12What Jesus’ Death Meant to Him  (John 14:28–31)

“You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.” (14:28–31)

The death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are the central truths of the Christian faith. As J. C. Ryle declared more than 150 years ago, Christ’s death is “the grand peculiarity of the Christian religion. Other religions have laws and moral precepts,—forms and ceremonies,—rewards and punishments. But other religions cannot tell us of a dying Saviour. They cannot show us the cross. This is the crown and glory of the Gospel” (J. C. Ryle, The Cross: A Call to the Fundamentals of Religion [repr.; Pensacola, Fla.: Chapel Library, 1998], 18; emphasis in original). The cross is at the very heart of all that believers hold dear. In the words of John F. Walvoord:

Christ’s sacrificial death was the ultimate goal of the incarnation. The reason He came (John 12:27) was “to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45) so that through His death He might reconcile sinners to God (2 Cor. 5:18–21). The cross was neither a disruption of the divine plan, nor an accident, but was exactly what God had designed from before time began (2 Tim. 1:9). That is evident from the Lord’s repeated predictions regarding His death at the hands of wicked men (Matt. 12:40; 16:4, 21; 17:12, 22–23; 20:17–19, 28; 26:2, 28, 31; Mark 9:9; Luke 17:25; 22:15; 24:6–7, 25–26; John 2:19–21;3:14;8:28; 10:11, 17–18; 12:27, 32–33; 15:13; 18:11, 32). His suffering was also foretold by the Old Testament prophets (cf. Ps. 22:1, 16, 18; Isa. 52:13–53:12; Dan. 9:26; Zech. 12:10), John the Baptist (John 1:29, 36), and Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration (Luke 9:30–31).

Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice is, of course, central to the life of His true church. Baptism pictures believers’ union with Him in His death (cf. Rom. 6:3); in celebrating Communion they “proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (1 Cor. 11:26); in preaching the gospel they “preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23).

Christ’s death brings to life all the rich blessings of salvation. Through His death believers are justified—a legal term meaning “to declare righteous.” Paul wrote that those who place their faith in Jesus Christ are “justified by His blood … justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus … who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification” (Rom. 5:9; 3:24; 4:25). God declares repentant sinners righteous because Christ’s death paid the penalty for their sins and His righteousness is imputed to them (Rom. 5:19; 1 Cor. 1:30;2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9).

Christ’s death also redeems His people from slavery to sin. “In Him [Christ],” Paul declared, “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7; cf. Rom. 3:24; Gal. 3:13). It was “not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, [that Christ] entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). “The Son of Man,” Jesus said, “did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28; cf. 1 Tim. 2:6; Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 1:18; 2:24; Rev. 1:5; 5:9).

Christ was able to ransom the elect because His death propitiated (appeased, satisfied) God’s holy wrath against sin. Paul wrote in Romans 3:25 that “God displayed [Jesus] publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” Christ was able “to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17) because “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2; cf. 4:10).

Since God determined that “without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” of sin (Heb. 9:22), it was essential for Christ to die to obtain that forgiveness for believers. On the night before His death, Jesus said, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). It is through the sacrifice of God’s “beloved Son” that “we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13–14). Later in that same epistle Paul wrote,

John reminded his readers that “if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7; cf. Rev. 7:14).

The death of Christ reconciles all believing sinners to God. To the Romans Paul wrote, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation” (Rom. 5:10–11). In 2 Corinthians 5:19 he noted that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” He told the Colossians that it pleased the Father “through [Christ] to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross… He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach” (Col. 1:20, 22).

Leon Morris summarized what Christ’s death means for believers in the following list. By His death

As he contemplated all that Christ’s death means to believers, Paul could only exclaim, “May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14), and “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Because of its supreme significance, it is not surprising that countless words have been written expounding the vast, rich meaning of Christ’s death for believers.

What is not so often considered is what the Lord’s death meant to Him. Even Christ’s eleven closest followers, on the eve of the crucifixion, did not grasp the significance of Jesus’ death from the divine perspective. All the hopes, dreams, and ambitions of the apostles centered on their Master. They had forsaken everything to follow Jesus, rightly believing that He was Israel’s long-awaited Messiah. The disciples expected Him to overthrow the Romans, restore Israel’s sovereignty and glory, and grant them important positions in the restored kingdom (Matt. 19:27; 20:20–21). But they were slowly beginning to understand that when He had predicted His death (see the references above), Jesus had meant exactly what He said.

The Lord had supplied all the disciples’ physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. As a result, they loved Him deeply and could not imagine life without their beloved Teacher. They reacted to Jesus’ impending death with shock and fear in the face of such an incomparable loss. Knowing what they were thinking, the Lord spent much of His last night with the disciples comforting and encouraging them. He reassured them that although He would no longer be visibly present with them, He would still take care of them. The Holy Spirit, the Helper whom Christ would send, would come to indwell them, empower them, and guide them.

