After these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee, for he wouldn’t walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him. Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was at hand. His brothers therefore said to him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that your disciples also may see your works which you do. For no one does anything in secret while he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, reveal yourself to the world.” For even his brothers didn’t believe in him.
Jesus therefore said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready. The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I testify about it, that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, because my time is not yet fulfilled.”
Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. But when his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. The Jews therefore sought him at the feast, and said, “Where is he?” There was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning him. Some said, “He is a good man.” Others said, “Not so, but he leads the multitude astray.” Yet no one spoke openly of him for fear of the Jews. But when it was now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How does this man know letters, having never been educated?”
Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Didn’t Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?”
The multitude answered, “You have a demon! Who seeks to kill you?”
Jesus answered them, “I did one work and you all marvel because of it. Moses has given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a boy. If a boy receives circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me, because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath? Don’t judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.”
Therefore some of them of Jerusalem said, “Isn’t this he whom they seek to kill? Behold, he speaks openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is truly the Christ? However we know where this man comes from, but when the Christ comes, no one will know where he comes from.”
Jesus therefore cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know me, and know where I am from. I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you don’t know. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me.”
They sought therefore to take him; but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. But of the multitude, many believed in him. They said, “When the Christ comes, he won’t do more signs than those which this man has done, will he?” The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.
Then Jesus said, “I will be with you a little while longer, then I go to him who sent me. You will seek me, and won’t find me. You can’t come where I am.”
The Jews therefore said among themselves, “Where will this man go that we won’t find him? Will he go to the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What is this word that he said, ‘You will seek me, and won’t find me;’ and ‘Where I am, you can’t come’?”
Now on the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink! He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, from within him will flow rivers of living water.” But he said this about the Spirit, which those believing in him were to receive. For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus wasn’t yet glorified.
Many of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said, “This is truly the prophet.” Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “What, does the Christ come out of Galilee? Hasn’t the Scripture said that the Christ comes of the offspring of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” So a division arose in the multitude because of him. Some of them would have arrested him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why didn’t you bring him?”
The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this man!”
The Pharisees therefore answered them, “You aren’t also led astray, are you? Have any of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees? But this multitude that doesn’t know the law is cursed.”
Nicodemus (he who came to him by night, being one of them) said to them, “Does our law judge a man, unless it first hears from him personally and knows what he does?”
They answered him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search, and see that no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”
Everyone went to his own house,
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53 1. Jesus walked in Galilee. The Evangelist appears not…
1. Jesus walked in Galilee. The Evangelist appears not to pursue a continued narrative, but to select out of what occurred at different times those events which were worthy of being related. He says that Christ sojourned for a time in Galilee, because he could not remain in safety anywhere among the Jews. If any person think it strange that Christ sought a place of concealment, who, by the mere act of his will, could break and render powerless all the efforts of his enemies, it is easy to reply, that he remembered the commission which he had received from the Father, and determined to confine himself within the limits which belonged to him as man; for,
having taken upon him the form of a servant, he emptied himself, till the Father exalted him, (Philippians 2:6-8.)
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If it be objected that, as he knew the time of his death, which had been foreordained and determined in the purpose of God, he had no reason for avoiding it, the former solution applies here also; for he conducted himself as a man who was liable to dangers, and, therefore, it was not proper that he should throw himself at random into dangerous situations. In encountering dangers, it is not our business to inquire what God has determined respecting us in his decree, but what he commands and enjoins on us, what our office requires and demands, and what is the proper method of regulating our life. Besides, while Christ avoided dangers, he did not turn aside a hairsbreadth from the course of duty; for to what purpose would life be maintained and defended, but that we may serve the Lord? We ought always to take care, therefore, that we do not, for the sake of life, lose the reasons for living. When a small and despised corner of Galilee grants a lodging to Christ, whom Judea cannot endure, we learn from it that piety and the fear of God are not always to be found in the chief places of the Church.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 48, 51, 53 This feast was so called, because of the booths…
This feast was so called, because of the booths and tents which they pight of divers kinds of boughs, and sat under them seven days together; all which time the feast lasted.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–53 1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for…
1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.
Ver. 1. For he would not walk in Jewry] The Roman rule in battle was, Nec fugere, nec sequi, Neither to flee dangers nor to follow them. The Christian’s motto is, Nec temere, nec timide, Neither timorous, nor temerarious (reckless). As we must not basely desert the cause of Christ when called out to defend it, but η ταν η επι ταν, as she said to her son (Plutarch), Either vanquish or die, as the Black Prince’s father said to him, Either live with the gospel or die for it; so we may not rashly run ourselves upon unnecessary dangers, but decline them where we can with a good conscience. He that flees may fight another time, said Demosthenes, ριψασπις. Christians also are permitted to flee, when they are sought for to the slaughter, so it be with the wings of a dove and not with the pinions of a dragon. It was a masculine resolution of that good woman celebrated by Jerome, Non ideo negare vole, ne peream: sed ideo mentiri nolo, ne peccem. I will rather die than lie.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–53 After the third passover, which happened after our Saviour…
After the third passover, which happened after our Saviour had entered upon his public ministry, of which we read, Joh 5:1, and all those things which we read of, Joh 5:1-6:71, done by our Saviour, both at the feast at Jerusalem, Joh 5:1-47 and after he went into Galilee, Joh 6:1, and had made that excellent discourse, of which we had a large account, Joh 6:1-71; Jesus continued still to converse in Galilee, where he was; for he would not go into Judea, nor converse there,
because the Jews, for the causes mentioned Joh 5:18, sought to kill him. They had two things (as appeareth from thence) against him:
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1. His violation of the sabbath (as they thought) by healing him that lay at the pool of Bethesda.
2. His making himself equal with the Father.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 14, 19, 24, 32, 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 50 Our blessed Saviour knowing that the rage of the…
Our blessed Saviour knowing that the rage of the chief priests and Pharisees in Judea and at Jerusalem, was grown to that height, that they were resolved to kill him; to avoid their fury, he resolves to continue in Galilee, and would not come into Judea at present, nor go up to Jerusalem into the mouth of his enemies; his hour being not yet come.
Learn hence, That so long as it was necessary for Christ to save and preserve himself from danger, he was pleased to use the ordinary means for his own preservation; namely, retirement, and withdrawing himself: Christ as God could have rid himself out of the hands of his enemies by a miraculous preservation; but he uses the ordinary means when they would serve their turn. And as he would not decline danger when his hour was come, so he would not run before it was come; but used all prudential means and methods for his own safety and preservation. He would not come into Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 14, 37, 45 We have here, I. The reason given why Christ…
We have here, I. The reason given why Christ spent more of his time in Galilee than in Judea (Joh 7:1): because the Jews, the people in Judea and Jerusalem, sought to kill him, for curing the impotent man on the sabbath day, Joh 5:16. They thought to be the death of him, either by a popular tumult or by a legal prosecution, in consideration of which he kept at a distance in another part of the country, very much out of the lines of Jerusalem's communication. It is not said, He durst not, but, He would not, walk in Jewry; it was not through fear and cowardice that he declined it, but in prudence, because his hour was not yet come. Note, 1. Gospel light is justly taken away from those that endeavour to extinguish it. Christ will withdraw from those that drive him from them, will hide his face from those that spit in it, and justly shut up his bowels from those who spurn at them. 2. In times of imminent peril it is not only allowable, but advisable, to withdraw and abscond for our own safety and preservation, and to choose the service of those places which are least perilous, Mat 10:23. Then, and not till then, we are called to expose and lay down our lives, when we cannot save them without sin. 3. If the providence of God casts persons of merit into places of obscurity and little note, it must not be thought strange; it was the lot of our Master himself. He who was fit to have sat in the highest of Moses's seats willingly walked in Galilee among the ordinary sort of people. Observe, He did not sit still in Galilee, nor bury himself alive there, but walked; he went about doing good. When we cannot do what and where we would, we must do what and where we can.
II. The approach of the feast of tabernacles (Joh 7:2), one of the three solemnities which called for the personal attendance of all the males at Jerusalem; see the institution of it, Lev 23:34, etc., and the revival of it after a long disuse, Neh 8:14. It was intended to be both a memorial of the tabernacle state of Israel in the wilderness, and a figure of the tabernacle state of God's spiritual Israel in this world. This feast, which was instituted so many hundred years before, was still religiously observed. Note, Divine institutions are never antiquated, nor go out of date, by length of time: nor must wilderness mercies ever be forgotten. But it is called the Jews' feast, because it was now shortly to be abolished, as a mere Jewish thing, and left to them that served the tabernacle.
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III. Christ's discourse with his brethren, some of his kindred, whether by his mother or his supposed father is not certain; but they were such as pretended to have an interest in him, and therefore interposed to advise him in his conduct. And observe,
1. Their ambition and vain-glory in urging him to make a more public appearance than he did: "Depart hence," said they, "and go into Judea (Joh 7:3), where thou wilt make a better figure than thou canst here."
(1.) They give two reasons for this advice: [1.] That it would be an encouragement to those in and about Jerusalem who had a respect for him; for, expecting his temporal kingdom, the royal seat of which they concluded must be at Jerusalem, they would have had the disciples there particularly countenanced, and thought the time he spent among his Galilean disciples wasted and thrown away, and his miracles turning to no account unless those at Jerusalem saw them. Or, "That thy disciples, all of them in general, who will be gathered at Jerusalem to keep the feast, may see thy works, and not, as here, a few at one time and a few at another." [2.] That it would be for the advancement of his name and honour: There is no man that does any thing in secret if he himself seeks to be known openly. They took it for granted that Christ sought to make himself known, and therefore thought it absurd for him to conceal his miracles: "If thou do these things, if thou be so well able to gain the applause of the people and the approbation of the rulers by thy miracles, venture abroad, and show thyself to the world. Supported with these credentials, thou canst not fail of acceptance, and therefore it is high time to set up for an interest, and to think of being great."
