Synoptic Gospels John 12:38-50

We have been studying through the Synoptic Gospels, but we've come to basically the place where you cram a bunch of John into the chronology, and so we've been working through Chapter.

12.

We've got a few more chapters to go before we get back into the Synoptics, which is really starting to make me wonder if the entirety of my 40s will have been spent in the Synoptic Gospels in Sunday school.

Anyway, last week we had hopefully, and with some understanding, presented to you the important material found in John 1241. Hopefully you will recall how you might use this text in the future, especially in speaking to Jehovah's Witnesses and others in regards to the Deity of Christ and the fact that the quotation from Isaiah 6 that is found in verse 40 is the background for verse 41, these things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him.

I normally don't do this, but if you were here last week and all of a sudden everyone is going to volunteer that they were not, no, I wasn't here last week, there was no one here last week actually. What extra little bit of information did we talk about at the end that helps to confirm that in verse 41 when John says these things Isaiah said because he saw his glory and he spoke of him, what little extra information did we go over that further strengthens the identification of Isaiah 6 as the context and that in fact John is specifically talking about Isaiah having seen Jesus's glory.

Anyone remember?

Yes, sir.

It has something to do with the Greek translation. Yes, yes it does.

Yes, it does.

You found that humorous?

Good, good.

That's true, but that has nothing to do with this at all. What does the Greek translation of the Old Testament say? Well, the Greek New Testament says his too. He saw his glory. The only thing I mentioned about the NIV using Codex Ricotonius as my most primitive example thereof is the fact that the NIV inserts the name Jesus.

That's a translational thing. That's because the NIV, if the antecedent of the pronoun was certain number of words back, they will repeat the actual noun. So that's because they assume that we only read it at the third grade level or something like that.

I'm not sure what the exact reasoning is. But anyway, but that's not that doesn't have anything to do with the Greek Septuagint. Yes, ma 'am. That's the point. In the Greek Septuagint, instead of it saying the train of his robe fills the temple, which is what the Hebrew Masoretic text says, the Hebrew text being the primary text from which we translate the Old Testament, the Masoretic text, the Masoretes were Jewish scribes and scholars who flourished about 900 years after Jesus.

And so the Hebrew text says the train of his robe was filling the temple. But the Greek Septuagint, which is the text that John's readers would have had before them as well, says that his glory filled the temple.

So what was it that Isaiah saw specifically in the Greek Septuagint is that he saw his glory, which is exactly what John then says in John 12, 41, these things Isaiah said, because he saw his glory and he spoke of him.

So there is a textual variant there, and it actually helps us to confirm that this is what John is intending to communicate to us. As I said many times, I think the vast majority of believers just go reading past verse 41 and never stop to ask the question as to how this is.

And I have mentioned a number of times in the past that when speaking with Jehovah's Witnesses, this is one of two texts that I present to them. And there's a certain way you can present it to them that will cause them, I think, to hear it with more clarity than otherwise.

You don't just want to say, yeah, well, in John 12, 41, it says X, Y and Z. There's a way to sort of walk the witness through these things so they can see it for themselves and allow their own Bible, in fact, the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, to express this to them.

And if you're wondering what the other text is, it's Hebrews chapter 1. If you go back to the sermons on that, which I think were a couple of years ago already now, but in Hebrews chapter 1, verses 10 through 12, is a citation of Psalm 102, 25 to 27, also identifying Jesus as Yahweh, as Jehovah.

So those are the two key texts that I use, and they proved to be rather effective. So with that, we also had already talked in another context last week about verses 42 and 43. And nevertheless, many even of the rulers believed in him, but because of the Pharisees, they were not confessing him for fear that they'd be put out of the synagogue, for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.

We talked a little bit about the tense of the verb, believed in him, that in the Gospel of John, that aorist is normally indicative of a one-time false faith. It is not the present tense that is used in so many of the great passages in John 6 and John 8 and John 10 of those who are believing in Jesus.

And of course, the description of these individuals, for they love the approval of men rather than the approval of God. I mentioned that there are those who look to this and say, see, there is no repentance involved in salvation.

These people had believed, they had eternal life, even though they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God. Again, I find this to be an amazing perspective that people will present, but it is unfortunately out there.

The One Believing in Christ Believes in the Father

So we pick up from there, basically the last public, well, really, it's an outcry. The Greek term, ekrazin, is to call out. I mean, it's not Jesus preached or Jesus said or Jesus cried out. And he says, the one believing, and I should have mentioned this.

Notice, I had just said in the preceding verses, those who had believed in him, but loved the approval of men rather than God, that's the heiress. Immediately when Jesus uses the word, actually, the very first phrase he says in the original language is hapistuon, the one believing, ongoing, participial action, the one present participle, the one believing in me is not believing in me, but in the one who sent me.

