John 12:19 Commentary and Bible Study

This brings us to the fourth voice, the voice of his enemies, the voice of his opponents. They are against him, they hate him; they do not believe he is the Messiah. But look carefully: what they say and how they act shows their endorsement of him unwittingly. They say effectively, ‘This man, Jesus of Nazareth so obviously fulfils the prophecies. This Jesus of Nazareth has such power and nobody can do these things. For four hundred years, we as a nation have seen no prophet performing miracles, and now he exceeds them all, in numbers of miracles, in significance of miracles, in raising the dead. These signs are invincible and we cannot disqualify them; we cannot say that they are fraudulent. We have looked so closely; we do not understand it. But we do not believe in him. The only remedy we have is his execution. We have got to seize him and take him and kill him.’ But unwittingly they are affirming all his authenticity.‘The Pharisees’, and we can be sure the chief priests also, ‘therefore said among themselves …’ There are different factions, different parties. They have consulted together, and they have determined now at last, that they have got to get on with it, and have him arrested and executed, but they have not managed it. Some of them have evidently said: ‘All in good time. We will wait for the right moment.’ And the others are now saying: ‘Well now you have waited and you have waited, and look our situation has got worse. He has now swept everybody into his camp.’By the world, I think they primarily mean all the people of the Jews. But as it happens they mean more than they realise, because in the very next verse, we are going to see how the foreigners are going after Christ too. It is the Pharisees unwittingly endorsing his power, his hold over the people, and his fulfilment of all the Messianic signs. But they hate him, and they do so because he is against them. They can see that their entire order is going to collapse and their privileges. And they hate him because he calls for repentance and cleansing of hearts, and they were hypocrites and they did not want that message. Even the voice of his opponents, when you read between the lines, endorses him and authenticates him.