Chapter 7
John 6 ended with many of Jesus' disciples turning away because of his hard sayings. My summary was that the Son redeems those chosen of the Father and drawn by the Spirit. The functions of the Trinity, all in one chapter in John 6.
7 opens by telling us that Jesus couldn't move about in Judea anymore because the Jews were now actively trying to kill him. Hard to imagine that he was under death threats from here on for healing people and giving sight to the blind. All the Pharisees knew was that he was a blasphemer according to their laws.
This verse:
5 For not even his brothers believed in him. [Jhn 7:5 ESV] Those following Jesus in Galilee urge him to go to Judea and demonstrate his power to the "brothers" there. They thought Jesus wanted to be famous and adored by everyone. They didn't know who he was at all, though they were with him and followed him, saw him, and heard the very words he spoke. If these so close to him could remain in disbelief, and not recognize him for who he was, how much more difficult today since we believe by faith and not by sight. 2020 - The phrasing here makes it seem as if this is about his actual brothers and sisters at home. They still think he's nuts. But if he is real, he should go and prove it in a "real place" not out here in the boonies where he's always wandering around. They are sort of "calling his bluff" I think. Those who followed him would not have been called brothers I don't think, either. So this is his family urging him in this way - to go get famous, or stop all this nonsense. That's how little they understood. But it also seems that they go to the feast, leaving Jesus behind. If these are his family, where are the 12 and the disciples at this time? Perhaps he took a little time off and went home, and they left him there.
2022 - This year, I notice that vs 3 confirms that the brothers were his family, his half brothers. Here is the verse:
3 So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. [Jhn 7:3 ESV]. His brothers tell him to go prove himself to his disciples. So brothers and disciples are separate groups entirely. And that means that the MSB note here is entirely incorrect. John did not mean "brothers and sisters" when he wrote brothers. He MEANT brothers - male relatives!
2021 - This verse struck me today: 6 Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. [Jhn 7:6 ESV]. My time, your time, is always here. Jesus had a specific purpose and a timeline that would lead to the fulfillment of many prophecies. His time was tied to those. We, however, are to work every day, do every day. It is always "our time". We don't need to wait until next year to witness, to tell, to teach, to share. It is ALWAYS our time!
Good FB post.
Later...MSB indicates that Jesus is here talking to his own half-brothers. They don't believe in him at all, and are urging him to circumvent this timeline to prove something to his disciples. Jesus saying "your time is always here" doesn't mean they are always to be working. It means their time is worthless because they are part of the world and not doing God's work anyway. So it means the opposite of what I thought it did. I did not post it.
So his brothers and sisters went to the feast, but Jesus did not accompany them. But after they'd gone, Jesus went to the feast incognito. He didn't go with the brothers because this would have caused a scene and put those trying to kill him in a frenzy. Jesus knew it was not yet time for things to culminate. There was much speculation about Jesus at the feast, some saying he was "a good man", others that he was leading people astray. They saw him turning Jews away from the many tedious laws and interpreted that as him making apostates instead of restoring the intent of the law. They were happy with their rituals, because ritual doesn't change lives. About half way through the feast, Jesus goes to the temple and begins teaching. They don't recognize him there, but marvel that one not educated by them in their own schools has such knowledge.
2022 - Don't these speculations sound a lot like what we hear today about megachurch preachers? Some are always saying "He's preaching it wrong", while others are head over heels that everything they say is gospel. I don't think that makes these preachers impersonators. They don't claim to be Christ, and I rarely hear of one that anyone thinks he is Christ, with the notable exception of Jim Jones. Perhaps we are to understand this as the "go to" argument of those who lack discernment. After all, both the "good man" group and the "lead astray" group are wrong about who Jesus really is. Isn't it the same today with those who salve their conscience - or who actively avoid controversy - by granting that while Jesus was a good man, it is silly to say he rose from the dead? All these are unsaved. Today, we have the advantage of an indwelling Holy Spirit to help us distinguish true from false teaching. Today we have prayer and we have the written word, both OT and NT. We have a spiritual yardstick that can be applied, and we have a written standard that can be applied. We don't need to speculate, as the lost do, about who is a good man and who is making apostates.