(2.) One would not think there was any harm in this advice, and yet the evangelist noted it is an evidence of their infidelity: For neither did his brethren believe in him (Joh 7:5), if they had, they would not have said this. Observe, [1.] It was an honour to be of the kindred of Christ, but no saving honour; they that hear his word and keep it are the kindred he values. Surely grace runs in no blood in the world, when not in that of Christ's family. [2.] It was a sign that Christ did not aim at any secular interest, for then his kindred would have struck in with him, and he would have secured them first. [3.] There were those who were akin to Christ according to the flesh who did believe in him (three of the twelve were his brethren), and yet others, as nearly allied to him as they, did not believe in him. Many that have the same external privileges and advantages do not make the same use of them. But,
(3.) What was there amiss in the advice which they gave him? I answer, [1.] It was a piece of presumption for them to prescribe to Christ, and to teach him what measures to take; it was a sign that they did not believe him able to guide them, when they did not think him sufficient to guide himself. [2.] They discovered a great carelessness about his safety, when they would have him go to Judea, where they knew the Jews sought to kill him. Those that believed in him, and loved him, dissuaded him from Judea, Joh 11:8. [3.] Some think they hoped that if his miracles were wrought at Jerusalem the Pharisees and rulers would try them, and discover some cheat in them, which would justify their unbelief. So. Dr. Whitby. [4.] Perhaps they were weary of his company in Galilee (for are not all these that speak Galileans?) and this was, in effect, a desire that he would depart out of their coasts. [5.] They causelessly insinuate that he neglected his disciples, and denied them such a sight of his works as was necessary to the support of their faith. [6.] They tacitly reproach him as mean-spirited, that he durst not enter the lists with the great men, nor trust himself upon the stage of public action, which, if he had any courage and greatness of soul, he would do, and not sneak thus and skulk in a corner; thus Christ's humility, and his humiliation, and the small figure which his religion has usually made in the world, have been often turned to the reproach of both him and it. [7.] They seem to question the truth of the miracles he wrought, in saying, "If thou do these things, if they will bear the test of a public scrutiny in the courts above, produce them there." [8.] They think Christ altogether such a one as themselves, as subject as they to worldly policy, and as desirous as they to make a fair show in the flesh; whereas he sought not honour from men. [9.] Self was at the bottom of all; they hoped, if he would make himself as great as he might, they, being his kinsmen, should share in his honour, and have respect paid them for his sake. Note, First, Many carnal people go to public ordinances, to worship at the feast, only to show themselves, and all their care is to make a good appearance, to present themselves handsomely to the world. Secondly, Many that seem to seek Christ's honour do really therein seek their own, and make it serve a turn for themselves.
2. The prudence and humility of our Lord Jesus, which appeared in his answer to the advice his brethren gave him, Joh 7:6-8. Though there were so many base insinuations in it, he answered them mildly. Note, Even that which is said without reason should be answered without passion; we should learn of our Master to reply with meekness even to that which is most impertinent and imperious, and, where it is easy to find much amiss, to seem not to see it, and wink at the affront. They expected Christ's company with them to the feast, perhaps hoping he would bear their charges: but here,
(1.) He shows the difference between himself and them, in two things: - [1.] His time was set, so was not theirs: My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready. Understand it of the time of his going up to the feast. It was an indifferent thing to them when they went, for they had nothing of moment to do either where they were, to detain them there, or where they were going, to hasten them thither; but every minute of Christ's time was precious, and had its own particular business allotted to it. He had some work yet to do in Galilee before he left the country: in the harmony of the gospels betwixt this motion made by his kindred and his going up to this feast comes in the story of his sending forth the seventy disciples (Luk 10:1, etc.), which was an affair of very great consequence; his time is not yet, for that must be done first. Those who live useless lives have their time always ready; they can go and come when they please. But those whose time is filled up with duty will often find themselves straitened, and they have not yet time for that which others can do at any time. Those who are made the servants of God, as all men are, and who have made themselves the servants of all, as all useful men have, must not expect not covet to be masters of their own time. The confinement of business is a thousand times better than the liberty of idleness. or, it may be meant of the time of his appearing publicly at Jerusalem; Christ, who knows all men and all things, knew that the best and most proper time for it would be about the middle of the feast. We, who are ignorant and short-sighted, are apt to prescribe to him, and to think he should deliver his people, and so show himself now. The present time is our time, but he is fittest to judge, and, it may be, his time is not yet come; his people are not yet ready for deliverance, nor his enemies ripe for ruin; let us therefore wait with patience for his time, for all he does will be most glorious in its season. [2.] His life was sought, so was not theirs, Joh 7:7. They, in showing themselves to the world, did not expose themselves: "The world cannot hate you, for you are of the world, its children, its servants, and in with its interests; and no doubt the world will love its own;" see Joh 15:19. Unholy souls, whom the holy God cannot love, the world that lies in wickedness cannot hate; but Christ, in showing himself to the world, laid himself open to the greatest danger; for me it hateth. Christ was not only slighted, as inconsiderable in the world (the world knew him not), but hated, as if he had been hurtful to the world; thus ill was he requited for his love to the world: reigning sin is a rooted antipathy and enmity to Christ. But why did the world hate Christ? What evil had he done to it? Had he, like Alexander, under colour of conquering it, laid it waste? "No, but because" (saith he) "I testify of it, that the works of it are evil." Note, First, The works of an evil world are evil works; as the tree is, so are the fruits: it is a dark world, and an apostate world, and its works are works of darkness and rebellion. Secondly, Our Lord Jesus, both by himself and by his ministers, did and will both discover and testify against the evil works of this wicked world. Thirdly, It is a great uneasiness and provocation to the world to be convicted of the evil of its works. It is for the honour of virtue and piety that those who are impious and vicious do not care for hearing of it, for their own consciences make them ashamed of the turpitude there is in sin and afraid of the punishment that follows after sin. Fourthly, Whatever is pretended, the real cause of the world's enmity to the gospel is the testimony it bears against sin and sinners. Christ's witnesses by their doctrine and conversation torment those that dwell on the earth, and therefore are treated so barbarously, Rev 11:10. But it is better to incur the world's hatred, by testifying against its wickedness, than gain its good-will by going down the stream with it.
(2.) He dismisses them, with a design to stay behind for some time in Galilee (Joh 7:8): Go you up to this feast, I go not up yet. [1.] He allows their going to the feast, though they were carnal and hypocritical in it. Note, Even those who go not to holy ordinances with right affections and sincere intentions must not be hindered nor discouraged from going; who knows but they may be wrought upon there? [2.] He denies them his company when they went to the feast, because they were carnal and hypocritical. Those who go to ordinances for ostentation, or to serve some secular purpose, go without Christ, and will speed accordingly. How sad is the condition of that man, though he reckon himself akin to Christ, to whom he saith, "Go up to such an ordinance, Go pray, Go hear the word, Go receive the sacrament, but I go not up with thee? Go thou and appear before God, but I will not appear for thee," as Exo 33:1-3. But, if the presence of Christ go not with us, to what purpose should we go up? Go you up, I go not up. When we are going to, or coming fRom. solemn ordinances, it becomes us to be careful what company we have and choose, and to avoid that which is vain and carnal, lest the coal of good affections be quenched by corrupt communication. I go not up yet to this feast; he does not say, I will not go up at all, but not yet. There may be reasons for deferring a particular duty, which yet must not be wholly omitted or laid aside; see Num 9:6-11. The reason he gives is, My time is not yet fully come. Note, Our Lord Jesus is very exact and punctual in knowing and keeping his time, and, as it was the time fixed, so it was the best time.
3. Christ's continuance in Galilee till his full time was come, Joh 7:9. He, saying these things to them (tauta de eipōn) abode still in Galilee; because of this discourse he continued there; for, (1.) He would not be influenced by those who advised him to seek honour from men, nor go along with those who put him upon making a figure; he would not seem to countenance the temptation. (2.) He would not depart from his own purpose. He had said, upon a clear foresight and mature deliberation, that he would not go up yet to this feast, and therefore he abode still in Galilee. It becomes the followers of Christ thus to be steady, and not to use lightness.
4. His going up to the feast when his time was come. Observe, (1.) When he went: When his brethren were gone up. He would not go up with them, lest they should make a noise and disturbance, under pretence of showing him to the world; whereas it agreed both with the prediction and with his spirit not to strive nor cry, nor let his voice be heard in the streets, Isa 42:2. But he went up after them. We may lawfully join in the same religious worship with those with whom we should yet decline an intimate acquaintance and converse; for the blessing of ordinances depends upon the grace of God, and not upon the grace of our fellow-worshippers. His carnal brethren went up first, and then he went. Note, In the external performances of religion it is possible that formal hypocrites may get the start of those that are sincere. Many come first to the temple who are brought thither by vain-glory, and go thence unjustified, as he, Luk 18:11. It is not, Who comes first? that will be the question, but, Who comes fittest? If we bring our hearts with us, it is no matter who gets before us. (2.) How he went, ōs en kruptō - as if he were hiding himself: not openly, but as it were in secret, rather for fear of giving offence than of receiving injury. He went up to the feast, because it was an opportunity of honouring God and doing good; but he went up as it were in secret, because he would not provoke the government. Note, Provided the work of God be done effectually, it is best done when done with least noise. The kingdom of God need not come with observation, Luk 17:20. We may do the work of God privately, and yet not do it deceitfully.
5. The great expectation that there was of him among the Jews at Jerusalem, Joh 7:11-14. Having formerly come up to the feasts, and signalized himself by the miracles he wrought, he had made himself the subject of much discourse and observation.
(1.) They could not but think of him (Joh 7:11): The Jews sought him at the feast, and said, Where is he? [1.] The common people longed to see him there, that they might have their curiosity gratified with the sight of his person and miracles. They did not think it worth while to go to him into Galilee, though if they had they would not have lost their labour, but they hoped the feast would bring him to Jerusalem, and then they should see him. If an opportunity of acquaintance with Christ come to their door, they can like it well enough. They sought him at the feast. When we attend upon God in his holy ordinances, we should seek Christ in them, seek him at the gospel feasts. Those who would see Christ at a feast must seek him there. Or, [2.] Perhaps it was his enemies that were thus waiting an opportunity to seize him, and, if possible, to put an effectual stop to his progress. They said, Where is he? pou esin ekeinos - where is that fellow? Thus scornfully and contemptibly do they speak of him. When they should have welcomed the feast as an opportunity of serving God, they were glad of it as an opportunity of persecuting Christ. Thus Saul hoped to slay David at the new moon, Sa1 20:27. Those who seek opportunity to sin in solemn assemblies for religious worship profane God's ordinances to the last degree, and defy him upon his own ground; it is like striking within the verge of the court.
