John 12:12-19

THY KING COMETH

Text 12:12-19

12

On the morrow a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem,

13

took the branches of the palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried out, Hosanna: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel.

14

And Jesus, having found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written,

15

Fear not, daughter of Zion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass's colt.

16

These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him.

17

The multitude therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb, and raised him from the dead, bare witness.

18

For this cause also the multitude went and met him, for that they heard that he had done this sign.

19

The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Behold how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after him.

Queries

a.

What day did Jesus enter Jerusalem riding on the colt?

b.

Why the great excitement and popularity toward Jesus?

c.

Why did Jesus ride upon a colt to enter the city?

Paraphrase (and harmony)

On the next day, which was Sunday, a great crowd of pilgrims on their way to the feast heard that Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem. This multitude had been lodging in Bethany and the environs of Jerusalem and they took the branches of palm trees and went out to join Him as He walked toward Jerusalem, shouting, Save us now! Blessed is he that comes in the name of the LordGod bless the King of Israel!
And shortly, when they drew near to Bethphage, a small village on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of His disciples into the village, saying, Go into the village of Bethphage and straightway you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her upon which no one has ever ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone asks you, Why are you taking this colt, you shall reply, The Lord has need of them. The owner will not question you further, but will send them to me at once. The disciples went into the village and found the donkey and her colt tied at the courtyard door, out in the open street. As they were untying them the owner questioned them, saying, Why are you untying our colt? Then the disciples repeated what Jesus had said, The Lord has need of it! The owners then allowed them to take the animals. And so the disciples returned to Jesus bringing the colt and its mother along with it. When they got to where Jesus was waiting with the crowd some threw their cloaks upon the donkey and some upon the colt, not knowing which animal the Master would ride. Then some of the disciples assisted Him as He began to mount the colt.

All of this took place in fulfillment of that which was spoken by the prophet Zechariah, who said, Tell the daughter of Zion, Fear not, for behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a colt, the foal of a donkey. (Now His disciples did not realize the significance of what was happening at the time nor that prophecy was being fulfilled, but after the resurrection and glorification of Jesus, then they recalled that these things had been written about Him and that they had participated in the fulfillment of prophecy.)

And as He rode along, most of the crowd spread their garments on the road and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road before Him. And among the multitudes following Him were many who had been with Him when He called Lazarus out of the tomb. They kept telling others about this astounding miracle and witnessing to His power so excitedly that a great crowd came out from Jerusalem also and met Him as He approached the city.
The crowds that came out to meet Him turned and went before Him toward the city and the multitudes from Bethany were following Him. Together they raised a tremendous ovation and cried, Send us, now, salvation! Jehovah bless the one who is coming in the name of the Lord! Jehovah bless the kingdom of our father David which is about to come! Save us now from on High!
As Jesus drew nearer to Jerusalem, at the place where the road begins to descend the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of thousands began to shout for joy and praise God with even more enthusiasm and clamoring as they recounted loudly the many mighty miracles they had seen Jesus do. They shouted with one voice, Blessed be the King who is coming in the name of the Lord! There is peace in heaven and glory in the highest! And some of the Pharisees among the multitude, beside themselves with envy, commanded Jesus, saying, Teacher, rebuke your disciples and tell them to stop this blasphemous tumult! Jesus replied, I tell you that if these people were to cease acclaiming my Messiahship, the very stones would cry out in acclamation! The whole creation should be acclaiming my Lordship.
And as He drew nearer still to the city, He looked upon its magnificence and wept over it, sobbing, Ah, if you only knew, even at this final hour, on what your peace dependsbut your eyes are blinded by worldliness and you cannot see it. The time is soon coming when your enemies will encircle your city with battlements and they will surround you and besiege you on every side. Your enemies will dash you and your children to the ground and they will so devastate your city that one stone will not be left standing upon another! This is going to happen to you because you did not know when God Himself was visiting you!
When He entered Jerusalem, with the multitude of thousands accompanying Him, the entire city was stirred with great excitement and people were asking everywhere, Who is this one to whom the multitudes are shouting and acclaiming king? The multitudes who had accompanied Him were answering back, This is the prophet, Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee!
Then the Pharisees began to say to one another, You see? There is nothing that any of us can do now! The whole world is running after Him!
But Jesus proceeded directly to the temple and entered its courts. He looked around at everything going on in the temple and then, since it was already late in the evening, he went out to Bethany taking the twelve disciples with Him.

