John 12:26

The scene is Jerusalem at the Passover, a few days before the crucifixion. Jesus has raised Lazarus and been anointed at Bethany (John 12:1–11), and he has just ridden into the city to the acclaim of the crowds (John 12:12–19), while the chief priests and Pharisees plot to kill him and Lazarus too. Passover was one of the three yearly pilgrim feasts, and it filled Jerusalem with Jews and converts from across the Roman world.

Among the pilgrims “that came up to worship at the feast” were certain Greeks. The word Héllēn means a Greek, someone from Hellas, and by extension a Greek-speaking person, especially one who was a Gentile. In the New Testament it often stands for Gentiles who lived in the Greek language and culture that filled the Roman world. These men were most likely Gentiles who worshipped the God of Israel, either full converts to Judaism or “God-fearers” who went to the synagogue and kept some Jewish customs without fully converting. They had come up, anabaínō, from aná (“up”) and the base of básis, the ordinary verb for going up, used here of the pilgrims’ ascent to Jerusalem. They came to worship, proskynéō, a word that pictures bowing low in homage and reverence. So they were seekers who had already turned toward the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

They came to Philip, “which was of Bethsaida of Galilee,” and asked him, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” Bethsaida stood on the Sea of Galilee, in a region with a mixed Jewish and Gentile population and strong Greek influence, and that background may be why they chose him as their go-between. “Sir” is kýrios, a respectful title, here given to Philip. “Desired” is erōtáō, to ask or to request, so this was a polite request. “We would” is thélō, to will, wish or desire, and “see” is eídō, which properly means to see and is also used figuratively of perceiving and coming to know. They wanted to meet Jesus himself.

Philip told Andrew, and the two of them told Jesus. John gives no reason for Philip going to Andrew first. A request from Gentiles was unusual at a Jewish feast, and Philip may have been unsure how Jesus would receive it. Andrew is also the disciple who keeps bringing people to Jesus. He brought his brother Simon Peter (John 1:41), and he found the boy with the loaves and fishes (John 6:8–9).

“The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified.” All through the Gospel, John has told us that Jesus’ hour had not yet come (John 2:4, John 7:6, John 7:30, John 8:20). Jesus lived by his Father’s timetable, and no plot of men could hurry it. Now, as Gentiles come seeking him, he says the hour is here.

The word hṓra is the ordinary word for an hour, which in the New Testament was a twelfth part of the day or of the night. John uses it for the appointed time of Jesus’ passion, death, resurrection and ascension, the moment God’s plan of redemption reaches its climax. “Is come” is érchomai, to come, and Jesus says that the hour has arrived.

To be glorified, doxázō, from dóxa (“glory”), is to be honoured, magnified, given glory. In John, Jesus is glorified through his cross and resurrection, and his death is where his love, his obedience and his oneness with the Father are most fully shown. After Judas goes out to betray him he says, “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31–32), and in his prayer before his arrest he asks the Father to glorify him (John 17:1–5). The risen Jesus asks the two on the road, “Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26). The prophets spoke beforehand of the sufferings of Christ and the glory that would follow (1 Peter 1:11), and Jesus, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

The people of that day thought of glory as power and victory, and many hoped for a Messiah who would conquer. Jesus calls himself the Son of man (ho huios tou anthrōpou), the title of the one in Daniel’s vision who comes with the clouds of heaven and receives everlasting dominion and glory (Daniel 7:13–14). The title speaks of his true humanity and of his authority from God, and Jesus shows that his road to that throne runs through suffering. Paul traces the same road: “he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name” (Philippians 2:5–11). Hebrews says that Jesus was “crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man,” and that God made him perfect through sufferings in bringing many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:9–10).

Jesus explains his glory with a picture every farmer in his audience knew. “Verily, verily” is a doubled amḗn, a word of Hebrew origin meaning “surely” or “so be it”, and Jesus uses it to mark a saying as certain and weighty.

A “corn of wheat” is a single grain. Kept dry in the barn, it stays one grain for ever: “it abideth alone.” Sown in the field, it falls into the ground and dies, apothnḗskō, the ordinary verb “to die”. Its life as a seed ends, and from it comes a plant carrying many grains, “much fruit”. Karpós is fruit as it is picked, and used figuratively it is the natural result of what has been done. The harvest is the result of the seed’s death.

