JOHN CHAPTER 12
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
See
previous page
Jn 12,1-4
(186g)
Works of the devil >> The result of lawlessness >>
The reprobate >> Man’s role in becoming a
reprobate >> After they reject God’s faith how
can they believe? -- Blasphemy coming from the bowls of
the world, such as Dan Brown's DaVinci Code and others who take it upon
themselves to invent their own rendition of the gospel, passing it as the
morality of Jesus, builds speculation upon
speculation. Only after people caught on to his ideas, which had no basis
in truth, did he then comment that no one was supposed to take him
seriously, since he was merely writing a fun work of fiction. By that time he had
upset the faith of many, which was exactly his intent. Mr. Brown is unable to
discriminate truth from his own lies. Only from a sea of reprobates could
something this blasphemous become popular, even knowing it was fiction, fantasying its truth. How are we not living in the age of apostasy? Only
a depraved and psychopathic society would support a guy like Dan Brown and
believe in his lies even after admitting he was merely following his fleshly impulses. The
point was not whether he could write something true, but whether he could profane
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and blaspheme the name of Him who gave His life a
ransom for many. His goal was to spread seeds of doubt; funny, the
devil does the same thing.
Jn 12,1-3
(8j)
Responsibility >> Responsible to defend God’s cause >>
Preparing to die to self – According to the custom of their day, they
would anoint the body of the deceased with perfume. In Jesus' mind He was
already dead, since He had determined to become the sacrificial
lamb.
(13l)
Servant >> Serve God though small in stature >>
Least is the greatest
(77b)
Thy kingdom come >> Hunger for the essence of
God >> Hunger for His presence --
Mary knew Jesus like few other disciples, and perhaps her spiritual
understanding of Him is the cause of some of the reprobates of our own time
confusing her spirituality with sexual conquests in the Lord. Her great secret
and the strength of her spirituality was that she listened to Jesus. She loved
His words that He offered the world, which revolved around love, joy and all the
other fruits of the Spirit, things she never saw in any of her
clients as a prostitute. She was hungry for the things of God; Jesus was a
perfect match for her. She consumed the Lord as though He were a banquet of
food stretched across a long table after starving for years. Mary
wasn’t looking for true love as we know it, but for something more
spiritual than any human could offer her. She had a hunger that only God could
assuage. When she followed her path that led to
prostitution, Jesus made her long for God all the more, not knowing what she really wanted, until His
words found their place in her heart.
(79j)
Thy kingdom come >> Know the word >>
Listen to the word >> Listen to Jesus --
Jesus corrected Judas in verse 7 saying, “let her alone, in order that she
may keep it [the custom of anointing] for the day of My burial. No one asked
Him what He meant, but Mary who was anointing His feet knew, because she
listened to Jesus. He told them point blank many times that He was going to
the cross, but they refused to listen to Him about this and were afraid to
question Him about it. The disciples thought in line with the
Jews, who expected the Kingdom of God to appear at any time. They
didn’t want to believe that Jesus would someday leave them in care of the
Holy Spirit. However, Mary was open-minded about it. If He
told her that He was leaving her with someone she would never
be able to see, touch, smell or taste but was His spiritual double, Mary was all into it, because she trusted that whatever Jesus
had in mind would ultimately end in her favor, because she knew He loved her
and all the disciples. She would miss His physical form, but she was more into the spiritual side of
Jesus.
(123k)
Thy kingdom come >> Manifestations of faith >>
Love >> Spiritual affection >>
Being in love with the body of Christ >>
Physical affection with spiritual motives
-- There was nothing sexual about Mary
applying perfume to Jesus’ feet with her hair. Of all the women disciples
who followed Jesus, Mary was probably the most spiritual of them all. She
seemed to understand Jesus better than anyone, and for that reason those who
have trouble understanding Him could possibly misconstrue her spiritual
affection for sexual advances. Those who would misinterpret her motives as sexual would
agree with His
enemies, according to another account of this story in Lk 7,36-50, where it
tells of a Pharisee thinking evil in his heart about Jesus for letting this
woman (Mary) anoint His feet in this manner. He said to himself that if this
man were a prophet, he would know what sort of person who was
touching him, that she was a sinner. If only Simon the Pharisee knew Jesus as
Mary did, he might not be so judgmental.
(182e)
Works of the devil >> The origin of lawlessness >>
Deception >> Three causes of interpreting
Scripture falsely >> Because they have no regard
for God’s word – Mary anointed
Jesus’ feet with a very costly perfume of pure nard and wiped His feet with
her hair. This is one of the Scripture passages that reprobates of our day
have expropriated for their own purpose of smearing the character of Christ.
They assert that He had an illicit sexual affair with Mary, based on the
emotional ties she had with Him. This, however, is not to mention that He felt
very strongly about her whole family, along with many other people whom He formed deep emotional bonds. Our depraved society cannot
discriminate between an emotional relationship with the opposite gender and a
sexual relationship, as though they cannot exist apart. Television is geared toward sex as perhaps the topmost legal drug on
the market today, and they use it to sell all their products, but what they
are really selling is sex. Non-committal sex has eaten away at the moral
fabric of our nation to the point that the foundations are about to collapse beyond any hope of
restoration. This social/moral decline is
in-your-face through every facet of the media. Satan’s world empire is
almost upon us, but he is in no way strong enough to control an emotionally and
mentally stable people who belong to a strong family unit, so these
things must first be eliminated before his plans to take over a feeble-minded
and broken people can go forward. If sexual perversion is a
tool of the devil to ripen a people ready to be plucked, then how do these
psychopaths intend to sell their idea that Jesus was sexually promiscuous with
Mary to those of us who know and love the
truth?
(209a)
Salvation >> The salvation of God >>
Personal relationship >> Being married to God >>
We go where He goes -- Feet are the
body part that takes us where we want to go, especially back in those days
when they didn’t have cars. Hence, to anoint Jesus’ feet was symbolic of
glorifying the body part that Jesus used to find her. The fact that she
applied the perfume with her hair was in a sense using a body part of her own.
According to Paul in 1Cor 11,3-16 a woman’s long hair is her glory. She used
her hair to anoint Jesus for burial. This was significant enough to be
mentioned twice in the gospels, once in Luke and once here in the gospel of
John. It is a good guess that Mary never washed or cut her hair so long as the
fragrance of the perfume lasted, giving them this aromatic connection.
Jn 12,3-6
(186j) Works of the devil >>
The result of lawlessness >> The reprobate >>
God’s role in forming a reprobate >> Marked
out for destruction
Jn 12-3
(252b) Trinity >>
You shall put no other gods before Me >> Worship
Jesus (Because He is equal with God) >> Jesus is
worthy of our worship >> Worship Jesus for who
he is
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,4-8
(23h) Sin >>
Poverty (Oppression) >> Shaming the poor –
The true mark of a Christian is
compassion, which requires the ability to empathize. Judas Iscariot was
incapable of this because of his narcissism. He demonstrated the reprobate
mind by the fact that the only time he showed an interest in
the poor was when he saw an opportunity to take advantage of them. Compassion
was something Judas simply could not comprehend, for the Scriptures plainly
state that he was not concerned about the poor. Like the laws of the animal
kingdom regarding "Natural Selection" such as Survival of the Fittest,
if Judas could steal from the poor, it meant he was greater than them and thus
more deserving of what little they had. To show a feigned interest in the poor
was even worse, because then he was mocking them. Judas
was under the impression that to get ahead in life meant to get financially ahead, so he regularly skimmed the treasury fund, which is an age-old
trick widely in use to this day. He didn’t come back wearing a fancy coat or new shoes,
because Jesus would have asked where he got them. Apparently he had outside
connections to whom he would give the money, instructing them to add it to his growing stash, so when
this Jesus-gig had ended he could
comfortably retire.
