“Now
my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time?’ But for this cause I came to this time. Father, glorify your name!” Then there came a voice out of the sky, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The multitude therefore, who stood by and heard it, said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice hasn’t come for my sake, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out.
John 12:27-31
John 12 [20.] Now there were certain Greeks among those that went up to worship at the feast. These, therefore, came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.” Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn, Andrew came with Philip, and they told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life will lose it. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life. If anyone serves me, let him follow me. Where I am, there will my servant also be. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.
John 12 [27.] “Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time?’ But for this cause I came to this time. Father, glorify your name!”
Then there came a voice out of the sky, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”
John 12 [29.] The multitude therefore, who stood by and heard it, said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”
John 12 [30.] Jesus answered, “This voice hasn’t come for my sake, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” But he said this, signifying by what kind of death he should die. The multitude answered him, “We have heard out of the law that the Christ remains forever. How do you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up?’ Who is this Son of Man?”
John 12 [35.] Jesus therefore said to them, “Yet a little while the light is with you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness doesn’t overtake you. He who walks in the darkness doesn’t know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become children of light.” Jesus said these things, and he departed and hid himself from them. But though he had done so many signs before them, yet they didn’t believe in him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke,
“Lord, who has believed our report?
To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”
For this cause they couldn’t believe, for Isaiah said again,
Meaning:
Jesus had just said that the hour had come for the Son of Man to be glorified, and that like a grain of wheat he must die to bear much fruit (John 12:24). Now he speaks openly of the anguish this brings him. These verses are sometimes called John’s Gethsemane, because they show the same struggle and the same surrender that Mark records in the garden.
- “Now my soul is troubled”
Jesus was truly human, and he felt the horror of the death that lay ahead, bearing the sin of the world. In Gethsemane he would say, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death” (Mark 14:34). Hebrews says that he “offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death” (Hebrews 5:7).
- “What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time?’”
Jesus considers the prayer that any human heart would pray, and then sets it aside. “But for this cause I came to this time.” The cross was not an accident or a defeat; it was the purpose for which he had come. In the garden he prayed in the same spirit: “However, not what I desire, but what you desire” (Mark 14:36).
- “Father, glorify your name!”
Instead of asking to escape, Jesus asked that the Father’s name be glorified, whatever it cost him.
- “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again”
The Father answered aloud. This is the third time the Gospels record a voice from heaven during Jesus’ ministry, after his baptism (Mark 1:11) and his transfiguration, when the voice said, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him” (Mark 9:7). God had glorified his name through Jesus’ life, words and signs, and he would glorify it again through his death, resurrection and exaltation.
- “It had thundered”
The crowd heard the sound but did not all understand it. Some dismissed it as thunder; others recognised that something supernatural had happened but did not grasp what was said.
- “This voice hasn’t come for my sake, but for your sakes”
Jesus did not need reassurance of his Father’s approval. The voice was a sign for the people, confirming that Jesus’ coming death was God’s will.
- “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the prince of this world will be cast out”
The cross would be a moment of judgment. It would expose the sin of a world that rejected its Creator, and it would break the power of Satan, “the prince of this world”. Jesus later said that the Spirit would convict the world “about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged” (John 16:11). Paul writes that at the cross God, “having stripped the principalities and the powers”, made a show of them openly (Colossians 2:15). What looked like Satan’s victory was his defeat.
The Significance of John 12:27-31
- A Saviour who understands our distress
Jesus felt deep trouble of soul. Believers can bring their own anguish to him, knowing that he understands from experience.
- Choosing God’s glory over comfort
Jesus chose the Father’s glory over his own escape. Christians are called to pray “Father, glorify your name” in their own trials, trusting his purpose.
- Victory through the cross
The cross broke the power of the evil one. Believers need not live in fear of him, for Christ has already won the decisive victory.
Cross-References:
Mark 14:34: "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death." Jesus’ anguish in Gethsemane.
Hebrews 5:7: "having offered up prayers and petitions with strong crying and tears to him who was able to save him from death," The prayers of the suffering Son.
Mark 9:7: "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." Another voice from heaven.
John 16:11: "about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged." Satan judged through the cross.
Conclusion: Facing the cross, Jesus admitted that his soul was troubled, yet he refused to pray to be saved from the hour for which he had come, asking instead that the Father glorify his name. A voice from heaven answered, and Jesus explained that it came for the people’s sake. Through his death the world would be judged and the prince of this world cast out.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible