Jesus starts to talk about His passion, as an example of a grain of wheat that must fall into the ground and die alone and then producing much grain. Dr. Sproul explains the meaning behind this concept and then moves to an explanation of verses 25 and 26 and the statement, "If anyone serves Me, let Him follow Me." Dr. Sproul considers a different way to look at Jesus' statement, "Father, save me from this hour."

For those of you who were here last year after the Ligonier conference and graced our church with your visit, you may recall that I was preaching from the gospel according to Saint John. We have made great progress in the last twelve months as we continue preaching through the gospel according to Saint John. We have now reached as far as the twelfth chapter. This morning, I will be reading from John 12:20–30. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

Now there were certain Greeks among those who came up to worship at the feast. Then they came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus.

But Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.

“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”

Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.”

Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to Him.”

Jesus answered and said, “This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake.”

He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let him hear it. You may be seated. Let us pray.

Oh, the depths and the riches of the truth that proceeds from Thee, O God. It is too high; we cannot attain it. It is too deep; we cannot fathom its riches. But in our time this morning, O God, in Your presence, as we taste heaven, we ask that You give us some understanding of the riches of this text. For I ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Greeks at Passover

I must confess that on the way to church this morning, my own soul was troubled, and I said to Vesta: “I’m really frustrated with the text I have this morning because it is so rich. It contains so many things that to do it justice, examining these ten verses would require several weeks.” Vesta said: “So? Why don’t you take ten weeks?” I said: “If I take ten weeks on these ten verses, this congregation is going to rise up and throw me out because it’s taken me forever to get us this far. At some point, I have to reach the end of the gospel of John.” Then I said, “I have to hurry because we have two services, and I have to make sure we are over in time so other people can get here and use the parking lot for the second service.” She said, “You have been saying all week at the conference that we enter into heaven itself on Sunday morning, and you’re in a hurry to leave?” Maybe she should come up and give the sermon this morning.

On to the text. The context for these words of Jesus is given by John when he mentions that Greeks were present at the feast during what we now call Holy Week. They were there for Passover. We are not told whether they were simply Greek-speaking Jews. In all probability, they were not just Greek-speaking Jews of the Diaspora, but Greek people, gentiles who were there for the feast.

John does not tell us, but if we peek between the lines, we know from Mark’s account of Holy Week that Jesus also cleansed the temple during this time. The part of the temple that He cleansed was the outer court, where all the merchandising was going on. That outer court of the temple was known as the Court of the Gentiles.

There was the outer court, then the Holy Place, then the Holy of Holies. Only the Jews could go into the Holy Place, or the inner court of the temple; and of course, only the high priest—and that once a year—could enter the inner sanctum of the Holy of Holies. So, the gentiles who had embraced Judaism and were God-fearers but were not yet circumcised could come only to the outer court. In fact, Josephus tells us of a visit to Jerusalem by a Roman magistrate, the governor of Syria by the name of Vitellius, during the Passover. With all his power and authority, he was not permitted beyond the wall of separation between the outer court and the inner court.

The Hour of Glorification

Why does John even bother to mention this dimension of the narrative? I can only guess, but I think a hint as to why this is significant may be seen in the words that Jesus gives to Philip, who hears the Greeks and their request to have an audience with Jesus. When they said, “We would see Jesus,” they were not simply saying, “Can we find out where He is so we can take a look at Him?” No, they were saying: “We would see Him and meet with Him personally. We have some things we’d like to discuss with Him.”

Philip goes to Andrew. You may remember that when we started this church, we talked a little bit about Andrew. We said that every time we find him in the New Testament, he is busy bringing people to Jesus. That is why we named this church after him, so that we might be busy bringing people to Jesus.

The message is delivered to Jesus. One of the oddities is that we never know whether Jesus accedes to the request. We do not know whether He said, “Okay, I’ll meet with them.” All we know is what He said to the request from Andrew and Philip.

“But Jesus answered them, saying . . .” What would you expect Him to say? We would expect Him to say: “Of course. Bring them over. I’m happy to meet with the gentiles. I talked to the Syrophoenician woman. I ministered to her needs. I didn’t come only to Israel. I came mainly to Israel, but I also have a mission beyond the borders of Israel. I have many sheep that are not of this fold.” But He does not say any of these things—at least, whatever else He said is not recorded in the text.