(195e)
Denying Christ >> Man exercises his will against God >> Idolatry
>> Serving two masters (Destroying your conscience) >> Being double minded
–
Judas was a thief and a scoundrel, but he was no murderer; no less, he had a reprobate mind. He didn’t think Jesus would be murdered when he
betrayed Him; he was only trying to terminate His ministry so he could begin
living out his dream life with all the money he stole over the last couple
years, but after he learned
they intended to crucify Him, he suddenly discovered he had a conscience and
didn’t know what to do with it, so he killed himself. Jesus was his friend
who took him under His wing and perhaps the only person who trusted him and
paid attention to him. We know for a fact that Judas had a reprobate mind (Mat
26-24), so it is possible he had a conscience. The problem is
he had no idea what to do with it, because feeling guilty rarely occurred to
him. Reprobates are in many ways like psychopaths, who are said to be without
conscience, yet psychopaths do have a conscience, only not like ours. To us,
conscience is a restricted area; we are not allowed
to manipulate it in any way, so that it can accurately tell us
when we do wrong. In contrast, the reprobate and psychopath disable their
God-given conscience and develop a version of their own based on a set of
handpicked rules they devise for themselves, and apparently Judas did not
make allowance for murderer. See also: Reprobate
(Surrendering to sin);
Eph 5,5-8; 167j
Jn 12,4-6
(25h) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Thief >>
Stealing from some one
(76c) Thy kingdom come >>
Motives >> Seeking authority for security >>
Motives based on greed
(166i) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >>
Carnality/Secularism (mindset of the world) >>
The carnal mind cannot discern between good and evil >>
The world’s perspective on wealth
(170h) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> Outward
appearance >> Temporary >>
Rewards of this life are temporary
(182j) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> Deception >>
Being deceptive with people >> Telling the truth
with an evil motive
(186db)
Works of the devil >> The result of lawlessness >> Man’s role in becoming a
reprobate >> The fool throws Jesus away for
something better >> Judas betrayed the Lord – Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples
who walked with Him about 3 years; He heard the word of God in its
purest form, saw countless miracles performed right under his nose, yet he
did not repent as a thief. He probably Oood and Awed the miracles like
watching the fireworks, but he was never shaken to his core or stopped even
for a moment to reflect on what he was seeing and hearing. He was impervious
to rehabilitation. God has given Judas
Iscariot to us as an example of a reprobate mind. Jesus chose twelve disciples,
accepting a devil on purpose, who would betray Him,
because he knew every generation after Him throughout the next two millennia would
have to deal with the bloodsucking nature of this kind of people, who have no
conscience or capacity to believe in God. He abided with
Jesus in the inner circle, yet he did not believe. He cared only for
himself and valued money over spiritual matters of the heart. He simply was
not capable of comprehending the Kingdom of God. In every way he was the
opposite of Mary Magdalene. He was deeply entrenched in the value system of
the world, and spiritually never heard a single word Jesus spoke, yet he perfectly
blended with the rest of the disciples, who loved
Jesus with all their hearts. No one
suspected there was an unbeliever in their midst. During the Lord’s Supper
in Lk 22,20-23, Jesus told them there was one seated
at the table who would betrayed Him, and they all began to discuss with
each other which one it might be, implying they didn’t know.
Jn 12-5,6
(175b) Works of the devil >>
The religion of witchcraft >> Form of godliness >>
Using religion as a front –
The twelve remained with Jesus, even Judas. Of course Judas was just in
it for the money. He expected this whole Jesus movement to end in tragedy,
which it did, and so Judas was right, except that he caused it, making it a
self-fulfilled prophecy, which his conscience was not prepared to accept.
Judas wanted this Jesus gig to last long enough to amass a small fortune, so when things fall apart, he
could take his money and run. However, after
he realized this was ending badly for Jesus, He didn’t want to see Him
killed, and he especially didn’t want to be the cause of his death. He was
actually fond of Jesus; his conscience got overweighed with guilt, and so
being unpracticed in matters of the heart he
committed suicide. He felt remorse, guilt and condemnation incurred by the
devil, not from godly repentance. Jesus didn’t talk to Judas like He talked to
Peter; He just said to him, “What you do, do quickly” (Jn 13-27). With Peter he said, “I have prayed for you, that your faith may
not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your
brothers” (Lk 22-32). Virtually all sin has pride at the very root of it;
Judas had pride in his money, and Peter had pride in his faith. With pride
comes falsehood; Judas’ money had false-wealth, and Peter’s pride had
false confidence. Humility is the only container that can hold true faith,
while pride is a container that can hold only things
that are false, so whatever is in our basket of pride is false. To the degree
that we walk in pride is the degree to which we are self-deceived.
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,9-11
(25e) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Murder >>
Persecution to the death >> Kill your neighbor for
God’s sake
(39ja) Judgment >>
Jesus defeated death >> Jesus defeated this world
system >> Jesus defeated people who serve Satan
(53d) Paradox >>
Opposites >> Of life and death >>
Dying more than once – The Jews came to
see Jesus, but also to see Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead, so the
chief priests and the Pharisees set their crosshairs on murdering Lazarus too;
poor guy, he had to die twice. Lazarus was probably in paradise while his body
was in the grave, and now the Jews were seeking to kill him again. He may not
have been very
happy with Jesus for calling him back to this life. If Lazarus had the
option, he probably would have remained in paradise, except that God called him
to reassume his earthly body, and wherever God wants us is where He can best use
us.
(144e) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Witnesses of Jesus >> The Church Bears Witness of Jesus >> That He was
sent by God -- These verses go with verses 17-19.
It
was the height of twisted thinking that the religious establishment of Israel
wanted to put Lazarus to death because the people believed in Jesus through him. In
this way Lazarus represents the Church in that the world will try to
rid itself of the Church in the last days, but God will not let that happen, just
like He didn't let the world have its way in Jesus' day, via the resurrection.
The chief priests could see where this was going, that Jesus would increase in
popularity if they didn’t do something to stop Him. He would
perform more signs and their position in society would become
obsolete. Eventually this happened, but not the way they
expected. They knew that if they didn’t
stop Jesus, they would lose their business of religion, for it was becoming
clear that He was in the process of terminating it.
(146h) Purpose of
miracles (Key verse)
(146i) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Jesus’ works bear
witness of Himself >> Purpose of Miracles, Signs
And Wonders >> Proof that Jesus is the son of God >>
That the world may be saved –
There were hand-written recordings of Old Testament scrolls in every synagogue
that people read for themselves and could have seen Jesus in their ancient
manuscripts, yet the
people understood their religion in a uniform manner, because the Scribes
and Pharisees taught them what to think.
The chief priests hated Jesus because He was shining the light on their business
of religion. They were jealous of Him, not jealous of His
relationship with God but of His popularity with the people and His power to
perform miracles, signs and wonders. The chief priests would have done anything
to have this power, for they would have used it to further exploit the people.
(180g) Works of the devil >>
Practicing witchcraft >> Wolves >>
Wolves steal, kill and destroy >> Wolves have a
killer instinct
(245h)
Kingdom of God >>
Spirit realm imposed on the natural realm >>
Literal manifestations >> Manifestation of God’s
righteous judgment >> The resurrection is a
manifestation of His life -- These verses go with verses 17-19. Technically,
raising Lazarus from the dead was not as aspect of the First Resurrection that
will occur at the second coming of Christ. Instead, Jesus raised Lazarus in the
same mortal body that he had when he died, so poor Lazarus had to die twice, and
the chief priests were trying to speed up this process. The people wanted to
meet Lazarus and ask him all the questions that we also have about life after
death.
Jn 12-9
(143j) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Witnesses of Jesus >>
Jesus is popular because of His works -- This verse goes with verses
17-19
Jn 12,12-16
(133a)
Temple >> Your body is the temple of God >>
Holiness >> God is holy >>
The Father is holy --
They set Jesus on a donkey on His approach to
Jerusalem and spread palm branches in his path shouting, “Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel,” fulfilling Scripture.
