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Author: Stephen Weller
626 words, 3 minutes read time

My Soul Is Troubled

Scripture: John 12:27-29

We learned in the previous lesson that “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” In this lesson we find Jesus with a troubled soul.

^{Jn 12:27} “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose, I have come to this hour. ²⁸ Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

When Jesus said that his soul was troubled, he meant that it was stirred up and unsettled because of what lay ahead for him. We see a similar use of the word by David in Psalm 6:3 ESV: “My soul also is greatly troubled. But you, O Lord—how long?” Also, in Psalm 42:11 ESV: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”

Jesus then gives the reason for his soul to be troubled when he said, “Father, save me from this hour.” That hour includes the time of intense suffering before the cross and on the cross, receiving our sin, and then being rejected by the Father. We can understand that he does not want to experience the intense suffering and shame that he faces, but out of love for us, obedience to the Father, and “for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV).

As Jesus thinks about the coming suffering, he then thinks about why he, the Son of God, took on a body of flesh and came into his creation, and he says, “But for this purpose, I have come to this hour.” He has come to this hour to purchase our salvation; to redeem us.

Jesus then cries out, “Father, glorify your name.” and a voice came from heaven and said, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” This is the third of three times during the ministry of Jesus that a heavenly voice confirms his identity. The first occurred at his baptism in Matthew 3:17 (ESV) when a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” and the second occurred in Matthew 17:5 (ESV) when a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

^{Jn 12:29} The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.”

As those in the crowd hear the voice, they try to interpret the sound as natural events. Some said it thundered and others said that an angel had spoken, but no one seemed to understand, or were not willing to accept, that what they heard was the actual voice of God. They could not understand that events of eternal consequences were occurring in the unseen spiritual realm and evidence of this was breaking through to them in the form of a voice speaking about Jesus Christ. As those in the crowd discuss among themselves what just happened, Jesus speaks up to explain, but we will have to wait until the next lesson to find out.

Conclusion

Again, and again, God reveals himself to the unsaved, but like those in the crowd who tried to explain the Father’s voice as simply thunder or the voice of an angel, they also ignore what is being revealed, dismiss it and walk away to their own eternal destruction.