Jesus is that grain. If he had kept his life, he would have remained alone, the one sinless man. By dying he brings forth a multitude, all who will believe in him, from Israel and from the nations like the Greeks waiting outside. His resurrection showed that God accepted his death and that it had overcome sin and death. All this is said at Passover, when the city was full of lambs being sacrificed, and Jesus speaks of his own death as the sacrifice that gives life. Paul uses the same picture of a seed sown and dying for the resurrection of the body (1 Corinthians 15:36–38), and Jesus later tells his disciples that his Father is glorified when they bear much fruit (John 15:8).

The saying is first about Jesus, and in the next two verses he applies it to everyone who follows him.

“He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” To love here is philéō, the word for affection, fondness and personal attachment. To love your life in this sense is to cling to it and put your own comfort, safety and desires first. Such a person “shall lose it”, apóllymi, to perish or forfeit. The loss is the forfeit of the eternal life God offers.

“Hateth” is miséō, to hate or detest. Here it is a Semitic way of speaking that means to love less by comparison, to renounce: when your own life and Christ pull in different directions, Christ wins. “In this world”, en toútōi kósmōi, sets the limit. What is given up is life as this world counts it, which in that day included reputation, family honour and material well-being. That person “shall keep it”, phylássō, guard and preserve it, “unto life eternal”.

Two different Greek words lie behind “life” in this verse. The life a person loves or hates is psychḗ, which Strong’s gives as breath, spirit, the animal sentient principle: a person’s natural life and own self. The life eternal is zōḗ aiṓnios, where zōḗ is life in its fullest sense, the life God gives, and aiṓnios means everlasting. That life begins now in fellowship with God and goes on for ever, the life God gave his Son to bring (John 3:16).

The other Gospels record Jesus saying the same thing in other settings (Matthew 10:39, Matthew 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24), and Luke joins it to the call to take up the cross daily (Luke 9:23). Paul describes believers as buried with Christ and raised with him to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4–11). Jesus lived this verse first. He laid down his own life, and his resurrection is the proof that a life given up to God is kept.

“If any man serve me, let him follow me.” “If” is eán, which sets the condition. To serve is diakonéō, to wait on someone, menially or as a host, a friend or a teacher would, and it is also the word for serving as a deacon. It comes from the noun used later in the verse for “servant”, diákonos, which Strong’s derives probably from an old verb meaning to run on errands, and which gives us the English word “deacon”. This is humble, practical service. Jesus himself came to serve (Mark 10:45), he washed his disciples’ feet and told them to do as he had done (John 13:14–15), and he taught that the greatest among them must be as the one who serves (Luke 22:26).

To follow is akolouthéō, to be on the same road with someone, to go along with him, especially as a disciple. A rabbi’s disciples walked with him, learned his teaching, copied his way of life and served him. Spoken in this hour, “follow me” means following Jesus toward the cross he has just described.

“And where I am, there shall also my servant be.” The servant shares the master’s road and also his destiny. In this life Jesus is present with his people by the Spirit, so that they are never left orphans (John 14:16–18), and at the end he will come again and receive them to himself (John 14:3). He prays that they may be with him and see his glory (John 17:24), and he promises that the one who overcomes will sit with him on his throne (Revelation 3:21).

“If any man serve me, him will my Father honour.” To honour is timáō, to prize something, to set a value on it, and so to revere. God has always honoured those who honour him (1 Samuel 2:30). The honour here is the Father’s own approval, a share in the Son’s glory, given in full at the end, when the faithful servant hears “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). Jesus walked this road before us. He served his Father to the death of the cross, and the Father raised him and exalted him to his right hand (Acts 2:33).

Here we see the heart of Jesus as the hour arrives. “Troubled” is tarássō, to stir or agitate, used of water that is churned up and muddied. It is a strong word for deep inner turmoil, and it shows us the full humanity of the Son of God as he faces suffering and death.