These people were excited about Jesus at the time, because they thought He was
about to be crowned King of Israel, their long
awaited Messiah come to deliver them from their enemies. This was really all
they wanted from Him. They didn’t see their need to be saved from sin, suggesting the
people lacked a sense of holiness, and this caused them to misunderstand
everything about Jesus. He is due to return before long, and according to the
pattern, His people will probably miss Him again for the same reason. Most
people in the Church are expecting the Rapture to occur at any time, just like
the Jews expected the Kingdom of God to suddenly appear. However, Paul said, He
is coming for a church, “Having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that
she should be holy and blameless” (Eph 5-27). There’s that word again
“holy”. Jesus promised to delay His second coming, and now we know why; He
will wait and allow the devil’s tribulation to purge His people before He
returns for them. See also: Rapture (Last trumpet); Mat 25-3,4; 82k
(141d)
Witness >> Validity of Jesus Christ >>
Old Testament bears witness to the new >> It bears
witness to Jesus >> Prophesy about Jesus’
ministry >> Jesus as the savior
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,17-19
(24j) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> World is envious of
Jesus -- Lazarus stood alongside Jesus with many other
testimonies of the things Jesus had done, and the people worshipped Him,
spreading palm branches along His path and glorifying Him on His way to
Jerusalem. The Pharisees feared they would lose their
position as teachers of the law. They feared the people would stop listening
to their gibberish as Jesus freed them from financial slavery to their
useless religion. They were at the top of their game as religious
leaders. Israel was not just another country, but was literally invented by
God when He spoke to Abraham and promised to make his descendants fill the whole earth. In other words Israel
was created by faith, meaning that Israel’s religion defined them, and
the Pharisees were in charge of it, and they had utterly distorted it, which
was Jesus’ complaint. Hence, the Pharisees considered
themselves the most important people of their nation, of the whole world, and were
brilliant in convincing the people of that, until Jesus came and exposed their
hypocrisy. This was motive enough to want Him killed.
(143j) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Witnesses of Jesus >>
Jesus is popular because of His works -- These verses go with verse 9
(144e) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Witnesses of Jesus >> The Church Bears Witness of Jesus >> That He was
sent by God -- These verses go with verses 9-11
(245h)
Kingdom of God >>
Spirit realm imposed on the natural realm >>
Literal manifestations >> Manifestation of God’s
righteous judgment >> The resurrection is a
manifestation of His life -- These verses go with verses 9-11
Jn 12,20-22
(72h)
Authority >> Hierarchy of authority >>
More authority the more responsibility >> Closer
we get to Jesus the more authority we have –
There is a hierarchy of authority that existed with Jesus' disciples, as a
model for the hierarchy of authority that exists in heaven. There was the
inner circle consisting of Peter, James and John, and then there were
the other nine. There was a hierarchy within the nine that was not as
well defined. The second group consisted of: Philip, Nathanael (Bartholomew),
Thomas and Matthew (Levi). Finally, the third group contained: James (son of Alphaeus), Simon (the zealot), Judas or Thaddaeus (son of
James) and Judas Iscariot (See:
Jesus'
Twelve Disciples).
Jesus normally didn’t have dealings with
gentiles, only by exception, such as the
woman at the well, who was a Samaritan. Jesus dealt with gentiles on a
case-by-case basis, whereas any Jew who wanted to see Jesus had direct access
to Him. This is something we should recognize in our own faith—we
gentiles believe in God through the Jews, since Jesus was a Jewish Messiah. He
was an Israelite, a son of Abraham. Since Israel rejected the gospel, the
gentiles have managed the gospel all these centuries, but we have conveniently
forgotten that we have a Jewish faith. The sooner we understand that we have
been grafted into the faith of Abraham, who believed God and it was reckoned to
him as righteousness, the sooner we will understand that when the Jews return
to their faith as prophesied in the last days (Romans chapter 11), the
gentiles will have to surrender the gospel to them and believe in God through
the doctrines the Jews disseminate to the Church through
the Holy Spirit. This
also depicts a
hierarchy of authority. See also: Great Endtime Revival
(Jews will manage the gospel at the end of the
age);
Act 20,17-35; 101f
Jn 12-20,21
(232m)
Kingdom of God >>
Pursuing the kingdom >> Seeking the kingdom >>
Seek the essence of his kingdom >> Seeking Jesus
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,23-26
(14b)
Servant >> Servants expend themselves to please
God – The Father sent His Son to offer His life to the world, so we
would be saved. He sacrificed His
life that we might be beneficiaries of His suffering. Now that we are His
children, He wants us to dedicate our lives to His cause, which may take some
sacrifice, and He promises our efforts will bear
fruit.
(129e) Thy kingdom come >>
Manifestations of faith >> Bearing fruit >>
Bear fruit by dying to self
-- Jesus said, “He who loves his life looses
it,” meaning whoever clings to the parent plant will lead a fruitless life, but “he who hates his life in this world
shall keep it to eternal life.” People who hate the
world find it easier to sacrifice their lives for the sake of the Kingdom of God
than those who love the world. In fact, if we love
the world, it is impossible to sacrifice our life, any more than we can
quit smoking if we still enjoy the habit. In many ways this world is like an
addiction to a bad habit. We must first hate the habit before we can quit.
Likewise, it is a requirement to hate the world before we can be a disciple of Jesus.
The parent plant represents the world; if we detach
ourselves from it and fall into rich soil and die to
our sinful passions and desires, God will make something of us that we could never make
of ourselves, but when a man enters into judgment with God without any fruit
to show for all his years, God will interpret that man’s life as one who cared
only for the temporal interests of his flesh. A man can even show God his
family as evidence that he bore fruit, but God isn’t looking for fruit
that can be produced by the flesh; He is looking for spiritual fruit. The
fruit of the spirit is: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, qualities that can only be
consistently produced by the Spirit. See also:
Overcoming drug addiction by a substitutionary process; Jn 4-13,14; 162h
(187g) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Separation from the old man >>
Die to the flesh >> Dying to receive the glory
of God >> Dying to self precedes the
resurrection
–
Jesus talked about Himself as a seed, which is
alive and matures on the plant, and then detaches and falls
to the ground where it germinates, putting down roots and
begins to grow with new potential to produce fruit. Like
a planted acorn, the next year we discover a stem growing oak leaves on it,
but before that acorn can grow it had to die. No one would eat an acorn
that was ready to grow, because it turns colors and doesn’t look good
anymore, but inside things are happening. It is making preparations to set
down roots and push up a stem as the beginning of a long life of an oak
tree. Similarly, when Jesus entered His ministry, He fell off the parent tree
of humanity and began germinating, and
when He died they buried Him, and His resurrection represented the stem
pushing through the soil back to the light, also sending down roots,
representing the Church planted in the good soil.
(192a) Die to self (Process of substitution) >> Result of putting off the old man >>
Gain by losing >> Life for life >>
Losing your life to gain God’s life –
Jesus said, “The one who hates his life in this world will keep it
to eternal life.” Someone might say that He was using the word “hate”
as a metaphor, since it is much too strong a word. Actually, God thinks
exclusively in terms of love and hate with nothing in-between;
He doesn’t “like” or “dislike” anything. Jesus is the Son of God,
and so this is how He thinks too, and He wants us to think like Him. When He
said “hate”, He meant it. He wants us
to hate our lives in this world, because then we will show no interest in
seeking the temporal pleasures of this life. He hated His life compared to his life in
heaven. John said in 1Jn 2-15,16, “Do not love the world nor the things in the
world;” what did John mean by that? Jesus didn’t tell us to hate the
world; He told us to hate our lives in the world. We hate our lives because
of the things in the world: “the lust of the flesh and
the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life.” We consider all the
world’s principles to be upside down and backwards. We can’t love this
world and do the will of God at the same time.
(208a) Salvation >>
The salvation of God >> Salvation verses >>
The kindness of God >> The cross –
Jesus was tortured and killed, shamed and dishonored, despised and forsaken,
yet He said He was about to be glorified. This is the attitude Jesus took
with Him to the cross. Is that how we would describe our suffering? In the
following verses Jesus taught that if we followed Him, we would walk in the
same manner that He walked and would receive a similar reward. If we suffer
for Jesus’ sake, we should have the same attitude and hope. However, just because
we are suffering doesn’t mean we are doing the will of God, for we could be facing the consequences of our own
actions, and Peter said that we should not expect to be rewarded for enduring with patience the penalty of our
error (1Pet 2-20). However, if a criminal
gets saved in prison and seeks to be a model prisoner throughout the rest of
his sentence, this would glorify God because he had a change of heart.
