John 12:27-31a : “Now my soul is troubled. What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this time?’ But for this cause I came to this time. Father, glorify your name!” Then there came a voice out of the sky, saying, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” The multitude therefore, who stood by and heard it, said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice hasn’t come for my sake, but for your sakes. Now is the judgment of this world.

Jesus was troubled in His soul. He was about to go through a punishment for something that He didn’t do. This punishment was to bring glory to God. I believe that this is saying that when sin is punished, God is glorified. God cannot let sin go on. It ruins His righteousness. Jesus was completely looking past the pain to say: “Father, glorify your name!” This is definitely not how a natural human would behave.

Romans 5:7,8 : For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Then a voice from the sky was heard. It was a voice that “thundered.” It was probably a bit scary if it was anything like talking thunder. It didn’t surprise Jesus, however. It seems strange to me that the people said that it was an angel. It must have been the voice of the Father responding to Jesus based on the fact that Jesus was addressing the Father. God the Father doesn’t have to have a voice, but He can make one if He needs to, and it can just come out of the sky. The voice of God that made the heavens and the earth, promised that God would be glorified by Jesus, so, it would happen as surely as the world was created. This voice was for the people to hear. It let them know that God was involved in this event that was to take place.

This event that was to take place was to be “the judgment of this world.” How could this be when Jesus said earlier that He didn’t come to judge. The judgment that Jesus is talking about was to be directed toward Him. The judgment for the sin of this world was soon to be passed, but it would not be inflicted on the world. The judgment that was soon to come was the wrath of God poured out on His own Son. That judgment would pay for our sins forever, for God loves the world. This is one of the most amazing and important things that has ever happened in human history. In Jesus, God sees sin as already punished. The judgment has been settled. We are free from the punishment for our sin. If we believe in Jesus, this freedom is ours.