Wow...vs 17 (Jn 7:17) makes the above true even in Jesus time. (see below). If we are God's, we know. You know, we ought not be ashamed of what we know. This doesn't just apply to false vs true teaching at church or in Sunday School. If we study, if we pray, if we are practiced at seeking God, then we recognize truth vs apostasy when we hear it on the news, when we read it on FB or watch it on Twitter. Where in the Bible are we told to keep this understanding secret? Why do we not speak up in the face of recognized lies, heresies, and apostasies? All the things are being proclaimed publicly, and the best argument against them is the Word. They are wrong because they are inconsistent if not entrenched for battle with the Bible.
Possible FB post.
Jesus tells them that he is speaking God's will, because he is sent from God. This verse also:
17 If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. [Jhn 7:17 ESV]
This seems to be about our spirit communing with God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, though at this time we are well before Pentecost. Perhaps those chosen and called even before the Holy Spirit came, knew truth when they heard it. There is a note in MSB on 16 that says the rabbi's teaching was based on a long chain of human teaching, passed man to man, over hundreds or thousands of years. Theirs was a historical religion. Jesus' teaching was directly from God, today, and so was different in almost every way from what the rabbi's taught. Jesus point is that he is separate from them because he is sent from God, and gets his teaching from God, NOT from any rabbinical school.
2021 - 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?" [Jhn 7:19 ESV]. Here again Jesus tells them they are not keeping the Law. Surely the Pharisees believed that they were keeping the Law better and more correctly than anyone before them ever had. They considered themselves the generation of greatest knowledge, enlightenment, understanding. They had "discovered" the truth by throwing out the literal words of Moses and "correctly" interpreting what Moses meant by the laws he gave them. Jesus is telling them they don't even have the old law right, much less understand this new one. Part of this, in the verses just prior, is that one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory. This is what the Pharisees are doing. They are not looking at what Moses said, and trying to do that, they are instead re-interpreting, emphasizing different parts, teaching what Moses "really meant", according to the Pharisees. And they are trying to kill him.
Good FB post. Here is what was actually posted:
19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?" [Jhn 7:19 ESV]. Here Jesus tells the Pharisees they are not keeping the Law. This greatly offended the pride of the Pharisees because they believed they were keeping the Law better than anyone ever had. They were the generation of greatest knowledge, enlightenment, and understanding in the history of Israel. They had "discovered" the truth by throwing out the historical understanding of the literal words of Moses and "correctly" interpreting what Moses really meant. In the process, they made it possible to keep the Law which God gave Israel for the express purpose of showing that no one could ever keep the Law. They made evil good and good evil is what they did. Jesus publicly pointed out their error and for this the Pharisees are trying to kill him. This evaluation of the themselves as the smartest generation sounds too familiar in our world today. Our modern philosophers and academicians have "discovered" truths unknown and unimagined by previous generations. Amazing things like the desirability of homosexuality, that gender is chosen by individuals rather than determined by anatomy. That people who work hard and get ahead are only honorable if they have the right skin color. And the most fundamental "new truth" of them all...that a woman has an innate gender-based privilege that allows her to terminate a human life just because she says so. And they declare that those who believe these things are the enlightened and well adjusted. Jesus stood up to the Pharisees' nonsensical redefinition of the Mosaic Law. As Christians, we should stand up to similar nonsense in our day. That last phrase in the verse tells us what we can expect for our trouble.
FB 7/15/24 Monday
2022 - This verse:
20 The crowd answered, "You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?" [Jhn 7:20 ESV]. This reeks of conspiracy. It implies that the crowd in general has no idea of the agreement among the religious elite that Jesus ought to be killed. The crowd is still debating about whether he is a good man or not, but the elite have already pronounced him a threat so serious that he must be killed. The crowd did not understand how evil their leaders really were. Do we?
Possible FB post.
2024 - I wonder who it was in the crowd saying that Jesus must be crazy if he thinks anyone is trying to kill him? Perhaps plants from the Pharisees, or even some of the Pharisees themselves in order to deflect suspicion of illegality in their actions. I suggest this because of this verse, very soon after:
25 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, "Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? [Jhn 7:25 ESV]. This clearly implies that the intent of the Pharisees to kill Jesus was in fact quite widely known. Perhaps John is here trying to show just how deeply corrupt the religious elite were in Jesus time, and likely even moreso as John writes his gospel?
Jesus also tells them they aren't keeping the law of Moses anyway, since they are seeking to kill him. They deny any conspiracy. Jesus answers that they have been trying to kill him for healing on the Sabbath and making a man well, even though they themselves will do a circumcision on the Sabbath in order to comply with the letter of Mosaic law - the eighth day.
