12:27-33 The sin of our souls was the troubled of Christ's soul, when he undertook to redeem and save us, and to make his soul an offering for our sin. Christ was willing to suffer, yet prayed to be saved from suffering. Prayer against trouble may well agree with patience under it, and submission to the will of God in it. Our Lord Jesus undertook to satisfy God's injured honour, and he did it by humbling himself. The voice of the Father from heaven, which had declared him to be his beloved Son, at his baptism, and when he was transfigured, was heard proclaiming that He had both glorified his name, and would glorify it. Christ, reconciling the world to God by the merit of his death, broke the power of death, and cast out Satan as a destroyer. Christ, bringing the world to God by the doctrine of his cross, broke the power of sin, and cast out Satan as a deceiver. The soul that was at a distance from Christ, is brought to love him and trust him. Jesus was now going to heaven, and he would draw men's hearts to him thither. There is power in the death of Christ to draw souls to him. We have heard from the gospel that which exalts free grace, and we have heard also that which enjoins duty; we must from the heart embrace both, and not separate them.

Verses 28, 29. - A heavy thunder-cloud seems to hang over him; for a moment a break in the darkness, a rift in the clouds, presents itself, and, though he might have prayed for legions of angels, he did not. The second Adam knows the issue of the tremendous trial, and, in full apprehension of the answer to his deepest prayer, he cries, Father, glorify thy Name. The "thy" is emphatic. A contrast is implied between the eternal glory and the glory of the Christ. "I am thine; thou art mine;" "Thy will be done;" "Not as I will, but as thou wilt;" "If this cup cannot pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done;" "Not my will, but thine be done." I bare my breast for the blow; I yield my ψυχή absolutely to thy control! God glorifies himself in many ways, and here we see the highest point to which the human can rise. Godet calls attention to the extraordinary mistake made by Colani, who founds a charge against the Gospel itself on the supposition that these solemn words were, "Father, glorify my Name." The synoptists tell us that at the baptism (Matthew 3:17) and at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5) a literal voice of words was heard from heaven conveying intelligible ideas to John the Baptist and subsequently to Peter, James, and John. And here the same John (son of Zebedee) records, not only that such a kind of voice was repeated on this occasion, but reports the very words themselves. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. These words many of the crowd round about him, as well as Jesus himself, distinctly heard. The multitude that stood by said, It has thundered; hearing only a voice of thunder. It will not, however, on that account be fair to this evangelist to say (with Paulus, Lucke, and even Hengstenberg) that there was no objective audible voice which any ear beside that of Jesus could hear, and which none but the mind of Jesus could interpret. It is not sufficient to say "that the thunder and the voice were identical." Hengstenberg quotes numerous passages from the Old Testament where thunder was interpreted to mean the "voice of Jehovah" (1 Samuel 12:18; Psalm 29; Job 37:4; Psalm 18:13), but there are numerous passages both in the Old Testament and in the Gospels and Acts where an objective voice was heard. Such voice was at times accompanied by thunder, but not in the majority of cases. In the promises made in the garden of Eden, in the call of Moses and Samuel, and in the communion that passed between the Lord and Abraham, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Samuel, Solomon, and Elijah, Jehovah spake in audible words without such auxiliary. When communications were made to Eli, to David, to Hezekiah, and others, they were given by the lips of prophetic men. When the Law was given to all the tribes of Israel, the thunder-trumpet was exceeding loud and long, and the people could not bear the awful experience, so that the Lord was pleased to speak to Moses only, and he was to communicate with the people. The case of Elijah is remarkable because the "still small voice" is distinguished from the thunder, etc., which had preceded it. Why should Hengstenberg have refrained from giving these Old Testament facts their proper weight? The rationalistic view would make the words spoken to have been the inference that either Jesus or John drew from a clap of thunder, and must conclude that the crowd, so far as the objective fact was concerned, were practically in the right. The narrative itself recounts a varied appreciation of a distinct and objective fact. Those who were not alive to any voice from heaven confounded it with thunder, lowered the Divine communication down to an ordinary natural fact. Others, i.e. "a few others," were much nearer to the reality when they said, An angel hath spoken to him (compare reference to the angelic aid that came to the Lord in Gethsemane). The voice of God's plenipotentiary angel speaking in his Name, was recognized as a supernatural communication, though the meaning of it was not grasped (cf. the voice with which Jesus spoke to Paul on the way to Damascus). But we may reasonably suppose that these Greeks, that the disciples who surrounded Jesus, that the beloved John, found in the voice a direct answer to the previous sublime cry of the Lord. The prayer, "Father, glorify thy Name," received the answer, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again; i.e. In thy work and life hitherto, as Prophet, Master, Example, as my beloved Son, my Name has already been glorified in thee, and now in thy approaching sacrificial agony in which thou wilt become perfect as a Priest-King, and the Author of eternal salvation, "I will glorify it again."

Father, glorify thy name,.... The perfections of his nature, particularly his justice and holiness, meaning in himself; by his sufferings and death; intimating hereby, that his Father's glory was what he had in view, and that the securing of that would give him an infinite pleasure amidst all his sorrows. The Arabic version, and Nonnus, read "glorify thy Son", as in John 17:1, and the Ethiopic version takes in both, "glorify thy name, and thy Son": and indeed, what glorifies the one, glorifies the other; see John 13:31.

Then came there a voice from heaven; as at his baptism and transfiguration, and which came from the Father, and was an articulate one, and what the Jews call "Bath Kol", or "the daughter of the voice":

saying, I have both, glorified it; meaning in the incarnation, ministry, obedience and miracles of Christ; and particularly in that late one in raising Lazarus from the dead:

and will glorify it again; by supporting him under, and carrying him through his sufferings and death, and by raising him from the dead, and setting him at his own right hand.

28. Father, glorify thy name—by a present testimony.

I have both glorified it—referring specially to the voice from heaven at His baptism, and again at His transfiguration.

and will glorify it again—that is, in the yet future scenes of His still deeper necessity; although this promise was a present and sublime testimony, which would irradiate the clouded spirit of the Son of man.

John 12:28 Parallel Commentaries

John 12:28 NIV
John 12:28 NLT
John 12:28 ESV
John 12:28 NASB
John 12:28 KJV

Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible