In our so called scientific view of the world, very rarely do we ever think anything is an act of God. We have all kinds of scientific explanations for everything. And when we don't have scientific explanations that allow us to sheet home blame, we fall back on things like fate and chance. The universe is blind and remorseless, and life is nasty, brutish and short. This is the result of practical atheism, or so called 'scientific naturalism', that discounts God as a cause at the very being.
But this has two deleterious and unfortunate effects for us.
First, science effectively becomes an episode of 'Scooby Doo', writ large over all of life. You know the cartoon, Scooby Doo? The epistemology of Scooby Doo is the essence of modernism. I'm not thinking about the talking dog now, but about the plot line of every Scooby Doo cartoon I have ever seen. There is no mystery that Wilma will not solve by applying reason and rationalism. There is no mystery, no supernatural, no bogey man. It is all done with mirrors and sleights of hand, by con-man of base motives. David Hume would be very proud of his epistemic offspring, here.
Second, the danger is that we can succumb to the theology of the ‘God-of-the-Gaps’. We become so enamoured with the scientific explanations for our reality that we become effective deists, not theists. Deism is the idea that God set up the universe with his relentless and immutable ‘laws of nature’, which he sometimes breaks, but generally he has set off and does not interfere with. But this is not the Biblical position. The Biblical position is that God upholds the world moment by moment, and the so-called ‘laws of nature’ are really just a way of describing the normal way the God of order does things. But God is not bound by the way he did it last time. So Theism says that God’s continual upholding of the world is just as much a divine act as God creating the world or raising the dead. The birth of a baby is as miraculous as a natural act as the vision of an angel would be miraculous as a supernatural act.
Atheistic naturalism does indeed taint us against the evidences we do see, the unusual way God does things, by numbing us with the usual way God acts.
We have come to the end of the ‘so-called’ book of signs of John’s Gospel. John has given a detailed account of seven ‘signs’ that Jesus has done. Now, there were many other signs that Jesus did, that are not recorded here. John himself tells us that (John 2o:30). And there are still others that Jesus will do, that John won’t record. That’s OK. We have Matthew, Mark, and Luke to tell us about some of them. But these signs, the signs that John has recorded and will record, are enough for us to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the King of Israel, the eternal Word, God the only-begotten Son, who was with God and was God.
Jesus has also spoken, and not simply performed miraculous signs. Some people have not required signs, but only Jesus’ word to believe in him. Jesus saw Nathaniel under the fig tree, and told Nathaniel, and that was enough for him to believe that Jesus was the king of Israel (John 1:47-50). Jesus told the Samaritan women everything she ever did, and the report of that, and then the Samaritans themselves hearing, was enough for them, and they believed that Jesus was the saviour of the world (John 4:16-19, 28-29, 39, 41). As far as the temple attendants were concerned, no one had ever spoken like him (John 7:46). And while these words of Jesus do engender faith, they do not seem to have been called signs by John. They are words. And Jesus would have us believe in him because of his words. For Jesus, unbelief in his words is blameworthy, and belief because of signs is better than nothing, but is still insufficient (John 10:37-38, cf. 4:48). For Jesus spoke only what he heard from his Father. True and proper faith is in Jesus’ words, and not in signs, though Jesus will receive the testimony of signs, so that his hearers might believe and have eternal life.
But now Jesus’ time has come. It is time for him to be glorified.
John does not have an account of Jesus’ trial and torment in the garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:36-46; Mark 14:32-42; Luke 22:40-46), but in verse 27, John gives us a look into Jesus’ internal emotional turmoil at another point in that final week before his death. Jesus too experienced that revulsion and shrinking from death that is the normal human experience. His soul was troubled. Jesus is truly human, and so revulsion at death is natural and understandable enough. But Jesus is also the Word who was with God who became the lamb of God, and none of us can really understand the horror for him to become sin for us.
But as Jesus wrestles with himself and his troubled soul, he faces the hour for which he has come, and prays, verse 28, “Father, glorify your name.” In the midst of great emotional distress and turmoil, Jesus’ over-riding mission is to glorify God’s name. And perhaps even more important than our salvation, the glory of God’s name is what is driving Jesus to the cross.
Three times in the Gospel accounts we hear a voice from heaven. First at Jesus’ baptism (Matt 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22), the voice says, “This is my beloved Son”. Second, at the transfiguration God again says something similar (Matt 17:5; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:35; 2 Pet 1:17). And third, here in John’s Gospel, a voice came from heaven answers Jesus’ prayer about God’s name, and says, “I have also glorified it, and I will again glorify it” (v. 28).
This voice from heaven was not technically one of John’s ‘signs’. But even if it was a sign for John, it was not correctly understood by its hearers. Some in the crowd thought it was thunder, while others thought it was an angel’s voice (v. 29). Nevertheless, even though none of the crowd seems to have understood it, Jesus says that the voice was not for him but for the crowd and the disciples (v. 30). Perhaps the noise and the timing should have been enough for the hearers to believe it an affirmation of Jesus' identity and words.