God’s plan for each person is to become established on the trail of good
works that He has prepared for each of us. This trail leads to heaven, one
step at a time along the narrow way which also involves suffering and persecution
that we must endure. So long as we are on our
designated trail, the suffering we endure brings glory to God, and we will
be glorified in it, but off the trail our suffering has no reward.
(233f)
Kingdom of God >>
Pursuing the kingdom >> Seeking the kingdom >>
Seek The Kingdom With Your Essence >> Seek the
elusive Kingdom of God –
How do we stop loving the world? We are believers in Jesus, but we also love
our job and our salary, which has attracted a beautiful woman, and now we
have a nice house, children, a dog and two cars in the garage, living the
American dream. How are we supposed to hate that? Are we following God’s
plan and purpose; people would tend to say yes because of our success,
quickly attributing it to God, but we keep the glory for ourselves. All
these wonderful things act as a distraction to the call of God in our lives.
When this life ends and we meet God, He will show us the path He wanted us
to follow (Eph 2-10). He will show us the trail of good works that He had
prepared for us and what our lives would have
resembled walking on that designated trail through the obedience of faith
(Rom 1-5;16-26).
Jn 12,23-25
(56g) Paradox >>
Opposites >> Seek God’s life by subduing your
flesh
–
We must throw our plans in the dumpster and ask God what He wants us to do. He
will spread out His plan for us like a red carpet. We might look at it and
frown and look back at our own plan and say, ‘I think I like mine better.’
However, we want to do the will of God, so we die to our plans and visions and pick
up God’s vision, and before long it becomes our life and we
couldn’t think of living any other way. The life that God has for us will
make us happier than any of our own ideas. So many marriages end in divorce
nowadays, even those who seem to have it all. They might be happy for a while,
but more often big plans end in big tragedies and everybody gets hurt. Meanwhile, the man walking in God’s plan bears fruit
everywhere he goes and blesses everyone he knows. He is following the voice of
the Holy Spirit, constantly dying to sinful passions and desires and contradicting
thoughts and
ideas. This is how Jesus lived; He could have had it all; the
devil personally offered it to Him (what are the chances the devil’s
promises would have come to fruition?). All Jesus wanted was to do the will of
God, and He lived by the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5-22,23). This
is what everybody wants; they want all the other things too, but they don’t
go together.
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12-24,25
(55k) Paradox >>
Gain the world to lose your soul >> He who saves
his life shall lose it –
Had Jesus loved his life in the flesh, He would have rejected the cross, and if
we love our lives in the flesh, we will reject God's plan that He intended for
us,
including eternal life. If we love this life, we won’t follow Jesus on the
trial that He has prepared for us. Jesus taught that believing was tantamount
to obedience by combining the teachings of Paul and James when he spoke about
the narrow way (Mat 7-13,14). He taught that walking on this trail throughout
life will give us the faith that Paul preached, which he summarized in Eph
2,8-10. Jesus said that if we do not
serve Him, we cannot be His disciples (Lk 14-26,27), and only disciples of
Jesus go to heaven. This is not what the Church teaches today; in fact, the word “disciple”
has become obsolete in most Christian circles. We think we can approve a set
of doctrines and live any way we want and ignore the will of God and expect to
go to heaven, but the one who loves this life will lose eternal life. See also:
Trail of good works (We
must choose to walk on this road); Act 26-31,32; 216j
Jn 12-24
(187a) Die To Self
— Key verse for the entire chapter – The Scriptures speak
at great length about dying to self. This chapter is a list of relevant topics that pertain to the
process of substitution as we sacrifice our will for God's will. It indicates that repentance is the means by which we meet this objective, leading the reader to understand that he/she has eternal life and has God's favor,
as opposed to the world's temporal rewards. Our flesh wants to be in control,
and we give it consent, but it would be a better choice to control it, and
we do that partly through the grace of God and partly through our own
determination to quit sinning. Both our will and His are required. We
cannot expect God’s grace to remove our sinful passions and desires without our
input, nor can we expect our own efforts apart from Him to
accomplish anything, but together all things are possible through Christ.
Jn 12-26
(32e) Father Will
Honor You (Key verse)
(32f) Gift of God >>
Father will honor you if you die to self >> In His
service -- There is no way to serve Jesus without following
Him. If we want to serve Him, we must follow Him to the cross and die to the
sinful passions and desires of our flesh. Jesus was nailed between two sinners, who in one
way or another deserved to be there, just as our own sinful flesh deserves to be
nailed next to Him. Although it is a place of humiliation, Jesus said, “If
anyone serves Me, the father will honor him,” even as God honored His Son for
going to the cross. The Kingdom of God is worthy of the investment of our lives,
so when the moment comes and we meet God, we will have a clear conscience and He
will honor us for the life we lived and the sacrifices we made for His cause.
(93g) Thy kingdom come >>
Following Jesus >> Disciples follow Him
Jn 12,27-43
(221f)
Kingdom of God >>
The elusive Kingdom of Heaven >> Kingdom hidden
behind the veil from the world >> God hides from
the mind of man >> He hides behind man’s
slowness of heart
Jn 12,27-32
(38a) Judgment >>
Blood of Jesus >> God judged the devil through
the blood of His son
(114ha) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith
>>
Working the grace of God >> Jesus does God’s
work >> All his works are done through the
father >> Jesus gives voice to His Father
-- These verses go with verses 47-50
Jn 12-27,28
(24a) Sin >>
Poverty (Oppression) >> Fear of hardship (punishment) –
Jesus fretted over His hour that had come; His flesh didn’t want to go. The cross was God’s plan; He knew He would be sacrificed for sin, and
He was eager to do it until the moment came. Throughout all eternity God
anticipated this hour because He loved His creation, and when the moment
arrived, He wished there were another way. Knowing that His soul was the
very Spirit of God, He voiced His feelings regarding His
flesh without giving credence to them. It was a
legitimate concern that Jesus’ flesh didn’t want to die, so
long as He didn't allow those concerns to take precedence over
God’s will.
We too
have legitimate concerns for our flesh, so long as we don’t allow those
concerns to take precedence over God’s plan to use us to perpetuate the
gospel of peace.
(95h) Thy kingdom come >>
Attitude >> Having an obedient attitude >>
Ready to do God’s will
–
Jesus’ commitment to glorify His Father over the concerns of
His flesh is the very definition of faith and obedience, so we too need to be
committed to glorifying God over the concerns and interests of our flesh. The
voice from heaven testified that Jesus had already glorified His Father and
would glorify Him again, meaning that Jesus had already glorified God by living without sin, and will glorify Him again by sacrificing His
flesh for the sins of the world. When we make this same commitment, refusing
to allow anything stand in our way, we will hear His voice in
our heart telling us what we must do to fulfill His will that He has planned
from all eternity.
Jn 12-27
(2c)
Responsibility >> Avoid offending God >>
Keep your commitments >> Complete God’s
calling in your ministry >> Christ did as our
example – Jesus lived His whole life preparing for His ministry, and
when the time came, He wrestled with His flesh to clear His head
from thoughts that conflicted with His Father's will.
(63g) Paradox >>
Anomalies >> Sarcasm >>
Be pretentious >> Pretending to be stupid
(129k) Thy kingdom come >>
Manifestations of faith >> Unity >>
Being in one accord >> Single minded >>
Determination
(247g) Priorities >>
God’s priorities >> God’s interests >>
God is interested in the cross – There are many passages that speak about the Father sending the
Son (Jn 8-42). He knew His Father was unwilling to save
Him, because the cross was the very purpose He came.
Jesus wasn’t doing His own will; He was doing the will of His Father, as He
so famously said in Jn
3-16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” It was the
Father’s doing that Jesus was conceived in His mother’s womb through the
Holy Spirit, born to Mary, who raised Him to adulthood to take on His ministry
and teach the people about God, and at the end of His life He was sacrificed for
the sins of the world. All of this was the Father’s will, and Jesus simply
obeyed Him. He had healing in His hands, but it wasn’t His own power but
the power of His Father working in Him. Jesus Christ represents the will
of God in it’s perfection. Therefore, anybody who walks in the manner
that He walked is in the will of God (1Jn 2-6). It was troubling to Jesus that His hour
had come; the cross wasn’t going to be fun; there would be no joy in it, no
pleasure, just humiliation and suffering. He didn’t enjoy being spit in the
face or the whipping He
received, and He didn’t enjoy being hung on a cross with nails driven
through His hands and feet, but what troubled Him most was that His Father heaped the sins of the whole world on Him,
past, present and future. A man who never committed a sin of His own would face the penalty of all the sins of mankind, and the penalty of sin
was death, separation from God.
