12:44-50 The Nature of Jesus’ Self-Revelation

12:44-50 The Nature of Jesus’ Self-Revelation

11–12

Prelude to the Passion Narrative

Chapters 11 and 12 clearly constitute the transition from the confrontational dialogues between Jesus and “the Jews” (see introduction to chs. 7–10) to the narrative of Jesus’ suffering and death, which begins in 13:1. In this interim Jesus withdrew with his disciples to a place across the Jordan. They interrupted their stay when they went to Bethany and Jesus raised Lazarus. But then Jesus again withdrew, now to “a town called Ephraim,” where “he remained with the disciples” (11:54). Not until “the Passover of the Jews was near” (vs. 55) does the story take a turn. Then, “six days before the Passover” (12:1), Jesus returned to Bethany and, following his anointing there (vss. 2-7), went into Jerusalem. There his encounter with “some Greeks” present at the festival proved to Jesus that now the decisive hour had struck for him (vss. 20-23). A final dialogue with the crowd, the Evangelist’s reflection on Jesus’ entire public ministry, and a last word of Jesus himself follow (vss. 33, 34-36, 37-43, 44-50).

This transition to the Passion narrative strongly diverges from this part of the story as we have it in the Synoptics, especially in regard to the place and significance of the raising of Lazarus. While here that event is the climax of Jesus’ miracles and of his entire public ministry and is a key factor in the decision of the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus (11:46ff.; 12:10, 18f.), the Synoptics mention nothing of the miracle and thus give it no role in the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. To many scholars who deny the Fourth Evangelist any direct knowledge of Jesus’ life, this is proof that we have in this healing story either a symbolic narrative of the Evangelist’s own making or a legend of doubtful historical content that he used in that way. Others are more cautious in their evaluation. They point out that the raising of the dead by Jesus belongs to the undisputed core of the gospel (cf. Mt. 11:5), that Luke also knows of a raising unreported by Matthew and Mark (Lk. 7:11ff.), and that it would certainly be strange if of all Gospel writers John, in whose work salvation is consistently described as “(eternal) life,” would not relate a single raising from the dead among the “signs” of Jesus (cf. 20:30, 31). Nevertheless, even for expositors who take this position the historical place that the Evangelist assigns to this miracle remains doubtful. Rather than being based on historical tradition or the Evangelist’s own memory, the placing of this miracle at this point is said to be due to the Evangelist himself: not historical but rather “theological” and “pedagogical” motives were decisive for him.¹

Even from a “theological” point of view the story of the raising of Lazarus does occupy a very important place in the overall structure of the Gospel. But this need not by itself be an argument against the historicity of the sequence of events as it is described here. It is, rather, integral to this order. At this point Jesus has already withdrawn from association with “the Jews” at Jerusalem. When word of Lazarus’s illness reaches him and he reveals his intent to go to Judea “again” (the word appears twice in vss. 7 and 8), his disciples object that “the Jews” have “just now” been trying to stone him. Jesus answers that he must “fill up” the twelve hours of daylight (as in 9:4f.). All this presupposes the long prior stay in Judea and Jerusalem and also explains why the uproar caused by this miracle was a sign for the Jewish leaders not to delay any longer but to end Jesus’ public appearances by force.

The Synoptics say nothing (at least very little: see below) of this whole development. They give the impression that Jesus went to Jerusalem directly from Galilee, thinking only of the approaching Passover, and that he chose a Transjordanian route and went to Jerusalem via Jericho and Bethany in order to make his “entry” from there. It is only after the entry into Jerusalem that the narratives of John and the Synoptics again flow in the same channel, though subsequently, even in the Passion narrative itself, they again diverge.

Therefore, the question of when Lazarus was raised cannot be answered in isolation but is inextricably bound up with how John as a transmitter of the tradition repeatedly breaks out of the Synoptic geographical and temporal framework and thus demonstrates that he has at his disposal broader knowledge than the tradition enshrined in the Synoptics. However much the Fourth Evangelist was guided in the selection and arrangement of his material by “theological” motives (20:30, 31), so that in many ways his Gospel bears a different character from the other Gospels, this does not mean that the historicity of his compositions can be judged by the degree to which they can be integrated in the narrower framework of the Synoptic tradition.²

This is all the more true because the Synoptics themselves are rife with indications that Jesus’ ministry outside Galilee and in Jerusalem must have encompassed far more than what they themselves explicitly report. Especially relevant to the present text is the statement in Lk. 19:37 (cf. Jn. 12:18) concerning the enthusiasm with which “the whole multitude of the disciples” welcomed Jesus at his entry into Jerusalem “for all the deeds of power that they had seen.” This points to more happening in Jerusalem than can be inferred from the Synoptic Gospels themselves, which mention, in fact, no earlier miracles in Jerusalem. It has been suggested that John, not satisfied with this Lukan summary, filled the gap with his story of Lazarus’s raising.³ But this cannot be assumed with any plausibility because we have no proof that the Fourth Evangelist knew the Gospel of Luke and, more importantly, because the scope and diversity of the material peculiar to the Fourth Gospel is such that it cannot be subjected to criteria that would a priori restrict his independence with respect to the Synoptics.

11:1-44

The Raising of Lazarus

In the Lazarus story the miraculous event and Jesus’ self-revelation in that event are completely interwoven. Here again all sorts of attempts have been made to distill from the text before us a written or oral source used by the Evangelist (an “original document,” “legend,” or “tradition”), of which our text is then said to be the Evangelist’s “theological redaction.” More specifically, some have sought the original locus of this miracle story in the “sēmeia source” (“S”),⁴ the existence of which has since been accepted by many scholars.⁵ It is said that the Evangelist repeatedly interrupts the narrative he has borrowed from “S” with his interpretive remarks and additions and that this can be noted in various ways in the text we have before us.

Most expositors are agreed, however, that the story and the interpretation constitute a unity, so much so that it is impossible on the basis of the text that has been handed down to us to arrive at a credible reconstruction of a miracle story (whether from “S” or some other source) that the Evangelist is assumed to have used.⁶ A strong counterargument is the fact that in the style of the story as it lies before us there is nothing suggesting the presence of two distinct original components.⁷ Admittedly the structure of the beginning of the story is not entirely clear, but that is already true in vss. 1 and 2 and not just in the “Johannine” vss. 4 and 5.

It is undeniable, however, that a factor for some expositors is the miracle itself standing in the way of taking the story as an original unit as it stands. While in the sēmeia source the point is said to be the miracle as such as a tangible supernatural proof of Jesus’ messiahship, for the Evangelist the meaning of miracles is said to be only what they symbolize, which is articulated here in vss. 25-27: Jesus is “the resurrection and the life,” and all who believe in him will live, even those who, like Lazarus, have died. For those who have arrived at this believing insight—to which Jesus seeks to bring Martha with his “I am” pronouncement—the remainder of the story (the temporary physical revival of Lazarus) is, if not superfluous or even meaningless, then certainly a hindrance to understanding the Evangelist’s real intent. Or—in still another interpretation—it was retained by the Evangelist only for his more primitive readers, for whom miracle as such was of paramount interest.

Familiar here is the statement already made by Wellhausen⁸ that Jesus’ saying in vss. 25f. made the resurrection of Lazarus “completely superfluous” and “robbed the whole event of all meaning.” No less radical is the opinion of Becker: “By its thesis John XI 25f. degrades the actual miracle to an absurdity that limps along behind.” “To one who takes the ‘I am’ saying (vs. 25) seriously the miracle is meaningless. To one who marvels at the miracle as theologically significant, the saying is meaningless.” Why the Evangelist nevertheless at such great length recorded this miracle (and all the others) is not asked. That he “allows the miracles to live under his roof” is “a decision of the Evangelist that borders on audacity.”⁹ The manner in which Jesus speaks of himself in his “I am” statement (11:25f.) makes it apparent to what extent the Evangelist distanced himself from the miracle christology of the sēmeia source and sought to expose it as totally meaningless.

Others, including Haenchen and Bultmann, are more cautious in their treatment of the supposed tension between the christology of the source and that of the Evangelist. According to Haenchen, “the trouble the Fourth Gospel has caused exegetes owes to the fact that the Evangelist has made a ‘gospel of miracles’ [i.e., “S”] the bearer of his own message.” While for the Evangelist the significance of these miracle stories was only that they contained between the lines a “pointer” to a trans-earthly reality, it was his “misfortune” that his readers understood this “gospel of miracles used by him as a pointer,” “as a collection of actual miracle stories.”¹⁰ Hence the difficulty for the present-day expositor of protecting his readers from the danger—apparently still real—of being victimized by this “misfortune.”

Bultmann attempts to do justice to both aspects of the narrative. In his view the Evangelist himself thought about the tension between his symbolic approach to the miracle and his source’s realistic understanding. He brought these two ways of dealing with the miracle to expression “through the differentiation made between Martha and Mary.”¹¹ Bultmann’s idea is that the role of Martha was introduced by the Evangelist himself to express his own understanding of faith and is based on a symbolic interpretation of the miracle. But in the story of Lazarus’s real raising the Evangelist leaves room as a second possibility for the more primitive faith in miracles represented in the sēmeia source by Mary.

However, of such an inner tension between the Evangelist’s symbolic approach to the miracle and the source’s realistic understanding there is no evidence whatever in the text. There is not a single indication that the Evangelist identified less with the miracle story that he supposedly edited at such length and with so much realism (still less that he wanted to expose its christology as meaningless!) than with the “I am” sayings of vss. 25f. Everything points rather to the understanding that here, too, the miracle is intended as confirmation of the word of Jesus’ self-disclosure spoken earlier.¹² This follows from the overall structure of the story, in which even for the Evangelist the climax is obviously the miracle itself. And it is implied from the beginning in the statements with which the story is introduced, which the critics of the unity of the whole regard as “Johannine.” For example, in vs. 4: “This illness does not lead to death. It is, rather, for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” “Glory” and “glorification” obviously refer to the glory manifested in the miracle (as also in the first miracle, 2:11) and not only or primarily to the words of Jesus in vss. 25f. And this is all the more evident in that, in his word to Martha at the time of the miracle itself, Jesus refers back to these earlier words: “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?” (11:40). So even for the Evangelist, as is evident from these key words, the whole story is involved (see the interpretation below)—not just the issue of belief in Jesus’ words but also that of seeing the deeds of his glory (cf. 1:14, 51). The idea of a tension between the event and its interpretation—as if the Johannine message could be abstracted from the reality of the miracle—is in conflict with the pronouncement in 1:14 concerning the incarnation of the Word in its fundamental import for this whole Gospel.¹³

11:1-16

Lazarus’s Illness Reported

1–3 The wording of the opening of the story is rather choppy and cumbersome. “Now a certain man was” recalls similar introductions in 5:5; 1 Sa. 1:1; Jb. 1:1. The name Lazarus is an abbreviation of Eleazar (“God helps”) and occurs elsewhere in the New Testament only in Lk. 16:19f.¹⁴ The added designation “of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha” serves not only to distinguish this Bethany from one mentioned earlier (1:28; see also 11:18) but also to bring Mary and Martha into the story. It assumes that the readers know more about these sisters than about their brother, as is evident also from what follows in vs. 2: “Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume.” This striking note anticipates 12:1f. but is primarily intended here to alert the readers that the woman prominent in this story is the the one who had become so familiar in the tradition as the one who anointed Jesus. “Whose brother Lazarus was ill,” though it somewhat strangely tags along at the end, is clearly intended to pick up the thread started in vs. 1: “and it was her brother Lazarus who was so ill.” Vs. 3 then states that these two sisters sent a message to Jesus¹⁵ to inform him of the illness. The words of the message, “Lord, he whom you love is ill,” are obviously intended as an urgent appeal from the sisters to Jesus’ power and love toward their sick brother. Of the relation of Jesus to Lazarus they say no more than that they were united in human friendship, as was also true of Jesus and Lazarus’s sisters (cf. vs. 5). Therefore these words cannot by themselves serve as an argument for the identification of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” as Lazarus.¹⁶

4 For Jesus the message concerning his friend’s illness and the appeal made to him is the signal of great things to come. It does not appear that he knew in advance and at a distance how everything would transpire (cf. vs. 17). We get the impression, rather, that he, too, depended on guidance from God, by which the “what” and the “when” (“the hour,” cf. 2:4; 7:6) of what he had to do gradually became clear to him. Even “this illness is not unto death,” although it does not constitute a denial that Lazarus would die, by itself says no more than that death would not be the ultimate consequence of this illness, its final word.¹⁷

The next words are fundamental for the whole story: “It [is] for¹⁸ the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it¹⁹” (see also the comments on 9:3b). The glory of God and that of the Son, as elsewhere, are mentioned in a single breath. It is in the sending of the Son that “the glory of God,” that is, God’s reality in the power and majesty of his presence, manifests itself (cf. 13:31; 14:13; 17:4), and that constitutes the all-controlling motive of the miracle that now follows (see also vs. 40).

Many interpreters believe that these words not only relate to Lazarus’s raising but anticipate Jesus’ resurrection. The coming miracle would after all occasion Jesus’ death and thus his subsequent glorification, which are repeatedly brought to the fore in the chapters that follow (cf. 12:16, 23, 28; 13:1f.; 17:1-4). Accordingly, Jesus’ announcement here is said to encompass his own death and resurrection as well and to depict the raising of Lazarus as a prefiguration of his own resurrection.²⁰ Linked with this is the idea that when the Fourth Gospel mentions the manifestation of Jesus’ glory (as with the first miracle, 2:11), it implies an anticipation of Jesus’ resurrection glory and thus attempts to make the glorified Christ in heaven visible in the life of the earthly Jesus.²¹

However, the Fourth Gospel’s approach to and presentation of Jesus’ glory in his miracles is certainly quite other than this. It aims, instead, and this from the beginning, to make the preexistent glory of God visible and tangible in the earthly existence (the “flesh”) of Jesus of Nazareth. Granted, Jesus’ future glory is nothing other than a receiving back of what he had with the Father in the beginning before the world existed (cf. 17:5). But between these two states the Son’s descent from heaven, as a temporary mission of the Father, has a character of glory totally its own, one that cannot be described as a present intimation of the future glory in heaven. The unique redemptive significance of this descent, of, that is, the incarnation of the Word and of the entrance of God’s glory into human life, determines and limits the manifestation of that glory in accordance with its own nature. This is true not only spatially but also temporally, as is clearly evident in, for instance, 11:9. Therefore we must speak of a caesura rather than a link between the raising of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus.

5-7 What immediately follows conveys a clear indication of all this. Before the flow of events continues in vss. 6-7 it is noted that “Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”²² This insertion is not—as some have interpreted it—merely a superfluous confirmation of vs. 3b, the result of an unfortunate use of sources. It rather brings to expression that in and alongside the manifestation of God’s glory Jesus’ human affection for his three friends—again referred to by name—forms another fundamental motive for his conduct, a feature that returns in the sequel. Here, too, this element already plays a part when vs. 6 picks up where vs. 4 left off:²³ “So when he heard that he was ill, he [it is true]²⁴ stayed where he was for two more days. Then [having done that]²⁵ he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go back into Judea.’ ” The whole of vss. 5-7 shows how the human and the divine—his love for his own and his regard for the times appointed for him by the Father—are inseparably intertwined in Jesus’ conduct and therefore in his glorification as the Son of God (vs. 4). Humanly speaking, Jesus’ love would immediately have driven him to take to the road (cf. vss. 21, 32, 36f.) In fact, it was his love that made him leave his place of concealment (cf. 10:39, 40). But he also had to wait for the “hour,” the “time,” appointed for him by the Father (cf. 2:4; 7:6, 8; 8:20; 12:23; 13:1). That this delay served only to enhance the surpassing significance of this miracle—making it not the prevention but the reversal of death—is clear enough from the outcome and runs like a thread through the whole story (cf. vss. 21, 32, 37). But all this ambivalence in Jesus’ public conduct—concealing himself one moment and appearing in public the next, which we see again in vss. 54f., knowing himself called to do great deeds but then having to wait for the “hour” and “time” appointed by the Father—characterizes his manifestation of divine glory on earth as that of the one sent by the Father to fulfill his mandate at a time appointed by the Father.

Therefore the idea that Jesus made his decisions here in absolute sovereignty without regard to human feelings—which would then be all the more evidence of the docetic character of this christology²⁶—is a denial to Jesus not only of the motive of human love, which is mentioned in vs. 5, but also of the total and constant connection of his conduct to the will of the Father (cf. 4:34; 5:30; 6:38f.), even when it is said of the Son that he gives life to whom he will (5:21; cf. vs. 30). However much the Fourth Gospel stresses the absolute authority with which the Father has clothed the Son and given all things into his hands (3:35; 5:21f., 27 and passim), nevertheless the Son does nothing of himself and can do nothing of himself, but only what he “sees” the Father doing (5:19, 30; 8:28 and elsewhere) in continual fellowship with him and in waiting for his “hour.” In that sense there is again (see above) great resemblance between the first miracle (at Cana) and this last miracle. There, too, the appeal to Jesus to act comes from someone who is humanly very close to him; there, too, Jesus refuses to act immediately “on his own” but instead waits until his “hour” has come; and there, too, the miracle is described as the manifestation of his glory (2:14).²⁷

8-10 When Jesus then, after two days’ delay, invites his disciples to join him on the way back to Judea, he first has to overcome their opposition. Since 9:12 there has been no mention of the disciples. Nor are they mentioned here after 11:16. It is clear from their repeated interventions that their presence—though not always of all twelve (cf. 21:2)—is always to be assumed. But it is obvious that, despite their continuing faithfulness to Jesus, they still consistently allow themselves to be guided by purely human considerations (cf. 4:31f.; 6:7f., 19; 9:2).

Had Jesus informed his disciples of the report he had received from Martha and Mary, and did they therefore understood that he wanted to go to Lazarus in Bethany? Until the announcement of departure in vs. 7, Jesus apparently acts on his own; at least he speaks only of going back to Judea and does not mention “our friend Lazarus” until vs. 11. In any case at first the disciples resist only the idea of returning to Judea. They think only of “the Jews” who “just now”²⁸ had been seeking to stone him. Did he really want to “go there again”?

Jesus’ answer initially focuses only on their reluctance to reenter the danger zone from which he—and they with him—had so recently escaped with their lives. What he says recalls his statement in 9:4, 5 (cf. also 12:35f.), appealing to the general commonsense wisdom that one must take advantage of the light while it shines, though here he speaks directly to the immediate situation. Those who do not “walk during the day” risk all that comes with the darkness. Jesus here speaks further of the “twelve hours of the day” in which one can move without danger (of stumbling) because one can then see “the light of this world,” the sun, by the light of which one can find his way.²⁹ But at nightfall one encounters danger because then “the light is no longer in him.” That is, that person no longer has the light of the eye (“the lamp of the body,” that is, that by which the body receives light; cf. Mt. 6:2).³⁰

The import of this figurative speech is remarkable in more than one respect. The primary thrust is of course directed toward the disciples: as long as Jesus is still with them as “the light of this world” (cf. 9:5), the light is “in them” so that they can see where they are going and are secured against the “stones of stumbling” that (in a variety of ways!) the night brings with it. As long as his “hour” has not come, the Jews have no hold on him (cf. 7:30) and the disciples “walk,” in the whole of their existence, in the light of his presence (cf. 8:12). But this saying also indirectly (like vss. 5-7) throws light on the character of Jesus’ own work and manifestation of glory “in the flesh.”³¹ It is evident here, as in 9:4, that Jesus’ mission is clearly defined and limited temporally.

“Twelve hours” refers primarily to the fullness of the day and the work to be done in it (cf. 9:4; 4:34; 19:30). For that reason Jesus must be available to the last to “do the works of God” and to be “the light of the world” (cf. 9:4, 5), even though the hostility directed at him is taking ever more threatening forms. That he has withdrawn from public view to escape this hostility is not in conflict with this. He has done so because he is conscious that the “twelve hours” of his workday are not yet full and that therefore he must await directions from his Sender. Now that the call comes to him to take to the road again, that is for him evidence that the glory of God was still prepared to manifest itself in him and that his work was not yet finished.

Also included in this reference to “twelve hours,” furthermore, is the concern for the approach of the end of day. For that reason, too, the disciples must be on their way, before the night comes and darkness falls for them and for him, with all the risk this entails (vs. 10; cf. 9:5 and 12:35).

This repeated reference to the passage of time and—as the end approaches—to the “little while” still left to Jesus (7:33; 12:35; 13:33; 14:19; 16:16-19) is all the more striking because here (as in 9:3-5) there is no reference to Jesus’ future glory, which is mentioned again and again in the sequel (12:18, 23; 17:14). It seems here that what follows the twelve hours of day is only darkness in which no one, including Jesus, can work (9:4). Not that Jesus’ future glory is lost from view. But what is unmistakable here is the caesura (already referred to in the comments on vs. 4) between Jesus’ earthly manifestation of glory (“in the flesh”) and the future glory he is yet to receive (cf. 17:4, 5), a line of demarcation drawn by Jesus’ death. This again confirms the core saying in 3:13 that the ascent of the Son of man to heaven to receive all power (cf. Dn. 7:12ff.) can occur only after his descent from heaven (3:14) to be lifted onto and up from the cross.

On this the raising of Lazarus also depends. It is not the prelude to and first installment of Jesus’ heavenly glory but rather the transition toward the power and darkness of the world, which is the only means by which the Son of man will be lifted up from the earth to draw his own to him (12:32), that is, as he gives up his flesh and blood for the life of the world (6:51).

11-16 Having thus declared himself on the subject of his return to Judea,³² Jesus now states its purpose: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep.” That Jesus refers to Lazarus’s death under the common image of sleep (e.g., Mt. 9:24) brings to expression the power and authority that from the very beginning have filled him with regard to Lazarus’s illness (vs. 4) and in which he remains unshaken now that he knows Lazarus has died. We are not told how and when Jesus received this information. Here, too (as in, e.g., 1:47f.; 4:50), he is speaking as one who has supernatural knowledge of the way and will of the Father, the salvific import of which only gradually becomes clear to him (cf. vs. 15).

The disciples, however, do not understand all this (vs. 12). They react (as in, e.g., 4:33; 6:6f.) as persons who, because of their earthly and human manner of thinking, misunderstand Jesus. This recurrent Johannine motif gives Jesus opportunities to explain the matter at hand more fully (e.g., 3:3f.; 6:52f.). This pattern of dialogue is widely termed a literary device.

One can also take the disciples’ reaction somewhat more realistically (vs. 13). From the way Jesus speaks of Lazarus “falling asleep” and of “awaking him” they conclude that whatever had come over Lazarus had apparently taken a turn for the better.³³ They see this as all the more reason to persist in their objection to the dangerous trip to Judea.