Often people want God to speak to them in a voice from heaven. Perhaps some might be tempted to think that if God was to speak to them directly in a voice from heaven, they would believe in him. But that’s not the way it turned out when God actually did speak from heaven. When God spoke from heaven, there were explanations that were acceptable in that community that explained the event away—it was ‘thunder’, or ‘an angel’, but not God speaking.
It is the same today. For example, noted athiest Richard Dawkins was asked, “If the Almighty God appears suddenly on the cloud or in the air or [in] part of the universe, what is your reaction? Are you going to believe, or are you going to go against him?” And Dawkins responded:
Yeah, that’s the thing I’ve worried about a lot … The reason I worry about it is that obviously as a scientist, I’m committed to the view that I would change my mind if evidence came along, and so it’s a very important question: what would that evidence look like? And I’ve talked about it with my colleagues a great deal. I used to think: yes, if there was a great, deep, Paul Robeson voice coming out of the clouds saying, “I exist,” then yes, obviously, I would believe it. But have you ever seen a really, really good conjuring trick? There’s been things that I’ve seen done that seem to me to be, “God, that’s got to be a miracle,” and yet you know it’s not. And so there is a real problem there, that we are easily fooled. [As reported at http://www.ibosj.ca/2013/02/thinking-through-evidence-with-richard.html]
For some people, it is easier to believe that there is a 'non-God' reason for something unusual or unexplained. Dawkins says that he would go with the 'non-God' reason even if he heard the voice from heaven. The crowd went with the 'non-God' reason when they actually heard the voice from heaven. We probably would have accepted the non-God explanation, too, if we were in their shoes.
Consequently, we would be better off just trusting Jesus’ words as we have them in the Bible. They are, after all, as much from God as any audible voice from heaven would be.
Everyone, it seems, has trouble understanding and believing God’s word. No one in the crowd can comprehend the voice from heaven, even though it was given for the crowd. And a few verses later, unfortunately the vast majority of Jesus’ own people have unwittingly fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy about not hearing and not understanding. The words from heaven are not the only words from God that people can’t understand.
Jesus’ death is going to be as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. His death will be for all the scattered children of God, to make them one. And now, standing on the edge of his death, his time having come, Jesus speaks of the twin effects of his death. Verses 31 to 33:
12:31Now is the judgement of this world, now the ruler of this world will be thrown out. 12:32And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. 12:33Now he said this signifying the kind of death he was going to die.
Jesus is speaking proleptically. He is speaking as if the purpose of his coming has now been achieved, while he stands looking at what lies ahead for him to achieve it. And so, by this mode of speaking, before he dies and rises again, he takes us to after the end of John’s Gospel, after his glorification is complete.
The effect of the death of Jesus is both repulsive and attractive. Like a magnet, it repels some and draws others to him. It is centripetal to some, but centrifugal to others.
Jesus has already shown that he draws all sorts of people to himself—ordinary Galilean fishermen, Israel’s teacher from the Pharisees, Samaritans, women lost in sexual sin. Most recently, we have seen that he has drawn the Greeks to himself—gentiles have asked to see Jesus (John 12:20).
So in verse 32, when Jesus says, “when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself”, Jesus might be referring here to the fact that all kinds of people will come to him from the nations, especially after his glorification on the cross. For then sin-sick people born again of the Spirit will look to the lifted up Son of Man, and be drawn to Jesus. He is their saviour. So Jesus might be speaking here about an efficacious drawing of all kinds of people—but not all people indiscriminately.
Alternatively, in potential, and in terms of invitation and offer, Jesus indeed draws all humans to himself. Jesus became one of us, taking the nature of each human, whether a believe in Christ or not, and he offers grace to every sin sick human. This likewise seems to be the meaning of John 1:9, “The true light which shines for every person was coming into the world.” Jesus shines in potential for every human, to offer them eternal life if they believe in him. However, we also know that no one comes to Jesus unless the Father who sent him draws him (John 6:44).
But the death of Jesus will be the casting out of the ruler of this world. The glorification of Jesus by his death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus will be the casting out of Satan (Rev 12:7-11). Indeed, John will later describe the casting out of Satan from heaven, in Revelation 12 verses 7-9:
7And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9[…] He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (NIV)
Satan and the demons have lost their place in heaven. In Revelation 12 verses 7-9, the devil and his demons were cast out of heaven by the angels of heaven. With the snatching up of the child (Rev 12:5), Satan was cast out. And Revelation verses 10 to 11 tell us how this happened.
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. 11 They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
It is with the birth of the Christ, and his being snatched from the jaws of death and up to heaven, that Satan has been cast down from heaven. It is with the blood of the lamb, that Satan is overcome. It is with the gospel, that Satan’s accusations are stopped, and Satan’s mouth is shut. Satan was cast out of heaven with the birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Christ’s glorification is far above all rule and power, including the devil. Only our Christ is in heaven, and there is no one left in heaven to condemn those who belong to Christ. Satan has fallen because he has nothing anymore with which to condemn us. The lamb of God takes away the sin of the world.