Summary

Jesus heads for Jerusalem planning to deliberately force the issue of His spiritual Messiahship. The multitudes of Passover pilgrims, excitedly recounting His miracles, shout acclamations of Messianic triumph. The rulers, momentarily frustrated in their scheme to murder Jesus, can only watch helplessly and bide their time. Jesus enters the temple, surveys the activities there and then returns to Bethany for the night.

Comment

On the morrow in verse twelve means Sundaythe day after the Sabbath. Jesus arrived in Bethany on Friday afternoon (cf. John 12:1) and His friends prepared a supper in His honor, either that evening or the next evening (Sabbath). The supper was most probably on Friday evening while Jesus and the twelve disciples observed Saturday as a day of rest. Then on the first day of the week, about midday, Jesus started walking toward Jerusalem.

We believe, from a composite study of all four gospel accounts of the Triumphal Entry, that those whom John says went forth to meet him, were the multitudes of Passover pilgrims temporarily housed in Bethany and other suburban villages of Jerusalem. At the Passover festival there were some two and a half to three million pilgrims and it would be almost impossible to provide lodging for that many people within the walls of Jerusalem proper. And so, many would find lodging just outside the walls in the villages. All pilgrims must, of course, go to the temple, obtain a lamb or have their own approved and sacrificially slain, purify themselves and do all the other ceremonial necessities connected with the feast. There seems to have been a multitude of people accompanying Jesus as He proceeded toward Jerusalem and later a great throng that went out from the city to meet Him and they also accompanied Him into the city. We have followed this interpretation in our paraphrase (which is also a harmony of the four accounts).

Some of those leaving Bethany with Jesus were eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Lazarus. They were telling over and over among the multitude the marvelousness of this mighty miracle, The news of this miracle had spread even into the city and eventually was the cause for the exodus of a great crowd from the city to meet Him (John 12:18), Enthusiasm swept through the throng following Him up the dusty road. It was a happy, festive time. The common people were well aware of the claims of the Man from Nazareth. He had called Himself the Son of GodHe had talked much about His kingdom. And if this Jesus was able to raise a man from the tomb who had been dead four days, one could expect Him to make all His other claims assured. Who could resist His power? He had not said emphatically that He is going to Jerusalem to assume the throne, but some of the crowd had heard Him talking in parables about the kingdom (cf. Luke 19:11-28).

The emotional tension was contagious! The entire crowd was caught up in the exuberance of the hour. Some of the more daring climbed the lofty palms along the road and flung down branches which others took up, waving them in His train. Palm branches were waved for rejoicing in triumph and victory (cf. Leviticus 23:40; Revelation 7:9). Conquering kings and princes were usually honored in this manner at their triumphal entryevergreen branches and garlands of flowers were strewn along the parade route. Josephus says that Alexander and Agrippa were received at Jerusalem in this manner. Simon Maccabeaus and later his brother, Judas, were both accorded this honor (cf. 1Ma. 13:51; 2Ma. 10:7).

