‘And Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. With great emphasis (truly, truly) I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit”.'
‘The hour has come.' Previously we were told that His hour was not yet come (John 7:30; John 8:20). But this approach of the Gentiles had reminded Him that the time of suffering now approached on the horizon and He was ready to face it within the timing of God. The Passover Lamb, the Lamb of God (John 1:29; John 1:36), must die at the Passover. Like a grain of wheat He must fall into the ground and die.
The idea of the ‘glorifying' of the Son of Man takes us back directly to Daniel (John 9:13-14) where ‘one like a son of man' comes before God to receive His kingdom, coming out from a background of suffering and death (Daniel 9:21). The Son of Man is a title Jesus took for Himself because it represented both humility and glory. In one sense it represented weak, mortal man over against God and the heavenly beings (Psalms 8:4; Ezekiel 2:1 and often), on the other it represented the one who after suffering represented Israel before God and received authority in Heaven over God's kingdom (Daniel 9:13-14).
In John's Gospel ‘glorifying' includes the death on the cross and the glory that follows, which results in the new age of the Spirit (John 7:39; John 12:32-33). Here the stress is on the cross. As a grain of wheat He must fall into the ground and die. But just as the wheat then springs into new life so by His resurrection He will produce fruit. The age of the Spirit, which has already begun through the ministry of Jesus, will come with power, even reaching out to the Gentiles. Thus His suffering is not an unfortunate, unexpected event but a necessity. It is that which will produce the fruitfulness (compare Isaiah 53:10).
The mention of the seeking Greeks prior to this word was because John wants us to see in this verse that the ‘much fruit' in mind is not limited to Palestine but reaches out to the Gentile world as well. God so loves the world that He is giving His Son for the whole world (John 3:16). No doubt this was personally brought home to these Gentiles who had approached Him.