“And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour.” Jesus speaks his distress openly, and the natural cry of a man facing a terrible death comes to his lips. It looks ahead to his prayer in Gethsemane, “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42), and to what Hebrews says of his prayers with strong crying and tears, and of how he learned obedience by the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:7–9).

“But for this cause came I unto this hour.” “For this cause” is dia touto, where diá with this case means “because of” or “for the sake of”. This hour is the reason he came. He came down from heaven to do the will of the one who sent him (John 6:38), and the trouble in his soul gives way at once to that settled purpose. This is the obedience Paul calls being “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

Jesus’ answer to his own question is a prayer: “Father, glorify thy name.” Patḗr is the plain word for father, and on Jesus’ lips it speaks of his unique relationship with God. He asks the Father to show his glory, his holiness, power, love and saving purpose, through what is about to happen. His own comfort drops out of view, and the Father’s honour is all he asks for.

“Then came there a voice from heaven.” Phōnḗ is a sound or a voice, and so an address. Ouranós is the sky and heaven, God’s dwelling. The Father speaks aloud: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” He had already glorified his name through Jesus’ life, his teaching and his signs, all of which pointed to the Father. He would glorify it again through the cross, where his love (John 3:16) and his justice meet, through the resurrection, by which Jesus was declared the Son of God with power (Romans 1:4), and through the ascension to his right hand (Acts 2:33). Jesus prays the same way again in John 17:1.

This is one of three times the Gospels record the Father’s voice from heaven during Jesus’ ministry. At his baptism it said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), and at the transfiguration it added, “hear ye him” (Matthew 17:5). Jewish teachers spoke of a bat kol, “daughter of a voice”, a voice from heaven by which God made his will known after the prophets had fallen silent. The crowd here had something far greater, the Father himself speaking about his Son.

“Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” “Now” is nŷn, the present moment, and Jesus says it twice. The cross is just days away, and he speaks of it as already arriving.

Judgment is krísis, a decision, a verdict, justice or condemnation. World is kósmos, whose first sense is an orderly arrangement or adornment, and which came to mean the world and the people in it. In John the word often means humanity organized against God. At the cross the world’s sin and rebellion are laid bare as it puts the Son of God to death, and God passes his verdict on it. The same cross is where God’s righteousness is shown and salvation is offered to all who believe, so the judgment brings condemnation to the world’s rebellion and redemption to those who come to Christ.

“The prince of this world” is Satan. Árchōn means a ruler, chief or magistrate, one first in rank or power. Jesus uses this title three times in John, here, in “the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30), and in “the prince of this world is judged” (John 16:11). It describes the real but borrowed power Satan holds over a world alienated from God. The people hoped for a Messiah who would overthrow Rome, and Jesus names the true enemy and the true battle.

“Cast out” is ekbállō with éxō, “out”. Ekbállō means to throw out or drive out, its prefix giving the direction “out”. The force of the saying comes from what Jesus says will happen by his death. On the cross he spoiled principalities and powers and triumphed over them (Colossians 2:14–15). Through death he destroyed the one who had the power of death and freed those held by the fear of it (Hebrews 2:14–15). “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Satan is still at work in the world, yet his hold over those who belong to Christ is broken, for God has delivered them from the power of darkness into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13). Revelation looks ahead to his being bound (Revelation 20:1–3) and to his final end.

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Hypsóō means to raise high, to lift up or to exalt. Jesus used the same verb with Nicodemus, “as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up” (John 3:14–15), and with the crowd at the temple (John 8:28). It carries two meanings at once. He will be raised up on a cross, and that same lifting up is his exaltation. Gē is the earth, the land, the ground, the earth’s surface under the heavens, and “from the earth” pictures him raised above it on the cross.

The people knew crucifixion as Rome’s public and shameful way of putting men to death, and the law said that one hanged on a tree was accursed of God (Deuteronomy 21:22–23). Jesus turns that place of shame into his throne.

“Will draw” is helkýō, to drag or draw, a strong and effective pull. It is God’s own work, rooted in the Father’s drawing, for “no man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him” (John 6:44). It works by the love and truth shown at the cross, through the Spirit, without force. After Jesus was exalted he poured out the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:33), and thousands were drawn to him that day. “All” is pâs, all, every, the whole.