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,28-32
(40c) Judgment >>
Father gave authority to the son to judge the world through His blood
(144g) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Witnesses of Jesus >>
Trinity bears witness of Jesus >> Father bears
witness of His Son
Jn 12,28-30
(106a) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Hearing from God >> Attaining the hearing ear >>
Knowing the sound of His voice >> God speaks in
the darkness to shine the light
-- People who heard the voice from heaven argued
with each other about what they heard. Some said it was thunder, while others
said it was an angel who spoke to Him. The point is people were hardly
affected by what they witnessed. They heard the voice but saw nothing, unlike
Paul who both saw and heard the voice that was speaking with him, and like
John the revelator who turned (repented) to see the voice that spoke with him.
In both cases it changed their lives forever, reminiscent of the Spirit and
the word. The voice they heard was the word of God, while His Spirit
etched His truth into their inner man. When we see the things in our inner man
and hear His voice, these are the things that change us forever. However, these guys were unaffected by the thunderous voice from on high
because it didn’t happen inside them, but was an outward expression of
God’s glory.
(177i) Works of the devil >>
The religion of witchcraft >> Presumption (Hinduism) >> Misunderstanding the word of
God
Jn 12-29
(20i) Sin >>
Doubting miracles
Jn 12-30,31
(154a) Witness >>
Validity of the Father >> God bears witness
against the world >> No excuse >>
There is no excuse for rejecting Christ -- These verses go with verses
47-50
Jn 12-30
(124b) Thy kingdom come >>
Manifestations of faith >> Love >>
Acts of love >> Love takes from the rich and
gives to the poor >> love is the act of giving
to the poor
(236c)
Kingdom of God >>
Pursuing the kingdom >> Invest in the kingdom >>
All things are for your sake >> God’s purpose
is for your sake –
To Jesus and all the prophets God spoke with a small, still voice, but to these
the volume was greatly increased so they could hear it; still many interpreted it as
an anomaly. If they ever matured in the faith, the Father would speak to them as with His Son, with a quiet voice, God’s preference in
speaking to His people, for He doesn’t enjoy waking us from a stupor, but
wants us always on the alert. This thundering voice gave credence to the
words Jesus spoke to them, and together with His miracles consisted of everything they
needed to believe in God, and some did, but others doubted. There was nothing He could do to help them
believe; some just didn’t want to believe in any kind of divine intervention. We live
in a material world and some people want to remain immersed in this natural
world and don’t want to believe there is anything beyond that, but God’s purpose for
His booming voice in the hearing of the people was for the sake of those who believed that Jesus was sent from God,
and His voice confirmed their faith. We can
believe a little or we can believe a lot, but there is no such thing as faith
apart from faithfulness. "Faithless believer" is an oxymoron, and faithful
believer is redundant.
Jn 12-31,32
(39i) Judgment >>
Jesus defeated death >> Jesus defeated Satan’s authority
>> Jesus defeated Satan on the cross –
Why was it so important to God that this spiritual enemy the devil be judged
through the blood of His cross? There has been a competition between God and
Satan since his rebellion. We know God has all power, that He could easily catch
the devil by the tail and pitch him into the lake of fire whenever He wanted,
but God didn’t want to destroy Him by His power only; He wants to first
prove by His goodness that righteousness triumphs over evil, and He wants to
prove that God is stronger than the devil in
the weakness of human flesh. It is important that God make and object lesson
of Satan for the rest of creation that sin is utterly sinful and that rebellion against God
is useless and detrimental to his own interests.
(46j) Judgment >>
Spiritual warfare >> Demons are subject to
Christ
(209i) Salvation >>
The salvation of God >> Jesus is our sacrifice >>
Jesus paid the price for us >> Jesus paid our
ransom with His own blood –
The cross of Jesus Christ was for judgment regarding Satan and his demons,
regarding those who are worthy of eternal life and regarding those who
would reject His blood sacrifice. Jesus was lifted on a cross in mid-heaven,
where Satan dwells, the Prince of the Power of the Air, when God judged Satan
on his own battlefield. In the days of Moses, God sent serpents to judge the
grumblers of Israel, who were disobedient and rebellious, and they cried to
the Lord, and He gave them a bronze serpent and attached it to a pole and
raised it into the air, so anybody who was bitten by the serpent and looked
upon this image would be healed. It was a very simple act of faith, and so it
is no more extensive or complicated to be saved. The Bible teaches that all of
mankind is under the sentence of condemnation, having been born into a sinful
world, living in a body of sin and predisposed to the nature of evil, and the antidote for
it is simply to look to Jesus and believe
in His blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Not to just look once for a
minute, but "fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God"
(Heb 12-2). Jesus went to war with
Satan throughout His entire life, and won the war against sin when He
submitted to the cross, which is the apex of victory that God won for us. Jesus was willing to do this for His Father to win
the Church for Himself by living a perfect life without sin so when He died,
He broke the Law of sin and death that assumes sin is present at death, but
when Jesus died without sin He broke the Law of sin and death and destroyed the power of Satan and provided a door for us that leads to
eternal life by faith in the Son of God, so that all we need do is walk
though that door and be saved.
Jn 12-31
(46h) Judgment >>
Spiritual warfare >> Satan falls from heaven -- The main purpose of the cross was to destroy the
works of the devil, according to Heb 2-14. Jesus said in Lk 10-18, “I was
watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning,” referring to
the original judgment when God extricated Lucifer from heaven and exiled him
to the earth. Then there is this verse, describing how God destroyed Satan’s
power over mankind through the cross. Then the Church extricates Satan from having dominion over them. Rev 12-9 says, “The great dragon was
thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who
deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were
thrown down with him.” Finally, the most literal manifestation of Satan's
defeat will come when God throws him into the lake of fire. We are in a
spiritual war of God's own making, who is using the devil to prove to His
creation that rebellion is useless. Once God creates a new heavens and a new
earth and rids sin forever, no one will be foolish enough to rebel again,
because now we all know what will happen to him. God won't just throw him in
hell but will first make an example of him to all creation, then throw him in
hell.
(48d) Judgment >> God judges the world >>
Satan is under God’s eternal judgment
(164c) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> The world system >>
Satan rules the world >> The world is his
kingdom
Jn 12,32-34
(177a) Works of the devil >>
The religion of witchcraft >> False doctrine >> Distorting Scripture
from a lack of understanding –
God never expected man to understand His plan before Jesus came or even
while He was here, but He did expect man to understand His plan after
He rose from the dead and ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit in
His place, yet so many people in the world today don’t have a clue about
the purpose and meaning of Christianity. Its meaning is being lost
today faster than any other time. People are less ready for the
return of Christ than at any other time in history, which answers the
question, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth [Lk
18-8]?” Some will still believe, but the masses will have stopped
believing in Him.
Jn 12-32
(59g) Paradox >>
Two implied meanings >> Glorified by the Church/Lifted upon a cross –
It appears that the Jews understood what Jesus meant by this verse, interpreting
what He said that the son of man must be killed. The Jews had seen many
crucifixions over the years, people nailed to a cross and then lifted
up and dropped into its stand, but the part they didn’t understand was
that if Jesus claimed to be the son of man and must be lifted upon a cross,
then how can the Scriptures be fulfilled about their Messiah remaining
forever? This was studious of the Jews that they didn’t understand how their Messiah
could be killed, and so it is insightful for us, clarifying that God wanted
to build a spiritual kingdom before He built a physical kingdom in the
Millennium. Absolutely nobody considered the possibility that Jesus would rise from
the dead. This was something too impossible to conceive, because death is so
final. No
one has ever returned from the dead, not even someone unusual as this man
who perform many signs and wonders, healed countless people and even raised the dead,
but how could He raise Himself from the dead, as though picking-up Himself
by His own bootstraps. They forgot about His Father, which was the whole
point of the cross; it proved the cross was not Jesus' plan but His Father's
plan. Still no one could imagine Jesus rising from the dead,
though He told His disciples countless times pointblank that this would happen.