Jesus puts an end to all misunderstanding by now stating plainly,³⁴ “Lazarus is dead” (vs. 14). He adds (vs. 15), “and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” With these words the salvific character of Jesus’ manifestation of glory again comes to expression. He starts out on the journey knowing that the time in which he is the light of the world is running out and that his return to Judea will hasten this end. But he goes not for the sake of his own glory but for the sake of the faith of his own. The delay serves to demonstrate that glory in all its splendor to them—once more before the night falls on him and on them and their faith in him is severely tested.

The acute need for this is evident also from the reaction of Thomas³⁵ to Jesus’ new and now definitive proposal to his disciples: “But let us go to him [Lazarus]” (vs. 16). Thomas does not resist. He even urges his fellow disciples “let us also go,” but adds significantly: “that we may die with him.” His mind has not been changed or put to rest by Jesus’ words in vss. 9 and 10. He is certain that to go to Judea means death for them all. Not following Jesus obviously did not occur to him as an option. But his willingness to join Jesus was a matter of accepting the inevitable, clearly without understanding anything of the joy of which Jesus had spoken, to say nothing of being able to share in it. In what follows (14:5; 20:24f.) Thomas is consistently the one who points out what is unintelligible and unacceptable to the (“sober,” “realistic”) human mind in what Jesus testified of himself and demanded from his disciples. It is therefore all the more striking and encouraging for those who as a rule follow Jesus in doubt and darkness that it is precisely this (“unbelieving”) Thomas who toward the end of this Gospel confesses Jesus in words that before him no one had dared to utter and whose last word can therefore strike the keynote of the entire Gospel of Jesus’ glory (cf. 20:28 with 1:1).

11:17-27

Jesus’ Journey to Bethany and Conversation with Martha

In vs. 17 the scene of the story changes to Bethany. At his arrival Jesus (apparently with his disciples, vs. 16, though they are not referred to any more) hears that Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. This statement, which precedes all else, points to the crucial issue at stake in the story that now follows. Although raising Lazarus from the dead one day after his burial would not have been less of a miracle than after four days, most expositors refer at this point to an idea among the Jews that for three days after death the soul of the deceased returned to the grave, then leaving the body for good, because by then the process of decay became obvious.³⁶

18-20 It emerges from the story that Jesus knew of the time of Lazarus’s death before he arrived in the village and that his own coming had been announced before he arrived (see vs. 30). The Evangelist first focuses on the situation in the house of the deceased. The short distance Bethany was from Jerusalem,³⁷ about three kilometers or two miles,³⁸ explains the presence of the “many Jews” who had come from Jerusalem “to console Martha and Mary³⁹ concerning their brother,” that is, to render a ministry of love to the mourners, an obligation that Jews valued highly and on the fulfillment of which they laid much stress.⁴⁰ That “many” came presumably points to the high social standing Lazarus and his sisters had even in Jerusalem and the sympathy that was now extended to the mourning women. At the same time these “Jews” (certainly not meant here in the sense of the authorities who were hostile to Jesus; cf. vss. 45, 46) are also part of the background for the story that now follows, playing a distinct role in it (cf. vss. 33f.).

In this situation the news that Jesus is on his way reaches Martha (vs. 20). Apparently without involving Mary in her actions (cf. vss. 28, 29) Martha withdraws from those around her and goes out to meet Jesus. The distinct roles that Martha and Mary play in this story have often been seen as indicative of the very different natures of the two women. Martha conveys the impression that she is an immediately reactive, spontaneous woman unlike her sister who is perhaps more introverted and certainly more receptive and slower to react (cf. Lk. 10:38ff.). Martha’s prominent role in this story may, as far as she is concerned, very well point in that direction. She it is who first hears of the (fervently awaited; cf. vss. 21, 32) arrival of Jesus. Immediately she takes off to meet him. But still (as, e.g., in 4:7ff.) we must be careful with psychological explanations. That “Mary persisted in sitting at home” is certainly not intended to be typical for her but is due to her ignorance of Jesus’ coming (cf. vss. 29f.).

There is also the very real danger of turning Mary and Martha into theological models.⁴¹ According to this view Martha (in John and contrary to her role in Luke 10), in going out to meet Jesus and in her conversation and confession in vss. 21-28, gives evidence of a deeper and more self-conscious faith in Jesus than Mary, who cannot get past her sorrow and can only be persuaded by the miracle. For some scholars this is proof of the supposed contradiction in this chapter with regard to the meaning of the miracle (see above, pp. 383ff. and the comments on vss. 25f. and 32ff.).

21-22 When Martha meets Jesus—everything here is described very soberly and succinctly—she begins by voicing that which evidently kept her in a state of utmost tension in the days just prior to Lazarus’s death and thereafter has become a most painful question to her: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” This motif of the too late arrival returns later (cf. vs. 32, 37). The Evangelist thus harks back to something Martha and Mary did not know: Jesus deliberately delayed going to Bethany. What in Jesus’ conduct had to be done for the sake of God’s glory has led here to a deeper trial of faith. But it is precisely in this situation that Martha shows the character of those who are “in truth his disciples” because they “remain” in Jesus (cf. 8:31f.). Her disappointment was so intense because she believed in Jesus so strongly and expected so much from him.

So on seeing Jesus she not only voices that disappointment but in the same breath brings her faith in him into play as a continuing appeal to his omnipotence as the Son of God: “but⁴² even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” The question arises whether she is, though not in so many words, referring to Jesus’ power, even at this stage, to call Lazarus back from the dead. Strictly speaking, if one takes her words by themselves, one could infer this from the unrestricted “whatever you ask.”⁴³ Still, the remainder of the conversation and especially vs. 39 point in another direction. Some have therefore correctly referred to not only the unrestricted nature of “whatever you ask” but also its indefiniteness. It leaves all doors open.⁴⁴ But her appeal to Jesus is no less forceful for all that. Even though she herself did not see how at this stage he could still offer help, she does not for that reason release him but by saying “even now I know …” she puts the still-unfulfilled answer to her faith in his hands and on the shoulders of him whom God would not refuse whatever he asked. In this respect, too, our story reminds us of that first miracle in which the mother of Jesus, after she too had initially been “put in her place,” had nevertheless instructed the servants in charge: “Do whatever he tells you” (2:5).

23 Jesus’ answer is not a direct response to the disappointment implied in Martha’s words with regard to his “late” arrival but in a sense goes beyond this. “Your brother will rise again” is ambivalent. By these words he is certainly also speaking of what he is about to do (cf. vss. 4, 11). But, as will be evident from vss. 25f., they refer to more than the coming miracle and contain no direct indication—even for Martha—of what Jesus was about to do. But his intention is not to increase the suspense. He continues to delay because, before manifesting his glory, he seeks to unite his disciples to himself on a level deeper than can be achieved by removing their sorrow over Lazarus. Jesus deals pastorally with Martha in a way strongly reminiscent of the course of his earlier encounter with a royal official (4:46ff.). There, too, a person in great personal distress turns to Jesus, and there, too, the miracle is delayed, as it were. At stake in the encounter with Jesus is not just and not primarily that a man gets his deathly ill son back or a woman her dead brother. The “life” and “resurrection” of which Jesus speaks and that he imparts are more than that. It is this that the delay is designed to make us see.

24 Martha, however, is able to hear in Jesus’ statement no more than that he is referring her to the great future and the resurrection of the righteous to be expected “on the last day.” She has this “knowledge”⁴⁵ in common with many of her contemporaries.⁴⁶ The Jews who have come to console her have certainly reminded her of it. She therefore immediately assents to Jesus’ statement about the resurrection—as she understands it. But “I know” contains a clear undertone of dissatisfaction. Has Jesus come to Bethany only to confirm what she already knows?

25, 26 Jesus’ response gives the conversation a turn that is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. Now he no longer speaks of Lazarus or of the manner of his resurrection, but with great power points to himself as “the resurrection and the life.” Here again he does this in the disclosure form of an “I am” statement.⁴⁷ Just as that which is truly food and drink, light and life are given only in him and can only be known from him (cf. 4:10, 14; 6:33, 48, 53f.; 8:12, etc.), so also he is “the resurrection and the life”; all who face the recurrent death situations of life and wrestle with questions of death and life can find an answer only through faith in him.

The absolute validity of this statement is emphasized in a pair of artfully combined statements, each of which, in the form of a mašal, expresses the same truth in paradoxical manner. The effect is heightened further by the use in both statements of “live” and “die” with dual meanings:

Whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet will live,

and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.

Vs. 25b refers to death in the natural sense and to living in the sense of eternal life. “Lives” in vs. 26a, on the other hand, refers to natural human existence, while “never die” refers to the eternal life that natural death can neither prevent nor affect. Both statements have the same import,⁴⁸ though from different viewpoints: first, that of the deceased believer who will live; second, that of the one who lives in faith and will not die. The common meaning is that everyone who believes in Jesus, in life as in death, participates in the resurrection and the life that Jesus is and that he imparts.

Jesus thus, in response to Martha’s statement in vs. 24, in a sense reduces the entire resurrection and the resurrection hope to himself and to believing. He thus tells her that resurrection is not only what occurs on “the last day” but an event that has already begun in him and is present, and that believing in the resurrection is therefore a matter of believing in him. This pronouncement—and this whole chapter—is an echo and a realization of what was said in 5:25: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear [in faith!] will live.” This is not a “spiritualization” of the resurrection—see the sequel!—nor does the resurrection become a timeless datum that is therefore canceled out or meaningless as a future event.⁴⁹ It is true both that “the hour is coming and now is” and that “whoever believes in me will live and never die.” Faith in Jesus does not make humans immortal. What it does bring about is that from this moment on they no longer live under the power of death. Resurrection is therefore not a matter of “the last day” but of now, of listening in faith to the Son of God.

Jesus now confronts Martha with this question, before the events of the day take their course: “Do you believe this?” This is why he has come to Bethany after two days’ delay: not just to call his friend Lazarus back to life and to restore a brother to his sisters, but to make them realize that what unites him with them and he has to give to them encompasses so much more than what they, in their request for help, have expected of him (see also the comments on vs. 40).

To some interpreters Jesus’ manner of speaking about the resurrection and eternal life as an already realized state of affairs, or as a reality recurrently brought about by the power of his word, is proof of the supposed Johannine shift to an eschatology differing from the Jewish future expectation and hope of resurrection, which is voiced by Martha. John makes the future present and thus shows, we are told, the influence of Greek thought. Greek philosophical and religious thought includes resurrection and (eternal) life, but only in the sense of a spiritual deliverance (accomplished by true “knowledge”) from the relativity and unreality—experienced as spiritual “death”—of human existence. Terms like “resurrection” and “eternal life” refer either, in idealism, to the opposition between the “higher” and “lower” in humans,⁵⁰ or to the more radical dualism of Gnosticism.⁵¹

But this idea brings Jesus’ pronouncement “I am the resurrection and the life” and what follows in vss. 25 and 26 under a viewpoint that is foreign to the Fourth Gospel and forced on it. When Jesus changes the direction of Martha’s faith from a focus on the resurrection on the last day to the resurrection and the life that he represents and grants, this is not a change from or a rejection of an eschatology directed toward the great future in favor of a “realized” eschatology. Jesus himself speaks similarly and most emphatically of a resurrection “at the last day”—in passages that Bultmann and others must regard as coming from a later hand (6:39, 44, 54; cf. 5:28, 29; 12:48).⁵² And even here “whoever believes in me, though he dies, yet will live” clearly indicates that the life that Jesus gives continues, preserves its power, and has an (“eschatological”) future, even after death.

This does not of course in any way diminish the importance of the totally new emphasis that the Fourth Gospel puts on the presence of the promised salvation—here, of the resurrection. The big question, however, is whether this takes place in accordance with the Hellenistic-Greek understanding, which proceeds from the higher and the lower in humans and places before them the choice between good and evil, light and darkness, so that by gnosis they may arrive at their true “being.” When these categories (which are derived from a certain type of anthropology) are introduced into the Gospel, what is lost is the unique character of the Johannine kerygma, which is totally concentrated on the person of Jesus, the Son of God, and therefore in content derivable only from him. It is not a certain “eschatology,” however conceived, nor a preexisting “anthropology,” of whatever origin, that determines the nature of salvation or the shape of christology in the Fourth Gospel. Rather the reverse is the case—very consistently. The characteristic and remarkable features of the Johannine message of salvation are that it comes to expression in “I am” statements and that the “I” is in effect the predicate: “the light,” “the resurrection,” etc.—am I.⁵³ That is true here as well. All that Jesus says of “the resurrection and the life” is that it is he who constitutes them and that therefore those who believe in him receive the life that is no longer subject to the power of death. The resurrection and life he grants encompass both present and future because he encompasses both as the One in whom the Word reveals itself, the Word that was with God in the beginning and by whom all things were created and who is therefore also the Son of man in whose hands the Father has put the future government over all things, in keeping with the prophecy of Daniel (7:12f.; cf. John 1:51; 3:13; 5:27; 17:2, 5, 24).

This is why there is such emphasis on the “already now” of the resurrection and the life: the Word “has become flesh and dwelt among us.” And the Son of man did descend from heaven before ascending to heaven to assume his position of power there (3:13). For that reason, too, he did not come to a world that was foreign to him but was made by him (1:9, 10). The resurrection that he is and grants calls the dead not from an inferiority or dichotomy inherent in human existence but from the alienation from God of the life created by him. The “already now” of the resurrection does not consist in being finally or repeatedly released, by the power of his word, from the relativity of time and history. It consists, rather, in communion with God in the relativity of time (which is essential for this temporal life), a communion that cannot be abolished, even by death,⁵⁴ because nothing and no one can snatch Jesus’ own out of his hand (10:28).

But the salvation that has come, including resurrection and life, does not for that reason lose its historical, future character either. In Christ the present and the future are one and do not cease to exist (Hb. 13:8). The Fourth Gospel concentrates everything on the person of Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God and does not say as much about the future perspective of the kingdom of God and of the resurrection from the dead as do the Synoptic Gospels and Paul.⁵⁵ But still in this concentration the figure of the Son of man is repeatedly mentioned as the equivalent of the Son of God. How, then, in view of the stress on the incarnation of that Word and the descent from heaven of the Son of man, could the future, in the all-encompassing salvation-historical sense of the word, grow dim, salvation lose its cosmic significance, and the resurrection “at the last day” become “irrelevant”? Because Jesus is the resurrection and the resurrection is he, the hour is coming and is now, the barrier has been broken, and union achieved between that which is now and that which is coming.

27 Martha’s answer is typical for this phase of the narrative and for the significance that the Evangelist himself clearly attaches to this story. She unambiguously confirms the faith she has already evidenced (vs. 22). And she does this in words that express the content of that faith more fully: “Yes, Lord; I continue to believe⁵⁶ that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into the world.”⁵⁷ These words recall Nathanael’s confession in 1:49 and express both Israel’s messianic hope and the faith of the Christian community (20:30, 31), though Martha speaks as one for whom, as a result of her acquaintance and association with Jesus, the expectation of “him who is coming into the world” had already acquired a meaning uniquely and deeply her own. Still it is striking that in her confession she does not reflect on what Jesus has just said about himself. It is as if she cannot grasp it all at once and react to it. She understands that Jesus is following a different line with her than she has expected and has spoken of the resurrection in a way that is unfamiliar to her as a believing Jew.

Nevertheless, when Jesus confronts her with the question of faith, there is not a hint of hesitation in her words. On his “I am” her spontaneous and uninhibited reply follows: “Yes, Lord, you are,” even though for her part she cannot articulate this in any words other than those of her messianic hope. In this respect she reminds us of the man who was blind from birth and who in response to Jesus’ word, “he who speaks to you [is the Son of man],” answered, “Lord, I believe,” even though he did not know who the Son of man was. It is faith in Jesus that decides everything. For Martha not even the death of Lazarus, which Jesus has not prevented, could detract from this. To the Evangelist and his audience, Martha undoubtedly represented those who believed before they had seen and understood everything of what Jesus’ “I am” would come to mean.

11:28-44

The Raising

28–31 Martha goes away with (as vs. 28 makes clear) Jesus’ instruction to call Mary. She carries it out by taking her sister aside⁵⁸ and telling her the great news, “The teacher is here,” significantly adding: “and is calling for you.” Some have wondered why Jesus himself did not go to the house of mourning but remained at a distance, outside the village, as it is now stated in vs. 30 to clarify the situation in retrospect. But, as is evident from Martha’s private communication to Mary, what mattered to Jesus above all was contact with his friends. The time of his public self-disclosure before “the Jews” was past (cf. 10:39f.; 11:54; 12:3b).

But even now he could not remain hidden and again came into confrontation with “the Jews” (vss. 33, 42, 45ff.). For when Mary, at Martha’s words, arose hastily to go to Jesus outside the village (vss. 20, 30), those who had come to console her followed her, thinking she wanted to return to the tomb to weep there (vs. 31; cf. 20:11; Mt. 28:1; see also 2 Sa. 3:32). And so the entire procession of mourners went again where the dead man had been laid. Martha, too, joined them (cf. vs. 39).

32-37 There has—mistakenly, I believe—been much speculation over Mary’s role in the story from this point.⁵⁹ According to some, “in her posture of adoration” and in the few sorrowful words with which she meets Jesus, she represents the proper Christian attitude in the face of suffering and death.⁶⁰ According to others she and “the Jews” represent—over against Martha—the more “primitive” faith of those who need the external miracle in order to recognize Jesus as the Revealer. This is said to be especially evident in vs. 32, where Mary repeats Martha’s words without Martha’s second statement (vs. 22). She thus represents “the first step of faith, from which her sister advanced.”⁶¹ This last opinion, however, seems far-fetched. The haste (mentioned twice!) with which Mary goes out to Jesus, the reverence with which she falls at his feet,⁶² and what she says to him demonstrate that she, no less than her sister, put her trust in him. That no deep personal conversation occurred between her and Jesus, as with Martha, has an obvious explanation in her situation, in which such private conversation between her and Jesus was hardly possible.

Another related point is the striking manner in which Jesus’ reaction to the arrival of the “weeping” Mary and the “weeping” Jews who accompanied her is described: he “became grim in spirit and yielded to deep emotion.” The first expression denotes anger,⁶³ the second an accompanying strong emotion that he did not suppress but evidently expressed freely.⁶⁴ All this is the more remarkable because Jesus’ strong emotions are mentioned again in vss. 35 and 38: First, as he goes where Lazarus has been laid (vs. 34), the text, without comment but all the more emphatically as a fact that needed to be mentioned by itself, states: “Jesus wept.” He did so without trying to hide his emotions, as is evident from the reaction of “the Jews,” who were struck by the fact: “See how he loved him!” (vs. 36). Then again when he arrives at the tomb Jesus experiences rage mixed with grief (vs. 38): “Then Jesus, again deeply incensed, came to the tomb.”

The remarkable stress that the Evangelist puts on Jesus’ state of mind has been explained in very different ways. Some say that Jesus’ anger (vs. 33) was aroused by the general wailing over Lazarus’s death, in which continuing unbelief toward his mission and authority is said to have manifested itself.⁶⁵ This seems to contradict Jesus’ own weeping (vs. 35).⁶⁶ But Jesus’ weeping is said—because of Jesus’ sense of his own power to raise the dead—to be hardly intelligible except as an expression of grief over so much unbelief, and even to have no other purpose than to provoke an expression of that unbelief by “the Jews” (vss. 36f.).⁶⁷

Despite this forced interpretation, the context as a whole makes clear that Jesus’ anger is directed not against unbelief (on the part of Mary and those acompanying her) but against that which brought them to this outburst of grief: the death of Lazarus itself. While this is already the obvious implication of vs. 34, it is even more evident in vs. 38, where it is not the weeping people but the tomb that again evokes in Jesus this intense emotion of aversion and sorrow. The emotion is the revulsion of everything that is in him against the power of death. Or as Calvin strikingly comments on vs. 38: “Christ does not come to the sepulchre as an idle spectator, but like a wrestler preparing for the contest. Therefore no wonder that He groans again, for the violent tyranny of death that He had to overcome stands before His eyes.”⁶⁸

But for that very reason Jesus’ deep inner agitation is not limited to what, in his confrontation with death, applies to himself, but also expresses itself in his solidarity with the grief of those who once more go to the tomb to weep over the loss of their dear brother and friend. He weeps with those who are weeping. When “the Jews” see him as a member of the procession, weeping as he goes, they do not misunderstand him when they say, “See how he loved him!” Jesus allows himself to be caught up in the general grief over Lazarus’s death, and there he experiences and participates in the grief of all whose loved ones have gone to the grave. That does not militate against the purpose of his coming to Bethany. As the Son of God he does not come to redeem the world from imaginary grief or to make grief over death imaginary. Therefore he joins the mourning procession for the friend whom he is to raise from the dead, and he weeps.⁶⁹

What “the Jews” do not understand is what some of them formulate as a question—in essence the same question that Martha and Mary asked (vs. 37): “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” They do not understand that the one who is able to do so much has not come too late, even for Lazarus, and that Jesus—precisely by postponing his arrival—wants to teach them once more that for those who believe in him he never comes too late. Nowhere else in the Gospel does the true nature of the entry of God’s glory into flesh, of God’s identification with the true man Jesus of Nazareth, come more vividly to expression than in Jesus’ going—described thus—to the tomb of Lazarus.

Those who failed to see in Jesus’ tears anything other than an expression of his impotence in the face of the onslaught of death misunderstood him. But the Evangelist’s portrayal of Jesus here is not of one who “doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus,” who, elevated far above and incapable of human suffering, does not tolerate tears in his presence. The Evangelist, precisely in the midst of his description of this incomprehensible and inconceivable miracle, includes his strongest expression of Jesus’ existence as a human being. He does so to safeguard the sublimity of his message against all idealizing interpretations.⁷⁰

38-40 As described earlier, Jesus’ arrival at the tomb is “again” marked by intense agitation, in which, as appears from the word again used,⁷¹ the element of wrath or angry aversion dominates. Here, too, expositors have—among many unconvincing attempts to offer a meaningful interpretation of this passage—tended to see here a reaction to the unbelief of “the Jews,” which is said to be expressed in vs. 37.⁷² But it is unlikely that the question raised there would have the effect described here. We see here the continuation, rather, of what characterizes the entire passage: Jesus’ sharing in the grief of Lazarus’s relatives and friends. We also learn that he, as the One sent by the Father, was moved to resist the demonstration of human impotence in the face of death as though it had the last, decisive word in the world. To break this spell he strides to the tomb, not in the sovereign apathy of the great Outsider, but as the One sent into the world by the Father, as the Advocate who has entered human flesh and blood. Accordingly, it is not only from his divine authority but also from his deep human involvement in the death of his friend that, at sight of the large stone that is intended to close off Lazarus’s tomb forever, is evoked from him the measured, almost gruff command to the bystanders: “Take away the stone.”⁷³ It is as if in these words a kind of tension is being released. Enough now of tears and wailing! Enough honor has been bestowed on death! Against the power of death God’s glory will now enter the arena!

