John often uses time and seasons to mark significant events. The text conveys tension, as the Jewish people, aware that their leaders want to kill Jesus, wonder whether Jesus will make a public appearance for the upcoming feast. It was in this same season that the Lord had first manifested Himself, cleansing the temple. A year later, during the same feast, He had fed the hungry multitude, so stirring the people that they wanted to make Him king by force. But now the leaders of the nation were incensed; they decreed that Jesus must die. Though nigh at hand, yet His hour had not yet come; so Christ retreated for a few days of quiet rest. The tension of chapter 11 is resolved as Christ makes a triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. Though there is a price on His head, Christ enters boldly, because He knows that His time is in His Father’s hand.
God’s time and man’s time are very different. Man is bound by time and space, while God is infinite. We are told that with God a thousand years is as a day – and even this is only a metaphor. Unbound by time, God decrees and defines time and the events that happen within time. There is therefore no variableness or indecision with Him. Though He is timeless, God precisely uses time and space to reveal Himself and accomplish His will among mankind. This sermon examines the dimension of time, looking at how events surrounding the life and death of Jesus were fixed in time by God, such as incarnation of Christ, when eternity stepped into time and became subject to it. And we see how God is orchestrating events in our time to give the human race a warning of the day of wrath that is to come.
