John 12:20-30 - Exposition

4. The desire of the " Greeks " —the representatives of the Western world—go see Jesus, and his reply . And now a scene is related of transcendent interest—the one solitary incident of the Passion week between the triumph and the night of the Last Supper. John assumes here a knowledge of all that, in current tradition and narrative, had taken place between these two events. The cleansing of the temple, the solemn parables by which Jesus repulsed the Sanhedrin, the conflict with Sadducees and scribes, and with the combined forces of Herodians and Pharisees, the denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees, and the prophetic parables, possibly the awful doom of Jerusalem, and the departure from the temple. This event may have occurred towards the close of this solemn and crowded week, and it made profound impression upon John. The Hellenes were probably "proselytes," like the Ethiopian chamberlain ( Acts 8:27 ). Edersheim says they were "proselytes of righteousness," for no others would be allowed to worship at the feast. Whether they came from some Greek city in Ituraea, or from Cyrene or Edessa, Ephesus or Alexandria, we know not. As wise men came from the East to the cradle of the Lord, some can imagine these Hellenes to have been Judaized thoughtful men who were longing for the light and joy found in the Holy Scriptures, and the religious teachings or ceremonial of the temple, into the outer courts of which they would be admitted. When they saw the kind of reception which this mighty Sage was receiving from his own people and from the constituted authorities, they were ready to plead with him to go among them, and to offer his message to the Gentiles. For the most part he had confined his mission to "the lost sheep of the house of Israel," but in his care for the Herodian nobleman, the Roman centurion, the Syro-Phoenician woman, and his references to the "other sheep he had," to the "world" which his Father loved, etc., he partially revealed his ultimate mission to the whole world, though he always implied that such a mission presupposed his cruel cutting off and awful mysterious hour.