(2.) The people differed much in their sentiments concerning him (Joh 7:12): There was much murmuring, or muttering rather, among the people concerning him. The enmity of the rulers against Christ, and their enquiries after him, caused him to be so much the more talked of and observed among the people. This ground the gospel of Christ has got by the opposition made to it, that it has been the more enquired into, and, by being every where spoken against, it has come to be every where spoken of, and by this means has been spread the further, and the merits of his cause have been the more searched into. This murmuring was not against Christ, but concerning him; some murmured at the rulers, because they did not countenance and encourage him: others murmured at them, because they did not silence and restrain him. Some murmured that he had so great an interest in Galilee; others, that he had so little interest in Jerusalem. Note, Christ and his religion have been, and will be, the subject of much controversy and debate, Luk 12:51, Luk 12:52. If all would agree to entertain Christ as they ought, there would be perfect peace; but, when some receive the light and others resolve against it, there will be murmuring. The bones in the valley, while they were dead and dry, lay quiet; but when it was said unto them, Live, there was a noise and a shaking, Eze 37:7. But the noise and rencounter of liberty and business are preferable, surely, to the silence and agreement of a prison. Now what were the sentiments of the people concerning him? [1.] Some said, he is a good man. This was a truth, but it was far short of being the whole truth. He was not only a good man, but more than a man, he was the Son of God. Many who have no ill thoughts of Christ have yet low thoughts of him, and scarcely honour him, even when they speak well of him, because they do not say enough; yet indeed it was his honour, and the reproach of those who persecuted him, that even those who would not believe him to be the Messiah could not but own he was a good man. [2.] Others said, Nay, but he deceiveth the people; if this had been true, he had been a very bad man. The doctrine he preached was sound, and could not be contested; his miracles were real, and could not be disproved; his conversation was manifestly holy and good; and yet it must be taken for granted, notwithstanding, that there was some undiscovered cheat at the bottom, because it was the interest of the chief priests to oppose him and run him down. Such murmuring as there was among the Jews concerning Christ there is still among us: the Socinians say, He is a good man, and further they say not; the deists will not allow this, but say, He deceived the people. Thus some depreciate him, others abuse him, but great is the truth. [3.] They were frightened by their superiors from speaking much of him (Joh 7:13): No man spoke openly of him, for fear of the Jews. Either, First, They durst not openly speak well of him. While any one was at liberty to censure and reproach him, none durst vindicate him. Or, Secondly, They durst not speak at all of him openly. Because nothing could justly be said against him, they would not suffer any thing to be said of him. It was a crime to name him. Thus many have aimed to suppress truth, under colour of silencing disputes about it, and would have all talk of religion hushed, in hopes thereby to bury in oblivion religion itself.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–50 Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand.…
Now the Jews' feast of tabernacles was at hand. Which began on the fifteenth day of the month Tisri, which answers to part of our September; when the Jews erected tents or booths, in which they dwelt, and ate their meals during this festival; and which was done, in commemoration of the Israelites dwelling in booths in the wilderness; and was typical of Christ's tabernacling in human nature; and an emblem of the saints dwelling in the earthly houses and tabernacles of their bodies, in this their wilderness and pilgrimage state. Some assign other reasons of this feast, as that it was appointed in commemoration of the divine command, for building the tabernacle; and others, that it was instituted in memory of the protection of the people of Israel under the cloud, as they travelled through the wilderness; by which they were preserved, as in a tent or booth; and to this inclines the Targum of Onkelos, on Lev 23:43, which paraphrases the words thus, "That your generations may know, that in the shadow of the clouds, I caused the children of Israel to dwell, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt": and one of the Jewish commentators (a) suggests, that the reason why the first place the Israelites pitched at, when they came out of Egypt, was called Succoth, which signifies "tents", or "tabernacles", is, because there they were covered with the clouds of glory: but the true reason of this feast is that which is first given, as is clear from Lev 23:43, and because they were obliged to dwell in tents, as soon as they came out of Egypt, therefore the first place they encamped at, was called "Succoth", or tabernacles, Exo 12:37. This feast was not kept at the time of year the people came out of Egypt; for that was at the time of the passover; but was put off, as it seems, to a colder season of the year; and which was not so convenient for dwelling in booths; lest it should be thought they observed this feast for the sake of pleasure and recreation, under the shade of these bowers; which, as appears from Neh 8:15, were made of olive, pine, myrtle, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees; and were fixed, some on the roofs of their houses, others in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God; and others in the streets: an account of the sacrifices offered at this feast, is given in Num 29:13, in which may be observed, that on the first day thirteen young bullocks were offered; on the second, twelve; on the third, eleven; on the fourth, ten; on the fifth, nine; on the sixth, eight; and on the seventh, seven; and on the eighth, but one. The Jews, in their Misna, have a treatise called "Succa", or the "Tabernacle", in which they treat of this feast; and which contains various traditions, concerning their booths, their manner of living in them, and other rites and usages observed by them, during this festival: they are very particular about the measure and form, and covering of their booths; a booth might not be higher than twenty cubits, nor lower than ten hands' breadth; and its breadth might not be less than seven hands' breadth by seven; but it might he carried out as wide as they pleased (b), provided it had three sides: they might not cover their booths with anything, but what grew out of the earth, or was rooted up from thence; nor with anything that received uncleanness, or was of an ill smell, or anything that was fallen and faded (c): into these booths they brought their best goods, their best bedding, and all their drinking vessels, &c. and left their houses empty; for here was their fixed dwelling; they only occasionally went into their houses (d); for here they were obliged to dwell day and night, and eat all their meals, during the seven days of the feast; and however, it was reckoned praiseworthy, and he was accounted the most religious, who ate nothing out of his booth (e); they were indeed excused when it was rainy weather, but as soon as the rain was over, they were obliged to return again (f) and besides, their dwelling and sleeping, and eating and drinking, in their booths, there were various other rites which were performed by them; as particularly, the carrying of palm tree branches in their hands, or what they call the "Lulab"; which was made up of branches of palm tree, myrtle, and willow, bound up together in a bundle, which was carried in the right hand, and a pome citron in the left; and as they carried them, they waved them three times towards the several quarters of the world; and every day they went about the altar once, with these in their hands, saying the words in Psa 118:25, "Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord, O Lord I beseech thee, send now prosperity": and on the seventh day, they went about the altar seven times (g): also there were great illuminations in the temple; at the going out of the first day of the feast, they went down to the court of the women; they made a great preparation (i.e. as Bartenora explains it, they set benches round it, and set the women above, and the men below); and there were golden candlesticks there, and at the head of them four golden basins, and four ladders to every candlestick; and four young priests had four pitchers of oil, that held a hundred and twenty logs, which they put into each basin; and of the old breeches and girdles of the priests, they made wicks, and with them lighted them; and there was not a court in Jerusalem, which was not lighted with that light; and religious men, and men of good works, danced before them, with lighted torches in their hands, singing songs and hymns of praise (h); and this continued the six nights following (i): there was also, on everyone of these days, another custom observed; which was that of fetching water from the pool of Siloah, and pouring it with wine upon the altar, which was attended with great rejoicing; of which; see Gill on Joh 7:37, to which may be added, the music that was used during the performance of these rites; at the illumination in the court of the women, there were harps, psalteries, cymbals, and other instruments of music, playing all the while; and two priests with trumpets, who sounded, when they had the signal; and on every day, as they brought water from Siloah to the altar, they sounded with trumpets, and shouted; the great "Hallel", or hymn, was sung all the eight days, and the pipe was blown, sometimes five days, and sometimes six (k); and even on all the eight days; and the whole was a feast of rejoicing, according to Lev 23:40.
(a) Baal Hatturim in Numb. xxxiii. 5. (b) Misn. Succa, c. 1. sect. 1. Maimon. Hilch. Succa, c. 4. sect. 1. (c) Misn. Succa, sect. 4, 5, 6. Maimon. ib. c. 5. sect. 1, 2, &c. (d) Maimon. ib. c. 6. sect. 5. (e) Misn. ib. c. 2. sect. 5, 6. Maimon. ib. sect. 6, 7. (f) Maimon. ib. sect. 10. (g) Misn. ib. c. 4. sect. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Maimon. Hilch. Lulab, c. 7. sect. 5, 6, 9, 23. (h) Misn. Succa, c. 5. sect 2, 3, 4. (i) Maimon. ib. c. 8. sect. 12. (k) Misn. ib. c. 4. sect. 8, 9. & c. 5. 1, 4, 5. & Eracin, c. 2. sect. 3.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee - That…
After these things Jesus walked in Galilee - That is, continued there, for some months after the second passover. For he would not walk - Continue in Judea; because the Jews - Those of them who did not believe; and in particular the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees, sought an opportunity to kill him.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 Jesus continues in Galilee, 1.
CHAPTER VII.
Jesus continues in Galilee, 1.
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He is desired to go to the feast of tabernacles, 2-5.
His answer, 6-9.
He goes up, and the Jews seek him at the feast, 10-13.
He teaches in the temple, 14-24.
The Jews are confounded by his preaching, 25-27.
He continues to teach; they wish to slay him, 28-30.
Many of the people believe on him, 31.
The Pharisees murmur, and our Lord reasons with them, 32-36.
His preaching on the last day of the feast, 37-39.
The people are greatly divided in their opinions concerning
him, 40-44.
The officers, who were sent by the Pharisees to take him,
return, and because they did not bring him, their employers
are offended, 45-49.
Nicodemus reasons with them, 50-53.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII.
Verse 1. After these things] St. John passes from the preceding discourse of our Lord, which he delivered a little before the passover, Joh 6:4, to the Feast of Tabernacles, which happened six months after, and thus omits many things mentioned by the other evangelists, which our blessed Lord said and did during that time. He had already gone over Galilee four or five times; and he continued there, because he found that the hatred of the Jews was such that they would kill him if they could meet with him in Judea; and his time to suffer was not yet come.
For he would not walk in Jewry] Instead of this, some MSS., versions, and fathers read, ουγαρ ειχεν εξουσιαν, he had not authority, or liberty to walk, &c. That is, he was no longer tolerated, and could not preach publicly in Judea, but at the risk of his life. He found greater scope for the exercise of his important ministry in Galilee than in Judea, as the chief priests, &c., were continually plotting his death.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 10, 11, 14, 19, 21, 25, 28, 30, 33, 35, 37, 38, 40, 45, 50 Joh 7:1. After these things — That is, after…
Joh 7:1. After these things — That is, after he had miraculously fed the five thousand, walked on the sea to his disciples, and discoursed with the multitude concerning the bread of life, as is recorded in the preceding chapter; Jesus walked in Galilee — That is, continued there, and instructed his disciples for some months after the second passover; for he would not walk in Jewry — Would not continue in Judea; because the Jews — Those of them who did not believe in him, and in particular the chief priests, scribes, and Pharisees; sought an opportunity to kill him — Either by private assassination, tumultuous assault, or legal process, being incensed by the growing fame of his miracles, and the freedom of his discourses.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 After these things - After the transactions which are…
After these things - After the transactions which are recorded in the last chapters had taken place, and after the offence he had given the Jews. See Joh 5:18.
Jesus walked - Or Jesus lived, or taught. He traveled around Galilee teaching.
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In Jewry - In Judea, the southern division of Palestine. Compare the notes at Joh 4:3.
