Bible Review on  John chapter 11 verse 45 to end of chapter 12

  • Lazarus Lived Again: For or Against?  (John 11:45-46)

After Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead, our attention is drawn to two metaphorical  sides of the coin; the first side are those who believed that Jesus is the Christ due to the miracle and the other side of those that were unconvinced, angry and went on to snitch on Jesus to the Pharisees. These two sides saw the same occurrence, had a visual experienced of the event,  but their view,deductions and reactions were totally different. Some people’s faith were strengthen, while others,  on the other hand, were triggered with distrust and anger. In the same light,  whenever God places something in your heart to do, gives you an instruction or ask you to commission something, you would be sabotaging yourself if you expect everyone to approve. Do not seek the accolade, validation or acceptance of everybody. Don’t! Some persons would be for you- to support and strengthen you, while some others would be against you.  The validation you should seek is the validation of God. You must not base your fulfillment on the validation of men because men’s view is limited, men’s perspective is narrow.  You might be doing the right thing and men would not validate it.  On the other hand,  you might be on the wrong  path,  and still receive accolades from  people. The validation of men is not proof, and should  not be your true test of standard. Let God alone be true. 

  • Actions and Motives. (John 11:47-48)

Moving on, we get to see that the greatest nightmare of the  pharisees is about to happen.  They are about to be displaced from their position and  the  power they have over the people is about to be taken away from them; or so they thought.  This fear is the driving force that makes them seek with all efforts, to kill Jesus. “Let’s eliminate him out of the way, and our power is secured”, so they thought. Here is a two-way insight to pick from here. Firstly, as believers, positions should not form our identity. Our sense of identity should not be rooted in what we are or have, but only in who we are in Christ Jesus; that is our only Safe spot.  Whatever position we find ourselves  might not be forever, therefore our sense of importance should not be based on that position, duty, power or obligation. If and when our identity is attached to position, anything that threatens to take us away from that position becomes a threat of our identity, and ultimately becomes an enemy.  Even if that supposed threat is from God, we would fight it(Him) tooth and nail, resulting to fighting the wrong battles. 

The second thought from this verse is that the people (a good number of them) trust that the Pharisees are working hard at preserving their abrahamic heritage, not knowing that deep down they are fighting for their positional security. It goes to show us that as believers, we should truly know who we are following and follow who we truly know. 

  • When The ‘Enemy’ Prophesies…  (John 11 :49-51)

In the case of Caiaphas speaking prophetically about the death of Jesus, without his own very knowledge, goes to display to us that even the enemies can be used to bring about the fulfilment of God’s will for our life . We have many strategies in the kingdom and It has been shown to us time and again that one of them is God taking the plans of the enemies and counter-implementing it for His purpose and glory, speaking of the Extraordinary Strategist!  It is a clear case of “what the enemy meant for evil, God has turned it around for my good”.

  • Run For Your Life! (John 11: 53-54)

When Jesus heard of the plot to kill him, he had the sense to run away to a safe place.  Although his purpose is to die on the cross for us, he knew his timing. He is aware that the time has not come, therefore He separated himself. As believers, we must also have the knowledge of our timing just like the sons of Issachar who have the understanding of time (1 Chron. 12:32). You must know when to stay and when to run for protection. Not all battles are meant to be faced squarely, some are meant to be avoided. 

  • Impact of Now on Later (John 12: 3-8)

The account of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus shows some importance we need to pay attention to. In the verse where it says Mary anointed the feet of Jesus, the result was “the whole house was full of fragrance of the oil”. The action of one woman in that house had an impact on the whole house. A similar event of another woman whose singular action had an impact on her family is Rahab (Joshua 2).Mary, similarly as Rahab, did what they did wholeheartedly, out of reverence to God (Jesus),  not knowing the historical impact of their actions thereafter. One action from us can be a saving grace over our family, either biological or spiritual family. We must always walk in the consciousness that our actions have generational impact. Whatever your hands find  to do, do it  well! Whatever the Lord lays in your heart to do, do it well!

