“Responding to the Paradigm-Busting King”
John 12:9-19
April 26, 2020
Faith Presbyterian Church – Morning Service
Pastor Nicoletti
We continue, this morning, in the Gospel of John.
In chapter eleven we read of Jesus’s great sign and miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead. Then, in the first few verses of chapter twelve, we read of Jesus coming to Bethany (just outside of Jerusalem) a few days before the Feast of Passover would be celebrated in Jerusalem.
Now we come to Jesus’s travels from Bethany to Jerusalem, in John chapter twelve, verses nine through nineteen.
Please listen carefully, for this is God’s Word for us this morning.
12:9 When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, 11 because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.
12 The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” 14 And Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, just as it is written,
15 “Fear not, daughter of Zion;
behold, your king is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt!”
16 His disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him. 17 The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. 18 The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. 19 So the Pharisees said to one another, “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.”
This is the word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God.)
“All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” [1 Peter 1:24-25]
Let’s pray …
Lord, we have come together virtually this morning because we love your Word.
We want it to be our meditation day and night.
We know that your revelation to us
offers more wisdom than the wise of this world,
it gives us more understanding than the great thinkers of this world,
it gives us deeper understanding than the old and experienced of this world.
It holds us back from evil,
and keeps us from straying from you.
And it is sweet to us,
sweeter than honey in our mouths.
Through it we gain understanding,
and we learn to reject every false way.
Teach us now from your word, we ask.
In Jesus’s name. Amen
[Based on Psalm 119:97-104]
In our text this morning there are five distinct individuals or groups who act – who play a key role in what happens here. This morning I want to consider each of them, and then ask what each one has to say to us.
And the first individual we must consider is the one who is at the center of all that is happening here: Jesus.
Jesus, we should note, does not speak in this passage. But he says a lot by his actions. By his actions he reveals himself to Israel as a paradigm-busting king.
Now, what do I mean by that?
Well, I’m borrowing the phrase from one of Tim Keller’s sermons on Exodus.
But in our text this morning, the Jews had a certain paradigm – they had a certain set of expectations for the kind of king they thought they needed. They expected him to follow a pattern. They expected him to fit within a certain framework that they already had.
And Jesus shows up here and both evokes those paradigms … and also overthrows them. On the one hand, he calls them to mind … and then he also seems to tear them down. He is a paradigm-busting king – an expectations-defying king.
Now, how does he do that here?
Well, we can begin to see that by considering the expectations the people express here for Jesus.
We come across that in verses twelve and thirteen. The people gathered in Jerusalem had wondered if Jesus was coming, as we read in chapter eleven, and now they learn he is. And we get their response in verse thirteen. We read: “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’”
This response tells us a lot about what they expected of Jesus.
The most obvious thing they expect was for him to be a King – the King of Israel. They say as much in verse thirteen. But it leads us to the next question, which is: What kind of king do they expect Jesus to be?
And we get two clues about their expectations.
The first is that they expected him to be a king who would bring deliverance to them. We see this in the words they have chosen in verse thirteen.
First, they cry out “Hosanna!” “Hosanna” is a cry based on the Hebrew for the phrase “Give salvation now!” or “Save us now!” While the phrase is technically a request, it had come to be used among the Jews as a term of praise or acclamation, directed at the one who they believed would save them. [Carson, 432] So we see that the crowd expects Jesus to be a king who will save them.
The second clue we get comes in the rest of the words: “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.” That phrase comes from Psalm 118 – the same psalm that the term Hosanna appears in, just one verse earlier [118:25-26].
Psalm 118, as a whole, focuses on God’s saving work towards Israel, but as the psalm progresses, many have pointed out that it seems to focus on an individual – on a ruler, on a king, who will save Israel. [Kidner, 447-451; Carson, 432]
Later Jewish writings interpreted this line that the crowd shouts from Psalm 118 messianically, and it seems plausible that it was read that way in Jesus’s day as well. [Carson, 432]
So, the people’s expectation is that Jesus is (or may be) the messianic king who will save them – who will deliver them.
