The Gospel of John (2-03-2013)
Lesson 21 – John 7:21-37
In the next few verses He brings up what they had used as
their justification for their position and proposed actions being so mad that
they had proposed radical and unjustified steps of action wanting to put Him to
death. In vs. 22-4 He essentially gives them a rebuttal saying to them, ‘what
is the sense in that’, referring to their proposed action. Jesus tells them to
put that which He is accused of on God’s scale of justice, against their stated
standard, them quoting their version of the Law, and telling them to take a
look at the scale to see which way it tilts. In doing so they would see that
God’s scale weighing out Jesus’ actions did not tilt at all, but would be found
to be perfectly balanced and equal with God’s perspective.
They had condemned Him for healing on the Sabbath. But,
Jesus challenges them to think about the accusation in a different light
thinking about it from God’s perspective saying in essence that the Sabbath was
made for man and not man for the Sabbath, Mk. 2:27.
At the end of v. 24 He tells them to measure what they are
questioning with the proper standards and not with practices that have been
adopted over time that have no real value at all only that they have become traditions…being accepted as truths
when in reality they are not at all.
This would be a good thing for us in the Church to evaluate
and analyze as to our standards and practices seeing if they do adhere to God’s
standards and not being just prideful standards of what might be our own so
called Pharisical laws or traditions.
It is true that not all traditions are bad. Many are good in
principle. Jesus told them to measure what they claimed to be God’s rules with God’s
original Laws. He would tell us to do the same. We must find justification and
conviction for the standards and beliefs that we hold to back them up in not
only principle but precept also as found in the Scriptures. These religious
leaders were found quoting the supposed laws without including the precept on
which they were founded upon. Jesus fulfilled both the Law and its intent
knowing these laws intimately Him being the Author and Originator of them.
In v. 25 some begin to question the reaction, or actually
the lack thereof, of the religious leaders to His bold straight forward talk.
They had heard that the religious leaders were seeking to kill Him. They had
more than likely put out a reward of some sort as an incentive to possibly
locate Him and or incriminate Him. But, they were surprised by the religious
leader’s response to Jesus’ open talk concerning the truth. So, much so that the
people took the silence of the religious leaders as a confirmation as to Jesus’
true identity thinking that even they must know by their actions that this is
indeed the Christ.
In v. 27 the people
create their own scorecard saying in essence that everything adds up concerning
Jesus except this one thing…His origin. They had gotten a lot of the pieces
right, but not all of them. For some reason although it was clearly prophesied
they seem confused on the exact truth of the prediction holding to the belief
that the Christ’s origin would be a secret and that no man would know it.
However, they knew where this man was from, or at least they
thought they did. They were even confused on this detail making Him out to be
from Galilee when in fact He did have His birthplace right being from Bethlehem
of Judea. Later in this chapter they will discuss His origin in more detail,
but again as we will see that even then they still will miss some important
details either being misinformed or still not wanting to accept the truth.
But in v. 28 Jesus again makes a bold move and attempts to
reason with them publically in the temple by reminding them that they do know
Him and that they need to reconsider their logic because He does have all of
the details right validating and backing up His claims.
It is interesting that He challenges them willing to stand
alone in a very public setting stating the facts hoping to bring them to the
truth. He turns the table on them and reminds them not to use faulty logic to
come up with their conclusions about Him attempting to help them to think
straight concerning Him (apologetics?).
As we saw at the end of chapter 6 He was looking to convince
those that the Father had given to Him knowing that the Holy Spirit was
involved preparing the hearts of those that the Father had given Him to hear
His message. He reminds them in v. 28 that He is not saying these things to
make a reputation for Himself, but is sent to deliver someone else’s message,
the Father’s, to them.
However, at the end of v. 28 He says something that makes
them angry. He made the statement that in essence that He knows God the Father
and goes farther stating that, this is the part that makes them angry, they do
not. Ouch! In v. 29 He continues making a more absolute statement saying that
He is not only familiar with the Father, but is intimately connected to the
Father using language that in reality says that He is family, related…closely
related, having the impression of being One with God. This makes them mad…so
mad that they seek to take hold of Him with the intent to deliver Him to the
religious leaders who intended to kill Him.