  • Don’t Judge The Book by its Cover (John 12: 4-6)

Then the response of Judas Iscariot to the action of Mary is something to also take note of. Without the Bible letting us know the intention of his heart, we would have humanly commended Judas as being a prudent man. But because the Bible gave us God’s perspective of what played out here, we are able to discover that, even though the words of Judas iscariot sounded noble, his intention is very evil. Man looks at the action but God sees the heart. We must begin to “know no man after the flesh” (2Corinthians 5:16).

  • Enemies Everywhere (John 12: 10-11)

Coming up next is how the pharisees plotted to kill Lazarus again, not because they hated him in particular but because it was through Jesus he was raised from the dead. His connection to Jesus earned him some enemies. This goes to show us the  complexity of how enemies are formed. Some persons would hate us not because of our attitude or we have wronged them, but because of whom we are connected to, associated with or whom we seem to be pleased with. 

  •  Hindsight (John 12:16)

Verse 16 makes us know that disciples do not understand the prophetical accuracy of the the triumphant entry of Jesus,  until after his Resurrection. This light of knowledge came to them in retrospect. We must know that there are some dealings of God in our life and journey that we might not understand at their time of happening. We must learn to  subject ourselves in humility and trust that God’s got us, whether we understand the circumstances or not. The understanding of these dealings in hindsight brings us to be in awe of God, that He is indeed intentional about us. 

  • The Blame Game (John 12: 19)

This verse shows the reaction of the Pharisees when they saw how the crowd are flocking towards Jesus. It is time for the blame game! They began to shift blames on themselves. There is confusion in the enemies camp💪. Naturally, that is a human thing. Humans do not take responsibility when things do not go the way they are supposed to.  They shift the blame on other people. ‘When things are right, we did it. When things go wrong, you did it’. However, Jesus has called us to servant-leadership. This is a change to how leadership is done and how people are to be treated by us. As Christian leaders, we don’t shift blames on our subordinates when things go south, instead we reason together on how to make it better. 

  • Times and Signs (John 12: 20-23)

Some Greek men came asking to see Jesus. Then Phillip and Andrew approached Jesus to let him know about the men asking to see him. One would have thought this is just one of those normal days when the crowd sought to see Jesus. But Jesus discerned that this is different.  The response of Jesus was “the time has come!”. Could it be that the visitation of this Greek men is a pointer to Jesus of his appointed and set time? There are pointers for me as a belivers in each season to let me know whether I am about to exit a season, enter into a new season or I am not ready to handle some specific seasons (as Jesus had fled from death in earlier verses). We should look out for this pointers through discernment by the spirit of God.

  • We die to live (John 12: 24-25)

Then verse 24 brings alive the principle of sowing and reaping; dying and living. It is true many people are scared of death, however, biblical principles such as this has made us understand and gives us the peace that death is not the end for believers. It lets us know that, for a seed to multiply, it must first fall to the ground and die. So death for us as believers is not final, but an entrance through which we enter into life. There must be a dying, for there  to be a living.

  • The Pressure is Getting “Wersser“** (John 12:27-28)

Jesus felt like passing up the cup. Our dearly beloved Jesus, who had raised the dead, fed thousands of people, healed the sick, is currently feeling overwhelmed and overburdened at this moment. He is pressed on all sides. There are seasons in our lives that we would feel like running away from the pressure, just as Jesus was on the verge of doing, but running away from those season is like running away from purpose. We must stick through to them, no matter what  because in them lies  purpose.

  • Pick a side, please! (John 12: 42-43)

So right from time, there are been some of the rulers who had believed in Jesus but couldn’t or better put, didn’t speak up about it. I’m not here to judge them, it might actually be the Lord’s will for them to be His representatives at top positions, but I don’t understand why and how they can be quiet about their convictions. Verse 42 and 43 emphasizes our love for the praise of men than the praise of God. These rulers were scared of publicly confessing their belief so that they will not be put out of the synagogue. Humanly speaking, this is the most comfortable thing to do. But in God’s kingdom,   we can’t afford to sit on the fence. Whose side are you on?

Wersser – a Ghanian word used to replace the comparative form of bad- “worse”, so as to give it a stronger effect.