John 12:37-50

37 What better proof could be found that they were walking in darkness than their rejection of the Man of Sorrows? The prophets plainly foretold their action and yet they are too much in the dark to see.

38 Our Lord has now come to that stage of His ministry which was so graphically described by His namesake, Isaiah. His public ministry is at its close. He hides Himself. As the prophet continues (Isa_53:2-3):

He has no shapeliness or honor,

And, seen by us, He is no sight to be coveted.

He is despised and shunned by men,

A Man of pains and knowing illness,

And, as One concealing His face from us, He is despised, and we take no account of Him.

39 Outside the Scriptures,ye hear much of human responsibility, and that those who reject the light deserve the judgment they have invited. This passage makes us pause. These men had heard the most powerful of all preachers and seen the most marvelous of all miracle workers, yet we are distinctly told that they could not believe. The reason given is that the Scriptures must be fulfilled. God's purpose demands a measure of unbelief as well as of faith. He locks up all in stubbornness that He may have mercy on all (Rom_11:32). To damn these men who could not believe with irretrievable and irrecoverable ruin is unthinkable of God.

40 Isaiah's message of doom to Israel is always quoted when their apostasy has passed repair. It divides our Lord's ministry and the accounts given of it into two distinct and different epochs. He begins His proclamation of the kingdom and continues until its rejection. Then, after quoting the sixth of Isaiah, He speaks to His own of His suffering and death.

See Mat_13:13-15.

In the Pentecostal era we see the same. The kingdom is proclaimed to the whole nation once again, but when their rejection is irrevocable, Paul quotes from Isaiah and seals their doom for the eon. This rejection is the basis on which the present secret economy of transcendent grace has been established.

1 The path of our Lord as brought before us in John's account may be compared with the path of a priest who comes out of the tabernacle and returns thither within the curtain. We find Him first with God (Joh_1:1). Then He is the Light (Joh_1:9), reminding us of the seven-branched lampstand. At His baptism (Joh_1:29) we see Him at the laver and as the Lamb He is on the brazen altar of sacrifice. Thus He came out from God. Now that He is rejected, He goes back to God. The order is reversed. He bears witness to His death (Joh_12:24)-the brazen altar. He washes the disciples' feet (Joh_13:5)-the laver. He partakes of the "last supper"-the shewbread. The Holy Spirit - the lampstand. Within the curtain in chapter seventeen-the mercy seat. Thus we see how really He came out from God and is going back to God (3). He returns whence He came.

2 This act is characteristic of the Adversary's opposition. He was to "bruise His heel" (Gen_3:15), a special phrase denoting the treachery of one who seems to serve while he plots destruction. The name Jacob, literally "heeler" or supplanter. conveys this same idea of unfair advantage (Gen_25:21-26). The tribe of Dan is "a horned snake in the path to bite the horse's heels" (Gen_49:17). Its treachery excluded it from the list of tribes in the Unveiling (Joh_7:4:8).

3 The majesty of humility is seldom so splendidly set forth as in this passage. First we have His high place in reference to the world. All is in His hands. Then we are told of His relation to God. Did not such dignity and power entitle Him to the highest esteem? Yet, as such, He stoops to the meanest humility.

5 Many features of oriental life are very different from our customs. We remove our hats on entering a house, as a token of respect. In the East they keep on their turbans, but remove their footgear, leaving it in the small, lower entrance to the reception room (See Exo_3:5; Jos_5:15; Act_7::33). It is then the duty of the humblest slave in the establishment to wash the feet of the guest, by pouring water over them, and wiping them off with the towel with which he is girded.