John 12:27-28

The manner of Christ's glorification: V. 27. Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour. V. 28. Father, glorify Thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

The thought of the coming ordeal, in a way, filled the soul of Christ with dread, He was deeply moved and agitated at the prospect. He felt something of the dread and fear of death. For Jesus was true man, whose flesh and blood shrank from the idea of death.

Death is a judgment of God upon sins and sinners. To die in the stead of all men, as their substitute, and thus as the greatest sinner of all times, was a thought which filled the soul of Jesus with dread. He hardly knows what to say in this emergency.

As though seeking counsel from His disciples, He asks: Shall I say, Father, deliver Me out of this hour? Should He plead to be saved the ordeal which His human nature dreaded?

Every Christian may say a similar prayer when the hour of tribulation comes upon him; only he must never set his own will above the will of his heavenly Father.

But even the thought of becoming unfaithful to His Father's trust Jesus repudiates, since it is for this reason that He came into this hour. It is the goal and culmination of His life's work. He cannot disappoint His Father at this time. Without His death His life would be fruitless. And so He corrects His prayer by asking that the work for which He came into the world continue: Father, glorify Thy name.

Jesus had fully regained His assurance, the spiritual balance necessary for the carrying out of the plan for the salvation of men. His death would redound to the glory of the Father, as would the whole work of salvation. And so Christ was ready, even at the cost of the greatest agony.

And no sooner had He finished His prayer than a voice from heaven came in answer that God both had glorified, and would again glorify, His name. His name had been glorified in countless instances, but especially at the incarnation of the Son, and it would be glorified in a still more wonderful manner by the great Passion. So the answer of the Father was both an assurance and a promise.