Reflections on John 7

 

John 07 (Contemporary English Version)
1. Jesus decided to leave Judea and to start going through Galilee because the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him.
   
2. It was almost time for the Festival of Shelters,
   
3. and Jesus' brothers said to him, "Why don't you go to Judea? Then your disciples can see what you are doing.
   
4. No one does anything in secret, if they want others to know about them. So let the world know what you are doing!"
   
5. Even Jesus' own brothers had not yet become his followers.
   
6. Jesus answered, "My time hasn't yet come, but your time is always here.
   
7. The people of this world cannot hate you. They hate me, because I tell them that they do evil things.
   
8. Go on to the festival. My time hasn't yet come, and I am not going."
   
9. Jesus said this and stayed on in Galilee.
   
10. After Jesus' brothers had gone to the festival, he went secretly, without telling anyone.
    
11. During the festival the Jewish leaders looked for Jesus and asked, "Where is he?"
    
12. The crowds even got into an argument about him. Some were saying, "Jesus is a good man," while others were saying, "He is lying to everyone."
    
13. But the people were afraid of their leaders, and none of them talked in public about him.
    
14. When the festival was about half over, Jesus went into the temple and started teaching.
    
15. The leaders were surprised and said, "How does this man know so much? He has never been taught!"
    
16. Jesus replied: I am not teaching something that I thought up. What I teach comes from the one who sent me.
    
17. If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me.
    
18. If I wanted to bring honor to myself, I would speak for myself. But I want to honor the one who sent me. That is why I tell the truth and not a lie.
    
19. Didn't Moses give you the Law? Yet none of you obey it! So why do you want to kill me?
    
20. The crowd replied, "You're crazy! What makes you think someone wants to kill you?"
    
21. Jesus answered: I worked one miracle, and it amazed you.
    
22. Moses commanded you to circumcise your sons. But it wasn't really Moses who gave you this command. It was your ancestors, and even on the Sabbath you circumcise your sons
    
23. in order to obey the Law of Moses. Why are you angry with me for making someone completely well on the Sabbath?
    
24. Don't judge by appearances. Judge by what is right.
    
25. Some of the people from Jerusalem were saying, "Isn't this the man they want to kill?
    
26. Yet here he is, speaking for everyone to hear. And no one is arguing with him. Do you suppose the authorities know that he is the Messiah?
    
27. But how could that be? No one knows where the Messiah will come from, but we know where this man comes from."
    
28. As Jesus was teaching in the temple, he shouted, "Do you really think you know me and where I came from? I didn't come on my own! The one who sent me is truthful, and you don't know him.
    
29. But I know the one who sent me, because I came from him."
    
30. Some of the people wanted to arrest Jesus right then. But no one even laid a hand on him, because his time had not yet come.
    
31. A lot of people in the crowd put their faith in him and said, "When the Messiah comes, he surely won't perform more miracles than this man has done!"
    
32. When the Pharisees heard the crowd arguing about Jesus, they got together with the chief priests and sent some temple police to arrest him.
    
33. But Jesus told them, "I will be with you a little while longer, and then I will return to the one who sent me.
    
34. You will look for me, but you won't find me. You cannot go where I am going."
    
35. The Jewish leaders asked each other, "Where can he go to keep us from finding him? Is he going to some foreign country where our people live? Is he going there to teach the Greeks?
    
36. What did he mean by saying that we will look for him, but won't find him? Why can't we go where he is going?"
    
37. On the last and most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and shouted, "If you are thirsty, come to me and drink!
    
38. Have faith in me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you, just as the Scriptures say."
    
39. Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit, who would be given to everyone that had faith in him. The Spirit had not yet been given to anyone, since Jesus had not yet been given his full glory.
    
40. When the crowd heard Jesus say this, some of them said, "He must be the Prophet!"
    
41. Others said, "He is the Messiah!" Others even said, "Can the Messiah come from Galilee?
    
42. The Scriptures say that the Messiah will come from the family of King David. Doesn't this mean that he will be born in David's hometown of Bethlehem?"
    
43. The people started taking sides against each other because of Jesus.
    
44. Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him.
    
45. When the temple police returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, they were asked, "Why didn't you bring Jesus here?"
    
46. They answered, "No one has ever spoken like that man!"
    
47. The Pharisees said to them, "Have you also been fooled?
    
48. Not one of the chief priests or the Pharisees has faith in him.
    
49. And these people who don't know the Law are under God's curse anyway."
    
50. Nicodemus was there at the time. He was a member of the council, and was the same one who had earlier come to see Jesus. He said,
    
51. "Our Law doesn't let us condemn people before we hear what they have to say. We cannot judge them before we know what they have done."
    
52. Then they said, "Nicodemus, you must be from Galilee! Read the Scriptures, and you will find that no prophet is to come from Galilee."
    
53. Everyone else went home,
    
    

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    The central issue regarding our understanding and relationship to God is our will. Do we desire to live out our own will or God's? We want to start with understanding. We want the things of God to make sense to us before we will accept them. But they will not make sense to us as long as we are committed to living life our own way - to doing our own will rather than God's. This is what was going on with people in regard to Jesus throughout the gospels. They knew He was not just an ordinary person, but was He who He claimed to be? If they accepted who He claimed to be they would have to make changes in their lives and in their religion. Had they truly wanted to do God's will, this would not have been an obstacle to accepting Jesus as the Messiah. But they were committed to following the religious traditions they had established rather than to doing God's will. Thus they could not accept Jesus or His teachings.
    
    Jesus, on the other hand, was committed to doing God's will. This meant that His time was not His own. It belonged to God. When His brothers wanted Him to go to Jerusalem with them for the Festival of Tabernacles He told them "My time has not yet arrived." (7:6) Since they were committed to themselves, their "time was always at hand." (7:6) Because Jesus was committed to doing God's will He could not fall in with business as usual in regard to religious traditions, for many of these traditions had moved away from God and His teaching. Thus He regularly found Himself at odds with the religious leaders.
    
    When Jesus finally showed up at the Festival of Tabernacles and began to teach, there was no doubt that He was very learned in the scriptures. But because His teaching was different from that of the religious leaders they were reluctant to accept Him as having spiritual authority. This put them at a quandry as to whether to accept Him for who He claimed to be or to arrest Him or even to kill him. Jesus told them that the solution to knowing whether His teaching was from God or not was the desire to do God's will. "If anyone wants to do His will, he will understand whether the teaching is from God or if I am speaking on My own." (7:17)
    
    The same is true for anyone. If we want to know whether Jesus' teachings were those of a man who was promoting himself or if they were from God, we will know the difference if we truly want to do the will of God. And if we truly want to do the will of God, we will conclude that Jesus was from God and that He is the source of life, and we will find His claim true that "The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from deep within him." (7:38)