But for Martha this shift in the course of events is too much. She is introduced here as “the sister of the dead man,” certainly, for good reason: as next of kin she more than anyone has the right to speak.⁷⁴ When it gets through to her that Jesus is about to open the tomb, she is aroused to opposition. Her extremely realistic language, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days,”⁷⁵ expresses her abhorrence at the mere thought that Jesus should expose the body of her brother—in the state in which it must be by this time—to the light of day.

Martha’s words, in the nature of the case, are designed to accentuate the utter impossibility and absurdity of the miracle narrated here. One can hardly, in rationalizing fashion, demur at this point and argue that at her first encounter with Jesus she herself said, “Even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you” (vs. 22), and she had answered “Yes” to Jesus’ question whether she believed that he was the resurrection and the life (vs. 27). How could she, for all her faith in Jesus as the Messiah come into the world, faith of which she had given evidence, have believed or suspected what Jesus now wanted to show her?

Jesus does not fault Martha for her little faith or demand more faith of her, but asks: “Did I not tell you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” He has spoken of himself as “the resurrection and the life.” Now he reduces that and everything he has in deeply significant language associated with that saying to the single phrase “the glory of God.” It is to reveal God’s glory, that is, God himself in his turning to human beings, in all its fullness and truth, including God’s power over death, that he has come. And what he is now doing, in the last great work of the twelve hours of his workday, is exhibit that glory before the eyes of Martha and all who have followed her (cf. vs. 4). For he has not come to make faith into miracle faith—as if to make room for the idea that the more a person believes in what God in his omnipotence can do, the greater the hold he or she has on that omnipotence and the more it is at his or her disposal. All that is required of faith is to believe in him who is the light of the world, to let him “go his way,” to let him give that which is not limited by one’s own imagination but by the power of God’s glory has been manifested in the world in the incarnation of the Word (cf. 1:49-51).

The structure of vss. 41 and 42 is like that of vss. 39 and 40. After Martha’s objection and Jesus’ response, his command to remove the stone is obeyed without contradiction. Then a new intermezzo follows—this time from Jesus himself—in which, before raising Lazarus, he turns to God: “And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said: Father!” The style is undeniably solemn, marking the grandeur of the moment (cf. 17:1).⁷⁶ These last words of Jesus before the miracle, along with those in vs. 40, are all the more significant because the story ends with the accomplishment of the miracle. Thus all attention is concentrated on the miracle as the work of Jesus together with the Father.

Jesus gives thanks to the Father for having heard him. No mention has been made of a prior prayer. But the Son can do nothing of himself (5:19, 30; 8:28). He does the works that the Father has given him, and continually gives him, to accomplish (5:36; 4:34). Jesus also expresses his dependence on the Father. One may perhaps even catch here some relief that, after his earlier agitation, now enables him to manifest his unshaken communion with the Father. For in the same breath, as it were, he adds to his thanksgiving that God hears him the words: “I know that you always hear me.” As he prays he knows that he is heard as the Son into whose hand the Father has given all things (3:34, 35), granting him to have life in himself as the Father has life in himself (5:26).

The idea that this prayer and thanksgiving do not fit in the relationship between Jesus and the Father and are intended here solely for the benefit of the bystanders, so that they can believe that “you sent me” (vs. 42b), misconstrues the nature of the relationship, which was a living personal interaction (cf. 5:19, 20).⁷⁷ This solemn expression of Jesus’ thanksgiving, which was seen (and heard?) by all, does find its explanation⁷⁸ in the presence of “the Jews.” They have come to the grave, fully assured that Lazarus’s death is an accomplished fact and that death is invincible, to lament the passing of their friend. Then Jesus lets them take him to the tomb, commands them to open it, and with all eyes focused on him, lifts his eyes to heaven and in full dependence gives thanks to the Father. In this he wants above all else, including the raising of Lazarus, to direct their eyes neither to the grave nor toward himself but to the “whence” of his coming, the secret of his power in words and deeds. Because the Son does nothing and is able to do nothing apart from the fact that he is the Son and that the Father loves him, contemplation of the greatest miracle is valueless if it does not bring its witnesses to faith in him as the One sent by the Father (see also the comments on vs. 40). This understanding of miracles characterizes the entire Fourth Gospel and stamps the words and deeds of Jesus from the beginning (1:14, 51). For this same reason Jesus must, as it were, supply this last great miracle with his hallmark and seal before accomplishing it before the eyes of the bystanders.

43-44 With everything said that must first be said, the story of the miracle itself, in all its grandeur, can be extremely brief and sober. Jesus cries out with a loud voice: “Lazarus, come out.” Jesus’ “crying out” is mentioned elsewhere, but then in the sense of inspired prophetic proclamation (7:28, 37; 12:33; cf. 1:15; Rom. 9:27; Gal. 4:6),⁷⁹ sometimes with “with a loud cry” (Lk. 1:42). The reference here, however, is not just to the pneumatic power by which the truth is brought to expression but to the power of God by which the dead are brought to life (cf. 5:28).⁸⁰

In response to that cry the dead man comes out (vs. 44), still bound hand and foot by bandages and with his face wrapped in a cloth—the very picture of humanity subject to the kingdom of death. He is brought out of the half-darkness of the tomb into the full light of the day. This portrays clearly the power and glory of the one who has broken into the “strong man’s house” to take his possessions (cf. Is. 49:24f.; Mt. 12:29). Appropriate to this power and glory is the last utterance in the story by which Jesus, as with the sovereign word of the conqueror, commands the bystanders to relieve the newly raised Lazarus of that which keeps him from going out in freedom: “Unbind him, and let him go.”

From the beginning commentators have speculated about how Lazarus, wrapped hand and foot in gravecloths, could get out of the tomb. Some have even called this “a miracle within a miracle.”⁸¹ Others have seen it as one more proof that what mattered to the Evangelist was “not a report in the historical sense of the word.”⁸² In our opinion, however, it is legitimate to ask whether this binding of the dead with gravecloths was really intended to tie hands and feet together (so that the dead could not return)⁸³ and not rather, as with the “wrapping” of the head, to keep the corpse in the proper position (see also the comments on 20:6f.). In any case, this “complex of problems” clearly does not occupy the Evangelist and only detracts from the main issue.

Finally, one may wonder at the abrupt ending of the story. There is not a word about Lazarus or any reaction from Martha, who has played an important role to the very end, or from Mary or even from Thomas. This is often traced back to the “source” that the Evangelist is supposed to have used, which is said to have concluded the miracle story with this last word of Jesus. But here again we need not fall back on a hypothetical unknown for an explanation. This abrupt but significant concluding word is entirely in character for the Johannine kerygma. The people around Jesus are significant to the degree that the grandeur and identity of Jesus are reflected in their lives. That is their enduring significance in the Gospel, not only in a “salvation-historical” sense but also in an exemplaristic sense, that is, in how faith and unbelief are exemplified in them. What matters is not their histories, as in a dictionary of saints. What matters is the identity of Jesus in the signs, which are chosen and documented by the Evangelist for this purpose, Jesus’ self-revelation as the Christ, the Son of God (20:30, 31).

11:45-54

The Sanhedrin Takes Counsel, Jesus Withdraws to Ephraim

45-46 The immediate reaction of those who came with Mary and witnessed the miracle was predominantly positive. Many of them “believed” in Jesus. That is, they were now convinced of his divine mission (cf. vs. 42; 3:2). The Evangelist does not further comment on this faith (cf. 7:31; 8:30; 12:42). But “some of them” informed the Pharisees⁸⁴ of what had happened, and apparently not in a way that was favorable to Jesus (cf. 5:15; 9:13), at least given the result described in the vss. 47ff.

47-48 The chief priests⁸⁵ and Pharisees therefore convene the supreme council—here called the Sanhedrin for the first time⁸⁶—for common deliberation, now that the influence of Jesus among the people has become increasingly disturbing to them (cf. already 7:32ff.). Their question, “What are we to do?”⁸⁷ indicates the embarrassment prompted by the “many signs” Jesus has been doing. The reference here, as in 2:23, seems to be especially to the signs Jesus did in Jerusalem and Judea. The Synoptics say little about this, but see also Lk. 19:37. Here again it is evident that the Fourth Gospel has more ample information at its disposal with respect to Jesus’ activity.

The members of the Sanhedrin (vs. 48) are afraid that, if they do not intervene, “everyone will believe in him.” They thought, that is, that a popular (messianic?) movement was developing around Jesus (cf. 6:15; 12:13; 19:12; see also Ac. 5:35ff.). Such a movement could prompt the Romans to “take from us⁸⁸ both the place and the nation.” By “place” the city may be intended, but more likely the temple is meant (cf. Ac. 6:13; 21:28). Here, for the first time in the conflict between “the Jews” and Jesus, a political element comes to the fore. Earlier it has always been Jesus’ claim, which they regard as blasphemous, that he is the Son of God that has driven them to act against him (cf. 5:18ff.; 10:33, 36; see also 19:7). How justified their fear of Roman intervention because of Jesus was is not clear from what follows. But even if they had no reason to think that Jesus was aiming at political power, they could find occasion in the popular movement around him for acting against him as a claimant to power who would be dangerous to the state.

49-50 At this embarrassed and fearful point in the discussion, Caiaphas takes the floor. To the readers, who were apparently not aware of his dignity, he is introduced simply as “one of them, a certain Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.”⁸⁹ His intervention in the discussion, however, bears testimony to great political experience and skill. He never refers to Jesus by name. His strategy is, rather, to charge his colleagues in strong language with political incompetence and thus to fault them as leaders of the people: “You don’t know anything!” If matters stood as they claimed—and he did not question it—how then could they still be so unsure what they had to do: “You do not understand [or: Do you not understand …?] that it is in your interest for one man to die for the people, and the whole nation not perish.”⁹⁰ Instead of the somewhat conspicuous “your interest,” other manuscripts read “our interest” or, without the personal pronoun, “it is expedient.” Even in the reading most often followed, “your interest,” Caiaphas seeks to make clear to his fellow council members how simple, and profitable for them as well, the solution of Jesus’ case would be if they do not fixate on that one person. For then they will know that sometimes one has to put up with a lesser evil to prevent a larger one, here the death of one for the sake of the nation as a whole. The conclusion of this cynical logic, which Caiaphas does not have to add in so many words, is that the Sanhedrin should now with no further delay attend to the death of that one man. In any case that is their business now that he, as presiding officer of the gathering and leader of the nation as a whole, has so clearly stated the principle according to which they must act.

51 It is precisely on this last point, however, that the Evangelist comments and focuses the entire thrust of the story. With “he did not say this of his own accord” he is not of course relieving Caiaphas of responsibility for his malevolent purpose, but he leaves that purpose aside in order to point his readers to the deep evangelical truth that Caiaphas, despite himself and without realizing it, was expressing in them, namely that Jesus was to die for the salvation of his people, vicariously as the One for the many. And with the next words he is not tracing this “prophecy” back to a charisma inherent in the high priestly office that manifests itself independently of the person of the priest. For although one can cite a few examples of priests being credited with prophetic gifts,⁹¹ prophetic inspiration was not regarded as a privilege automatically belonging to the office of high priest. It is much rather the intent of the Evangelist to say that Caiaphas, as the highest officeholder of that (historic)⁹² year, had to give prophetic expression not to his own purpose but to God’s purpose in the death of Jesus in the words he chose. That this fell to Caiaphas is of course deeply meaningful. One can call it a “tragic irony” that Caiaphas here, “against his knowledge and intention,” appears as a prophet.⁹³ What concerns the Evangelist, above all, however, is that Israel’s highest official, with all the authority associated with his office, spoke of Jesus’ death as the only way in which the people could be saved. Israel had to hear this from the lips of its own high priest.

Verse 52 adds still another element: “and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” Even here Caiaphas’s prophecy is applicable, although in a wider context. For he, too, was concerned about the salvation of the whole nation, the preservation of its unity and thus its deliverance from ruin. The Evangelist points to that unity as the object and binding power of Jesus’ death. He does so under a figure he has used before, that of the shepherd who gathers into one flock the scattered children of God.

At the same time he indicates that the issue with Jesus includes more than the people whose unity was of so much concern to Caiaphas. It also concerns, as 10:16 already put it, “other sheep that are not of this fold,” here “the children of God who are scattered abroad.” The shepherding terminology (“scatter,” “gather”) clearly alludes to texts like Jr. 23:2ff. and Ezk. 34:12, where the great future salvation is applied to the sheep of God scattered through all nations, who are also described as “God’s children” (cf. Is. 43:5, 6: “I will bring your offspring from the east … my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth”). But whereas these Old Testament passages refer to the people of Israel in dispersion (Jr. 23:2ff.: “my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them,” etc.), here “God’s scattered children” are expressly distinguished from the people of Israel (as in 10:16). The redemptive significance of Jesus’ death is universal. He is the Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep wherever they may come from and will therefore “draw all people” to himself and in his elevation on the cross give them the great gathering point and center of their unity (12:20ff., 32, 33). The picture here is no longer that of the Gentiles streaming toward Mount Zion to be incorporated into the people of God. It is, rather, of a new unity of believers from Israel and from the nations and, accordingly, of the new people of God (see the comments on 10:16). Belonging to the flock therefore gains new meaning, that of being known by and knowing the good Shepherd (cf. the comments on 10:14ff.) or, as here, that of being “God’s children.” This designation, which in passages like Is. 43:5 (see above) refers to Israel’s election out of the nations, is here transposed to those known and called by God out of all nations. It thereby gains a somewhat different connotation from what we have in 1:12, the only other place in the Fourth Gospel where “God’s children” are mentioned: there the status of child is the privilege of those who have “received” Jesus.⁹⁴

53-54 Having thus placed the deliberation of the highest Jewish court and the decisive intervention of the high priest with respect to the death of Jesus in this universal redemptive perspective, the Evangelist is content to summarize the result of their deliberation in a single statement. Caiaphas’s pronouncement marks a transition, a threshold that is not crossed until now. From that day on their minds are made up and their deliberation exclusively focused on how and when to put Jesus to death. The time they will spend working toward that goal is lengthened (cf. vs. 57) when Jesus eludes their grasp by again retreating from the center of Judea to a less populated area, and not to where he was hiding before the raising of Lazarus (cf. 10:40). He goes to a town called Ephraim, near the wilderness, where he stays with his disciples until the Passover.⁹⁵

11:55–12:8

Jesus’ Journey to the Passover Feast and the Anointing at Bethany

55-57 The words “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand” (vs. 55) finally announce the time in which the gospel story reaches its denouement and which has been referred to repeatedly.⁹⁶ They also announce the end of Jesus’ stay at Ephraim, the period of rest he has observed with his disciples, undoubtedly with a view to that coming hour. Preceding him to Jerusalem were other pilgrims who had to fulfill certain cultic purification obligations before the day of the feast.⁹⁷ That Jesus was known by people who had come from far and wide is evident from what the Evangelist says about the curious looking about for Jesus⁹⁸ and about the conversations about him in the temple. The questions the people ask, “What do you think? Certainly he will not come to the feast?” betray both a tense uncertainty and their thought that he would certainly not risk it, the latter because the chief priests and the Pharisees (see the comments on vs. 46) have now issued express orders that anyone knowing where Jesus is should tell them so that they can arrest him. Earlier, too, the conflict between Jesus and the authorities has held the people under a spell of fear and curiosity (7:11ff.; 9:22). But following the recent meeting of the Sanhedrin and the dictum of Caiaphas it is clear to all that nothing less than Jesus’ immediate arrest is likely. The tension was therefore all the greater, but was to be discharged differently from how the crowds could anticipate.

12:1-3 With no further reflection on the preceding, we are informed that “Jesus came to Bethany six days before the Passover.”⁹⁹ Neither the speculations of the people nor the measures taken by his enemies can shape his timing or his itinerary. He does not even, as in 7:20ff.; 10, wait and appear at the feast only when it is already in full progress. Rather, he takes ample time to be able to participate also in the preparation for the feast. To that end he goes to Bethany, where then, on the eve of his entry into Jerusalem, his anointing by Mary takes place.

The story of this event is familiar to us also from Mk. 14:3-9 (and Mt. 26:6-13). The account here bears a strong resemblance in outline and in certain details to the Markan account. Nowhere else is it more clear than precisely in these details that the Evangelist depended for his story on a more or less fixed tradition.¹⁰⁰ It is striking in the Johannine version, further, that the woman anoints Jesus’ feet and wipes them with her hair (vs. 3). This feature, though lacking in Mark and Matthew, strongly marks the story in Luke of “the woman who was a sinner” at the meal in the house of Simon the Pharisee (Lk. 7:36ff.). John identifies the woman with the Mary of ch. 11 (see also the comments on 11:2). Of another anointing by another woman the Evangelist apparently knows nothing.¹⁰¹

It is also clear that the Evangelist goes his own way in this account, not only theologically, as will become evident, but also as a transmitter of the tradition and in editorial differences from the Synoptics.

Those who deny to the author of the Fourth Gospel all independent access to the events recounted are forced to seek an explanation for the uniqueness of this Johannine presentation of the story in the tradition that he has adopted. Thus Schnackenburg, for example, answering how “the Johannine anointing story came into being,” opts, from among the “various models” that can be “constructed” for this purpose, for a written “passion narrative” (to be distinguished from the sēmeia source)—of which the story of the anointing may very well have been a part. That story is said to have contained all the features that now mark the uniqueness of the Johannine account. But these features individually had different origins, stemmed from different accounts, and were combined at a later stage of the tradition. Thus the anointing of Jesus’ feet stems from Luke 7, the presence of Martha and Lazarus from Lk. 10:38-42, and the names of Mary and Judas Iscariot from still other stages in the tradition. Schnackenburg concludes: “For the most part, then, the Evangelist took the story from his source.… The pericope contained in the source fitted his theological purposes so well that for the most part he could just take it over. He needed only to place it within the framework of his narrative and add a few emphases.”¹⁰²

This “tradition-historical” explanation is based, however, on a series of hypotheses for which no support can be adduced from what we know about the tradition. Furthermore, it is so shaped to the text as we have it that we must conclude that the supposed “source” contained precisely what the Evangelist needed for his theological goals and that this explanation is nothing more than a development of the hypothesis that the Evangelist had no direct knowledge of the details that are characteristic for his account.¹⁰³

In the Synoptics this story comes later, as part of the passion narrative, that is, after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, but without a more specific time indication. But John has a precise time indication (“six days before the Passover”), and uses the story both to introduce the entry into Jerusalem (vss. 9ff.) and as a sequel to the the raising of Lazarus, in which light it is evidently meant to be understood. This is immediately apparent from “Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.” “There,” vs. 2 continues with emphasis, “they made him a supper.” There, where Jesus had become manifest in all the glory of the One sent by the Father (1:4, 14), doors were opened for him and he sat in the midst of his own as a welcome guest. This is emphasized all the more by the presence of three other guests,¹⁰⁴ who are, unlike in the Synoptics, referred to by name: Martha, in a role characteristic for her, serves the guests. Lazarus is described by the Evangelist in all sobriety as “one of those at table with him,” but by his very presence in the flesh demonstrates what has taken place earlier in Bethany. Finally, Mary plays the main role, not, as in the Synoptics, anonymously but, already in 11:2, as the sister of Lazarus and as the one “who anointed the Lord with oil,” thus identified within the setting and against the background from which the anointing derives its specific Johannine meaning and interpretation.

Though her actions, given these circumstances, are not inexplicable to the other guests, they are no less sensational and for a woman highly unconventional.¹⁰⁵ She has obviously prepared for the task, having bought a “pound”¹⁰⁶ of fragrant ointment,¹⁰⁷ further described as “pure”¹⁰⁸ and as costly “nard oil” (extracted from the roots of the exotic nard plant). Judas will estimate the price of the oil at three hundred denarii.¹⁰⁹ That she anoints Jesus’ feet, not his head,¹¹⁰ may be explained by Jesus’ posture at the table. But that Jesus’ feet are mentioned twice is certainly intended to put stress on the deep reverence and humility with which Mary goes about her act. As though a more direct approach seems immodest to her, she passes behind Jesus as he reclines at the table and pours out the precious ointment over his feet, and that in such quantity that “the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.” The action, thus carried out, can also perhaps explain somewhat the striking¹¹¹ gesture by which Mary, evidently with a view to containing the profusely flowing oil and impelled by a sudden rush of deep affection for Jesus, loosens the hair of her head and wipes Jesus’ feet with it as if to protect him from any annoyance her act of adoration might cause him.

However all this may have transpired, the scene that the Evangelist depicts is unmistakable. Never did the Son of God dwell more gloriously among humans than at that last banquet, and nowhere else was the response of their faith and love to his presence more vivid and eloquent. Mary’s action expresses what she did not have the words to voice, but it “filled the whole house” with the fragrance of her love and as such would continue to spread through the preaching of the gospel in the whole world (cf. Mk. 14:9; Mt. 26:13).

4 The contrast with what follows is, therefore, all the clearer. Here, too, the Evangelist, in more than one respect, goes his own way. Unlike the Synoptics he refers to Judas by name as Mary’s counterpart. He does this in almost the same terms as those he used of Judas in 6:71: “one of his disciples (he who was to betray him).”¹¹² He thus depicts the contrast between Mary and Judas that was now manifesting itself at the meal in all its radical and deadly seriousness. Not only outside the house were the shadows falling to announce the end of the “twelve hours” of Jesus’ day: the power of darkness was manifesting itself even in the intimate circle of Jesus’ disciples and at the high point of their being together with him.

5, 6 Judas’s censure of Mary’s act corresponds with that of the “disciples” or “some” mentioned in the Synoptics, who similarly complain about the loss of the oil. Here, however, this attitude cannot be explained as an expression of narrow-mindedness or as understandable but misplaced opposition to so much extravagance in a world full of poor people.¹¹³ The Fourth Evangelist makes it clear that Judas spoke not out of concern for the poor but from the regret of a thief who saw a large sum of money lost to the purse that he administered and from which he enriched himself.¹¹⁴ Some interpreters believe that this comment can be explained in terms of the tendency, which grew in the course of time, to depict the character of Judas as worse and worse. They therefore detect a “legendary excrescence” in the motive attributed to him by the Evangelist, which is then said to draw the attention of the reader away from the real point.¹¹⁵ But from a purely historical viewpoint it is hard to speak here of a false insinuation. That Judas handled the group’s money is evident also from 13:29,¹¹⁶ and that he was greedy and was prepared even to betray Jesus for money is no less established in the tradition.

Closer to the intent of the Evangelist, it seems to us, is the attempt to find in this comment about Judas’s motivation a point of contact for a (frequently attempted) psychological interpretation of the figure of Judas, and that with Mary as the counter figure. The two are sharply profiled as contrasting exemplary figures, all the more as their association with Jesus is tested more. In her deep attachment to Jesus, Mary intuits in advance that it is perhaps the last time that she will be at table with Jesus. Therefore, no price is too high and no loss too great to show him what she feels for him. Judas, on account of his disappointed expectations and selfish motives, no less sharply assesses the situation, concluding that Jesus’ cause is heading for failure. Jesus’ stock is losing its value and Mary’s costly display of esteem is money down the drain.