And the death of Jesus is the judgement of this world because his death is for the sin of the world. The world of wickedness, evil, and sin must be paid for. Jesus pays for those sins as the lamb of God. In so doing he judges the world for its sin. Your sin is so serious that it required the Son of God to be the lamb of God so that we might become the children of God.
Now all this talk about Jesus being “lifted up” is concerning for the crowd. They sense that Jesus being lifted up involved him going away. For once, they were right. Jesus was talking about going away. But now they protest. Verse 34:
12:34For this reason the crowd answered him, “We heard from the law that the Christ will stay forever, yet how is it that you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”
Jesus’ hearers rightly see that Jesus is implying that the Christ and the Son of Man as the same person who was to come. The law here seems to refer to the Tanak, the whole Hebrew Old Testament, and there is a Scripture, Psalm 88:37 LXX, where David’s seed is said to “remain forever”.[1] Likewise in 2 Samuel 7:13, the Son of David will have a kingdom that will never end. But that is a different thing from saying that the Christ will not return to heaven, or have a heavenly session. In fact, Psalm 110 says that David’s Lord will sit at the right hand of Yahweh until his enemies are made a footstool. So the book of Psalms actually gave an expectation that David’s Lord will go away. Nevertheless, we can understand why some might think—or at least hope—that the Christ when he came for the first time was here to stay.
Jesus doesn’t actually answer their questions. What he does do is speak in figures. If you find it a little hard to understand what Jesus is saying in verses 35 to 36, I think that’s intended, because Jesus is speaking to the crowd. Verses 35 to 36:
12:35So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness does not overtake you, and the one who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going”. 12:36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you might become sons of the light. Jesus said these things, and then he went away and hid from them.
Jesus reasserts the reality to the crowd, that he is going away, and they need to adjust to that reality. And not surprisingly for those of us who have been reading John’s Gospel, he turns to the imagery of light.
Jesus is of course talking about himself as ‘light’. Jesus said that while he was in the world, he was the light of the world (John 9:5). From the fourth verse of John’s Gospel, Jesus has been introduced as “light for people” (John 1:4, cf. vv. 5, 7), and the true light which shines for every person (John 1:9). Jesus is that light that has come into the world (John 3:19, cf. 8:12).
To walk in the light is to believe in Jesus. Jesus makes that clear here, when he calls on his hearers to “believe in the light, so that you might become sons of the light”.
The phrase “sons of the light” is unusual. We must not think that it is the same as “children of God” or being “born of God”, and John does not use the Pauline phrase “sons of God”. It is a way of talking about being ‘people of the light’.
After Jesus said these things, he hid. We don’t know why Jesus hid. Perhaps it was because he was waiting for exactly the right time to set the events in train for him to die. Perhaps it was because he was going to use his last week the way he decided, in a way that best suited his ministry given him from his Father. Perhaps it was so he could spend more time with the disciples. Perhaps it was so he could pray. Perhaps there was nothing more he could really say to the crowd who were refusing to believe in him.
We live after Jesus has been glorified but while he is away. At one level, we don’t see the light of the world, because Jesus has returned to the Father. We don’t hear the voice from heaven—and even if we did, we wouldn’t understand it anyway. Jesus in a sense is hidden from us also. He has gone away to heaven, out of our reach and beyond our sight.
But we too have been drawn to the lifted up Son of Man. Christ in the words of Scripture, in John’s Gospel, and in the gospel message, has been clearly portrayed as crucified. The cross of Christ for us is the attractive wisdom from God, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.
And the portrait John gives us of Jesus is enough for us to receive us eternal life. That will be enough for us.
My translation
12:27 “Now my soul is troubled, and what should I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ Rather, this is the reason I have come to this hour. 12:28 ‘Father, glorify your name.’” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have also glorified it, and I will again glorify it”. 12:29Then the crowd which stood and heard said, “It was thunder”, but others said, “An angel had spoken to him”.
12:30Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come on my account, but for you.
12:31Now is the judgement of this world, now the ruler of this world will be thrown out. 12:32And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. 12:33Now he said this signifying the kind of death he was going to die.
12:34For this reason the crowd answered him, “We heard from the law that the Christ will stay forever, yet how is it that you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?”
12:35So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness does not overtake you, and the one who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going”. 12:36While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you might become sons of the light. Jesus said these things, and then he went away and hid from them.
[1] 36ἅπαξ ὤμοσα ἐν τῷ ἁγίῳ μου, εἰ τῷ Δαυιδ ψεύσομαι 37Τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα μενεῖ καὶ ὁ θρόνος αὐτοῦ ὡς ὁ ἥλιος ἐναντίον μου || 35Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie to David. 36His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me (LXX/Brenton).