Why He was Troubled (John Part 39)
Text: John 12:27-28
A little over 80 years ago now, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a man named Neville Chamberlain returned to England after visiting with Adolph Hitler. Germany had been massing their armies since the early 1930’s and had violated the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding their Luftwaffe (air force). In March of 1936 Germany seized the Rhineland, and when confronted about this by France and England, Hitler said, he simply wished to create a stable and strong Germany and would stop his aggression. Then; in March of 1938 Germany took Austria, and both the American President FDR and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sent letters to Hitler, urging peace. Hitler said he was for peace and that he would advance no further. Then in September of 1938 Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement along with France, Germany and Italy. The agreement allowed Germany to annex part of Czechoslovakia in exchange for peace. Chamberlain returned to England with a worthless piece of paper and said, “I believe it is peace for our time.” Winston Churchill immediately challenged Chamberlain’s appeasement policy by saying, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.” A year later World War II erupted.
And the lesson, that apparently NO ONE ever seems to learn is that you cannot appease evil. Whether that evil is Adolph Hitler, or Communism, or terrorism, or the homosexual agenda. You give them an inch and they’ll take a mile, all the while complaining that they are oppressed, and saying “We just want what’s ours, and what’s right”. But at the same time, this idea, or concept of appeasement is a Biblical theme… not in the sense of political history, or in the sense of stopping an evil dictator from attacking neighboring countries, or in the sense of stopping an evil and wicked ideology from spreading, but in the sense of satisfying the wrath of God so that it doesn’t come upon all of humanity. And that’s what we’re going to be looking at this morning.
Let’s go ahead and open our Bibles to John 12:27-28 (READ).
Now remember, Jesus has just been told that there were some Greeks who were interested in meeting Him and learning more about Him, and He just said, “the hour has come”, meaning it was getting near time for Him to be crucified, and to die for man’s sin. And then the very next thing He says here in our text is that His soul is troubled. Now why was Jesus soul troubled? It’s not because He’s going to die. Jesus already knew that He was going to die for our sin. But He also knew that He was going to be raised up again after death. John 10:17-18 makes that clear. No… His soul is troubled because of what’s going to take place on the cross.
Before I get into that, let me ask you a question: What does the term salvation mean?
If you go to the Bible you’ll actually find the word “salvation” used in about 70 different ways. That’s why people get messed up sometimes, because they’re using it the same way every time, but the Bible doesn’t use the word the same way every single time. Think about it with me for a second… if someone is rescued from defeat in battle, he has experienced salvation. If someone is healed of a life threatening illness, he experiences salvation from sickness and death. If people suffering from severe drought and starvation are given food, they experience salvation. And this isn’t some weird concept that the word is used in different ways. We do the same thing. We save money. A fighter can be “saved by the bell”, that doesn’t mean he’s been forgiven of all his sin, and given eternal life. So when we come across that word, “saved”, or the term “salvation” it’s helpful to us to ask, “Saved from what?” Saved from being uncomfortable? Saved from being poor? Saved from unhappiness? What do we mean when we urge people everywhere to be saved? What does the Bible mean when it says Jesus is our Savior? What does He save us from?
Well… the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians. Let’s go ahead and turn there.
1 Thessalonians 1:2 – 10 (READ). Did you catch what Paul says in verse 10? He says, “Jesus who delivers us (or saves us) from THE WRATH TO COME.”
Ultimately; Jesus died to save us from the wrath of God that we deserved, due to our sin.
Traditionally; theologians have called this substitutionary atonement.
But what does that mean exactly? Well… to put it simply, it means that Jesus takes our place on the cross. He is our substitute. And as our substitute, the wrath of God against our sin is poured out upon Him, as He hangs on the cross. He takes the punishment we deserved. And let me just tell ya’… this is the story of the Bible. This is what the whole Bible is pointing to. It starts way back in Genesis chapter 3… you remember that right? God had said that on the day that Adam ate from the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, he would surely die. In other words, there will be a punishment for your lawless deed and sin against God. And God’s Word is true. The instant Adam ate the fruit, he died spiritually, and was placed under the curse of God. Now… Adam and Eve could have been put to death physically as well. God would’ve been just in doing that. But instead, an animal died in their place, and God used the skin of that animal to cover their sin and nakedness. In other words, that animal died as a substitute… but it was just an animal, and it was unable to totally pay for their sin, and so eventually, Adam and Eve both physically died. Then if you fast forward to Genesis 22, we see that God has said to Abraham, “Abraham, you are to take your one and only son, Isaac and offer him up as a sacrifice.” And Abraham was going to obey, he had the knife raised above Isaacs head, when God stopped him, and provided a substitute, a ram that was caught in a nearby thicket. So, Isaac lived because God had provided a substitute for him.