The Jews sought - That is, the rulers of the Jews. It does not appear that the common people ever attempted to take his life.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 49, 52 This was the festival of Tabernacles, on which the…
This was the festival of Tabernacles, on which the Jews made tents, in imitation of those which were their habitations during their sojournment in the wilderness, for forty years. See Leviticus xxiii. 34. The Jews called it a festival day; though it consisted not of one, but of many days successively. (St. Augustine, tract. 28. in Joan.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 John Chapter 7
John Chapter 7
In chapter 7 His brethren after the flesh, still sunk in unbelief, would have Him shew Himself to the world, if He did these great things; but the time for this was not yet come. At the fulfilment of the type of the feast of tabernacles He will do so. The passover had its antitype at the cross, pentecost at the descent of the Holy Ghost. The feast of tabernacles, as yet, has had no fulfilment. It was celebrated after the harvest and the vintage, and Israel joyfully commemorated, in the land, their pilgrimage before entering on the rest which God had given them in Canaan. Thus the fulfilment of this type will be when, after the execution of judgment (whether in discerning between the wicked and the good, or simply in vengeance [33], Israel, restored to their land, shall be in possession of all their promised blessing. At that time Jesus will shew Himself to the world; but at the time of which we are speaking His hour was not yet come. Meanwhile, having gone away (Joh 7:33-34), He gives the Holy Ghost to believers (Joh 7:38-39).
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Remark here, there is no pentecost brought in. We pass from the passover in chapter 6 to the tabernacles in chapter 7, in lieu of which believers would receive the Holy Ghost. As I have remarked, this Gospel treats of a divine Person on earth, not of the man in heaven. The coming of the Holy Ghost is spoken of as substituted for the last or eighth day of the feast of tabernacles. Pentecost supposes Jesus on high.
But He presents the Holy Ghost in such a way as to make Him the hope of faith at the time in which He spoke, if God created a sense of need in the soul. If any one thirsted, let him come to Jesus and drink. Not only should his thirst be quenched, but from the inner man of his soul should flow forth streams of living water. So that coming to Him by faith to satisfy the need of their soul, not only should the Holy Ghost be in them a well of water springing up into everlasting life, but living water should also flow forth from them in abundance to refresh all those who thirsted. Observe here, that Israel drank water in the wilderness before they could keep the feast of tabernacles. But they only drank. There was no well in them. The water flowed from the rock. Under grace every believer is not doubtless a source in himself; but the full stream flows from him. This however would only take place when Jesus was glorified, and in those who were already believers, previous to their receiving it. What is spoken of here is not a work that quickens. It is a gift to those who believe. Moreover at the feast of tabernacles Jesus will shew Himself to the world; but this is not the subject of which the Holy Ghost thus received is especially the witness. He is given in connection with the glory of Jesus, while He is hidden from the world. It was also on the eighth day of the feast, the sign of a portion beyond the sabbath rest of this world, and which began another period-a new scene of glory.
Observe also that, practically, although the Holy Ghost is presented here as power acting in blessing outside the one in whom He dwells, His presence in the believer is the fruit of a personal thirst, of need felt in the soul-need for which the soul had sought an answer in Christ. He who thirsts, thirsts for himself. The Holy Ghost in us, revealing Christ, becomes, by dwelling in us when we have believed, a river in us, and thus for others.
The spirit of the Jews plainly shewed itself. They sought to kill the Lord; and He tells them that His relationship with them on earth would soon be ended (Joh 7:33). They need not hasten so much to get rid of Him: soon they would seek Him and not be able to find Him. He was going away to His Father.
We see clearly the difference here between the multitude and the Jews-two parties always distinguished from each other in this Gospel. The former did not understand why He spoke of the desire to kill Him. Those of Judea were astonished at His boldness, knowing that at Jerusalem they were conspiring against His life. His time was not yet come. They send officers to take Him; and these return, struck with His discourse, without laying hands on Him. The Pharisees are angry, and express their contempt for the people. Nicodemus hazards a word of justice according to the law, and brings their contempt on himself But each one goes away to his home. Jesus, who had no home until He went back to heaven whence He came, goes to the Mount of Olives, the witness of His agony, His ascension, and His return-a place which He habitually frequented, when at Jerusalem, during the time of His ministry on earth.
The contrast of this chapter with Judaism, even with its best hopes in the future that God has prepared for His earthly people, is too evident to be dwelt upon. This Gospel, throughout, reveals Jesus outside all that belonged to that earthly system. In chapter 6 it was death here below on the cross. Here it is glory in heaven, the Jews being rejected, and the Holy Ghost given to the believer. In chapter 5 He gives life, as the Son of God; in chapter 6 He is the same Son, but not as divinely quickening and judging as being Son of man, but as come down from heaven, the Son in humiliation here, but the true bread from heaven which the Father gave. But in that lowly One, they must see the Son, to live. Then, as so come, and having taken the form of a servant, and being found in fashion as a man, He (Joh 7:53) humbles Himself, and suffers on the cross, as Son of man; in chapter 7 He, when glorified, sends the Holy Ghost. Chapter 5 displays His titles of personal glory; chapters 6, 7, His work and the giving of the Spirit to believers consequent on His present glory in heaven, [34] to which the presence of the Holy Ghost answers on earth. In chapters 8, 9 [35] we shall find His testimony and His works rejected, and the question decided between Him and the Jews. It will be observed also, that chapters 5 and 6 treat of the life. In chapter 5 it is given sovereignly and divinely by Him who possesses it; in chapter 6, the soul, receiving and being occupied with Jesus by faith, finds life, and feeds upon Him by the grace of the Father: two things distinct in their nature-God gives; man, by grace, feeds. On the other hand, chapter 7 is Christ’s going to Him that sent Him, and meanwhile the Holy Ghost, who unfolds the glory He is gone into, in us and by us, in its heavenly character. In chapter 5 Christ is the Son of God, who quickens in abstract divine power and will, what He is, not the place He is in, but alone judges, being Son of man; in chapter 6, the same Son, but come down from heaven, the object of faith in His humiliation, then the Son of man, dying, and returning again; in chapter 7, not yet revealed to the world. The Holy Ghost is given instead when He is glorified above, the Son of man in heaven-at least contemplating His going there.
Footnotes for John Chapter 7
33: The harvest is discriminating judgment, there are tares and wheat. The winepress is the destructive judgment of vengeance. In the former there will be two in one bed, one taken and another left, but the winepress is simple wrath, as Isa 63:1-19. So in Rev 14:1-20.
34: This glory, however, is only supposed, not taught. He cannot be at the feast of tabernacles, Israel’s rest, nor shew Himself, as He will then, to the world; but gives the Holy Ghost instead. This we know supposes His present position, just referred to in chapter 6.
35: The doctrine of chapter 9 continues to the 30th verse of chapter 10 (Joh 10:30).
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 37, 45 Approach Of The Feast Of Tabernacles, And Offence Of…
IV
Approach Of The Feast Of Tabernacles, And Offence Of Even The Brethren Of Jesus At His Refusal To Go To It. Christ’s Time And The Time Of The Worldly Mind. Christ The Object Of The World’s Hatred
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Joh_7:1-9
1[And]1 After these things2 Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry3 [Judæa], because the Jews sought to kill him. 2Now the Jews’ feast of tabernacles 3was at hand. His brethren [brothers]4 therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also [thine adherents in that country, 4 especially in Jerusalem] may see the [thy] works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself [For no one doeth anything in secret and yet himself] seeketh to be known openly. If thou do [doest] these things, shew thyself to the world. (5For neither did his brethren believe in him.) [For even 6his brothers did not believe in him.] Then5 Jesus said [saith] unto them, My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready. 7The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil. Go ye up unto 8this6 [the] feast; I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet7 full [fully] come. 9When he had said these words unto them8 he abode still [remained] in Galilee.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
“According to Baur this seventh chapter goes to show how the dialectics (criticism?) into which unbelief enters, is only its own dialectical (critical?) refutation.” Meyer.
Joh_7:1. And after these things Jesus walked.—After the occurrences and discourses in Galilee in John 6; a new general date succeeding the μετὰ ταῦτα of Joh_6:1. The festival caravan had proposed to take possession of Him and make Him a king. But He had completely delivered Himself from them, and went not with them the Passover. Nor did He join the next train, which went up to the feast of tabernacles. The words “walked in Galilee,” therefore, mean, as their primary antithesis, that He went not up with the caravan to the feast [passover, Joh_6:4] next following. John mentions only the second antithesis: that He could not walk in Judea, without peril of death. If He had now at once gone about publicly in Judea, and remained there, He would have too seriously embarrassed His exit. In Judea, the main theatre of His ministry, He no longer had room to work; He still had room in Galilee. And His isolated and sudden appearance and His ministry in Judea hereafter take place only under the protection of secresy, or of Galilean and Perean friends and adherents, as well as individual disciples in Judea. The proximate period of the walking in Galilee is from the feast of Purim to the feast of tabernacles of the year 782 (A. D. 29), from the month Adar to the month Tisri. (Wieseler: from the 19th March to about the 12th October.)
In this period of Galilean itinerancy fall the charges of heresy against Jesus in Galilee and His contests with the hostile Pharisees there, Matthew 12; most of His parables or sermons on the sea, Matthew 13 (Matthew 14 dates the beginning); His interview with the deputation from Jerusalem, and the great gathering on the mountain, which followed, Matthew 15; the last contest with Pharisean power in Galilee, the retirement of the Lord and His transfiguration, Matthew 16 and Mat_17:21 (not John 15-18, as Meyer gives it.)
Joh_7:2. The feast … was at hand.—The second occasion and demand to go with a festival caravan, which Jesus declined. Though He went to Jerusalem, He did so not in the full publicity of the festival pilgrimage, nor in the capacity of a festival pilgrim.
Feast of tabernacles.—חַג הַסֻּכּוֹת, σκηνοπηγία in Josephus, σκηναί in Philo.9 The third of the great festivals of the Jews (Passover, Pentecost or Weeks, Tabernacles); celebrated in the seventh month or Tisri (in October), for seven days from the 15th, in memory of the dwelling of the Israelites in tabernacles or tents on their journey through the wilderness, and in thanksgiving for the harvest now, with the fruit and grape gathering, entirely finished. Thus: Passover: deliverance from the destroying angel and from Egypt, beginning of harvest; Pentecost: completion of grain-harvest, thanksgiving feast of first-fruits, no doubt also in celebration of some point of the theocratic history (Maimonides: the giving of the law on Sinai); Tabernacles: feast of the wandering and of vintage. It is to be remembered that the eighth day of this feast (23d Tisri) was kept by the Jews as the feast of the joy of the law. The feast of tabernacles formed at the same time the counterpart to the great penitential feast of the day of atonement which occurred five days before, as a sort of preparation for the feast of joy. The feast was distinguished by its grand offerings, as well as its joyful tone; so that it was called by Josephus “the holiest and greatest of the feasts.” [Antiqu. VIII. 4, John 1 : ἑορτὴ ἁγιωτάτη καὶ μεγίστη).—P. S.] People lived in tents formed of live branches of trees, on roofs, in streets, on open grounds; they carried boughs of fruit, noble, handsome fruits, especially branches of palms and citrons, in their hands, and had merry banquets. The feast of tabernacles had so joyous an appearance that Plutarch could think it a feast of Bacchus. But it is a mistake to try to trace the Israelitish festivals of events of theocratic history to original festivals of nature. As Israelitish feasts they must be primarily historical. They may have attached themselves, however, to existing popular feasts of Asia, absorbing and spiritualizing them, as was confessedly done by Christian festivals [Christmas, Easter, etc.] in reference to existing feasts of heathenism (comp. Leben Jesu, II. p. 941). Attendance on these festivals in Jerusalem was binding upon the male portion of Israel (Deu_16:16). Respecting the particular practices of the feast of tabernacles, see below.
