John 12:27-36 – Good Friday – The Gospel of John

Uh, thank you for joining us this evening.

Thank you uh to Alice for leading us through the final hours of Jesus' life.

I'm gonna read just a few verses from John's Gospel where we've been.

If you've been coming on a Sunday morning, we've been in John since September.

And uh Jesus now begins to talk about his death.

And I'm just gonna uh read what is it about six verses or so uh about the cross.

So John 12, starting at verse 27, Jesus says, Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?

Father, save me from this hour, but for this purpose I have come to this hour.

Father, glorify your name.

Then a voice came from heaven, I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

The crowd stood there and heard it, said that it had thundered.

Others said, An angel has spoken to him.

Jesus answered, The voice has come for your sake, not mine.

Now is the judgment of the world.

Now is the ruler of this world cast out, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

He said this to show the kind of death that he was going to die.

So the crowd answered him, We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever.

How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?

Who is the Son of Man?

So Jesus said to them, The light is shining among you for a little while longer.

Walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you.

The one who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going.

While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.

May God bless the reading of his word.

Tonight, of course, is full of paradoxes.

In some senses, we come to the wickedest event, the wickedest day in all of human history, and yet it is the day the Christians call good.

In the midst of death, we are in life.

The king is crowned with a crown of thorns and enthroned upon a cross.

In the midst of shame, we are in triumph.

Yes, there's darkness today, but there is also light.

When the Christian, uh when Christians uh all through history and when uh the Bible writers, in fact, reflect upon this day and reflect upon the cross of Jesus, they do not look at it first and foremost as a tragedy, though it is, it is the most tragic thing that we might murder our Maker.

But they do not see it primarily as a tragedy because the cross is not an end, it is a means.

It was purposeful, powerful, and deliberate.

One of the purposes of the cross is laid before us here in the verses that I read.

Jesus tells us what we are supposed to see when we behold the man upon the cross.

When we reflect upon the cross of Jesus, he tells us what it is we're supposed to be looking for.

Let me remind you of some of the verses that I just read.

He says, Now the hour has come, Father, glorify your name.

And the voice from heaven, I have glorified it and will glorify it again.

Or just on up, another verse just above in verse 23 of John chapter 12, he says, Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

John 12 · chapter mention

So, folks, as we reflect upon Good Friday, what are we supposed to see?

Are we supposed to see the sorry, petty end of a promising life?

A life cut short, snuffed out in its prime, 33 years old?

No, we're not supposed to see tragedy.

We're supposed to see glory.

The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.

That's what the cross is about.

It's about seeing the glory of God.

And that messes with our heads slightly, doesn't it?

Because we think of glory in terms of uh majestic displays of power and pomp and circumstance and uh and white horses and uh carriages and parades.

Not so with our God.

Yes, glory here means worth and weightiness and majesty and significance, but it is also goodness.

We have seen his glory, John said.

We have seen his glory, the glory is of the only Son of the Father.

And John there is deliberately hearkening back to when Moses asks of God, show me your glory, and God responds and says, I will cause all of my goodness to pass by ye.

We're supposed to look at the man upon the cross and see a glory.

Let me show you from this passage four ways in which the cross of Jesus is glorious.

Why it is that we call today good.

First, it is glorious because in the cross God judges the world.

We think that the final judgment or the judgment of the world is something that happens at the end of time.

It's the purview of uh apocalypse and disaster movies.

But if you look at Jesus' words really closely here, he says that in the cross, God judges the world.

Have a look at it with me.

Uh or let me read it for you.

It's verse 31 of John 12, if you do want to look it up on your phone, if you've got a Bible with you, where he says, Now is the judgment of this world.

Now is the judgment of this world, not at the end, but at the cross.

Now is the judgment of the world.

Why?

Why does God judge this world?

Notice this world, the particular order.

Why does God judge this world?

What does he mean by that?

Well, in John's Gospel, the world is a moral term.

It's not about the big space with continents and people.

It's not about the spinning globe orbiting in space.

No, it is all of humanity arrayed in hostility towards God.

We ourselves are addicted to me, myself, and my.

We do what Jesus has been pointing out all the way through John's Gospel, if you've been tracking with us on Sunday mornings, is we seek our own glory.

We long for the glory that comes from people to look right, to present the right appearance, to have the affirmation and acceptance and praise and glory of others.

And we forget about the God who made us.

Not only that, but in pursuit of that glory, in pursuit of our own ends, we harm others.

And God judges the world in the cross of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus' death is not an overreaction.

Rather, we should look at it and see the seriousness of what the Bible calls our sin.

That is, our self-love, our being turned in on ourselves, our self-glory seeking.

And in the cross, God judges it.

And so the cross and the resurrection of Jesus represent for all of us a dividing line that runs along all of humanity, that has run through history to this day, separating everyone in terms of what they perceive the cross to do.

Some people look at the cross and are turned off by it.

Others see the glory of it.

The cross is the dividing line by which all men and women will either be condemned or vindicated.

But folks, there is great mercy here.

I need to talk about sin and judgment on Good Friday because the cross won't make sense if I don't.

If I don't talk about it, the cross just looks like an example of selfless love.

And it is that.

But it is so much more.

And it's so much more glorious and good for us if we see our need of the cross of the Lord Jesus.

There is great mercy here because God brings the judgment of the world, stored up for the end of time, now into history.

He brings it to 33 AD, and the Son willingly, voluntarily bears that judgment on our behalf.

That is the glory of the cross.

That Jesus takes the judgment of the world for all those from the world who would turn and believe in him.

And in that sense, the cross is a crossroads.

