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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - John 12:27 - 12:27
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Whilst our Saviour was thus preaching of his own death and sufferings, a natural horror of his approaching passion (though such as was without sin) seizes upon him; his Father giving him a taste of that wrath which he was to undergo upon the cross for our sins.
Hereupon he takes himself to prayer, Father, save me from this hour; this was the harmless inclination of his sinless nature, which abhorred laying under wrath, and therefore prays again unto his Father to dispose of him as may most and best conduce to the purposes of his glory; Father, glorify thy name.
Learn hence, 1. That mere trouble is no sin; Christ's soul was troubled; Christianity doth not make men senseless; grace introduceth no stoical stupidity.
2. That fear of death, especially when accompanied with apprehensions of the wrath of God, is most perplexing, and soul amazing. My soul is troubled, and what shall I say?
3. No extremity of sufferings ought to discourage us from laying claim to that relation, which God stands in to us as a Father; Our Saviour, in the midst of his distress, calls God Father: Father, save me from this hour.
4. In the extremity of our sufferings, we may be importunate, but must not be preemptory in our prayers; as Christ in his agony prayed more earnestly, so may we in ours, but always submissively; Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour.
5. That our exemption from suffering may sometimes be inconsistent with the glory of God. Father, save me from this hour; Father glorify thy name.
Observe lastly, The Father's answer to the Son's prayer: There came a voice from heaven, saying, I have glorified it, and will glorify it again. That is, as God the Father had been already glorified in his Son's life, doctrine, and miracles: so he would farther glorify himself in his death, resurrection, and ascension; as also by the mission of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of the gospel for the conversion of the Gentiles to the ends of the earth;
Learn hence, That the whole work of Christ, from the lowest degree of his humiliation, to the hightest degree of his exaltation, was a glorifying of his Father: he glorified his Father by the doctrine which he taught, he glorified his Father by the miracles which he wrought, by the unspotted innocency of his life, and by his unparalleled sufferings at his death; by his victorious resurrection from the grave, and by his triumphant ascension into heaven.