And how do they expect him to do that?
Well, it’s actually the palms that give us a hint at the crowd’s expectations there.
While palms were associated with the Feast of Tabernacles and with Psalm 118 itself, in Jesus’s day they also had a strong and more recent association. In the second century, during the Maccabean revolt, the Jewish leader Simon the Maccabee drove the Syrian forces out of Israel and was then celebrated with praise, music, and palm branches [1 Macc. 13:51]. Palms would later appear on the coins minted by Jewish insurgents in the first and second centuries AD, during the Jewish wars against Rome. In other words, the palm had become a symbol of nationalistic military victory for many Jews. [Carson, 432]
And so, when the crowd comes out with palms, this is something of what they expect. They are hailing him as a king, but also, it would seem, as a certain kind of king. They expected a messianic king who would deliver them as a nation through military victory. That’s their paradigm. That is their expectation.
And as soon as Jesus shows up, he overturns it. And he does that by riding on a donkey.
While we know from the other gospels that Jesus arranged the donkey ahead of time, John emphasizes the donkey as a response to the expectations of the people. As one commentator puts it: “To report the ride on the donkey immediately after the acclamation of the crowd has the effect of damping down nationalistic expectations. [Jesus] does not enter Jerusalem on a war horse […], which would have whipped the political aspirations of the vast crowd into an insurrectionist frenzy.” [Carson, 433]
So Jesus first contradicts their military expectations by not choosing a war horse. But then, he says something even more by riding in on a donkey, which John tells us is intended to point the people to Zechariah chapter nine.
John quotes an abbreviated form of Zechariah 9:9 in verse fifteen, but when he does that, we should assume that he expects us to consider the passage he’s directed us to as a whole.
Looking back to that text, then, we get the full verse. In Zechariah 9:9 we read: “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Whereas the crowd expected a messianic king characterized by military might, Jesus presents himself as a messianic king characterized by humility – by gentleness. [Köstenberger, 472-474; Carson, 433]
And the contrast with the crowd’s expectations becomes even greater as we read on in Zechariah nine. In verses ten and eleven we read: “I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the war horse from Jerusalem; and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace to the nations; his rule shall be from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth. As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.”
Three things stand out here. First, the coming of this king is associated with the cessation of war – not its start, as the crowd might suppose. Second, that this king will “speak peace to the nations” rather than stand in combat against them. And third, “the coming of the gentle king is associated with the blood of God’s covenant that spells release for prisoners.” [Carson, 433-434]
Rather than a messiah king that would deliver Israel by waging war against the nations and shedding their blood, Jesus blows up that paradigm – that framework of expectations – and he presents himself as the messiah king who would deliver Israel by the sacrificial blood of the covenant, and would bring peace not only to Israel, but also to her enemies.
Jesus takes their expectations – their paradigm – and replaces it with something much larger. Jesus has not come to deliver just the nation, but the world. He has come not just to reign over Jerusalem, but over the globe. He has come not just to give political independence, but to bring to bear the blood of the covenant with God, and to release the captives, and to make things new.
Jesus comes to Jerusalem, and he first excites the expectations of the first-century Jews, and then he overturns them. He replaces them with something larger. He arrives in Jerusalem as a paradigm-busting king.
That is at the heart of our passage. But once we recognize that, we need to trace the line of how Jesus has connected with the people in the first place, in order to bring this about.
And the first step in that is to ask why anyone is even paying any attention to Jesus to begin with.
And the answer John gives is Lazarus.
In verse nine we read that Lazarus was a key part of what drew a crowd in Bethany, even before Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. John writes: “When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.”
In verse seventeen we read that Lazarus is the topic of conversation – he’s what those from Bethany are talking about with those who came from Jerusalem.