Hosanna! they shouted. Hosanna means literally, save now, we pray. It seems to have been used as a prayer or shout of praise for help from on high. This is the way it is used in Psalms 118:25. This was a part (Psalms 118:1-29) of the great Hallel (Psalms 113:1-9118) which was sung at all the great festivals commemorating triumph and victory (especially at the Feast of Tabernacles). Psalms 118:1-29 is emphatically a Messianic Psalm! The shouts of the people are replete with quotations from this Psalm. There can be little doubt that this multitude is anticipating in Jesus the long-awaited Messiah who is about to set up His throne in Jerusalem in all the earthly splendor of David cf. John 12:13 b; Mark 11:9-10). In essence, this is what the crowd was shouting: Hosanna, now is the long-awaited hour of salvation and prosperity about to be realized through establishment of the kingdom of our father David. God bless this One who is coming with the authority of Jehovah.

Far from stifling this charged situation, Jesus gave approval and impetus to its continuation by riding the rest of the way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. Although the ass was symbolic of peace (cf. Judges 10:4; Judges 12:14; 2 Samuel 17:23; 2 Samuel 19:26; Isaiah 1:3), whereas the horse is symbolic of war (cf. Exodus 15:1; Exodus 15:19; Exodus 15:21; Psalms 33:17; Psalms 76:6; Psalms 147:10; Proverbs 21:31; Jeremiah 8:6; Revelation 6:4), still by the very fact that He entered the city riding emphasized more strongly His Messianic claims. Furthermore, God had predicted such an event hundreds of years before through His prophets (cf. Zechariah 9:9 Isaiah 62:11). Hendriksen points out that the entire section of Zechariah from which this particular prophecy in John 12:15 is taken is all Messianic. Says Hendriksen, The daughter of Zion is told that its king, its spiritual Messiah, the One who will open a fountain for sin and for uncleanness (Zechariah 13:1), is coming. To emphasize the peaceful character of his approach and of his reign it is added that he is mounted upon the colt of an ass. He comes as the Prince of Peace, not as a war-lord. Hence, the daughter of Zion should stop being afraid.

However, a meek (cf. Matthew 21:5) and spiritual Messiah was the fartherest idea from their minds. As Jesus rode up the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives a multitude of people from within the city had come out to meet this palm-waving, shouting procession. Thus with a multitude following Him and one in front of Him (cf. Matthew 21:9; Mark 11:9), Jesus proceeds toward Jerusalem surrounded by exuberant, festive thousands, hailing Him as their Messiah-Deliverer. The ovations of, Hosanna! Blessed be He who comes in the name of the Lord! God bless the kingdom of our father David which is about to come to us! Hosanna in the highest! increase in enthusiasm and volume until the hills of Judea echo them back. The people by the hundreds strip the cloaks from their backs and throw them in the dusty road for the colt upon which Jesus rides to walk. Many also ran and cut branches from nearby trees (olive and palm?) and spread them in the roadway ahead of Jesus.

As always, there were the Pharisees, spying on Jesus and His disciples (cf. Luke 19:37-40). This was more than they could bear and so they commanded Jesus to rebuke this multitude for what they undoubtedly termed blasphemous conduct. They demanded that He silence them. Jesus replied, I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out! There is more here than simply a highly figurative way of saying, It is impossible to restrain them. It is a stern rebuke by Jesus toward the Pharisees that they do not realize the significance of what is being shouted. Jesus is saying, I will not restrain them for they are but speaking that which God decrees must be spoken. In other words, His Messiahship was something the whole Divine creation should have been acclaiming.

As He rounded Olivet and came to the point where the road begins its descent into the Kedron valley, He paused, The splendor of the Holy City with the afternoon sun glistening on the temple and other buildings caused the divine heart to quicken with emotional upheaval. His whole body was wracked with sobbing (cf. Luke 19:41-44) and He wailed, Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! The multitudes were now shouting Hosanna, but they would soon be shouting Crucify him. They saw in Him now a worldly ruler but after His arrest, humiliation and shame, they utterly despised Him. Their eyes were blinded by their worldly desires to the fact that God had visited them incarnate in Jesus. God had visited them with salvation and peace, but they knew it not! Soon they would cry, His blood be upon us and upon our children.

