“When I Am Lifted Up”
[John
12:27-36]
August 7, 2016 Second Reformed Church
Last week, we saw Jesus explain that
it was time for Him to be glorified.
With the Gentiles coming to Him for salvation, it was time for Him to be
tortured and crucified and dead and buried – so, like a seed planted in the
earth – He would rise up again and bear much fruit through all those who would
ever believe in Him.
Today, we see Jesus explain that in
that horrific act of crucifixion – men and women of every race and language and
nation and time will be drawn to Him for salvation.
We read:
“Now is my soul 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.”
This might sound familiar to us,
because it is like Jesus’ questions in the Garden of Gethsemane: is there any other way to accomplish this
work other than through the horror of crucifixion and receiving the Wrath of
God? But, not My will, but Yours be
done.
We saw Jesus explain that it is
necessary to bury the seed for the plant to grow and bear fruit, but now, the
God-Man confronts feelings of aversion in His humanity. As Jesus considers what He knows He will
endure – the mental anguish, the whipping, having spikes driven through His
wrists and ankles, enduring the Wrath of God for all of the sins of every
person who would ever believe in Him savingly, and then suffocating to death
through crucifixion, He looked at this and was repulsed – He didn’t want to
endure it, He didn’t desire to suffer like that – only a madman would want to
suffer like that – though no one but Jesus could survive it. And His soul was troubled.
And He asks the question, “Shall I
ask God to save Me from this hour – from this horrific death?” And His answer is the one that must be given
by the obedient, incarnate Son of God, “This death is why I came.” “Father, I will suffer everything You
require, so long as You are glorified in My suffering.” As long as God was revealed and the Way of
salvation was revealed, as much as Jesus hated the death He was faced with, He
received it – as the author of Hebrews explains – “who for the joy that was set
before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right
hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2b, ESV).
And we might hear this and think,
“Yeah, Jesus submitted to His Father’s will, but wasn’t it wrong for Him to ask
if He could be delivered?”
It would have been sin – and then
Jesus would not be our Savior – if He faced what was coming and then said He
would not go through with His horrific death.
But it is not wrong for a human – and remember Jesus is at the same time
100% God and 100% human in one person – that’s what the Bible teaches – and
that is necessary for Him to be our Savior – but it is not wrong for a human
being to feel one way or another or to even be tempted to sin, so long as he or
she ends up doing what is right – what is the Will of God.
We may not feel like getting up and
coming to church and worshipping God on any given Sunday. I may not feel like preaching any given
Sunday. But, we are commanded by God not
to
neglect
the assembling together of the saints – in other words, if the Church is
gathering to worship, God says we are to be in worship – and I, as the called
minister, am to preach. We can have
feelings, but we must do what is right – what is pleasing to God.
And Jesus’ death at the hands of
evil men did please God – in the sense that Jesus accomplished and secured
salvation on our behalf – those who put Him to death sinned.
“Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have
glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd that stood there and
heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’
Jesus answered, ’This voice has come for your sake, not mine.’”
God the Father spoke from Heaven and
said what Jesus already knew – that God the Father had glorified Himself
through the Incarnation thus far and would continue to do so through Jesus’
death, resurrection, and ascension. As
Jesus said, the Word of the Father from Heaven was for the sake of the crowd
about Jesus.
God the Father spoke to assure the
crowd that Jesus’ crucifixion was not the tragic end of the story – God wanted
to assure them that what was going to happen was what had to happen, and they
should not be overwhelmed by the crucifixion, but understand that great benefit
– great fruit – would come from Jesus’ death.
But some people said they heard
thunder. And some people said they hear
the voice of an angel talking to Jesus.
Some people come into the church,
heard the Word of God preached, and go out with the strangest understanding of
what was said. Some people grow up in
the church and end up saying that the Word of God is merely a collection of
human writings.
It is human blindness that allows us
to hear the Word of God or read the Word of God and say it is something other
than what it is.
These people heard God the Father
speak, and they were so blind that they heard thunder and angels.
And then Jesus said, “Now is the
judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.”
The first question we ought to ask
ourselves is “when is the ‘now’ Jesus is referring to?”
Well, Jesus is talking about the
crucifixion, so He is telling them things that will happen at the time of His crucifixion.
Second, “who is the ruler of the
world”?
The Triune God is the Sovereign over
everything that is, but Satan is called “the ruler of this world.”
So, Jesus is saying to the crowd and
to us that at the time of His crucifixion, the world will be judged – that is,
as the spikes are pounded through Jesus’ flesh and He is raised up to die on
the cross, the Father will pour out all the fullness of His Wrath – eternal
torment in Hell for the sins of each person that will ever believe savingly in
Jesus – and that judgement will fall on Jesus again and again and again for
each one who will believe – and He will die.
Also at the crucifixion we have what
the Apostle John called the beginning of the millennium – the period of time
from Jesus’ crucifixion until His return.
Without trying to explain all the
symbolism of the book of Revelation, hear how John describes symbolically what
Jesus just said about Satan being cast out of the world at the time of the
crucifixion:
“Then I saw an angel coming down
from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great
chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and
Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut
it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer,
until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little
while” (Revelation 20:1-3, ESV).
And we remember that when John writes
about the millennium or the thousand years, he does not literally mean a
thousand years, but, a very long time.
So, for him who has ears to hear,
Jesus says, at His crucifixion, He was judged and paid the debt for the sins of
everyone who would ever believe savingly in Him, and He conquered Satan and
cast Him into prison until the end of the world.
And Jesus continues, “’And I, when I
am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to
show by what kind of death he was going to die.”
Jesus used the expression “lifted
up” because the biblically literate people of His day would understand what He
was referring to: being “lifted up” referred
to being crucified. And it would have
reminded them of what Jesus told Nichodemus: “And as Moses lifted up the
serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever
believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15, ESV).