But however meaningful this approach may be (see also below), the real substance of the opposition between Judas and Mary lies deeper. It has more redemptive-historical significance than psychological significance. It brings to the fore the great opposition between light and darkness that dominates the whole Gospel from the beginning and that, as the twelve hours of Jesus’ day run out, asserts itself even more clearly. It is the opposition that has already been described in its divisive significance but that, now that final decisions are being made, is depicted to us with great exemplary vividness in the figures of Mary and Judas. “Everyone who does evil hates the light and does not come to the light, so that his deeds will not be exposed. But the one who does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been done in God” (3:20, 21).

7-8 In his response to Judas’s remark Jesus takes Mary’s side. He refrains from unmasking Judas’s actual intention. That will not be done until Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. But in his response here there is something of a final signal of the time that is running out and of the truth that everything depends on interpreting that time.

Jesus’ response, as in the Synoptics, consists of two parts, the saying about the poor and the allusion to Jesus’ burial. The difference between John and the Synoptics lies in John’s reversal of these two parts and the difficult form of the burial saying as he has it.

The manner in which Jesus’ burial is mentioned as the event for which Mary anointed his body is striking even in the Synoptics, but the meaning of the saying is clear enough. The burial saying reads very differently in John and can hardly, if at all, be interpreted in the same way as the Synoptic saying. This is still attempted by translating the grammatically difficult but certainly original reading as: “let her be and [let her] keep it for the day of my burial.”¹¹⁷ The crux in this connection, however, is “keep.” What is it that Mary must still “keep”? The rest of the ointment, as interpreters usually have it? But everything here, as in the Synoptics (which do not mention “keeping”), suggests that Mary has already poured out all the ointment.¹¹⁸

Others, accordingly, rightly judging that Mary could not be preserving any of the ointment, therefore set “leave her alone” apart from what follows, taking the now elliptical next clause¹¹⁹ as a statement of Mary’s purpose in preserving the oil (or to which she was destined by the will of God): reserving it (cf. 2:10) for the day of Jesus’ burial. Then the translation reads something like this: “Let her be! She wanted to keep it for the day of my burial”¹²⁰ or “had to keep it for the day of my burial.”¹²¹ This would imply that in a proleptic sense the day of Jesus’ burial had already begun.¹²² With this in view Mary had “kept” the oil. The resulting meaning would then be close to that of Mk. 14:8.¹²³

But though in the Fourth Gospel Jesus sometimes speaks of the future as present (“the hour is coming and now is,” etc.), he never speaks of his death (or burial) as an occurrence that had already begun. Particularly the idea that because of Mary’s act Jesus intentionally described the day and the occasion on which he sat at table with his own (see comments on vs. 6) as the day on which he was buried seems to us unduly forced. And no appeal can be made, for an anticipation of this kind, to the burial saying as the Synoptics have it. Mary’s anointing of Jesus is called an act that anticipates Jesus burial,¹²⁴ but this is not to say that by this act the day of Jesus’ burial itself has been advanced. Rather, by the use of “beforehand,” that day has been left in place. Furthermore, “the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me” clearly speaks of the still living Lord and not to the dead Lord who only remains to be buried. It is therefore understandable that various attempts have been made to clear up the concept of “keeping,” for instance, by taking its object to be not the oil but something else. This has not, however, led to any illuminating consensus.¹²⁵

A very different light falls on the whole passage if one takes the second clause as an elliptical rhetorical question that Jesus, in defense of Mary, poses to Judas: “Let her alone! Do you suppose she should have kept it [the ointment] until the day of my burial?” This understanding has the great advantage of giving a clear meaning to “keep.” In contrast to Judas’s (pretended) concern for the poor Jesus traces Mary’s act to a different consideration, the urgency of which must have been as obvious to Judas as it was to Mary: the brevity of the time they had to sit at table with Jesus. This Mary had grasped, hence her overwhelming display of esteem and love. Should she have waited and kept the oil till the day on which she could have used it only for Jesus’ burial?

And then what follows becomes a weighty allusion to Judas’s words: “The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” On the day of Jesus’ burial they would no longer have him with them. If Mary were to show Jesus her love and respect, she had to do it now, while she still had him with her.

Two objections can be advanced against this understanding—the only one that in our opinion makes sense of “keeping.” First, it gives a different significance to the burial motif than what we find in the Synoptics. There it has a positive meaning: Mary’s anointing anticipates the gestures of respect due to Jesus at his burial. In John, the burial, on this understanding, is when Mary’s act of respect will be too late, at least for the living Jesus. Unless we can force John’s version to agree with that of the Synoptics, we must accept this divergence of interpretations within the tradition of the same motif, a phenomenon that is not, of course, unusual.

Then which was the original sense of Jesus’ saying? In the Synoptics as well as John the saying about the poor appears alongside the burial saying, though in reverse order. The saying about the poor has the same meaning in both John and the Synoptics: Mary is still able to do what she has done: “Unlike the poor, you do not always have me with you.” Then, in the Synoptics, comes the burial saying, clearly a new element, one that does not correspond with the first, but stands rather in tension with it. The saying about the poor can hardly be understood as saying that time is running out to serve Jesus with an honorable burial. In the Synoptics the second saying clearly represents a different viewpoint from the first.

In John, however, there is a direct connection between the two sayings, if one takes the second clause of vs. 7 as a question. The burial saying refers to the urgency of the time and the second offers additional motivation. The two sayings constitute a closely integrated unit. But to conclude from this that John conveys the burial saying in its original intent whereas the Synoptics hand down a later interpretation would certainly be premature. One can say that that is how the two sayings impress us, but that proves nothing about the history of the tradition, though there is some argument for this conclusion in noting that, if we take vs. 7b as a question, the Johannine version forms a more clearly defined unit than we have with these two sayings as they are joined in the Synoptics.

The second objection to our understanding of vs. 7b as a question is more important and is doubtless the reason that it is not interpreted as such by most interpreters. This is simply the lack of any interrogative particle.¹²⁶ If one rejects any conjectural reconstruction of the text, then one can only argue against this objection that what we have here is a clearly elliptical clause that cannot—at least if one wishes to understand it affirmatively—be clarified in any satisfactory and convincing way and that can more readily be understood as a question, precisely because it is elliptical. If we opt for the interrogative understanding, we do so simply in order to arrive at an intelligible meaning without raising undue difficulties.

If we now survey the entire story we can hardly escape its double meaning. On the one hand, this banquet is a high point at which Jesus’ glory in the midst of his own has come to a climax (see above on vss. 1-3). At the same time these are the last of the twelve hours of his day (cf. 11:9). Judas is present and in a characteristic manner betrays his secret intentions, intentions known, however, by Jesus. At the same time Jesus also speaks of his own burial, prompted no doubt by the anointing, which was an appropriate gesture of respect before burial. Above all, however, his words disclose the degree to which the approaching end becomes ever more vividly real to him and how intensely and graphically he involves his fellow guests in that end in order to open their eyes to its reality, which is increasingly important for them as well. Mary has an inkling of it. While in Jerusalem the tensions and threats surrounding Jesus grow increasingly more ominous and as Jesus still moves in the fullness of his glory among his own in Bethany and is still “with her,” she has grasped the urgency of the moment and has seized the opportunity while it is still available. Thus she gives Jesus the loving response of his own at the appropriate time, doing so vicariously, as it were, for all generations who will remember and honor her for it as long as the gospel is proclaimed (Mk. 14:9).

But for Judas and others who thought that Mary’s money could be spent on better causes, the time was no less urgent: time, that is, to believe in the light while it was still with them and thus to escape the darkness of night (cf. 12:35, 36). That is the profound content of the seemingly innocent saying with which the story ends: “but me you do not always have.” Again coming to expression in this statement is a motif that is characteristic of the Fourth Gospel and that has gained increasing clarity as the story has progressed:¹²⁷ that of the caesura in the manifestation of Jesus’ glory, of the temporality and the meaning of his glory “in the flesh.”

According to many interpreters, the lines of Jesus’ earthly and heavenly glory increasingly merge, especially in these stories involving Lazarus. They claim that Jesus, with Lazarus at his side, already displays features of the Risen One and that his burial is mentioned here as the way of his hidden glory, on account of which his disciples already pay homage to him. But this entails a radical reconstrual of the thrust of these stories. The lines, far from blurring, in fact grow sharper. The Evangelist’s intention in this repeated reference to the end of Jesus’ manifestation of glory in the flesh—with “the day of his burial” as the point of no return—is to underscore its uniqueness in its controlling significance for the church’s faith; at the same time he presents it as the break between faith and unbelief, a separation realized in relation to this end, as that comes most radically and exemplarily to expression in the contrast between Mary and Judas.

12:9-19

Jesus Enters Jerusalem

This pericope has three parts. The first (vss. 9-11) describes the reaction of both the crowd and the leaders to Jesus’ return to Bethany and marks the transition to his entry into Jerusalem. The second part (vss. 12-15) conveys in a few bold strokes the story of the entry itself, concluded as in Matthew 21 with a reference to Scripture, namely Zc. 9:9. In the concluding part (vss. 16-19) the Evangelist comments successively on the positions of the disciples, the crowd, and the Pharisees with regard to Jesus’ entry into the city. Everything is integrated in the composition—unlike the Synoptics—as the prelude to the passion narrative.

9-11 Vs. 9 connects materially with 11:55ff., where mention is made of the “many” who had come to Jerusalem for the feast and looked for Jesus in vain.¹²⁸ They are described here as “the great crowd of the Jews.” When they learned that Jesus was in Bethany, they went to the village, “not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.” It is already clear, as will be stated emphatically in vss. 17 and 18, that the Evangelist wants his readers to understand Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in the light of the raising of Lazarus. Now the attention of the “chief priests”¹²⁹ was focused on Lazarus. They took counsel how they could eliminate him as well as Jesus because, as the Evangelist repeats, “on account of him [Lazarus] many of the Jews were going [to Bethany] and were believing in Jesus,” without, however, further commenting on the nature of this faith (cf. 2:23; 4:48; 7:31; 8:30, etc.). The Evangelist’s concern now is to point to the miracle as the cause of growing support for Jesus among the people, who no longer allow themselves to be intimidated by the authorities. This support will manifest itself in unprecedented ways in the events of the following day.

12-15 The story of the entry into Jerusalem is familiar, though at somewhat greater length, from the Synoptic Gospels. The biggest difference lies perhaps in the context in which John sets the story (see above). But there are other more or less noticeable differences. Above all there is the brief reference to Jesus’ finding “a young donkey,” which omits any mention of all the preparations—extensively reported in the Synoptics—leading up to Jesus’ acquisition of the animal (Mk. 11:1ff.). There is also the difference in the wording of the welcoming acclamation and of the prophecy of Zc. 9:9 (cf. Mt. 21:5). There can therefore be no question of Johannine dependence on (one of) the Synoptics.¹³⁰ But the story is not typically Johannine in style and mode of expression.¹³¹ The desire to trace all this back to “sources” again leads to a mechanism that fundamentally denies to the Evangelist all independence and freedom as a transmitter of the tradition.

What we have before us is the story of an event that has already occupied a fixed place in the tradition and that the Evangelist can assume is known by his readers. This may help explain the extreme conciseness with which he presents it,¹³² mentioning only what he needs for his purpose, which is no more than the messianic elucidation of two Bible passages. It is evident from vs. 12 that the Evangelist regarded Jesus’ entry as the end point of his earthly self-manifestation as the Messiah of Israel. Immediately after the entry some “Greeks” appear on the scene, the sign for Jesus that the “hour” of his return to the Father has come and with that the end of his presence in the world. Viewed in this light, the Johannine story of the entry is a transitional narrative, marking the caesura between Jesus’ earthly and heavenly glory.

12-13 The story begins with a time reference: “the next day.” Although the time frame of vss. 9-11 cannot be determined with precision, vs. 12 can best be viewed as a continuation of the story reported in vss. 1-8. If that is correct, the entry took place the day after the anointing at Bethany (whatever day of the week that may have been; see the comments on vs. 1; many think here of “Palm Sunday”).

The initiators of the entry were those “who had come to the feast.”¹³³ On hearing of Jesus’ coming to Jerusalem, they went out to meet him and prepare for him a royal entry. The Evangelist stresses that it was a royal entry in his brief description: Palm branches¹³⁴ were used as symbols for victorious and beneficent rulers;¹³⁵ current terminology for reception and “welcoming”¹³⁶ of rulers is used (cf. Mt. 8:34; 25:1; 1 Th. 4:17); and Jesus is called “the king of Israel” / “your king.”

“Hosanna” was typically used as a greeting and blessing.¹³⁷ The acclamation that follows is derived from Ps. 118:25, a song in which pilgrims, on entering the temple, wished each other the blessings of salvation.¹³⁸ This “coming in the name of the Lord”—applied in the psalm to every pilgrim as an expression of the sacred character of pilgrimage—is applied most eminently to Jesus as the king of Israel, as vs. 13b explicitly adds.¹³⁹ This whole of the account of the welcoming of Jesus thus thereby acquires the character of an acclamation by which Israel solemnly welcomes its Messiah into Jerusalem, the city and temple of the great king (cf. Mt. 5:35).

14-15 Only after this are we told that Jesus sits on a donkey that he has “found.”¹⁴⁰ While, as stated earlier, the Synoptics give broad attention to the (royal) requisitioning of the animal in preparation for Jesus’ entry (Mk. 11:2ff.), that element—in the interest of brevity perhaps—is absent here, but not because the animal was unimportant. Here, too, Jesus acquires a donkey, by whatever means, in order to present himself to the people sitting on the donkey. The Evangelist puts all possible stress on this, as is evident from his comment “as it is written,” which in this impersonal form suggests direction from a higher source. For this he appeals to the prophecy of Zechariah, specifically to the words “Behold, your king is coming [to you], sitting on an ass’s colt.”

This motif of sitting on a donkey, according to many interpreters, makes a fundamental point of the account of the entry, namely rejection of the crowd’s nationalistic sentiments, not unlike what the crowd in Galilee had in mind when after the multiplication of the loaves it sought to make Jesus king (6:15).¹⁴¹ It is questionable, however, whether the intention of the story is to counteract that nationalism. Zechariah’s prophecy undoubtedly portrays the “humble” (Mt. 21:5) prince of peace as opposed to a violent monarchy and mentions riding on a donkey as a sign of this humility (9:9f.). When Jesus mounts a donkey, he fulfills not just this element but the entire prophecy. But in the prophecy riding a donkey serves not as a criticism of and warning against nationalistic monarchy but as a message of salvation, the message that from such a king seated on a donkey the people can expect peace and well-being.¹⁴² Hence, in our text, the words of address, “Fear not, daughter of Zion.” Therefore, Jesus’ riding a donkey is evidently not experienced by the crowd, in either John or the Synoptics, as an attempt to tone down their festive spirit.¹⁴³

So what the Evangelist has in mind in vss. 14-15 is solely that this riding on a donkey is an expression of the nature of Jesus’ kingship. In the Johannine context Jesus’ “finding” and mounting the donkey is his direct response to the acclamation of his kingship by the people (vs. 13) and his acceptance of it—in keeping with the salvific kingship of God over Israel pictured in prophecy and the reign of the humble king of peace and justice who, riding on a donkey, makes his royal entry among his people. It is in that form, to which Jesus again gives expression, that he accepts the last stretch of the road on which he must go to receive rule over his people from the hands of God. No one in Jerusalem but Jesus—neither his disciples nor the crowd nor the rulers of Israel—understood that he entered Jerusalem, sitting on a donkey, to receive that kingship and, as the Son of man, to be lifted up on the cross. For that reason the story of the entry, particularly in John’s presentation of it, is the story of Jesus’ hidden glory, the deep meaning of which only the progress of the events of salvation would disclose. To this the threefold commentary with which the Evangelist concludes this section is directed.

16-18 The first comment on the account of the entry (vs. 16) relates to the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus riding the donkey (already pointed to in the preceding verses). That (and the words of prophecy relating to it) is what the disciples who were present at the entry did not understand at first; only “when Jesus was glorified,” that is, after his resurrection (cf. 2:22), “did they remember that these things had been written about him¹⁴⁴ and that they had done these things to him.” The meaning of the last clause is not altogether certain. It is widely assumed that “they” refers to the disciples themselves and that therefore “these things” refers to their involvement with obtaining the donkey, which was not mentioned but assumed to be known. It is also possible that “they” refers to the crowd and that “these things” refers to the royal entry in general. The “things” that “his disciples did not understand” obviously refers to the manner, indicated in the quotation from Zechariah, of Jesus’ entry: on the donkey, in which the disciples had a part.¹⁴⁵

The statement is strongly reminiscent of 2:22 (cf. also 20:9) and evidences the Evangelist’s strong historical sense. He is aware that in the way he posits a relation (in vss. 14f.) between Jesus’ entry and the prophecy in Zechariah 9 he is also writing on the basis of later “remembrance”¹⁴⁶ that came after Jesus’ glorification and the sending of the Spirit (14:26). Jesus’ entry on a donkey is underscored by the Evangelist’s comment, but we are not told how the disciples experienced the entry as a whole. They could not, of course, have insulated themselves from the special—even messianic—character of the event. However, apparently neither they nor the crowd attributed a special meaning to Jesus’ initiative in riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. That it was specifically the humility of the donkey-riding king over which his own should rejoice—that they would understand only in the light of Scripture. And then they would understood it in the profound sense that Jesus had given to that humility: he was welcomed into the city by the crowd not only as the prince of peace but also as the one to be crucified there as “the king of the Jews.”

The second comment (vs. 17) speaks of what moved the crowd to welcome Jesus, namely the powerful impression made on them by the raising of Lazarus. The Evangelist bases this on the still continuing and influential witness¹⁴⁷ of the crowds that were with Jesus “when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead.” This recalls 11:18, 33, 45, which mention the “many” who had come from Jerusalem to console Mary and Martha, heard Jesus’ word of power, and witnessed his act of power. It was because of that crowd’s testimony that “the crowd” in Jerusalem for the Passover (vs. 18; cf. vs. 12) “went to meet him.”¹⁴⁸

The Evangelist, again after vs. 9, thus emphatically refers to the raising of Lazarus as the cause of the enthusiasm with which the crowd has welcomed Jesus. This underscores anew the meaning that the Evangelist attributes to this great miracle of Jesus as the background of the events by which the crowd, until shortly before Jesus’ death, display so much greater openness to Jesus’ divine mission than their largely blinded leaders and over and over “believe in him.” Still, the emphatic “on account of this” here and the concluding words, “they had heard that he had done this sign,” do not point to a permanent conversion but rather to a repetition of what has from the beginning been repeatedly said of the crowd: they believed in Jesus on account of the signs he did (cf. 2:33; 4:45, 48; 6:2; 11:47), that is, where their faith ended, and Jesus knew that on that basis alone he could not trust them (2:24f.; 6:14, 15; 4:48). The Evangelist does not mention this last aspect here, but the crowd, despite the witness they have borne and, as it were, must bear to Jesus at the entry, remains in doubt about him, and this will soon be evident in the only dialogue he has with them after the entry.

Therefore, the comment in vs. 18 suggests that it was “on account of this” alone that they “went to meet him.” It is as if the Evangelist here refuses to detract from the grandeur of the event, not for the sake of the future and especially not with a view to the Jewish people itself: once Israel had welcomed Jesus and acclaimed him in Jerusalem as the promised king! But they did so because they had heard of the great and undeniable sign he had done. And that is as far as it went (cf. vss. 37f.).

19 The Evangelist’s last comment (vs. 19) reports the reaction of the Pharisees. They, too, were deeply impressed by Jesus’ action and, in spite of themselves, had to acknowledge his superiority and the ineffectiveness of the measures taken against him thus far. For the moment they were not involved and had nothing better to do than to complain among themselves about the course of events: “You see” (or “Don’t you see …?”) “that you are not making any gain. The whole world has gone after him.” Calvin comments: “This is how desperate men will talk when they are preparing to make their last effort.”¹⁴⁹ But the Evangelist could also mean (unlike in vss. 17 and 18) that despite human resistance God’s work continues. In their hyperbole (“all the world”) the Pharisees, like Caiaphas in 11:49, 50, were saying more than they realized. For the first people to seek contact with Jesus’ disciples after the entry were “Greeks” who wanted to see Jesus (vss. 20ff.)

12:20-36

Jesus’ Glorification Announced, the Son of Man

This section, although viewed by some as incoherent or as a composite of originally separate pieces,¹⁵⁰ is in content not hard to understand as a unit. The majority of interpreters, accordingly, understand it as an original whole composed by the Evangelist with great care.¹⁵¹ It consists in the main of a discourse by Jesus prompted by a request, passed on to him, from certain “Greeks” who ask to meet him. The historical situation and course of events is unclear: the connection with what precedes is uncertain (see the comments below on vs. 20); the Greeks, having made their request, are not mentioned again; and the entire subsequent discussion (vss. 23-28) is between Jesus and “the crowd.” It is clear, however, that the Greeks’ request marks the definitive turning point in Jesus’ public activity in Israel and by implication in his interaction with the crowd (cf. vss. 35, 36a, and especially 36b). Accordingly, all that follows in vss. 37-43 and 44-50 is a reflection on the negative results of Jesus’ public actions in Israel and a summary of the great importance, nonetheless, of those public actions.

20-22 The transition from Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem to what now follows, as far as the sequence of events is concerned, is very abrupt. There is not a word here about the elated acclamation of Jesus as the king of Israel at the entry and his own part in it, nor does there seem to be anything left of it among the “crowd” that is present here. In what Jesus is now reported to say one can hardly, if at all, speak of a reaction to the preceding events. All at once, with the coming of the Greeks, everything seems to take a redemptive-historical turn.

There is, however, a connection in that the Greeks are described as being “among those who went up to worship at the feast.” The reference is to people of Greek origin,¹⁵² who as proselytes¹⁵³ took part in the Jewish Passover.¹⁵⁴ The situation, therefore, is still that of the preceding story. Indeed, the desire of these Greeks to “see” Jesus, that is, to meet and learn to know him (cf. Lk. 9:7; Ac. 28:20, etc.) can be understood very well in light of the preceding events. That for this purpose they turned to Philip and not immediately to Jesus is not strange. They may have done so out of respect for Jesus and because Philip’s origin in Transjordanian “Bethsaida of Galilee,” reported here for this reason, meant that he could understand Greek.¹⁵⁵ It is more noteworthy that Philip first contacted Andrew, who was also from Bethsaida (1:44), and that together they went to Jesus.¹⁵⁶ For the repeated mention of these two disciples an assortment of explanations has been attempted.¹⁵⁷ The most natural explanation is that the Evangelist, directly or indirectly, had a personal relationship with them that enabled him from time to time to make specific observations about their role as disciples (cf. 1:40, 44; 6:7, 8; 14:8).