So that's an interesting statement. The one believing me really isn't believing in me. Well, yes, you are believing in him, but what's the point? There can be no separation of faith in the son from faith in the father and vice versa.

In other words, there are going to be many people, there are many people, even to this day, many people I debate rather regularly, who deny the deity of Christ, deny that he's the proper object of the same level and kind of faith and worship that the father is worthy of.

And yet they want to claim to be Christians. And yet one of the themes of John, both in the gospel and then explicitly stated in his first epistle, is that you cannot have the father without the son and vice versa.

If you want to just try to have the father and separate the son out, it doesn't work. Since God has revealed himself definitively and fully in Jesus Christ, after Christ, to try to undo that revelation is to call God a liar.

Now, why is this relevant to us today? Well, because there's a lot of people who would say to us that, well, you've got your great monotheistic religions and you're all worshipping the same God. And it doesn't matter if the Jews know about the claims of Jesus, the Messiah, but they're still worshipping the same God on a different level or plane than we are.

I don't see how you can come up with that from the New Testament. I don't see how you can do it. In essence, when the world tells us you have to allow for true and proper worship of God outside of Christ, the saying is Christ is not who he claimed to be.

If Christ was who he claimed to be, if God has revealed himself definitively, personally in Jesus, then to deny that revelation is to impugn God and to say Jesus Christ truly was not who he claimed to be.

It can't be he was that, but he wasn't that. The only way you can make that work is if you embrace postmodern thinking where there is no objective truth and two things which are clearly contradictory to one another can be true at the same time because there isn't anything true in religion anyways.

That's the only way you can really come up with this. And yet that is the majority view of our culture is that, well, you know, you can believe in.

Jesus. That's OK.

But this person over here doesn't have to do that. Well, wait a minute. If Jesus is who he said he was, if he says, I am the way, the truth and life, no man comes to the father but by me. If if Jesus cries out and says, he who believes in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me, we are there is such a close union.

Notice still a distinction, Jesus isn't claiming to be the father. But to know the father, one must know the son, to know the son, one must know the father. There is there is such an intimate relationship between the two.

If if that's the case, then you're you're basically telling me that I need to reject what my own Lord taught to be politically correct. And that's exactly the case. It's exactly what every one of us is up against in so many different ways.

Every single day is the world saying to you, compromise the authority of Christ, accept the world's authority in his place. And we could expand on this forever. I mean, in every aspect of our lives today, that's what we're being told.

Compromise the authority of Christ. And the solution to that is not for us to go out of the world and go build a commune someplace and put up walls and and just just hide in there until we disappear or something.

The solution to that is to always be aware of the nature of the attack being made by the world. You know, just being aware of how the world is putting pressure upon you to conform yourself to its ways of thinking.

If we are not actively involved in that each and every day, we will absolutely be defenseless. In in the attacks made upon our faith, so notice Jesus cries out, the one believing, not the one who has a faith, but the one believing in me does not believe in me, but in him who sent me, he who sees me, sees the one who sent me.

Now, I love the balance here. Our Oneness Pentecostal friends lose the balance here. And the idea of saying he who sees me sees the one who sent me for them should be he who sees me sees me. There's no reason to make the distinction because Oneness Pentecostals believe Jesus is the father.

He's actually two persons, the father and the son. And but there's only you know, they're Unitarians, so there's there's no Trinity, etc., etc. The son is just the human nature and the deity indwells him.

But there's a distinction. Jesus doesn't say, I am the father or I am the one who sent me. At the same time, there is such a perfection of revelation on the part of the son of the father that the one who sees me sees the one who sent me.

And again, see, on the one side, it takes care of the imbalance of modalism. On the other side, it takes care of the imbalance of Arianism, those who deny the deity of Christ. What mere creature could say, when you see me, you've seen the father?

Now, this is a theme that could come up in John chapter 14 again. But the distinctions have to be recognized in what is what is found here. No mere creature. You know, the most godly man could say, when you look at me, you see what God's spirit has done in conforming me to to his image.

And anything you see in me that is good is reflective of God. But he could never go so far as to say, if you've seen me, you've seen God. Because I, as a creature, cannot even begin to approximate representation of the fullness of God.

It's just not possible. I'm a finite creature. I haven't lived, I haven't existed eternally. And so, for Jesus, it's easy for us to hear these words. And, you know, the old saying is, you've already read the end of the book.

We, you know, we've got a context. But you've just got to understand how amazing these words were when they were first said. And as I've said so often, that for most of you, it's become something that just causes you to go to sleep when you hear me say it.

