John 12:27Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

His soul was so troubled that He would even have sought deliverance from death, if only it had been possible to avoid it. This belongs to the weakness of human nature.

But, He says, I cannot say anything by way of asking deliverance, because “for this purpose I came to this hour.”

It is as though He said: although death brings us trembling and confusion, still we must not avoid it.

For I too am now troubled, but I do not speak of deliverance from death, because one must endure what must be. I do not say, “Deliver Me from this hour,” but what?

He is a partaker of our nature, though without sin. Therefore, although as man, naturally loving life, He does not desire death and is troubled, He nevertheless does not refuse it, since it is needed for the salvation of the world.

“For this purpose,” He says, “I have come to this hour,” that I might accept death for all. By this He clearly teaches us that, even if we are troubled and grieve, we should not avoid death for the truth.

This was not in appearance or conception, but naturally and truly. Fear and timidity are natural passions in us, and do not belong to the number of sins.

Moreover, human states were stirred in Christ beneficially. They were not stirred so that these movements might master Him and grow ever stronger, as they do in us.

Rather, they were stirred so that, being conquered by the power of the Word, they might cease. Thus nature was transformed in the first Christ into a better and divine condition.

In this way, and in no other, the manner of healing could pass over to us. In Christ, as the firstfruits, human nature was raised into newness of life. In Him we also received what is beyond nature.

For this reason He is called the Second Adam in the divine Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:45). If, as man, He thirsted and grew weary, then He is also troubled by sufferings as something human.

Yet He is not troubled as we are. He is troubled only insofar as this pertains to the sensation of that condition. Then He at once returns again to the boldness proper to Him.

From this it is clear that He also had a rational soul. Just as thirst, or some similar condition, is a passion proper to the flesh, so disturbance through the image of terrible things must be a passion of the rational soul.

Only in the rational soul can such an image and awareness arise in us. Christ was not yet on the cross, but before it He was already troubled. Clearly He foresaw what was to come.

By His reason He was moved toward the image of the sufferings awaiting Him. We would not call the passion of fear a passion either of the impassible Godhead, or, certainly, of the flesh.

If even what has an irrational soul is troubled and feels fear, it does not come to fear through imagining and rationally foreseeing future suffering. Only when it is overtaken by the calamity itself does it begin to feel present danger.

But now the Lord is troubled not by what He sees, but by what He imagines and expects. Therefore Christ did not say, "My flesh is troubled," but "My soul," rejecting the supposition of the heretics.

If you say that in the Old Testament God also says to the Jews, "My soul hates your fasting, rest, and feasts" (cf. Is. 1:13-14), and similar things, we answer that Scripture uses our properties by condescension toward us.

For example, it figuratively applies to the bodiless One a face, eyes, and other members. But if we assert that such things are said figuratively of the Son of God even after the Incarnation, then He was only an image, appearance, and shadow.

He was not true man, as the godless Manes taught. Therefore the Word of God united to Himself the whole nature of man, in order to save the whole man. For what is not assumed is not saved.

Yet, having said "troubled," He did not fall silent there. He transforms the passion of fear into boldness and says, as it were: to die is nothing. I allowed the flesh to be afraid in order to transform it into boldness.

I came to give life to the inhabitants of the earth. Therefore I am ready for suffering.

As death was abolished in no other way than by the death of the Savior, so it is also with the fleshly passions of each person. If He had not been subject to fear, our nature would not have been freed from fear.

If He had not endured sorrow, it would never have been released from sorrow. If He had not feared and been afraid, it would never have been outside these passions.

You will find in Christ, in the corresponding manner, the very things present in each man. The movements of the passions of the flesh are not such that they rule, as they do in us. Rather, they are conquered and abolished by the power of the Word dwelling in the flesh, while nature is transformed into a better condition.

Yet in my thoughts I seem to hear the Lord answering: "You will follow Me all the more, for this happens in Me so that you may be strengthened. You heard the voice of My strength as addressed to you.

Now hear in Me the voice of your weakness. I give strength so that you may run, and I do not hinder you from hastening. But I take upon Myself what you fear, and I lay out the way to lead you."