23 Jesus’ answer does not—at least directly—relate to the Greeks’ request. Instead, he announces a decisive transition in his life from this point on, the coming of “the hour” to which repeated reference has been made (cf. 6:62; 7:33; 8:21) and which is now described as “the hour for the Son of man to be glorified.” By this is meant the whole of Jesus’ passing out of this world to the Father (13:1), which would have its beginning in his now imminent death and its completion in his return to heavenly glory (cf. vss. 24ff.; 17:5, etc.).

It is striking that this glorification is referred to as only beginning now and as until now only a future reality (cf. also 17:1ff., 24). Although Jesus’ future glory has been mentioned in this absolute sense before (cf. 7:30, where it is said of Jesus’ time on earth that he “was not yet glorified”; see also 12:16), it is no less true that the entire Gospel is full of the revelation of Jesus’ glory already during his earthly life, in fact that the manifestation of Jesus’ earthly glory “in the flesh” is the Gospel’s grand theme (1:14;¹⁵⁸ 2:11; 11:4; cf. 11:46). This glory has not been just proleptically related to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension,¹⁵⁹ but has been identified retrospectively as that of the preexistent only-begotten of the Father (1:14) and of the Son of man descended from heaven (1:51; 5:27; 6:27; 9:35f.).¹⁶⁰

It seems that the glorification of the Son of man is just now “really” beginning and that all that has been said until now about that glory silently becomes mere prelude or preparation. But what actually makes this verse so important for the understanding of the whole Gospel is that it marks a definite break in Jesus’ self-revelation as the Son of man. This break can be traced back to and finds its most succinct description in 3:13: “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man.”¹⁶¹ This distinction—others speak of a “descent-ascent schema”—recurs in the Gospel under varying terms.¹⁶² It differs from the familiar (cf. Philippians 2) and much-employed distinction between Jesus’ “humiliation” and “exaltation,” for the glory of the Son of man is no less central in his descent than in his ascent (cf. 1:50, 51).¹⁶³ But basic to it all is the fundamental motif of 3:13: there can be no ascent to heaven, no authority of the Son of man, and no heavenly glory as described in Daniel 7 before the descent from heaven has taken place and has been brought to its conclusion. It is from this perspective that the glorification of the Son of man can be spoken of here in this absolute sense.

Before we can discuss this subject further—in connection with vs. 24—we must still ask what relationship there is between the coming of the hour of the glorification of the Son of man and the coming of the Greeks. The answer is made more difficult by the disappearance of the Greeks in what follows. The reader is left in the dark as to whether they came into contact with Jesus or not. Some interpreters think they did, and that Jesus’ answer must be viewed as a denial of their request: because his hour has come, the time is past for him to enter into new relationships. But that it was specifically “Greeks” that prompted Jesus to make this statement makes this generalizing interpretation implausible. We must rather consider the Pharisees’ words at the end of the preceding pericope: “The whole world is going after him!” a statement that is, as it were, illustrated by the approach of the Greeks.¹⁶⁴ In this regard it is also of paramount importance that in vs. 32 Jesus says that when he is lifted up from the earth he will draw all people to himself, that is, that it is the universality of Jesus’ redemptive significance that characterizes his being lifted up. Now the Greek world is asking for him, and that is the sign for him that the hour of his glorification as the Son of man has come. This need not mean that with this answer to Philip and Andrew he meant that these Greeks must wait to see him until his glorification. Some interpreters believe that something has been lost that stood between vss. 22 and 23.¹⁶⁵ But the Evangelist’s concerns were limited. He was evidently interested not in incidental occurrences but in the redemptive-historical transition that announces itself in these occurrences: the arrival of the hour of the glorification of the Son of man.¹⁶⁶

24 The “hour,” thus announced, of Jesus’ glorification as the Son of man is characterized by the discussion here, at some length, of Jesus’ death as, we might say, the first phase of his glorification. The image used for his death, that of the grain that dying bears much fruit, is variously applied elsewhere (in 1 Co. 15:36ff. of resurrection following death). Here it speaks of the necessity of Jesus’ death in relation to his glorification. The strong emphasis in Jesus’ words—“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless …” (cf. the parallel in both structure and content in 6:53 and the “unless” in 1 Co. 15:36)—stresses the seemingly paradoxical, judged by human standards, scandal that Jesus’ death as the Christ and the Son of man is the inescapable condition for his glorification as the Son of man. At stake in this is the redemptive significance of this glorification: “unless it dies, it remains alone; if it dies it bears much fruit,” a clear reference to the many for whom Jesus gives up his life and who by his death receive eternal life (cf., e.g., 6:51).

The necessity of Jesus’ death, thus emphasized, in its redemptive significance for others, is of special importance for the correct understanding of the christology of the Fourth Gospel. To some interpreters the revelation of Jesus’ glory as the Son of God in the Fourth Gospel is so dominant that his death must be viewed as necessary only for himself, namely as “departure” to return to the Father.¹⁶⁷ It has no meaning other than as a change of the scene of his glory, a triumphal passage from the earthly to the heavenly, in the single uninterrupted revelation of his glory.¹⁶⁸ But this fails to do justice not only to the soteriological significance of Jesus’ death but also to the content of the christological motif in 3:13. Jesus’ death is, of course, the presupposition of Jesus’ repeated reference to giving up his life for his own (10:15, 17; 15:13), of giving his “flesh” for the life of the world (6:51), of the necessity that he be lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness was, namely, on the tree (the cross). Jesus’ death, therefore, is not merely his “departure” from the earthly and his passage to the heavenly regions; it is above all the accomplishment of the necessity laid on him by God, the completion of the work the Father gave him to do (19:30; cf. 17:4), the falling into the earth of the grain that must die first, lest it remain alone, and so bear much fruit.¹⁶⁹

Admittedly, in the Fourth Gospel, more than in the other Gospels, the entire journey of Jesus’ descent has been subsumed under the viewpoint of Jesus’ glory (1:14, 50, 51, etc.). Special stress is given to Jesus’ passion and death as his “power” to lay down his life and to take it up again (10:18). And his crucifixion becomes his “being lifted up” (3:15; 12:32, 34). But this does not mean that his death is not a real death. For Jesus, too, it was true that he had to lose his life to save it (12:25) and that, at the end of the twelve hours of day, night came with its darkness, in which no one can work (9:4f.; 10:9f.). Therefore, laying down his life—however much it was also his deed and not his fate—was also the laying aside of his glory (cf. 13:4, 12f.). “Lift up” is not only a terminus gloriae but also a term for the humanly engineered death of shame on the cross (8:28; 18:32).

Jesus’ death—we may conclude—is not merely a change of scene that leaves his glory inviolate and that even brings it to a higher stage of development. It rather marks the deep caesura in which the glory of his descent—he who is the light of the world—finds its limitation and its terminus and in which the glory of his ascent begins. It is where the two coincide—in a manner that is utterly paradoxical and scandalous to the human mind (cf. 6:53f.). It therefore also forms the point of division at which faith and unbelief toward Jesus as the Son of man diverge (cf. 6:61f.).¹⁷⁰

Verses 25 and 26 form an intermezzo in which Jesus, before continuing his consideration of the “hour” that has now begun for him, first involves also the life of his disciples in this law of the grain of wheat. Though these verses somewhat break the flow between vs. 24 and vss. 27ff., such a direct application of Jesus’ passion announcement to the life of the disciples also occurs in the Synoptic passion announcement (Mk. 8:31ff.; Mt. 16:21, 24ff.; Lk. 9:22ff.). The historical situation and the terminology in the Synoptics differ sharply from what we have here in John, but that makes it all the more clear that the link Jesus establishes between his course of suffering and what had to be done by and what lay in store for his disciples belonged to the stable nucleus of the tradition that both the Synoptics and John represent. And this is certainly why the Evangelist inserted these verses before returning to the theme of vss. 23 and 24 in vs. 27.¹⁷¹

The statement in vs. 25 is mašal with two antithetically parallel lines. A typical mašal will use paradox or hyperbole to bring the weight of a matter home to the attentive listener (one who has “ears to hear,” Mt. 13:9) as sharply as possible.¹⁷² The meaning of the statement here, though it is worded as a universal truth, is to be understood in the context of what is said in vs. 24 and is further explained in vs. 26: there, too, loss of life is the condition for emergence of new life.

The absolute contrast between loving one’s life as the cause of losing it and hating one’s life in this world as the way to preserve it for eternal life has been viewed as evidence of dualistic Gnostic thought according to which each person must hate his or her own life because it is part of the cosmos that is hostile to God. But this view fails to take the rhetorical form into account. Elsewhere, too (cf. Luke 14:26), we hear of “hate,” but in the sense of self-denial, a willingness for the sake of Jesus to give up things that in themselves are not objectionable but on the contrary very valuable and of which it may be said in another context that one should love them (father, mother, etc.).¹⁷³ Furthermore, Jesus says here that one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life (cf. Mt. 6:25b).¹⁷⁴ This statement points not to the reprehensible character of this life in itself, but to its destiny in eternity, a goal for which one should be willing to lose it in its transient form.

What is decisive against this Gnostic interpretation of the saying is that here Jesus is putting his disciples on the path of his own surrender of life and departure to the Father. This path is not one of abandoning this world and life in it as inferior and illusory. Instead, he now ends his redemptive work on earth in order, as will be repeatedly shown in chs. 14–17, to continue it in them, with all the risks this entails and with all the promises it offers in keeping with the law of the grain of wheat.¹⁷⁵

Accordingly, vs. 26 describes discipleship to Jesus as servanthood: one is taken up into the work that Jesus must accomplish, work in which he is Lord and Master and disciples are servants (cf. 13:13, 16; 15:15, 20; Mt. 10:24ff., etc.), entirely in keeping with the position disciples of the rabbis had in relation to their teachers.¹⁷⁶ The emphasis, however, does not lie so much on this servanthood as on the implied obligation: “he must follow me,” by itself a general reference to the pupil’s permanent presence in the company of a certain rabbi. In this context, where the concern is following Jesus,¹⁷⁷ the words “he must follow me” gain a highly charged meaning, implying both the risk entailed in being in the company of this “Lord” and the promise of great reward. For it is in that discipleship that they will experience the paradoxical truth of losing one’s life if one loves it and of keeping it forever if one hates it. The first is true because servants are not greater than their Master, and on the road he travels and they follow they will incur the hatred he faces (cf. 15:18ff.; 16:1ff.; 17:14; 1 Jn. 3:13; Mt. 10:21ff., etc.). The second is true because, as Jesus adds, “Where I am, there my servant will also be,” a statement referring, as in 14:3 and 17:24, to Jesus’ future glory, as also the concluding words: “If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him,” namely by letting such a disciple share in the honor and glory of the Son (cf. 14:21, 23; 16:24; 17:22, 23).

Of course, as Jesus’ disciples are taken up into the law of the grain of wheat, to which Jesus’ mission corresponds, the distinction between him and them, between Master and servants, is not canceled.¹⁷⁸ The discipleship he requires and the outcome of which he predicts do not consist in imitating what he does but in taking the road that he, by giving his life, opens to his own and that he is in his own person (14:4ff.).

Finally, it is clear—as emerges prominently also from the concept of serving—that discipleship¹⁷⁹ here “looks ahead to the later missionary activity of the disciples.”¹⁸⁰ It is that discipleship, taken up into the continuation of Jesus’ work on earth, to which “hating one’s life” primarily has reference; in Mk. 8:34 it is called denying oneself and taking up one’s cross. Still, John also mentions following Jesus in a more general religious sense (8:12: “he who follows me … will have the light of life”). Following Jesus also means acknowledging and choosing him as “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hb. 12:2) and, though it does not always entail the risk of suffering and death, it remains the radical choice of where to seek and find “life”: in self, world, or Jesus. There is no essential difference between the two meanings of “following” Jesus, even though in our text, given the position of the early Christian church, the confrontation with the hate, violence, and threat of death implicit in following Jesus as a direct and contemporary reality certainly occupies the foreground.

27 The verses that now follow resume the thought of vs. 23 and further explain the significance of the “hour” of “glorification” that was announced there. The duality in Jesus’ approaching death (see above, on vs. 23) comes strongly to the fore: Jesus’ death already belongs to his glorification, but is also the cause of his agitation: “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say?” Interpreters who stress only the glory in Jesus’ death attempt to explain these words as something other than a person shrinking from the bitterness of death (see also the comments on 11:33, 35).¹⁸¹ But these words clearly correspond to similar expressions in the Psalms, particularly Ps. 6:4-5 LXX (cf. 41:7 LXX), which, like this Johannine verse, has “my soul is sorely troubled” and “save me.” They can, therefore, hardly refer to anything other than the natural human reaction in confrontation with death.

But what is intended is not a sense of dread that suddenly comes over Jesus and from which he will try to free himself in the following words. It is, rather, the realization—which in the progress of his suffering (cf. 13:21) has repeatedly seized him—of the darkness of the path on which he is led by God and of the need to give expression to it. But it is also clear that he not only displayed the image of the suffering devout of the Old Testament but felt called to accomplish his divine mission precisely in his suffering.¹⁸² The following words, “And what shall I say?” are not, as the context indicates, an expression of diffidence and uncertainty about his course of action but an introduction to what comes next: Should Jesus—along with the psalmist in his agitation of soul (cf. Ps. 6:3, 4)—say, “Father, save me from this hour”?¹⁸³ But this would mean that Jesus still wants to withdraw from what he has understood and has presented to his disciples as the very intent of the hour that has now begun: the glorification of the Son of man in and by his death. Therefore he rejects the question he has posed with the firm assertion: “But¹⁸⁴ for this purpose,” namely to take the road of terror and glorification, “I have come to this hour.” Here, for all the agreement and solidarity, lies the difference between Jesus and the poet of Psalm 6. His entry into the hour is precisely why others before and after him have not prayed, and will not pray, in vain: “Father, save me from this hour!” Only in Jesus’ death lies the security of their life. Only if the grain of wheat dies does it bear much fruit.

28a All that Jesus has to say in turning to the Father is, therefore, “Father, glorify thy name.” This reduced to the minimum everything encompassed in the hour that has now come and the path that Jesus must walk: the revelation (the “name”) of the glory of the Father. The Son of man is “now” glorified, and therein God is glorified (13:31f.): in, that is, the obedience of the Son to the charge of the Father (10:17), in the power the Son has been given over all flesh (17:1b, 2; 14:13), in the fruit of his death in the life of his own (15:8).

Here some interpreters see the Johannine version of the Synoptic struggle in Gethsemane. The Fourth Evangelist is said to have transposed the Gethsemane scene to Jesus’ public activity in Jerusalem for compositional reasons. At the same time he radically refashioned and reinterpreted it in terms of his own theology, especially by stressing Jesus’ glory and firm determination over against the Synoptic portrayal of Jesus’ inner questioning and prayer that the “cup” might be removed.¹⁸⁵

But it is doubtful that John should be understood here against the background of the Synoptic Gethsemane tradition and does not rather furnish evidence of proceeding independently of that tradition. The Johannine passage does have strikingly similar features (especially Jesus’ agitation) and equally striking differences (not praying for the removal of the cup). But this need not mean that the similarity is based on dependence and that the difference derives from deliberate reinterpretation of the tradition we find in the Synoptics.

In regard to the most obvious similarity, Jesus’ agitation, that John need not have depended on the Synoptics is clearly evident from his repeated stress in these chapters on Jesus’ inner agitation. For instance, 11:33, 35, 38 has no Synoptic parallel. And 13:21 uses the same word as 12:27, unlike the parallel in Mk. 14:18ff. The same is true of the differences: Jesus asks, “And what I shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?” His negative answer to this question is not to be viewed as a negative reflex to the Synoptic tradition (Mk. 14:35). What shapes Jesus’ prayer in John is not the Gethsemane prayer but Psalm 6, where the poet does add “Save me” to the expression of his inner agitation, which Jesus adopts in John. We see here not a tradition-historical refashioning of the image of Jesus but the voicing of the difference between the Son of God and all other children of God who in times of testing can only cry to be rescued from distress.

This is not to deny that the Fourth Gospel is different from the other Gospels, especially with regard to the hour, so emphatically announced here, of the glorification of the Son of man as the issue in Jesus’ suffering and death. This will again be evident from the Johannine Gethsemane story (18:1ff.). But we are denying that these differences must be explained either by the Fourth Evangelist’s supposed ignorance of the tradition from which he differs or by his need to reinterpret or correct that tradition. The Fourth Evangelist enjoyed much more latitude and freedom than he is allowed when he is considered dependent for all his narrative material on written tradition preceding him. Not only his theology but also his story (the story he tells as a transmitter of the tradition) bears the marks of a greater degree of independence than would be the case were he inclined—positively or negatively—to be shaped in his design and aims by what others wrote before him. The entire story of Jesus’ suffering and death that now follows will bear witness to this in ever new ways.

28b The words following Jesus’ prayer, “Then a voice came from heaven …” describes a mode of revelation that occurs only seldom in Scripture (in the New Testament: Mk. 1:11 par.; 9:7 par.; 2 Pt. 1:17; Ac. 9:4) outside apocalyptic literature (e.g., Rv. 10:4, 8; 11:12; 14:2). Later rabbinic literature frequently mentions the baṯ qôl (“daughter of the voice”), but not, as here, in reference to God’s direct speech but in reference to indirect perception or awareness of the voice of God as the echo (“daughter”) of the word of God spoken earlier, a “voice” to which no direct authority was attributed but which was a substitute for the earlier direct speech of God through his prophets.¹⁸⁶

Here the voice is clearly intended as God’s direct answer to Jesus’ prayer. It is unclear whether this voice was intelligible to people other than Jesus (see the comments on vss. 29 and 30). The content of the divine discourse is expressed tersely, in two verbs used absolutely: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” As the object of this glorification we will, in view of vs. 28a, have to think primarily of the “name” of the Father, but then in the closest possible connection with the path that the Father has walked with his Son until now and will walk from now on. Scholars have occasionally connected “I have glorified it” with a specific occurrence,¹⁸⁷ either the heavenly voice at Jesus’ baptism or the Transfiguration. But John’s Gospel does not mention those events. One can also think of Jesus’ miracles in general as the witness borne to him by the Father (cf. 5:36, etc.). But the reference here is more likely to the whole of Jesus’ earthly activity, in which the Father has glorified his name and Jesus has glorified the Father (cf. 17:4).¹⁸⁸ Similarly, “and I will glorify it again” refers to everything that the hour that has now come will prove to have in it in the way of the glorification of God’s name in Jesus. In this answer the Father vouches for Jesus. Just as the Father glorified himself in Jesus’ descent as the Son of man, so from now on he will make him known and vindicate him as his Son before the eyes of the world.¹⁸⁹

29-30 Verse 29 serves as a transition to a broader complex of thought in that the “crowd,” which has not been mentioned since vs. 18, reappears with a comment about “the voice from heaven.” While for Jesus the voice was a clear answer to his preceding prayer, the crowd heard but did not understand what it said (cf. Ac. 9:8; 21:9). Some thought it was thunder, others the voice of an angel. Many interpreters believe that this is, as elsewhere, a description of the crowd’s spiritual “deafness,” its remoteness from the revelation event. Jesus, it is then said, takes issue with this posture by saying (vs. 30) that the voice “came for your sake, not for mine” and tries to call the crowd out of their incomprehension to faith.¹⁹⁰

It is doubtful, however, whether that explanation stands up here. The reference here is not to the understanding of words, but to the sound of the voice. When Jesus says, “for your sake, not for mine,” he is not thereby denying that the words were meant for him and is not holding the crowd answerable for what it could not understand. He tells the people, rather, that this “event of the voice” is not merely a matter between him and the Father but concerns his entire mission—now coming to its completion—to the world,¹⁹¹ a mission in which they are all involved. Of this the voice they had heard was the signal.

31, 32 The all-encompassing event which thus begins now (with emphasis on the “now”) is described as “the judgment of the world” and the ejection of “the ruler of the world.” The reversal thus announced in eschatological and cosmic terms¹⁹² is of course closely tied in with “the glorification of the Son of man,” into whose hands, according to Daniel 7,¹⁹³ God will place dominion over all things, putting an end to the existing world power, which is hostile to him. However much, in the coming and work of Jesus, “this world” is the object of God’s love (3:16) and the Son of man is therefore the great bringer of salvation (1:51; 6:27) who gives his life for the life of the world (6:51, 53; cf. 3:17; 12:47), this does not alter the fact that his coming also entails great crisis for the world. Because he has come as the light of the world, he brings out the sin of this world in its aversion and estrangement from God. His coming means judgment for those who love darkness rather than light (cf. 3:19ff.).

In the second part of vs. 31 all this is traced back to the great antithesis in the background of Jesus’ coming and work, that of his power struggle with “the ruler of this world,”¹⁹⁴ a struggle that enters its decisive stage with Jesus’ glorification as the Son of man. Although there have been allusions to this opposition (cf. 6:70; 8:44), from this point on, with the repeated mention of “the ruler of this world” (14:30; 16:11), it comes powerfully to the fore in its all-determining character. What is realized in Jesus’ glorification as the Son of man, as is made evident in vs. 32, is nothing less than the transfer of power over the present God-hating world into the hands of the Son of man. Or, as our text has it, the casting out of this world’s ruler.

It has been asked whether in this apocalyptic idiom the expression “being cast out” should be understood in a specific local sense.¹⁹⁵ It is difficult, however, to picture in spatial terms the place of Satan before and after the glorification of the Son of man, and there is legitimate doubt whether “cast out” consistently requires such a spatial conception (cf. 6:37). The real question is in what sense one can speak of the casting out, beginning with Jesus’ imminent death, of the ruler of this world. Some scholars think that here, in mythological, cosmic terminology, the absolute and definitive decision is brought to expression, the decision with which the “now” of Jesus’ passion and death confronts the human world. This interpretation is said to imply the elimination of the “traditional eschatology of primitive Christianity.”¹⁹⁶ But others believe that the judgment of [the ruler of] the world will only take place in the future and is only anticipated here in a prophetic vision.¹⁹⁷

Neither position does justice to this statement within the overall context of the Fourth Gospel. One says that nothing “new” can ever follow the “now” of our text and that the Son of man’s judgment of the (the ruler of) this world in the present “hour” is the last thing that can be said about it; this implies, as we have repeatedly asserted,¹⁹⁸ a rigorous narrowing of Johannine christology. On the other hand, the judgment of “this world” and the casting out of “this world’s ruler” cannot be understood only in an anticipatory sense. The hour that has now begun is also that of “the coming of the ruler of this world” (14:30), that is, for that ruler’s decisive assault on Jesus (cf. 13:12, 27; Lk. 22:31, 53); it is also the hour of the world in its unbelief and hostility (cf. 16:32f.). At the same time it is the hour of the world’s judgment because by rejecting Jesus it rejects God’s only begotten Son (3:18) and crucifies the Son of man (8:28; cf. 6:62; 19:37). And it is the hour for the expulsion of the ruler of this world because he has no grounds for an appeal against Jesus (cf. 14:30); in Jesus’ exaltation he loses his claim on the world and is thus driven from the center of his power.