Isaac lived, because something else took his place.
Then if you jump to Exodus 12… you see that God is going to bring judgment upon Egypt, but He tells His people to take a spotless lamb… a lamb without any blemishes, and kill it, and spread it’s blood on their doorposts, and God says that when He sees the blood that has been applied, He will pass over that home, and the people inside that home will live… anyone who didn’t have that blood of a lamb on their doorposts, lost their firstborn son. And from that point on, every year, the people of Israel would offer up a lamb for their sin, so that the lamb could take their place and take their punishment. It would be killed for their sin. And this went on for approximately 1,500 years – that’s 1,500 years that tens of thousands, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of lambs were killed… year after year, after year. And they had to be, because those sacrificial lambs were just animals. They could only represent something… they could only be physically without blemish, so they could never totally pay for a man’s sin. They just covered it for another year.
The point is – that from the very beginning, from the time when Adam and Eve first sinned, God had been showing them that they needed a substitute… but He was also showing them that no amount of sacrificial lambs, or goats, or turtle doves, or any animal would ever fully pay for sin, and no amount of animal sacrifices could ever satisfy the justice of our perfectly and completely holy God. And that’s because He is perfectly and completely holy. We can’t even understand what the means… we can define it by words, but we can’t really comprehend it.
Turn with me to Hebrews 10:1-14 (READ).
The writer of Hebrews lays it out for us. He says that animal sacrifices can never make perfect fallen man. And it’s impossible for animal sacrifices to take away sin… but they did serve as a reminder, of not only our sin, but that God had promised something greater… or rather I should say, SOMEONE greater. And in verse 5 the writer says, “When Christ came into this world, He said, ‘Sacrifice and offerings You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me.’” Why didn’t God desire the sacrifices and offerings? Because they didn’t fully pay for sin, they didn’t fully appease His wrath… so what does He do? He prepares a body for Christ… Animals didn’t delight or satisfy God, because animals cannot finally and FULLY represent humanity in their sin.
And so God comes as a man, born under the Law, and He obeys the Law completely, and fulfills it completely, and then He goes to the cross to be our substitute.
This is the story of the Bible… This is the Gospel, the Good News.
That Jesus makes atonement for our sin, by being our substitute, and that He endures the wrath of God in our place, on the cross.
And make sure you understand this… Jesus did this willingly. He wasn’t forced to go to the cross by God the Father or anything like that. This was the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s plan all along, before the foundation of the earth. Remember John 10:17-18? Jesus says, “I lay it down willingly.” Jesus knew and understood exactly what He was doing. He knew and understood it when He created Adam in the garden. This was God’s plan. This is what is so amazing about it all! It will make your head swim.
Now I’ve said all that, and we’ve gone through all of that, so that we can understand our text. Jesus isn’t afraid of dying. He is willingly going to lay down His life, and He knows that He is going to be raised up again. He has the power to take up His life again. He’s already demonstrated His power over death by raising Lazarus. Death has no hold on Him. So His soul is not troubled by the death He’s going to die. His soul is troubled, because before death comes, He has to endure the wrath of God on our behalf. And this is why the Bible tells us that the person who has no fear of God, and who rejects Jesus is a fool. If the eternal Son of God is troubled in His soul by the prospect of enduring the wrath of God on the cross, then you and I have no idea what hell will be like. We have no concept of how horrible it will be. It should terrify us! It should shake us to our core! And it should cause us who have been saved from that wrath to come, to rejoice, and celebrate, and be thankful, and glad. But it should also move us to action. It should move us because we want to see people escape the eternal wrath of God, but also it should move us to action in our thoughts, our words, our actions and behaviors, and in our lives because of this immense thankfulness that Jesus paid it all. That He did it for us, so that we will never have to.
Give Him glory, honor, and praise!
It’s all because of Jesus that we stand redeemed, forgiven, and justified before God. It’s all because of Jesus that we have been saved. “I stand amazed in the presence, of Jesus the Nazarene, and wonder how He could love me? A sinner, condemned, unclean? How marvelous! How wonderful! And my song shall ever be! How marvelous! How wonderful! Is my Savior’s love for me.”
CLOSING