O Lord, I see Your mercy. You, who are so great, permitted Yourself to be grieved, in order to give consolation to all the members of Your Body who are worn down by continual weakness, so that they might not perish in despair.

After the Lord Jesus Christ, in yesterday's passage, exhorted His servants to follow Him, He foretold His Passion in these words: "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit" (Jn 12:24).

After He urged those who wished to follow Him into the Kingdom of Heaven to hate their life in this life, if they hoped to keep it for eternal life, He again lowered His feeling to our weakness.

He said what begins today's passage: "Now My soul is troubled." Why is Your soul troubled, O Lord? For You said shortly before: "He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (Jn 12:25).

Do You then love Your soul in this world, and for that reason is it troubled as the hour approaches for leaving this world? Who would dare assert such a thing about the soul of the Lord?

But He placed us in Himself. He received us into Himself. Being our Head, He took upon Himself the feelings of His members.

Therefore He is not troubled by anyone else. Rather, as was said of Him when He raised Lazarus, He troubled Himself (cf. Jn 11:33). For there is one Mediator between God and men, the Man Jesus Christ (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5).

It was fitting that He should both move us toward what is above and endure with us what is lowest. I hear Him say above: "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. If the grain of wheat dies, it bears much fruit" (cf. Jn 12:23-24).

I hear: "He who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (Jn 12:25). Here I am not only given something to marvel at, but also commanded to imitate it.

By the words that follow, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also" (Jn 12:26), He urges me to despise the world.

He teaches me to see that this whole life is nothing. However long it may be, it is only smoke. In comparison with love for the eternal, every passing thing is of little value to me.

Yet again I hear my Lord, who by those words drew me from my weakness to His strength, saying: "Now My soul is troubled." What does this mean?

How do You command my soul to follow You, if I see that Your soul is troubled? How shall I endure what such strength as Yours barely bears? What foundation shall I find for myself, if the stone is shaken?

Yet it seems to me that the Lord answers my reflections and says to me: "You will follow Me all the more because I so abide in you that you will bear all things.

You heard the voice of My strength addressed to you. Hear in Me the voice of your weakness. I give you strength to press forward, and I do not hold back what makes you hasten.

But I receive upon Myself what throws you into confusion, and I lay out the way so that you may walk." O Lord! O Mediator, God above us and Man among us! I see Your mercy.

By being troubled, though so great, according to the will of Your love, You console many in Your Body who are crushed by their unavoidable weakness, so that they may not perish in despair.

In short, let the man who wishes to follow You hear by what path he must follow. Suppose the fatal hour draws near, and the choice arises whether to commit iniquity or suffer pain.

The weak soul is troubled. For its sake the invincible soul of Christ was willingly troubled. Prefer God's will to your own will.

For see what your Creator and Teacher adds next. He made you, and in order to teach you, He became what He Himself had made. He who made man became man.

Yet He remained unchanged God and changed man for the better. Hear, then, what He added after saying: "Now My soul is troubled." He says: "And what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour."

He sorrowed not over His own suffering, but over our destruction, when He said: “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered” (Mt 26:31).

He sorrowed because He was leaving us, little children. His readiness to accept death is described in detail in Scripture.

He went out to meet those seeking Him. He comforted the troubled, encouraged the frightened, and deemed the betrayer worthy of a kiss. See Jn 18:4-8; Mt 26:51-56.

The prayer of Jesus and the voice from heaven: “My soul is now troubled; and what shall I say?” Shall I say, “Father, deliver Me from this hour”? No, I will not say this, for this purpose I came to this hour.

But I will say: “Father, glorify Your name.” As soon as Jesus said, “Father, glorify Your name,” a voice immediately resounded from the height of heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

The Lord’s disturbance of soul, as He contemplated the Cross and death, was now expressed as it was in the garden of Gethsemane. It was expressed in the same prayer for deliverance from death, Mt 26:39 and following.

Only here it was in a less intense degree than there. This lesser degree of inner strain is visible in His hesitation and, as it were, perplexity: “What shall I say?”

