97 John 13:31-32 THE GLORIFICATION OF JESUS AT HAND Introduction: When there is a difficult and painful task to be accomplished there is a certain amount of comfort and reassurance when you can see progress made and especially when you can see that it is almost done. This is what is taking place in our text today. Jesus is headed for the difficult and painful task of dying on the cross for the souls of men. In our text Jesus receives some degree of comfort in seeing an essential step accomplished that will lead to the completion of the task which He has come to do. Judas Iscariot leaves the Passover Supper and goes to contact the Jewish leaders for the purpose of betraying Jesus into their hands. I. A reminder of three important events which had already taken place In order that you may get a clearer picture of what is taking place in our text let me remind you of three important events which took place prior to our text. The first event took place back in John 12:23, 27. At that time Jesus is still in the Jewish temple. Some Gentiles had come into the Gentile courtyard hoping to see and talk with Jesus. Jesus was not there, but Philip, one of His Apostles was there. They told Philip that they wanted to see Jesus. They wanted Jesus to come out of the Jewish courtyard, which they could not enter, and come into the Gentile courtyard where they were. Philip was hesitant to ask Jesus to come out. He discussed the matter with Andrew, another apostle. They went together and told Jesus that the Gentiles wanted Him to come out to see them. There is no indication that Jesus went out to see the Gentiles, but He did give a message which would be delivered to them. He gave this message openly before a great crowd of Jews. Listen to what He said. John 12:23, "And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come (that is, it was drawing very near) that the Son of man should be glorified." He was talking about His crucifixion. Then in verse 27 He said, "Now is my soul troubled..." In this verse we see that Jesus dreaded the terrible ordeal that was ahead of Him on the cross. It deeply disturbed His soul because He knew how great His suffering would be. (V. 27), "... and what shall I say..?" Jesus asked this question: "Shall I say, `Father, deliver me from this hour..?" Jesus answered His own question. He would not say, "Father, save me from this hour." If Jesus had ever prayed that prayer, God the Father would have granted His request and we would all be without a Savior. Later in the Garden of Gethsemene He would pray, in effect, "Father, if there is any other way for man to be saved, let this cup of suffering pass from me." But knowing that there was no other way for man to be saved, He added, "...never-the-less, not my will, but thine be done." Here in verse 27 Jesus concludes that He could never ask God to spare Him from the cross. This was the very purpose for which He had come into the world. He was fully committed to go to the cross. The second event that I would recall to your memory took place during the observance of the Passover Supper. At that time Jesus experienced another great emotional disturbance in His soul. The time had come for Him to announce to His disciples that one of them would betray Him into the hands of the Jewish leaders who would put Him to death, John 13:21. When Jesus made this announcement, John the writer of this book, tells us that Jesus was troubled in spirit. This was the same kind of deep sorrow in His soul which He had experienced earlier. It disturbed His soul that one of His very dearest friends would betray Him to an enemy who wanted to kill Him. He was still committed to go to the cross, but it disturbed Him that one whom He loved so dearly could betray Him. We see in all this that as the time drew nearer for the crucifixion, the greater the emotional disturbance in His soul became. Later in the Garden of Gethsemene, as I have already mentioned, He would cry out, "Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me!" Also there in the Garden of Gethsemene the emotional pressure would be so great that He would sweat as it were great drops of blood. It was not actually sweat, but it was actually blood. His blood pressure would shoot up so high that the blood vessels underneath the surface of His skin would burst and great drops of blood would ooze through the skin like sweat. So Jesus knew that there was a terrible ordeal that was ahead, but Jesus was still fully committed to go to the cross. Jesus was fully committed to go to the cross! This was His mission! This was His goal and things are beginning to shape up so as to bring about the accomplishment of His goal! This brings us to the third event which took place prior to our text. This event was Judas Iscariot leaving the supper and going out to betray Jesus. Jesus had already announced that one of the disciples would be the guilty party. Jesus had already identified Judas to the Apostle John as the betrayer. Jesus had already told John that the betrayer would be the man to whom He would give a sop. He had already dipped a piece of bread in the sauce and given it to Judas. Jesus had already told Judas, "What thou doest do quickly." Judas had already risen from the table and had gone went out into the night to contact the Jewish leaders and to lead them to the Garden of Gethsemene where He knew that Jesus would go after when the supper was over. The Jewish leaders had seen Jesus daily in the temple, but they had been afraid to arrest Him in the presence of the people there. They were afraid that the multitude of common people would tear them limb from limb if they were to lay a hand on Jesus. Then when Jesus would leave the temple in the evening, they did not know where He went. He would simply disappear into the crowds and they could not follow Him to see where He would be at night. But Judas knew. Judas knew that Jesus would start back toward Bethany and that He would stop for a while at the Garden of Gethsemene. So now Judas is on his way to the temple to make arrangements to lead the Jewish leaders to Gethsemene where Jesus would soon be. II. The betrayal by Judas bringing about the glorification of Jesus V. 31, "Therefore, when he was gone out, Jesus said, Now is the Son of man glorified..." As soon as Judas Iscariot went out Jesus said, "Now is the Son of man glorified..." He was not yet on the cross. He had not even been arrested yet. But one giant step had been taken toward the accomplishment of His goal. The betrayer was on his way to betray Him and within a few hours He would be arrested and brought to trial. He would soon be nailed to the cross. It would all soon be accomplished. The event that He had been waiting for from before the foundation of the world has finally arrived. It is almost over! It is almost done! Even back in John 12:23. He had said, "The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified." Jesus