When the disciples wanted to stop the Lord Jesus in John 11 from going to Judea again because they considered it too dangerous, He answered them: “Are there not twelve hours in the day?” (John 11:9). By this He wanted to tell them that the will of the Father determined the length of His life and could neither be shortened by the hostility of the Jews nor extended by the disciples’ safety precautions. Only when the “twelve hours” of His lifetime set by the Father were over would His life here on earth end. The same also applies to the “lifespan” of this world and also to our lives. The hours, that is, epochs of time of this world, are just as much in the Father’s hand as the “twelve hours” of our life.

It is remarkable that we often find the expression “hour” in the sense of a period of time characterized by certain features in the Gospel of John, and that in this Gospel one can distinguish exactly twelve different “hours” in total [1]:

• the hour of the Lord Jesus’ physical sufferings at the hand of men (John 7:30; 8:20)
• the hour of the disciples’ failure (John 16:32)
• the hour of the Father’s glorification through the sufferings of the cross (John 12:27)
• the hour of the Son’s going to the Father (John 13:1)
• the hour of the Son’s glorification in heaven after the work has been accomplished (John 17:1)
• the hour of grace for lost sinners (John 5:25)
• the hour of proclaiming the truth about the Father (John 16:25)
• the hour of worshiping the Father in spirit and truth (John 4:23)
• the hour of persecution for the followers of Jesus (John 16:2, 4)
• the hour of resurrection (John 5:28) [2]
• the hour of the Son of Man’s glorification in the kingdom (John 12:23)
• the hour of the joy of the thousand-year kingdom (John 2:4)

Footnotes:

1. The hours overlap in part; the difference lies in the characteristics associated with each hour.
2. This hour is divided into two phases,separated by a good 1,000 years: the resurrection of life (i.e., of those who died as believers) and the resurrection of judgment (i.e., of those who died as unbelievers); cf. Revelation 20:4–6.