John 12:12–19

¹² The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ¹³ So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” ¹⁴ And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, ¹⁵ “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!” ¹⁶ His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. ¹⁷ The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. ¹⁸ The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

Palm Sunday is that beautiful and electric day when Jesus enters Jerusalem. It is known as “the triumphal entry” and it sets in motion the events of Holy Week, culminating ultimately in the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

I have preached many Palm Sunday sermons and you have heard many Palm Sunday sermons. The verses will sound very familiar to many of you.

¹² The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ¹³ So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” ¹⁴ And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written, ¹⁵ “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your king is coming, sitting on a donkey’s colt!”

If you grew up in church, this scene will, I hope, bring to mind familiar and powerful images. The King has entered the city and the King will now do His great work…though that work will be a work that nobody ever could have imagined. He will not ascend to a throne in Jerusalem. He will rather be raised on a cross. So this entry into Jerusalem is triumphal, yes, but not in the way the world thinks of triumph.

Again, I have preached this many times and you have heard this many times, with good reason! We dare not miss the crucial events of Palm Sunday.

Yet, John’s account offers us something interesting. John allows us to hear what the Pharisees think of Palm Sunday, what they were saying among themselves about Jesus entering Jerusalem to great acclaim. We find this in verse 19:

¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

Now, there is something delicious about this! We are allowed to see the handwringing complaints and irritation of the Pharisees at the way Jesus is received, at Jesus’ popularity, at Jesus’ reception into Jerusalem. Their two statements to one another bear two parts:

• Futility: “You see that you are gaining nothing.”
• Exasperation: “Look, the world has gone after him.”

What are we to make of this? Specifically, what are we to make of the Pharisees’ assertion that “the world has gone after” Jesus?

It is an exaggeration born out of frustration.

Yes, for starters, their statement is an exaggeration born on wings of frustration and irritation. This whole scene is just too much for the Pharisees.

¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

Yes indeed, this is all just too much. The crowds, the fanfare, the palm branches, the adulation: the Pharisees seethe at this. The 16^th century Johann Wild wrote of our text:

All the others were joyful with Christ…The Pharisees alone had no joy; indeed, the very thing that gladdened others was torturing them…An envious person is tortured by the good things that others experience…[T]hey do not give thanks, but rather fly into a rage and go crazy.[1]

And, as oftentimes happens when we are angry, we lapse into hyperbole, into exaggeration.

To be sure, this must have felt like the whole world was going after Jesus! This was the Passover and there were lots and lots of people in Jerusalem at Passover. Arno Clemens Gaebelein wrote of these words:

How true this word! According to the reckoning of Josephus about three million people assembled from everywhere at the Passover in Jerusalem, and they all shouted His name.[2]

We might say, then, that the Pharisees words were true in a broadly approximating and perceptional sense. It seemed like the whole world and it looked like the whole world was going after Jesus. And yet, Craig Keener is certainly correct when he calls these words “an exaggeration on a literal level” noting that “every member of the world follows Jesus no more than every individual already honors the Father (5:23); John is not a universalist.”[3]

So, no, the whole world had not gone after Jesus after all. The Pharisees were upset and they were viewing the situation through upset lenses. This was, in fact, a living nightmare for the Pharisees.

There is a bit of a foreshadowing of this event from the Pharisees perspective in the book of Esther when murderous Haman, who wished nothing more than to kill Mordecai the Jew, found himself, to his horror, through a delicious twist resulting from his own arrogance, having to assist in Mordecai’s lavish honoring among the people. Remember? The King had asked what should be done for the man in whom the King delighted. Haman, stupidly thinking it was a reference to himself, proposed a theatrical procession for the honored man. Then this happens:

¹⁰ Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry; take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Leave out nothing that you have mentioned.” ¹¹ So Haman took the robes and the horse, and he dressed Mordecai and led him through the square of the city, proclaiming before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor.” ¹² Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried to his house, mourning and with his head covered.