The disturbance of soul draws Him to prayer for consolation, as the all-powerful means of such consolation. The subject of the prayer is deliverance from the hour of death; cf. Mk 14:34 and note.

But the prayer for this is preceded by a kind of perplexity, and immediately accompanied by decisive devotion to the will of God: “But for this purpose I came to this hour.”

This is the same as in the prayer of Gethsemane: “Your will be done” (Mt 26:42), and, “Not what I will, but what You will” (Mk 14:36).

In this was already expressed victory over disturbance and struggle of soul.

This victory was expressed still more decisively, fully, and solemnly in the change of the very subject of the prayer.

Instead of what had just been said, “Deliver Me from this hour,” the Lord prays solemnly and victoriously: “Glorify Your name.”

That is, through My sufferings and death manifest the glory of Your name. Cf. Chrysostom and Theophylact.

The whole course of this discourse of Christ compels us to understand these words in this way. The discourse concerns exclusively the death and sufferings of the Messiah, and His passage by this path into heavenly glory.

In His glorification there is also the glory of God the Father, the glory of His name (Phil 2:11).

For the third time a voice from heaven, from the Heavenly Father, resounds over the Son of Man. The first time it was heard at the baptism in the Jordan, Mt 3:17; Mk 1:11; Lk 3:22.

The second time was on Tabor, Mt 17:5; 2 Pet 1:17-18; Lk 9:35. The third time is now.

At the beginning, middle, and end of Christ’s ministry, the Heavenly Father bears witness to the significance of the Son.

Frivolity may say that “unclear thought mistook the thunder that struck the senses for the voice of God” (De Bette, Stud. und Krit. 1834, 4, 939).

On the contrary, the historian and eyewitness firmly says that this was a voice from heaven, articulate and clear.

He also states what the opinions of spiritually undeveloped people about this matter were: “The people standing by, who heard it, said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to Him.’”

The latter opinion deserves special notice, though De Bette entirely overlooks it. Even among the people there were some who distinguished articulate signs, words, in the heavenly voice.

They therefore did not regard it as mute thunder or a dull rumble.

If the other apostles, besides John, had not understood the voice along with the people, the exact historian would have said so. He is not ashamed to display the apostles’ lack of understanding where it occurred.

Therefore it must be accepted as certain that not John alone, but all the apostles, heard and understood the heavenly voice as John transmits it.

Finally, one must not forget that the Apostles Peter and Paul heard a voice from heaven, articulate signs (Acts 9:7; Acts 22:7, 10; Acts 13:15). Later many saints also heard such voices, for example St. Polycarp (Ep. de mart. Polycarpi § 9).

“I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The Heavenly Father embraces His whole relation to the Son, in its past and future.

He does not point to some particular manifestation of His will to the Son. Rather, embracing the whole course of events concerning sinful humanity, taken under the protection of the Son of God, He speaks.

He says that the Father’s good pleasure always rests upon the work of the Son, the Redeemer.

“This voice was not for My sake, but for the sake of the people.” At the Jordan the voice from heaven was heard by the Baptist. On Tabor it was heard by the three apostles.

Now it resounds in the hearing of the people, to warn the simple-hearted against participation in the fearful crime being prepared. It also instructs those among the people who, if not now, then later, would attend to the significance of Christ Jesus.

But above this horror the Lord immediately manifests obedience to the will of God as man. As God, He manifests divine knowledge of the necessity of the great sacrifice, with all its sufferings, without which it would not be a sacrifice.

Great and incomprehensible mystery of mercy. Though with our weak reason, we can grasp that only true God, having become true man, could “redeem us from the curse of the law” (Gal 3:13).

“My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death,” the divine Sufferer said of His human soul, experiencing human horror before the approaching agonizing death.

Then He added: “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Mt 26:38-39).

The Spirit of the Lord said: “What shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour.”

First the man cried out: “My soul is troubled.” Then God speaks, in His wisdom ordering the moral world for the human soul by the great love of God, at the price of His sufferings.

To this the human soul of Jesus submits, obedient to the will of God.