But despite the Lord’s promises to them, including the guarantee of His resurrection, the disciples were still severely disturbed, prompting His command to them in 14:27, “Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” The disciples were troubled in part because their faith was weak (cf. Matt. 6:30; 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; 17:20). But beyond that, their anxiety stemmed from selfish shortsightedness. They saw the Lord’s death only in terms of what would be loss to them, not what would be gain to Him.

The disciples’ selfishness prompted the Lord’s rebuke, “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away (cf. 7:33;8:21; 13:33, 36; 14:2–4, 12; 16:7, 10), and I will come to you’ (14:3, 18, 23; 16:22). If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced.” Since the noblest love does “not seek its own” (1 Cor. 13:5), but rather what is best for its object, Jesus exposed the weakness of the disciples’ love, and called them to view the cross from His perspective.

This passage reveals four facets of what Jesus’ death meant to Him, each of which reflects an important aspect of His work. Through His death His ministry would be vindicated, His message would be verified, His mission would be victorious, and His motivation would be validated.

HIS MINISTRY WOULD BE VINDICATED

because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. (14:28b)

After His humiliation in the incarnation, Jesus longed to go to the Father. The reference is to His restoration and exaltation to the Father’s right hand (Matt. 26:64; Acts 2:33; 5:31; 7:55, 56; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3;8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22). The Son of God left the indescribable glories of heaven, where He experienced perfect fellowship with the Father (John 1:1; cf. 3:35; 10:17; Matt. 3:17; 17:5; Eph. 1:6; Col. 1:13), and became a man (cf. Rom. 8:3–4; Phil. 2:5–8; 1 John 4:2–3). Though He was sinless, He had experienced human weaknesses, such as fatigue (Matt. 8:24), hunger (Matt. 4:2), and thirst (John 4:7). Now He was returning to the fullness of the glory He had experienced from all eternity in the Father’s presence. Jesus expressed His yearning for that glory when He prayed, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You … Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:1, 5; cf. v. 24).

In being exalted to the Father’s right hand (Ps. 110:1; Luke 22:69; Acts 7:55ff; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22), Christ’s ministry would be eternally vindicated by God—His exaltation being the culmination of the Father’s approval of His earthly life and death. Because Christ had accomplished the Father’s will perfectly, He eagerly looked forward to His Father’s heavenly presence, where He would return to full glory. Though the cross would be excruciating, Jesus knew that the Father “[would raise] Him from the dead and [would seat] Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:20–21; cf. Isa. 53:10). As one scholar writes:

Jesus’ affirmation, the Father is greater than I, has been twisted by heretical groups into an incorrect assertion of His inferiority to the Father. After repeatedly asserting His deity and full equality with the Father (e.g., John 5:17–18; 8:58; 10:30; 14:9), Jesus would not have reversed Himself and denied that equality. Thus, the Lord was not speaking here of His essential nature as God, but of His submissive role during His ministry on earth. In essence and being, the Father and the Son are eternally coequal; but in role and function, the Son submitted Himself to the Father’s will at the incarnation. Christ’s statement reflected the perspective of a humble servant, the role He had assumed during His earthly ministry “Truly, truly, I say to you,” He had said earlier in John’s gospel, “the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (5:19; cf. v. 30;4:34;6:38;8:29, 42; 12:49; 14:10).

In the incarnation

He “was made for a little while lower than the angels,” but now, “because of the suffering of death [He would be] crowned with glory and honor” (Heb. 2:9; cf. Phil. 2:9–11). Having submitted Himself to the Father in death, He has been gloriously vindicated by the Father ever since.

D. A. Carson captures the essence of what it meant to Jesus to return to the Father when he writes,

HIS MESSAGE WOULD BE VERIFIED

Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, (14:29–30a)

As noted earlier, the disciples believed that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. In fact, on at least two occasions they had emphatically affirmed that belief. In response to the Lord’s query, “But who do you say that I am?” (Matt. 16:15), Peter, as usual the spokesman for the rest, replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (v. 16). After many superficial disciples

But despite their confident testimonies, they still struggled with doubt. That prompted Jesus to rebuke them repeatedly for their lack of faith, and caused them to cry out to Him, “Increase our faith!” (Luke 17:5).

As He had done a short while earlier (13:19), Jesus strengthened that wavering faith by reminding them, I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. The disciples understood from the Old Testament that only God can predict the future. In Isaiah 42:9 God said, “Behold, the former things have come to pass, now I declare new things; before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” In 46:9–10 He added, “I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’” Later in Isaiah God reminded idolatrous Israel, “I declared the former things long ago and they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them…. Therefore I declared them to you long ago, before they took place I proclaimed them to you,” and then explained that He had done so “that [they] would not say, ‘My idol has done them, and my graven image and my molten image have commanded them’” (48:3, 5).

In contrast, Israel’s idols were exposed as false gods by their inability to foretell the future; they were unable to answer God’s challenge to “announce to us what is coming; declare the things that are going to come afterward, that we may know that you are gods” (Isa. 41:22–23). Since the false gods, being lifeless and useless, could not predict the future, God said disdainfully to them, “Behold, you are of no account, and your work amounts to nothing; he who chooses you is an abomination” (v. 24).

