Church Fathers Commentary John 12:27-33

"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, [saying], I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again. The multitude therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it had thundered: others said, An angel hath spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice hath not come for my sake, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. But this he said, signifying by what manner of death he should die." — John 12:27-33 (ASV)

St. John Chrysostom: In response to our Lord’s exhortation to His disciples to endure, they might have replied that it was easy for Him, who was beyond the reach of human pain, to speak philosophically about death and to recommend that others bear what He was in no danger of having to bear Himself. So He lets them see that He Himself is in agony, but that He does not intend to decline death merely for the sake of relieving Himself: Now is my soul troubled.

St. Augustine of Hippo: I hear Him say, He that hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal; and I am enraptured. I despise the world; the whole of this life, however long, is but a vapor in my sight. All temporal things are worthless in comparison with eternal ones. And again I hear Him say, Now is my soul troubled. You bid my soul follow You, but I see Your soul is troubled. What foundation shall I seek if the rock gives way? Lord, I acknowledge Your mercy. You, out of Your love, were troubled of Your own will to console those who are troubled by the weakness of their nature, so that the members of Your body would not perish in despair. The Head took upon Himself the feelings of His members. He was not troubled by anything but, as was said above, He troubled Himself.

St. John Chrysostom: As He draws near to the cross, His human nature appears—a nature that did not wish to die but clung to this present life. He shows that He is not entirely without human feelings, for the desire for this present life is not necessarily wrong, any more than hunger is. Christ had a body free from sin, but not from natural weaknesses. But these belong solely to the economy of His humanity, not to His divinity.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Lastly, let the person who would follow Him hear at what hour they should follow. A fearful hour has perhaps come; a choice is offered: either do wrong or suffer. The weak soul is troubled. Hear our Lord: What shall I say?

The Venerable Bede: That is, what can I say but something to confirm My followers? Father, save me from this hour.

St. Augustine of Hippo: He teaches you whom you should call on, and whose will you should prefer to your own. Do not let Him seem to fall from His greatness because He wishes you to rise from your lowliness. He took upon Himself human weakness so that He might teach the afflicted to say, Not what I will, but what you will. Therefore, He adds, But for this cause I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name—that is, in My passion and resurrection.

St. John Chrysostom: It is as if He said, “I cannot say why I should ask to be saved from it, for for this cause I came to this hour.” However you may be troubled and dejected at the thought of dying, do not run away from death. I am troubled, yet I do not ask to be spared. I do not say, Save me from this hour, but the contrary, Glorify your name. To die for the truth was to glorify God, as the event showed. For after His crucifixion, the whole world was to be converted to the knowledge and worship of God—both the Father and the Son. But He is silent about this.

St. Gregory the Great: When God speaks audibly, as He does here, but no visible form is seen, He speaks through the medium of a rational creature—that is, by the voice of an angel.

St. Augustine of Hippo: I have glorified it—that is, before I made the world—and will glorify it again—that is, when You will rise from the dead. Or, I have glorified it refers to when You were born of a Virgin, worked miracles, and were made manifest by the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove. And will glorify it again refers to when You will rise from the dead and, as God, be exalted above the heavens, with Your glory above all the earth.

St. John Chrysostom: Although the voice was loud and distinct, it soon faded from their coarse, carnal, and sluggish minds, with only the sound remaining. Others perceived an articulate voice but did not understand what it said. Still others said, An angel spoke to him.

St. Augustine of Hippo: That is, it did not come to tell Him what He already knew, but to tell them what they ought to know. And as that voice did not come for His sake, but for theirs, so His soul was not troubled for His sake, but for theirs.

St. John Chrysostom: The Father's voice proved what they were so fond of denying: that He was from God. For He must be from God if He was glorified by God. It was not that He Himself needed the encouragement of such a voice, but He condescended to receive it for the sake of those who were nearby. Now is the judgment of this world. This connects to the preceding words, showing the way He is to be glorified.

St. Augustine of Hippo: The judgment at the end of the world will be one of eternal rewards and punishments. But there is another kind of judgment—not of condemnation, but of selection—which is the one meant here. This is the selection of His own redeemed and their deliverance from the power of the devil: Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

The devil is not called the prince of this world in the sense of being lord over heaven and earth—God forbid. The world, in this context, stands for the wicked dispersed over all the earth. In this sense, the devil is the prince of the world: that is, of all the wicked people who live in the world. The world also sometimes stands for the good dispersed throughout the world, as in, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself (2 Corinthians 5:19). These are the ones from whose hearts the prince of this world shall be cast out.

Our Lord foresaw that after His passion and glorification, great nations all over the world would be converted. The devil was then in them, but upon their truly renouncing him, he would be cast out from their hearts. But was he not cast out of the hearts of the righteous men of old? Why then does it say, Now shall he be cast out? Because what once took place in a very few people was now to take place in whole nations.

What then, does the devil not tempt the minds of believers at all? Yes, he never ceases to tempt them. But it is one thing to reign within and another to lay siege from without.

St. John Chrysostom: I will explain by an example what kind of judgment it is by which the devil is cast out. A man demands payment from his debtors, beats them, and sends them to prison. He then treats with the same insolence someone who owes him nothing. This latter person will take vengeance for himself and for the others as well. This is what Christ does: He avenges what He has suffered at the devil’s hands, and in doing so, He also avenges us.

But so that no one may ask, “How will he be cast out if he overcomes You?” He adds, And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Me. How can He be overcome, who draws others to Himself? This is more than saying, “I will rise again.” Had He said that, it would not have proved that He would draw all things to Himself; but saying, I will draw, includes the resurrection and more besides.

St. Augustine of Hippo: What is this all that He draws but that from which the devil is cast out? He does not say all men, but all things, for not all people have faith. He does not, then, mean all mankind, but the whole of a person—that is, spirit, soul, and body—by which we respectively understand, live, and are visible. Or, if all means all people, it means those who are predestined to salvation, or it means all kinds of people and all varieties of character, except in the matter of sin.

St. John Chrysostom: Why then did He say earlier that the Father drew people? Because the Father draws through the Son who draws. He says, I will draw, as if people were in the grasp of some tyrant from which they could not free themselves.

St. Augustine of Hippo: He says, If I be lifted up from the earth, meaning, “when I will be lifted up.” He does not doubt that the work He came to do will be accomplished. By His being “lifted up,” He means His passion on the cross, as the Evangelist adds: This He said, signifying by what death He should die.