But so often we miss the strongest evidences for the deity of Christ in Scripture because we're stuck on just a couple of verses here, there and everywhere where the word God's used. And yet all through the New Testament, you have these statements on Jesus' part.

Well, through the Gospels, these statements on Jesus' part, that could never be said of a mere creature.

It's just not possible.

Absolutely impossible. So he who sees me sees the one who sent me. I have come as light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness. As light, I have come into the world.

And we think of, you know, this takes us back to the prologue where, you know, he lightens every man by coming into the world. And there has been this incredible revelation of who the Father is. We have in the incarnation a kind of revelation of the personal nature of the Father that had never been given before.

In all of the Old Testament, with all of its great revelation of God's loving character, his chesed, his loving kindness, his covenant faithfulness. Still, nothing that can approximate what we have in the incarnation in Jesus.

And think of the light that has come into the world through the ministry of Christ, through the teachings of Christ, and of course, primarily and especially through the work of Christ on the cross of Calvary.

But notice, even here, just as we saw years ago, back in John chapter three, notice light comes into the world and see this, all of our, our liberal friends like to look at that and go, see, and that light can be in Buddhism and Hinduism, you know, just last year, I think it was early last year, if I recall correctly, there was a guy, he used to teach at a reformatory, a reformed seminar, was a, considered a reformed philosopher, and he became a Hindu.

Now, of course, when you become a Hindu, you know, from his perspective, he wasn't abandoning Jesus, he was just seeing Jesus in a new light, which of course is not the light that Jesus revealed himself in, but anyway.

But, you know, the idea being, well, there's light in Hinduism, and there's light in Buddhism, and there's light in this, and they all want to see that I have come as light in the world. But then there's this little hinah clause, why has he come as light into the world?

In order that, pass, hop, eschew, on the very same phrase that happens to be found in John 3, 16, in order that everyone believing in me might abide, remain, dwell, see what it says, so that they, that individual has something that the world does not have.

They have light, so they will not abide or dwell, remain in darkness. So what does that tell you about the world? Where is the world? The world is in darkness. But the one believing in him doesn't abide in darkness.

Doesn't walk in darkness. Just as in John 3, it's the one believing in him has eternal life, shall not come into judgment. Here's the difference between light and darkness. So, you can talk about light coming into all the world, but if you turn it into some pantheistic concept, like the light coming up, the sun coming up in the morning, and everybody gets to see that, it's all wonderful for all of us, that's not his point.

He's come as light into the world, but does that mean that the world itself becomes bright, whether it's Buddhism or Hinduism or anything else?

No.

It's the one believing in him should not remain or abide in the darkness, which means that they will abide in the light. Isn't that what 1 John then expands out for us? The one who walks in the light as he is in the light, etc., etc.

So, there is a reason why he has come as light into the world, but that reason is directly connected so that everyone believing in him would not abide or remain in darkness. Very, very important. If anyone hears my sayings or my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has one who judges him. The word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. And so, Jesus says, my primary purpose for coming was not to be judge of the world.

Now, he will be eventually, but that's not why he came. He will be because of who he is. He can be the perfect and just judge because he's the God-man. He has fulfilled the law perfectly. So, you have, you know, Jesus does say, all judgment has been given unto me.

But that's not the purpose of his having... The incarnation was not so that God could judge justly. You have to differentiate between the intention of an action and results of that action. The intention of the incarnation, as he says, is to save the world.

Christ came to be a savior. I did not come in order that I might judge the world, but in order that I might save the world. So, it wasn't just the intention of the incarnation is not judgment. But the result of rejecting the incarnation, salvific work of Christ, is judgment.

So, you have to differentiate between the two. If anyone hears my sayings and does not keep them, he will have one. He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has one who judges him. And what he's doing is he's referring to the Father.

The Father will judge that one. Why? Because, well, remember back in John chapter 5, who gives testimony to Jesus' words? Who gives testimony as to who Jesus is and the truthfulness of his words through the miracles and actions of the Father?

And once again, that close unity that exists between the Father and the Son, you reject Jesus and you are rejecting the Father's testimony to him as well. You can't, again, separate them out and say, well, you know, I'm going to continue worshipping God, the Father, but I'm going to reject Jesus.

It does not work that way. The word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. Once again, could any mere prophet say, my word? The prophets always pointed away from themselves and said, this is what Yahweh said.

Or, the word of Yahweh came to me. And they're just repeating, they consistently emphasize, it's not me, this is not my word. But Jesus says, the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day. His sayings, what he has revealed about the Father, will be the standard that is utilized at the last day.