32-33 This last point is further explained in positive terms. The words beginning with “and I” form a double contrast with, and an explanation of, what precedes. In contrast with the expulsion of the ruler of this world, Jesus is lifted up from the earth as the Son of man and clothed with all power by the Father. In him and in the work he has accomplished, the way has been opened to a new rule, that of God’s kingdom, in which the world is torn away from the power of Satan. For while judgment passes over this world, “his world,” he who is lifted up from the earth draws all people to himself from within this new center of power, that is, by bringing them under his saving rule.

Everything is summed up here in a few key terms. What is at stake is the great reversal of power that determines all that is to come and concerns the entire human world (“all”). The expression “draw to myself” recalls 6:44, where the universal character of this salvific “drawing” of people out of their weakness is also pivotal and where its realization is further explicated. Here the “all” also reflects the coming of the Greeks as the signal of a new dispensation (vs. 23) in which salvation will impart itself to “all” without distinction of people or race and gather them into a new unity (cf. 10:16; 11:52).

To all this the Evangelist adds still one more sentence, one of special significance for an understanding of this great passage and specifically of the nature of Jesus’ elevation: “This he said to show¹⁹⁹ by what death²⁰⁰ he was to die.” As in 3:14 and 8:26, he is referring here to Jesus’ elevation on the cross as the manner and way, as well as the secret and power, of his elevation. The idea that this elevation therefore relates only to Jesus’ death on the cross and not to his subsequent glorification²⁰¹ is rightly rejected by most interpreters, among other reasons because by this the cross would become too much an isolated event, whereas, as is evident from vss. 23ff., 27ff., it is included in the whole of “the glorification of the Son of man.” Moreover, the meaning of “elevation from the earth” (vs. 23) is certainly broader than elevation onto the cross. Jesus’ “drawing” all people to himself therefore occurs not only by the attractive power that issues from the cross, however great an element this is (see below). He draws them to himself from heaven. Therein lies the transcendence of his person and work as the Son of man who came down from heaven and ascends to heaven (3:14). But it is no less true that the secret and nature of Jesus’ elevation, of his victory over “the ruler of this world” as also of his power to draw all people to himself, lies in his elevation onto the cross, that is, in his obedience to the Father, which unites heaven and earth, and in his love to his own and all the world. In this, in the spiritual struggle with the transpersonal “worldly” power of alienation and the “slavery” of sin, Jesus overcame the (ruler of this) world (cf. 16:33), opened the way to the Father, and established a new center of power from which, as the crucified Lord, he draws to himself all who believe in him and brings them into this kingdom of love and hope for the future.

Elsewhere in the New Testament as well victory over the hostile powers is related to the death of Christ on the cross: God “reconciled to himself all things, whether on earth or in the heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20); he thus “disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them [in their impotence], triumphing over them [binding them to his triumphal chariot] in him” (Col. 2:14f.); the hostile world power is stripped of every claim that might enable it to subject the world estranged from God to its rule of slavery and death (cf. Ep. 2:14ff.).

34 To the crowd, however, the whole idea of a Son of man elevated to, and operating from, heaven is alien. They respond to Jesus’ words with an appeal to the law: “The Messiah remains forever.” They speak of the Messiah because they assume (rightly) that in speaking of “the Son of man” Jesus is referring to the Messiah that they expect. The figure of the Son of man as an eschatological bringer of salvation is clearly not familiar to them, at least they did not know the object of their messianic expectations under this name.²⁰² In any case, if Jesus is referring to the Messiah, how can he speak of having to²⁰³ be lifted up? For the content of their objection and the appeal to the law (i.e., Scripture; cf. 10:34; 15:25), scholars usually think²⁰⁴ of the messianically interpreted words of Ps. 89:36, “his line will endure forever,”²⁰⁵ which in the eschatology of that time was evidently understood as referring to the permanent presence of the coming Messiah, which was not compatible with being taking up or elevated (to heaven) as Jesus spoke of it. Hence their question: “Who is this Son of man [of whom you speak]?” Or “What kind of Son of man are you speaking of?”²⁰⁶

35-36 Jesus’ reply is very characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. Again, as in 7:33; 9:4f.; 11:9f.; 12:8; 13:33; 14:19; 16:16ff., he brings up the limited character of his earthly existence and the imminent end of the time in which he is the light of the world. While in 9:4f.; 11:9f. this is a motive for himself and his disciples to do the works of God, here he, in warning (“lest,” vs. 35) and encouragement (“that,” vs. 36), also speaks to the crowd of the short time that the light still shines among them; and he urges them, as long as they “have” (cf. vs. 8) the light, to walk in it, lest the darkness overtake them so that they do not know where they are going. Vs. 36 repeats “while you have the light, walk in the light,” but now with a promise: “that you may become [or be] children of the light.” All the images and motifs are found earlier (cf. 9:5f.; 10:9f.; 8:12) but here are intended as Jesus’ final word to the crowd: “Having said this, Jesus departed and hid himself from them” (cf. 8:59), which concludes this pericope.

It has been said that Jesus fails to answer the crowd’s objection (vs. 34) with these words. This is correct in that he says nothing further about his coming elevation as the Son of man but restricts himself to what he still is for the people in the present. Still, this response does contain a reply to their question, in terms of both content and terminology. It can hardly be accidental that while the crowd, appealing to the law, speaks of the Messiah “remaining forever,” Jesus puts all possible stress on “the short time” he is still with them as the light of the world and on the necessity of believing in that light now while that is still possible. With that he lays bare, at this moment of the decisive turn in his existence (vs. 23), the great difference between their messianic expectation and his mission as the Son of God. This contrast would assert itself again in the conflict between the church and the synagogue, which is doubtless why the Evangelist stresses it again in this final confrontation between Jesus and the crowd. For what gives Jesus’ messiahship its absolute (“remaining forever”) significance does not come from the endlessness of his earthly kingship or even his heavenly mode of existence far above all earthly limitation, but the way Israel and all the world must deal with him, the Son of man descended from heaven, life for the world and the light of humanity (1:1; 6:51, etc.). It is on that basis that Jesus, in his final word to the crowd (“while you have the light”), appeals to them. Just as for him there would be no ascent to heaven without the preceding descent from heaven (3:13), so also no one will know the heavenly who has not known and believed the earthly while he is “still among them.” This in no way nullifies the word of the law that the Messiah will remain forever; in the revelation of the Son of man it even gains a meaning that far transcends the limits of the Davidic kingship (vss. 49f.). But it is only the incarnation of the Word and the descent of the Son of man in and from which the Messiah’s “remaining forever” can be known and understood.

12:37-50

A Retrospective: Israel’s Unbelief and Jesus’ Self-Revelation

The final section of ch. 12 is divided into two parts. The first (vss. 37-43) recapitulates the unbelief that met Jesus’ public activity, the second (vss. 44-50) Jesus’ self-revelation as the one sent by the Father, directed not to his own honor but solely to that of the Father and to human salvation.

By itself this double pericope fits very well in the structure of the story—after Jesus’ final words to the crowd (vs. 36b) and before Jesus takes the initiative to bid farewell to his disciples (13:1). But in another sense these verses sharply interrupt the ongoing story. The unqualified “they” in vs. 37 may seem to connect with “the crowd” in vs. 34, but there is an emphatic difference in content and tone. While Jesus, following his entry into Jerusalem, has urged the crowd to believe in him and to walk in the light while he is still with them, vss. 37-43 are limited to a lament over the unbelief of the people and to a description of the hardening revealed in this unbelief as a fulfillment of prophecy. One gets the impression that the passage was written from a certain historical distance and added later by the Evangelist, that here, perhaps because of the increasingly manifest rejection of Jesus as the Messiah of Israel in his own day, the Evangelist felt the need, at this turning point in his story, to express the deep seriousness and continuing incongruity of this general unbelief.

As for vss. 44-50, they are also not connected with the historical situation of vs. 36b. Some scholars do not regard vss. 37-43 and 44-50 as an original unit but as a later interpolation, originally not intended for this context, that summarizes Jesus’ preaching. Some see another “layer” in the genesis of the text, discernible by its unique style and attributable to an author other than the Evangelist.²⁰⁷ Others believe these verses are displaced from elsewhere in the Gospel.²⁰⁸ Our own conclusion is that these two recapitulations do belong together (see the exegesis below) and were therefore—perhaps later—inserted together at this place.

12:37-43

Israel’s Unbelief

37-38 Looking back on the result of Jesus’ activity among his people, the Evangelist can only arrive at the conclusion that “they [the people in general] did not believe in him.” That is his concluding judgment about the basic and lasting²⁰⁹ negative attitude of the people to Jesus, and that despite Jesus’ revelation of power among them.

Already in the prologue the Evangelist referred to this mysterious negative reaction to the coming of the light into the world (1:10, 11). Here, at the end, it is especially the many²¹⁰ signs Jesus has done “before their eyes”²¹¹ that he brings into play as the great motive that should have prompted them to change their minds (cf. the concluding dialogue of Jesus with the Jewish leaders, 10:37ff.; cf. also 15:24; 20:30, 31).

The Evangelist does not stop with this observation. As in Jesus’ coming and work, so also in the unbelief underlying the people’s rejection of Jesus, the Evangelist sees fulfillment of prophecy, here the word of the prophet Isaiah (53:1): “Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” The prophet here complains to God²¹² that hardly anyone (“who?”) has believed what the people (himself included) have heard²¹³ and what has been revealed to them as proof of God’s almighty power (“the arm of the Lord,” Dt. 5:15). And, as is evident from the final clause in vs. 38 (“that the word might be fulfilled”), the Evangelist intends not merely to refer to the similarity between unbelief in Isaiah’s day and in Jesus’ day, but rather places this unbelief in the light of God’s ongoing dealings with his backsliding people in the whole history of revelation (cf., e.g., also Dt. 29:3, 4).

Verses 39-40 further elucidate this, first by characterizing this unbelief as inability to believe (cf. 5:44; 8:43; also 6:44, 65). For this latter point the Evangelist appeals²¹⁴ to another statement by the same prophet, Is. 6:10, which is repeatedly cited in the New Testament (Mt. 13:13ff.; cf. Mk. 4:12; Lk. 8:10; Ac. 28:26f.; Ro. 11:18). Here we have an abbreviated version of the original²¹⁵ that emphasizes that the blinding of eyes and the hardening of hearts are a work of God himself.²¹⁶ Unbelief is not thereby blamed on God in a predestinarian sense, but is rather described as a punishment from God: he abandons unbelieving people to themselves, thus confirming them in their evil, blinding their eyes and hardening their hearts, as a result of which whatever God gives them to see and hear can no longer lead to salvation, that is, to repentance and healing.

That all this is in direct fulfillment of the words of Isaiah is made evident in vs. 41: “This the prophet said because²¹⁷ he saw his glory and spoke of him.” “His” refers to Christ—it is “his glory”—as the concluding words of vs. 41 confirm: “spoke of him.” The Evangelist does not mean that Isaiah already foresaw Jesus’ (later) glory, but that the glory of God as the prophet foresaw it in his vision was no other than that which the Son of God had with the Father before the world was and that was to be manifested before the eyes of all in the incarnation of the Word (17:4; 1:14, 18). For that reason (“because”) the prophetic judgment of hardening on account of the unbelief of the people was fully applicable to the rejection of Jesus by Israel, and even came to fulfillment therein.

By placing the controversy between Jesus and the people in the light of prophecy, the Evangelist traces the glory of Christ back to its ultimate preexistent state and reduces the blinding of the people to its final seriousness, to the divinely ordained judgment on the rejection of his Son (cf. 3:18f.). He allows this judgment to stand in all its severity without adding to it or subtracting from it. But he does this as an Evangelist. He does not present this judgment to his readers as the unalterable end of the decree that lies behind it. He rather cites from Scripture a prophetic oracle that has not lost its meaning but rather comes to its full significance and supreme relevance precisely in the rejection of Jesus. It does so in accordance with the nature of prophecy as the word of God that permanently goes out to the world, a word that, even when it announces God’s judgment on the world that has become estranged from him, is never his final word, by which he would be turning definitively from the world and leaving it no future. He seeks to picture before the world’s eyes, and cause it to experience, the futurelessness of its existence apart from him—as a final call to return to him (cf. Is. 6:11-13). The Evangelist could not have conveyed to Israel a more severe judgment or made a stronger appeal than by thus calling to mind these words from the heart of Israel’s prophecy.

42-43 But all that is not the whole story. In vs. 37 the Evangelist speaks in general of the people’s failure to believe in Jesus. In vs. 42 he returns to the issue of belief with a “nevertheless,”²¹⁸ which may at first seem to be a correction but is actually a comment that does not relativize the preceding but rather completes it: despite the general judgment in vs. 37, “many, even of the authorities, believed in him.” The Evangelist thus undoubtedly also responds to the positive reactions of the people to Jesus’ public ministry—reactions repeatedly mentioned in the Gospel and frequently (as here) described as “faith” responses (2:23; 7:31; 8:30; 10:42; 11:45; 12:11), usually evoked by Jesus’ miracles but also by the impression that his words made on many people (e.g., 8:30). Among these “many” he specifically mentions “authorities,” by which are meant Jewish authorities in general and, we may assume, members of the Sanhedrin in particular (cf., e.g., 3:1; 7:45, 50).²¹⁹ But he immediately adds that “for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they should be put out of the synagogue.”

This ties in closely with what has been related in 7:31f., 45ff.; 9:32. There, too, “many believed in Jesus,” and measures were taken at the initiative of the Pharisees by “the chief priests and Pharisees” (the Sanhedrin) against Jesus, culminating in the agreement that anyone confessing him as Christ was to be (declared) an excommunicate from the synagogue (see the comments above on 9:22).²²⁰ The reference is not to an established disciplinary measure to be applied to members of the synagogue to bring them to orthodoxy. Such an excommunicate was, rather, in the position of those who lived outside the synagogue community (Gentiles, heretics, and apostates) and were denied all recognition as Jews (9:34; cf. also Lk. 6:22).²²¹ In the expanding conflict between the Jews and Jesus, therefore, much was already at stake (cf. 9:22), not only for him but also for those who confessed him as the Messiah, which kept many from openly taking their stand with him (cf. 7:13, 32; 9:22, 23). This situation was to repeat itself over and over in the future and could potentially cost a disciple of Jesus his or her life (cf. 16:2; Mt. 10:21, 22; Ac. 5:33; 8:1ff.; 9:1ff., etc.).

It is against this background that one must understand the severe verdict that the Evangelist pronounces over those who “for fear of the Pharisees” refused to align themselves openly with Jesus: “for they loved human praise more than God’s praise.”²²² Still the words in which this verdict is couched also indicate that more is at issue here than the traumatic experiences of the church with the later rabbinic synagogue and the moral half-heartedness of crypto-believers. In fact the Evangelist merely repeats the words that Jesus addressed to his opponents from the beginning: “How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (5:44). These words do not illumine just a particular historical situation. They give expression, rather, to the radical view of humanity—the anthropological antithesis—that governs Jesus’ confrontation with the Jews—the crowd as well as the authorities—from the beginning (cf. 2:24ff.; 3:3).²²³ But this antithesis is no more than the counterpart of the absolute manner in which Jesus by his coming into the world represents the salvation revealed to Israel (4:22). He not only placed a radical choice before people but also pointed to the source of that choice, the reality “from above” that transcends the human inability and unwillingness to believe. The last word here, then, is not that of Israel’s unbelief but of Jesus’ self-witness as the one sent by the Father (vss. 44-50).

12:44-50

The Nature of Jesus’ Self-Revelation

Jesus’ summary of the witness concerning himself is introduced by these solemn words: “Jesus, however, cried out and said.…” This refers less to the volume of his voice than to his act of openly testifying within the hearing of all (cf. 1:15; 7:28, 37).²²⁴ The “however” ties this to what precedes: whatever Jesus’ opponents may say about him, there can be no uncertainty, given Jesus’ own witness, about who he is and why he has come.

This connection is also clear from the content of the summary. It contains nothing that has not been said earlier.²²⁵ But the tone and the selection of material, from beginning to end, clearly intend to resist any misunderstanding of Jesus’ person and the purpose of his coming (vss. 47, 49: “I did not come to … but to …,” “I have not spoken on my own authority”). The specific idea resisted is that his coming took place at his own initiative, was based on his own authority, and was directed toward his own glory. Over against this Jesus sets his subjection to the command of his Father and his sole motive: the salvation of the world.

Verse 44 sums this up at the outset. With “whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me,” Jesus means that when he asks people to believe, he is not thinking of himself and his own authority but rather that of the one who sent him.²²⁶ Similarly vs. 45: “whoever sees me [in the miracles I performed] sees [the glory of] him who sent me,” whose agent is all that I am.

Verse 46 also makes the point that the purpose of Jesus’ coming does not lie within himself, but is tied to his relation to the world. “As for me [“I” in an emphatic position], I have come as light into the world with the purpose [and no other] that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness” (cf. 8:12). Again, this is for “whoever believes in me,” but the reason for the saying is not Jesus but the person who walks in darkness.

47 Therefore if anyone hears Jesus’ sayings but does not “keep” (or “observe”) them, then Jesus²²⁷ is not the one who judges that person, “for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” These last words again repeat a point made earlier on several occasions (cf. 3:17; 8:15). Jesus is thus perhaps responding to the charge that his preaching was harsh and rigorous, hence arrogant. Still, he came into the world, even if he pronounces judgment on the negative attitude his opponents are adopting toward him, not to condemn them but to lead them from darkness to light (cf. 8:12, 15). That is the grand premise of this entire Gospel (cf. 3:16).

48 Nonetheless, one who rejects Jesus and does not receive his sayings cannot do so with impunity: such a person “has a judge,” namely in “the word that I have spoken,” which will “in the last day,” when judgment will be rendered, testify against that person. Elsewhere where the Gospel mentions the resurrection from the dead and the judgment, it does say that the Father has given all judgment to the Son (5:22) because he is the Son of man (5:27). But Jesus’ coming into the world has a different purpose. Before ascending to heaven and receiving power over all things from the Father, the Son of man must first descend from heaven to save the world from judgment.

49 Therefore again we hear: “I have not spoken on my own authority.” This statement indicates that Jesus’ word, as the Father’s word, will mean condemnation for those who reject it (cf. 5:45). Stated positively, “the Father, who sent me, has himself commanded me what to say.”²²⁸ It is not Jesus but the Father himself who defines the purpose of Jesus’ mission and the content of his message.

50 And Jesus “knows” (in virtue of his union with the Father and of what he has “heard” from him; cf. 5:30; 8:20, 40; 15:15; 3:22) that that commandment “is eternal life,”²²⁹ that it seeks to create life out of death and cause light to arise in darkness. That and no other is the commandment, the charge, he has received from the Father and with which he has complied: “What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me.”

Basic to this entire self-witness are Jesus’ absolute mission-consciousness and his oneness with the Father. But whereas elsewhere—against those who accuse him of blasphemy—he speaks at length of that Son-to-Father relationship (see especially 5:19-30), here he deliberately subordinates his person to his message in order to cut off any notion that in asking people to believe his words he is seeking to gratify his own ego, claiming something beyond the authority that the Father has given him, or seeking for himself something other than to be the light of the world.

In that emphasis on the message lies the connection with vss. 37-43. The summary of Jesus’ witness concerning himself in vss. 44-50 is written from a specific perspective and is clearly defined by that perspective, which is that of Jesus’ self-vindication over against the unbelief described in vss. 37-43. What offended “the Jews” and caused them to reject him as Israel’s Messiah and God’s Son (and was to remain the main issue in the continuing conflict of the church with Judaism and the world) was the absolute authority with which he proclaimed to them the Word of God as the only way to life. When in reaction to their unbelief Jesus steps back in favor of his words and deeds (cf. 10:34ff.), he does not thereby cancel himself out to make the way of faith easier for them. He confronts them, rather, all the more forcefully with the truth of his words and of his whole mission as that of the light of the world (cf. 7:17ff.). And he does this not because the significance of his person only consists in or is based on his words and works but because as the Son of God, in his union with the Father, he can only be known from his divinely originated words (6:68) and from his works as the embodiment, the incarnation, of God’s love for the world (3:16).

1. See, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 345f.; Brown, Comm. I, p. 429.

2. See further above and the comments above on 2:13f. and 4:1f.

3. Brown, Comm., in loc.:

“The Fourth Gospel is not satisfied with such a generalization. It is neither sufficiently dramatic nor clear-cut to say that all Jesus’ miracles led to enthusiasm on the part of some and hate on the part of others. And so the writer has chosen one miracle and to make this the primary representative of all the mighty miracles of which Luke speaks. With a superb sense of development he has chosen a miracle in which Jesus raises a dead man.”

4. For the development of this hypothesis see the overview in Haenchen, Comm. II, pp. 67ff.

5. Some, however, believe that the narrative (as reconstructed from “S”) still contains so many obscurities that even it cannot be regarded as an original report. So Bultmann, Comm., p. 396: “presumably an old narrative had already been edited when it was taken up into the σημεῖα-source, and the Evangelist has further worked over it. We are unable to clear up all the difficulties.…”

6. Cf., e.g., C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, 1965, p. 230: “Nowhere, perhaps, in this gospel have attempts to analyze out a written source, or sources, proved less convincing, and if the evangelist is following a traditional story of fixed pattern, he has covered his tracks.” P. 228: “we are dealing with a highly individual composition, a Musterstück of its writer’s art. The problem of its possible relation to any pre-Johannine strand of tradition is peculiarly difficult, for anything that may have been taken over has been recast in Johannine idiom of speech and thought.”

7. See also W. Nicol, himself a proponent of the sēmeia source: “There are almost no significant style differences” (The Semeia in the Fourth Gospel, 1972, p. 37).

8. Comm., p. 51.

9. J. Becker, “Wunder und Christologie,” NTS 16 (1969-70), pp. 146, 142.

10. Comm. II, pp. 72, 71.

11. Comm., p. 395.

12. See also, e.g., M. de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, 1977, p. 125: “This interpretation,” that is, that Jesus’ conversation with Martha (vss. 22f.) would make the continuing story of the resurrection itself “superfluous,” “is clearly wrong; here again the word which calls for faith is followed by the sign which demonstrates the truth and the power of the word.”