This is how the Pharisees felt seeing Jesus enter in triumph on a donkey. They too “mourned.”

“Look, the world has gone after him” is an exaggeration born out of frustration.

It is a panicked regret.

It is also a statement of regret.

¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

“This is how desperate men will talk when they are preparing to make their last effort,” wrote John Calvin.[4] That is true. And it is also how desperate men talk who regret that their first efforts did not come to fruition.

What do I mean? I mean that you can see and sense and feel in their exaggerated observation about the size of the crowd their sense of regret that they did not deal with Jesus earlier.

“You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him” positively drips with regret. As if the Pharisees are saying, “Well, what on earth can we do now? Look at all those people!”

Of course, there are things they can do and people they can manipulate and steps they can take, and those steps will cement these men in infamy. But they are frustrated. Surely, they were thinking, it would have been easier to deal with this Jesus earlier before He had this kind of a following.

This reading of the text has been around for a long time.

Cyril of Alexandria, in the first half of the 5^th century, wrote of this verse:

This they say, finding fault with themselves, that they had not long ago put Jesus and Lazarus also to death, urging themselves to murder; being angry concerning the believing multitude, as though deprived of their special possessions—those which really belonged to God.[5]

Yes, these men with murderous intent felt a sense of panic and dread at the crowd and also regret that they did not deal with this earlier.

It is a technical error.

We must also say that this statement, “Look, the world has gone after him” is, quite literally, an error. We have already called it an exaggeration. But we need to also call it an error. It is not just that their literal number was off. It was also that their statement completely misunderstood the world’s overall posture toward Jesus.

¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”

No, in point of fact, “the world” had not “gone after” Jesus. “The world” has not accepted Jesus.

At the beginning of John’s gospel, in John 1, he writes of Jesus:

⁹ The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own peopledid not receive him.

And, of course, even the crowd that the Pharisees resented in the triumphal entry would not really prove to have “gone after” Jesus.

The Life Application New Testament Commentary considers the words “the whole world has gone after him” to be “ironic” since, it says, “most of those people did not really believe in Jesus.”[6]

It is commonplace for preachers on Palm Sunday to say, “Many who cried ‘Hosanna!’ on Palm Sunday cried ‘Crucify Him!’ on Friday.” That is so. John himself tells us that a good many in the crowd came to gawk because of Jesus’ reputation as a miracle worker and, specifically, because of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.

¹⁷ The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. ¹⁸ The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign.

So, yes, there was a great big crowd, but even that crowd was a mixed bag in their rationales for being part of the Palm Sunday joyous mob!

“The world,” tragically, has never gone after Jesus en masse, though we should pray and work for them to do so!

It is an unconscious prophecy.

Even so, there is yet a kind of prophetic truth to it, is there not? It is an exaggeration and, technically, it is an error, but, at a different level, there is prophetic truth in it too! Paul Avent calls the statement a “magnificent hyperbole” but notes that “John may wish us to see in this an unconscious prophecy of the effects of the preaching of the gospel [cf. Acts 17:6].”[7]I think that is so.

“An unconscious prophecy” is a good way to think about that phrase: “Look, the world has gone after him.” Unconscious. Unintended. And undesired. At least on the part of the Pharisees.

But it is prophetic! And John himself seems to know it is prophetic for in the very next verse in John 12, right after the Pharisees complain of “the world” going after Jesus, we read:

²⁰ Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. ²¹ So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible observes that “[a]ncient texts often used irony meant to be caught by the reader but not by the speakers within the narrative. Here, ironically, immediately after they mention ‘the whole world’ Greeks approach Jesus (vv.20–21).”[8]

I take this reference to “some Greeks” seeking Jesus to be a textual nod to the unconscious prophecy of their words. Indeed, while the Pharisees’ words are a technical exaggeration and a numerical error, there is a note of truth in them too.