The crowd understood that Jesus was speaking of death, and it troubled them. “We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man?”

“The law” is nómos, law in general and above all the law of Moses, used here for the Scriptures as a whole. “Abideth” is ménō, to stay, remain, continue. They had good reason to expect an abiding Christ. The Scriptures speak of a priest for ever (Psalm 110:4), of a kingdom and government with no end (Isaiah 9:7), and of the Son of man receiving an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:13–14). “Must” is deî, it is necessary. Jesus had said that the Son of man must be lifted up, and they could not fit a necessary death to a Christ who lives for ever. “Son of man” joins huiós, a son, and ánthrōpos, a human being, and their last question shows that they knew the title but could not see how it belonged to a man who would die.

The same Scriptures also spoke of the servant of the LORD in Isaiah 53, despised and rejected, wounded and bruised for the sins of others (Isaiah 53:3–5). After the resurrection Jesus opened those Scriptures to his disciples and showed them that both strands meet in him (Luke 24:25–27). The Christ who was lifted up on the cross does abide for ever. He “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25), and of him God says, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever” (Hebrews 1:8). His death was the way his everlasting reign was won.

Jesus answers their question about who he is by calling them to come to the light.

“Yet a little while is the light with you.” “A little while” is éti mikrós chrónos, “yet a little time”. Phōs is light, from a word meaning to shine or to make manifest, and here the light is Jesus himself. He has already said, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12, John 9:5), and John’s prologue calls him the true light that gives light to every man (John 1:4–9). In Israel’s Scriptures light stood for God’s presence, truth and guidance, and his word is a lamp to the feet (Psalm 119:105). Isaiah promised that the people who walked in darkness would see a great light (Isaiah 9:2). That light was standing in front of them, and in a few days he would be crucified.

“Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.” Peripatéō means to walk and, figuratively, to live and behave, so walking in the light means living by the truth Jesus gives. Darkness is skotía, and “come upon” is katalambánō, to seize or overtake. The picture is a traveller who delays until night falls on the road. “For he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.” “Knoweth” is eídō, the verb the Greeks used when they asked to see Jesus, and the one who refuses the light ends up unable to see his own way. Such a person is lost, without direction, and in the end separated from the God who is light. John later writes that God is light, and that walking in the light means fellowship with him and cleansing by the blood of Jesus (1 John 1:5–7), and Paul tells those who were once darkness to walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8–14).

“While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” To believe, pisteúō, is to credit something as true and to trust and rely on a person. Here it is trust in Jesus himself. The purpose is that they may be “children of light”, literally “sons of light”, a Hebrew way of speaking in which the “children of” something are those who belong to it and bear its character. Believers belong to the light and are marked by it, in contrast with the “children of disobedience” (Ephesians 5:6). Paul writes, “now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8), and he says that God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give the knowledge of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6). Through his promises we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4).

The urgency was real for that crowd, and the light has kept shining. After his death and resurrection Jesus sent the Spirit of truth to guide his people into all truth (John 16:13), and the gospel carries his light to every nation. In him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3).

“These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.” Krýptō means to hide, conceal or keep secret. With these words Jesus’ public appeals in John come to an end. John goes straight on to explain the unbelief of many who had seen his signs, from the words of Isaiah (John 12:37–41). The other Gospels record his lament over Jerusalem, which would not come to him (Matthew 23:37–39). From here John turns to Jesus’ private teaching of his disciples and to the cross itself.

The Greeks said, “Sir, we would see Jesus,” and the whole passage is Jesus’ answer. He shows himself as the grain of wheat that dies and bears much fruit, the Son of man glorified on a cross, the one lifted up to draw all men to himself. Every believer from among the nations is part of that harvest, drawn by the Father to the crucified and risen Son.

We also see who God is here. The Father answers his Son aloud, and he speaks for the sake of the people standing by. The Son is troubled in his soul and still says, “Father, glorify thy name,” so we have a Saviour who knows fear from the inside and chose obedience for us. The devil’s claim is broken at the cross, and the Father promises to honour everyone who serves his Son and follows him. Jesus’ words still stand for anyone who hears them: “While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.”