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The Gospel of John, Part 17
Chapter 12:37--13:38
Talk by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)
October 28, 2025

Description: 
Metropolitan Jonah discusses the Gospel of John chapters 12 & 13. A partial summary of the class and discussions:
(1) To explain the unbelief of many of the Jews, and in particular the intransigence of the chief priests and Pharisees, John references two passages from the Prophet Isaiah: 53:1 and 6:10. Just as many rejected the rebuke of the Prophet Isaiah and refused to repent, so many also rejected the words of Christ, who is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 52 & 53. The hardening of their hearts is not to be understood as God's action but a self-inflicted hardening. When men refuse to repent and come to God, they naturally move away from him further. God remains loving to all men and wills that all men be saved. He sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike. In fact, Hell is the place where people go of their own choice because they refuse to repent. If we say that God sends a person to Hell, it means that He does so out of love, respecting their own free-will choice to be separate from Him. To force an unrepentant person close to God would only increase their misery; 
(2) "A NEW commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another." In this respect, we Orthodox Christians affirm that God is love and hates no one, but loves His enemies, and likewise must we do. Orthodox Christians understand that there is a hierarchy in Scripture and that the New Testament, and above all the Gospels, trump the Old Testament. When in Psalm 138:22 David says that he has hated the enemies of God with a perfect hatred, it is a shadow. When the Son of Man was lifted high on the Cross, He said "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do"; 
(3) When Christ says "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth [on the Cross], will draw all peoples to Myself" (John 12:32), it is His love that draws us to Him. The Cross is Christ's glory. When the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1) says "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. The house was full of His glory", he prefigures (see John 12:41) the glory of Christ on the Cross, the glory of the love of God. Such glory is seen by those who believe in Him, but not by those who seek a Messiah of power, a military deliverer; 
(4) Isaiah's "Suffering Servant" discourse shed's further light: (Isaiah 42:13-15): "See, my servant will act wisely; he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted. Just as there were many who were appalled at him --- his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness --- so he will sprinkle many nations". When Christ was lifted up on the Cross, he made a self-offering to His Father of His own blood, which was then sprinkled on the nations, bringing forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God (atonement, expiation). This is the correct Orthodox understanding of the Cross --- the idea of propitiation of the WRATH of God, of a forensic judicial satisfaction, is not. Interestingly, after the reforms of Josiah and the return from exile, the Hebrew religion and its major feast, the Day of Atonement (reconciliation), was replaced by a judicial Judaism and the feast of Passover, which emphasizes propitiation and needs no priest. Orthodox Christianity is the inheritor of the true Hebrew religion, having a priesthood appointed by the Great High Priest, in which the priest offers the bloodless sacrifice as an icon of the Great High Priest, who offered Himself once for all, for the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God. As Great High Priest He brings our sins into the Heavenly Holy of Holies in His slain self-offered body and they are wiped away (expiated); 
(5) Christ's washing of the feet of His apostles is both an exemplary expression of the humility that He also calls us to, and a sign of ordination to the priesthood (Exodus 40:12); 
(6) The last supper (in history) and the Eucharist (each Divine Liturgy) are in anticipation of, and in fact a mystical participation in, the heavenly marriage banquet of the Lamb (Son of God) to His Church. Christ offers Himself as a sacrifice for us and gives us His flesh to eat. Those who believe in Christ are sanctified by His body and blood, unlike Judas who did not believe and into whom Satan entered when he took the bread having already decided to betray Jesus.