2022 - Here is the verse:
23 If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? [Jhn 7:23 ESV]. Again we have the whole healing on the Sabbath at the heart of the plot to kill Jesus. Remember that when he healed the withered hand on the Sabbath, that's when it changed. Then the stooped woman, and the hatred of Jesus intensified tremendously. Because nothing more clearly held the Pharisees up as hypocrites than that. Perhaps that is the whole reason for it. It was public. It was easily understood by the crowd. It was permanent - the lame could still walk the next day and for the rest of his life. And it showed the hypocrisy of the religious elite. I think Jesus is saying that doing the right thing is never wrong. If the 8th day is a Sunday, you know that it is ok to obey the Law on a Sunday. God's intent is never for man to suffer - not even lost men and women. To let them suffer when you could fix it is therefore sin. But the Pharisees were teaching that doing good was the sin.
Possible FB post
Then this verse:
24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment." [Jhn 7:24 ESV]
Jesus states clearly that the law of Moses was a guide to right living, but that its rituals and commands were not an end in themselves, but was to steer them toward holiness. If we do what is holy, we recognize holiness, as a bank teller recognizes genuine currency vs counterfeit. That's the "sensitivity" the law was to hone. But they'd lost that part of it entirely through the rabbinical traditions.
Possible FB post.
In vss 25-31, John tries to convey the rampant confusion as to who Jesus was. He tells us about the various opinions and what those are based on. If the Pharisees wanted this man dead, how could he be teaching right there in the Temple, and not be arrested??? Surely the Pharisees must believe in their back room discussions that he was really the Christ. What other possible explanation for their lack of direct action? 2020 - Notice vs 26. The very fact that the Pharisees won't come and arrest Jesus makes the crowd think the Pharisees believe Jesus is Christ. They are trying to figure out who he could really be, and even such contorted reasoning enters into their speculations.
2020 - No, that previous statement is wrong. They did not believe he was the Messiah. They believed him in league with Satan, or that he was a blasphemer from someplace, but even the Pharisees would not have killed him had they believed he was the Messiah. They never once believed, not for a minute. Or at least most did not.
Others say he cannot be the Christ because no one will recognize the Christ when he comes, as everyone knows. An MSB note says this is based on a misinterpretation of Isa 53.8 and Mal 3.1. But tradition said the Messiah would be born in a place that scripture prophesied, but that he would be totally unknown until he appeared in power and freed his people from oppression. So since they knew who Jesus was, where he was from, and much about his life, he could not be the Christ. He had too much history with them to be God's own Son.
2022 - I am not sure whether it is better to just assume that the tradition that said no one would know where he came from was just wrong, whether it was in fact true, because surely no one knew that the Messiah lived in Nazareth and was working as a carpenter for three decades before he began his ministry, or whether the tradition applies not to the first coming but to the second, when he comes to free his people from the oppression of the Man of Lawlessness. At that time, he will appear in power, from the sky. He will not be born and grow up in that time. He will just appear. Any of these, or all of them, seem to have some basis.
Jesus says they know him, but they do not know the one who sent him. Jesus makes their tradition true in a way, in that they don't recognize the sender. He means they are lost, and that God is not revealing the truth to them.
There were some who did believe, because of the miracles. They didn't see how anyone still to come could ever do more than Jesus had done. They were convinced by the miracles that Jesus was from God, was the Messiah. That is, after all, what the miracles were about.
2023 - This year, I think the point of the above is that they knew superficially who Jesus was. They knew his parents, his hometown, and like that. But they interpreted Isaiah to mean that they wouldn't even know the Messiah's name. In fact, Isaiah is exactly right - as you might expect. They did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. They did not recognize the most foundational thing about him - that he was from God and in fact WAS God. They - the Jews - won't recognize him as such until the time of the end, as his second coming approaches and the 144,000 evangelize and bring home the nation of Israel. So Isaiah is right...but those of Jesus' time didn't understand that.
The Pharisees hear about this rampant speculation and do finally send officers to arrest him. But Jesus says he will be there a little longer, and then he will join his father, and that they cannot come where he is. They will seek him, but not find him. He is speaking of heaven, and those who do not believe cannot come there. They will still be looking for the Messiah, not realizing that they have missed him entirely. He might also be talking about how those who do recognize him, will long for him, as a bride for the bridegroom. They will miss him, and seek him, but he will not be physically here anymore for a long time.