In fact, John tells us in verse eighteen that the reason why a crowd came out from Jerusalem to see Jesus in the first place was, again, Lazarus.
The chief priests saw Lazarus as so central to what was happening that in verses ten and eleven John tells us that they began plotting to murder Lazarus!
John tells us that Lazarus was central to everything that was going on here. Lazarus was why people were talking about Jesus the way they were. Lazarus was why people were coming out to see Jesus. Lazarus was why many Jews were coming to believe in Jesus.
Lazarus is crucial to this passage … and yet he doesn’t say a word. How can he be so important if he is silent?
Well, as one commentator puts it: Lazarus’s “very life provided a ground for faith in Jesus.” [Carson, 430]
And why was that?
Because Lazarus’s life was a paradigm buster. Lazarus’s very life overturned the expectations of the people who saw him and who heard about him.
We tend, as modern people, to be very snobbish towards people of the ancient world. While it’s true that people of the ancient world were far more open to the transcendent spiritual realm interacting with the imminent physical realm, they were not stupid. They knew how the world worked. And they had more experience with many aspects of the world than we do.
They knew that when someone or something died, it stayed dead. And they saw death a lot more than most modern people do today. They saw it on their farms. They saw it in the sacrificial worship at the temple. They saw as they cared for the dying in their homes, and mourned and buried their dead in their communities. Where we today mostly hide death away from our view, it was before them far more often.
And so, men and women in the ancient world knew that when something died, it stayed dead. They knew that the dead did not just rise. The normal way things worked was that the dead stayed in their tombs. Which is why, when Jesus raised Lazarus, it created the stir that it did. Because something wildly abnormal had happened. Something that defied all expectations had happened. And that got people’s attention. And so they had to turn aside and see what this was about. Lazarus had a paradigm-busting life, which then drew the crowd’s attention to Jesus, the paradigm-busting king.
And that leads us to the next two players to consider in this text.
The first significant player we considered was Jesus. The second was Lazarus. And now, the third and fourth are the crowds.
Because there are actually two crowds present in our text: there’s the crowd from Bethany and the crowd that came out from Jerusalem. [Carson, 435]
First, there is the crowd from Bethany. We read of this crowd both in verse nine and in verse seventeen. In verse seventeen, we read about this crowd as they entered Jerusalem with Jesus, and John tells us: “ The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness.”
And that is the chief thing this crowd does in this text: they bear witness. They have seen something that up-ended their expectations. And they recognize that what they have witnessed says something significant about Jesus – something that changes everything. And so they tell others about it – they bear witness to it. That is the key aspect of how they respond to Jesus and what he is doing.
That’s the first crowd, and the third major player or character in this text.
The fourth major character in this text is the second crowd. This is the crowd from Jerusalem. And the main thing this crowd does is to hear, and then to respond. But it’s the hearing that is foundational.
We see it first in verse twelve – there we read: “The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast” – that is, the crowd gathered in Jerusalem for the Passover feast [Carson, 431] – the large crowd that had come to the feast “heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him.”
We might wonder what led them to do this – what led this crowd in Jerusalem to come out to see Jesus in the first place – and John tells us in verse eighteen. There John writes: “The reason why the crowd” – meaning the crowd from Jerusalem – the reason why the crowd “went to meet [Jesus] was that they heard he had done this sign.” – meaning raising Lazarus from the dead.
So the Jerusalem crowd heard about the miraculous sign, and they heard that Jesus was coming, and then they acted. And we read of that in verse thirteen. There we are told that the crowd “took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!’”
The Jerusalem crowd heard about Jesus, and then they went to Jesus, and then they professed faith in Jesus. That is the pattern we see in them.
And in what we see here, it is good. Of course, we know how things will turn in the days ahead. But that does not take away from what is presented here as the good initial pattern of the crowd coming out from Jerusalem, as they heard about Jesus, and then went to Jesus, and then professed faith in Jesus.