Joh_7:3. His brothers therefore said unto him.—According to Mat_13:55 these were James, Joses, Simon and Judas. A disposition on their part to act as guardians and advisers to Jesus appears again, and prominently in Mar_3:21. But they as surely mean well with their counsel here, as they meant in that other case to act in faithful solicitude for Him. Euthymius Zigabenus [also Luther], attributed to them a malicious design (to draw Him into the hands of the Jews), because their unbelief is afterwards mentioned. The speech of His brethren refers to the fact that Jesus did not go to the late passover that in general he seems to wish to avoid Judea, and that, by going about on the mountains and the sea, He makes even His residence in Galilee a half-concealed one. They propose that He should appear publicly in judea and accredit Himself as the Messiah before His adherents there. Evidently the echo of the spirit of Joh_6:15. They were right in assuming that a Messiah could not complete His legitimation of Himself and His work outside of Judea and Jerusalem; they were wrong and frivolous (1) in beginning to think lightly of His quiet ministry in Galilee; (2) in still hoping that by a public appearance in Jerusalem, He might carry the nation with Him, and become a Messiah glorious after an Old Testament sort; (3) in not submitting themselves to His wisdom and His self-determining course of action. And herein chiefly lay their unbelief.
Joh_7:3-4. How important the brothers of Jesus thought it, that He should change His field, appears from the twofold expression: Depart hence and go into Judæa, that thy disciples also may see thy works, etc. μετάβηθι ἐντεῦθεν, καὶ ὕπαγε, κ. τ. λ. In this view we are to understand by the disciples who were to see His works, all His adherents in the land of Judea; chiefly the influential ones in Jerusalem, but not these alone. In contrast with such an appearance His Galilean work, particularly His quiet itinerancy and His withdrawal to the Phenician borders, to the highlands of the Jordan, and across the sea, seems to them an incongruous working in secret (Joh_7:4). And it presents to them the contradiction of His proposing to be a public personage with a secret ministry. (On the misinterpretations of ἐνκρυπτῷ, by Baumgarten-Crusius, Brückner, and Luthardt, see Meyer.) Not the least thing which pertains to the authentication of a public character, does such an one perform in secret; much less does he waste such (great) works (ταῦτα) on an obscure region. The εἰ [“if Thou doest these things”] is not intended to throw doubt on the works; it denotes the logical premise. (Meyer, against Lücke, etc.)
Joh_7:5. Then when John remarks: For even his brothers did not believe in him, it is entirely gratuitous to make of this, as has been done, a disbelief of His Messiahship itself common to all the brothers, and to infer that the brothers of the Lord, James, Judas and Simon, must be distinguished from the apostles of the Lord, James, Judas and Simon, whom He had chosen before the feast of Purim.(Matthew 10) See Com. on Matthew on Matthew 10 and Mat_12:46 ff., (comp. Mark, at Joh_3:30; Mat_13:55).; Leben Jesu, II., p. 139 sqq., and 926; Herzog’s Real-Encyklop., Art. Jakobus, der Bruder des Herrn. It is plain from the connection that the unbelief of these brothers of the Lord was a want of confidence in Him of the same sort, at the worst, as that of Mary in Mar_3:31, of Peter in Mat_16:22, and of Thomas in Joh_20:25; that is, while believing in His Messiahship, they lacked in the perfect yielding of a believing obedience, and assumed to prescribe to Him from their own judgment; but they were not unbelieving in the sense in which Caiaphas and the Jewish people were. Tenaciously as the Ebionistic Clementine tradition, distinguishing between the three apostolic brothers of the Lord and the three apostles, James, the son of Alpheus, Judas, and Simon, endeavors to maintain itself, it will not ultimately withstand, with its half-dogmatical, half critical prejudice, the sense of Scripture and the primitive church tradition. [I dissent from this view. See my remarks below on Joh_7:9, p. 241. The theory here opposed is certainly older and exegetically more natural, than the cousin-theory, which cannot be traced beyond Jerome in the fourth century,10 and which owes its popularity far more to an ascetic over-estimate of the perpetual virginity of Mary (and Joseph) than to exegetical or critical arguments. It is clearly irreconcilable with the whole tenor of this passage, as I shall presently show.—P. S.]
Joh_7:6. My time is not yet come.—Interpretations: 1. The time for Me to go to the feast (Jansen, et al.); 2. The time to show Myself openly to the world (as they had demanded in Joh_7:4, Lücke, et al.); 3. The time of my passion (Chrysostom, et al.). The first interpretation is connected with the second, the second with the third. His first public entrance into Jerusalem was the entrance in the procession with palms; by that He showed Himself publicly to the world, and by that also He brought on His own death. Hence: My time for going to the feast to manifest Myself to the world. His words, therefore, referred primarily to the time of journeying, but in connection with the deeper meaning. The connection lies in the fact that His fixed time (καιρός), like His hour (Joh_2:4), denotes the time ordained and appointed to Him by God for His public appearance, in distinction from the hours arbitrarily chosen by other men.
Hence the other words: But your time is always ready; describing the free, arbitrary disposal of times which sinful men make; with primary reference to their travelling, but with respect also to the safety with which they may show themselves to the world, with which they do not yet stand, like Him, in full and pure antagonism, Joh_7:7. An intimation of their want of decided faith.
Joh_7:7. The world cannot hate you.—The world considered as unbelieving, in its antagonism to the Lord. It can no more take the internally complete attitude of mortal enmity towards you, than ye have thus far taken this attitude toward its spirit. All chiliastic kinds of faith, (e.g. in the church of the middle ages) have an element akin to the world and open to its sympathy. But me it hateth.—The entire antagonism brought into play by His testimony against the world.
Joh_7:8. Go ye up unto this feast.—This is, after the ritual manner of the Israelitish law, as pilgrims in the festival caravan, to participate in the exercises of the feast.
I go not up (yet) unto this feast.—Interpretations with reference to Joh_7:10 : [omitting the “yet.”]
1. The hostile interpretation of Porphyry, that Jesus proved Himself fickle (Jerome, Contra Pel.)
2. Bruno Bauer’s modification: The Evangelist entangles himself in contradiction in his narrative (see Lücke, p. 193; kindred constructions by F. Chr. Baur, etc., see in Meyer.)
3. Meyer: “Jesus might alter His plan without being inconsistent, especially since the motive of this change of purpose is not patent. He also changed His purpose with the Canaanitish woman (Mat_15:26 sqq.).” But He no more changed it there, than here. The entrance of a new motive, must at least have been intimated.
4. The reading οὔπω [which is omitted by some of the oldest MSS., but inserted by others and by the early Versions.—P. S.] or to the same purpose, the emphasizing of the present ἀναβαίνω, inserting a νῦν in thought (Chrysostom, Lücke, and others). Of the same class is the restricting of the οὐκ by the οὕπω following (De Wette and others).
5. Emphasizing of feast, ἑορτή; Cyril: οὐκ οὕτως ἑορτάζων. He took no part ritually in the festal train or the festal scenes, (Leben Jesu, II. p. 927; Ebrard and others). In favor of this is the ensuing: οὐ φανερῶς, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐν κρυπτῷ.
6. The explanation: Not with the caravan (Bengel, Ewald, Luthardt), is properly only one part of the preceding interpretation. It is emphatically said, moreover: “unto this feast;” Jesus thus already announcing in a manner His intended decisive observance of the next passover. A glance at that last feast we see in the words: “For my time,” &c.
Joh_7:9. He remained in Galilee.—That is, He let the train pass on, and perhaps His brothers with it.
[Remarks on the Brothers of Jesus.—The family dispute which John relates in this section from personal knowledge, with the simplicity and frankness of a genuine historian, gives us an insight into the domestic trials of our Saviour. The unbelief of His brothers need not surprise us any more than the unbelief of the Nazarenes generally, according to the sentence: “A prophet has no honor in his own country” (comp. note on Joh_4:44). Not unfrequently the nearest relatives throw more obstacles in the way to God’s children than strangers. Christ entered into the condition of fallen humanity with all its daily troubles, temptations and miseries. The unbelief and misconduct of His brothers must have been to Him a deep source of grief and a school of patience and forbearance in order that, being tempted even as we are in all things, He might become a merciful High Priest able and willing to sympathize with His followers in passing through similar experiences. (Heb_2:17-18; Heb_5:7-8).
But the full significance of this passage depends upon the proper view of the brothers of Jesus. And here I must again dissent from the cousin-theory of Jerome, advocated in a modified form by Dr. Lange, which assumes that these brothers were only distant relatives of Jesus, and that three of them, James, Simon and Jude (i.e., all but Joses or Joseph), were identical with the three apostles of that name. I regard this passage (with Meyer, Godet, Alford, Lightfoot) as one of the strongest arguments in favor of the more natural view that the brothers of Jesus were really members of the holy family and under the care of Joseph and Mary in whose company they constantly appear.11
1. It is perfectly plain that John here, as in Joh_2:12 and in harmony with the Synoptists, also with Act_1:13-14, and 1Co_9:5, distinguishes the brothers of Christ from the apostles. The brothers themselves make this distinction in Joh_7:3, “That thy disciples also,” etc., on which Bengel remarks: Eo ipso ostendunt se non esse discipulos.
2. But what is more conclusive, John represents here the brothers as unbelievers, and as using irreverent, presumptuous and ironical language against our Lord. This is absolutely incompatible with the assumption that they were apostles, especially after the sifting process described in John 6, and the noble confession of Peter in the name of all (Joh_6:67-68). I readily admit that the brothers were not unbelievers in the sense of the hostile Jews or indifferent pagans, but they certainly were not believers in a sense in which we must suppose all apostles (with the exception perhaps of Judas Iscariot) to have been almost from their first acquaintance with Jesus, and as John expressly says that they were even as early as the miracle at Cana, Joh_2:11; comp. Joh_7:22; Joh_16:17; Joh_17:8. How, in the name of consistency, could he say that the apostles believed in Him (ἐπίστευσαν εἰς αὐτόν), and afterwards, that His brothers, including at least three of the apostles, did not believe in him, οὐδὲ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ ἐπίστευον—mark the imperfect which denotes continued and habitual unbelief, in distinction from a momentary act as expressed by the aorist—(ἐπίστευσαν)? Why did he not avoid such flat contradiction by the qualifying words: some of His brothers, or by using a milder term than unbelief?12 John recognizes indeed different degrees of belief (comp. Joh_2:23; Joh_4:39; Joh_8:31; Joh_12:42), and different degrees of unbelief, but he never confounds the sharp lines which, in his system especially, distinguish belief from unbelief, light from darkness, truth from falsehood. Moreover the language used by the brothers on this occasion, however mildly we may explain it, is very unbecoming, and strongly contrasts with the profound reverence shown by the apostles to our Lord on every occasion, even where they could not understand or appreciate His conduct (comp. Joh_4:27).
