(30) This voice came not because of me, but for your sakes.--More exactly, not for My sake did this voice come, but for your sakes. These words are an answer to the thoughts, spoken and unspoken, of the multitude. Jesus Himself knew that the Father heareth Him always, but this answer is a sign to others. (Comp. John 11:41-42.) He calls it a voice in answer to those who said it thundered, or that an angel had spoken. There was that, then, which seemed to them but the thunder's sound or an angel's word, which, coming in answer to His prayer and after His teaching. should have been, to ears ready to hear and minds willing to receive, the voice of God witnessing to the mission of His Son.
Verse 30. - Jesus answered to the confused murmur of remark, and said,This voice hath not come for my sake, but for your sakes. This surely establishes, on the authority of Jesus, the objective character of the revelation. "It was necessary that you should hear and know and feel who and what I am." Ever thinking of others, living in them, he thinks of their spiritual advantage now. Thoma says that whereas the whole scene corresponds with the synoptic account of Gethsemane, it is idealized on the basis of the Johannine idea of the Divine Lamb and the Logos in flesh, and that Jesus here shows that he needed no strengthening, as the objective revelation was entirely for the sake of others, and not for his own consolation. This ingenious criticism of Thoma rests on the unjustifiable hypothesis that the scene before us did not precede the agony of the garden, but was a bare invention of the evangelist, because the latter ruled that Gethsemane needed "idealization." Why should not the two scenes be equally true, revealing the fundamental identity of character and personality, the one, moreover, preparing for the other? (See notes on John 19.)
12:27-33 The sin of our souls was the troubled of Christ's soul, when he undertook to redeem and save us, and to make his soul an offering for our sin. Christ was willing to suffer, yet prayed to be saved from suffering. Prayer against trouble may well agree with patience under it, and submission to the will of God in it. Our Lord Jesus undertook to satisfy God's injured honour, and he did it by humbling himself. The voice of the Father from heaven, which had declared him to be his beloved Son, at his baptism, and when he was transfigured, was heard proclaiming that He had both glorified his name, and would glorify it. Christ, reconciling the world to God by the merit of his death, broke the power of death, and cast out Satan as a destroyer. Christ, bringing the world to God by the doctrine of his cross, broke the power of sin, and cast out Satan as a deceiver. The soul that was at a distance from Christ, is brought to love him and trust him. Jesus was now going to heaven, and he would draw men's hearts to him thither. There is power in the death of Christ to draw souls to him. We have heard from the gospel that which exalts free grace, and we have heard also that which enjoins duty; we must from the heart embrace both, and not separate them.
Jesus answered and said,.... To the people that stood by, and were disputing among themselves about what they heard, whether it was thunder, or the voice of an angel:
this voice came not because of me; at least not only and chiefly; it was not so much in answer to his prayer, or in order to comfort him under the apprehensions he had of his sufferings and death, or to assure him of his future glorification, though all this was true:
but for your sakes; to convince them that he was the Messiah, and engage them to believe in him, or to leave them without excuse; since not only miracles were wrought before their eyes, but with their ears they heard God speaking to him, and which is the rule that they themselves prescribe; for according to them, no man is to be hearkened to, though he should do as many signs and wonders as Moses, the son of Amram, unless they hear with their ears, that the Lord speaks to him as he did to Moses (c).
(c) R. Mosis Kotsensis praefat. ad Mitzvot Tora, pr. Affirm.
this voice came not because of me; at least not only and chiefly; it was not so much in answer to his prayer, or in order to comfort him under the apprehensions he had of his sufferings and death, or to assure him of his future glorification, though all this was true:
but for your sakes; to convince them that he was the Messiah, and engage them to believe in him, or to leave them without excuse; since not only miracles were wrought before their eyes, but with their ears they heard God speaking to him, and which is the rule that they themselves prescribe; for according to them, no man is to be hearkened to, though he should do as many signs and wonders as Moses, the son of Amram, unless they hear with their ears, that the Lord speaks to him as he did to Moses (c).
(c) R. Mosis Kotsensis praefat. ad Mitzvot Tora, pr. Affirm.