For I did not speak on my own initiative, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that his commandment is eternal life. Therefore, the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me.

There is absolutely, again, if you've forgotten, it wasn't that long ago, when did we do John, we did something in John 5 in one of the sermons, within the past couple of months, I seem to recall. I think we did, of course, I might have been someplace else when I preached that sermon, who knows.

But that's the problem of traveling and things like that. But remember John chapter 5, remember the son says, I can do nothing off from myself, out of myself, by myself, separate from the Father, I do nothing.

The idea of two competing deities refuted. And so, what Jesus speaks is the standard, because what Jesus speaks perfectly and is in complete harmony with the Father's revelation. He who has seen me, has seen the Father.

You're not believing in me, you're believing in the one who sent me. My words will be the standard, but my words come from the Father. Again, clear distinction between the Father and the Son, yet at the same time, such close unity, that this could not be one divine person and some sub-divine person.

And so you have the two heirs. Over here, all the subordinationists, all the Aryans, Jehovah's Witnesses, even Mormons who have Jesus as a separate god from the Father, begotten by God and God as other gods before him and all the rest of that stuff.

And then over here you have modalism, denial of the Trinity, Jesus the Son who is a created being and the Father indwells him. And where is the word? Smacked out in the middle, balancing out these two extremes which are tremendous errors.

So, very, very important stuff. It's funny, someone sent me a link to one of my own videos that I had done. It was last fall.

When did we go to Australia again? October?

October last year, I recorded all these videos down in the suburbs of Sydney. And they put them out and one of them was a 21-minute program or something like that on Mormonism. And so there was all this stuff, I guess ABC and NBC and stuff did something on Mormonism this week.

I didn't see it. And so someone actually sent me the link. I hadn't seen the program. So I posted it on my blog and I was amazed how many people were going,.

I didn't know they believed that. I didn't know they believed that.

And I'm like, wow. I guess it's been a while since I've spoken much on the subject of Mormonism. But they are back in the news for some odd, strange reason which I can't even begin to comprehend as to what it might be.

But yes, they are back. At least I don't see all the I am Mormon. I am a Mormon street signs. I think they finally ran out of money for that one. But they've definitely been all over the place of late.

No two ways about it.

Yes, sir. Yeah.

May 27th, was that a sermon or something? Yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, May 27th. That seems like it was just a few months ago, which it was. It was getting hot then. And just after a few months of heat, it just all sort of melts together in more than one way.

The Transition to John 13 and the Passion Chronology

All right, we press on into John chapter 13. And notice it says, Now, before the feast of the Passover, Jesus, knowing that his hour had come, that he would depart out of this world of the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

Or literally, eis telos, completely. It could either be he loved them to the end or he loved them completely. There are all sorts of questions out there. And I think we've covered this before. I'm almost certain that I have a vague recollection of this room and a discussion of this.

But again, it's sometimes hard to remember. But it is very, very, very, very, very common for people to say that one of the reasons you should not accept the Gospel of John as having any particular historical veracity.

One of the reasons you should look at John as just sort of a spiritual allegory is because he plays so fast and loose with the facts that he's obviously not even intending us to take him seriously. In the sense that, for example, he changes the day of the crucifixion.

And we had a guy came into our chat channel this week. And he was like, well, you know, it's really obvious that the church has been wrong about many, many things. I love the wonderfully nebulous, fuzzy, foggy thing called the church.

Who exactly are you referring to there? But anyway, and that one of the things that they've gotten wrong by tradition, and certainly we all have to test our traditions, is the timing, the date, day, the crucifixion of Jesus.

And why might they say that? Well, it's pretty simple. When you hear... Well, let me just ask our Greek-speaking brother. What is the word for Friday?

Yes.

And what does that mean? Not sure. Never expected that one. Had never thought about that. I know what the meaning is, and you're going to learn something today. You're going to be greatly enriched, even in your own tongue.

The word for, in Greek, in ancient Greek, is the equivalent of the preparation day. It came from the New Testament. And it was the day of preparation for what?

The Sabbath.

What's the Sabbath?

Saturday.

So, what's the preparation day? What's the day you prepared your Sabbath dishes and everything else was?

Friday.

So, it's interesting.

The reason that people struggle a little bit with this date of the day of the crucifixion is because what did Jesus say would be the sign, the only sign, given to this generation? Uh-oh, he stopped talking.

Exactly.

And what about Jonah?

Keep going.

Three days and three nights in the belly of the fish, right? And so, people go, well, if it was Friday, then you've got the end of the day Friday, Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night, Sunday morning, he's gone.

I don't get three days and three nights out of that. And that's why they want to push it back to Thursday. So, two things to keep in mind. Three things to keep in mind and you will be able to see through all of the falderal that people throw around about this issue.