13. See also Nicol, Semeia in the Fourth Gospel, pp. 110f. and the passage he cites from E. C. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel, 1940, p. 34: “The Gospel stubbornly refuses … to be divided into history and interpretation. The history invades the interpretation, and the interpretation pervades the history.… Separate the two, and the extremity of violence is done to the text. What Jesus is to the faith of the true Christian believer, he was in the flesh: this is the theme of the Fourth Gospel, and it is precisely this unity that constitutes the Problem of the Gospel.”

14. On the basis of Lk. 16:30, John 11 has often been linked to the parable in Luke 16. The idea that the latter alludes to our story is in itself meaningful (“The Jews will not believe even if Lazarus rises from the dead”), but it is wrong to conclude that the parable in Luke could already refer back to the story in John 11. Conversely, it is even less acceptable to think that the Fourth Evangelist seized upon the name and person of Lazarus of Bethany in order to historicize the unreal raising of the Lazarus of the parable. There is more support for the assumption that the name Lazarus can be traced to present-day el-Azariyeh (town of Lazarus), situated near the Mount of Olives, close to which there has long been said to have been a tomb. Cf. G. Dalman, Orte und Wege Jesu, 1924, pp. 265f.

15. Jesus’ name is not mentioned in the original; hence the “him” must refer to the “Lord” of vs. 2, since Jesus is not mentioned in vs. 1 either. This is an argument against the idea that the addition in vs. 2 was not original.

16. Contra, e.g., J. N. Sanders, “Those Whom Jesus Loved,” NTS 1 (1954-55), p. 33. He takes support for this from the fact that while the Evangelist uses φιλεῖν in the words of the sisters (vs. 3), he uses ἀγαπᾶν in vs. 5, where he is not quoting. It is improbable, however, that the Fourth Gospel makes such an intentional distinction between the two verbs (cf. vs. 3b; 13:23; 20:2; 21:15-17).

17. πρóς with the accusative, indicating “purpose, result” (BDF §239.7).

18. ὑπέρ.

19. διʼ αὐτῆς.

20. See, e.g., the commentaries of Bultmann, Schnackenburg, and Brown, in loc.

21. See the lengthy discussions of the proleptic significance of Jesus’ manifestation of glory specifically in the miracles in Nicol, Sēmeia in the Fourth Gospel, pp. 124-37, especially pp. 128f.

22. It is hard to say why in vs. 5, in contrast with vss. 1f., Martha is mentioned first. The reason is perhaps that of the two sisters she tends to stand in the foreground as the one who takes the initiative (cf. vss. 19ff. and Lk. 10:38b, 40f.).

23. ὡς οὖν ἤκουσαν, vs. 6, after ἀκούσας in vs. 4.

24. The μέν after τóτε has no corresponding δέ. Although this is unusual in John, the contrast is easily derived from the context (cf. BDF §447.4). The μέν is more or less concessive.

25. The seemingly superfluous μετὰ τοῦτο therefore marks the first pause Jesus observed.

26. So E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17, 1968: Jesus “permits Lazarus to lie in the grave for four days in order that the miracle of his resurrection may be more impressive”; with regard to Jesus’ absolute and sovereign freedom to act on his own: “almost superfluously the Evangelist notes that this Jesus at all times lies on the bosom of the Father and that to him who is one with the Father the angels descend and from him they again ascend” (). On Jesus’ glorification as Son of God: “One can hardly fail to recognize the danger of his christology of glory, namely, the danger of docetism. It is present in a still naive unreflected form and it has not yet been recognized by the Evangelist or his community” (p. 26, with an appeal to Wellhausen, F. C. Baur, Overbeck, and Hirsch).

27. Cf. H. Giblin, “Suggestion, Negative Response, and Positive Action in St. John’s Portrayal of Jesus,” NTS 26 (1980), p. 209. In addition to 2:1-11 and 11:1-4 Giblin also mentions 4:4b-54 and 7:2-14 as examples of the same literary pattern and analyzes the present pericope at length from that perspective.

28. For the meaning of νῦν see, e.g., 21:10.

29. Jews divided the time between dawn and sunset into twelve hours, which did not have the same duration throughout the year (cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 442, 543), though that plays no role in this text.

30. Elsewhere transferred to the human “heart” as one’s internal “eye” and “light” (cf. Ep. 1:18; 1 Jn. 2:11).

31. Cf. Bultmann: “In the context it is self-evident that this saying (as 9.4) must first be related to Jesus himself, and give the reason for his decision” (Comm. p. 399).

32. As the awkward ταῦτα εἶπεν, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο λέγει can be paraphrased.

33. σῴζεσθαι, here as elsewhere (cf. Mk. 5:23f.) in the sense of becoming well, recovering.

34. παρρησία.

35. The explanation “Didymus” (“twin”) is “remarkable” (Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 515, n. 37) because Thomas was a current Greek name (taken over from the Aramaic and Hellenized), and one may wonder why a translation is added. Is it perhaps that Thomas and others by that name were also known by the Greek equivalent?

36. See, e.g., Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 544f.; Schlatter, Comm., pp. 250f.

37. “ἦν is assimilated to the time of the narrative, as v. 6; 18.1; 19.41” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 401, n. 2) and therefore does not point to a situation that changed later.

38. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 54.

39. Martha is again mentioned first, as in vs. 5, unlike vs. 45, where Mary alone is referred to.

40. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck IV, pp. 592-607.

41. With regard to Martha’s questions and answers in this conversation Schnackenburg writes: “Psychological considerations do not help here”; he believes that “these conversations must be interpreted in terms of the evangelist’s intention as narrator.” This applies “without any doubt” to Martha’s mentioning the last day (Comm. II, pp. 329f.). But the modern tendency to render the Gospel figures into theological spokespersons and thereby to dehistoricize these conversations is no less objectionable than the earlier tendency to psychologize and historicize them. The Evangelist is not writing a theological tract but a story about people of flesh and blood, as is certainly evident in the present chapter.

42. The genuineness of ἀλλά is uncertain.

43. ὅσα ἂν αἰτήσῃ.

44. Cf. Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 329, who speaks of “a form deliberately kept general (ὅσα ἂν) and indefinite” and “a request which leaves all possibilities open” and correctly concludes that “Martha’s faith is directed more at Jesus’ person than at the nature of the help.”

45. The reference here, as in, e.g., 3:2; 9:24, 29, 31 and elsewhere, is to “knowing” in the sense of assenting to generally accepted doctrines or religious views.

46. See, e.g., A. Oepke, TDNT I, p. 370.

47. On this see at greater length

48. Some interpreters claim that vs. 26 adds another thought to vs. 25, that “live” (“whoever lives,” vs. 26) is meant in the sense of vs. 25, and that the whole of vs. 26 teaches the imperishability of the new life (so Calvin, Schlatter, Brown, and others). In that case, however, καὶ πιστεύειν, added under the same definite article as ὁ ζῶν, is then superfluous or has to mean something like “and continues to believe,” which in this connection seems forced. It is more natural to assume that ὁ ζῶν in vs. 26 corresponds with κἂν ἀποθάνῃ in vs. 25 and hence refers to natural life: “whoever lives and believes in me,” “lives by faith in me.” So correctly Bultmann, Schnackenburg, and many others.

49. See above,

50. C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1963, pp. 148f., speaks of “a fluid transition of two kinds of eschatology” in the Fourth Gospel.

51. According to Bultmann, “the future resurrection of Martha’s belief becomes irrelevant in face of the present resurrection that faith grasps.” In the Fourth Gospel, popular eschatology is set aside (Comm., p. 402).

52. See the comments above on 6:39ff. and 5:28ff.

53. See the comments above on 8:12.

54. The words “though he die” have a concessive meaning; i.e., they do not intend to minimize the reality and power of death but rather to acknowledge them in all their life-threatening significance.

55. For this entire subject and the relevant literature, see the important excursus on “Eschatology in the Fourth Gospel” in Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 426-37.

56. The perfect tense of πεπίστευκα expresses the continuation of what has been completed.

57. The present participle does not stress the present but conveys the language of future expectation.

58. λάθρᾳ, “in secret,” i.e., without causing a sensation.

59. See above,

60. So Hirsch, in Haenchen, Comm. II, p. 64.

61. So Bultmann, Comm., p. 405.

62. One sees there, positively, also the possible influence of Lk. 10:39; but for a disciple to sit at the master’s feet, as in Luke, is something other than to greet someone with prostration, as here.

63. ἐνεβριμήσατο τῷ πνεύματι. The addition τῶ πνεύματι or, in vs. 38, ἐν ἑαυτῷ gives to the verb ἐμβριμᾶσθαι, which elsewhere means something like “rage against” (cf. Mt. 9:30; Mk. 1:43; see also Mk. 14:5), the meaning of an unexpressed but strong sense of vexation, perhaps “be angry at.”

64. The active ἐτάραξεν ἑαυτóν is remarkable and is translated by BAGD, p. 805, as “he was troubled or agitated.”

65. So, at length, Bultmann, Comm., p. 406.

66. So, rightly, Brown and others.

67. Cf., e.g., Bultmann: “The statement that he wept (v. 35)—where the weeping must be understood as a sign of agitation in the sense of v. 33—has hardly any other purpose than to provoke the utterance of the Jews (vv. 36f.), and so to set in a yet brighter light the motif of faithlessness in the presence of the Revealer” (Comm., p. 407).

68. Comm. II, p. 13.

69. Cf. Calvin, Comm. II, 11: “Accordingly, when He is about to raise Lazarus, before He grants the cure or help, He shows by His groaning in spirit, by a strong emotion of grief and by tears, that He is as much affected by our ills as if He had suffered them in Himself.”

70. This applies not only against the so-called docetic interpretation of Johannine christology but also against certain forms of “orthodoxy” in which, though the true humanity of Jesus is being maintained, it is nevertheless heavily restricted. An example going back to very ancient interpretations is the idea that, since Christ the Son of God was exempt from all passion, he could only have known deep emotion, anger, and grief because and insofar as it seemed good to him as Son of God to adopt these feelings voluntarily, thus, in vs. 33, rousing himself into a state of agitation. It is clear, however, that in this way, on dogmatic grounds, distinctions are carried into the text that deprive the story of its sublime simplicity and natural drama. Here, too, cf. Calvin (Comm. II, 12), who rejects this last view (as he found it in Augustine): “But it will, to my mind, be more agreeable to Scripture if we make the simple statement that when the Son of God put on our flesh He also of His own accord put on human feelings, so that He differed in nothing from His brethren, sin only excepted.”

71. See the comments above on vs. 33.

72. So Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 337.

73. ἐπεκείτο ἐπʼ αὐτῷ is interpreted variously. Some think of a round stone vertically placed before the opening of the sepulchre, as was evidently the case with Jesus’ tomb (cf. Strack/Billerbeck on Mt. 28:2, I, pp. 1059-61); others of a square stone resting horizontally over an opening in the ground (so Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 337f.: “what is displayed today as the tomb of Lazarus matches this description”).

74. Some textual witnesses omit “the sister of the dead man,” presumably as being superfluous. Some interpreters regard these witnesses as proof that here the Evangelist, following the lengthy passage from his own hand in vss. 20-32, again returns to his “source,” where, they say, there was no extensive reference to Martha. But from the very beginning it is evident from the whole story, even in the passages attributed to the “source,” that Martha was the sister of Lazarus (vss. 1-3, 19). It seems hard to explain this “redundant” identification of Martha in any way other than I have above. The same phenomenon occurs elsewhere in this Gospel (cf. 6:8; 21:20). Perhaps it is well to repeat Brown’s remark (Comm. I, p. 426): “The Gospel … does show a tendency to reidentify the dramatis personae.”

75. For “the fourth day,” see the comments on vs. 17.

76. Looking up to heaven is “mentioned only rarely” as a posture of prayer in Jewish writings (Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 246).

77. So, correctly, Strathmann, Comm., p. 178: “The reason that his prayer is still prayer is that his relation to God is not something static and finished but something personal and dynamic that constantly renews itself,” as is evident from the repeated disclosures of Jesus’ prayer to God, especially in ch. 17 (cf. also 14:16).

78. διά with accusative and without a following verb.

79. And κράζειν is used in those other places; here κραυγάζειν is used. See also Strack/Billerbeck on Ro. 9:27, II, p. 275.

80. On this “apocalyptic” language, see also Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 340.

81. So Bultmann, Comm., p. 409; Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 340.

82. So Schulz, Comm., p. 101.

83. See L. Radermacher, Neutestamentliche Grammatik, 1925², p. 12; cf. also Bultmann, Comm., p. 409, n. 5.

84. The Evangelist tends to mention especially the Pharisees as the most influential leaders of the people, sometimes in conjunction with the chief priests, sometimes not (7:32, 45, 47; 9:13, 40). Sometimes he mentions just the chief priests as the ruling authority (12:10). The reason is certainly not just that in the days of Jesus the Pharisees already had great influence on the people but that in the Evangelist’s day, probably after the fall of Jerusalem, they functioned as the real spiritual leaders. Their name was therefore particularly useful to him as a general term for the Jewish authorities (see also the comments on 7:31 and 12:42).

85. The plural refers to members of the family and officials working together in the Sanhedrin with the high priest.

86. συνέδριον; see at length Strack/Billerbeck I, pp. 997ff.

87. τὶ ποιοῦμεν is probably deliberative, though as a rule the subjunctive is used for that purpose. One can also, of course, translate it as “What [in the world] are we doing?” in the sense of self-criticism.

88. One can, of course, render ἡμῶν simply as a possessive genitive: “take away both our place and our city.” But what is obviously at issue is the stake that the Sanhedrin had in all this. For that reason, and also because of the possibility that a pronominal genitive could be placed earlier than its expected position (BDF §473.1), it is better to link ἡμῶν (“us”) with the verb in the sense of a so-called “sympathetic dative.”

89. Some regard ἀρχιερεὺς ὣν τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνοῦ as indicating that the Evangelist thought that Jewish high priests (like their Gentile counterparts in Asia Minor) held office for only one year (so, e.g., Bultman, Comm., pp. 410f., n. 10). Others, however, correctly believe that the Evangelist repeatedly evidences far too much detailed historical knowledge to be charged with such gross ignorance concerning Caiaphas’s high priesthood (which extended from a.d. 18 to 36!). Genitive τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ ἐκείνου can also very well be understood, especially in view of the indefinite way the Evangelist introduces Caiaphas to his readers, as high priest “of” or “in” that year, namely the year of Jesus’ death, meaning “that fateful year in which Jesus died.” “John is underlining not the limit of the term but its synchronism” (Brown, Comm. I, p. 440, cf. 441f., with an appeal to Bernard, Comm. II, p. 404; see also [at length] Schlatter, Comm., p. 248; Morris, Comm., p. 566, and many others).

90. The words are, successively, λαóς (“people,” ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ) and ἔθνος (“nation,” ὅλον τò ἔθνος), evidently without a distinction in meaning (cf. also vss. 51, 52)—according to some intentionally in order to ignore the distinction (in Jewish ears) between λαóς (the Jewish people) and ἔθνος (Gentiles). By itself ὑπὲρ τοῦ λαοῦ could also be omitted, but was added, according to others, to give clearer expression to the element of substitution. The next clause, “and the whole nation not perish,” also points to such a substitution. Vs. 52 also mentions Jesus’ striving ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἔθνους, but then apparently in the general sense of “on behalf of,” as may also be evident from the additional description of the redemptive significance of Jesus’ death in vs. 52 (ἀλλʼ ἵνα καί).

91. See, e.g., Morris, Comm., p. 568, n. 105.

92. See the comments above on vs. 49.

93. So Bultmann, Comm., p. 411.

94. Cf. Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 350f. On the relationship between election and faith, being known and knowing, as it repeatedly emerges in the Fourth Gospel, though it is hard for us to express adequately, see above,

95. There is no absolute certainty on the location of this Ephraim. Usually scholars link it with the present village of et-Taiyibeh, which is about 20 kilometers northeast of Jerusalem; cf. G. Dalman, Sacred Sites and Ways: Studies in the Topography of the Gospels, pp. 217f., 268 (also cf. 2 Sa. 13:23; 2 Ch. 13:19). For the trustworthiness of this historical note—against those who credit it with merely “schematic” significance (Bultmann) or view it as a “stylistic device to indicate the explosive atmosphere in and around Jerusalem” (Schnackenburg)—see the interesting (for the entire subject of the geographic accuracy of the Fourth Gospel) essay of B. Schwanck, “Ephraim in Joh. 11:54,” in M. de Jonge (ed.), l’Évangile de Jean, 1977, pp. 377-84.

96. On “of the Jews” see the comments above on 2:13; 5:1; 6:4; and 7:2.

97. Usually passages like Nu. 9:10, 13 and 2 Ch. 30:17ff. are cited for this practice. For the cultic significance of ἁγνίζειν see also Ac. 21:24ff.; 24:18.

98. ζητεῖν need not be meant in a hostile sense; cf. 7:11f.

99. For the construction πρò ἓξ ἡμερῶν τοῦ πάσχα, see BDF §213. This time indication, however, gives no definite solution to the question of the day on which Jesus arrived in Bethany, since it is not certain whether the day of the Passover is included in the six days. Added to this is the question whether in John the day of Passover started on a Friday evening—as many think—or a day earlier, as the Synoptics clearly assert and is, in our opinion, not excluded in John either (see below on 13:1ff.). Further calculations make it likely that the Passover meal took place on the day before a sabbath.

100. Specifically:

Jn. 12:3:

λίτραν μύρου νάρδου πιστικῆς

Mk. 14:3:

ἀλάβαστρον μύρου νάρδου πιστικῆς πολυτελοῦς

Mt. 26:7:

ἀλάβαστρον μύρου βαρυτίμου

Jn. 12:5:

ἐπράθη τριακοσίων δηναρίων καὶ ἐδóθη πτωχοῖς

Mk. 14:5:

πραθῆναι ἐπάνω δηναρίων τριακοσίων καὶ δοθῆναι τοῖς πτωχοῖς

Mt. 26:9:

πραθῆναι πολλοῦ καὶ δοθῆναι πτωχοῖς

Furthermore, Jn. 12:8 is similar to Mk. 14:8, though it is widely assumed that the form of the statement is original to John.

101. Some interpreters, meanwhile, think that in Jn. 11:2 the woman of Luke 7 is intended, even though two different events are related. From 11:2 it is evident, they say, that the Mary mentioned in John 11 and 12 is no one other than the “sinner” of Luke 7. This is said to explain the admittedly striking conduct of Mary during the dinner at Bethany, namely a repetition of what she has done earlier with her tears as a “sinful woman” accepted by Jesus. Furthermore, it is claimed that she is no one other than Mary Magdalene, out of whom Jesus cast “seven devils” (Lk. 8:2); she now returns as Mary of Bethany, the sister of Lazarus. This is said to explain the link our text forges between her deed and Jesus’ burial. In the story of the resurrection, after all, it is Mary Magdalene, not Mary of Bethany, who (along with others) goes to Jesus’ grave to complete his burial (cf. Bernard, Comm. II, pp. 372ff., 412ff.).

There is no basis, however, for this identification of the “sinful woman” in Luke 7 with Mary Magdalene. The contrary is rather the case: the two are mentioned in close succession but not identified (Lk. 7:37; 8:2). The same applies to the identification of Mary Magdalene (“of Magdala”!) with Mary “of Bethany.” In the liturgy of the later church these three women have sometimes been “made into one” (Bernard, Comm. II, p. 412; so also Brown, Comm. I, p. 452), but in the nature of the case this does not establish any historical connection among them.

102. Comm., II, p. 372.

103. On this, at greater length, see the comments below on 21:24.

104. We do not get the impression that the meal took place in the house of Lazarus and his sisters itself; cf. vs. 2b; also Mk. 14:3.

105. See, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 522, n. 15.

106. “Pound” = litra (the Roman “pound”), equivalent to 12 ounces or 327.45 grams (BAGD, p. 475).

107. μύρον.

108. πιστικῆς, “genuine, pure”; others think of a certain kind of perfume or plant; see BAGD s.v.

109. See the comments above on 6:7.

110. The difference is mentioned explicitly in Lk. 7:46.

111. Striking particularly because after an anointing the oil is not normally wiped off. Lk. 7:38 mentions the wiping away of tears, which in the nature of the case is easier to understand.

112. On the name Ίσκαριῶτης see the comments on 6:71.

113. A point of view also much debated by later theologians!

114. βαστάζειν, to be understood here in connection with κλέπτης as “steal” (used in that sense in other connections as well).

115. So Bultmann: By putting these words in Judas’s mouth (unlike Matthew and Mark) and by saying that Judas was insincere, the Fourth Evangelist “destroyed the real point of the story.” And if vs. 8 was a later gloss, then it is clear that the point of the story is in vs. 7: “the anointing of Jesus is an anticipation of the anointing of his dead body” (as in Matthew and Mark).

116. Even Schnackenburg, who speaks of a “legendary excrescence,” acknowledges: “On the other hand, the statement that Judas looked after the disciples’ common fund is important” (Comm. II, p. 368). Brown leaves both possibilities open. On the one hand, he writes, “The picture of Judas’ cupidity was naturally painted in darker and darker tones as the story was retold,” and even considers it possible that the whole of “the Johannine identification of the disgruntled disciple at Bethany as Judas was part of the popular tendency to present Judas in a hostile light.” But he adds: “Yet, neither is it impossible, that precisely because he handled money for the group, Judas was the disciple who did raise a protest at Bethany, and that again the remembrance was lost in the Synoptic tradition” (Comm. I, p. 453).

117. So Bultmann’s free rendering: “Leave her! She must keep it for the day of my burial.” Though John is “hardly comprehensible” here, his form of the saying “can have no other meaning” than what Bultmann sees in Mk. 14:8; Mt. 26:12 (Comm., p. 416, n. 2).

118. See, among others, the lengthy and convincing refutation of this idea in Brown, Comm. I, p. 449.

119. Now nothing precedes the ἵνα to support it, a “brachyology” which occurs frequently in John. On this see at length Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 369.

120. So also J. Blinzler, Der Prozeß Jesu, 1969, pp. 407ff.; cf. also Morris, Comm., pp. 579f.

121. So Schnackenburg, Comm., who therefore translates somewhat less directly: “She had to keep it for the day of my burial” (from the German ed., II, 1971, p. 458); cf. II (in the English ed.), p. 369: “what underlies the action is the will of God.”

122. So at length Blinzler: “The expression ‘day of my burial’ seems to be intended proleptically and to be related to the present. Now already six days before the Passover (12:1), the time of Jesus’ passion, the day of death, which among the Jews was at the same time the day of burial, has dawned” (p. 407).

123. Cf. Schnackenburg, Comm., in loc.

124. προέλαβεν μυρίσαι (Mk. 14:8).

125. Of the many translations offered, two may be mentioned as examples, that of H. Riesenfeld in TDNT VIII, p. 145: “Let her alone, she has observed (i.e. done) this with a view to my death,” and that of the Willibrord version: “She has kept this custom, anticipating the day of my burial.”

