If I Be Lifted Up, I'll Draw all Men to Me (communion)

Introduction: Christ's Troubled Soul and Prayer

0:06 Now, may I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John and the twelfth chapter.

0:20 Now, will you follow as I read, beginning in verse 20, the immediately preceding context describes what we have come to know and designate as our Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and immediately following his account of that triumphal entry, John writes,

1:13 John says them, saying, If any man serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him will the Father honor. 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.

2:13 There came therefore a voice. I. 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.

2:27 Others said, An angel has spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice has 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.

2:45 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. The multitude therefore answered him, We have heard out of the law that the Christ abides forever. And how do you say the Son of Man must be lifted up?

3:10 Who is this Son of Man? Jesus therefore said unto them, Yet a little while is the light among you. Walk while you have the light, that darkness overtake you not. And he that walks in the darkness knows not where he goes.

3:30 While you have the light, believe on the light, that you may become sons of light. These things spoke Jesus, and he departed and hid himself from them.

3:45 Let us pray that in this communion, in meditation, the Lord Jesus will be pleased by his own spirit through his own word to display himself to us and to draw out our hearts in fresh actings of faith and love towards himself. Let us pray.

4:07 Lord Jesus, we have confessed together in the hymn we have just sung that we trust you for all things. And we would even now, in a very focused way, acknowledge that we have no native ability to understand your word. That left to ourselves, our minds will be darkened and clouded, our hearts dull and unresponsive. Come by your spirit and give us light and make us to know the heat of fresh actings of love to your person.

4:45 Speak to us now, we plead, and prepare our hearts for the presence, the precious privilege of coming to the table of remembrance. Hear us, for your name's sake. Amen. Now, as we have already noticed, the passage read in your hearing follows John's account of the triumphal entry in which we could say that the king comes to Jerusalem in order to die.

The Father's Response and Validation of Christ's Mission

5:19 And in this, the last recorded public discourse of our Lord in John's Gospel, the fact that he was about to die was obviously very much filling our Lord's mind and the implications of that death were causing what he himself describes as a troubling of his own soul. Verse 27, Now is my soul troubled. The very form of the verb used means that from a point beginning in the very near past and continuing right on until that trouble and the cause of that trouble is over, now is my soul become and remains troubled. The very thing he said should not be the experience of his disciples, just two chapters over in John 14. Let not your hearts be troubled. And yet here the Lord himself says, Now is my soul troubled.

6:25 And then the Lord Jesus gives us, as it were, the opportunity to put our ear to the very chambers of his soul and to understand something of the depth of that agitation and trouble that he acknowledges in verse 27. Having said, Now is my soul troubled, he lets us into his own inner thoughts that are striving one with another. What shall I say? He's asking a question of his own.

6:55 He asks himself, Shall I say on the one hand, Father, save me from this hour? And apparently there's a pause. And he reflects upon the question he's asking of his own soul. And he responds in this way saying, But for this cause came I unto this hour.

7:16 And then he turns from disclosing the inner troubling of his own soul and he is wrapped up in communion with his Father. And he prays to his Father in these words, Father, glorify your name. And no sooner does the Lord pray that, but that the Father speaks out of heaven, obviously in a voice that was audible, if not fully discernible by all who heard. The Father speaks and says, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.

7:52 And the multitude having heard something that was more than a barely distinct noise stood by and said it had thundered. Apparently the voice spoke with tremendous power. And though they did not fully understand and comprehend it, and some said it has thundered, and others say the voice of an angel has spoken, the Lord Jesus responds and says, This voice, verse 30, has not come for my sake, but for your sakes, probably now speaking especially to the disciples. And as the Father spoke out of heaven, when our Lord identified himself with his mission and with sinners for whom he had come from heaven in his baptism, the Father spoke out of heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And then again in that mysterious event of the Mount of Transfiguration, again the Father speaks out of heaven, This is my beloved Son, hear him. And now on the very eve of his suffering, the very eve of his laying down his life for his own, he says to the Father in the presence of his disciples, Father, glorify your name. Now remember the context.

