"Assuring Promises"

He told them before it happened, and when it happened they believed.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

“I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; 31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.”

The commentators struggle with the last line of this chapter, ‘Get up, let us go from here’. One actually concluded that Jesus was actually saying, ‘Let’s change the subject now’.

Personally I have no problem taking that line to mean that knowing Judas Iscariot would be on his way back with a mob, and having more that He wanted to say to His friends, Jesus said, ‘Let’s go’, and continued to talk to them as they went out. Maybe they even relocated to some quiet place where He finished His discourse before going out across the Kidron to Gethsemane. It doesn’t really matter, does it? For me it just lends credibility to the historical account and the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, that John would include this statement that seemingly has no significance except for the fact that Jesus said it and the Apostle was faithful to record every word.

Having left that behind then, let’s just look at the prior content of verses 30 and 31.

Jesus indicated that the time was short and He would not be saying much more.

Before He was finished, in chapter 16 verse 12, He would tell them that there were many things He wanted to say but that they could not bear them now. That is an interesting thing for Jesus to say at the particular time He said it, and Lord willing we will talk more about that later. But here His time was shortened by the fact that the ruler of this world was coming.

When Satan attempted unsuccessfully to tempt Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of His public ministry, after his failure he left Jesus ‘for a time’. That’s what we’re told by the Gospel writer. Now he is coming back, this time using the person of Judas Iscariot, and he will fail once more because there is no sin in Jesus and Satan cannot get a claw hold where there is no sin nature to appeal to.

Here is something worthy of note. When Satan temps with the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the boastful pride of life, he uses the sinner and uses him up, then deserts him and leaves him in a worse state than he was.

This is in absolute opposing contrast to the precious Holy Spirit of Christ, Who comes gently and indwells the believer and from that moment begins to make him better and better until finally He will make Him just like Jesus.

1 Jn 3:2

Now the sentence doesn’t end there so pay attention. Just ignore the verse #31 there and read. “…and he has nothing in Me; but so that…”

See it? What is Jesus telling them? He is saying that Satan cannot win. Satan has no claim whatsoever on Jesus Christ! The devil was as much a tool at this moment being used of God to carry out His plan of redemption as anyone else in the story.

All the way back at the beginning God told Satan in the presence of two witnesses, the first man and woman, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel”. Genesis 3:15