3. Finally our Lord Himself here characterizes His brothers as men of the world whom the world cannot hate (Joh_7:7); while He says the very reverse of His apostles, Joh_15:18 f. comp. Mat_10:5 ff., Mat_10:22; Mat_10:40 ff.
We infer then that all the four brothers of Jesus were distinct from the apostles, and were not converted till after the resurrection. James, it would seem, became a believer in consequence of a special manifestation of the risen Lord, 1Co_15:7. They first appear among the disciples, Act_1:14.
As to the other question, whether the brothers of Jesus were older brothers of Jesus from a former, otherwise unknown marriage of Joseph (the old Greek tradition defended by Epiphanius), or younger children of Mary and Joseph (the view held by Tertullian and Helvidius, and denounced first by Jerome as heretical and profane because of its conflict with the prevalent ascetic belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary), our passage gives no decisive answer. The patronizing tone assumed by the brothers towards Jesus on this occasion seems to favor the former view, but may be found also with younger brothers. Comp. the fuller discussion of this whole question in my notes on Matthew, pp. 256–260, also on Mat_1:25 and Joh_2:12. (p. 115 of this vol.)—P. S.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The heavenly precaution with which Jesus guarded His life from a premature end, that He might sacrifice it with full effect at the right hour, forms a contrast with the heedless boldness with which His brothers would push Him upon the stage of the most glaring publicity; and a contrast with the many premature sacrifices which occur in the lives of worldly heroes and even of Christian missionaries and martyrs. The life of the believer must be in spirit offered up to God at all times; but the actual sacrifice of it must be put with all decision under the law of Christian wisdom. No one should prematurely squander his life; every one should, in the holiest sense, “sell it at the highest possible price.” But for His wise reserve, the life of the Lord would perhaps have fallen before the hatred of Judaism in the very first year of His ministry; certainly at the feast of Purim in the spring of the second year. A ministry of about three years in the midst of Pharisaic Judea could be secured to Jesus only by His heavenly wisdom.
2. The subsequent appearance of Christ at the feast of tabernacles does not contradict this caution. It is an act of consummate psychological mastery. By this oft-repeated sudden appearance, He places Himself as an astounding wonder before His enemies; they themselves are restrained by fear, or at least their servants, and they do not venture to seize Him. They are disarmed not only by the personal impression of Jesus, but also by fear of the powerful popular following which He had, particularly of the fighting Galileans. Not till the continuous stay of Christ among them at the last passover could they carry out a definite plan against Him.
3. It agrees with the nature of human restlessness that the same brothers of the Lord, who with His mother sought to rescue Him some time before from the press of Galilean enemies through fear (Mark 3; Matthew 12), now sought in recklessness to press Him upon the theatre of decision. Apart from the fact that such extremes beget and account for each other, the experience which the brothers of Jesus had had of the uselessness of their fear and of the security of Jesus amidst the strongest probabilities of danger, might urge them now to the utmost risk in His behalf.
4. Jesus, in respect to His time and place is subject to the individual direction (ἐντολή) of His Father. Thus His time at every point is a point of eternity, and His being in every place is a being in heaven. The contrast between the Divine discernment of His time and His hour [in the life of Jesus] and the arbitrary caprice of men in the use of times and hours.
5. The notion of the world which the brothers of Jesus express, differs greatly from the notion expressed by Christ. Judas Lebbæus recurs to this favorable idea of the world in Joh_14:22. The brothers of Jesus vaguely see a world ready to receive Christ with open arms; Christ sees through a world disposed to kill Him. Undoubtedly Christ Himself also distinguishes between the world as the object of the Divine love (Joh_3:16), and the world in its decided ungodliness and unbelief.
6. Christ’s word: The world cannot hate you, expresses the truth that there is no deeper, more incisive opposition than that between a godly mind and a worldly mind, faith and unbelief. The world’s hatred comes out completely only in opposition to that which is divine.
7. There is an infinite difference between the delicate precision of the Lord’s form of expression and a made-up reservatio mentalis. But for this reason the words of Christ, and especially His expression here: I go not up to this feast, are also exposed to the ready abuse of men. The abuse is not due to ambiguities on His part, but to the want of discrimination on the part of His expounders. Else it would have been easily seen that between a public Messianic progress of Jesus to the ceremonial observance of a feast, and an incidental appearance of the anonymous prophet at the feast, the difference is wide.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See under the previous head.
The quiet walking of Jesus in Galilee a token also of His glory.—A token of His prudence, His foresight, His wisdom, in His spirit of self-sacrifice.—How Jesus by wisdom preserved and spared His official life till the right, decisive moment, though it was forfeited to death from the first.—The most splendid and joyous feast of the Jews no allurement to the Lord, but an object of holy solicitude and dread.—The want of the obedience of faith in the enthusiastic zeal of faith in the brothers of Jesus.—The contrast between Christ’s knowledge of the world and His brothers’ knowledge of it.—Marks of the worldly element in the belief of the Messiah.—The word of Jesus to His brothers: Joh_7:6-8.—The declaration in Joh_7:6-7;—the several words of Joh_7:6-8.—“No guile found in His mouth,” or, Jesus, even in the pure and precise form of His words, hard to understand by the ordinary way of thinking.—The sharp precision of the words of Jesus a reflection of the perfect clearness of His mind.—The lesson of the divine peace in the Lord’s quiet tarrying at home while His brothers go to the brilliant feast.—We also must be able to slay at home.—With what a different eye from that of His brothers did Christ look upon the glories of the world and even of the Jewish people of God (or “church”).
Starke: Hasten not after suffering: it will come soon enough.—Cramer: Let every one look well to himself in his office that he may long serve the church of God.—Christians still celebrate their feast of tabernacles when they heartily praise God for His shelter and defence.—Hedinger: Let no one lord it over the wisdom of God.—Canstein: Follow not the voice which urges thee to seek a great name and become renowned in the world. The sole voice of self-love often leads a minister to leave a place where he may do much good, and move to another where he can do none.—Kindred are most commonly the ones who obstruct the godly.—Bibl. Wirt.: A true Christian heart desires not to distinguish itself; the more secret, the happier.—God does everything exactly at the right time, but men do much out of season.—One hawk does not pick out another’s eyes; he who accommodates himself to the world, will be loved by it.—The friendship of the world, Jam_4:4.—Canstein: It bespeaks humility and prudence for a man to wait God’s time, keeping himself quiet till it come; this does not conflict with the joyousness of faith, which afterwards goes joyfully forward when it perceives its time.—Gossner: I guide myself by the hour-glass of my Father; ye can go according to your pleasure; ye may say what ye will, ye will never be arraigned for it; but I must walk cautiously, that I may not wantonly encounter my suffering. He who follows his own will, who does everything out of his own head, and never consults the divine moment,—his time is always ready. But he who loves God, lets all his moments depend on the will and indication of God.—Braune: Even though they (the brothers) hastened forward to the feast, they after all remained behind.—They who are forward with outward worship, do not therefore worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. With the boisterous (Isa_5:19) the Redeemer can have no fellowship.—It is trying indeed to be left alone with one’s Christianity in a good cause, but it is better to be alone than to burden one’s self with precarious companions who rather corrupt than improve. (Rieger).—Circumspection and prudence best become the boldest.—Gerlach: Such an appearance as ye demand would draw upon me not splendor and honor, but death and ruin.
Heubner: The world is still challenging: Show thyself, come out, make thyself known to the great rulers, recommend thyself by writings and the like.—Besser: Their time did not coincide with His time. It is the peculiar glory of believers, that in all their actions, God’s time is also theirs.—The more one sees the extraordinary mind develop itself under the common limitations of life, the harder he finds the acknowledgment of it.
Footnotes:
[1]Joh_7:1.—καί is omitted by א* and אcb C. 2 D. text. rec. Tisch. (ed. VIII.), inserted by אca (but erased). B. C.* L. X. and other uncial MSS. Lachm. Treg. Alf. Westcott & Hort.—P. S.]
[2]Joh_7:1.—The μετὰ ταῦτα immediately follows the καί in [א.] B. C. D. G. K., etc. [In the text. rec. it follows after ὁ Ἰησοῦς—P. S.]
[3]Joh_7:1.—[Jewry is antiquated. The E. V. uses it twice in the N. T. (Luk_23:5), in all other passages Judæa.—P. S.]
[4]Joh_7:3.—[On the meaning of ἀδελφοί, see Text. Notes on II. 12, p. 114.—P. S].
[5]Joh_7:6.—[Οὖν, therefore, is wanting in א.* D. and omitted by Tischend., but retained with א.c B. L. etc., by Lachm. Alf., etc.—P. S.]
[6]Joh_7:8.—This first ταύτην is wanting in B. D., etc., and is omitted by Lachmann and Tischendorf.
[7]Joh_7:8.—“Elz., Lachmann: οὕπω, not yet; supported, too, by the preponderance of Codd. (only D. K. M. [א] and three minuscules have οὐκ); but against the weight of versions, most of which, including Vulgata and Itala, read οὐκ. Of the fathers, Epiphanius, Cyril, Chrysostom, and many others, have οὐκ. Porphyry found οὐκ in Jerome, and drew from it the charge of fickleness against Jesus. Just to avoid this offence οὔπω was introduced.” Meyer. [Lange adopts, with Meyer, ούκ, (not, instead of οὔπω, not yet. So also Cod. Sin., Tischend. ed. VIII.) Alf., Treg., while Lachm. and Westcott and Hort retain οὔπω.—P. S.]
[8]Joh_7:9.—Tischendorf reads αὐτός instead of αὐτο͂ς after some undecisive Codd. [The Cod. Sin. D. Vulg. (ipse) support αὐτός.—P. S.]
[9][On the σκηνοπηγία or ἐοπτὴ τῶν σκηνῶν (from σκηνή and πήγνυμι, lit. a booth-pitching, tent-pitching) comp. Leviticus 23; Deuteronomy 16; Josephus, Antiqu., III. 10, 4; IV. 8, 12; VIII. 4, 1; Ewald, Jewish Archœol., p. 481 f.; Keil, Arch. I, § 85, and the respective articles in Winer, Smith, Kitto, Fairbairn.—P.S.]