126. The interrogative form is suggested, on the basis of a possible Aramaic background, by C. C. Torrey, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel, 1922, p. 343: “Should she keep it for the day of my burial?” It can also be found already in Baljon, Comm., who by way of conjecture reads ἵνα τί and translates: “Why should she keep it to the day of my burial?” He adds: “The disappearance of τί from the manuscript was the cause of the difficulties in the other readings” (pp. 214f.). Bultmann reports this translation (as does Morris, Comm., p. 580, n. 27) without adopting it, and notes that “this would give a good sense which could also be obtained through the conjecture ἵνα τί = why?” (Bultmann, Comm., p. 416, n. 2).

127. See at length the comments on 9:44; 11:9; 12:35, 36.

128. Perhaps this connection explains the somewhat striking use here of the article with “crowd.” There is doubt about its authenticity and it is already missing in some manuscripts, but omission is much easier to explain than addition.

129. Referred to here as elsewhere—whether in conjunction with the Pharisees or not—as the leading figures in the Sanhedrin (cf. 7:32, 45ff.; 11:47, 57; 18:19, 35; 19:6, 15, 21).

130. Though some argue for it, e.g., E. D. Freed, “The Entry into Jerusalem in the Gospel of John,” JBL 80 (1961), pp. 329ff. For a contrary view see Dodd, Historical Tradition, pp. 152f.

131. On this see, e.g., Nicol, Sēmeia in the Fourth Gospel, p. 11.

132. So Bultmann explains the (“supplementary”) mention of the ass in vs. 14: “But vv. 14f. so decidedly have the character of an addendum, it must be presumed that the addendum has been anticipated in remembrance of the already well known story” (Comm., p. 418).

133. Is this meant to distinguish them from those in Jerusalem who were less favorably disposed to Jesus (cf. 7:25)?

134. τὰ βαΐα τῶν φοινίκων, literally “the branches of the palm trees.” That palm branches were used during the Feast of Tabernacles could perhaps explain the definite article here. Palm branches were not easily available in Jerusalem. Matthew and Mark mention “plucking” but not palm branches.

135. See the lengthy and careful notes in Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 373ff.

136. εἰς- or ὑπ-άντησις (see Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 524, n. 38).

137. Literally, “Please help!” (Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 375).

138. Especially at the feasts of Passover and Tabernacles (cf. Strack/Billerbeck I, pp. 845f.).

139. καί before “the king” is missing from some manuscripts and has an epexegetical sense; for this addition, see Zp. 3:15.

140. ὀνάριον, a diminutive term (“little donkey”), but by this time no longer understood as such (BDF §111.3).

141. See, e.g., Brown, Comm. I, p. 462.

142. Zc. 9:9 reads: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass.” Elsewhere also in prophecy “Fear not!” occurs frequently as a salvific address to Israel as the people of God (cf. Is. 35:4; 48:9 in the Vulgate); it serves in Zp. 3:16 as the parallel to: “Rejoice, O daughter of Zion” (in 3:14).

143. Brown refers to δέ in vs. 14 as an adversative conjunction (Comm. I, p. 462). But sometimes δέ is not adversative but merely transitional (BDF §447.7, 8). “A distinction is to be observed between general contrast (δέ) and that which is directly contrary (ἀλλά)” (BDF §447). Thus δέ here means something like “Jesus, on his part.…”

144. ἐπʼ αὐτῷ, “about” him (BDF §235.5), περὶ αὐτοῦ in D and other manuscripts.

145. The first two ταῦταs of the three in vs. 16 refer back, then, to what precedes in vs. 15.

146. On this “remembrance” (ἐμνήσθησαν) and the anticipation here of 14:26, see, at greater length, the comments above on 2:22.

147. ἐμαρτύρει, iterative imperfect.

148. As a result of the varying meaning of “the crowd” in vss. 17 and 18 the intent, at first blush, is somewhat unclear. It is perhaps for that reason that some manuscripts read ὅτι in vs. 17 in place of ὅτε (which is what most manuscripts have). The meaning then is “the crowd that had been with Jesus” (at the entry) testified that he had called Lazarus from the grave. Vs. 18 then tells us, again, that the same crowd had gone out to meet Jesus because they had heard, etc. But this makes for a very cumbersome construction. Moreover, the order of first “bearing witness” (vs. 17), then “because they had heard” (vs. 18), said of the same crowd, seems not to be illogical. The textual evidence argues for ὅτε, and the varying meaning of “the crowd” does not constitute an insuperable objection. This is why most interpreters follow this reading.

149. Comm. II, p. 35.

150. E.g., by Bultmann in one of his many radical reconstructions of the—seriously disordered, in his opinion—material of the Gospel.

151. For the literature see, e.g., F. J. Moloney, The Johannine Son of Man, 1978, pp. 144ff.; K. Tsychido, “Tradition and Redaction in John 12:1-43,” NTS 30 (1984), pp. 609-19; L. T. Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth in de gemeente van Johannes, 1986, pp. 194ff.

152. Not Greek-speaking Jews (cf. Ac. 6:1) of the diaspora but Greeks. So most interpreters; on this see also H. B. Kossen, “Who Were the Greeks of John XII 20?” in Studies in John (Festschrift for J. N. Sevenster), 1970, pp. 97-110.

153. Cf. Ac. 2:11. On proselytes and their varying religious status see, e.g., Strack/Billerbeck II, pp. 715-22, according to whom the reference here is to “half-proselytes” or σεβóμενοι (τòν θεóν), who without being circumcised accepted Jewish monotheism and observed certain parts of the Mosaic ceremonial law (p. 716; see also p. 548).

154. ἀναβαίνειν and προσκυνεῖν, traditionally used for “going up” to Jerusalem and taking part in cultic activities, in this case in the very limited sense in which this was permitted to Gentiles: “participation in the Passover meal was of course denied them” (Strack/Billerbeck II, p. 549).

155. Cf. G. Dalman, Sacred Sites and Ways, p. 165: “St. John (xii:21) takes it for granted that Philip, being a native of the ‘Galilean Bethsaida,’ understood Greek, since Galilee had a mixed population and was therefore bilingual.” Also, Bethsaida lay across the Jordan, which implies not only knowledge of the language but also association with foreigners and familiarity with Greek culture. It need not surprise us, in view of other examples of this nature (see Dalman, in loc.), that the Evangelist nevertheless considered Bethsaida part of Galilee.

156. On the alternating use of the singular (the second ἔρχεται in vs. 22) and the plural (λέγουσιν), see BDF §135.1d.

157. There is a widespread view, which can be found already in Thomas Aquinas, that the mediation of the two disciples indicates that while Jesus in his own person would proclaim the gospel to the Jews he would do so to the Gentiles by means of the apostles (see, e.g., J. Blank, Krisis. Untersuchungen zur johanneischer christologie und eschatologie, 1963, p. 266, and the reference to Thomas given there). However, there is no mention here of an answer of Jesus mediated by the disciples or, therefore, of an implied prediction that from now on the disciples would serve as intermediaries for communicating with Jesus.

158. Cf. Blank, Krisis, p. 272: “On this basis [that of 1:14] one may say that according to John the δóξα belongs to the Christ-event as a whole and qualified it in its entirety as revelational event, though it expresses itself in varying ways.”

159. Against this “proleptic” view, see ,

160. For this dual viewpoint (preexistent and redemptive-historical) see the comments above on 5:27 and 9:36-38 and also

161. Cf. G. C. Nicholson, Death as Departure: The Johannine Descent-Ascent Schema, 1983.

162. “Coming down,” “coming,” and “being sent” over against “ascending,” “returning,” “going,” and “going away.” Apart from 3:13, see also 3:31; 6:38, 62; 7:33; 8:14, 42; 13:1; 16:5; 17:8f.; 20:17.

163. On this see at length Blank, Krisis, pp. 80ff., 287; Brown, Comm. I, pp. 145f.; Schnackenburg, Comm. I, pp. 379ff.

164. So also Bultmann, Comm., p. 423.

165. Cf. Bultmann: “for the suspicion cannot be suppressed that between v. 22 and v. 23 a whole piece has fallen out” (Comm., pp. 420f.).

166. Cf. Westcott, Comm., p. 180: “It is not easy to suppose either that the interview preceded v. 23, or that the interview was refused, or that it followed after this scene. On the other hand, St. John has preserved just so much of what was said in reply to their request as gives the permanent interpretation of the incident and no more.” See also Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 383: “Jesus’ reply to the two disciples contains no answer to the Greeks, but it is a theological interpretation of their presence.” Schnackenburg thinks that the Evangelist avoided a conversation between Jesus and the Greeks “because he had no tradition about one,” but adds (on better grounds): “But Jesus’ statement that the hour has come for his glorification means more than that.”

167. As Nicholson puts it in Death as Departure, p. 153: “The departure will be expedited by his death, but this death does not become the focus of attention. It is true that Jesus must depart and that this departure will necessitate his death, so in this sense Jesus is like the grain of wheat which must die to bring life”; p. 128: “For the Fourth Evangelist the death of Jesus is only a means to an end, a stage on the way, that takes him back to the Father” (cf. p. 132).

168. So especially Käsemann: “The one who walks on earth as a stranger, as the messenger sent by the Father, the one who passes through death without turmoil and with jubilation, because he has been called back to the realm of freedom, has fulfilled his mission” (The Testament of Jesus, p. 20).

169. See also Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth, pp. 212f.

170. See also the valuable reflections on 12:33f. in Blank, Krisis, pp. 265f., 270f., where, however, the motif of the caesura does not, in our opinion, come into its own.

171. Also a reason that here, too, all kinds of tradition-historical hypotheses with respect to shared written sources and conclusions based on such hypotheses with respect to the Johannine redaction remain extremely uncertain. What is clear is the typically Johannine style.

172. See also the comments on 6:27 above.

173. For this opposition—stated in absolute form but intended relatively—between hate and love, see also Mt. 6:24.

174. Cf. Schnackenburg: “φυλάξει (instead of σώσει or εὑρήσει) shows the ‘life’ to be won not to be merely an eschatological existence in the future, but life in the present which extends into the future” (Comm. II, p. 384). Witkamp also writes: “The logion would then [if one had to interpret against a Gnostic background] have to mean: ‘One who hates his natural life will keep his spiritual life, that is, his higher self.’ John, however, does not know of such Gnostic anthropological dualism; the truth is, he never even says that the believer must hate the κóσμος” (Jezus van Nazareth, p. 204).

175. See also the rejection of the Gnostic view (advocated by Bultmann) by Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 386.

176. Cf. Strack/Billerbeck I, p. 187: “Being a pupil required personal attachment to the teacher because the pupil learned not merely from the teacher’s words but much more from his practical observance of the Torah.”

177. Note the double reference to “me” and its emphatic placement (ἐὰν ἐμοί τις διακονῇ, ἐμοὶ ἀκολουθείτω).

178. On this point see at length also Blank, Krisis, pp. 274ff.

179. In the New Testament the concept occurs only as a verb, never as a substantive (“discipleship”), and it is exclusively used of following the “historical” Jesus; see further G. Kittel, TDNT I, p. 214.

180. So Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 385.

181. See also Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth, p. 216. He correctly opposes the views of Becker (Jesus is angry because people evidently expected him to try to be saved from this hour) and Nicholson (Jesus is anxious about his disciples in view of the coming events; cf. 14:1). But Witkamp also rejects the idea that the reference could “even” (!) be to “the true humanity of the Johannine Jesus” (as Brown, Comm. I, p. 475, has it). Witkamp understands Jesus’ agitation (as do other commentators) as “prophetic-pneumatic excitement,” “tension before the coming struggle of cosmic proportions of which Jesus in his omniscience is conscious.”

182. On the passage as a whole, see also A. T. Wrege, “ ‘Jesusgeschichte und Jüngergeschick’ nach Joh. 12,20-33 und Hebr. 5,7-10,” in Der Ruf der Freiheit und die Antwort der Gemeinde (Festschrift for J. Jeremias), 1970, pp. 259-88, here pp. 273f.; cf. Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 384, who also refers to 13:21 and therefore rejects Bultmann’s translation “I am afraid”; Schnackenburg paraphrases: “The ‘hour’ of death and glorification has begun and is experienced by Jesus in its deepest dimension.…”

183. That we are dealing here with a question and not a prayer to the Father seems to me—as it does to most present-day interpreters—in view of the immediately following “rectification,” the explanation that the context itself indicates.

184. Others translate ἀλλά more firmly as a negative: “No!” Cf. BDF §448.4: “after a question to one’s self as in classical [Greek]” (ἀλλά = “no”). So also Bultmann.

185. For this hypothesis, see the extensive treatment in Witkamp, Jezus van Nazareth, pp. 196ff., 217f.

186. On this see at length Strack/Billerbeck I, pp. 125-34.

187. In view of the aorist ἐδóξασα.

188. Cf. BDF §332 on the “complexive aorist”: “linear actions which (having been completed) are regarded as a whole.”

189. Cf. Tsychido, “Tradition and Redaction in John 12:1-43,” p. 610.

190. See, e.g., Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 390; Morris, Comm., p. 597.

191. Cf. Blank, Krisis, p. 281: “the decisive act of revelation, in relation to which all that had happened until now was only the prelude.”

192. Using the familiar distinction in Jewish eschatology between “this” world/aeon and the “coming” world/aeon.

193. For this connection see, at greater length, the comments above on 1:50f. and 5:27f.

194. The expression ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κóσμου, used of Satan, occurs in the New Testament only in John; cf., however, 2 Co. 4:4: ὁ θεòς τοῦ αἰῶνος, and Ep. 2:2: ἄρχων τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος; cf. also 1 Co. 2:6-8. Also to be mentioned are related representations of the powers of darkness and the angel of light in the Qumran texts; see the overview in Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 391, where he points out the difference: the Qumran texts make an emphatic distinction between “the now of a time of war and the then of a time of salvation,” but in John “the ruler of this world is judged and fundamentally stripped of his power in the eschatological ‘hour,’ ” which has now begun with the exaltation of Jesus.

195. One can mention here those who have been expelled from the circle of disciples and also of Judas (13:30); others, with more justification, think of those who are expelled “from heaven” (cf. Lk. 10:18; Rv. 12:9f.; see also Jb. 1:6f.; Zc. 3:1). On this question see Blank, Krisis, pp. 282-84.

196. Cf. Bultmann, Comm., p. 431:

The significance of the hour of decision is thus described in the cosmological terminology of the Gnostic myth. If in the Evangelist’s mind the myth has lost its mythological content and become historicised, his language on the other hand serves to eliminate the traditional eschatology of primitive Christianity. The turn of the ages results now.… Since this “now” the “prince of the world” is judged (16.11); the destiny of man has become definitive.… No future in this world’s history can bring anything new, and all apocalyptic pictures of the future are empty dreams.

197. This proleptic understanding is held by T. Preiss, La vie en Christ. La justification dans la pensée johannique, 1951, pp. 54f.; see also Blank, Krisis, pp. 283, 285.

198. See, e.g.,

199. σημαίνων here means “signifying,” “indicating,” “announcing” (cf. K. Rengstorff, TDNT VII, p. 264).

200. ποίῳ θανάτῳ ἤμελλεν ἀποθνῄσκειν.

201. As is asserted in the important work of W. Thüsing, Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu in Johannesevangelium, 1960, p. 12.

202. On this question see at greater length de Jonge, Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, pp. 94f. Whether the Jews, whose concept of the Messiah was bound up with the expectation of the Davidic king, also linked the Messiah with the (apocalyptic) figure of the Son of Man is very uncertain. With respect to this de Jonge writes: “ ‘Son of man’ is only used by Jesus himself, and to the Jews who refer to it in 12:34 this expression does not convey a clear picture.” We do, to be sure, find in Jewish literature a number of cases where “Messiah” and “Son of man” occur together (see also de Jonge in TDNT IX, pp. 510ff., and especially Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 32.1), but according to de Jonge “the combination is brought about in different ways and we cannot speak of any fixed concept.… It is by no means certain that the Fourth Gospel presupposes the presence of such ideas in the minds of the interlocutors of the crowd. It is only interested in Jesus’ singular use of the expression ‘Son of Man’ and in the fundamental difference between his teaching and current expectations connected with Messiah” (Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God, pp. 95f.). For the identification of the Messiah with the Son of Man see also W. Bittner, “Gott-Menschensohn-Davidsohn. Eine Untersuchung zur Traditionsgeschichte von Daniel 7,13ff.,” Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 32 (1985), pp. 343-72.

203. In what precedes Jesus has not mentioned this “must.” The crowd could rightly speak of this, however, meaning that the Son of man had to fulfill his “program” of salvation. In that sense 3:14 also speaks of the Son of man as he who “must be” lifted up.

204. So especially since W. C. Van Unnik, “The Quotation from the Old Testament in John 12:34,” NovT 3 (1959), pp. 174-79.

205. τò σπέρμα αὐτοῦ μένει εἰς τòν αἰῶνα (LXX).

206. τίς is not so much an inquiry into the identity of the Son of man—the crowd rightly equated him with the Messiah here—as into his nature.

207. So M. É. Boismard, “Le caractère adventice de Jo. XII,45-50,” in Sacra Pagina II, 1959, pp. 189ff. Schnackenburg, Comm. II, pp. 420f., argues against this position.

208. So, e.g., Bultmann, who regards these verses as part of a longer discourse on the light consisting of 8:12; 12:44-50; 8:21-29; 12:34-36; and 10:19-21. “Needless to say, there is no real proof for these ingenious proposals” (Brown, Comm. I, p. 490; Brown himself has another “relocation” proposal).

209. ἐπίστευον, durative imperfect.

210. τοσαῦτα.

211. ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν.

212. κύριε, at least in the LXX. Not in the Masoretic Text.

213. τῇ ἀκοῇ ἡμῶν is difficult to translate. It is clear that what is meant is not “hearing” but “what was heard.” Some simply translate “preaching” (e.g., Bultmann, Comm., p. 453). But the reference in this connection (see vs. 40, as also the words ἔμπροσθεν αὐτῶν) is particularly to the revelation of God as that which could be heard and seen by all. “Our,” then, refers not to the subject of the preaching but to those who heard the Word of God and to the prophet as the “pioneer” listener; see also the commentaries on Is. 53:1 and Ro. 10:16 (e.g., my Aan de Romeinen, 1977, pp. 241ff.).

214. διὰ τοῦτο is explicated by the following ὅτι clause (cf. 5:16, 18; 8:47; 10:17; 12:18).

215. Both of the Masoretic Text and of the LXX. Some scholars say it cannot therefore be from the same author as vs. 38, which is entirely in conformity with the LXX. But the freedom with which the Evangelist cites the original in cases like vs. 40 can hardly serve as proof that elsewhere he could not quote a text entirely in conformity with the LXX, and conversely.

216. Specifically by the use of the active voice: “He [God] has blinded …,” where the LXX has the less direct passive: “[the heart of the people] has become hardened.” The Masoretic Text has the imperative (directed to the prophet): “Make the heart of this people insensitive.”

217. Some textual witnesses have ὅτε in place of ὅτι, probably because ὅτε is easier to explain. Precisely for that reason, however, and because it has the better manuscript support, ὅτι should be considered original. But interpretation of it is rather difficult.

218. ὅμως, “all the same, nevertheless, yet,” used rarely in this sense in the New Testament, reinforced here by the adversative (frequent in John) μέντοι, “all the same, however.”

219. καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἀρχóντων πολλοί does not limit the “many” to the authorities but includes them “also.”

220. In conjunction with the “chief priests” the Pharisees over and again function as the highest Jewish authority in the Fourth Gospel (7:32, 45; 11:47, 57; 18:3). Formally speaking, Pharisees did not belong to the Sanhedrin as Pharisees but as members of the class of scribes. But this distinction, here and elsewhere, is not always observed. Unlike the Synoptics, John consistently speaks of Pharisees and never of scribes.

The frequent mention of the Pharisees in the Fourth Gospel is often viewed as an argument (among others) that the picture given, for example, here and in chs. 7 and 9 does not convey the historical situation at the time of Jesus but rather that of, on the one hand, the Pharisaic rabbinate as it developed in Jamnia in the years 70-100 and asserted itself as the spiritual leadership of the Jewish people and, on the other, of the measures taken against the Christian church (see also the next note). The power attributed to the Pharisees in the Johannine texts is said to be clearly anachronistic and to project later developments back into the life of Jesus. Witkamp, for example, writes in connection with this text: “The idea that ἄρχοντες would be afraid of being expelled from the synagogue by Pharisees is inconceivable at the time of the second temple” (Jezus van Nazareth, pp. 343f.).

But here (cf. 7:32) the Pharisees act primarily in their capacity as custodians of Jewish orthodoxy, which explains why people were afraid of them when it came to confessing Jesus as the Messiah. Admittedly they also functioned as the executive authorities in the Sanhedrin, but they did so in conjunction with the chief priests. But how could they do that at any time other than when the second temple still existed? And where, then, is the anachronism? This is not to deny that the frequent mention of the Pharisees (and not of the Sadducees, for example) may be linked with their predominant position in the synagogue Judaism of the time when John wrote his Gospel. But this evidently did not prevent him from writing in the correct historical perspective about the Pharisees of Jesus’ time in regard to, for example, their constant cooperation with the chief priests.

221. The word ἀποσυνάγωγος, which is attested only in John, refers to an already existing position that confessors of Jesus might get into (γένεσθαι, 9:22; 12:42) or be brought into (ποιεῖν, 16:2) and says nothing about the way in which this was effected. See Strack/Billerbeck IV, p. 331. Against the conception of J. L. Martyn and others that this decision refers in reality to much later measures taken by the Jewish leadership in Jamnia to arrive at a definitive split between church and synagogue, see the objections in the comments above on 9:22. For the ongoing discussion, in which other objections are advanced against this hypothesis, see also D. M. Smith, “Judaism and the Gospel of John,” in Jews and Christians, ed. J. H. Charlesworth, 1990, pp. 76-99, particularly pp. 83ff.

222. τοῦ θεοῦ, subjective genitive; cf. 5:44: παρὰ τοῦ μóνου θεοῦ.

223. On this antithesis see at length

224. “The verb κράζειν … is best rendered as crying in the sense of proclamation” (W. Grundmann, TDNT III, p. 901).

225. See, e.g., the parallels noted in the margin in Nestle-Aland.

226. In the nature of the case the antithetical construction “believes not in me but …” is not absolute (cf. 14:1) but a rhetorical device (a mašal) that powerfully stresses the point at issue (cf. the comments on 6:27; see also BDF §448.1).

227. ἐγώ, again emphatic.

228. For this recurrent “not of myself” motif and its implications, see at length the comments above on 5:19.

229. The equation of “commandment” and “life” established by the copula is “Johannine and certainly Semitizing, style (cf. 3:19; 17:3; 1 Jn. 3:23; 4:10; 5:9, 11, 14)” (Schnackenburg, Comm. II, p. 424; cf. also Dt. 32:47).

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