Immediately Jesus focuses on the significance of the moment, and He says this: “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” That statement alone is enough to keep us busy for the next several weeks. We have noticed throughout the gospel of John that on frequent occasions and sometimes in a cryptic manner, Jesus makes reference to His hour that is coming. Sometimes His hour referred to His hour of exaltation and glorification. Other times, when He spoke of the coming hour, it was the hour of His debasement, His passion, and His humiliation.

Two things strike me about this statement from Jesus. First, He is no longer speaking about the hour in a future way. The hour is no longer distant, but it is at hand. He says to those who are around Him, “The hour has come.” But we also see in this statement that the distinction between the hour of shame and the hour of exaltation disappears. Here when Jesus speaks of His hour that has come, it is the hour of His glorification.

Glory in Agony

Let us read it again: “The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” You would think that would be a triumphal statement: “The Greeks are here. It’s time for Me to be glorified.” But He follows this immediately with the statement, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.” You see, in the same breath, He speaks of the hour of His glorification and the hour of His death.

We know—and those who were at Ligonier’s National Conference this week heard this so richly expressed over and over again—that the way to glory is the Via Dolorosa. The way for Christ to be exalted was the road paved with the passion of His agony.

Satan, in the wilderness, had offered Him a more expedient way that would bypass the cross. All He had to do was genuflect for a moment where no one would see Him, and all the kingdoms of the world would be His—no cross, no suffering, no passion, no humiliation. Jesus refused that way because it was not the Father’s way.

We heard this week how the road to the empty tomb went through Golgotha, but beloved, Jesus is saying more than that. He is not simply saying, “The only way I can be exalted is through My humiliation.” He is not saying, “The only way I can enter into glory is through the debasement of My trial and death.” He is saying more than the consequence of that suffering.

What Jesus is saying is, “In the death, in the pain, in the suffering is My glory”—not that the glory comes through it, but that the glory is there. That is why we glory in the cross. Why? How can the cross be the moment of His exaltation? How can the cross be the time in which the Son of Man is lifted up? Because in His death, in the cross, He is obeying the Father, and He is glorifying the Father. All who obey and give glory to the Father are honored by the Father.

Fruit Borne from the Grain

Listen again to what our Lord says. By way of background, I am speaking now as an aside to the folks of Saint Andrew’s Chapel: We have been involved in the book of John for a long time. We have seen how pivotal the Bread of Life discourse was to the entire development of the gospel of John. We have seen how radical was the teaching of Jesus, who talked about being the new manna, the bread that comes down from heaven and satisfies our hunger forever.

Now that the hour has come, Jesus gives another lesson drawn from the agrarian environment of His day, from the production of wheat. This is the Bread of Life speaking. He says, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone.” One grain plucked from the stalk, one seed of grain, if it stands alone, is put in a jar, or pinned as a trophy on the wall, is worthless. For anything to come of that one seed, for anyone else to benefit from that piece of grain, it has to fall. It has to fall to the earth, and it has to die. When it dies, it brings forth fruit in abundance.

Oh, how I love the promise in Isaiah 53 that is given to the Servant of the Lord: “He shall see the fruit of the travail of His soul and be satisfied” (Isa 53:11, RSV). Away with this doctrine of the atonement that says Jesus died to make salvation possible—as if our Lord went to the cross, then when He was raised from the dead, He returned to heaven and got a seat on the fifty-yard line to observe the consequences of His action, only to wring His hands in anxiety, saying, “I hope someone takes advantage of this and is saved.”

The Father gives Christ’s sheep to Him as His inheritance. It is not possible, not even theoretically possible, that the atonement of Christ could go without fruit. The Father makes certain that the wheat that dies bears fruit.

Ladies and gentlemen, if indeed you are in Christ and have tasted of the bread of heaven, you are that fruit. That fruit is not just given to Israel, but in the context of this statement, Jesus is anticipating His church, which includes the Greeks. They will no longer be kept on the fringe of the church, no longer be sent into the outer court with a wall of separation and the penalty of death for anyone who passed through.

We remember that on the day of Christ’s atonement, now only hours away from our Lord, the curtain in the temple was rent. The division between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies was torn asunder. Not only that, but the dividing wall between the Jew and the gentile was demolished by the atonement of Christ.