9:13 It's the context in which he acknowledges my soul is troubled. So troubled that we have almost an anticipation of the language, repeated three times in Gethsemane a short time later. Father, shall I say, save me from this hour? The language of Gethsemane, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

9:35 And it is in that very setting that the great passion of our Lord's soul transcends all of the darkness of the gathering storm clouds that he sees and feels and the rumblings of those clouds of divine wrath that will break upon his head and his great passion in life will be his passion in death. Father, glorify your name. The Father responds saying that he will, as he has in the past, yet glorify it. Jesus says most likely to his own that this voice has come not to assure him, for he knows that he is always heard by the Father, but it has come to validate that what lies before these disciples is not contrary to the overarching purpose of their Lord and Savior, namely that he would glorify and reveal the Father. And now in that setting, and this is the focal point of our meditation, Jesus gives us these insights with respect to what will transpire in the next hours as the very thing that has caused this disruption, this tumult in his soul, comes to pass in his actual experience. He says now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

Christ's Crucifixion: A Decisive Blow Against Two Enemies

11:03 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. As our Lord faces the ordeal of the cross, the very now of verse 27, now is my soul troubled. He faces this trouble in the confidence that his crucifixion will constitute a decisive blow at two great enemies of both God and man.

11:38 Our Lord is confident that his impending crucifixion will constitute a decisive blow at two great enemies of God and of man. First of all, he is confident that is to be a judgment of this present world system. Look at the text. Now is the judgment or a judgment of this world.

12:10 What lies before our Lord in his apprehension by the chief priests and the scribes, and the temple guard that we read about earlier this evening. What will follow in the spittle and the buffeting and the crown of thorns, his being impaled upon the cross. Jesus faces all of this in the confidence that it will be a judgment of this present world system. This present world system with its people absorbed in their values, in their standards, in their goals, in their perspectives, all in direct opposition to God. Jesus says that the cross and all that surrounds it will constitute a judgment, a divine sentence upon this present world system. And how does the world bring itself into a decisive judgment in connection with the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus? I answer this way.

13:23 When this system, this world system had incarnate deity in its hands, what did it do with it? When it had incarnate deity in its hands, what did it do? The combined political and religious systems, the Jewish and the Roman powers, that were of this world, put the incarnate God upon the cross as though he were a common criminal of the lowest class of society. And in so doing, the world has judged itself.

14:05 It has shown its true colors, whether it is pagan worldliness represented in the Roman authority or decadent religious worldliness represented in the Jewish religious system, the world stands judged by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It shows, as James says, its utter deep opposition to God. Whosoever will make himself a friend of this world, James says, makes himself an enemy of God. This world system, under the power of the enemy, under the influence of the devil itself, is opposed to all that Christ is and all that Christ stands for, and that comes to its clearest, undeniable expression in all of the events that surround his crucifixion. And our Lord is confident of that. He is confident that as he faces this hour, this hour that causes him trouble in his soul, he says, now is the judgment of this world. And it is for this reason that whenever the Spirit of God gives to a worldling, someone held in the grip of this world system, living by its values, its standards, its goals, its ambitions,

15:33 its view of Christ and of truth and heaven and hell, whenever the Spirit of God breaks in upon a worldling, shows that worldling his or her sin, shows something of the glory of God reflected in the face of Christ, and unveils to that hitherto darkened heart Christ's glory in his death upon the cross, what always happens? Galatians 6.14 The Apostle Paul says, God forbid that I should glory shade in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world, is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. The cross by which our forgiveness is secured is always the cross that unmasks the world and shows the world for what it really is. And if you are a true believer, you can say, Galatians 6.14, God forbid that I should glory shade in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which I not only have the forgiveness and the pardon of my sins, but by which I too have come to see now in the cross is this world standing under judgment, exposing itself for what it is, and in faith union with Christ,

17:00 I too have been crucified unto the world and the world unto me. Our Lord says, His crucifixion constitutes this decisive blow at this first enemy of God and of man. But then secondly, our Lord says it will be a casting out of this present world's usurper monarch. It will be a casting out of this present world's usurper monarch.

17:31 Again, look at the text. Now is the judgment of this world, now, in the events that lie before me in the next hours, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. Follow. Thrown out, now shall the prince of this world, the one who is behind this world's system, pressing people onward to sell their never-dying souls to its painted joys and to its unsatisfying wells and driving it onward, seeking to find fulfillment in everything and everyone.

18:16 But the one who alone can meet the deepest yearnings of the human heart behind that is the God of this world. And Jesus says, it is a casting out of this present world's usurper monarch in conjunction with his death. A major aspect of the power of the Lord Jesus, is manifested in doing that to the devil in his death which is called in our text a casting out of the prince of this world. This is the dimension of the death of Christ that I confess for many years I have not given its proper place.