They make up the fourth character of this text.
Which leaves us with the fifth and final group.
And the fifth group is the Pharisees and the chief priests.
In chapter eleven we read about the chief priests and Pharisees discussing what to do about Jesus. And their concern was that if the people continued to gather around Jesus and follow him, then, they said, “the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But then Caiaphas spoke up and said that it would be better for one man – for Jesus – to die, than for the Romans to destroy the nation. And so the leaders began their plans to put Jesus to death. This is their approach after they hear that Jesus has raised Lazarus.
Then, here in chapter twelve, we read more about their response.
In verses ten and eleven we read: “So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.” And then in verse nineteen, as the crowds go out to Jesus, we read: “So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.’”
What is striking about this last group – this last “character” in the story here – is that in their response to Jesus they are characterized by indifference to the truth as they seek their own way. They’re characterized by indifference to the truth as they seek their own way.
There’s no discussion recorded on whether or not they think Jesus actually did raise the dead, and if he did, then what the implications of that might be. There’s no consideration of “Wait, maybe this man is from God.” There’s no reflection on the question: “What does this mean for what God might be doing?” There’s no discussion on the thought: “What might this mean God is calling us to?” There’s not even a question of “What is really going on here?” It’s not that they deny the claims of what Jesus has done. It more seems that they are indifferent to what he may have done.
And why are they indifferent to what he may have done?
Because they have a way forward, and they see Jesus primarily – they see Jesus only – as an obstacle to their way of dealing with things.
The situation with the Romans was not ideal. But they’ve decided they can make it work. They are in a pretty decent position for the moment in the overall scheme of things. The status quo is not so bad for them. And they are not willing to risk it. They are not willing to risk it, even to consider what may be true about Jesus. They are not willing to risk it even to ask if God may be at work in Christ. They are not willing to let go of their way of proceeding forward. And so they don’t even ask what is true about Jesus.
The Pharisees and chief priests have their own paradigm – their own framework for viewing things. And Jesus, in his coming, overturns their paradigm and their expectations as much as anyone else’s. But they seem impervious to it. It has no effect on them. Not because the truth Jesus brings to bear is insufficient to overturn their paradigms, but because the Pharisees and chief priests are indifferent to truth.
It’s easy for us to shake our heads at them when we consider this, but really the first question you should be asking yourself is: How do you see yourself in the Pharisees and the chief priests of this text?
And don’t tell me that you don’t.
The Pharisees and the chief priests are those here who are indifferent to the truth because they are seeking their own way. And every one of us should be able to see ourselves in that pattern.
If you’re not a Christian, then the Bible says that this is the greatest threat you face in whether you will come to truly trust in Jesus.
Because Jesus, as we considered at the beginning of this sermon, is a God who will upset your paradigm. He will break it – he will tear it down – and he will give you a new one. And most people don’t want that. Most people are at least somewhat comfortable in the paradigm they have. Most people are at home to some extent in the framework they have and the expectations they live with. It may not be perfect, it may have flaws, but at least they know it and they know how to navigate it and how to seek what they want in it. And so when Jesus comes, upsetting that paradigm, we object. He may tell us that certain things are true that we don’t want to be true. Or he may tell us he wants us to live in ways we that don’t want to live. He may tell us not to do things that we want to do. Or he may tell us he has plans for us that we don’t want to follow. And if you are honest when you are confronted with those realities, the thing that most threatens to turn you away from Jesus is not that you find his teaching to be false, or his commandments to be evil, or his plans to be bad, or his kingship to be fake, but it’s that whether his teaching is true or false, whether his commands are good or evil, whether his plans are wise or foolish, whether his kingship is real or fake – either way, you just don’t want those things.
Jesus came to Jerusalem as the Messiah – as God himself coming to his people. And the chief priests rejected him. And the root reason they rejected him was not because he wasn’t God, but because he got in the way of what they wanted.
Are you in danger of that sort of reaction this morning? Does that sound like it could be you?
