TEXT: John 13:31-38

SUBJECT: Exposition of John #34: Christ's Departure and Our Duty

Today we continue our study of John's Gospel. May God bless it to our souls. For Christ's sake. Amen.

The Departure Predicted, vv.31-33.

The conversation begins with a dire prediction: "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek; and as I said to the Jews, `Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you".

The disciples don't get it at the moment, but in hindsight, we do. The Lord is predicting His death. What He says about it--in short--is this:

His death is certain. In v.31, He chooses the aorist tense: "Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him". He speaks of His death--still hours away--as if it has already occurred. Judas has made up His mind to sell the Son of Man; the Son of Man has made up His mind to be sold. "Christ must suffer" Paul has it; John adds: "The Son of Man must be lifted up".

His death is near. "Now the Son of Man is glorified..."God will glorify Him immediately..."I shall be with you a little while longer..." There is no honest way to interpret these words but in the obvious sense: His death is at hand. "The hour has come".

His death is glorious. You notice the word itself does not appear in the passage; nor any of its polite alternatives. This is not because our Lord has a morbid fear of the word or because He wants to soften the blow for His disciples. No, His death is not a dreadful thing; it doesn't evoke images of decay, skin worms, and the like. For Christ death is glory in that it:

At Mount Sinai a riddle was put to God's people. "The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin...by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of fathers upon the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation".

We have One God who is perfectly consistent with Himself. Yet He is both merciful and just; He both forgives iniquity and never clears the guilty. The saints of old believed the Great Paradox, but did not solve it. And could not.

The solution was not given till the cross. For there God proved Himself to be both "Just and the Justifier". This is why Paul so boasted in the cross, so reveled in it. For the cross brings a unique glory to God the Father and to His Only Begotten Son.

The Lord Jesus is about to die. His death will be a gruesome thing to behold. But He sees something more than its pain; He sees its glory.

The Parting Counsel, vv.34-35.

Our Lord knows He's about to die. He has a few more things to tell His dear friends. They are important things; things most precious to His soul. The first one is this: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you love one another".

Note carefully: This is a commandment, not a suggestion. Our Lord is ordering His disciples to do something. Some believers are offended by commandments; they think of them as oppressive and not consistent with grace. Some orders are both! But not His; "His commandments are not grievous". Rather than resenting His Law, we ought to be thankful for it.

The commandment is "Love one another". Love is a general obligation: "Love your neighbor as yourself..."Love your enemies" and so on. But this is more narrowly focused: To "Love one another" means to love our fellow Christians. Having studied the passage for some time, I'm still looking for qualifiers! Such as? "Love one another if he agrees with you on every point of theology" or "Love one another if she has no annoying personal traits". You can add to the list. These are qualifiers we put into the text; our Lord didn't. Adding to the Word of God is no small offense! God save us from that sin. For Christ's sake.

The commandment is "New". This seems strange, doesn't it? Long before, God commanded His people to "Love your neighbor as yourself". How is this "new commandment" new? Our Lord explains: "...that you love one another, as I have loved you, that you love one another". Under the Rule of Christ, brotherly love is taken to new heights. How high? We're to love one another more than ourselves!

The cross-reference is Philippians 2:3: "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself."

This may include dying for one another, but usually, it doesn't. What it always demands, however, is something much harder than that: Living for one another! Being inconvenienced! With grace.

A promise is attached to this love: "By this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one for another". The people of that day knew our Lord was a giving Man; He had not cashed in on His celebrity, but gave Himself and His things to everyone who asked. His followers would then be known by...following Him!

In our day, the Average Man has little knowledge of Christ, and much of what he has is wrong! But, however ignorant he is of our Lord, he knows this much: Jesus was a loving and unselfish man. Thus, when he sees Christians quarrelling with each other, each demanding his way be done, the unbeliever knows--whatever they're doing--they're not following Christ. And he's right!

But when the disciples of Christ are following their Lord's example, not even the hardest sinner can fail to make the connection. He may not like them, but he has to admit: "They're His disciples".

This brotherly love does not hinder the pursuit of truth or purity, but rather, makes them possible. Francis Schaeffer spent his whole life "fighting the good fight of faith"--first within his Church, then with the world-at-large. He wrote a book called The Mark of the Christian. What do you think it was about?

Brotherly Love.

If your best friend called you to his bedside and made one dying request, would you grant it? Would you even try? This is what our Lord is doing here. He's asking us; He's pleading with us, to "Love one another". We can't do it perfectly, but we can try! He is so kind and generous, that He'll take our best efforts at brotherly love and cherish them. And multiply them. And reward them.

The Protest, vv.36-38.

In this little talk, our Lord has touched on two subjects: future events and present duties. Which one do you think "grabs" the Apostles? The same one that tends to work us up: future events. Having mentioned "going away", Peter wants to know two things: (1) Where are You going? and (2) Why can't I go with You?

He has an inkling of the first. The Lord is going to the grave. He's willing to go with Him. Or so he thinks.

Our Lord knows better. Peter is not ready to "lay down his life" for Christ. Later, he will be. But for now, it is Christ who must "lay down His life" for Peter. The bold disciple has to accept that. But he won't.

The Lord humbles him by prophesying: "The rooster will not crow till you have denied Me three times". Peter is stunned into silence. Philip has something to say later; so does Thomas; Judas too; and "others". But not Peter. He, the bravest of men will soon turn coward. And publicly disown his Lord and Savior!

What do we make of his denial? Good lessons can be drawn from it: the peril of boasting, for example. Or the weakness of good men. Or friends may disappoint you. Or put your confidence in no one but God. These are all true; we'd do well to think about them.

But none of them proves that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God". Which is, after all, the theme of John's Gospel. Does the passage speak to the issue? Yes it does; like this:

Peter's denial is regrettable but necessary. For the Redeemer's work is His work alone! No one can help him--not His dear friend Peter, not Nicodemus, His powerful ally, not the mobs He had fed--no one!

The Savior works solo!

Seven hundred years before, He put it thusly: "I have trodden the winepress alone..."I looked, but there was no one to help, and I wondered that there was no one to uphold; therefore, My own arm brought salvation..."

The old hymn is as wrong as it can be:

"Must Jesus bear the cross alone

and all the world go free?

The song says "No". But our Lord says "Yes". And we prefer His opinion to the song's.

When we see our Lord undertaking this superhuman work on His own--refusing help--we can be sure that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God". And we can have "eternal life in His name". And more: We can give eternal thanks, for what man could not do--alone or in any combination--God did in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Therefore, we renounce everything within ourselves, and say with Paul

"We are complete in Him".

God enable us to say so. For Christ's sake. Amen.