Jesus bears the judgment for us as we cast our sin upon him, or we tragically end up bearing it ourselves in the end.

Second, the glory of the cross is shown as Jesus defeats the ruler of the world.

Still in verse 31, now is the judgment of this world.

Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.

Who's the ruler of this world?

Well it's Satan.

It's the devil, uh, Christians.

Christians are by nature supernaturalists.

On Sunday, we're going to believe that a guy came back to dead back from the dead.

Uh, and so it's not a huge hop and a skip and a jump to think that Satan's not a metaphor.

So uh just FYI.

Christians believe in miraculous things.

We also believe in a uh in a uh a realm beyond our seeing.

But it is uh worth also thinking about what it means for Satan to be cast out.

We're not, we haven't now moved from apocalypse movies to exorcism movies.

Okay, I know we're in a cinema, uh, but that's that's not what Jesus means when he talks about uh Satan being cast out.

No, no, no, it's far more wonderful than that, in fact.

Do you know how the cross defeats the devil?

Do you know what his name means?

Satan?

It means the accuser.

Do you know who Satan is?

He's a lawyer.

Sorry to you if you're studying law, or indeed are a lawyer.

Satan's a lawyer.

Did you know that?

He's the accuser.

And so here's what happens, folks.

Satan's a lawyer for the prosecution, and he knows everything that you've ever done.

He stands in the divine courtroom with God, the holy judge, and with you and I and the doc.

And you know what Satan does?

He doesn't make stuff up, he uses our sin, our self-seeking, self-loving, against us.

Goes to God and says, Look, God, you said that you are concerned with justice, you said that you're holy, so that you cannot look upon sin.

Uh, but Mark, well, Mark's, you know, prideful from time to time, shock, I know, lustful, envious, resentful, bitter.

You said that you are holy, and that nothing and no one sinful can come into your presence.

He deserves justice, he deserves judgment.

He calls upon a holy God to act in line with his holiness.

But as Jesus dies on the cross on Good Friday, he takes the one weapon that Satan has against you, your sin.

The blood of Jesus pays the penalty, so that you no longer stand accused, but innocent in the sight of God, case dismissed, and Satan is cast out.

Now is the ruler of this world cast out.

Yes, of course, he remains dangerous, like a dying lion with a fatal wound that was dealt with him on that first Good Friday.

But he cannot snatch the Christian out of the hand of the Father, and he will fully and finally be defeated on that last day.

That is gloriously good news.

Third, see the glory of Jesus as he draws all people to himself.

And I, verse 32, Jesus says, When I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

There's two wonderful things just to dwell on here very briefly.

First is the glory that Jesus draws all types of people to himself.

He's thinking in terms of breadth across the world, that Jesus is not just the Jewish Messiah, come to save a particular ethnicity, a particular religious subset, indeed, in contradiction to what they assumed Messiah would be.

No, he comes for all people, represented here this evening.

Every tribe and tongue and nation, every culture, race, and ethnicity.

Jesus, when he is lifted up, draws all people to himself.

But the second glorious thing about this is perhaps slightly more opaque, but it is this: the glory that Jesus saves all his people, that not one of them would be lost.

We kind of tend to think of Good Friday, or we think of the cross of Jesus as making salvation vaguely possible.

That what Jesus does is He uh He uh loosens the jar on salvation.

And what we need to do is we need to take it off all the way and take the goodies that are inside, or or or He He kicks open the door of heaven, and it is our job to walk through it.

That's not what's happening at the cross.

That's not what the cross is about.

The cross is the good shepherd laying down his life, definitively, finally, for his sheep.

The cross, it doesn't just make salvation vaguely, generally possible.

He actually saves those who are his.

He actually purchases them.

It is definite.

And that is such good news that God actually rescued people at the cross.

The cross decisively saves all of Jesus' sheep, all who would believe in him, all who would be saved by his cross.

None are lost, none are snatched away, none are left behind, but all are brought from death to life.

And finally, the final glory of the cross, as it were, is right at the end of this passage.

Is the glory in God making us sons of light.

Making us sons and daughters of the light.

Verse 36, while you have the light, believe in the light.

Believe in the light.

Why?

That you may become sons of light.

The darkness of Good Friday could never overcome the light of the world.

The light of the world cannot be extinguished.

And as Jesus plunged into the grave on that Good Friday and laid down his life willingly only to take it up again on that Sunday morning, and as he walked from that tomb, as we will remember and celebrate on Sunday, light shone forth and now radiates through the cosmos and down through the generations to each one of us.

But not only that, there is an invitation here.

Jesus says, believe in the light.

That's him.

He's talking about, he said earlier, I am the light of the world.

He's inviting from the crowd faith in himself as he goes to that hour where he will be lifted up, where he will glorify the name of the Father, when he will draw men to himself.

He's saying, Believe in me as I go to do that.

Believe in the light so that you may become sons of light.

That is heirs, having that family likeness, that that DNA.

And so the Christian doesn't just look at the cross as something that we observe, but we hear the invitation, we hear the call of Jesus to follow and to trust and to believe and to be transformed by everything that He is and has and has done for us.

He invites us to be participants in that light, to be changed by it, to be walk, to walk in it, to be transformed from one degree of glory to another as we each of us turn from darkness and turn to him who is our light.

This, folks, is the glory of the cross this good Friday.

Jesus takes your judgment so that you are forever accepted.

He takes your sin and declares you forever innocent.

He draws you to himself so that you are adopted, loved, and eternally secure.

And then he changes you.

And he changes your mind.

So that it can be more like him.

Sons of the light, following the light of the world.

This is the glory of the cross.

No.

This is the goodness of Good Friday.