Embrace His Shame

“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also.” Our Lord said elsewhere, “If you want to follow Me,” and we will see later in the text that when He talks about where He is going, Peter raises the question, “Quo vadis?” Do you remember the movie Quo Vadis? Those of you with snow on the roof remember it. It was called Quo Vadis, which was taken from the Latin translation of the text in which Peter asks Jesus, “Where are you going?”

Jesus said, in effect: “I’m going to the cross. Come along with Me. If you’re going to be My disciple, you’re going to have to follow Me, and you’re going to walk in the shadow of the cross. You’re going to participate in My humiliation.”

Remember that our Lord, before He left this earth, gave the church her Great Commission to go into all the world, baptizing all people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. If you are baptized, you have on your body the mark of your participation in Christ’s suffering, because we are buried with Him in baptism.

The Apostle Paul warns again and again that if we are not willing to participate with Christ in His humiliation, we will have no part in His exaltation. If you are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of you. But if you are a Christian, you embrace Him, not only in His exaltation, not only with the theology of glory, but in His shame. Otherwise, you will be numbered with those who are only trying to save their lives. They are the ultimate losers, Jesus said. But those who lose their life for His sake participate in His honor.

Christ’s Horrifying Destiny

Jesus says, “Now My soul is troubled.” We must realize that we are separated by two thousand years from these words. They bounce off our ears and do not really penetrate to our visceral parts. We do not really become engaged in them existentially, as it were. But think about it. Use your imagination. Be there. Be in the presence of Jesus. You have seen His power, you have seen His glory, and you have heard His words. All of a sudden, you hear Him say, “Now My soul is troubled.”

The word that Jesus uses here means “revulsion.” It means “horror.” Our Lord is saying, in essence, “My soul is horrified by what I am facing.” He continues: “And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?” There is a difficulty in the construction of the original text. Is Jesus saying: “What should I say? Should I say, ‘Father, spare Me, save Me from this hour’?”

That is what Jesus says in Gethsemane, is it not? Maybe that is what Jesus is doing. He is putting that as part of the rhetorical question: “What shall I say? Shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour, spare Me from this hour’?”

There is another way to read it, and frankly, I prefer the second reading. Jesus expresses the horror that grabs His soul, and He says, “What can I say?” Then He directs His words to God. “Father, save Me from this hour”—a pre-Gethsemane Gethsemane. Yet He says: “But for this purpose I came to this hour.”

Jesus is saying, in essence: “I know He can’t take that cup away. This is My destiny. This is why I’m here. It’s horrible to Me now. I see it in all its blackness, in all its fullness as it awaits Me, now just hours away. I know He can’t remove the cup. It’s My purpose. It’s My raison d’être. That is why I’m here. That’s why I came to this hour.”

The Voice of God

Listen to what Jesus says here. He does not say, “Father, glorify My name.” He says, “Father, glorify Your name.” That is the higher purpose of the cross. Christ is glorified in His suffering. Not only is Christ glorified by the empty tomb, but the Father is glorified by the satisfaction of His justice, by the manifestation of His perfection. When His Son pays the debt for sin, God is glorified.

When Jesus says, “Father, glorify Your name,” for only the third time recorded in the New Testament, God speaks audibly from heaven. He spoke at the baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). He spoke again at the Mount of Transfiguration: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him” (Matt. 17:5). The voice is, in a sense, a testimony to how we are to respond.

This time, the voice is directed specifically to the ears of Jesus. When Jesus says, “Father, glorify Thy name,” the voice from heaven says: “I already have, and I will again. I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

Therefore, the people who stood by and heard the voice did not really grasp it. We do not know whether there was a difference in the degree of understanding among those who were there, but some thought it was thunder.

The voice of God booms from heaven. People said, “What’s that?” Someone said, “It sounds like a thunderclap to me.” Is that what the Word of God sounds like to you—indistinguishable noise? Or has God, in His sweetness and His mercy, given you ears to hear? Has He removed the scales from your eyes so that you may behold His glory? Jesus knew what the Father said. Whether anyone else understood it remains a question.

“Jesus answered and said, ‘This voice did not come because of Me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world’” (John 12:30–31). I told you when we began our study of the gospel of John that almost two-thirds of the gospel deals with the last few days of Jesus’ life. Now we are entering into the rising crescendo of the climax of this gospel, as John spends time describing for us the very last days of the life of our Lord. The hour has come. Let us not miss it. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, how delighted we are that in the shame of Christ You have made it glorious, that we might exult in Him not only in His resurrection but also in His death. For we ask it in His name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.