And that question must not be limited to non-Christians but needs to be considered by Christians as well.
Because every time you sin – every time you turn from God in a sinful thought, word, or deed – you too are walking in the path of the chief priests and the Pharisees here. And you especially know you’re doing it. You know that you’re sinning not because you know that that sin is good, but because it’s what you want – whether it’s good or not. You know that you are neglecting God in your heart not because you think that is the best way forward, but because it’s what feels easiest right now – whether it’s for better or for worse. You know that when you think and speak as if God is not there you are doing it not because such thinking reflects the truth, but because it’s the easiest way to operate in the moment – whether it’s true or false. We Christians can resemble the Pharisees and the chief priests more than we would like to think we do. And it’s even more heinous when we do it – because we are even more aware of exactly what we are doing.
Far too often we live, or act, or think like the Pharisees and chief priests here.
What then does this text hold out as an alternative? Well, it holds out the path we have just walked down and which we will now walk back. It holds up the path from the Jerusalem crowd to the Bethany crowd to Lazarus and then to Christ.
First, we are called to be like the Jerusalem crowd. And remember that the first thing that the Jerusalem crowd did was to hear – the first thing they did was to listen.
We are to listen to the testimony concerning Jesus Christ. For them, in meant listening to the testimony of the Bethany crowd. For us it means a range of things.
It may mean listening to the testimony of those who have come to know Christ by faith, and considering what they have experienced and seen.
But even more than that, for Christians and non-Christians alike, it means listening to the testimony of the Christian Scriptures. It means listening to the Christian Scriptures preached: joining with other Christians (right now virtually, but one day in person again) – joining with other Christians in hearing the Word of God explained and applied by a minister of God’s people. It means studying the Christian Scriptures with others – discussing the testimony of the Word of God with friends, or with family, or with a small group. It means attending to and hearing the testimony of Scripture on your own. How’s that annual Bible reading plan going? If it’s going well, then keep at it. If you fell away from it, or if you never started one, then take this time as a chance to return to daily reading of God’s word. Take it at whatever pace you need to, but attend to God’s word – hear the testimony it bears.
But along with that, like the Jerusalem crowd, you also need to respond to what you hear by going to Jesus, and by professing faith in Jesus. In other words, you need to pray, and you need to worship. Hearing is not enough. Responding is key. And so sing with us and pray with us during these services – don’t just listen. And sing to the Lord and pray to the Lord on your own. Go to him in prayer, and profess your faith in him, just as the crowd from Jerusalem does.
The first step we are called to is that like the Jerusalem crowd we need to hear the testimony of Jesus, go to Jesus, and profess faith in Jesus.
In those ways we are to be like the Jerusalem crowd.
But then, we are also to move a step further and to be like the crowd from Bethany. We are to bear witness about Jesus. We are to tell others what we have come to know about him. We are to declare to others what he has done. We are to proclaim to others what we have learned about him. We are to make it known who he is to us … and who he is to this world.
You know, the crowd from Bethany began as a group at a funeral in the previous chapter. Jesus took them from the house of mourning in chapter eleven to the table of feasting and celebration in the first part of chapter twelve. And now, in our text this morning, he makes them into a company of heralds. And they go out and proclaim the arrival of a new king – a new king whose kingship will change everything.
And as Christ did for them, so he does for all his people. He has brought us from the house of mourning to the table of joy. And then he commissions us to be his heralds, and to proclaim his kingship to all.
Jesus calls us to hear, to come to him, to believe, and to proclaim. But still it doesn’t end there.
Because he also calls us to be like Lazarus. He calls us to be, by our very lives, paradigm-busters to those around us.
Remember, Lazarus, by his very life, was the paradigm-buster that pointed to Christ. He should be dead, yet he lives. According to everyone’s way of viewing things, Lazarus did not belong in this world. But there he was. And it was that fact that led them to consider Jesus as they did.