19:00 And here in this text Jesus brings it forward as a major dimension of his own conscious awareness of what his death will accomplish. In John 14 in verse 30 our Lord alludes to it again. I will no more speak much with you for the prince of the world cometh and he hath nothing in me. He is conscious that in the next hours there is going to be this intensified engagement with that one whom he calls again the prince of this world.

19:39 That usurper monarch called the devil. Chapter 16 in verse 11 when he speaks of that ministry which the spirit will have when he comes subsequent to the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus of his own death and resurrection when the spirit comes he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. Verse 9 of John 16 of sin because they believe not on me of righteousness because I go to the Father and you behold me no more of judgment because the prince of this world hath been judged not shall be but has been. Speaking of that which he will accomplish in his death by the time the comforter is sent on the day of Pentecost Jesus said the judgment of the prince of this world has been an accomplished reality. He is to be thrown outside. And this is why John can say in 1 John 3.9 for this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.

The Cross Unmasks the World and Defeats Satan

20:51 And Colossians 2.15 speaks of our Lord triumphing over these principalities and powers in his death. And I am persuaded that this is the true meaning of those opening verses of Revelation chapter 20 that they do not point out to some future day when the devil will be literally put on a literal chain but they point to the triumphs of our Lord Jesus when in his death he fulfilled what he says in our text in John chapter 12 now not only is this world judged but now in conjunction with my death the prince of this world is to be cast out. But then our Lord goes on to state not only that his crucifixion will be a decisive blow at these two great enemies of God and of men but secondly his crucifixion will secure the salvation of a vast multitude of sinners from the whole world. Verse 32 And in conjunction with this in the same flow of thought and I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto myself. Now this text because of its lovely almost poetic sound

22:19 is often used as a text pleading with God that Christ would be lifted up in preaching and if he's lifted up he'll draw all men to himself. Now that's a wonderful thought but it's not based on a responsible understanding of this text. Bishop Ryle says of this use of the text the idea of some that the verse may be applied to the lifting up or exalting of Christ by ministers in their preaching is utterly baseless and a mere play upon words. That the preaching of Christ will always do good more or less and draw souls to Christ by God's blessing is no doubt true but it is not the doctrine of the text and ought to be dismissed as an unfair accommodation of scriptural language. If there's any truth in it the truth will be taught better and more clearly and more responsibly in other texts. Because you read the next verse and it tells us what the significance of the words is. 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.

23:30 The Spirit of God through John tells us that Christ is speaking of the lifting up being fulfilled in the manner of his death. And he wasn't speaking in code language here because the multitude answered him. The unbelieving hardened sin darkened multitude to whom he is speaking in the next few verses calling them to leave the darkness and come into the light. That multitude said wait a minute wait a minute we have heard out of the law that the Christ abides forever.

24:05 That the Christ is the eternal messianic king. How do you say the son of man must be lifted up? They understood that he was talking about lifted up in crucifixion. And they said wait a minute our perception of Christ is that he comes and in the power of everlasting and eternal life he sets up an eternal throne and governs and rules.

24:28 How do you say who is this son of man that is lifted up? Who is this son of man? Our concept of son of man has no lifting up. It has no cross.

24:38 It has no death. It has no shame. It has no rejection. But the Lord Jesus the son of man knew that this was the way to his throne.

24:48 He had to ascend his throne by way of the cross the shame the rejection. And so in this passage the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus secures by his own word the salvation of a vast multitude of sinners from the whole world. Look at this. Look at the text.

Christ's Crucifixion Secures the Salvation of a Vast Multitude

25:08 And I if I be lifted up there's the condition here is the result will draw all men unto myself. His lifting up infallibly secures the drawing of an indefinite all. And I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto myself. It cannot mean by the analogy of scripture and by a tracing out of the use of all in scripture that in being lifted up Christ is pledging that he will draw to himself in saving mercy and power every single man, woman, boy or girl of the human race.

25:53 We know that that is not the teaching of scripture but it is that all of biblical universalism that he in virtue of his death will secure the salvation of a vast tribe and tongue and nation whom he will have as the reward of his sufferings for Isaiah said he shall see of the travail of his soul and he shall be satisfied. And the drawing to himself is the fruit of the lifting up. I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto myself. And what I want us to see in the text and this I trust will help us as we draw the thoughts into a sharper focus in preparing to come to the Lord's table. Notice from this text that the drawing is always unto his person as crucified. The drawing is always unto his person as crucified. And I if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men to myself.

27:03 This is what the Lord envisions by what death he should die. Our Lord envisions that those whom he will draw unto him are drawn to him as the crucified one. But they are not merely drawn to his cross they are drawn to his person. And I if I be lifted up will draw men to him as a good man a wise man a noble man a compassionate and benevolent man.

