John 12 - The New International Commentary
12:1–2 Jesus abruptly puts in an appearance, not in Jerusalem for the Passover, but less than two miles away (see 11:18) in Bethany, “six days before the Passover,” back “where Lazarus was, whom Jesus raised from the dead” (12:1).* There is a certain redundancy to the clause “whom he had raised from the dead,” for the reader already knows this. The final two references to Lazarus in the Gospel will identify him in the same way (vv. 9, 17). Clearly, the memory of the raising of Lazarus will dominate the scene at Bethany. Symbolic explanations of the “six days” have been proposed, but not very convincingly.* The point is rather that the Passover is drawing ever closer, from the generalization that it was “near” (11:55), to the more specific “six days before” (12:1), to “the next day” (12:12), to the very threshold of the festival (13:1). The time reference conflicts with the accounts of Jesus’ anointing at Bethany in Mark and Matthew just “two days” (at most) before the Passover (see Mk 14:1; Mt 26:2), and (in contrast to John’s Gospel) well after his triumphal entry into the city.
The notice that “Then they made a dinner for him there, and Martha was serving, while Lazarus was one of those reclining with him” (v. 2) sets the scene for what follows (vv. 3–11). “They made” is indefinite, implicitly referring to Lazarus and his two sisters.* The “dinner”* may have been arranged to welcome Jesus back from his sojourn and celebrate with him the raising of Lazarus.* If so, the likelihood is that his sojourn away from Bethany and Jerusalem has been relatively brief. All three major characters from the preceding chapter are now quickly reintroduced: Martha, who “was serving”* (in keeping with her role in another story, which the Gospel writer may have known),* Lazarus himself, who is mentioned simply as being present (v. 2), and finally Mary, whose abrupt act becomes the very center of the story (see v. 3). That there were other guests is evident from the reference to “those reclining with him,” and these others seem to have included at least some of Jesus’ disciples who had been with him at Ephraim and have now returned to Bethany (see v. 4, “Judas the Iscariot, one of his disciples”).
3 Mary is the only family member not yet named, and without bothering to mention that she too was present at the dinner, the writer tells us, all in one breath, what she did: “Then Mary took a pound of expensive perfume of genuine nard, anointed the feet of Jesus, and dried his feet with her hair” (v. 3a). This differs from the anointing stories in Mark and Matthew, where the woman who anoints Jesus was not a guest—much less a hostess—at the meal, but “came” to Jesus (Mk 14:3) or “approached” him (Mt 26:7), apparently from outside the house. This is even more evident in Luke, where the woman was “in the town” and “found out that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house” (Lk 7:37). In each of the other accounts the woman brings with her an alabaster jar filled with perfume,* but here no such jar is mentioned, only the contents, “a pound of expensive perfume of genuine nard.”* The phrase “perfume of genuine nard”* is the closest verbal parallel to Mark in all of the Gospel of John, given the rarity both of the noun “nard”* and the adjective translated here as “genuine.”* But here the similarities end. Mary “took” the pound of perfume (which seems to have been ready at hand); she did not already “have” it with her (as in Mk 14:3; Mt 26:7). With it she “anointed” Jesus’ feet instead of “pouring” it on his head (as in Mark and Matthew).* Consequently, she “dried his feet with her hair,” not at all like the woman at Bethany in Matthew and Mark, but more like the anonymous woman in Luke who “placed herself behind him at his feet weeping and with her tears began to bathe his feet, and she was drying them with the hairs of her head, and kept kissing his feet and anointing them with the perfume” (Lk 7:38, italics added).* But here too are differences. Luke uses imperfect verbs to describe more of a process than a single act, and his placement of the woman both “behind” Jesus and “at his feet” is difficult to visualize. John, by contrast, uses the aorist tense to describe a single simple act: Mary “anointed the feet of Jesus and dried his feet with her hair.”* Another difference is that the act of “drying” Jesus’ feet with her hair is appropriate in Luke, for she is merely wiping away tears before anointing Jesus with perfume, but less appropriate in John (see also 11:2), where Mary seems to be immediately wiping away the precious ointment she has just administered.*
While it is possible that the account here has been influenced by some version of Luke’s story, John’s Gospel has its own reasons for calling attention to the feet rather than the head. For one thing, it could be simply a corollary of identifying the woman who anointed Jesus as Mary of Bethany (see 11:2), for wherever we meet Mary, in John or in Luke, she is always at Jesus’ feet (see 11:32; Lk 10:39). But perhaps more important, Mary’s act anticipates the action of Jesus at a similar “dinner” a chapter later (13:2), when he himself will “wash the feet of the disciples and dry with the towel with which he was girded” (13:5). Mary’s otherwise “unintelligible” act (see n.
The concise description of Mary’s act concludes with a comment unparalleled in any other Gospel: “The house was filled from the fragrance of the perfume” (v. 3b).* The comment calls attention to the reckless extravagance of the act and its consequent effect on the onlookers, eliciting an immediate objection from Judas (vv. 4–5). In more subtle fashion, the comment recalls for the reader Martha’s remark at the tomb of Lazarus, “Lord, already it stinks, for it has been four days!” (11:39). The stench of death has now given way to the “fragrance” of eternal life—a note of triumph soon to be qualified by intimations of another death (see vv. 7–8). Beyond this, interpreters as far back as Origen have gone further, viewing this final comment as John’s symbolic equivalent to Jesus’ concluding statement in Mark about the woman who anointed him at Bethany: “Amen, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she did will be spoken of in memory of her” (Mk 14:9; see also Mt 26:13). The fragrance of the perfume filling the house is supposed to evoke the thought of the good news about Jesus filling the whole world.* This is all very unlikely.* John’s Gospel is quite familiar with the notion of the universal spread of the message of Jesus to the whole world, but has its own way of expressing it, and when it appears in the Gospel it is easily recognizable (see 10:16; 11:52; 12:24, 32). If John knew of the saying of Jesus in Mark 14:9, introduced by “Amen, I say to you,” it is difficult to see why he would not simply have retained it instead of replacing it with a comment of his own cloaked in deep symbolism. The normal route is from symbol to interpretation, not the other way around. Therefore, the simpler explanations of “the fragrance of the perfume” are preferable.*
4–5 In other versions of the story an angry objection is raised, either by “some” who were present (Mk 14:4) or by “the disciples” (Mt 26:8).* “Why has there been this waste of the perfume?” they ask (Mk 14:4). “For this perfume could have been sold for over three hundred denarii and given to the poor.” Then, Mark adds, “they rebuked her” (v. 5).* Here, by contrast, the objection is attributed to someone who is actually named (just as Mary was named), “Judas the Iscariot” (v. 4).* Judas has been mentioned only once before, as “one of the Twelve” and yet as “the devil,” who was going to “hand over” Jesus—how or to whom, we were not told (see 6:70–71; also 6:64). He is now introduced again, and identified in much the same way as “one of [Jesus’] disciples, the one who was going to hand him over” (v. 4), though not as “the devil.” Judas does not speak in anger, like those who objected in Mark and Matthew, and these, his only lines in the entire Gospel, sound less like the devil than like a hard-headed, though compassionate, businessman: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (v. 5). It was a legitimate question. A denarius was a day’s wage, and three hundred denarii might have done a great deal of good (see 6:7). Judas comes off no worse, and perhaps slightly better than the unnamed questioners in the two other Gospel accounts. It is quite conceivable that in the original form of the story it was indeed Judas who raised the objection, and that Mark and Matthew (or their sources) concealed it because it painted Judas in a more favorable light than seemed appropriate, given his immediate act of betrayal (see n.
6 The narrative aside provides information about Judas that the reader would otherwise not have known: “Now he said this not because it mattered to him about the poor, but because he was a thief, and, having the money box, was stealing from what was being put in” (v. 6). This is not the first time the Gospel writer has demonstrated such knowledge. When Jesus told his disciples that “one of you is ‘the devil’ ” (6:70), he knew somehow that Jesus meant “Judas of Simon Iscariot,” and that “this man, one of the Twelve, was going to hand him over” (6:71). And here, just a moment before, he has identified Judas again as “the one who was going to hand him over” (v. 4). The reason for this interest in Judas will become clearer (if not entirely clear) a chapter later, when “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (identified finally as the Gospel writer, 21:24) is said to be the first (perhaps the only one) of Jesus’ disciples to understand that Judas would “hand over” Jesus to the authorities (see 13:23–27). While he is not quick to share this information with his fellow disciples (see 13:28–29), he shares it repeatedly with the readers of his Gospel (see also 13:2, 11; 18:5). Here he wants them to know that Judas is not speaking out of genuine concern for the poor, but out of greed, knowing that the more that was in “the money box,” the easier it would be to skim off something for himself. In this way, the reader learns that Jesus and his disciples carried around a “money box,”* and that the funds in it (however collected)* were used, among other things, to help the poor (in 13:29 the reason for Judas’s departure is seen either as purchasing what was needed for Passover, or giving to the poor).* The blunt characterization of Judas as one who said what he said “not because it mattered* to him about the poor, but because he was a thief,” evokes both “the thief” in Jesus’ earlier discourse about shepherds and sheep (10:2, 8, 10), and at the same time the “hireling” to whom “it does not matter* … about the sheep” (10:13).* In short, Judas is not the typical well-meaning (if sometimes uninformed) disciple or potential disciple questioning the teacher (as, for example, in 4:9, 11, 15, 19–20; 6:68; 9:36; 11:8, 12, 21–22, 24; 13:6, 8, 9, 36, 37; 14:5, 8, 22). His motives are far more sinister, and his abrupt question is conspicuously not introduced by “Lord” or “Rabbi.”
7 Jesus himself is kinder to Judas than the Gospel writer’s narrative aside. “Let her be,” he said, “so as to keep it for the day of my burial” (v. 7). “Let her be”* matches exactly his response to those who objected in Mark (Mk 14:6) except that the verb is singular, as the context requires, not plural. But John’s account lacks the accompanying words of praise for the woman that are found in Mark, “she has performed a good work for me” (Mk 14:6), and “she has done what she could” (14:8), focusing instead on the main point: “so as to keep it for the day of my burial.” The purpose clause, “so as to keep it,”* is confusing because it seems to point toward the future, and the phrase “for the day of my burial” seems to bear this out (see 19:40–42). A variant reading, “she has kept it for the day of my burial,” alleviates the problem somewhat, but is suspect for that very reason.* Mark’s wording is even more comprehensible, “She has undertaken beforehand* to anoint my body for the burial” (Mk 14:8).* If there is any kind of literary relationship between the story as told in John and in Mark, John’s version appears to be the earlier. Both the Markan version and the variant reading in John itself appear to be efforts to clarify what Jesus is saying, namely, that Mary’s impulsive act represented a kind of anointing of his body in advance for burial, thereby anticipating his death as no other disciple had done.*
The question is whether or not these efforts to interpret the pronouncement in John have done so correctly. Taken literally, Jesus could be saying, “Let her be, so as to keep the perfume [rather than wasting it by pouring it out now] until the day of my burial” (that is, seven chapters later, in 19:39–42). This obviously makes no sense, for the perfume is gone, and its fragrance now fills the house (v. 3). The (equally literal) alternative is to read it as “Let her be, so as to keep the perfume” (rather than selling it, as Judas had proposed), not “until the day of my burial,” but as we have translated it, “for the day of my burial” (that is, with a view to, or in anticipation of, the burial day).* This is precisely how the variant reading (see n.