Moses recorded the foreshadowing of
what Jesus would do:
“From Mount Hor they set out by the
way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became
impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why
have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no
food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’ Then the LORD sent fiery
serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of
Israel died. And the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, for we
have spoken against the LORD and against you. Pray to the LORD, that he take
away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. And the LORD said
to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten,
when he sees it, shall live.’ So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a
pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and
live” (Numbers 21:4-9, ESV).
God punished the sin of Israel by
sending serpents to bite and kill them.
Israel called out to Moses to interced, and God told Moses to make a
bronze serpent and crucify it before the people, and anyone who looked upon and
trusted in the crucified one for salvation would be saved.
And God promised: “And I will pour
out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace
and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have
pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep
bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10, ESV).
And so, after a night of abuse and
then an early morning flogging that left Jesus with severe blood loss, He was
turned over to the team for crucifixion.
He was stretched out on the cross on the ground and spikes were beaten
through His wrists and ankles, and then the guards pushed the cross up and
dropped it into the hole where it was kept aloft.
The perfect, sinless, holy Son of
God hung between heaven and earth, and God the Father inflicted Him with
unimaginable suffering again and again for each one He came to save, and as
this bloody Man succumbed to death – an unimagined victory was won. The judgment had been passed. Satan had been thrown into the pit. And anyone who lifts up their eyes to the
Crucified One from that day and until the day He returns will be saved. Anyone who lifts up their eyes to the Crucified
One, believing that He is God the Son and Savior – that He has accomplished salvation
for us, that person will be saved. If
you believe in the One Who was slaughtered and hung on a cross – forsaken by
God as judgment rained down on Him – you will be saved.
And that call to repent and believe
– to look upon the One they had pierced is to every man, woman, and child
throughout history. In the crucifixion,
Jesus draws and continues to draw people from every type of background and
nation and language and ability to Himself.
Everyone that He came to save is being drawn to Him and will come to Him
and will be saved by Him! Jesus died for
the sake of victory – and He will not lose one that He came to save.
Have you looked upon Him and
believed?
How did the people that day respond?
“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 this Son of Man?’”
The crowd said, “Wait a minute, the
Scripture says that the Christ – the Messiah – the Savior – will reign
forever? How can He die, if the
Scripture says He will reign forever?
How can the Son of Man be crucified and be eternal? Who are You saying the Son of Man is?”
The crowd sort of had a good question –
but only because they either purposefully or ignorantly ignored some of the
Scripture. Yes, the Scripture says the
Christ – the Son of Man – will live and reign forever. But it also says that the Christ – the Son of
Man – must die.
It’s like people who say, “Well, the Bible
says it is against the Law to have sexual relations with your brother or your
sister, but it also says that it is against the Law to eat shrimp. And you eat shrimp, so incest must also be
fine – unless you admit that eating shrimp is a sin.”
Yes, the Bible says that incest and eating
shrimp are sins, but there is also a repealing of the law about eating shrimp
being a sin – it is no longer a sin to eat shrimp, but it is still a sin to
commit incest. When we read the Bible,
we can’t pick and choose verses, we have to take the entire document in its
context to understand it.
The crowd questioning Jesus was not taking
it all together, and they were being pharisaically blind in asking Who Jesus
claimed the Son of Man is – Jesus said over and over again, “I am the Son of
Man!” “I am God, the Son of Man!”
And so, Jesus responds with a warning:
“So Jesus said to them, ‘The light is
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.’”
First, Jesus said He is the Light and if
you don’t believe in Him savingly, you are in darkness.
So, second, while the Light is with you,
walk – look and believe – because when the Light is gone, you will be in
darkness such that you do not know where you are going.
And third, while you have the Light,
believe in the Light savingly, and you will become sons of the Light.
Even now, Jesus tells us that we are born
in sinful darkness, but He is drawing all those who will believe to Him – but
the time to repent and believe is short – none of us has unlimited time to
believe in Him and receive His salvation.
So look – look at what God’s Word has to
say – hear the preaching of the Gospel, see if it is not all true – look upon
the One Who was crucified – look at him hanging there – understand how this was
not the grand failure of Jesus, but the very plan of God for victory and the
salvation of His people. Look at Him
being mocked. Look at Him bleeding
out. Look at Him gasping as He
suffocates. And understand that this was
done to pay the debt to God for sin.
The Seed was dead and planted in the dirt,
but Jesus rose from the dead on the third day and calls out to each one – even
those He is drawing – to repent and believe in Him. Be saved by His work, and then respond in
good works in thanks to Him. Jesus has
saved all we who believe – nothing we do earns that salvation – yet we respond
to Him. Believing makes us children of
God.
As John explains, “He came to his own, and
his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who
believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were
born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of
God” (John 1:11-13, ESV).
Have you felt the draw to the Crucified
One and believed savingly in Jesus? We
are brothers and sisters.
Have you felt the draw to the Crucified
One and are holding off? You don’t have
time to not believe. You could die
before I finish speaking. Satan is
restrained right now. Jesus has done all
the work – will you believe?
If you have not felt the drawn of the Crucified
One – if you still don’t see that there is any big deal in all this Jesus stuff
–
Let us pray:
Almighty God, we thank You for sending
Your Son to live and die – that the penalty for our sin would fall on Him – and
You would be satisfied. You are the God
of Salvation – we confess we do not have the inclination or ability to believe,
but You draw people to Your Son that they would believe and live lives that are
pleasing to You. Lord, we ask that any
here who have not believed would be disturbed by the Crucified One – haunt them
and drag them and cause them to be confronted by the Truth of the Gospel, and
in Your Mercy, as You are willing, cause them to believe and make them sons and
daughters of God with us. And we ask
this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