And so Jesus does with all of his people. Jesus makes his people into living paradigm-busters in this world.
And he does that in a range of ways. For some he does it by making them people who don’t fit with who they once were. Through conversion or renewal later on in life, Jesus will transform someone in the middle of their lives in a way that does not fit with what we know to be normal. And when Jesus does that, he will get the attention of Christians and non-Christians alike … who will become increasingly aware that something outside our normal paradigms is taking place.
For others, he forms a pattern in their lives that people around them must admit is not of this world. The way they love others, the way they are committed to do what is right, the way they honor their God and love those around them, even if it is to their own hurt – it contradicts the self-interest and self-centeredness of this world, and people’s paradigms are upset, and they take notice.
For still others, he shapes them in his image in ways that disrupt the categories of this life. They don’t fit well into the worldly tribes of this world. They care about the poor and oppressed in ways that most people associate with progressives, but then they care about sexual chastity and integrity in ways that most people associate with conservatives. They state directly and objectively the moral wrong of certain acts – they are not moral relativists – but they are also willing to truly forgive the wrongs of others. They openly speak of their disagreements with other people, but then they speak to and about those they disagree with such kindness and respect. They defy the categories of this world in ways that disrupt people’s paradigms and get their attention.
As St. Francis of Assisi put it, we are called to preach with our words, but we are also called to preach with our deeds. And one way we do that is by living lives shaped by Christ that do not fit in this world, and so get people’s attention.
Where might Christ be at work in you in this way? Where is he making you different than you were? Where is he making you less at home in this world, because you don’t fit its patterns or its categories? Where is he making your life a paradigm-busting testimony to him?
And what’s key in those questions is: Where is Jesus doing that work? Because he is the one who made Lazarus what he was. Christ was at the center of it all.
He is the one who must confront you and make you new. He is the one who must take your paradigms – the expectations of your heart, the expectation of your mind, the expectations you have in your actions – he must take those things and tear them apart to replace them with something new.
Our calling is to actively bring ourselves to Jesus, to open ourselves up to him, and to his word, and to his Spirit, so that he can do that work in us. Our calling is to accept him as he is, and not as we want him to be.
And that is not easy.
Sometimes we want to react like the Pharisees and the chief priests – we want to cast him aside and cling to our ways of seeing this world and living in it, because it just seems easier.
Other times we may be looking right at the truth Jesus is bringing to bear, but we still struggle to see it. Remember, in verse sixteen John admits to us that even he and the other disciples did not fully grasp what Jesus was saying to them in the moment when he sat down on the donkey. And we can be the same way. We can struggle to see. We can cling to worldly ways of approaching Jesus and try to fit him in that box.
But Jesus is bigger than that. Jesus is more than that. Jesus will not be content to fit into a neat little box in our pre-existing paradigms any more than he’ll be content to fit into a neat little box in our pre-existing lives. Jesus will tear down what was. Jesus will make things new.
That is the kind of king he is. He is the kind of king who causes wars to cease, as Zechariah tells us. He is the kind of king who speaks peace to the nations. He is the kind of king who frees the captives. He is the kind of king who turns everything upside down and makes all things new.
And so, let us therefore go out to him and receive him. Let us proclaim to others who he is. Let us respond to him as he calls us by his might to come out of our tombs. With our hearts, our lips, and our lives, let us declare: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”
Amen.
—
This sermon draws on material from:
Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. PNTC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991.
Keller, Timothy. This sermon draws from two different sermons I heard from Timothy Keller years ago, but was not able to locate for citation. One of them, which focuses on the idea of “paradigm busters” was on Moses and the burning bush. A different sermon, on First Corinthians, applied that framework (though not that terminology) to Christian conduct.
Kidner, Derek. Psalms 73-150. Kidner Classic Commentaries. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1975 (2008 format).
Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John. NICNT. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1971.
Wright, N. T. John for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 11-21. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004.