8 According to our best early manuscripts, Jesus continues, “For the poor you always have with you, but me you do not always have” (v. 8). Two important early witnesses, however, omit the entire verse,* and the omission must be looked at carefully because the words might easily have been added by a later scribe, assimilating the pronouncement to Matthew 26:11 and/or Mark 14:7.* An additional factor is that the text shifts here from singular to plural: “Let her be” (v. 7) is addressed to Judas alone, while “the poor you always have with you” is plural, addressing the whole company. There is no such shift in Mark or Matthew, where those who first raise the objection are plural as well (see Mk 14:6; Mt 26:10), so that the words, “for you always have the poor with you,” merely continue the pronouncement in the same vein. An argument could be made that the added words are natural in Mark and Matthew, but unnatural in John. This argument does not work, however, not only because of the weak textual evidence for omitting the verse, but because, as we have seen, John’s account of the anointing shows signs of actually being prior to Mark’s, at least in certain details (notably v. 7). Nor should it be forgotten that Jesus in the Gospel of John has a way of answering the questions or comments of an individual either with pronouncements directed to a larger group (as with Thomas in 14:6–7, and “Judas, not the Iscariot” in 14:23–24), or else first to the individual who asked and then to the larger group (as with Nathanael in 1:50–51, Peter in 13:36–14:4, and Philip in 14:9–11). It is therefore neither odd nor unnatural for Jesus to respond to Judas in a similar way. The implication is that Judas, despite his unique position as “the devil” (6:71) and “the one who was going to hand over” Jesus (v. 4), is nevertheless at some level expressing thoughts common to others—perhaps all—of the disciples. Judas has not, after all, been revealed as one set apart in any way from the others. Jesus says, “For the poor you always have with you, but me you do not always have” (v. 8) because it needs to be said, not just to Judas, but to all who were present.
In Mark the statement, “you always have the poor with you,” is tempered by the reminder that “whenever you want you can do good to them” (Mk 14:7; for the principle involved, see Deut 15:11). In Matthew (26:11), there is no such addition, possibly because the point has just been made so eloquently that good works done for those in need are done for Jesus himself (see Mt 25:31–46). John’s Gospel also lacks the additional words about helping the poor. While the writer’s comment that Judas did not truly care about the poor (v. 6) could be read as implying that the readers of the Gospel should care, the accent in John is not on “the poor,” but on Jesus himself, and his concluding words, “but me you do not always have.” What Mary’s act of devotion has done is to dramatize a simple fact that both Jesus’ enemies and his friends throughout the Gospel have trouble grasping—that he is going away where they cannot follow (see 7:33–34; 8:21; 13:33; 16:16). She has accomplished this without saying a word, but Jesus now says it for her. In effect, whether she knows it or not, she has given him permission to depart by demonstrating her love while he is still present.*
9 At this point we are abruptly introduced to “a great crowd from the Jews”* who “found out that he was there and came, not because of Jesus alone, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead” (v. 9). No such “great crowd from the Jews” has been mentioned before, unless we are meant to identify them with the “many” Jews who believed in Jesus after the raising of Lazarus, or the “many” who “went up from the region to Jerusalem before the Passover, that they might purify themselves.” But the latter (11:55) are never referred to as a “crowd.” The former (11:45) can be identified with “the crowd standing around” (11:42) for whose sake Jesus prayed just before calling Lazarus from the tomb. Yet it is unlikely that the same group is in view here, because this “great crowd from the Jews” are not said to have already believed in Jesus.* They seem to have come out of curiosity, having heard the story of Lazarus (possibly from the very bystanders who believed according to 11:45). If they believe, it is as a result of what they see or hear now at Bethany, not weeks earlier before Jesus’ sojourn near the desert. They have come to Bethany, probably from Jerusalem, on learning that Jesus is there,* seeking a glimpse of the miracle worker and verification that Lazarus was indeed alive. If so, we are meeting them for the first time. Nothing is said of what they did when they arrived, or whether they interrupted the dinner. All that counts in the narrative is that they “came” and, presumably, saw what they came to see. The scene remains undeveloped for the time being,* but its purpose will become clear later on (see vv. 17–18).
10–11 Instead of commenting further on the arrival of “a great crowd from the Jews” in Bethany, the writer issues a postscript to the decision of the Jewish ruling council (see 11:53, “So from that day they resolved that they would kill him”). He supplies the additional information that “the chief priests resolved that they would also kill Lazarus, because on account of him many of the Jews were going off and believing in Jesus” (v. 10). This is clearly not a second decree, triggered by the fact that Lazarus was present at the dinner at Bethany (vv. 1–2), and that a crowd had come “not because of Jesus alone, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead” (v. 9). It is rather a more detailed description of what had already been decided, and in almost identical words. The chief priests had not only “resolved that they would kill” Jesus (11:53); they had on that same day, we now learn, “resolved* that they would also kill Lazarus.” Moreover, the reason was the same. The concern voiced earlier was that “If we let him [that is, Jesus] go on like this, they will all believe in him” (11:48); the concern here is that “on account of him [that is, Lazarus] many of the Jews were going off and believing in Jesus.” Lazarus, no less than Jesus, is in danger.
That said, it must be added that the threat to Lazarus never materializes. Nor does the threat against Jesus—in the short run. Instead, something quite different will happen (vv. 12–19). Why? The writer hints at an answer by the way in which he joins the notice about the visit of “a great crowd from the Jews” (v. 9) to the reminder about the council’s decree (vv. 10–11). An earlier postscript to the decree had been that “the chief priests and the Pharisees had given commands that if anyone found out where [Jesus] was, they should make it known, so that they might arrest him” (11:57). Now we have been told that “a great crowd from the Jews found out that he was there” (v. 9). Evidently when this “great crowd … found out” where Jesus was, they did not “make it known” to the chief priests and Pharisees as commanded, but went instead to see for themselves. The reminder that the council’s decree was still in effect and that it included Lazarus (vv. 10–11) serves to inform the reader at the same time that the people in general are not cooperating.* So far, the formal resolution of the Chief Priest and the council to arrest and kill Jesus is no more successful than the random efforts of “the Jews” have been all along (see, for example, 5:18; 7:1, 32, 45–46; 8:59; 10:31, 39). The concluding words of the notice, that “many of the Jews were going off and believing in Jesus” (v. 11), tell the story. While the “great crowd of the Jews” who came to Bethany to see Lazarus are not necessarily believers (at least not yet), their arrival sends a signal to the reader (if not to the authorities) that arresting Jesus will not be easy.
12–13 “The next day,” now five days before the Passover (see v. 1), we are introduced to “the great crowd that had come to the festival.” The question is whether they are the same “great crowd from the Jews” who came to Bethany to see Jesus and Lazarus (v. 9), or a different crowd. The odd word order* could suggest that they are the same,* yet their further identification as those who “had come to the festival” hints at a larger group, embracing all or most of the pilgrims who had arrived in Jerusalem by that time. A related question is how they “heard that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem.” Even the reader has not been told this explicitly. If they are the same “great crowd” that came to Bethany, they would have heard it directly from Jesus, or the family of Lazarus. If they are a different, larger crowd that we have not met before, then it was either a rumor going around, or else something they heard from the first crowd, those who had come to Bethany to verify the miracle. At this point we are not told, but the truth will come out eventually (see vv. 17–18).
In any event, the crowd acted immediately. As soon as they heard that Jesus was coming, they “took the branches of the palms and went out to meet him, and they were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the One coming in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (v. 13). This is recognizably the “triumphal entry” described in the other three Gospels (see Mk 11:1–10; Mt 21:1–9; Lk 19:28–40), but reduced here to its simplest terms. In contrast to all three Synoptics, John’s Gospel describes first what the crowd did (vv. 12–13), and only then (very briefly) what Jesus did (v. 14). None of Jesus’ elaborate plans for the occasion (see Mk 11:1–6) come into play. Moreover, the vocabulary is somewhat different. Only John’s Gospel gives the name “Palm Sunday” to the event by having the crowd welcome Jesus with “the branches of the palms” (v. 13),* accenting even more than the other Gospels the “triumphal” nature of the scene.* And only John states explicitly that the crowd went out from the city “to meet him”* on his way in (v. 13; compare v. 18), just as Martha had done at Bethany a chapter earlier (11:20, 30). The other Gospels show us the crowd after they had met Jesus, giving us the impression that everyone formed a procession moving in the same direction into Jerusalem—“those who went ahead and those who followed” (Mk 11:9; Mt 21:9).* Here, even though the purpose of “meeting” Jesus is to escort him into the city, the “meeting” has an importance of its own, and the cry of “Hosanna” comes before the moment of meeting, not after.
“Hosanna!” the crowd exclaims, “Blessed is the One coming in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (v. 13b). This they say in anticipation, before they have so much as seen Jesus. They have “heard” that he was coming (v. 12), but only in the following verse does he make an appearance (v. 14). The exclamation “Blessed is the One coming in the name of the Lord!”* comes directly from Psalm 118:26 (LXX), preceded by the words “O Lord, save now! O Lord, prosper now!” (Ps 118:25). The Hebrew expression “Hosanna,” or “Save now,”* used there as a petition,* has become here (as in Mark and Matthew) an expression of praise to God.* In Psalm 118, the last of the Hallel Psalms (Pss 113–18) sung at both Passover and the Tent festival, the phrase “coming in the name of the Lord” was customarily understood to refer to each pilgrim in festal procession entering the temple. Here the expression takes on messianic overtones, made unmistakable by the added phrase, “even the King of Israel.”*
The words of the crowd evoke for the reader a number of associations from within the Gospel itself. “King of Israel” recalls Nathanael’s confession of Jesus as both “Son of God” and “King of Israel” (1:49), the former designation interpreting and defining the latter. “Blessed is the One coming in the name of the Lord” recalls John’s announcement of Jesus as “the One coming after me” (1:15, 27), or “the One coming from above,” or “from heaven” (3:31), again determining in advance what it means to speak of Jesus as “the One coming,” or “the Coming One.” Even those who tried to make Jesus king after he fed the five thousand hailed him as “the Prophet who is coming into the world” (6:14), and Martha, just before the raising of Lazarus, acknowledged him as “the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world” (11:27). By this time, whether the crowd realizes it or not, the phrase “the One coming in the name of the Lord” has acquired considerable christological weight in the mind of the reader. Jesus himself once told “the Jews” that “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me” (5:43; see also 10:25, “The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me”). What “the Jews” could not accept, this crowd, five days before Passover, does accept, albeit on its own terms and in the traditional vocabulary of its own liturgy.*
14–15 Jesus’ own part in the drama is stated in the simplest possible terms, almost as an afterthought: “And Jesus, having found a young donkey,* sat on it” (vv. 14–15). For once, the initiative lies not with him but with the crowd. He merely reacts to what the crowd is doing. The economy of language is striking. If the Gospel writer knows the story of how Jesus “found” the donkey, he resists (as the other Gospels do not)* the temptation to tell it. He tells only enough to give meaning to the Scripture citation, which he introduces immediately: “just as it is written, ‘Fear not, daughter Zion. Look, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!’ ” (vv. 14b–15). The citation is linked immediately to Jesus’ action (v. 14) by the phrase “sitting on a donkey’s colt,” but even more significantly to the preceding cry of the crowd by the phrase “your king is coming,” echoing “the One coming in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel” (v. 13). The citation is taken, very loosely, from Zechariah 9:9 (LXX), “Rejoice greatly, daughter Zion! Shout, daughter Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. Righteous and bringing salvation is he, humble and mounted on a pack animal and a young colt.” The text as cited is much simpler, preserving only the phrase “daughter Zion” (for Jerusalem), and the key words, “Look, your king is coming!” The “king” in Zechariah is “mounted” rather than “sitting,” and the vocabulary for “donkey” is different. John’s free citation omits all mention of Jesus’ righteousness and humility, and leaves us no room to imagine (as Matthew has done) two animals in the procession.* By paring the quotation down to its bare essentials (“Look, your king is coming!”), the Gospel writer actually turns attention away from Jesus’ action of finding a donkey and sitting on it, and back to the crowd’s proclamation, “Blessed is the One coming … the King of Israel!” (v. 13). The crucial issue is not what Jesus did at this particular moment, but who he is, and most notably the crowd’s recognition of who he is: “the One coming” and “the King of Israel.”