There is in fact a “whole world” note that runs throughout the New Testament. Matthew’s gospel ends with “the Great Commission” and Jesus’ call for the dissemination of the gospel to the whole world in Matthew 28.

¹⁸ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

In Acts 1, Jesus likewise has the whole world in what He says to the early believers.

⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

“And to the end of the earth!” In John 12, our very chapter, a little further down, Jesus says:

³² And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

No, the New Testament does not depict universalism, that all will be saved. Many will reject. The world has not gone after Jesus. Many will die without Christ and enter into eternal judgment. Yet the world has been forever changed by Jesus and people from every nation have come to Him!

The world has not gone after Jesus, but people from all over the whole world have and there is not a part of the world not represented in the Kingdom.

In commenting on the Pharisees’ words, George Martin offers this helpful observation.

On their lips, this is a rhetorical exaggeration, yet it contains a profound truth. Jesus is the savior of the world (4:42), who will take away the sin of the world (1:29). He will die on behalf of his people and all the people of the world (10:15–16; 11:51–52), drawing everyone to himself (12:32–33).[9]

Indeed, the early church was seen as having agitated the entire world! In Acts 17, an angry mob in Thessalonica attacks some believers in Jesus. Listen to what the mob says:

⁶ And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also…”

In Colossians 1, Paul says this of the spread of the gospel:

⁶ which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and increasing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth

The worldwide impact of the coming of Jesus and His plan for the church is seen in the momentous events of the sending of the Holy Spirit. There is a decidedly “whole world” emphasis in the amazing events of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2.

⁵ Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.⁶ And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. ⁷ And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? ⁹ Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, ¹¹ both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”

We are to reach the whole world!

We are to pray for the salvation of the whole world!

People from all over the whole world have come and are coming to Jesus!

Perhaps the most beautiful depiction of this “whole world” emphasis in the scriptures is found in Revelation 7, and what makes this particular text so powerful is the amazing way it parallels Palm Sunday. Watch:

⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” ¹¹ And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Yes! Let the whole church take the whole gospel to the whole world, as Spurgeon once put it! Let us pray that the exaggeration of the Pharisees becomes the reality of the world in our generation! For the King who came lowly next comes mightily on clouds of judgment.

George McPherson Hunter preached the following in a 1909 sermon at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.

“The whole world has gone after Him.”

            All these things were said of Jesus two thousand years ago and every word is true of Him, for today He remains still the attraction of the world. He appeals to men in every time. He is timeless, ageless, limitless, comprehensible, yet incomprehensible, the everlasting character, incapable of exhaustion. He is the Life of the World.[10]

Let the church say, “Amen!”

 

[1] Farmer, Crag S., editor. John 1–12. Reformation Commentary on Scripture. Gen. Ed. Timothy George. New Testament IV (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2014), p.448.

[2] Gaebelein, Arno Clemens. The Gospel of John. (New York, NY: Our Hope, 1925), p.226.

[3] Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John. Volume II (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003), p.871.

[4] Quoted in Ridderbos, Herman. The Gospel of John. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992), p.426.

[5] https://catenabible.com/jn/12

[6] Barton, Bruce, Philip Comfort, Grant Osborne, Linda K. Taylor, and Dave Veerman.  Life Application New Testament Commentary. (Carol Streams, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2001), p.428.

[7] Avent, Paul. Study John’s Gospel. (Xlibris, 2010), p.808.

[8] Walton, John H. and Craig S. Keener. NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), p.1837.

[9] Martin, George. Bringing the Gospel of John to Life. (Our Sunday Visitor, 2014). Google Books link: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Opening_the_Scriptures_Bringing_the_Gosp/UDkpDQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22the+whole+world+has+gone+after+him%22&pg=PT358&printsec=frontcover

[10] Hunter, George McPherson. “The Dare of Jesus.” The Sailors’ Magazine. (August 1909), p.230.