John 12 - CSB Disciple’s Study Bible

12:1-8 STEWARDSHIP, Service to God—See note on Mt 26:6-13.

12:1-10 JESUS CHRIST, Death—See note on Lk 7:36-38. Christ’s healing signs did bring people to faith. A true believer prepared him for death as religious leaders prepared to kill him.

12:4-6 CHRISTIAN ETHICS, Property Rights—Thievery is wrong (Ex 20:15). Thievery in the name of religion and charity shows greed has consumed a life. See notes on Mt 6:19-34; Lk 16:1-15.

12:10-11,35-46 SALVATION, Belief—Those who trust in Jesus trust in the Light. He came to deliver persons from darkness, but not everyone wants to see the glory of God revealed in Christ. Only faith, not miracles, leads to true trust in Christ. Faith leads to public testimony because its goal is not human praise. This rejection of Christ was foretold in Is 6:10; 53:1. The Gospel suggested that in the historical chain of cause and effect, sin causes blindness of the soul and a moral insensibility to spiritual truths.

12:12-19 JESUS CHRIST, King—See note on Lk 19:28-44. The disciples fulfilled Scripture and honored Jesus as the messianic King, but they understood the full meaning of their actions only after the resurrection.

12:13 PRAYER, Praise—See note on Mt 21:9.

12:17-19 EVANGELISM, Testimony—Jesus’s miracle works had great power to convince others and bring them to faith. Testimony to Christ and his saving grace is powerful in any age and is a vital part of evangelization. Such testimony disturbs those who oppose the Lord, as it did the Pharisees. God still shows his miraculous power to support his witnessing people.

12:20-33 JESUS CHRIST, Glory—See note on 11:4. Facing death brought troubled emotions to Christ as it would to any human, but he obediently carried out the Father’s mission; for only in death could he bring glory to God and salvation to God’s chosen.

12:20-50 JESUS CHRIST, Death—The Greeks, either Greek-speaking Jews or Gentiles, asked to see Jesus. Jesus used this meeting as an opportunity to foretell his death by means of the vivid metaphor of a grain of wheat dying, being buried, and reproducing. The divine voice reconfirmed Jesus, as at the baptism (Mk 1:11). Jesus and John speak all through the Gospel of his “hour” or “time,” that is the appointed time of his destiny when he should accomplish his messianic task (2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23,27; 13:1; 17:1). Jesus was intensely aware that his hour involved a confrontation with Satan (12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Jesus’s recourse in his time of crisis was to his Father and to the Scriptures.

12:23-29 REVELATION, Author of Life—Jesus’s death was the Father’s full revelation of his power over death and thus a revelation of God’s glory. The great moment of revelation troubled Christ’s heart, but he did not avoid it. He knew God had brought him to the moment to conquer death and in that event reveal the way to eternal life for us.

12:23-33 HISTORY, Time—See notes on 2:4; 7:6-8. Christ’s death is the most significant moment of history, for it allowed Christ and the Father to reveal their full glory and to receive praise acknowledging their glory. The basic purpose of time and history is to give praise and glory to God. Christ’s death spelled Satan’s ultimate defeat. It showed no one, not even death, could defeat God and his control of history.

12:23-26 DISCIPLESHIP, Lordship of Christ—Death to self-seeking is the disciple’s goal. We seek to kill all selfish goals and ambitions that dominate life without Christ. We love Christ rather than selfish ambition. Those who live under the lordship of Christ have no choice but to follow him obediently. Disciples come under his lordship voluntarily; once we have chosen him as Master, we must obey completely. See note on Lk 6:46-49.

12:25 LAST THINGS, Age to Come—Similar to the present age and the age to come are John’s words about “this world” and “eternal life.” This world is the sphere of Satan’s activity. The life of eternity is God’s kind of life. He has manifested his life in the coming of Christ (1:4). In receiving Christ, believers receive eternal life (3:16). The life of the age to come is experienced by believers in the present age through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. See note on Mk 10:29-31.

12:27-28 PRAYER, Will of God—Jesus demonstrated in prayer his determination to do the will of God (4:34; 6:38; 17:4). Prayer commits us to God’s will no matter the personal cost. See note on Lk 3:21-22.

12:28 GOD, Glory—God works through human circumstances to reveal his position as the only God so we will honor and worship him. God’s glory and the Son’s are practically identical here, another basis for the teaching of the Trinity. See note on Mt 3:16-17.

12:32 THE CHURCH, People of God—Jesus died that all people might know his saving power. He commanded the church to proclaim his message to everyone. No people are excluded from the church. They exclude themselves when they refuse to accept Jesus as Lord.

12:33-36 JESUS CHRIST, Death—Jesus controlled his future and faced death with purpose. He corrected the crowd’s misinterpretation of Scripture and encouraged them to trust him as God’s Light to salvation. See note on 1:4-5.

12:41 JESUS CHRIST, Fulfilled—The glory of God dazzled Isaiah (Is 6). The glory of the Father is also the glory of the Son, so Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory. Jesus fulfilled the hard message of rejection and the glorious promises of the prophet.

12:42 SALVATION, Confession—Confession is sometimes hindered by fear of what others may do to us. We should seek to build a community that encourages persons to confess their faith in Christ.

12:44-46 REVELATION, Jesus Christ—Jesus revealed his intimacy with the Father. Whoever believes in him and sees him also believes in and sees God. Christ is light, making clear who the Father is and lighting the path that leads to him.

12:44-45 JESUS CHRIST, God—Jesus explained that because he revealed the Father, belief in him was belief in God. Jesus’s unity with the Father was so complete that he claimed that to see him was to see God. See note on 14:9.

12:44-50 JESUS CHRIST, Son of God—Jesus claimed identity with the Father (10:30,38). To trust One is to trust the Other.

12:44-50 GOD, Trinity—This passage illustrates how integral to the NT the doctrine of the Trinity is. The work of the Father and the work of the Son flow into one another; indeed, the work One does is the work of the Other. Response in faith to One means response to the Other. Seeing Jesus is seeing the Father, for Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father. See note on 10:25-38.

12:48 LAST THINGS, Last Days—“The last day” is to be distinguished from “the last days.” Expressed in the plural, the reference is to the entire period that began when Christ came into the world. The time of the Spirit’s activity in the earth, for example, is called “the last days” (Ac 2:17). See Heb 1:2; 1Pt 1:20; Jd 18. In the singular, however, the last day speaks of a future time when such things as resurrection (6:39-40) and judgment (12:48) occur. See 1Jn 2:18.