Yohanes 12:23

12:23 Jesus replied, ¹  “The time ²  has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. ³ 

Yohanes 12:27

12:27 “Now my soul is greatly distressed. And what should I say? ‘Father, deliver me ⁴  from this hour’? ⁵  No, but for this very reason I have come to this hour. ⁶ 

Yohanes 12:31-32

12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world ⁷  will be driven out. ⁸  12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people ⁹  to myself.”

[12:23]  ¹ tn Grk “Jesus answered them, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated here.

[12:23]  ² tn Grk “the hour.”

[12:23]  ³ sn Jesus’ reply, the time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified, is a bit puzzling. As far as the author’s account is concerned, Jesus totally ignores these Greeks and makes no further reference to them whatsoever. It appears that his words are addressed to Andrew and Philip, but in fact they must have had a wider audience, including possibly the Greeks who had wished to see him in the first place. The words the time has come recall all the previous references to “the hour” throughout the Fourth Gospel (see the note on time in 2:4). There is no doubt, in light of the following verse, that Jesus refers to his death here. On his pathway to glorification lies the cross, and it is just ahead.

[12:27]  ⁴ tn Or “save me.”

[12:27]  ⁵ tn Or “this occasion.”

[12:27]  sn Father, deliver me from this hour. It is now clear that Jesus’ hour has come – the hour of his return to the Father through crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension (see 12:23). This will be reiterated in 13:1 and 17:1. Jesus states (employing words similar to those of Ps 6:4) that his soul is troubled. What shall his response to his imminent death be? A prayer to the Father to deliver him from that hour? No, because it is on account of this very hour that Jesus has come. His sacrificial death has always remained the primary purpose of his mission into the world. Now, faced with the completion of that mission, shall he ask the Father to spare him from it? The expected answer is no.

[12:27]  ⁶ tn Or “this occasion.”

[12:31]  ⁷ sn The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan.

[12:31]  ⁸ tn Or “will be thrown out.” This translation regards the future passive ἐκβληθήσεται (ekblhqhsetai) as referring to an event future to the time of speaking.

[12:31]  sn The phrase driven out must refer to Satan’s loss of authority over this world. This must be in principle rather than in immediate fact, since 1 John 5:19 states that the whole world (still) lies in the power of the evil one (a reference to Satan). In an absolute sense the reference is proleptic. The coming of Jesus’ hour (his crucifixion, death, resurrection, and exaltation to the Father) marks the end of Satan’s domain and brings about his defeat, even though that defeat has not been ultimately worked out in history yet and awaits the consummation of the age.

[12:32]  ⁹ tn Grk “all.” The word “people” is not in the Greek text but is supplied for stylistic reasons and for clarity (cf. KJV “all men”).