2021 - I don't believe the interpretation above is what was meant by "You shall seek and not find". Here is the whole verse: 34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come." [Jhn 7:34 ESV]. I think he means that after he returns to the Father, they will still be trying to wipe out his teaching. They will be trying to remove the name of Jesus from history and go back to their own teachings about the Mosaic Law. They will want to squelch his teachings, but they will be less able to do that than they are in finally getting him crucified. They will ultimately kill the man, but they will never kill what he is about. They still haven't, and they are still trying!
During the ceremony where water is poured out, Jesus says this:
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'" [Jhn 7:37-38 ESV] John tells us that Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit, which had not yet come, but Jesus was telling them about it. Belief in Jesus "releases the flow" of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and he dwells in us, and because of this, we do the will of God also. His Spirit works through us to accomplish His will.
2021 - When Jesus talks about water, he is referring to the Spirit? Is that what John is telling us? As we read Jesus words, anytime he mentions water he means Holy Spirit? Is that the water he offered the woman at the well? So she would never thirst? Never be alone because the Spirit would be with her? This is different than "eat my body and drink my blood". This is water. This point might help interpret many passages. Try and remember this! There is also that last phrase...The Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Was he not glorified until 40 days after his resurrection? Or is that too literal?
2022 - This is another example of John including hindsight in his gospel. He remembers that people didn't understand the words at that time, but that now, we understand that he meant the Holy Spirit. Thinking about Cullman's book, here is yet another example of what some could claim is an insert to go back and have Jesus "prophesy" about something that really came about after the fact. Many of these explanations by John have the look of later insertion, you have to admit that. So why does John do it? It may be that this was a refutation of a specific teaching of the sect of John the Baptist, and the Apostle thinks it a big enough deal that he must explain it. I don't know what exactly this statement by Jesus refutes in the teaching of the sect, but it has the look of being aimed at them.
2024 - It is simpler than the above. John's interpretations look like insertions not because they are insertions but because his gospel came so much later than all the others. John had had decades to understand many things that Jesus said and did where the other gospels are historical accounts with little or no interpretation. By the time John writes, he knows what these things meant, and so he tells us about them.
After these words, the confusion and discussion gets even more energetic. MSB says that then, as now, there were five reactions to what Jesus said. I list them here: 1, Some believed, 2, some were contrary, 3, some hostile (they wanted him arrested), 4, some were just still confused, and 5, the religious authorities reaction. In the middle of all this, those sent to arrest Jesus return to the Pharisees. The Pharisees ridicule them for being taken in by Jesus. But Nicodemus stands up among them and says they are judging Jesus without hearing him, and thus violating the law of Moses. So they accuse Nicodemus of being from Galilee too.
2022 - Look at this verse:
40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, "This really is the Prophet." [Jhn 7:40 ESV]. This is the second time the phrase "the Prophet" has been used by the people in the Gospel of John. They had previously seen the Baptist as the Prophet, and now they are attributing this to Jesus. We could see this as still another refutation of the continuing teaching of the sect that John the Baptist was the Prophet. Many moved on...so should the sect.
2024 - This clears up, for me, what prophet they thought Jesus was. They believe him to be the prophet who introduces the Kingdom of Theos on earth and restores Israel to its preeminent place in the hierarchy of kingdoms. He is the eschatological prophet. They believe - and by inference - John believed at this time that Jesus was indeed that prophet. They believed the appearance of this prophet would signal that the latter days had arrived and that the end was near. They believed the prophecy in Joel about the sudden abundance of prophesy in the end times included - or was brought about - by this prophet. There is much in the Culman notes about this prophet. Also, they believed that this prophet and the Messiah could be one and the same. So when John came, they at first believed he was this prophet (and the sect of John the Baptist continued to believe this, AND that John had been the Messiah and that Jesus was an imposter) but most - that is a lot - came to realize that Jesus was a far far greater than John, overriding the tradition that the one who came first was always greatest.
Further, in vs 42, it sort of points out that the reason many doubted that Jesus was the Christ was because he was from Galilee, and did not match the prophecies of the Messiah. John has them saying Jesus is not from David's lineage and is not from Bethlehem. But by John's time, it would have been widespread knowledge that Jesus DID meet those two criteria. So John here associates the ignorance of the crowd in Jesus' time with the still ignorant beliefs of the members of the sect who deny that Jesus was the Christ,