At the same time, it must be noted that Jesus does not reject the crowd’s acclamation, as he rejected another crowd’s earlier attempt to “seize him to make him king” on the basis of their confession of him as “truly the Prophet who is coming into the world” (see 6:14–15). This confirms the thought that Jesus’ flight from kingship back then had to do not with a rejection of kingship per se, but with that earlier crowd’s intention to “seize” him by force (6:15), and (even aside from that) with the simple fact that “his hour had not yet come” (see 7:30; 8:20). Here he accepts kingship, but on his own terms, “sitting on a donkey’s colt.”*
16 The account of Jesus’ “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem ended with the notice that “Jesus, having found a young donkey, sat on it,” followed by the citation from Zechariah (vv. 14–15). But before moving on to speak of the reaction of the Pharisees to what had happened (v. 19), the Gospel writer inserts two narrative asides, the first looking back at the event from the standpoint of Jesus’ disciples (v. 16), and the second making very explicit its relationship to the raising of Lazarus (vv. 17–18). The disciples have kept a very low profile ever since Jesus first came to Bethany (11:17), being mentioned only in connection with Jesus’ sojourn at Ephraim (11:54), and implicitly (as represented by Judas) at the dinner when Jesus returned to Bethany (see v. 4, where Judas was identified as “one of his disciples”). Nothing has been said of their presence with Jesus on entering Jerusalem, yet their presence is now assumed in the writer’s comment that “These things his disciples did not understand at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about him, and these things they did for him” (v. 16).* The threefold repetition of “these things”* is striking, referring first to the whole scene (vv. 12–15), then to the Scripture citation in particular (v. 15), and finally to the action of the crowd meeting Jesus (vv. 12–14).* The point is not that the disciples did not see what was going on, but that they did not recall at the time the text from Zechariah, and consequently did not see the action of the crowd as its fulfillment. They “remembered”* only later, when Jesus was “glorified.”
This notice, just before Jesus’ last Passover, recalls two similar notices at the first Passover, when Jesus came to the festival and drove the money changers from the temple (2:13–22). There too, we were given no hint of the disciples’ presence until we were abruptly told that “His disciples remembered that it is written, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me’ ” (2:17). Later, “when he rose from the dead,” they also “remembered” what he said, and “believed both the scripture and the word Jesus spoke” (2:22). In that early passage, the reader was expected to know the story of how Jesus “rose from the dead.” Here the reader is expected to know, if not precisely when and how Jesus would be “glorified,” at least that he would be glorified, or vindicated in some way (see 11:4), and that his glorification would have something to do with a dreaded “hour” that had not yet come (see 7:30, 39; 8:20). Both the prophecy of Zechariah on the one hand (v. 15), and the action of the crowd in welcoming Jesus into the city on the other (vv. 12–13), point forward to Jesus’ impending glorification, and become intelligible (even to his own disciples) only in light of that glorification. The theme common to both was kingship, and the point of the notice is that Jesus’ kingship will come to expression solely in his “glorification”—whatever that might involve.
It is important to pay attention to what the notice does and does not say. In contrast to all three Synoptics, the accent is not on what Jesus himself did—that is, “found a young donkey and sat on it” (v. 14)—but on what was “written about him,” what the crowd “did for him,” and the correspondence between the two. Just as at the dinner in Bethany when Mary anointed his feet, Jesus is the recipient, not the initiator of the action. The message of the former was that Jesus would soon die and be buried (see vv. 7–9); the message of the latter was that he would be “glorified” as King. The reader is left to wonder how these twin destinies relate to one another—by Jesus being “raised from the dead” (see 2:22), or in some other way?
17–18 An even more obvious question remains. Why exactly did “the great crowd that had come to the festival” go out from the city to meet Jesus, welcoming him as “the One coming in the name of the Lord,” and “the King of Israel” (v. 13)? What could have prompted such a provocative public display, given the death sentences against Jesus and Lazarus (11:53; 12:11), and especially the warning that “if anyone found out where he was, they should make it known, so that they might arrest him” (11:57)? To answer the question, the Gospel writer adds (belatedly) some necessary information: “So the crowd that was with him kept testifying that he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead” (v. 17). “That also,” he goes on to explain, “was why the crowd met him, because they heard that he had done this sign” (v. 18). For the modern reader, the “explanation” may raise more questions than it answers. For one thing, it could imply something we would not have suspected up to this point—that two “crowds” are on the scene, not just one. The second crowd mentioned (v. 18) is clearly “the great crowd that had come to the festival” (v. 12), but the identity of the first crowd, “the crowd that was with him,” is less certain. The matter is complicated by a textual variation. The difference is only one letter, but its implications are considerable. Two readings compete:
(a) According to the text adopted here, “So the crowd that was with him kept testifying that* he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead.”*
(b) According to some of the most important ancient manuscripts: “So the crowd that was with him when* he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead kept testifying.”
The latter has impressive manuscript support,* and is presupposed by virtually all English translations and most commentators, in part because it is customarily viewed as the more difficult reading.* But this is not necessarily the case. According to Text (a), the crowd that “kept testifying” was a crowd that was “with” Jesus (v. 17) at the very time he entered the city, while according to Text (b) they were with him weeks, possibly months earlier, “when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from the dead” (see 11:42, “for the sake of the crowd standing around, so that they might believe that you sent me”).* Nothing suggests that they were necessarily present as well at the time Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey. In short, Text (a) implies two crowds at this “triumphal entry,” one accompanying Jesus into the city and repeatedly “testifying”* to the miracle at Bethany (v. 17), and the other coming out from the city to meet him (v. 18). On this reading, the crowd accompanying Jesus and testifying to the raising of Lazarus are probably not the eyewitnesses of the preceding chapter (11:42, 45), but rather the “great crowd from the Jews” (v. 9) who had come to Bethany to see Lazarus and verify the miracle. It is, after all, “the next day” (see v. 12). If they are not the same crowd now accompanying Jesus and testifying as he enters the city, it is difficult to explain why they were in the story at all. The very purpose of their abrupt appearance at Bethany (v. 9) seems to have been to prepare the reader for their role here.* Text (b), on the other hand, avoids the implication that there were two distinct crowds, and is suspect (despite its strong attestation) for that very reason. On this reading, as we have seen, the crowd “testifying” is “the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb” (italics added), that is, “the Jews” who came to mourn with Mary and Martha, witnessed the miracle, and believed (see 11:42, 45). While it is possible that the same crowd was also on the scene when Jesus entered Jerusalem, nothing is said to that effect, and it is far more likely that they had continued “testifying” to their fellow Jerusalemites over a period of time. This understanding is evident in a number of English translations that seem to have been as uncomfortable as some of the early scribes with the notion of two crowds at the triumphal entry. The presumption is that they are eyewitnesses to the miracle who are not literally on the scene, but have “continued to testify” (NRSV), or “continued to spread the word” (NIV, TNIV), ever since they came to believe (see 11:45; 12:11).* The imperfect verb “kept testifying” or “was testifying” is read almost as if it were a pluperfect, “had been testifying.”
What all this suggests is that the textual question is extraordinarily difficult to decide. The manuscript evidence favors Text (b), yet Text (a) seems more consistent with internal evidence, especially the narrative flow of the Gospel. However the matter is decided, one thing is clear. The Gospel writer wants to explain why Jesus received such a royal welcome into Jerusalem, and he does so by linking the event to the raising of Lazarus. Whether the report of the miracle came from those present at the scene (11:42, 45), or those who came later to Bethany to verify what happened (12:9), or both, and whether it came over a period of time or on a specific occasion are of secondary importance. What matters is that the raising of Lazarus gained for Jesus the allegiance (at least temporarily) of “the great crowd that had come to the festival” (v. 12), and thus thwarted (again, temporarily) the designs of the chief priests and Pharisees. The account is framed by the twin notices that “the great crowd … heard that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem” (v. 12), and that they “heard that he had done this sign” (v. 18). What they “heard”—regardless of which “crowd” they heard it from—was what triggered what they “did for him” (v. 16). The raising of Lazarus from the grave is the last “sign”* mentioned in the Gospel, and one of only four explicitly labeled as such (for the others, see 2:11, 4:54, and 6:14). It may be more than coincidental that the only other such “sign” performed publicly (6:14) also resulted in an attempt to make Jesus king. As we have seen, Jesus’ response here is quite different from what it was then (see 6:15), in part because his decisive “glorification” is closer at hand (see vv. 16, 23).
19 Finally the Pharisees respond,* and even though they are speaking “to each other,”* their comment punctuates the narrative for the reader’s benefit, much as a Greek chorus might do: “You can see* that you’re accomplishing nothing,” they exclaim. “Look, the world has gone after him!”* In one sense, their words simply confirm what we were told earlier, that “many of the Jews were going off and believing in Jesus” (v. 11). But their way of saying it is both exaggerated and laced with irony. Within the Gospel of John it recalls the remark of John’s disciples to John (just as exaggerated) that Jesus was “baptizing, and they are all coming to him!” (3:26). Looking beyond our Gospel, the Pharisees’ frustration at “accomplishing nothing”* recalls Pilate’s frustration in Matthew in just the opposite circumstances, when he wanted to release Jesus but “saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but that instead a riot was starting” (Mt 27:24).
Perhaps more to the point, their words recall a saying of Jesus in other Gospel traditions, asking “What will a man accomplish* if he gain the whole world, but lose his life?” (Mt 16:26; see also Mk 8:36; Lk 9:25).* In a strange way, the utterance of the Pharisees turns Jesus’ pronouncement on its head. The irony is that Jesus himself, who seemed to his enemies to have gained “the world,”* would do so only at the cost of his own life. The reader will remember that he has said as much: “And I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not from this courtyard. Those too I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and they will become one flock, one Shepherd. That is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I might receive it back again” (10:15b–17). Like Caiaphas (11:51), the Pharisees speak more wisely than they know. By his death Jesus will gain, if not “the world,” at least “the nation” and “the children of God who are scattered” (11:52)—and even “the world” lies at least within the horizons of his saving death (see 1:29, “who takes away the sin of the world”; 6:51, “my flesh for the life of the world”; 17:21, “so that the world might believe”; 17:23, “so that the world might know”). The mixed message that has emerged in this extended narrative (11:55–12:19), of Jesus’ impending death on the one hand and his universal kingship on the other, will continue to come to expression in much of what follows.
20 The writer’s notice that “Greeks” as well as Jews were present at the Passover festival (v. 20) serves as a reminder that the Pharisees’ remark, “Look, the world has gone after him!” was not as farfetched as it appeared to be. “Greeks”* have been mentioned only once before in the Gospel, and that by “the Jews,” clearly distinguishing “the Greeks” from themselves (7:35).* Even though they have come “that they might worship” at a Jewish festival, the distinction likely still holds. Because they have come to worship the God of Israel, J. A. T. Robinson’s argument that they are in fact Jews of the diaspora has somewhat more plausibility here than in 7:35,* yet the designation “Greeks” makes it clear that they are in some sense still “the other.” Like the Samaritans earlier, who worshiped the same God on a different mountain, they represent “the world” (see 4:42), not in the loose rhetorical sense in which the Pharisees have just used the word (v. 19), but in clear distinction from “the Jews” who have been Jesus’ interlocutors all along. Yet John’s Gospel never calls them “the Gentiles,”* preferring either “Greeks” or a designation referring to the elect status of those among them who believe, such as “other sheep” (10:16), or “the children of God who are scattered” (11:52). Their presence is historically realistic in that Greek-speaking Jews, as well as other Greeks and other foreigners, did attend Jewish festivals on occasion, whether out of curiosity or genuine admiration for the Jewish way of life.* But more important to the narrative, their presence gives notice that the relationship of Jesus to the whole “world,” Jewish and non-Jewish alike, is soon to be addressed.
S. The Hour of Glorification (12:20–36)
Now some of those who were going up that they might worship in the festival were Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” Philip comes and tells Andrew, Andrew comes with Philip, and they tell Jesus. But Jesus answers them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of man might be glorified. Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat dies by falling to the earth, it remains alone by itself; but if it dies, it bears a great crop. The person who loves his life loses it, and the person who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. If anyone would serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be. If anyone would serve me, the Father will honor him. Now my soul is shaken, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this reason I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”
Then a voice came from the sky, “I have both glorified, and I will glorify again.” So the crowd standing by, when they heard, were saying thunder had come. Others were saying, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice was not for my sake but for yours. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw them all to myself.” This he said signifying by what death he was going to die. So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever, and how can you say that the Son of man must be lifted up. Who is this Son of man?”
Jesus said to them, “Yet a short time the Light is in you. Walk while you have the Light, lest darkness overtake you—and the person who walks in that darkness does not know where he is going. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, that you might become sons of light.” These things Jesus spoke, and he went away and was hidden from them.
As if confirming the lament of the Pharisees, “Look, the world has gone after him!” (v. 19), some “Greeks” who had come to the Passover festival approached one of Jesus’ disciples, asking, “Sir, we want to see Jesus!” (v. 21). The request is passed along to Jesus, triggering his decisive announcement, “The hour has come that the Son of man might be glorified” (v. 23), and an accompanying parable introduced by the characteristic “Amen, amen” formula: “unless the grain of wheat dies by falling into the earth, it remains alone by itself; but if it dies, it bears a great crop” (v. 24). The tension of the preceding section between the prospect of Jesus’ death and the hope of “glorification” or universal kingship is maintained, in the simple biological fact that life, represented here by a “great crop” or harvest, comes through death, and only through death. The parable is short and simple, barely long enough to qualify as a parable,* yet with its explicit application to Jesus himself (v. 32), it frames the whole of his two-part speech (vv. 24–28, 30–32) to “the crowd standing by” (v. 29). This can be clearly seen by placing verses 24 and 32 side by side (with italics added):
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat dies by falling to the earth, it remains alone by itself; but if it dies, it bears a great crop” (v. 24).
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw them all to myself” (v. 32).
If verse 32 is seen as in some sense the interpretation of verse 24, Jesus is identifying himself with “the grain of wheat” that dies, yielding a “great crop,” but with a conspicuous and decisive twist: he dies not by “falling to the earth” like a seed, but on the contrary, by being “lifted up from the earth,” a clear allusion to what he said much earlier, at the first Passover (see 3:14, “And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of man must be lifted up”). The Gospel writer spells it out for us, reminding us that Jesus was “signifying what death he was going to die” (v. 33). The “great crop” comes to expression in the notice that as a result of being “lifted up,” evidently on the cross, Jesus will “draw them all” to himself. This is his real answer to the request of the Greeks that he seems to have ignored, “Sir, we want to see Jesus” (v. 21).
The material framed by the parable and its interpretation (vv. 25–31) falls into two parts. In the first, Jesus applies the principle of life through death to his followers (vv. 25–26). In the second (vv. 27–31) he applies it to himself, in light of his announcement that “the hour has come” (v. 23). He speaks to the Father, asking first if he should pray (in words recalling Gethsemane in the other Gospels), “Father, save me from this hour” (v. 27), but then praying instead, “Father, glorify your name” (v. 28). The answer is immediate, and heard by all (vv. 28–29), but Jesus is quick to tell the crowd that the audible voice “was not for my sake but for yours” (v. 30). Then he boldly announces that his “hour” will mean judgment on “this world,” and on “the ruler of this world” (v. 31). And when the crowd responds with confusion over how his talk of death and of “the Son of man” fits their common expectations of “the Christ” (v. 34), he ignores that issue and warns them instead of the judgment soon to come (vv. 35–36).
21 These “Greeks” who had come to the festival (however many there were) “came to Philip,” who is further identified as being “from Bethsaida of Galilee” (see 1:44, where the identification served to link him with Andrew and Peter). Whether they approached him because of his Galilean connections is uncertain. Most of Jesus’ disciples, after all, were Galileans. Possibly the fact that he, like Andrew (v. 22), had a Greek name is significant, and the reader will assume from their identity as “Greeks” that their request to him, “Sir, we want to see Jesus”* (v. 21) was uttered in Greek. Readers familiar with Luke’s Gospel may also be reminded of Herod Antipas, who “when he saw Jesus was very glad, for he had been wanting to see him* for a long time and was hoping to see some sign done by him” (Lk 23:8; compare 9:9). There too the one “wanting to see” Jesus was, if not a Greek, at least someone not numbered among “the Jews” in Jerusalem, and viewed by them with suspicion. Herod’s motivation (“to see some sign done by him,” Lk 23:8) raises at least the possibility that the same desire may have been at work among these “Greeks” at the Passover. If so, it is little different from that which motivated the Jewish crowds in the city (see v. 9, “that they might also see Lazarus, whom he raised from the dead”; also v. 18, “because they heard that he had done this sign”). In contrast, perhaps, to Paul (see 1 Cor 1:22), both Jews and Greeks are looking for signs—something they can see—not wisdom, and definitely not “the message of the cross” (1 Cor 1:18), which Jesus will soon begin to reveal (vv. 24, 32). In a quite different vein, the scene also evokes Luke’s version of an account in which Jesus’ mother and brothers could not reach him because of the crowds around him, and Jesus was told that they were standing outside, “wanting to see you”* (Lk 8:20). The parallel lies in the fact that in neither of the two instances in Luke is Jesus ever said to grant the wish, or even reply to it directly. Both are undeveloped or “vestigial” scenes, like others in John’s Gospel (for example, 2:12; 11:54; 12:9).
Instead of acknowledging the Greeks, Jesus seizes the opportunity to make a point to his disciples, who have passed along the request (see vv. 23–26). “Seeing Jesus” redemptively depends not on “wanting” to do so, but on Jesus himself “wanting” to be seen (see 17:24, “Father, that which you have given me, I want them to be with me where I am, that they might see my glory which you have given me”).
22 Philip and Andrew make their appearance in tandem, as in 6:5–9, where Jesus first tested Philip with a question (6:6), and Philip and Andrew both responded, raising the reader’s expectations of a miracle. Their appearance together here also recalls Jesus’ first encounter with John and his disciples, when Andrew was the first disciple named (even before his brother Simon Peter, 1:40–41), and Philip was the third (1:43), followed by Nathanael. That scene is an even closer parallel if Philip was in fact (as Schnackenburg has suggested) the unnamed disciple accompanying Andrew when they first heard John’s testimony (1:40). Here Philip, instead of taking the Greeks’ request directly to Jesus, “comes and tells Andrew, Andrew comes with Philip, and they tell Jesus” (v. 22). While it is doubtful that the biblical principle that “the testimony of two men is true” is in play here (see 8:17), the involvement of two of Jesus’ disciples rather than one does lend a ceremonious quality to the occasion, so that the reader is primed to listen eagerly for Jesus’ response.
23 The reader is not disappointed. It is indeed a decisive moment, even though we have heard the last of the Greeks, and their desire to “see Jesus.” Instead of responding to their request by granting an interview, Jesus answers with an announcement: “The hour has come that the Son of man might be glorified” (v. 23). What this might have meant to the two disciples—much less to the Greeks—is unclear, but it means a great deal to the reader. Jesus had spoken of his “hour” only once before, to his mother (2:4), where his meaning was far from clear. But the Gospel writer twice intimated that his “hour” would be a time of risk or danger. If Jesus could not be arrested “because his hour had not yet come” (7:30; 8:20), it follows that if and when his “hour” did come, he could and would be arrested and put to death, just as the Jewish authorities had intended all along. Yet the Gospel writer has also hinted at a time to come when Jesus would be “glorified” (7:39; 12:16), a notion confirmed by Jesus’ own words (“so that … the Son of God might be glorified,” 11:4; see also 8:54).
What then is the relationship between the prospect of mortal danger and the prospect of “glorification”? The only possible answer is that Jesus’ “glorification” and his “hour”—the hour of his death—are one and the same. That answer is immediately confirmed by his references to a seed “dying” by falling into the earth (v. 24) and a person “losing his soul” or life (v. 25), and then by his aborted prayer, “Father, save me from this hour” (v. 27). Jesus’ “hour” is now so imminent that he can speak of it as if it were already here. It is already but not yet, in that he can say “the hour has come” (v. 23) and yet in almost the same breath speak of being “saved” or rescued from it (v. 27). The bittersweet tension between death and life that was evident in the raising of Lazarus (11:40), in the council’s decree “that one man die for the people” (11:50), in the anointing of Jesus by Mary “for the day of my burial” (12:7), and in Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city (12:12–18) comes to a head here in Jesus’ own explicit acknowledgment that the decisive “hour” has come. Somehow the contours of resurrection or ascension, or a vindication of some kind, have been imposed upon the grim reality of the death itself. Death and resurrection are no longer viewed as two successive events, the one negating or undoing the other, but mysteriously as the same event viewed from a human perspective as death but from God’s perspective as glorification.
24 Jesus continues his reply to Andrew and Philip with an “Amen, amen” formula, for the seventeenth time in the Gospel (the most recent being in 10:7, introducing “I am the Door of the sheep”). The plural “you” in “Amen, amen, I say to you” are clearly the two disciples. This time the formula introduces an “unless”* clause reminiscent of “unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3), or “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you do not have life in yourselves” (6:53). In each instance, the accent is not on who Jesus is but on what it means to become Jesus’ disciple and gain eternal life. And in each instance what is required is something very radical: to be reborn from above, to eat flesh and drink blood, and here to fall down and die—all in order to live. But the “unless,” or “if not,” clause here differs from the other two examples in that it is followed by a positive “if” clause. That is, “unless the grain of wheat dies by falling to the earth, it remains alone by itself; but if* it dies, it bears a great crop” (v. 24). In the first instance (3:3), the positive side was unexpressed and had to be inferred: that is, if a person is “born from above,” then he can “see the kingdom of God.” In the second, the positive side was expressed differently, not with an “if” clause but repeatedly in a series of distinct pronouncements (6:54, 55, 56, 57, 58).
Here the single pronouncement looks at both scenarios: either the grain of wheat stays where it is and remains “alone by itself,” or it “dies by falling to [or into] the earth” (that is, by being planted) and “bears a great crop.” New life comes through death, and only through death. Paul makes the same point in arguing for a bodily resurrection: “You fool, what you plant does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Cor 15:36). Jesus does not speak of resurrection here (at least not explicitly), but simply of “a great crop,” in keeping with the agricultural metaphor. “A great crop”* recalls his words to his disciples at the approach of the Samaritan villagers eight chapters earlier: “Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already the harvester is receiving payment and gathering a crop for eternal life” (4:35–36). Here too the “crop” has to do with “eternal life,” in contrast to the “death” of the seed in the ground, as the next verse will reveal (v. 25). This hints at resurrection, as in Paul’s use of the metaphor, but the context, with the Greeks still waiting in the wings as the Samaritans were earlier, suggests that the “great crop” may also hint at a coming mission to the Gentiles.
The question remains whether “the grain of wheat” and its “death” in the ground represent simply the “glorification” of Jesus in the “hour” of his death, or whether the image has a wider application. As we have seen, the analogous “Amen, amen” pronouncements introducing “unless” clauses (3:3, 5; 6:53) had to do with disciples and discipleship, not with christology per se, and the same appears to be true here. If so, the “grain of wheat” does not represent Jesus, at least not Jesus uniquely, but anyone who would be his disciple. This is borne out by what immediately follows.
25 As is often the case in John’s Gospel (for example, 3:5, 11; 5:19, 25; 6:26, 32, 53; 8:34; 10:1, 7), “Amen, amen” introduces a series of pronouncements, not just one. Jesus moves quickly from parable to application, from the dying “grain of wheat” to Andrew and Philip standing before him in person, representing simultaneously the rest of the disciples, the Greeks and the readers of the Gospel. “The person who loves his life loses it,” Jesus tells them, “and the person who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life” (v. 25). The pronouncement has parallels in other Gospels, above all “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25//Lk 9:24).* The version here differs only in framing the contrast as one between “loving” and “hating” one’s own soul or life,* and in omitting the explicit connection with Jesus himself (that is, losing one’s life “for my sake”). Both of these distinctives suggest that John’s Gospel may be fairly close to the earliest form of the tradition.* The first, the contrast between “loving” and “hating,” shows an affinity with another traditional—and likely authentic—saying of Jesus preserved by Luke: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and even his own life,* he cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:26).* The second, omitting “for my sake” (as in Matthew) or “for my sake and that of the gospel” (as in Mark), is also likely to be original, given the tendency of the tradition to add such words, not take them away.*
That said, it is also likely that John’s Gospel has added two “Johannine” touches of its own, qualifying the expressions “hates his life” and “will keep [his life]” respectively. As to the first, one’s “life” is defined as life “in this world,”* and as to the second, to “keep” or preserve one’s life is understood to mean keeping it “to eternal life,” or forever* (as in 4:14, 36; 6:27). “The world,” or “this world,” and “eternal life” are polar opposites, nowhere more so than in the Gospel of John. This pronouncement stands as Jesus’ answer not so much to the Greeks who wanted to see him as to the Pharisees, and their comment when he entered the city, “Look, the world has gone after him!” (v. 19). As we have seen, he cares nothing about “gaining the whole world” or even about saving his own “life in this world.” Instead, he “lays down his life” for his sheep, not least his “other sheep … not from this courtyard” (see 10:15b–16), and the reader now knows that “the hour has come” (v. 23) for him to do exactly that.