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12-35,36
(33a) Gift of God >>
God is our Father >> Believers are children >>
Children of the light –
We become the children of
God by walking in the light, not just by believing in the light. Both Jesus
and the Holy Spirit are members of the trinity, who are equal yet hold
different offices. We can now talk about Jesus as the Holy Spirit, referring
to Him as the Spirit of truth in Jn 14-17, so what He said to His disciples
also applies to us. “For a little while longer the light is among you,”
inadvertently refers to a time when the light will become unavailable,
suggesting that a time of great darkness is coming, known as the apostasy.
While the light is here, living for Jesus is relatively painless; we
must take full advantage of these easier times, so when darkness comes, we
will be prepared. We need to discern the voice of the Holy Spirit, who will
teach us how to walk with Him, because when the light fades,
those who failed to prepare will find it very difficult to believe in Jesus.
Remember the parable of the Ten Virgins (Mat 25,1-13). See also: Apostasy (American
Christianity);
Gal 2-9; 131k
(43b) Judgment >>
Satan destroyed >> Conform to the character of Christ >> Conform to His nature
(91m) Thy kingdom come >>
The narrow way >> Trail of good works >>
The trail that Jesus walked
(112g) Thy kingdom come >>
Light >> Obeying the truth in broad daylight >>
Jesus’ deeds in the light -- This verse goes with verse
46
(117k) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >> Seeing through the eyes
of your spirit >> Light illumines your spirit
-- These verses go with verse 46.
Jesus talked almost exclusively in terms of
darkness and light. He wasn’t just a spiritual man; he was the very embodiment of the
Holy Spirit. He said
to believe in the light, and a verse earlier He said to walk in the
light, suggesting that the words “believe” and “obey” are alike. When
He said to walk in the light, He was referring to obeying the Holy Spirit as
children born of the Spirit.
(119b) Thy kingdom come >>
Manifestations of faith >> Freedom >>
Law of the spirit >> Law of the Spirit of truth
-- These verses go with verse 46
(169e) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> The world is
blind to God >> Darkness has a blinding effect –
Jeremiah 17-9 says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is
desperately sick; who can understand it?” God knows our hearts better than
we do. Some people deny they are willfully sinning and cross the
line without realizing it, and if they develop an evil lifestyle on the other side of
that line, we might find the door of heaven closed and locked tight. God might
tell us we never believed in Him, and we might disagree, and He might ask us
to show Him how we believed, and we might pull out some of our phony doctrines
and tell Him that we don’t have to show Him, since salvation is by grace
through faith (Eph 2-8,9). He might ask us to read the next verse (Eph 2-10)
and then ask if we are referring to mental ascent and remind
us that the demons also believe and tremble (Jm 2-19). If we truly believe in God,
we will repent.
(170j) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> Outward
appearance >> Temporary >>
Back-sliders are temporary
(176c) Works of the devil >>
The religion of witchcraft >> Ignorance >>
Ignorance lurks in darkness
(184e) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> God controls darkness >> Darkness is the absence
of light -- These verses go with verse 46. Some
people are too busy living in darkness to walk in the light.
Having ulterior motives, the opportunity to walk with God is extended to them, they
have refused,
thinking somehow the darkness will not overtake them. The
analogy of light and darkness means the absence of one implies the other, for we
either walk in light or in darkness with nothing in-between. People who do not
walk in the light do not listen to the Holy Spirit, but follow the dictates of
their flesh and get lost in them, letting their sinful passions and desires
lead them astray. They are conditioned by society to believe that whatever
feels natural can’t be wrong, but the Bible says, "Its end is the way of death”
(Proverbs 14-12). They may have walked miles off the narrow way before they
pick up the Bible again and realize they have become strangers to the word of
God and have no idea how to return to their faith. Often they don’t know
they are lost until they come back to the Bible and are shocked to find
how foreign it sounds to them in contrast to a time when it all made sense,
when they first believed. At some point they gave up walking in the Spirit and
surrendered to walking in the flesh where they felt most comfortable. Feeling uncomfortable walking in the Spirit is normal, because we live in a body that
hates God.
(203i) Denying Christ >>
Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >>
Back-slider >> Withdraw from obeying God >>
Withdrawing from the truth – the Church
nowadays is hopelessly divided. It is almost impossible to say what anyone
believes, though there are some cult-like belief systems that many share in
common. For example, there are many deeply-entrenched doctrines in the Church
that teach we can believe in God without obeying Him, because of the
grace of God that forgives us. These are the doctrines of licentiousness. We are all guilty
of abusing the grace of God every time we sin, but sin is the reason Jesus
died for us. There is a point, however, when our use of His grace turns into
abuse, that is, when it turns into a lifestyle, then we are skating on thin ice. God allows us to take risks with our eternal
salvation and if we return, all is well with a reprimand not to stray again,
but some people break through the ice and drown; that is,
their faith dies and they lose their salvation. They live this way because
they think God will forgive them, and He does forgive, but some people have no intention of
serving Him. The vast majority of people who do this never were His children
in the first place.
(237k)
Kingdom of God >>
Pursuing the kingdom >> Transferring the kingdom >> The Church is transferred to the kingdom >>
Transferred from darkness to light
Jn 12-35
(182a) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> Deception >>
Self deception >> Believing the darkness within
you is light
Jn 12-36
(89i) Thy kingdom come >>
Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom >>
Increasing in wisdom
(107d) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Word creates faith >>
Believing the word creates faith
(114b) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Working the grace of God >> Obeying the Holy
Spirit >> Believing the Father by obeying the
Son >> Obeying Jesus’ will -- This
verse goes with verses 44-46
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,37-49
(20e) Sin >> Nature of sin >>
Having a hardened heart
Jn 12,37-43
(54a) Paradox >>
Opposites >> Unbelief in the presence and
power of God
(167h) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >>
Carnality/Secularism
(mindset of the world)
>>
The carnal mind does not receive the things of God >>
It does not believe the word of God
(181b) Works of the devil >>
Practicing witchcraft >>
Rebelling against God >> Rebelling against the
witness of God
(185g) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> Mystery of
lawlessness >> God helps Satan in the mystery of
lawlessness
(186g) Works of the devil >>
The result of lawlessness >> The reprobate >>
Man’s role in becoming a reprobate >> After
they reject God’s faith how can they believe?
(201h) Denying Christ >>
Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >>
Jesus is an offense >> Jesus offends the world >>
Faith offends unbelief
(202j) Denying Christ >>
Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >>
Running from God >> Running from walking in
faith >> Running from God through unbelief
Jn 12,37-40
(19f) Sin >>
Having the mental disease of the world >>
Incorrect thinking – “Lord, who has believed our report, and to
whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” was taken from Isaiah
chapter 53, which talks about Jesus being crucified, suggesting there is a
direct correlation between the people’s unbelief after performing so many
miracles in their presence and the fact that they crucified Him. If the
entire nation of Israel believed in Jesus, they probably would not have
crucified Him, but it says that they could not believe, not because God
wouldn't let them but because human behavior is so easy to predict.
(40a) Judgment >>
Jesus is the judge >> Jesus judges the world’s
unbelief – The plethora of signs and wonders that Jesus
performed among the people compared to the littleness of their faith that
these miracles inspired was utterly shameful. Compare this to cities
where He performed fewer signs, yet they believed in Him (Mat 12-41,42). The more people see the
manifested arm of the Lord, the more they are obligated to believe in Him,
and if they don’t believe after revealing His glory, there will be others
with greater faith who will put them to shame.
It is a fearful thing to be in the presence of the Lord and see His
majestic works, for His manifested glory demands a faithful response. The people who witnessed the many signs that Jesus performed and
yet did not believe got in a lot of trouble with God, and when
judgment day comes, they will not fair well, because God will use these
facts against them, giving instances of other people more noble than
themselves who believed in Him with less cause for faith.