27:43 No, I will draw them to my person as lifted up as crucified. You see it is the liberal and the mystic and the romantic who would have a Christ who in his person captivates our fascination and our faith. For a lifted up Christ immediately forces us to reckon with that little three letter word called sin. Sin.

28:13 Why does this noble why does this beneficent why does this glorious person who did nothing but good why is he lifted up? And the only answer of scripture is God the Father was making him who knew no sin to be sin of the gospel. Here's the gospel Paul says which saves that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. Again the scripture tells us he died for us the just for in the room in the stead of the unjust that he might bring us to God.

28:55 And the drawing to himself in saving grace and power will always be a drawing to his person to be crucified. My dear friends sitting here tonight if the thought of remembering this central redeeming act of Jesus does not excite you does not fill you afresh with a sense of wonder and privilege that you can remember not because some people thought it would be a good idea to do so all the blessing I know flows from your cross. I delight to remember your dying love to take the bread that symbolizes the body beaten bruised immolated hung up upon the cross. I delight to take the cup symbolizing your life your blood poured out in a vile fought unto God in the power of the eternal Spirit. You see, the cross becomes the touchstone of the genuineness of our professed Christianity. A crossless Christianity is a misnomer.

30:18 Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself, unto myself as the lifted up one, the one who subsequently, taken down from the cross, was buried and rose from the dead and lives at the right hand of the Father.

The Drawing is Always to Christ's Person as Crucified

30:37 But now look at the flip side. Jesus did not say, and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to my cross. There are people who say, and this is the peculiar danger of those of you reared in a Christian home and under sound biblical preaching, to think that because the doctrine of Christ crucified us, it is something that came to you with your mother's milk and isn't as much a part of you as any other thing that's been imparted in your upbringing. Yes, I have no doubt that Christ died for sinners.

31:10 Ah, the question is this. Have you seen the glory and the beauty in Him that's drawn you into saving, loving, irrevocable attachment to His person?

31:20 When the cross becomes the means of drawing you to the person of Christ, to the place where you say concerning mother, father, brother, sister, friends, peers, pies on the block, gals in the office, Christ shall have the place of supreme affection and attachment in my heart, and there will be no one who's a close second. Jesus said, if any man come to me and hate not father, mother, brother, sister, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. You see, this text shows us that the Lord Jesus, in securing the salvation, the salvation of a vast multitude, in applying that salvation based upon His cross, never, never confers the benefits of His cross without drawing people into loving, trustful attachment to His person.

32:17 And as surely as a noble Christ without a cross exposes the shallowness of liberalism and a romantic notion of Christ and mysticism that has no doctrinal foundation, so a professed attachment to the benefits of the cross without any real evidence of attachment to the person of Christ exposes nine-tenths of easy believism, decisionism, where people are walked down an aisle or led into an inquiry room and are given three or four verses and are told to parrot them and pray a prayer and they're told, now do you trust the finished work of Christ? Yes, I do. It's all taken care of. And out they go.

33:00 The heart's never been, ravished with the sight of the glory of God in the face of Christ. The heart has never been broken before this Christ. The will has never been brought under the yoke of Christ. And they go out told, you've made your decision as we heard in the first hour this morning and you're safe forever because you now have an attachment to the cross by means of your decision.

33:24 No, no, my friend. Jesus said, if I be lifted up, I will draw all, all on whose behalf, I'm lifted up, I will draw unto myself. Not to be my buddy. Not to be the one who gives me orders.

33:44 Not to be some who will call upon me simply when they've got gross and obvious financial and physical needs and for the rest of the time they live their lives unto themselves.

33:58 No, Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, that he died for all that they who live should no longer henceforth live unto themselves but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. This principle exposes the shallowness of decisionism, easy believism, and it does strike a nerve that you of the second generation need to come to grips with. As I've said from this pulpit on more than one occasion, many of you reared in the context, of solid Christianity in your mom and dad, at the family worship, in your general education, Christian school, homeschooling, in the Sunday school, in this place, in the preaching of the word. You will, many of you, never know when you pass from death unto life in terms of being able to point to a crisis conversion. Some of you may, many of you will not. But this is the acid test.

35:00 As Jesus drawn you to himself, so that as the crucified one, there's no one who has a close second in your affections. And if God brought you there in a way that's imperceptible, like the rising of the sun, when does the night end and the day begin? At what precise point? I don't know.