26 While lacking the words from the synoptic tradition, “for my sake,” in the pronouncement about “hating one’s own life” (v. 25), John’s Gospel more than makes up for it in Jesus’ next pronouncement: “If anyone would serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there my servant will be. If anyone would serve me, the Father will honor him” (v. 26, italics added). With or without the exact words, Jesus makes it very clear that the rejection of the world that he demands is unquestionably “for my sake.” This saying too has a parallel (albeit a more remote one) in the synoptic tradition, where just before saying “whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 16:25//Lk 9:24), Jesus had said, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and let him follow me” (Mt 16:24). There is a minor redundancy here, in that to “come after” Jesus and to “follow” him amount to the same thing, and the redundancy is heightened a bit in Mark: “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him … follow me” (Mk 8:34). What keeps it from being totally redundant is its definition of what “coming after” or “following” Jesus entails, that is, risking death by denying oneself and taking up one’s cross. In John’s Gospel, no trace of redundancy remains, for instead of “If anyone wants to come after me,” Jesus says, “If anyone would serve me.”* Little has been said so far in the Gospel of anyone “serving” or “ministering” to Jesus.* The only exceptions are the sisters Mary and Martha at the supper in Bethany, where Martha was explicitly said to have “served” Jesus and others (12:2), but where Mary’s act of anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume for the day of his burial seems to have been the more significant act of service, even though not called that in so many words. Much the same is true in the other Gospels, where those who “serve” or minister to Jesus are characteristically women (see Mt 8:15//Mk 1:31//Lk 4:39; Mt 27:55//Mk 15:41; Lk 8:3; 10:40),* but where Jesus himself is quite emphatic that “the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mt 20:28//Mk 10:45), or that “I am in your midst as the one who serves” (Lk 22:27; see also 12:37). Here, “serving” Jesus or “ministering” to him is defined as “following” him, to the point that “where I am, there my servant* will be.” The unspoken implication is that “serving” Jesus involves imitating his behavior, doing what he did by serving others, or each other. This will become explicit later on, when Jesus speaks privately to all his disciples about what discipleship means (see, for example, 13:14–15, 34–35; 15:12).*
For now, the accent is rather on the reward of true discipleship and the logical outcome of “following” him, that is, as he says, “where I am, there my servant will be.”* This is understood as an “honor,” for as Jesus rephrases it, “If anyone would serve me, the Father will honor him.” Jesus has already told the Pharisees that “where I am you cannot come” (7:34), or “Where I go you cannot come” (8:21), and even his own disciples (including Martha and Mary) that “me you do not always have” (12:8; compare 13:33). Yet now he signals that this will not be the case forever as far as his true “servants” are concerned. Wherever he is going, if they “follow” him faithfully, even, if need be, to martyrdom, their place with him is assured. Here more than anywhere else in the first twelve chapters, Jesus anticipates the themes of his farewell discourses (see 14:3; 17:24).*
27 Jesus’ speech continues, now addressed to the Father as a prayer: “Now my soul is shaken, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this reason I came to this hour” (v. 27). The scene obviously invites comparison with the synoptic accounts of Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane (see Mt 26:39//Mk 14:35–36//Lk 22:41–42), but there are significant differences as well. Most conspicuously, Jesus’ prayer is answered (v. 28), and the answer is heard publicly (v. 29), suggesting that the prayer was public as well. Also, the prayer, “Father, save me from this hour,” which most closely parallels the Gethsemane accounts,* is not Jesus’ actual prayer in John’s Gospel. Rather, it is precisely what he does not pray. Instead he prays, “Father, glorify your name” (v. 28a). The text does not suggest any real uncertainty on Jesus’ part, along the lines of what Paul describes in Romans 8:26 (“For we do not know what to pray as we ought”).* The petition “Father, save me from this hour” is introduced only as a rhetorical question, the wrong prayer setting the stage for the right one.* As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Jesus adds, “No,* for this reason I came to this hour.”* If John’s account is at all aware of the Gethsemane tradition, it is (at the very least) shifting the emphasis dramatically from “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me,” to “not what I want but what you want” (Mt 26:39//Mk 14:36).
28 Whether with the “wrong” prayer or the “right” one, Jesus addresses God as “Father” just as at the raising of Lazarus (11:41), and in his last prayer (see 17:1, 5, 11, 21, 24, 25). The “right” prayer, “Father, glorify your name”* (v. 28a), could easily be read as a variant of the Lukan form of the so-called “Lord’s Prayer” (“Father, hallowed be your name,” Lk 11:2), a prayer not oriented toward a particular decisive “hour,” but one appropriate for Jesus or his followers at any time or in any place (“When you pray, say …,” Lk 11:2).* The “right” prayer, in short, seems to have been for Jesus a “normal” prayer, one that he prayed quite commonly and consistently, not a special or exceptional prayer designed for this one occasion.*
This is perhaps in keeping with the answer given at once, and audibly: “Then a voice came from the sky, ‘I have both glorified, and I will glorify again’ ” (v. 28b). The voice “from the sky” (or from heaven)* recalls the voice at Jesus’ baptism and the voice “from the cloud” at his transfiguration in the synoptic accounts, and like them has to be understood as the voice of the Father, this time in response to Jesus’ prayer. Aside from God’s (presumably private) words to John (1:33), it is the only time God speaks in the entire Gospel. On the assumption that the glorification of God’s name is the same as the glorification of Jesus himself, “the Son of man” (v. 23), it appears that the promise, “I will glorify again,” refers to Jesus’ “hour” now at hand.* But what is meant by the first part of the pronouncement, “I have … glorified”? It is probably pointless to look for precise references within the story such as Jesus’ birth or baptism, neither of which are even mentioned in this Gospel. Rather, the voice is reminding Jesus of the consistent relationship he has always enjoyed with the Father, not just from the beginning of his ministry but from eternity (see, for example, 8:29, “for I always do the things that please him”; 11:42, “I knew that you always hear me”). As Jesus told “the Jews” four chapters earlier, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, him whom you say that ‘He is our God’ ” (8:54). The Gospel’s presupposition is that God “glorifies his name” by glorifying his Son, and in one sense that glorification goes on continually throughout the narrative (see, for example, 1:14; 2:11; 11:4, 40; 17:4), having begun presumably with the sending of the Son into the world.* Nevertheless, the voice does not let us forget that a final “glorification” is imminent, and will be the dominant theme from here on.
29–30 As far as we know, Jesus has been speaking to Philip and Andrew (v. 22), but now we are introduced to “the crowd standing by,” of which we have heard nothing before. This crowd, like other crowds in the Gospel (for example, 7:12, 40–42), seems to have been divided, though not to the point of a “split” or schism (as in 7:43). The crowd “heard” something, and what they heard sounded to them as if “thunder had come,” but “others” (probably within the crowd, presupposing that only “some” heard thunder) were saying, “An angel has spoken to him” (v. 29). The latter suggests real communication, not just noise (see 1:51, “the sky opened, and the angels of God going up and coming down over the Son of man”), yet it is difficult to tell whether or not anyone in the crowd heard the actual words that were spoken.
Whatever they may have heard, Jesus is quick to tell them, “This voice was not for my sake but for yours” (v. 30). With this he recalls an earlier scene in which he told the Father that his prayer at the tomb of Lazarus was “for the sake of the crowd standing around, so that they might believe that you sent me” (11:42). The point there was not that the crowd knew the content of Jesus’ prayer, only that they knew he was praying, showing his dependence on the Father. So here, the voice is “for the sake” of the crowd,* not because it tells them anything specific, but only as a signal that Jesus’ prayer has prompted a response from the sky, and therefore that a decisive moment has come. This decisive moment, he hastens to explain, no longer to his disciples (as in vv. 24–26) but now to an anonymous “crowd standing by,” represents in some way the whole Jewish community.
31 Jesus focuses the crowd’s attention on his “hour” (without using the actual word), first as judgment (v. 31) and then as redemption (v. 32). Instead of “the hour” (v. 23) or “this hour” (v. 27), he speaks of it simply as “now,” twice in quick succession: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out” (v. 31, italics added). The second sentence explains the first: the world is “now” judged, in that its ruler is “now” to be “driven out.”* The language can easily be read as the language of exorcism, especially with “the ruler of this world” as its object.* This is the case even though Jesus has performed no exorcisms in this Gospel, and even though he is not explicitly said to perform this one.* Instead of many exorcisms of demons, there will be just one. “The ruler* of this world” (see 14:30; 16:11) can only be the devil,* referred to in the synoptic tradition as “the ruler of the demons” or “Beelzebub” (see Mt 12:24//Mk 3:22//Lk 11:16; also Mt 9:34). There, when Jesus asks, “How can Satan drive out Satan?” (Mk 3:23; see also Mt 12:26), the implication is that he himself has done exactly that, in “binding the strong man” (see Mt 12:29//Mk 3:27). In another synoptic passage, he observes it happening by virtue of his disciples’ exorcisms: “I saw Satan as lightning fallen from heaven” (Lk 10:18).
Here Satan, or the devil, is ruler not “of the demons” but “of this world.”* In that sense the Pharisees are profoundly wrong in claiming that “the world has gone after” Jesus (v. 19). On the contrary, “this world” has given its allegiance to its own demonic ruler. For that reason, only those who hate their life “in this world” will gain “eternal life” (v. 25), and for that reason “this world” now faces judgment. Instead of the exorcism of demons, this Gospel contemplates a kind of exorcism of “the world” itself, by virtue of the “throwing out” of its ruler.* The thought recalls John’s pronouncement near the beginning of the Gospel, in which Jesus himself, as the “Lamb of God,” purifies the world by “taking away” its sin (1:29). In spite of the repeated “now,” the verb “will be driven out” is future, allowing for the presence of “the devil” or “Satan” in the chapters to follow (see 13:2, 27; also 14:30).* Clearly, there is an “already-but-not-yet” to Jesus’ solemn pronouncement, for at this point in the narrative the world is still very much “the world,” not yet judged and not yet purified from sin.
32–33 In the two pronouncements, “Now is the judgment of this world” and “Now the ruler of this world will be driven out” (v. 31), Jesus said nothing explicitly of his own role in bringing those things about, even though his role will doubtless be crucial. But now he abruptly puts himself back at the center (v. 32). The pronouncement comes as a kind of postscript to the parable of verse 24, so that it too is now centered on Jesus himself. Instead of the “if” clause with which verse 24 ended (“if it dies, it bears a great crop”), he adds a new “if” clause identifying himself with the “grain of wheat” that “dies by falling to the earth” (v. 24): “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw them all to myself.”* The contrast between “to [or into] the earth”* and “from [or out of] the earth”* is striking. Jesus’ parables of growth in the synoptic tradition are well known, and in keeping with the agricultural metaphor, he seems to be identifying himself here with the plant that grows to full stature from a seed planted in the ground, perhaps in reference to his resurrection from the grave (see 1 Cor 15:36–38, where Paul adopts such a metaphor). This is consistent with what follows, in that being “lifted up from the earth” Jesus promises to “draw them all to myself”—that is, to bring about the general resurrection of “all who are in the tombs” (see 5:28–29).