For the most part they took issue with two main things. The
first was that He claimed to be from the Father clearly saying that He and the
Father were not just close buddies, but were actually One in the same. This is
probably what got them most upset. But, the other thing was that got their goat
was that He claimed to know the Father and also stated that they did not! This
came a close second to the first.
These two things made them so mad that their anger moved
them to consider taking drastic action. But, try as they would, even though
they were right there with Him and outnumbered Him in all probability
surrounding Him they could not lay their hand on Him. Someone had protected Him
and His death at this time would be untimely and would not accomplish what God
had purposed. How did this encounter look? How would this encounter and scene
actually look if we were there watching it all happen.
Well, the next few verses in John’s Gospel may describe just
that, v. 31-36. We see that the crowd that was there that day was found to be
divided. In v. 31 it says that the people, the non religious people that were
there that day, did not really know what to think. But, it is interesting that
for some reason it seems that they appear to use better logic than the
religious leaders did, at least on that day. It says that when they took an
honest look and were not blinded with pride and selfish ambition that they
could only draw one conclusion…this is the Christ.
However, the Pharisees had a different view. It wasn’t that
they found holes or inaccuracies in the claims that Jesus shared with them, but
they were annoyed with the competition that they felt from Him and what He
said. Until now they, the Pharisees and the religious leaders, were in the
spotlight and pretty much held control over the people dictating to them what
they could and could not do. But, when Jesus came He came with a different
message, one that even though it was uncompromising it still resonated with the
heart of the people and the people began to believe in what He was saying and
began to follow His message and Gospel instead of the Pharisee’s. So the
Pharisees and the religious leaders sent officers to take Him hoping to put an
end to this.
However, when they came and confronted Him hoping to take
Him they were met with a strange statement from Him that mystified, intrigued
and yet angered them. He told them that He would be leaving soon, and that when
they came to look for Him that they would not be able to find Him. One of the
things that this statement did right away was that it divided His enemies up
right away and left them asking different questions to His statement in essence
leaving them divided as to what to do next. One thing that they all agreed to
was that no one understood what He meant by this statement and therefore didn’t
know what to do with it.
In this one statement he had essentially said several things
that in reality did not fit together. First he said that He was going away. If
this was all that He said it wouldn’t have been so bad because the obvious
response to His statement would have been ‘where are you going?’ To this a
normal expected response would have been ‘away from the Temple’ or ‘down the
street’ or ‘back to Galilee’ or even ‘to another country’.
But, in making this statement He added some interesting
components by telling them that He was going back to Him, implying God the
Father, and that when they would seek Him out, and they would, that they would
not find Him. This confused them. This confused them so much that they did not
know what to make of it and in doing so they did not know what action to take
next. In their mind there was no where He could go that they could not find Him
and began to go down the list beginning to names the surrounding countries that
He could possibly mean. They had still not come to the place to believe His
connection with God.
They were so confused that after a short discussion we see
them make the comment in v. 36 in frustrated logic ‘What manner of saying is
this?’ At this time it is hard to know exactly what time it was during the
feast. John’s record told us earlier the Jesus had gone up and had begun to
teach in the Temple about in the middle of the feast. However, as we progress
with the recorded dialog John does not give us enough details to give us a
chronological time clock of the recorded events.
It is possible that the dialog and encounter that we find
that ends in v. 36 could possibly still be mid week. However, we find the
Apostle John give us a new time marker in v. 37 telling us that at that point
it was the end of the for the feast of the tabernacles. He says that it was a
great and popular day and because of this we could assume that everyone in all
likelihood would have been there and wouldn’t have missed this part of the
celebration for anything.
It was here, in this setting, that Jesus purposely chose to
stand up speaking very loudly and make a public display of Himself. He wasn’t
irreverent. And, He wasn’t disruptive. Those who were in charge did not realize
that He was a planned part of this festival sent to it and to them by the One
that they claimed that this gathering was for.
In standing in this public place probably in the most
prominent spot of the festival it tells us in v. 37 that He cried out, meaning
very loudly, so that all could hear, a Promise to a then hungry and thirsty
crowd promising to satisfy their thirsty souls with refreshing waters that
would give them long lasting satisfaction.
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