(74l) Thy kingdom come >>
Let not your heart be hardened >> Insensitive
to the things of God
(169g) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> The world is
blind to God >> God blinds their eyes -- Isaiah said that
God has blinded their eyes and
hardened their hearts. This is a complicated
verse. The Pharisees blinded
themselves, and since they were so unwilling to see or believe, God helped
them by sending upon them a satanic delusion to seal their fate. God did not
actually send these demonic forces, but they automatically came as a
spiritual reaction of their unbelief. The Pharisees made up their minds not to believe, though the truth
was literally staring them in the face, and they knew it, but they refused to believe. There are spiritual
principles at work and entities (demons) in the world that
harden people’s hearts who refuse to believe, especially when God makes
Himself known, so they cannot believe even if they tried. They crossed a line
that they could not return no
matter what evidence presented itself, no matter who got healed or who rose from the
dead. In other
words, there is a point when unbelief is no longer our choice. Unbelief in
the presence of truth invites demons into our life, and they will harden our heart until
we are no longer able to believe, according to 2The
2-11,12, “And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence
so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be
judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.”
(217e) Sovereignty >>
God overrides the will of man >> God’s will
over man >> God gives up on you >>
After you are no longer able to repent --
It
must have been disheartening after performing so
many signs to be confronted with unbelief. The Pharisees even had the
audacity to ask Him for a sign in Mat 12,38-41, that they might believe in
him, as though He had not been raising people from the dead, healing the
sick, blind and lame, opening the ears of the deaf and performing signs and
wonders of every kind. These guys wanted a sign?
Jesus told them that no sign will be given them, but the fact is many
signs were given, but they would not receive them.
(223j)
Kingdom of God >>
The elusive Kingdom of Heaven >> Miss God >>
Missing the train >> Miss the invitation from
God
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12-39,40
(64l) Paradox >>
Anomalies >> God helps Satan >>
Jesus blinds the world – If it says that God Himself has blinded their
eyes and hardened their hearts, then how could God blame them for not
believing in Him? It is a bit more complicated than that; Paul talks about it
in Romans chapter 9, and his answer was, “Who are you to talk back to
God?” (v20). God does not initiate His blindness upon a people; rather, they
unleash spiritual blindness upon themselves. They refuse to see and believe, so God
accommodates their unbelief by sending upon them a deluding influence
as Paul said in 2The 2-11, so they can no longer believe the truth. That is, the demons
empower their unbelief. After
Jesus demonstrated His identity as Israel’s Messiah through many convincing
signs that no man could perform, and they refused to believe
in Him, God helped their unbelief by allowing demons to fill
the void. If they ever decided to
change their minds, they wouldn’t be able. If anyone thinks he can exercise
his will against God, then He will send a
spirit of unbelief, so he no longer controls his unwillingness to believe in
God. The spirit of this world will dominate his life making it impossible
to believe when
he had the opportunity. Those spirits will
control his life until they drive him mad and take away everything that is
precious to him and his life reduces to complete ruins (see 1Samuel chapters 13-16,
particularly 1Sam 16-14).
(162e) Works of the devil >>
Being a slave to the devil (Addictions) >>
Bondage >> A slave to unbelief >>
Bondage to an inability to believe
Jn 12,41-43
(169j) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> Seeking the glory
of man >> Loving the approval of men rather than
the approval of God >> Fearing their religion -- Here is another common snag in people’s faith-based incentive of social
class: seeking the approval of men over the
approval of God. These rulers saw the signs and believed that God had sent Him
as a prophet, and some may have even acknowledged Him as the Son of God, but
they were unwilling to confess Him. They knew in their heart that Jesus was their Messiah, but having status in society, they were
faced with a decision to either sacrifice their belief in Jesus or sacrifice their position in society. It turned out they believed more in man’s world than in
God’s truth.
Jn 12-42,43
(18i) Sin >>
Twisted thinking >> Unable to distinguish between good and evil >> God’s
purpose is evil
(21h) Sin >>
Premeditated sin >> Having no intensions of
doing the will of God
(75m) Thy kingdom come >>
Having ulterior (hidden) motives
(86d) Thy kingdom come >>
Belief demands a response
(168a) Works of the devil >>
Manifestations of the devil >> Do not conform
to the world >> Do not let the world’s
approval shape you to itself –
People have a variety of assorted motives for going to church. For example,
there are many fads in society today; people love to mimic one another and
conform to social class, so if a group forms who have an interest in
Jesus, people will join it, regardless of faith. Some people
“believe” because it is popular; other people come to church because
they have an evil conscience and want to appease it. Actual
faith in Jesus, simple as it sounds, can be very complicated for those who ride
the fence. In fact, believing in Jesus is not really something we can decide for
ourselves, but is something that God decides as He draws a person to
Himself.
(199h) Denying Christ >>
Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >>
Rejecting Christ >> The world rejects God >>
Rejecting Christ to keep the world
(240e)
Kingdom of God >>
Opposition toward the Kingdom of God >>
Hindering the kingdom >> Natural disadvantage >>
Beware when all men speak well of you >>
Natural disadvantage of seeking popularity
Jn 12,44-49
(207i) Salvation >>
The salvation of God >> Salvation verses >>
The Kingdom of God >> Salvation authority of
Jesus Christ
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,44-46
(114b) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Working the grace of God >> Obeying the Holy
Spirit >> Believing the Father by obeying the
Son >> Obeying Jesus’ will -- These
verses go with verse 36
Jn 12-44,45
(253d) Trinity >>
Relationship between Father and Son >> Jesus is
equal with the Father >> Jesus has all the
internal qualities of the Father >> Jesus is the
exact representation of the Father –
Jesus looks different from the Father, as the Holy Spirit looks different from
Jesus, in that He is invisible. To represent this mathematically
as a ratio, we could assign the Holy Spirit the number zero (0) because He is
invisible, and assign Jesus any other number, say one (1). We would get the
ratio 1/0, which is undefined, because it causes the ratio to go to infinity.
Therefore, if the Holy Spirit is infinitely different from Jesus, then the
Father must be infinitely different from the other two in His essential
characteristics. So when Jesus said, “He who sees Me sees the One who sent
Me,” He was not talking about appearance, but being the same as the Father
in other ways.
Jn 12,46-50
(40g)
Judgment >> Judgment of Christ >>
God’s word judges the world >> It does not
believe in Him –
Jesus held His judgment while He lived in the flesh, but after He rose from
the dead and ascended to the Father, God raised Him to be judge of all the earth. It
says in Rev 19-13, “He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name
is called The Word of God,” so Jesus is the resurrected living word of God.
That is, He is the mouthpiece of God. He speaks the Father's words, meaning the Father is His
authority, and Jesus does not
have authority apart from Him. When we say that Jesus is the embodiment of God’s
word, we are crediting the Father for the authority He bestowed on Him. While
Jesus was here in the flesh, He judged no one, so when
He said, “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who
judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day,” He
meant ‘Not Me but My Father.’ Jesus did
not judge anyone while He lived in the flesh, because apart from the Father He
has no authority, but now that He has rejoined the Father, He has received
authority from God as judge of all the earth on the basis that He came and
spoke the Truth of God and many did not believe in Him, except those whom God had
chosen beforehand for glory. Jesus is the
benevolent friend and advocate of man, but make no
mistake, He is the enemy and judge of those who don’t obey Him, based on the
authority of God.
Jn 12-46,47
(210d) Salvation >>
The salvation of God >> Jesus is our savior >>
Jesus is the savior of the world –
Jesus loves us more than anyone ever could, because He is God, and we have a
special relationship with Him as His created beings. He doesn’t love us as a master loves his dog, but
as a Father loves His son in ways that we
could not possibly imagine. It will take an eternity to fully experience
God’s love and to finally understand what He was thinking and feeling about
us all along. We will always underestimate Him. Already, who could
have imagined that God loved us enough to be butchered and die on a cross for
us? At the time, none of His disciples conceptualized such a notion. He
did it for His children. He died for everyone, but there
will be many who will not receive his love, and those He will judge through
the mercy He showed them. His suffering will be their judgment
instead of their salvation; He will judge them based on the love He showed
them. They will disappear into the void with the understanding
that God truly loved them and they reject it, and now they will have to
face an eternity without Him, because it is impossible for them to repent
after they're dead.