This interpretation would be a viable one even without the narrative aside that immediately follows: “This he said signifying by what death* he was going to die” (v. 33). That is, the phrase “lifted up from the earth” refers to Jesus’ death, not just his resurrection. While the text is building on the parable of “the grain of wheat” (v. 24), its application to Jesus himself is qualified in one important respect: Jesus will die not like a seed, by “falling to the earth” (v. 24), but rather by being “lifted up from the earth” (v. 32).* Without that qualification, the image of “the grain of wheat,” applicable to Jesus’ disciples (see vv. 25–26), is not directly applicable to Jesus himself. The terminology introduced here revisits two earlier pronouncements. In the first, Jesus told Nicodemus and those he represented that “just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes might have eternal life in him” (3:14–15). In the second, he told the Pharisees, “When you lift up the Son of man, then you will know that I am” (8:28). In both instances he refers to himself as “the Son of man,” but in neither does he explain what it means to be “lifted up,” except to imply that something good will come of it. The perceptive Christian reader has suspected all along that he was referring to his death by crucifixion, and now that interpretation is explicitly confirmed.
Here too something good comes of Jesus’ being “lifted up,” as he promises, “I will draw them all* to myself” (v. 32b). The apparently universal scope of “all” is striking. Because nothing else in the Gospel even hints at universal salvation, and a number of texts speak against it (for example, 3:36; 5:29; 8:21, 24), interpreters have proposed a variety of alternatives. For instance, some important ancient texts (including P66, the first hand of
The verb “I will draw” is in fact the likely key to the meaning of the verse. Those “drawn” are a specific group, those who actually “come” to Jesus in faith, for salvation. The repeated expression, “to come to me” (6:37, 44, and 65),* corresponds to the promise here that Jesus will draw these people “to myself,”* suggesting that the same specific group is in mind here.* If so, then “all” is qualified by the previous references to those “drawn” or “given” to Jesus by the Father, that is, believers (hence the translation, “them all”).* The point is not that every human being is “drawn,” but that all those drawn by the Father are drawn by the Son. Instead of the Father drawing believers to Jesus, he himself, now “lifted up from the earth,” draws “them all” to himself. As he put it in the earlier setting, “I will raise him up at the last day” (6:44). Jesus will “draw” believers first to the cross on which he is “lifted up” (see v. 33), but beyond that to wherever he is going (see v. 26, “where I am, there my servant will be”).* The place is unknown to Jesus’ enemies (7:34; 8:21), and even to his own disciples (see 13:36; 14:5), but the reader of the Gospel knows at least that he is going back to where he came from (see 6:62, “[what] if you see the Son of man going up where he was at first?” 7:33, “I go to the One who sent me”), and he now repeats in different words the thought that “where I am, there my servant will be” (v. 26). Just as in verses 24–26, however, the only way to get there is by way of the cross. To be “drawn” to Jesus “lifted up” on the cross is to be drawn into the pattern of discipleship set forth in those verses—and earlier, in 6:53–58, under the metaphor of “eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood.” Thus the way of discipleship, not the worldwide mission to the Gentiles, is the likely primary meaning of Jesus’ “drawing them all” to himself. He has indeed promised a “great crop” (v. 24), pointing to eternal life for his followers (v. 25), and hinting at a missionary harvest like that in Samaria (see 4:36–38), yet the hint remains only a hint, for the “Greeks” are not heard from again.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Gospel writer’s narrative aside (v. 33) seems to ignore Jesus’ main assertion—that he “will draw them all to myself”—in favor of something he said only in a subordinate clause (“if I be lifted up from the earth”). The effect is to focus attention solely on the manner of his death: “This he said signifying* by what death he was going to die”—that is, simply that his death would involve being “lifted up.” This is clearly the case when the pronouncement is mentioned again later in retrospect (18:32), as it becomes apparent that Jesus will die at the hands of the Romans by crucifixion. It is also the case here if Jesus was “signifying,” or signaling something to the immediate bystanders, “the crowd standing by” (v. 29), for they seem to hear nothing of Jesus’ “drawing” anyone to himself. Their response, given immediately (v. 34), focuses instead on the verb “lifted up,” and only on that. This is perhaps why the Gospel writer pauses to highlight the manner (rather than the redemptive purpose) of Jesus’ death.* The strange fact is that Jesus will die not in the normal way, by “falling to the earth” like a seed (v. 24), but by being “lifted up from the earth” like—what? Like a full-grown plant or tree? Or more like a snake upon a pole (see 3:14)?
34 As if taking their cue from the Gospel writer’s narrative aside (v. 33), the crowd responds to Jesus’ speech. Ignoring Jesus’ words about the voice they had heard (v. 30), about “this world” being judged and its ruler “driven out” (v. 31), and about Jesus “drawing them all” to himself (v. 32), they too fasten solely on one verb in one subordinate clause, “if I be lifted up …” (v. 32). “We have heard from the law,” they claim, “that the Christ remains forever, and how can you say that the Son of man must be lifted up.* Who is this Son of man?” (v. 34). “From the law” can only mean “from the Scripture” (see 10:34, where the quotation is from Psalms), not from a legal code or the five books of Moses in particular. While nothing is said in the Hebrew Scriptures in so many words about a personal Messiah “remaining forever,” the thought may come from Psalm 110:4 (“You are a priest forever”), or Isaiah 9:6–7, or from any number of passages about an eternal, messianic, Davidic line (see, for example, 2 Sam 7:13; Ps 132:12), including the closest parallel of all to the present passage, the promise to David that his line “will continue forever” (Ps 88:37 LXX).*
If taken out of context, the crowd’s comment could be interpreted in either of two ways. If they understand “lifting up” as exaltation to heaven or to a divine status with God (see, for example, Acts 2:33; 5:31), they could be saying, “Scripture tells us that the Messiah is to be the Exalted One who remain forever and rules over Israel, but you are telling us that it is instead this mysterious ‘Son of man.’ Who is this ‘Son of man,’ anyway?” On this reading, their problem is with the title “Son of man,” and they are unsure whether or not Jesus is using it to mean the Messiah. But if they understand “lifting up” to refer to death by crucifixion, then they are saying, “Scripture tells us that the Messiah will remain forever, but you are telling us that the Son of man—by which we assume you mean the Messiah—will not remain forever, but die by crucifixion.” On this reading, their problem is not with the title “Son of man,” but with the notion of a dying Messiah.
If the crowd’s question is read in context, the second reading is the only one possible, for the Gospel writer has just now settled the interpretation of “lifted up.” In using that word, he tells us, Jesus was “signifying by what death he was going to die” (v. 33, my italics).* This is in keeping with the two previous occurrences of the term, where “lifting up” was compared to a snake being fastened to a pole (3:14), and was said to be something Jesus’ enemies would do to him (8:28). Moreover, the crowd’s paraphrase sounds more like what he said nine chapters earlier (3:14) than what he has said to them just now. Here he has used the emphatic “I” followed by a conditional clause, “if I be lifted up”; there he used the self-designation “Son of man” and the expression “must be lifted up,” accenting necessity. In both respects, the crowd offers only a loose paraphrase of what he has just said in their presence, but an almost exact quotation of what he said to Nicodemus and his friends much earlier, during his first visit to Jerusalem.
Various explanations of this have been given, most commonly the suggestion that the crowd’s remark originally followed 3:14 (or perhaps 8:28),* and that in the final redaction of the Gospel two distinct scenes have become confused with one another.* But if we take the text as it stands, the better explanation is that Jesus’ interlocutors, whether identified as “the Jews” or “the Pharisees” or “the crowd” (even disciples, as in 6:60), are in some sense always the same, a stereotyped audience raising the same sorts of objections chapter after chapter to his self-revelation. Here it is as if “the crowd” (like the readers of the Gospel!) remembers what Jesus said earlier to Nicodemus, and hears it echoed in his words about being “lifted up from the earth.” He has, since then, repeatedly called himself (as recently as v. 23) “the Son of man,” and (in spite of the “if” clause)* left no doubt that he will in fact be “lifted up.” The crowd takes it for granted that Jesus is using “Son of man” to refer to himself, and their comment is, if not an exact quotation, at least an acceptable paraphrase of what he actually said.
In a way, it gathers up the whole of his self-revelation, from the dialogue with Nicodemus to the present moment, and voices the classic Jewish objection to it. Jesus does not qualify as “the Christ,” or Messiah, of Jewish expectation because the Messiah “remains forever,” while he claims that he must be “lifted up,” signaling thereby that he must die by crucifixion. This is in keeping with similar objections: he cannot be the Christ because “we know where this man is from, but the Christ, when he comes, no one knows where he is from” (7:27), or (contradicting themselves) because “the Christ comes from the seed of David and from Bethlehem” (7:41–42). In each instance, as we have seen, the reader knows better, for the Jewish leaders do not in fact know where Jesus is from (see 8:14; 9:29).* The same is true here. They are wrong again, in that both things are true: he must be “lifted up,” and yet he “remains forever.” He has said as much parabolically, and applied it to himself: “But the slave does not remain in the household forever; the son remains forever.* So if the Son sets you free, you will really be free” (8:35–36). The crowd cannot grasp this. To them, death has a finality that makes it incompatible with “remaining forever.” When they conclude with the question, “Who is this Son of man?” they are really asking Jesus, “Who are you?* How can you claim to be the Christ if you admit you are going to be crucified?”
35 Again the question goes unanswered. Instead of identifying himself outright as “the Son of man” or claiming explicitly to be “the Christ,” Jesus revisits the Gospel’s opening verses, speaking of himself in the third person as “the Light” (as in 1:4–5, 8–9). “Yet a short time the Light is in you,” he begins (v. 35a).* Other pronouncements during the course of Jesus’ ministry come into play as well. Just after the early notice at the first Passover that “the Son of man must be lifted up” (3:14), he referred to himself repeatedly as “the Light” (3:19, 20, 21) on the basis of which all people are judged, and later made the identification explicit at the Tent festival: “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12).
That there was a time limit to his manifestation as “the Light” became evident in the next chapter when Jesus told his disciples, “We must work the works of the One who sent me as long as it is day. Night is coming when no one can work” (9:4), and “When I am in the world, I am the Light of the world” (v. 5). In 11:9 we learned that there was still time (“Are there not twelve hours of the day?”), but now time is running out. “Yet a short time* the Light is in you,” Jesus tells the crowd, just as he told the Pharisees at the Tent festival, “Yet a short time I am with you, and I go to the One who sent me” (7:33; see also 8:21–22). Here it comes as Jesus’ final appeal to unbelievers who are nevertheless potential disciples. “Walk while you have the Light,”* he continues, “lest darkness overtake you—and the person who walks in that darkness does not know where he is going” (v. 35b). Echoing the invitation and promise of 8:12 (“Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”), he gives the crowd at the Passover one last opportunity to “walk” with him. In this respect, the pronouncement also recalls Jesus’ reminder to his own disciples after Mary anointed his feet, “For the poor you always have with you, but me you do not always have” (12:8). Like his disciples, these bystanders “have” Jesus the Light, if only for “a short time.” The door is still open, but closing fast. With the invitation comes a warning: “lest darkness overtake you.” The reader knows that darkness did not “overtake” the light that dawned with the coming of Jesus (1:5), but it is evident here that it will “overtake” those who do not “walk in the light” (see 1 Jn 1:6–7). Jesus adds a further warning, “the person who walks in that darkness* does not know where he is going.” Then, without explaining all that this entails,* he goes on to renew the invitation positively (v. 36).
36 Having used the clause, “while you have the Light,” in the framework of a metaphor about “walking in the light” as opposed to “walking in darkness” (v. 35), Jesus now repeats the same clause in a straightforward nonmetaphorical invitation to believe: “While you have the Light, believe in the Light, that you might become sons of light.” More and more, the metaphor of “the Light” has become interchangeable with Jesus himself. To “believe in the Light,”* an expression found nowhere else in the Gospel, means simply “believe in me,” just as “coming to the Light” (3:20–21) was understood earlier to be synonymous with “coming to Jesus” (see 3:26; 6:35, 37). Yet at the end, “light” retains its metaphorical quality, in that the purpose of believing is to become “sons of light,”* a phrase that obviously does not mean “sons of Jesus,” but rather (in keeping with Hebrew idiom), “people of the light,” that is, people who belong to God (see 1 Thess 5:5, “For you are all sons of light and sons of day; we are not of night nor of darkness”).* So Jesus ends his appeal not with a threat (as in v. 35), but on a note of promise.