had spoken of His crucifixion as His glorification. He was talking about the nearness of His crucifixion. The human part of Him dreaded the suffering on the cross. But the Deity part of Him looked forward to His glorification. If there had been any other way for man to be saved, He would have gladly bypassed the cross. But since there was no other way for man to be saved, He was anxious to get it over with. Jesus knew that it would be by His death on the cross that His greatest accomplishment would be achieved. It was by His death on the cross that His greatest glory would come. It would be through His greatest suffering --- his greatest agony --- that His greatest glory would come! As we look backward into eternity before the earth was created Jesus had performed a great and splendorous act. He created a great host of holy angels. These are spirit beings. They have great intelligence and great power and great glory and there was a great number of them. It was a great event. It was a tremendous accomplishment. It brought great glory to Himself. But it was not the event that would bring Him the greatest glory. It was also a great event when Jesus created the material universe. John 1:3 says that all things were made by Him and that without Him was anything made that was made. That means that He not only created the angels, but He created all of the material universe. He spoke the worlds into existence and when He did the angels of God broke out in a great song of praise. It was a tremendous display of His power. It was a splendorous scene. It was a great accomplishment. It was a moment for which He was most certainly worthy of great glory and praise. But this was not the event which would bring Him His greatest glory. Then when the earth was without form and void and Jesus brought order to a shattered universe, it was a splendorous event. He spoke and said, "Let there be light and there was light." Jesus divided the waters and formed an atmosphere around the earth which would sustain life. Jesus brought forth plant life in all of its forms. Jesus made the creatures of the sea and the fowl of the air. Jesus made the domestic animals and the wild beasts. These things were all tremendous events. But when Jesus created man He created His masterpiece because man was created in the very image of God. But in none of these events did Jesus receive His greatest glory. When Jesus was born in human flesh this, too, was a great accomplishment and one which brings Him great glory. Never in all the history of the world has any other human being ever been conceived without an earthly father. No other human being had been conceived who did not inherit the sin nature of fallen Adam. Jesus was the only human being who had ever lived who never sinned. So the virgin birth of Jesus Christ stood as a monument to His glory. He was glorified in such a birth. He had been glorified by the miracles that He performed during His earthy ministry. His miracles had brought him great popularity among the common people of Israel. But there was no event up to this time and no event would ever come which would bring Him greater glory than His death on the cross. God the Father was well pleased with Him for being willing to lay down His life for lost sinners. The holy angels of God who had not followed Satan in rebellion against God stand in awe of His great love for sinful man and they sing His highest praise. Sinners who once were lost but now are saved bow their heads and give praise to Him for His wondrous love. III. God The Father glorified by the death of Jesus (V. 31), "...and God is glorified in him." Just as the greatest glory has come to Jesus Christ as a result of His death at Calvary, even so the greatest glory to God the Father has come as a result of the fact that God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son that men might be saved. The angels of God marvel at God's great love for man. The sinner who has been saved praises God the Father for loving him and for sending Jesus Christ to the cross to die for him that he might be saved. IV. Jesus to be further glorified by the resurrection V. 32, "If God be glorified in him, God shall also glorify him in himself..." The idea expressed here is that Jesus will not be dependent on glory that He receives as a result of His material creation nor on the glory that He receives as a result of His miracles nor on declarations by holy prophets such as John the Baptist, but Jesus will receive glory as a result of His own power to come forth from the grave. It is marvelous that Jesus would be willing to die for us, and it is equally marvelous that Jesus would come forth from the grave after three days and three nights in the grave. V. The nearness of the death of Jesus (V. 32), "...and shall straightway glorify him." Now that Judas has left the Passover table and has started toward the temple, it would not be long until His glorification by His death on the cross would be fully achieved. Several thousands of years had gone by since God the Father had planned this event. God had planned the event before the foundation of the world. In the Garden of Eden God told Adam about the Serpent bruising the heel of the Seed of Waman, He was prophecying that Jesus would be crucified. But that prophecy was made a long time ago. In the Law of Moses when Moses gave instructions for the blood of animals to be shed this was a picture of Jesus being crucified on the cross. But that law was given a long, long time ago. When Jesus was born into this world the time was drawing near, but even that was thirty-three years ago. When Jesus was baptized that gave a picture of His death, burial and resurrection, but that was three years ago. Jesus still had three years to wait. But when Judas went to betray Jesus into the hands of the Jewish leaders the time was running out. Jesus did not have long to wait. VI. The nearness of our own death Just as the death of Jesus was getting near, even so our own death draws near. We are getting closer and closer to our own death with every passing day. Those of us who are unsaved must act quickly and call upon Jesus for salvation or be cast into everlasting fire to be tormented forever and ever. Those of us who are saved also need to act quickly. We need go be busy serving the Lord. Our time for serving the Lord in this old world is likewise fast running out. Yet even as the death of Jesus brought about His glorification, even so our own death will our own glorification. We will pass from this world to world of splendor and glory. Then at God's appointed time our own bodies will be brought forth from the grave and changed into the likeness of the glorified body of Jesus Christ. We will not be identical to Him, but we will be like Him. In that glorified condition and in a place of splendor we will live forever with God.