35:26 But when the sun's overhead like that and beaten down on my head, I know it's daytime. And I'm not going to trouble myself that I can't find the sun rose at 642. I'm just enjoying the sun on my head. And you who've been reared in Christian homes, troubled about this whole matter, may I say lovingly, don't be troubled about when the sun arose.

35:48 Ask yourself, has the sun of righteousness arisen in my heart? And have I come to see in Jesus, Jesus crucified for sinners, the one worthy of all my trust and of my unrivaled affection and the other unreserved commitment of who? And what I am for time and eternity into his hands. I'm not asking do you perfectly work out that commitment every moment of every day of every week and every month.

36:17 What I'm asking is that the fundamental baseline disposition. Have you gone out of the God business and joyfully welcomed Jesus to be God to you? That's the question. That's the question.

The Acid Test: Supreme Affection for Christ

36:33 And you see, for you to try to snatch at the benefits of his cross without attachment to his person, is to break up what Christ is joined in this text. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men not to my cross or to my cross work, but to myself as crucified. And as we come to the table, what are we saying? Among the many things we say, we're saying we've come to understand that.

37:01 Remember the words that will be read to us at the table? What did the Lord say in instituting this supper? This do in remembrance of what? My cross or me.

37:11 This do in remembrance of what? Me, me, my person. Then he went on to say, as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show, proclaim, preach the Lord's what? Not person, but his death till he come.

37:29 You see how beautifully it's fused in the table? Do this in remembrance of me. The assumption is you have a love relationship with me. You have a trust relationship with me.

37:40 You will delight to remember my person. My person has become precious to you, but not my person detached from my cross. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he come. You proclaim that the lifted up Christ has become the object of your soul trust for salvation, for the forgiveness, the pardon of your sins, for liberation from the dominion of sin, for the gift of the spirit, the pledge of eternal life, the certainty of ultimate glorification.

38:15 We are remembering the Lord's death in the context of remembering his person. And may God grant that as we come to the table, if he has never become to you what he says he will always become when the spirit of God is ushering anyone into the kingdom. Those two parables, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant seeking goodly pearls, who when he finds one precious pearl sells all that he has that he may obtain it. The kingdom of heaven is like a man who finds a treasure in the field, and he sells all that he has to get enough capital to buy the field that he might have the treasure.

38:58 Whenever the kingdom of God comes in saving power, Christ is always the pearl of great price and the treasure in the field. Is he that to you? Then the kingdom has come. The kingdom has come because the king has taken up his place in your heart, the place which the spirit of God always shows him to be infinitely worthy of.

Communion: Remembering Christ's Person and Death

39:21 If he's that to you, then coming to the table surely it will be your delight to remember him and to proclaim his death. And if he's not that to you, what better place than here and now in this place tonight to say, Lord Jesus, I've never seen it before, but I see it now. Yes, I've been blind to this simple, straightforward reality, but surely, Lord Jesus, if you died to turn away the wrath of God from the likes of me, and you stand before me in the word and promise of the gospel, invite me to come to you, surely you are worthy of the unreserved trust and homage and devotion and submission of my heart to Lord Jesus. I come to you. In that way, what better place to come than here? And now, while the very divinely ordained emblems of his broken body and his blood poured forth will pass before your very eyes, there's no saving merit in the bread and in the cup, but in the Savior who may proclaim to you as the bread is passed, say, Lord Jesus, I take you as bread of life, crucified for sinners as the cup is passed.

40:39 Lord Jesus, I take you as the one whose blood alone can cleanse me from my sins. I take you to be my Savior. May God grant that some tonight would see Christ in all his beauty and lay hold of him by faith. And we who are his children, may our hearts know a fresh infusion of true spirit wrought love to our Savior and a fresh commitment of our all to him.

41:07 Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

41:19 Let's pray. Our Father, we again thank you for your word. Thank you for this record of our Lord's troubled soul. And yet, in the midst of that troubled soul, his confidence that his work would not be in vain.

41:35 Thank you, Lord, Jesus that you have come and you have done what you said you would do in bringing judgment upon this world. world, and casting out the prince of this world. And many of us sitting here are the living monuments that the devil does not have unrivaled claim over the souls that he once possessed as his slaves. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for the triumphs of your cross and of your open tomb, and we pray that you would this night go forth in triumph in the hearts of yet more.

42:12 Bless your dear people as we together come to the table. May we know an increase of love and faith directed to you. May we know the stirring of our affections towards you. Lord Jesus, be present with us at your table for your glory and for the good of our souls, we pray. Amen.