Life Comes through His Death (John 12:20-33).
‘Now among those who went up to worship at the Feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we want to see Jesus”.'
At this stage some Greeks approached Philip in order to meet with Jesus. ‘Greeks' simply means Gentiles. It is doubtful if they were proselytes (circumcised converts) to Judaism for then they would not have been seen as Gentiles. They were probably rather ‘God-fearers', (those Gentiles who looked to the God of Israel without being circumcised and becoming proselytes, having thus only restricted access to the synagogues and being limited in the Temple to the court of the Gentiles). Many such God-fearers came to Jerusalem at the great feasts, attracted by the monotheism and morality of the Jewish teaching. They were permitted to participate in synagogue worship in a limited fashion and to take part in the general festivities, and they could worship in the court of the Gentiles in the Temple. Their approach was possibly in order to discover whether this prophet welcomed such as them. Perhaps they were spurred on by the way in which Jesus had dealt with those who were hindering their worship in the Temple.
These God-fearing non-Jews were in direct contrast with the Pharisees. They saw what the majority of Pharisees refused to see. Their desire to see Jesus was certainly not academic but in order to learn from Him and receive assurance that they could be accepted by His God. We are not told whether they met Jesus, although we may assume that they did, but their very approach, with a significance that only He could know as it brought home to Him the future, spurred Him into words about His coming death, a death which would pave the way for the full acceptance of the Gentiles. John, of course, was concerned that his readers, who were themselves Greeks, would align themselves with these men of faith.