John 12

John 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It narrates an anointing of Jesus' feet, attributed to Mary of Bethany, as well as an account of the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. The author of the book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that John composed this Gospel.

The original text was written in Koine Greek. This chapter is divided into 50 verses.

But Jesus said, “Let her alone; she has kept this for the day of My burial. The New Revised Standard Version, differing from other translations, reads "She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial".

A great many of the Jews came to Bethany, "not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might also see Lazarus, whom He had raised from the dead. The wording of verse 9 suggests that Jesus remains a while in the town. Matthew Poole asks, "What had Lazarus done?" The plot to put Lazarus to death may be read alongside the developing plot to kill Jesus (; ) as if there were parallel plots "to kill Lazarus as well as Jesus", or even to kill Lazarus first as Albert Barnes suggests: "as it was determined to kill Jesus, so they consulted about the propriety of removing Lazarus first, that the number of his followers might be lessened, and that the death of Jesus might make less commotion". But the observation that "on account of [Lazarus] many of the Jews went away (from the Pharisees) and believed in Jesus could indicate that in the early church Lazarus was influential in converting many Jews to the belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

John 12:12 states that on "the next day", a great multitude who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover, "heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem", and so they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him. presents Jesus in Bethany "six days before the Passover", so His entry into Jerusalem can be understood as taking place five days before the Passover, on "the tenth day of the Jewish month Nisan, on which the paschal lamb was set apart to be 'kept up until the fourteenth day of the same month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel were to kill it in the evening'. "‘On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next to his house take it according to the number of the persons; according to each man’s need you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month" (Exodus 12:3 6 (NKJV)).

Some Greeks had also made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast (John 12:20). Jesus' interest in teaching the Greeks of the diaspora has already proved a matter of some intrigue in chapter 7 Bengel's Gnomen notes that "it is not clear that they were circumcised: certainly, at least, they were worshippers of the One God of Israel" they were present in Jerusalem "that they might worship at the feast John uses the same word, προσκυνειν, proskunein, literally to kneel and kiss the ground, in in relation to the Jewish Samaritan debate over the sacred place "where one ought to worship" (John 4:20; NKJV translation), where He announces that "the hour is coming when you will [worship] neither on this mountain (Mount Gerizim), nor in Jerusalem". Meyer's New Testament Commentary and the Expanded Bible (2011) both state that these pilgrims were "gentiles". They had presumably "heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem" on the same basis as the Jewish multitude mentioned in John 12:12, although Meyer raises the possibility that "they came to Philip accidentally". The evangelist raises the question of whether they can see (meet) (or believe in) Jesus (John 12:21). "They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida of Galilee, and asked him, saying, 'Sir, we wish to see Jesus'. Philip came and told Andrew, and in turn Andrew and Philip told Jesus. The evangelist repeats the information already provided at John 1:44 (NKJV), that Philip came from Bethsaida in Galilee, which was "also the city of Andrew and Peter". Both Philip and Andrew have Greek names. Watkins considers it "a striking coincidence, and perhaps more than this, that the Greeks thus came into connection with the only Apostles who bear Greek names". The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified.

Jesus' discourse, set out in John 12:24–27, leaves readers "in doubt as to the result of the Greeks’ request": of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain. He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honour. Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour. 'Father, glorify Your name'.”

The evangelist addresses directly the issue that the Messiah had died: "Strange as it may seem to you that the Messiah should die, yet this is but the course of nature: a seed cannot be glorified unless it dies". The , apollyei (loses) is written as ἀπολέσει, apolesei (will lose) in the Byzantine Majority Text, but Watkins argues that the present text has "slightly more probability":
"the loss of life is not in the future only, but that in the present, in every moment when a man loves and seeks to save his own life, he is then, and by that very seeking, actually losing it".

Jesus goes on to make the following statement:"Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself." He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die. The meaning of this teaching (especially verse 32) has been the subject of much exegetical and theological dispute. Some have interpreted Christ's promise here (that "all" will be drawn to him) in light of his teaching in John 6:44 that those drawn to him will be "raised up on the last day," so as to imply eventual universal salvation. Others have appealed to the contextual detail in verse 20 ("some Greeks" sought Jesus), so as to infer that Christ only means that people of all kinds (Gentiles as well as Jews) will be drawn to him, rather than every individual without exception. Still others have suggested that he means only that all will be 'invited' or 'summoned' to Christ, not that all will necessarily be effectually regenerated and saved. Much of this depends upon how one understands the meaning of the Greek words πᾶς ("all") and ἕλκω ("to draw"), as they are used in this context.