[10][The passage of Papias about the four Marys, published by Grabe and Routh from a Bodleian MS., (No. 2397), which Mill, Wordsworth, and two writers in Smith’s Dictionary (sub. Brothers and James) have uncritically quoted in favor of the cousin-theory, is not from the Papias of the second century, but from a mediæval namesake of the bishop of Hierapolis and author of a dictionary. Comp. Lightfoot Com. on Galatians , 2 d ed., 1866, p. 265 f. Lightfoot asserts and proves that the Hieronymian hypothesis is a pure conjecture unsupported by any previous traditional sanction.—P. S.]
[11][This was my conviction nearly thirty years ago when I first carefully examined this vexed question in my German treatise on James the Brother of the Lord. Berlin, 1842.]
[12][For a refutation of the various attempts to weaken the force of οὐκ ἐπίστευον, see my treatise on James, etc. pp. 51 ff. In Joh_6:64, the μαθηταί οί πιστεύουσι are clearly distinguished from the twelve, and they forsook the Lord (66), while the apostles remained (68). In Luk_12:23, the disciples are called “men of little faith,” but this is very different from unbelief. The γενεά ἅπιστος, Mat_17:17, refers to a particular fact and a single act, not to a state of mind or tendency. The question, Joh_16:31, ἅρτι πιστεύετε (if it be a question), can in no way contradict the πεπιστεύκατε in Joh_7:27 and the ἐπίστευσαν Joh_17:8.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 feast of tabernacles . . . at hand--This was…
feast of tabernacles . . . at hand--This was the last of the three annual festivals, celebrated on the fifteenth of the seventh month (September). (See Lev 23:33, &c.; Deu 16:13, &c.; Neh 8:14-18).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 § 81.—JESUS’S GOING UP TO, AND FIRST TWO DISCOURSES…
§ 81.—JESUS’S GOING UP TO, AND FIRST TWO DISCOURSES AT, THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES, Joh_7:2-53; Joh_8:1.
1. After these things—For the order of events consult the Harmony, p. 101.
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Walked—To traverse, and so to reside. Jewry—Judea. This term Jewry is retained in this place alone from the oldest English translation. It signifies a place or quarter where Jews reside; and a section of London bears the name. Were a revised translation to be made, doubtless this word would be replaced by Judea.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–53 1–9. The controversy with His brethren
1–9. The controversy with His brethren
1. After these things] The interval is again vague (see introductory note to chap. 6); but comparing Joh_4:4 with Joh_7:2 we see that it covers about five months, the interval between the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles.
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walked in Galilee] To this ministry in Galilee, of which S. John tells us nothing, most of the incidents narrated Mat_14:34 to Mat_18:35 belong. The tenses here are all imperfects, implying continued action.
he would not walk in Jewry] From this we understand that He did not go up to Jerusalem for the Passover mentioned Joh_6:4. ‘Jewry’ is found here in all the English versions excepting Wiclif’s; it was common in the earlier translations. But in the A. V. it has been retained (probably by an oversight) only here, Luk_23:5, and Dan_5:13 : elsewhere Judæa has been substituted. In Dan_5:13 the same word is translated both ‘Jewry’ and ‘Judah!’ Comp. the Prayer Book version of Psa_76:1.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–53 (1) After these things . . .—Denoting not immediate…
(1) After these things . . .—Denoting not immediate sequence, but covering the interval included in this verse—i.e., the Galilean ministry of Matthew 15-18. (Comp. Note on Joh_21:1.) It would have been natural for Him to have gone up to the Passover of that year (Joh_6:4), but He did not do so on account of the open hostility of the Jews. He continued his sojourn in Galilee.
Jewry was frequent in the older English translations, but has been preserved in the Authorised version of the New Testament only here and in Luk_23:5. (See Note there, and comp. Dan_5:13 and the Prayer Book version of Psa_76:1.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53 Ch. 7-10 contain the record of the conflict between…
Ch. 7-10 contain the record of the conflict between faith and unbelief in the metropolis. At first the narrative indicates a vast amount of critical inquiry, of unsettled opinion, of angry disappointment and a certain readiness to be convinced on the part of one section or another. The secrecy of the Galilean village is contrasted with the broad arena of the temple courts. "The Jews," or leaders of opinion and authority in Judaea and Jerusalem, who were hostile, are seen in contrast with "the Jews who believed on him". (Joh_8:31) There are multitudes and multitudes (vers. 12, 30, 31), priests and Pharisees (ver. 32), the synagogue, and the blind beggar with his fearful and temporizing parents. (Joh 9) There are those who are deeply plotting Christ"s destruction, and those who are indignant that any suck plot is being hatched. (Joh_7:20) The discourses treat the deepest questions of ethics and theology, national prejudices and the Divine correction of them. The conversations are fragmentary, broken in thread, and yet closely interwoven, while a life like circumstantiality pervades the entire narrative, which argues strongly in favour of its historicity and authentic character. It is the record of definite acts and genuine questions, veritable rebukes and repartees, which have a permanent value as an insight into the character, mind, and Person of the Lord.
Ch. 7 consists of three distinct parts:
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(1) the conditions of the journey to Jerusalem (vers. 1-13);
(2) the discussions during the feast (vers. 14-36);
(3) the last day of the feast (vers. 37-52). Topically considered, we regard this section as exhibiting
Ver. 1-ch. Lev_23:34-36) Consequently, according to John"s own statement, six months had elapsed between the transactions at Bethsaida and Capernaum, and those which he now proceeds to describe. During these six months some of the most thrilling events in the synoptic narrative must have been enacted. The Lord "walked in Galilee." He had discussed the whole question of Pharisaic and ceremonial cleansing and food, and the entire principle of revelation and tradition (Matthew 15 and Mark 7). He had given express illustration of his own teaching by venturing even into heathen cities, and there healing the Syro-Phoenician"s child. He had journeyed towards the north of Palestine, into the Greek cities of Decapolis, (Mar_7:31) and had made a great demonstration of his healing powers on the mountain heights above the Sea of Galilee. There too (Mar_7:1-9) he had once more fed multitudes by his word, on the second miraculous meal. It is probable that the multitudes were Gentiles, whose stock of food would have been exhausted by a three days" sojourn; that at least they were not excitable Galilaeans, who might come by force and make him a King. The Pharisees assailed him, asking for a sign. The disciples, by the mouth of Peter, had confessed their faith (Mat_16:13-28) in more explicit form and force than before, (Joh_6:68, Joh_6:69) and Christ had explained in yet more definite terms than in the synagogue in Capernaum the needs be for his Passion, death, and resurrection. The Transfiguration on the mountain, with its ineffaceable impressions, had followed, with numerous miracles, parables, and connected instructions. (Mt 16 Mt 17 Mt 18) Jesus walked for six months in Galilee, knowing, as we learn from these verses, that the authorities in Jerusalem were utterly hostile to him, and had neither forgotten nor forgiven the assertion of his special claims when he was on the last occasion in Jerusalem at the unnamed feast (be it the Feast of Passover or Tabernacles, the Feast of Purim or Trumpets). The outburst of hostility which kept him so long from Jerusalem was circulating in angry vibrations to the very borders of Galilee. The hour for the final conflict was in abeyance until he had preached more explicitly the Divine gospel of love and redemption, and had left the indestructible seed in human hearts. There was malice in Galileo as well as in Judaea, but it took a different form. Thoma regards the sixth chapter as the ideal treatment by the fourth evangelist of the events recorded in the synoptic narrative, and, strangely enough, treats the wonders on the sea and on the land as parallels to the synoptic account of the temptation! The objection to this is not so much the underlying dissimilarity of idea as the chronological position assigned by Matthew and Luke to the temptation before John was imprisoned, whereas these events occur after his execution. Further, the synoptists record these two miracles in their proper place in the biography as well as describe the temptation. That the deep inner meaning and teaching of ch. 6. corresponds with that of the last Supper, no reader can miss; nor that this confession of Peter is the highest point of the earlier and later narratives we do not question; but their striking resemblance to each other, instead of transforming this Gospel into a philosophical allegory, appears to us to prove that we have the same historic Christ in Both narratives. The Feast of Tabernacles, the skhnophgia , or tent pitching, called by Philo skhnai , was the last great feast of the sacred year. It had its relation to the natural and providential goodness of God. Just as the Passover commemorated the opening of the harvest and the first fruits of the grain, and as Pentecost celebrated the completion of the harvest, so the "Tabernacles" implied the ingathering of the fruit of the vine and of the olive, and summed up the joyful acknowledgments for the whole year. Again, as the "Passover" recorded the deliverance from Egyptian bondage by the destroying angel who spared the blood sprinkled home, and the "Pentecost" probably (Maimonides) commemorated the giving of the Law, so the "Tabernacles" recalled in a festive form the time of Israel"s wandering in the wilderness, when they dwelt in tabernacles. Joyfulness and astonishing ceremonial characterized the festival. The city of palaces broke out into booths of trees and leaves in every possible space, on walls and housetops in courtyards, and even in wagons and on the backs of camels. The people carried their palm branches and citrons in their hands, and great merriment, almost suggestive of heathen rites, prevailed. It probably gathered up about it, as some Christian festivals have done, other ancient or surrounding customs. The number of bullocks sacrificed during the seven days one fewer on each day, beginning with thirteen amounted in all to seventy (13+12+11+10+9+8+7=70). This the rabbis regarded as referring to the seventy nations of heathendom. Additional peculiarities were conspicuous in the immense number of priests who were required to take part in the sacrifices. The blasts of priests" trumpets which regulated the ceremonial, the great musical procession employed in brining water from the Pool of Siloam, then within the city wall, added another noticeable feature. The water was brought in a golden goblet, and poured into a silver funnel, which conveyed it by pipes to the Kedron, and was thus supposed to bless the thirsty land. This act was accompanied by singing the great Hallel, and the shouts and songs of Zion were heard far over hill and valley. At night time universal illumination prevailed, and huge candelabra in the temple court shed a radiance over the whole city. These peculiarities of the feast rendered it the most popular, if not the most sacred, of all the feasts ("Ant.," 8:4, 1, Eorth agiwtath kai megisth). It was a time when the national sentiment often burst into fierce flame. Various historic glories of the past were called to remembrance, and spiritual privileges were symbolized in the ritual. The fact that the feast held this important place in the affections and enthusiasm of the people explains the anxiety of the family of Jesus that, whatever his claims really were, they should be canvassed in the metropolis and decided by the only authorities adequate to the task.
Ver. 1. Our Lord"s stay in Galilee.
Notwithstanding the discouragements of the last few days, he continued to reside in Galilee. "And after these things Jesus continued to abide in Galilee: for he would not abide in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
I HE TOOK NEEDFUL PRECAUTION TO SAVE HIS LIFE.