And I mean people as highly placed as Bart Ehrman and in many commentaries and stuff like that. Three things to keep in mind. I hope I can remember what all three of them are. The first one is that the Greek term for Friday means preparation.

Preparation day comes from Judaism, which is why a lot of even Greek-speaking folks, Judaism, where did that come from? That's where it came from. It means preparation day. Secondly, in Jewish reckoning, any portion of a day is a day.

So, when Jesus was saying three days and three nights, he was not saying it's going to be exactly 72. It can't be. If it's 71 hours, 59 minutes, and 57 seconds, I'm a false prophet. That's not what Jesus had in mind, obviously, in the utilization of that terminology at all.

And there are numerous examples of this kind of counting in the Old Testament and in extra-biblical writings. So, any portion of a day is a full day in Jewish reckoning. So, you've got whenever you see the word Friday in the Gospel accounts, keep in mind that's not just that.

For example, we will actually encounter that sometimes they'll actually render it as the preparation day. Well, that's actually the very word for Friday. Keep that in mind, and you'll be able to see what day is which.

Secondly, the counting of the three days. And I knew that by the time I got to the third one. Oh, the third one. The third one is the Feast of the Passover. The Feast of the Passover. We are so accustomed.

It's sort of sad, to be honest with you. We are so accustomed to single-day holidays in the West. Here's an example of where we import, even into our reading of the Bible, our sort of social situation.

I mean, most of you know Christmas is not a single day. It is for us. It is for our employers. It is for Target and Walmart and Sears and everybody else. It's one day. You might throw Christmas Eve in there.

But historically, we can all sing. Well, some of us couldn't, but most of us can sing the 12 days of Christmas and then sit around wondering why we're singing the 12 days of Christmas, because it's not 12 days long.

Well, it's supposed to be. And in some countries, it still is. In Eastern Orthodox areas, Advent is actually January 6th. And if you count between the two, that's where the 12 days come from. And so the thing to keep in mind here is the Feast of the Passover was not a one-day celebration.

It started on one day. That might be the biggest day, but it was a week-long celebration. And as long as you keep that in mind, then the information that we will encounter in especially this chapter will demonstrate that what theologians like to do or commentators like to do is they like to say that what John did is he changed the day of the crucifixion so that it would correspond to when the Passover lamb was being sacrificed.

And so he's making this beautiful theological statement. And so he didn't mind changing the facts just to make a theological statement, because, look, Jesus never really said anything that's actually recorded in the Gospel of John.

I think, unfortunately, in minimally 50 of the Bible colleges and seminaries, even in the United States, certainly if you throw Europe in, the number's going to go up, even though there aren't many of those schools left.

In Western-speaking, quote-unquote, Christendom, a majority would hold the view that Jesus never said any of the words that are found in the Gospel of John, or if he said almost any of them, they would be a very small number.

Just some of the places where the synoptic Gospels and John happen to bounce into each other, bump into each other, and you have a similar statement. Other than that, they would say this is all religious fiction.

So whenever you hear someone saying, well, the majority of New Testament scholarship, just remember the majority of New Testament scholarship doesn't believe that this book is a divine revelation. So it's sort of like, well, duh.

Of course the majority of New Testament scholarship, you're assuming something here that you shouldn't be assuming. Keep that in mind. And this issue of the dating of the crucifixion, what day, etc., etc., flows together with that, and we will see that, and we'll have to struggle with it a little bit more as we get back to the synoptic study.

Though there isn't any conflict between Matthew, Mark, and Luke on the issue. It's only they're saying John makes this strange change, which in reality he does not. So with that, I don't think that in 60 seconds I can make much of a meaningful comment on verse 1.

So we'll just wrap up at that point, and we'll continue in our study, John chapter 13, next time around. Okay. Yes, sir, really quickly. Depends on whether you're using Jewish or Roman timing. That's the other thing, is that we will notice when we compare Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they will be six hours off from one another in their timing.

Because Matthew, Mark, some of them are using the Jewish reckoning, and some are using the Roman reckoning. Yes, so there is a difference there because of the fact that there wasn't any atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado.

You tune in on your shortwave or something like that. No one was whipping their cell phones out going, no, it's not, it's 314. It didn't work that way, the way it does now. All right, let's close the Word of God.

Our gracious Heavenly Father, once again, we thank you for this opportunity of possession of your Word, reading of your Word, seeking to understand your Word. We are very blessed to each have our own copy of the Bible and the freedom to gather around it and speak openly at this time.

We ask that you would be with us now as we go into worship. May you be honored and glorified in all that takes place. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.