Jesus’ speech—and with it his whole public ministry—comes to an end abruptly with a brief notice: “These things Jesus spoke, and he went away and was hidden from them” (v. 36b). As we have seen, expressions such as “these things he spoke” have been the Gospel writer’s way of terminating scenes and making transitions again and again. Here he uses it to terminate not just one brief encounter with a crowd of bystanders, but all that Jesus has had to say to “the world” from the beginning of his ministry. “Hidden from them” means hidden from all his interlocutors, whether “the crowd” (as here), or “the Jews,” or “the Pharisees.” He has nothing more to say to any of them, and what he says from now on will be directed either to no audience in particular (as in vv. 44–50), or to his own disciples (as in chapters 13–17 and 20–21), or to the Roman authorities (as in chapters 18–19).* Instead of saying anything more, Jesus “went away”—we are not told where—and was “hidden”*—we are not told how, whether naturally or supernaturally—just as he “was hidden, and went out of the temple” at the end of the Tent festival (8:59b). In contrast to the earlier passage, there is no threat of a stoning here. Jesus simply brings the encounter to an end, without waiting for a response to his invitation to believe. The “short time” (v. 35) is all but over. Jesus is on his way out of the world; “the Light of the world” is receding (see 9:5).
37 The notion that when Jesus was “hidden from them” (v. 36), he was hidden not just from this crowd but from all his interlocutors throughout his public ministry—crowds, Pharisees, and “Jews” alike—is confirmed by the Gospel writer’s verdict that “Even after he had done so many signs before them,* they would not believe in him” (v. 37). “Them” apparently refers to the same group in both instances—a group by no means limited to the crowd of bystanders who had just insisted that “the Christ remains forever” (v. 34). The reference to “so many signs”* done “before them” looks back at all of Jesus’ “signs”—with the possible exception of the two numbered as “first” and “second” (2:11 and 4:54).* In some sense it looks back as well at everything Jesus has said or done up to now.* But even if attention is focused on the miracles in particular, these miraculous signs are not limited to seven, as some have suggested, nor to the unnumbered five described in chapters 5, 6, 9, and 11, but are presumed to include many others as well (see 2:23; 3:2; 6:2; 7:31; 11:47), all done publicly in Jerusalem or Galilee and all the subject of controversy between Jesus and either the crowds or the Jewish leaders or both.* Those who “would not believe in him” (v. 37) are therefore not just one crowd at one Passover (vv. 29, 34), but all the crowds and all the Jewish leaders from the first Passover until now. While Jesus has repeatedly charged one or another group of his hearers with unbelief (see 3:12; 5:38, 44; 6:36, 64; 8:45–46; 10:25),* this is the first time the Gospel writer has made such a sweeping generalization about them, confirming from the preceding narrative the principle stated at the outset that “his own did not receive him” (1:11).
T. The Verdict on the World (12:37–50)
Even after he had done so many signs before them, they would not believe in him, so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he said, “Lord, who believed the message we have heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?” Therefore they were unable to believe, because, again, Isaiah said, “He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, lest they see with the eyes and understand with the heart, and turn, and I will heal them.” These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory, and he spoke about him.
Nevertheless many, even some of the rulers, did believe in him, but because of the Pharisees would not confess, lest they be put out of synagogue. For they loved the glory of humans rather than the glory of God.
But Jesus cried out and said, “The person who believes in me believes not in me but in the One who sent me, and the person who sees me sees the One who sent me. I have come [as] light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in the darkness. And if anyone hears 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. The person who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word which I spoke, that will judge him in the last day, for I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me, he has given me a command what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that his command is eternal life; so then the things I speak, just as the Father has told me, thus I speak.”
Jesus has invited crowd to “believe in the Light” (v. 36), and we quickly learn their response not from their own lips but from the Gospel writer, who tells us that “they would not believe in him” (v. 37). “They could not believe,” he hastens to add (v. 39), because Isaiah had prophesied in Scripture that they would not (vv. 38–41). Even while acknowledging that “many,” including some of the religious leaders, did “believe in him” (v. 42), he insists that their faith was not genuine because they were afraid to confess him publicly (v. 43). Then he invokes the now “hidden” Jesus (see v. 36b) to explain that believing in him means believing in the One who sent him, the Father, and that he has still not finished saying all that the Father has given him to say (vv. 44–50). Just as the Gospel’s opening verses (1:1–5) and the farewell speech of John (3:31–36) framed the first three chapters of the Gospel, so those same opening verses and this transitional speech of Jesus with no narrative context of its own frame the Gospel’s first twelve chapters, preparing the reader for more to come.
38 That the people “would not believe in him” requires an explanation, and the Gospel writer is quick to supply one. The reason they did not believe was “so that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he said, ‘Lord, who believed the message we have heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?’ ” The quotation (from Isa 53:1, LXX) is linked to the context in John’s Gospel by the rhetorical question, “Who believed?”—implying “No one believed” and thus picking up from the preceding verse the stark verdict, “they would not believe in him.” It is for the sake of those words, evidently, that the quotation is introduced. Still, it is worth asking if perhaps the “we” of the quotation (that is, “the message we have heard,” or “our message”) has an implied antecedent in the Christian community—either the Gospel writer himself, or the writer and his implied readers. They at least have “heard” the message of Jesus and have the opportunity to believe it, and to them at least “the arm of the Lord” has been revealed in the signs Jesus has done (see 20:30–31).* This would be in keeping with the context in Isaiah itself, where the question “Who believed the message we have heard?” does not necessarily expect only a negative answer. There the immediately preceding words suggest that some would in fact believe, but not those who were expected to: “So shall many nations marvel at him, and kings shall shut their mouths. Those to whom no announcement about him was made, will see, and those who have not heard will understand” (Isa 52:15, LXX).* Backing up still further, it is likely that the Gospel writer was fully aware of Isaiah’s context, for his accent on the “lifting up” and “glorification” of Jesus has all along echoed Isaiah’s introductory words, “Look, my servant will understand, and he will be lifted up and glorified exceedingly”* (Isa 52:13, LXX). None of this, however, changes the fact that in the present context the accent is on unbelief, and on that alone. If there is any intimation of belief on the part of the readers of the Gospel, or of the salvation of Gentiles (“many nations,” Isa 52:15) through the “lifting up” or “glorification” of Jesus (see 12:32), it remains only a subtle hint, nothing even approaching an explicit promise or prophecy.
39–40 The writer goes a step beyond “they would not believe,” adding, “Therefore* they were unable to believe” (v. 39) on the basis of another text in Isaiah: “because, again,* Isaiah said, ‘He has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, lest they see with the eyes and understand with the heart, and turn, and I will heal them’ ” (v. 40, from Isa 6:10, LXX). This was a quotation used elsewhere by early Christians to explain the unbelief they faced, especially from the Jewish people (see Mt 13:15; Acts 28:27). The first part of the quotation here (in contrast to the other two examples) is very free, allowing the Gospel writer to assign the blinding of eyes and hardening of hearts to the direct action of God, even though this creates an abrupt change from third to first person, as God himself intervenes to forestall any possibility that “I will heal them.” This is clearly sufficient to explain why “they were unable to believe” (v. 39; compare 5:44; 8:43). Jesus had said elsewhere that “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him” (6:44), or “unless it is given him from the Father” (6:65), and Isaiah’s ancient words now put the judgment in even starker terms. Not only has God not “drawn” these people or “given” them faith, but he has “blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts” to make sure they would not repent and be healed!
41 The two citations from Isaiah are of great importance to the writer, for they help explain what is otherwise difficult to understand: why the world, even though it “came into being” through Jesus the Word, “did not know him,” and why even “his own did not receive him” (1:10–11). Perhaps surprisingly, he cites Isaiah not as “Scripture,” or “what is written,” invoking the principle that “the Scripture cannot be abolished” (10:35), but instead simply as spoken prophecy. Now for the third time he mentions Isaiah by name. Having appealed to “the word of Isaiah the prophet … which he said” (v. 38; also v. 39, “again, Isaiah said”), he concludes, “These things Isaiah said because he saw his glory, and he spoke about him.”* The reference is to Isaiah’s vision in the temple, the setting of the second quotation (in vv. 39–40). There “I saw the Lord,” he claimed, “seated on a throne, high and lofty, and the house was full of his glory” (Isa 6:1, LXX), and he heard the seraphs crying out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; all the earth is full of his glory”* (6:3, LXX). The Gospel writer’s startling claim is that “the Lord,” or “Lord of hosts,” in Isaiah’s vision was none other than Jesus, that the “glory” filling both “the house” (or temple) and “all the earth” was Jesus’ glory, and consequently that when Isaiah spoke he was speaking of Jesus. If this is so, then in some sense he who “has blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, lest they see with the eyes and understand with the heart, and turn, and I will heal them” (v. 40) is Jesus himself, or God acting through him.* This is not as far-fetched as it sounds, given that Jesus earlier claimed for himself a role in this hardening process after the healing of the man born blind: “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see might see, and so that those who see might go blind” (9:39).
On the face of it, the comment that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him might seem to refer only to the second of the two Isaiah quotations, for that was the one growing immediately out of the prophet’s inaugural vision (see Isa 6:1–10).* Yet the plural, “These things Isaiah said,” implies that the first quotation (v. 38) is in view as well. Isaiah is, of course, being read as one book, in which 53:1 (“Lord, who believed the message we have heard, and to whom was the arm of the Lord revealed?”) grows out of the prophet’s call and reflects the prophet’s experience just as surely as 6:10, with its talk of blindness and hardness of heart. How then does the comment that Isaiah was speaking of Jesus affect the interpretation of 53:1? A possible answer is that just as “the Lord” is described as “high and lofty” in the inaugural vision, and the temple filled with “his glory” (Isa 6:1, LXX), so (as we have seen) the Lord’s “servant” is described in the context of 53:1 as destined to be “lifted up and glorified exceedingly” (52:13, LXX). From the Gospel writer’s perspective, the “glory” of the Lord (Isa 6:1, 3) and the “glory” of his servant (Isa 52:13) seem to have merged into one, yielding a certain ambiguity (possibly intentional) in the notice that Isaiah “saw his glory, and he spoke about him” (v. 41, italics added). While Jesus is without question the intended antecedent of “his” and “him,” Jesus has not been mentioned by name since verse 36, and the Gospel writer leaves it to the reader to infer that the “glory” of the God that Isaiah saw was in fact the glory of Jesus, now revealed in his signs and in his words (see 1:14; 2:11). It is not a difficult inference, given Jesus’ own claims earlier that Abraham “rejoiced that he would see my day, and he saw and was glad” (8:56), and that “before Abraham came to be, I am” (8:58). As in that passage, the point is not simply that Isaiah saw the glory of Jesus by seeing into the future, but that Isaiah saw the glory of the preexistent Jesus, the Word who was “in the beginning” (1:1–2), already in his own time.
42 The writer goes on to acknowledge something that at this point in the Gospel can hardly be denied: “Nevertheless many, even some of the rulers, did believe in him” (v. 42a).* One has only to remember the “many” who “believed in his name” at the first Passover (2:23), with Nicodemus, “a ruler of the Jews” (3:1) as the prime example, or the “many” from the crowd who “believed in him” at the Tent festival because of his miracles (7:31), or the “many” Jews at the same festival who “believed in him” in response to his words (8:30), or the “many” who “believed in him” when he raised Lazarus from the dead (11:45), or the “many” (possibly the same group) who “were going off and believing in Jesus” on account of Lazarus (12:11).* Such obvious exceptions to the rule that “they would not believe in him” (v. 37) require some explanation. Two of these have already been discredited in the course of the narrative (see 2:24–25; 8:31–59), and the Gospel writer now adds a further consideration that fits them and all the rest: the “many” (all of the groups mentioned above) who were said to have “believed” were in fact disqualified. This is consistent with the fact that nothing is said to have come of the “belief” of the crowds at the Tent festival (7:31) or of those who witnessed the raising of Lazarus (11:45; 12:11), even though the latter may well have “testified” to what they saw (12:17). “Because of the Pharisees,” he explains, they “would not confess” (that is, publicly acknowledge) their faith in Jesus,* “lest they be put out of synagogue”* (v. 42b).
