Living with Christ in the Shadow of the Cross John 12:31-36
A young convert in Congo stated in a prayer: “Lord Jesus, You are the needle, and I am the cotton.”
The missionary thought that was strange language so he asked the man about this unusual expression. What had happened was that the young convert had been at the school that day and seen the girls sewing. He noted that the thread always followed the needle.
In the same way, he wanted to follow Jesus where He led.
Jesus says “Follow Me” in the Gospel accounts twenty-one times. Six of those are duplicated in Matthew, Mark, and Luke with another eight unique occasions found in the Gospel of John. Jesus wants us to follow Him so closely at all times, so completely yielded to Him – with no hint of daylight between our lives and our teachings and His life and His teachings – that we follow Him as directly and dependently as the thread follows the needle.
Consider the three contrasts that Jesus gives in the next six verses…
CONTRAST #1 – SATAN VERSUS JESUS – 12:31-32:
The judgment of Satan, the hater of God, the deceiver of humans, and the enemy of all that is holy and righteous and good was about to happen. The death of Christ on the cross – unknown to Satan – was the nail in Satan’s coffin! Jesus states: “Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” That is future tense. But Jesus says a similar thing in 16:11 but He uses a different tense: “the ruler of this world has been judged.” That tense refers to a settled, unchanging, state of things. In other words, once Jesus died and rose again, Satan was and is forever in a state of having been judged – and condemned by Jehovah God. His fate is sealed and His power over human beings is now broken as long as we are in Christ Jesus.
But here’s the contrast… Verse 32: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me.” When Satan put Jesus on the cross, it was the “death” of Satan’s power over humankind. I have a sermon, I have not yet preached here, called the “Suicide of Satan” in which I show that point.
But, the death of Jesus on the cross is not the death of His power. Jesus says that if He is “lifted up from the earth,” He will “draw all men unto Me.”
Satan is doomed to judgment; Jesus came to save us from judgment. That’s the contrast.
CONTRAST #2 – DEATH VERSUS LIFE – 12:33-34:
The “glorification” of Jesus and the Father’s name would certainly include the resurrection from the dead, but the resurrection could not happen until the death took place. And Jesus would die for theological reasons – to experience the separation from God that had to happen because of sin.
The crowd, however, was confused at this prediction of His death. They understood from the “Law,” by which they could easily mean anything written in the OT (“Law” in the gospel of John can even refer to the book of Psalms) – that the “Messiah / Christ” was to “remain forever.” How could Jesus say “the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man.”
So here is contrast #2 – Would the Messiah live forever or would He die? A number of verses from the OT might be in the Jews’ mind relative to the prediction that the Messiah would live forever: Psalm 110:4; Isaiah 9:7; Ezekiel 37:25; Daniel 7:14; Psalm 72:17; 89:35-37.
Here is the second contrast – How is it possible that the Messiah could both “die” and “live forever”? What was missing in the Jews’ understanding? Of course, it is the resurrection!
CONTRAST #3 – LIGHT VERSUS DARKNESS – 12:35-36:
But Jesus does not enter into a discussion with the Jews about their misunderstanding of the nature of the Messiah. Notice in verse 35 He brings up the third contrast.
Jesus says, “While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become sons of light.” In other words, Jesus did not engage in a debate about their misunderstanding of the nature of the Messiah. He simply says, “I am the needle. You are the thread. Align yourself with Me while you can, so you can have the nature, the qualities of “light.” Without going into any further study, Christians are “sons of light” (1 Thess. 5:5; Eph. 5:8). We have the characteristics of walking in the light; we are identified with Christ who is “the” light.
The third contrast… We live in a dark world, but we don’t have to follow the darkness!
Three contrasts:
Satan versus Jesus – Satan loses; Jesus wins.
Death versus life – Death loses; Life wins.
Light versus darkness – Darkness loses; light wins.
Jesus is life and light. Identify yourself with Him so closely that there is no hint of daylight between you. In that way, you will avoid darkness, death, and Satan.
Paul Holland