Jn 12-46
(112g) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Light >> Obeying the truth in broad daylight >>
Jesus’ deeds in the light -- This verse goes with verse 35&36. Jesus
is the light of the world, light meaning: truth revealed by the Holy Spirit. We read the Bible by the
light of Christ. Now that Jesus ascended to heaven and sent the Holy
Spirit in His place, He represents Christ to us, who Himself represents the Father. Jesus is
called the word of God (Rev 19-13), and the Holy Spirit is the light of His
word. Jesus and the Holy Spirit work together to instill truth in His people,
and his truth is the light of life. The Spirit and the word operate together
to reveal the Father through the words of Jesus, for in heaven it says He bathes paradise in His presence,
and "its lamp is the Lamb" (Rev
21-23). Jesus will forever shine in the New Jerusalem and we will live by His
light. It won’t be the kind of light that is oppressive like the sun at
times; nothing can stand against the sun’s rays for long; even rocks
give way to the its bleaching power, eroding mighty mountains aided by wind
and rain. Jesus sent His
Spirit to infuse His people, empowering us to make disciples of all nations.
See also: Word of His Spirit; 119b / Spirit and the Word (Jesus is the embodiment of
God's Spirit); Jn 5-39; 255c
(117k) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Eyes of your spirit >> Seeing through the eyes
of your spirit >> Light illumines your spirit
-- This verse goes with verses 35&36
(119b) Thy kingdom come >>
Manifestations of faith >> Freedom >>
Law of the spirit >> Law of the Spirit of truth
-- This verse goes with verses 35&36. If
we read the Bible apart from faith (without the Holy Spirit revealing it to us)
we will understand neither its meaning nor its depth. Only through faith do we
incorporate the Holy Spirit in our understanding of God’s word. The ministry
of the Holy Spirit with the word of God does two things: He reveals the truth so that we properly understand the Bible, sealing
it in our hearts,
and He also reveals the depth of meaning that we could not comprehend without
Him. Many Christians consider the Holy Spirit to be an option, and
most have excluded Him from their teaching and theology. They want to live a natural,
fleshly life and remain of the earth. See
also:
(184e) Works of the devil >>
The origin of lawlessness >> Darkness >>
God controls darkness >> Darkness is the absence
of light -- This verse goes with verses 35&36
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12,47-50
(47l)
Judgment >> God judges the world >>
Eternal judgment against unbelief >> Rejecting
the gospel
(71i) Authority >>
Ordained by God >>
Jesus is ordained by God
(107e) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >> Hearing from God >> Truth of the trinity >>
Jesus is truth
(114ha) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith
>>
Working the grace of God >> Jesus does God’s
work >> All his works are done through the
father >> Jesus gives voice to His Father
-- These verses go with verses 27-32
(144h) Witness >>
Validity of Jesus Christ >> Witnesses of Jesus >>
Trinity bears witness of Jesus >> Word of God
bears witness to Jesus --
Jesus made it clear in verse 44 that He and His
Father were one. Then in verse 47 He made a distinction between Himself and
His words, saying not Him but His words will judge the world in righteousness.
The fact that He spoke God's word and people have heard the Truth from God and
rejected it is what will judge them. Since the Father spoke through His Son, it is not Jesus who
stands in judgment but His Father who is the ultimate judge of all
mankind through Christ. He reminded us that His message was eternal life. Why
then would people be unwilling to listen to Him? It's not like Jesus came to
reprove His creation and smack them around and call them names. Rather, He
came to offer us a chance to live with Him forever in paradise, yet he was
treated with absolute distain by His own creation and by His own people. Jesus
is still not very popular with the world; chalk it up to the mystery
of lawlessness.
(154a) Witness >>
Validity of the Father >> God bears witness
against the world >>
There is no excuse for rejecting Christ -- These verses go with verses
30&31
(200d) Denying Christ >>
Man chooses his own destiny apart from God >>
Rejecting Christ >> Rejecting the faith of God >>
Rejecting Christ through disobedience
(253l) Trinity >>
Relationship between Father and Son >> Jesus is
subject to the Father >> Jesus is subject to the
will of God
Jn 12-47,48
(24d) Sin >>
Poverty (Forms of fear) >> Pursuit of happiness
creates anxiety
(49h) Judgment >>
God judges the world >> The last days >>
The day of judgment
(Armageddon)
(49j) Judgment >> Judgment day >>
The open books of the white throne judgment
(62n) Paradox >>
Anomalies >> Righteous deception >>
Jesus deceives the lost
Jn 12-47
(114e) Thy kingdom come >>
Faith >>
Working the grace of God >> Obeying the Holy
Spirit >> Obeying the revelation from heaven >>
Obeying the revelation by putting away the flesh
Jn 12-48,49
(255d) Trinity >>
Holy Spirit’s relationship between Father and Son >>
God’s word is Spirit >> Jesus is the word of
the Spirit >> Jesus is the authority of God’s
word
KJV
WEB
/ Parallel Gospel
/ Navigation Bar
Jn 12-48
(40e) God’s Word Is The Judge
(Key verse)
Jn 12-49,50
(13b)
Servant >> Jesus serves His Father >>
Jesus is under His authority – Jesus walked in the Father’s
authority by accomplishing all the works that were required of Him. He also
spoke the words of His Father, which were greater than He could
have spoken on His own. Walking in our own authority is rarely as powerful as working under someone else’s authority,
mostly because there are always people greater than ourselves.
When we walk in our superior’s authority, we become equal with them is
some ways. Think about the lowly security officer; when the
burglar comes, the security officer summons the police, who has become their equal,
being a direct link to the enforcement of the
law. So it is with us—Christ accomplishes His
works through us as we do His will under His authority.
(247c) Priorities >>
God’s priorities >> God’s interests >>
God is interested in His people >> God is
interested in our freedom
Jn 12-50
(35k) Gift >>
God gives Himself to us >> Gifts from the Holy
Spirit >> The gift of life –
Rich people have everything they could ever want, yet the
vast majority of them will never see the Kingdom of Heaven. There are
no consequences for them in this life; that is how it seems, but in reality it
is not so. The
consequence of not being born-again is felt as a complete lack of substance in
the inner man; they are dead inside. The rich man enjoys the company of
friends and family and shares the wonderful moments with them, but he is alone
in his heart. All his loved ones seem miles away, for he lives alone with no one to share the moments
with a
closeness that God created man to share with Him. We can stay in love
with God our whole lives, because He never gets boring and He has no foibles.
To be in love with God opens our hearts to remain in love with life and with our
spouse.
(205aa)
Salvation >> Verses useful in evangelism
(205e)
Salvation >> Salvation is based on God’s promises >> According
to promise >> Promise of eternal life – Jesus was confident in the word he spoke that it was from His Father,
and that the words were true and accurate. He had a direct line to
God, telling us with all confidence that His commandment was eternal life. It
is interesting the words that Jesus used, “The things I speak, I speak just
as the Father has told Me;” that is, He denied that the words He spoke were
his own. He came from the Father to bring a message of eternal life to the
world, and then to die for our sins to make it possible. What's more, a couple chapters later, when He spoke about the Holy Spirit, He
described Him in the same way that He described Himself saying, ‘Whatever He
hears He will speak’ (Jn 16-13). That is exactly what Jesus said about
Himself; whatever He heard from the Father He spoke. When Jesus ascended back
to heaven, His position of submission to the Father did not change, except
that He is now dictating the word of God to the Holy Spirit as His ministry in
our lives, and His word originates from the Father, and His message is eternal
life! So we have all three members of the trinity involved and in
perfect agreement with the truth. Even more, He called eternal
life a commandment; we call it a promise. Just as God commanded the Israelites to follow the law, He now commands
the whole world to possess the Spirit of eternal life. Just as there were
consequences for not following the law, so there are consequences for
rejecting eternal life. The consequences of violating the law can be felt in
this life, whereas violating Jesus' commandment of eternal life through the
love of the brethren carries an eternal consequence.
(207k) Salvation >>
The salvation of God >> Salvation verses >>
The generosity of God’s salvation >> Salvation
is eternal life
(244e)
Kingdom of God >>
The eternal kingdom >> Eternal life of the
trinity >> Father is the source of eternal life
See
next page
|