With this, he revisits an earlier notice that “the Jews had already reached an agreement that anyone who confessed that he was Christ would be put out of synagogue” (9:22). If that notice was an anachronism, referring only to what happened decades later, this one is as well, but more likely the reference is (as we have seen) not to formal excommunication but to some kind of temporary expulsion from the synagogue. This may indeed be the writer’s point—that those who were said to have “believed in Jesus” allowed themselves to be intimidated not by actual threats, but by imagined ones. Jesus himself was clearly in danger, and Lazarus as well (see 12:10), but there is no clear evidence that the authorities were ready to invoke drastic measures against the “many” who (in their view) were being led astray by Jesus and his followers. What they were actually facing seems to have been, at worst, synagogue discipline of some kind and consequent loss of prestige.
43 This is borne out by the Gospel writer’s verdict on their behavior, a verdict just as grim as the verdict on those who “would not believe in him” (see vv. 37–41): “For they loved the glory of humans rather than the glory of God” (v. 43). His verdict echoes that of Jesus himself on those who “loved the dark rather than the Light, because their works were evil” (3:19), and those who “receive glory from each other, but do not seek the glory that comes from the Only God” (5:44). Here, as in 3:19, the verb “loved”* means “chose” or “preferred.” Just as humans (3:19) consciously chose darkness over the Light, these so-called “believers” consciously chose human glory (precisely the glory of those who preferred darkness, 3:19) over “the glory of God.” As in 5:41 and 44, “glory” is used here in the sense of praise or approval, whether “from humans” in general (5:41), or “from each other” (5:44), or from God. At the same time, the vocabulary of “glory” does double duty, evoking once more Isaiah’s vision of the glory of Jesus (see v. 41), now explicitly identified as “the glory of God.” In opting for human approval over God’s approval, these “believers” have shown themselves blind to “the glory of God” revealed in the “glorification” of the Son (see 11:4, 40; 12:23, 28)—just as blind as any of those who would not and could not believe (see vv. 37–40). Their “belief” cannot save them, and to that extent the principle that “whoever believes has eternal life” (6:47) has its exceptions.
That said, even though it is too late for those within the narrative who “loved the glory of humans rather than the glory of God,” it is not too late for those reading the Gospel. The fate of those who “would not believe” (v. 37) and those who “did believe in him” but out of fear “would not confess” their faith (v. 42) stands as a cautionary tale for certain readers, or potential readers. As has often been suggested,* the Gospel writer perhaps knows of Jewish believers still in the synagogue who have become convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, yet are unwilling to sacrifice their standing by acknowledging their belief openly. His implied warning to them is, “Don’t let this happen to you! While it is true that ‘whoever believes has eternal life,’ there is no genuine belief without public confession—and perhaps by implication, Christian baptism.” Near the end of the Gospel, he finally makes an explicit appeal, if not to Jewish believers in particular at least to an audience broad enough to include them: “These things are written,” he will say, “that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in his name” (20:31).
44–45 Jesus, presumably “hidden” somewhere (v. 36), abruptly comes out of hiding to speak at some length: “But Jesus cried out and said, ‘The person who believes in me believes not in me but in the One who sent me, and the person who sees me sees the One who sent me.’ ” He has “cried out”* twice before (7:28, 37), at a carefully designated time and place,* but in this instance we are not told where or under what circumstances he made the speech. In that respect, his “outcry” is more like that of John, for we were never told when or where “John testifies about him and has cried out, saying …” (1:15). As we have seen, “cried out” implies a solemn announcement or formal proclamation of some kind, but here (as in 1:15) the proclamation has no narrative context at all.* Jesus is preaching to no one but the reader. The purpose of the speech is to confirm and explain, from Jesus’ own lips, the Gospel writer’s summary of his ministry so far (vv. 37–43), and at the same time to serve as a transition to what Jesus has to say from now on, mainly to his own disciples (chapters 13–17).
Above all, its purpose is to explain what it means to “believe in him,” and what it means to disbelieve (see vv. 37, 42). There is little or nothing here that he has not said before. That someone who “believes in me believes not in me but in the One who sent me” (v. 44) simply brings out the obvious implication of his recurring theme that (for example) “My teaching is not mine, but belongs to the One who sent me” (7:16). In both places, he is fond of putting things paradoxically (“The person who believes in me believes not in me,” and “My teaching is not mine”), but the point is clear enough. If what Jesus speaks is only what the Father has given him to speak, then to “believe in him” is to believe in the Father who sent him. The principle that what is done to, or for, a person’s agent or emissary is actually done to, or for, the person who sent him appears frequently in the Gospel tradition (see, for example, Mt 10:40; Mk 9:37; Lk 9:48; 10:16), but just once so far (negatively) in John’s Gospel (“Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him,” 5:23). Here Jesus states it for the first time positively, adding for good measure, “the person who sees me sees the One who sent me” (v. 45). In the following chapters, he will make this principle of agency explicit to his disciples, telling them that “the person who receives me receives the One who sent me” (13:20), “the person who has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9), and (again negatively) “the person who hates me also hates my Father” (15:23).
The reference to “the person who sees me”* (v. 45), like the reference to “the person who believes in me” (v. 44), draws on what was said in the Gospel writer’s summary (“lest they see with the eyes,” v. 40; Isaiah “saw his glory,” v. 41). In that sense, “seeing is believing,” or perhaps “believing is seeing” (compare 6:40, “For this is the will of my Father, that every person who sees the Son and believes in him might have eternal life”). The principle of agency applies to seeing no less than to believing: to see the Son is to see the Father. Moreover, if it is literally true that “No one has seen God, ever” (1:18), then seeing the Son is the only way to see the Father (so 14:9). On this assumption, when Isaiah “saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and lofty, and the house was full of his glory” (Isa 6:1), he must necessarily have seen Jesus (or the “glory” of Jesus, v. 41), and only in that way the Lord God of Israel.
46 The metaphor of “seeing” (v. 45) brings Jesus back to the metaphor of “light” (as in vv. 35–36). “I have come [as] light into the world,” he continues, “so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in the darkness” (v. 46). With this he revisits the language of the Gospel’s opening verses (1:4–9), and of several of his own earlier pronouncements (3:19–21, 8:12, 9:5, and 12:35–36). As in two of these (8:12 and 9:5), he makes his self-identification as “light” (or “the Light”) explicit.* In contrast to 3:19, he accents salvation rather than judgment as the result of his coming as the Light. He has come into the world “so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in the darkness”—this in keeping with 8:12b, “Whoever follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”*
47–48 At the same time, it is all too apparent to the reader that the actual result of Jesus’ coming, at least so far, has been unbelief (see vv. 37–43). Therefore he turns now to the central question, “What of those who do not believe?”* In response to this question, he keeps his focus resolutely on salvation rather than judgment: “And if anyone hears 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” (v. 47, my italics). The emphatic “I” implies that even though Jesus himself does not judge them, they are nevertheless judged, and this becomes explicit in the following verse: “The person who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word which I spoke, that will judge him in the last day” (v. 48). In this way, he resolves (or at least relieves) the tension between what he has said here and such earlier pronouncements as 3:19 (“This then is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world”), 5:22 (“For the Father judges no one, but has given all the judgment to the Son”), 5:27 (“he gave him authority to do judgment, because he is the Son of man”), and especially 9:39 (“For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see might see, and so that those who see might go blind”).
At the same time, the accent on salvation over judgment is consistent with Jesus’ earlier claims that “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through him” (3:17), and that “ ‘I’ judge no one” (8:15). Each time Jesus says something of the kind, he signals—as he does here—that nevertheless judgment does take place. After 3:17, he immediately added, “Whoever believes in him is not judged; whoever does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed” (3:18), and after 8:15 he continued, “And yet if I judge, my judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent me” (8:16). Here too, as we have seen, he goes on to explain that “The person who rejects me and does not receive my words has that which judges him. The word which I spoke, that will judge him in the last day” (v. 48). The reader’s first impression is that Jesus is standing on a mere technicality. Not he but his word will carry out the judgment—a distinction without a real difference, it seems. But this is not the case. The point is rather that Jesus does not judge anyone “by himself,” or “on his own” (as in 7:18). The Son does not carry out judgment apart from the Father (3:17; 8:15), nor the Father apart from the Son (5:22, 27). It is never “I,” but always “I and the Father who sent me” (8:16).
In short, the answer to the riddle lies in the notion of agency with which Jesus began this final speech of his ministry so far (see vv. 44–45), and to which he will shortly return (vv. 49–50). He evokes it even now with his reference to “the person who rejects me* and does not receive my words,” recalling the traditional saying in another Gospel that “the person who rejects me rejects the One who sent me” (Lk 10:16b), and at the same time anticipating its positive equivalent a chapter later, when he will tell his disciples that “the person who receives me receives the One who sent me” (13:20).* If so, then Jesus’ “words” are supremely important, for “the word that I spoke” is the very word of the Father.* To say that “the word” is what carries out the judgment “in the last day” is to acknowledge the role of Father and Son alike in the final judgment. “In the last day” makes it clear that judgment in the present (see 3:18–19, 5:30, 8:16, 9:39, 12:31, and 16:11) does not preclude a final judgment at the end of the age (see 5:29), even as “eternal life” in the present does not preclude a literal resurrection at the end (see 6:39–40, 44, 54).
49–50 In conclusion, Jesus makes his dependence on the words of the Father explicit: “for I did not speak on my own,* but the Father who sent me, he has given me a command* what I should say and what I should speak: (v. 49). The only such “command” mentioned before was the “authority” he was given to “lay down his life” and “receive it back” (“This command I received from my Father,” 10:18). Here the “command” has to do not with the action of laying down his life and receiving it back again, but with his speech: “what I should say and what I should speak.”* Yet in the end it is all the same “command,” for Jesus’ speech so far has made his death inevitable, and his speech in the next five chapters will have as its central theme his death and resurrection, or departure and return. The Father’s “command” from the start pointed Jesus first toward death (“I lay down my life”), but then toward life (“that I might receive it back again,” 10:17).
Now he reinforces this by adding, “And I know that his command is eternal life; so then the things I speak, just as the Father has told me, thus I speak”* (v. 50). This final verse of the chapter serves as a transition to the latter half of the Gospel. When Jesus said “I did not speak on my own” (v. 49), he was looking back at his ministry so far, and when he claimed that the Father “has given me a command what I should say and what I should speak,” he was referring to all that he had said or ever would say.* But now he turns his attention toward the immediate future: “the things I speak” (that is, from now on), and “thus I speak” (that is, in the chapters to follow). In short, Jesus has a great deal more to say. Later, when he is well into that last series of speeches, he will anticipate the future once again, and in a similar way, looking directly at the impending passion: “and just as the Father commanded me, thus I do”* (14:31). As is often noticed,* Jesus’ language evokes the prophecy given to Moses that “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will speak to them whatever I command him”* (Deut 18:18; for this “prophet,” see Jn 1:21; 7:40, 52).* The most conspicuous feature of God’s “command,”* whether in Deuteronomy or in John’s Gospel, is that it means “life” or “eternal life” for those who obey it.* First of all it means life for Jesus himself (see 10:18, both “authority to lay it down,” and “authority to receive it back”), and then on that basis eternal life for those who follow him (see 10:10, 28). Even Jesus’ words about death (in 6:51–58 for example) turn out finally to be “words of eternal life” (see 6:63, 68). The Gospel began with the notice that “In him was life” (1:4), and its first major section ended with John’s testimony that “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever disobeys the Son will never see life” (3:36). Now its second major section ends with Jesus’ own claim, “I know that his command is eternal life” (v. 50), and when the Gospel writer finally comes to state what he wants for his readers, it is “that believing you might have life in his name” (20:31). “Life” is the Gospel’s overarching theme, and even though Jesus will rarely mention it explicitly in the next five chapters, all that he says from now on will serve to define what it means for his disciples and for the reader of the Gospel (see especially 17:2–3).
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