Jesus, by divine prophetic wisdom, could see ahead some thirty-seven years to the day when their shouts of exuberant joy would be turned to cries of agony and wails of despair. Visions of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. passed vividly before His minds-eye. Josephus records the blood-curdling horrors of this siege when more than a million Jews were cruelly slain. Men were disemboweled; so many Jews were crucified the Romans ran out of wood with which to make crosses; women ate the flesh of their own children, and while other, equally horrible, atrocities were occurring, the city of Jerusalem was utterly leveled until as secular historians record, not one stone was left upon another. In fact, this prophecy of Christ's and others was literally fulfilled when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. It came upon them because they rejected God's Christ. As the prophet said, Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. The Jews have brought all the misery and judgment they have endured through the ages upon themselves because they rejected the Prophet like unto Moses (cf. Deuteronomy 18:15-19; Acts 2:22-26). How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

The multitudes were so carried away with their own hopes and carnal desires that it seems they were oblivious to the wailing and sobbing of Jesus. It seems strange that only Luke records the lament while two of the apostles who were eyewitnesses did not recall it.

The shouting, rejoicing multitude proceeded on into the city. The whole city was stirred up (cf. Matthew 21:10-11). This caused frenzied consternation among the rulers. The Pharisees began to say to one another, See? Ye prevail nothing; behold, the whole world has gone after him! They had laid careful plans which probably called for subtle but quiet watching and waiting to spring a cleverly conceived trap .But now all these plans have been upset by the overwhelming popularity He has gained. It seemed as if the whole world had deserted the leadership of the Pharisees and had gone over to this reactionary. All they could do for the moment was wring their hands in helpless frustration. But they would soon find a solution. They would side with the hated Sadducees in their bold and unscrupulous schemes.

Jesus proceeded directly to the temple. There, with the air of one in authority, He looked around at the things going on in her courts. As the hour was already late (cf. Mark 11:11), He left the city with the twelve and returned to Bethany where, it is probable, He spent most of His nights during the last week.

The Triumphal Entry is extremely significant. It is the climax of His teaching ministry. He approved of the surging enthusiasm of the crowd and their testimony to His Messiahship. In fact, He deliberately mounted the colt of an ass to emphasize what the people were shouting. The time had now come to make clear to the nation His claim to be its King. Jesus knew such a demonstration would cause violent reactions by the rulers. Better, however, to put them on the defensive and show the world just how satanic they were. We are not sure just why Jesus chose this particular day and hourwe do know that it was not by chance, but all things were happening in strict conformity to the divine timetable.
We do know that it took the greatest courage this world has ever known for Him to thus enter the city. The alarm had already been sent all over the countryside for His arrest. The cautious thing to do would have been to enter the city secretly, but Jesus entered the city in such a way that every eye was focused upon Him. Barclay says, It was an act of the most superlative courage, for it was the defiance of all that man could do; and it was an act of the most superlative love, for it was love's last appeal before the end.

Indeed it was an appeal of love! He wanted the crass, materialistic multitudes to accept Him as Lord, Saviour and King of their souls. He made symbolic gestures (riding on the colt) and prophetic utterances (Luke 19:41-44) to guide the people toward this end, but their ears had been stopped. R. C. Foster suggests the following attributes of the kingdom suggested by the Triumphal Entry: (a) Humility; (b) Love; (c) Power; (d) Righteousness; (e) Peace; (f) Joy.

Hendriksen outlines the significance of the Triumphal Entry thusly: (1) By it Jesus definitely indicates that He will die voluntarily; (2) He forces the Sanhedrin to change its plans to conform to His and the Father'S; (3) He sets Himself forth in no uncertain terms as the Messiah; (4) He also shows the multitudes, what kind of a Messiah He is. We submit here a brief sermon outline entitled, Behold Thy King Cometh Unto Thee.

Introduction

I.

Describe Events of the Preceding Year of Popularity.

A.

Teaching spiritual aspects of the kingdom.

1.

Many refusing to accept this interpretation of the kingdom.

