For a little while longer the light is among you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness may not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes.

 

 

“he who walks in the darkness” - this refers to the Jews on negative volition. They keep on walking in darkness.

 

“does not know” - perfect used as a present for o)ida;[oida = inherent knowledge] “where he goes” - the present active indicative of u(pagw[hupago]means you don’t know when you are going to depart.

 

That means you don’t know when you are going to die, and when you die that is your last chance to be saved. It also means nationally you don’t know when the nation is going to be broken up under the fifth cycle of discipline.

 

It has a dual connotation here but it emphasises primarily to these unbelieving Jews that they don’t know when they are going to die, so that had better take advantage of it now.

 

The unbeliever is concerned about death. In darkness he has no victory over death. However, the believer becomes a son of light and through Christ has victory over death. The light will be in heaven forever and so will the son of light. So though the believer doesn’t know when he is going to die either, he is unconcerned since death is his ultimate promotion and the Lord’s victory.

 

John 12:36 "While you have the light, believe in the light, in order that you may become sons of light."These things Jesus spoke, and He departed and hid Himself from them.

 

 

This is the gospel. This is the good news.

 

“While you have the light - 47 days in Palestine as the God-Man.

 

Therefore the second present active imperative: “believe” - dramatic present of the verb pisteuw, [pisteuo] non-meritorious thinking. The object always has the merit; the object is always efficacious. The active voice: you have to do the believing. Imperative mood: a personal command from the only saviour to believe in Him.

           

“in the light” - reference to the incarnate Christ, right there with them; “that ye may become” - aorist active subjunctive of ginomai, meaning to become something you were not before.

 

“sons of light.”

           

“These things” - there have been several in this passage: one to the Jews, one to the Greeks, and one to the negative volition crowd.

 

“and departed” - aorist active participle of a)perxomai[aperchomai] which does not mean to depart, it means to disappear; “ and hid himself” - He didn’t hide, He “was hidden” - aorist passive indicative of kruptw.[klupto] The purpose: to make sure that He got to the cross.

           

“from them” means from the ultimate source of them. This is a religious crowd. Obviously they would try to eliminate Jesus Christ before He got to the cross.

               

We now have the case of the rejecting nation. Here is a documentation of a national entity which is reaching the point of rejection and the resultant reversionism, As a result of this reversionism and a maximum practice of reverse process reversionism this nation is line for, and will receive in 70 AD, the 5^th cycle of discipline. The forty-year period is a grace period to give everyone an opportunity to avoid the judgment.

 

Now we have the witness of the apostle John. After recalling these things under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit he communicates the prophecy by God concerning the Jews as a nation rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

John 12:37 But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him;

 

“he had performed” is a perfect active participle of poiew.[poieo] The perfect tense indicates that the miracles were accomplished in the past but have permanent results in the evangelisation of the Jews during the incarnation of Jesus Christ. One time during the incarnation the entire nation of Israel was evangelised. Here is that evangelisation declared through the miracles—“so many miracles.” The miracles which are prevalent and in focus in the Gospel of John are seven. Each one of these became the basis of a great evangelistic push and in effect there were seven waves of evangelism accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ in these miracles.

           

“before them” - the adverb e)mprosqen[euprosthen] used as a preposition. It means in the presence of. It a part of the principle by which the Lord evangelised. A spectacular miracle was followed by focussing attention on the message—the message of Jesus Christ as the Messiah-Saviour.

 

 

 

If Jesus Christ was simply trying to alleviate suffering, as per the liberal view and the apostate view of Christianity, as per social action because He had bleeding heart, then He is remiss; because if His objective was simply to alleviate suffering then He should have performed millions of miracles; he should have healed everyone in the southern and the northern kingdom and, in the bridge between the two, Perea.

 

But the reason for the miracles was to draw attention to the message.

           

“yet they were not believing in Him” - they refers generally to the religious Jews who will be described in their reversionism of having hardened hearts; “not believing” is an imperfect active indicative of pisteuwplus the negative. The imperfect tense means that they continued in this attitude all of the way from their beginning negative volition to scar tissue on the soul, emotional revolt of the soul, blackout of the soul, reversionism, and the practice of reverse process reversionism.

 

This is a term used by Col. Theime to describe the final stage of reversionism. This is the final status of reversionism, the antithesis of supergrace in which the believer loves and desires the opposite of what the Bible commands. It is a distortion of love, it is a reversal of all the objects of love, it is a total destruction of any true scale of values according to the Word, and therefore the person lives in a state of total confusion before he is removed by the sin unto death.

 

In other words, the imperfect tense means they carried their unbelief from the point of instant rejection to continuous reversionism. Their continuous reversionism resulted in national disintegration, the fifth cycle of discipline.

 

Verses 38-41, the explanation of rejection. He is an amplification and short discourse on reaction to the message of Jesus Christ.

Verse 38 - reaction involves human volition. This was documented by Isaiah.

 

John 12:38 that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke, "Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"