Is John 12:23–50 a minor climax to the book?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1994.

I am with you 100% in your suggestion that John 12:23–50 seems to be a minor climax to the book.

In dividing a book into its various sections, we should not forget that each of the sections is meant to follow the other in linear progression; and therefore John 12, which ends the account of our Lord's ministry to the nation of Israel, very understandably treats it as a climax and comments at length on God's judicial hardening of their hearts when they rejected Christ after three years of his public ministry.

Personally, I take the phrase 'walk while you have the light, lest darkness overtake you' to relate in the first instance to the historical situation (Editor's note: Although this translation of John 12:35 matches the English Standard Version (2001), it is actually Dr Gooding's own translation from 1994). 'As long as I am in the world,' said Christ, 'I am the light of the world.' That is, while he lived and taught among the Jews, he was their light. They were to believe on him, therefore, while he was still with them. If they rejected him and then he left, they would find themselves in darkness. The principle, of course, is expandable. Anyone who persistently rejects the light is liable to find himself eventually in darkness.

I take our Lord's words, 'And I know that his command is everlasting life', to be on a par with our Lord's remark at the beginning of John 17. As the bringer of God's words to men, he shows himself aware, naturally enough, and solemnly announced it, that God's commands that he has brought to men spell eternal life. And the consequence of this is that if men reject those commands, then they will experience eternal darkness and death.

Your brother in Christ,