II.

Describe the Immediate Events Just before Triumphal Entry.

A.

Raising Lazarus, events at Jericho.

B.

Anointing by Mary.

III.

The Triumphal Entry will be by divine purposeno accident.

A.

Time had come to publicly declare His Messiahship.

B.

Time had come to challenge openly the public conception of the kingdom.

C.

Time had come to offer Himself to the people as their promised king.

Discussion

I.

He Came to Claim Lordship Over Men's Hearts.

A.

He sought to win men by teaching and meek, lowly example.

1.

He is very unlike the type of king men expect.

B.

He came saying, Give me your heart.

1.

By preaching and showing the love of God.

2.

By teaching that the kingdom is within.

3.

Prophets taught this over and over.

C.

But man's heart is most difficult thing to win.

1.

Man will surrender almost anything but his will, heart and soul.

2.

Jewish multitudes would have willingly given Jesus their bodies in a death-struggle, but not their hearts.

3.

When a man gives God his heart it means that he can no longer do as he pleases. man will let God be his God as long as he can tell God what he himself will or will not do!

II.

He Came to Establish a Kingdom of Peace and Joy.

A.

These multitudes were prepared to do much rejoicing when the Messiah should come.

1.

They were waiting for the Messiah to bring prosperity.

2.

For centuries they had endured enslavement and poverty eagerly waiting for the prophecied Messiah.

B.

Jesus came as the King of Joy to bring joy in the Holy Spirit.

1.

Christianity is not just for the times of peace and plenty. a. Romans 14:17.

2.

Christianity is not just for times of freedom.

3.

There is joy in serving Jesus whatever be the economic or political status, because it is a joy not of this world!

C.

Real joy is found by abiding in the Lord's word.

1.

Fruits of the Spirit bring joy (Galatians 5:1-26).

2.

Joy in bearing fruit (John 15:1-11).

3.

Joy in serving others.

III.

He Came as Saviour-Deliverer From Sin.

A.

This was abundantly foretold by the prophets.

B.

He came to accomplish salvation for all men.

1. Not just a select few or a select nation.

C.

His salvation was to be found in righteousness.

1.

Righteousness bestowed by grace and righteousness lived by obedience.

2.

Salvation is not from trials or tyrants as the Jews wanted.

3.

Salvation from sin, hell, judgment.

a.

But men cannot see or feel these in this world and therefore they do not desire to be saved from them.

D.

Indirectly, however, the nation could have been saved by receiving Him by faith (cf. Luke 19:41-44).

1.

So today, godliness exalts a nation but sin brings its downfall.

Conclusion

I.

He Came the First Time, Meek and Lowly.

A.

Lowly in birth, life and death.

II.

But He is Coming a Second Time as King of Kings, Lord of Lords.

A.

He comes with all the royal hosts of heaven at His side.

B.

He descends with a shout and blast of the trumpet.

1.

With angels to render vengeance in flaming fire.

2.

HE IS NOT MEEK AND LOWLY WHEN HE COMES AGAIN!

C.

He comes:

1.

As the Householder demanding accounting of each stewardship;

2.

As the King to punish those citizens who refused His reign;

3.

As the Creator who will rejuvenate His creation by destroying the old and making a new for His newborn creatures.

III.

And what is Required of a Man that He Let Jesus Become His King?

A.

Be born again into the kingdom.

B.

Behold Thy King Cometh Unto Theeart thou ready to shout Hosanna, Blessed be the One who comes in the name of the Lord!

Quiz

1.

Where did the two-part crowd come from?

2.

Name a least four factors which tended to build up enthusiasm among this multitude.

3.

What does Hosanna mean?

4.

What was Jesus-' reaction to the behavior of the crowd?

5.

Why did the Pharisees demand silence?

6.

What event did Jesus prophecy in Luke 19:41-44? Was it fulfilled?

7.

Name three significant things Jesus sought to accomplish by this demonstration.