John 12:27 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Now is my soul troubled’ means now am I troubled, fully, completely. He was deeply troubled. He was facing Calvary. He knows what he is going to through. He is deeply troubled because he can see what even the redeemed will have to suffer if he does not go to Calvary, and he is troubled for them. He must go through with this. His soul is troubled because it is going to be a terrible ordeal.We are tempted to say, of course he is troubled in his manhood. The human part of him shrinks with horror at Calvary. Yes, but dear friends that is not enough. Even the divine nature shrank from Calvary. Not just the human nature. All of Christ, even the divine nature shrank from Calvary. How? How would the divine nature be frightened of physical sufferings and pains? Well because the divine nature had to be clothed with the guilt of our sin. He had to wear the stinking clothing of our guilt and sin in order to perish on our behalf, so offensive to his great purity and holiness to be made like us, to suffer for us. He never was a sinner but he took our guilt. The anguish of Christ is beyond human language to describe.‘And what shall I say?’ – the double question – ‘Father, save me from this hour’, shall I say that? No, he says. ‘For this cause came I unto this hour.’ The Lord seems to recoil from going to Calvary. Some say here he suffered a few moments disobedience, but that is foolishness. He could never then have saved us. No, it means this: he was God and man; he saw perfectly what he must do. The Father must veil his face and strike the Son relentlessly, and the Son saw the immensity of it. His human sensitivities recoiled at what his divine nature saw. ‘No, I will not say that’, he affirms, ’Father glorify thy name.’ And he yields entirely to Calvary for us.