Therefore when the predictions Jesus made came to pass, the disciples’ faith in Him increased greatly. For example, John 2:19–21 records Jesus’ prediction of His death and resurrection. Verse 22 then notes that “when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” In 16:1–3 Jesus predicted that the disciples would face persecution. Then in verse 4 He told them, “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” But despite the Lord’s many predictions of His resurrection, the disciples did not fully believe until after it actually happened. John records that it was only when he and Peter found the tomb empty that “he saw and believed. For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead” (20:8–9). The fulfillment of His predictions helped convince the disciples of Jesus’ deity, just as He had intended (cf. 13:19 where “He” does not appear in the Greek text, indicating that Jesus was taking for Himself the name of God [Ex. 3:14; cf. John 8:24, 28, 58; 18:5–6]).

The Lord’s words, I will not speak much more with you, do not signal the end of His discourse, which actually continues through the end of chapter 16. Rather, they are a reminder to the disciples that His time with them on earth was drawing to its close. Jesus was fully aware of all that was to happen to Him; He was never taken by surprise. He knew exactly how much time He had left with the eleven before the servants of the Enemy arrived to seize Him.

HIS MISSION WOULD BE VICTORIOUS

for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; (14:30b)

This is the second of three references in John’s gospel to Satan as the ruler of the world (12:31; 16:11; cf. Luke 4:5–6; 2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:2; 1 John 5:19). The Devil, of course, is not the legitimate ruler of the world, but a divinely permitted usurper. He is the ruler of the evil world system that is in rebellion against God (cf. 7:7; 8:23; 14:17; 15:18–19; 17:14–16; 1 John 2:15–17; 3:1, 13; 4:4–5; 5:4–5, 19). Jesus saw Satan coming in the persons of Judas, the Jewish leaders, and the Roman soldiers, who would shortly arrest Him in Gethsemane.

Jesus had been in conflict with Satan throughout His life. When He was an infant, Satan prompted Herod to try to kill Him, along with the other male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem (Matt. 2:16). At the outset of His ministry, Jesus “was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:13). Nor were Satan’s temptations limited to that initial encounter; they persisted throughout the Lord’s earthly ministry (Luke 4:13; Heb. 4:15), and culminated in Gethsemane (Luke 22:39–46). Satan repeatedly attempted to kill Jesus before the cross by inciting evil men against Him (e.g., Mark 14:1; Luke 4:28–30; John 5:18; 7:1; 8:59; 10:39; 11:53–54; cf. Matt. 21:38).

Finally, in a few short hours, Jesus’ lifelong conflict with the Devil would reach its triumphant climax. Satan would finally succeed in having Him killed, but in so doing would bring about his own destruction. Far from being Satan’s victim, “the Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8) “… that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14). The cross marked Satan’s ultimate defeat, though the final sentence against him will not be carried out until the end of the millennium. At that point his final assault against God’s people will be thwarted, and he will be cast into the lake of fire, where he will be punished for eternity (Rev. 20:10).

Jesus’ emphatic declaration (there is a double negative in the Greek text) “Satan has nothing in Me” explains why the Devil could not hold Him in death. The phrase is a Hebrew idiom meaning that the Devil could make no legal claim against Jesus. “How could he?” asks D. A. Carson, “Jesus is not of this world (8:23), and he has never sinned (8:46). The devil could have a hold on Jesus only if there were a justifiable charge against Jesus. Jesus’ death would then be his due, and the devil’s triumph” (The Gospel According to John, 509).

HIS MOTIVATION WOULD BE VALIDATED

but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.” (14:31)

Far from marking His defeat at the hands of Satan, Christ’s death was the ultimate proof to the world of His love for the Father. Jesus had just emphasized that the essential test of love is obedience (vv. 15, 21, 23). He would demonstrate His love for the Father by doing exactly as the Father commanded Him.

The phrase get up, let us go from here signals an obvious transition in the narrative. At this point Jesus and the disciples evidently left the upper room and began walking through Jerusalem, headed for Gethsemane. While they walked, Jesus continued His teaching. (John 18:1 does not describe the Lord and the disciples leaving the upper room, as some think. It refers to their leaving the city of Jerusalem and crossing the Kidron valley, east of the city. Gethsemane lay across the valley on the slopes of the Mount of Olives.)

The sum of all that Jesus’ death meant to Him was joy; it was “for the joy set before Him [that He] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). The path to that eternal joy led through suffering. John Piper writes, “First the agony of the cross, then the ecstasy of heaven. There was no other way… The passion of Christ did not merely precede the crown; it was the price, and the crown was the prize. He died to have it” (Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die [Wheaton: Crossway, 2006], 114, 116–17).

Having triumphed over death, Jesus has returned to the glory that He had from all eternity in heaven (Luke 24:26; John 13:31–32; 17:1, 5; Phil. 2:8–9; Heb. 2:9) at the Father’s right hand (Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 8:1; 1 Peter 3:22). There He receives forever the unceasing and undiminishing praise of the “living creatures and the elders” (Rev. 5:11), who cry out “saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing’” (v. 12).