1. He could have put forth miraculous power for its preservation, but he practised that economy of miracle which is so manifest throughout his whole ministry.
2. He refused to expose himself to premature risk at the hands of his Judaean enemies. They "sought to kill him." He acted upon the counsel he gave to his disciples, that when persecuted in one city they should flee to another. He would not decline risk when his hour was come, but meanwhile he used all prudence to avert danger.
II HIS CONTINUED MINISTRY IN GALILEE.
1. Though discouraged by the defection of so many disciples, he continues to minister in Galilee.
2. His life was secure among the Galilaeans. The difference between the Galilaeans and the Jews was that, while the Jews were actively hostile, the Galilaeans were merely indifferent.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 14, 17, 18, 19, 31, 37, 53 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee.
Joh_7:1-18
After these things Jesus walked in Galilee.
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The situation surveyed
I. THE SCENE IN GALILEE: the attitude of Christs brethren.
1. The counsel they offered. That Christ should repair to the centre of the theocratic kingdom and make His Messianic claims where they could be competently examined (Joh_7:3).
2. The argument they used. He could not acquire fame in Galilean obscurity, but only in the metropolis (Joh_7:4)--a perilous temptation He had twice encountered (Mat_4:9; Joh_6:15).
3. The spirit they cherished. They disbelieved in His Messiahship, but could not deny His miracles. Hence they wanted His true character settled. If He was the Christ they wanted to see Him crowned, if not, the bubble should burst.
4. The reply they received. Christ was not going up for the purpose suggested.
(1) His hour for that had not come--there being for every purpose under heaven (Ecc_3:1), much more for this, a seasonable moment.
(2) To go before that time would not secure what they desired--the great world of Jerusalem not being prepared to welcome Him (Joh_7:7). Any time would do for them, but not for Him.
II. THE SCENE AT JERUSALEM.
1. The bloodthirsty Sanhedrists
(1) Searched for their victim among the city throngs.
(2) With unsleeping hostility, which they had nursed for eighteen months.
(3) With murderous intent.
(4) With eager inquiry.
(5) With contemptuous scorn. That celebrity who has been dazzling you with His wonders.
2. The whispering multitudes. These were
(1) Divided in their judgments concerning Him, as Simeon had predicted Luk_2:34), and Christ affirmed they would be (Mat_10:34-35), and as history proves they ever have been.
(2) Afraid to speak openly about Him, which betokened insincerity as well. They were prepared to do as their leaders bade them. Miserable crew!
Learn:
1. It is becoming and right to walk prudently: Christ did so.
2. In religion the wisdom of this world is almost wholly wrong. It was so with Christs brethren.
3. A mans friends are often the last to believe in His greatness and goodness. It was so with Christ.
4. The more a man resembles Christ, the more he will be hated by the world.
5. The best of men may be evil spoken of. Christ was. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Infidelity
I. SELDOM LACKS EVIDENCE. These brethren must have had ample evidence of Christs Messiahship. As boys they must have seen something of His transcendent character. No doubt many had pointed out to them extraordinary phases of His birth and life, and how they had witnessed His public life for a considerable time, with its teaching and miracles. So infidels have plenty of evidence. All nature is full of proofs of God; and as for Christ the congruity of His biography with contemporaneous history, and of His system with the conscience, reason, and wants of humanity, and the immense and growing influence of His gospel upon the sentiment, spirit, and character of mankind are evidence enough. The cause of infidelity is in the heart rather than the head.
II. IS ALWAYS VAIN. His brethren mainly from vanity counsel Him to make a display in Jerusalem on a great national occasion (Joh_7:4). His life was too obscure and His works too unostentatious. They wanted to share the honour that would accrue. Infidelity is always vain. The vainest speakers, authors, members of society, are those who profess infidel opinions. They are vain of their imaginary intellectual independency, of their superior mental insight and grasp, of their superiority to current creeds. It must be so. The man who believes in nothing greater than himself, will have both space and aliments in his mind in which his egotism can grow to the most offensive proportions. Faith in the infinitely great and good can alone burn out the native vanity of the corrupt heart. Infidelity is a negation. Light empty minds, says Leighton, are like bladders blown up with anything.
III. IS EVER IN AGREEMENT WITH THE WORLD (Joh_7:6-7). By the world is meant the prevailing ideas, spirit, and aims of corrupt humanity. And the mind of His brethren was in accord with this, but it was dead against Him. What is the spirit of the world? Materialism--the body is everything. Practical atheism--God is ignored. Regnant selfishness--self is supreme. Infidelity agrees with all this; there is no moral discrepancy, no reason for mutual antipathies and battling.
IV. NEVER THWARTS THE DIVINE PURPOSE (Joh_7:10). Christs plan was not to go up to Jerusalem at the time they requested Him; but in His own time. Their counselling influenced Him not. Infidelity can never modify, check, or retard the decrees of heaven. Conclusion: Such is infidelity in some of its phases. Iris a wretched thing, however enriched with learning, energized with logic, embellished with culture and genius. I seem, says Hume, affrighted and confounded with the solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy. When I look abroad on every side I see dispute, contradiction, and distraction. When I turn my eye inward, I find nothing but doubt and ignorance. Where am I? What am I? From what cause do I derive my existence? To what condition shall I return? I am confounded with questions, I begin to fancy myself in a very deplorable condition, surrounded with darkness on every side. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Christ and man
I. THE DESPERATE HARDNESS AND UNBELIEF OF HUMAN NATURE. Even His brethren did not believe in Him, who should have been the first to do so. This was worse than the unbelief of the Jews.
1. The doctrine of mans need of preventing and converting grace stands out here as a sunbeam. Seeing Christs miracles, hearing Christs teaching, living in Christs own company, were not enough to make men believers. The mere possession cf spiritual privileges never made any one a Christian. All is useless without the work of the Holy Ghost (chap. 6:44).
2. Christians in every age will do well to remember this. They are often troubled to find that they stand alone, and are ready to blame themselves because their families remain worldly and unbelieving. But let them look at the case before us. In our Lord Jesus Christ there was no fault either in temper, word, or deed. Yet even Christs own brethren did not believe in Him.
3. Christ has truly learned by experience how to sympathize with His people who stand alone. He has drunk this bitter cup. Let all who are cast down because relations despise religion turn to Him for comfort Heb_2:18).
II. THE REASON WHY MANY HATE CHRIST (verse 7).
1. It was not so much the high doctrines He preached as the high standard of practice; not so much His Messianic claims as His protest against their wickedness. They could have tolerated His opinions if He had spared their sins.
2. This principle is of universal application and holds good to-day. Men dislike the gospel because of its holy demands. Teach abstract doctrines, and few will find any fault. Denounce the fashionable sins of the day, and call on men to repent, and thousands at once will be offended. The reason why many profess to be infidels and abuse Christianity is the witness that Christianity bears against their own bad lives (1Ki_22:8).
III. THE STRANGE VARIETY OF OPINIONS ABOUT CHRIST, WHICH WERE CURRENT FROM THE BEGINNING (verse 12). The words which old Simeon had spoken thirty years before were here accomplished (Luk_2:34-35).
1. In the face of such a passage as this, the endless modern divisions about religion ought never to surprise us. The open hatred of some towards Christ--the carping, prejudiced spirit of others--the bold confession of the few faithful--the timid, man-fearing temper of the many faithless--the war of words and strife of tongues--are only modern symptoms of an old disease. Such is the corruption of human nature, that Christ is the cause of divisions among men, wherever He is preached. So long as the world stands, some, when they hear of Him, will love and some will hate--some will believe, and some will believe not (Mat_10:34).
2. What think we of Christ ourselves? This is the one question with which we have to do. Let us never be ashamed to be of that number who believe, hear, follow, and confess Him before men. While others waste their time in vain jangling and unprofitable controversy, let us take up the cross. The world may hate us as it hated Him because our religion is a standing witness against them. (Bp. Ryle.)
Christ an example of prudence
Our Lords example recorded in this verse shows clearly that Christians are not meant to court martyrdom, or wilfully expose themselves to certain death, under the idea that it is their duty. Many primitive martyrs seem not to have understood this. (Bp. Ryle.)
How Christians should act in times of danger
The Roman rule in battle was neither to fly from dangers nor to follow them. The Christians motto is, Neither timorous nor temeranous. We must not basely desert the cause of Christ when called out to defend it. Either vanquish or die, the Black Princes father said to him. Either live with the gospel or die for it. Yet we may not rashly run ourselves upon unnecessary dangers, but decline them when we can with a good conscience. Christians are permitted to fly when they are sought for to the slaughter, so it be with the wings of a dove, and not with the pinions of a dragon. (J. Trapp.)
We must not seek martyrdom
In Tourney, about 1544, a very noted professor of the Protestant religion, being earnestly sought after, had concealed himself so closely that his persecutors were unable to discover where he was hid. Contrary, however, to the advice and entreaty of his wife and friends, he gave himself up, desirous of the glory of martyrdom; but being adjudged to be burnt, he recanted, and abjured the faith in order to be beheaded. The Papists improved this in order to decoy his fellow-sufferers to the like recantation; but they replied, He had tempted God by rushing upon danger without a call, but they had to the utmost of their power shunned it, and hoped that, since He had called them to suffer, He would support them under it. And it so happened they went to the fire in solemn pomp, and were consumed loudly singing the praise of God even in the flames, till their strength was exhausted. We are not to court sufferings; it is enough if we cheerfully endure them when, in the providence of God, we are called to it, Our Lord Himself says to His disciples, When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another.
The Jews feast of tabernacles was at hand
The feast of tabernacles
(Lev_23:34-43; Exo_23:16; Deu_16:13-15) lasted seven days, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first of the seventh month, Tisri, October. An eighth day was further celebrated as a closing festival, like the first day, with a Sabbath rest and a holy convocation. The feast served as a thankful remembrance of Gods gracious protection of the nation during its desert wanderings, and as a joyous celebration of the harvest then completed with the gathering in of the fruit and wine. It was therefore considered by the Jews after the exile to be the greatest and moss glorious feast, and its celebration was distinguished by various customs.
1. By an arbitrary interpretation of Lev_23:40, those who visited the feast carried in the left hand a lemon, and in the right a palm branch, bound with sprays of willow and myrtle.
2. At every morning offering, a priest, amid music and songs of praise, poured into two perforated vessels on the next side of the altar water which he had drawn in a golden pitcher from the fountain of Shiloah Isa_12:3).
3. On the evening of the first day of the feast--according to later Rabbinical accounts, on each of the seven days--there was an illumination in the court of the women by means of a great golden candelabra, accompanied by a torch dance before them. (Prof. Luthardt.)
This was perhaps the most joyous of all the Jewish festivals--the great annual holiday of the nation. During this festive period the people all left their houses and lived in tents or booths, which were erected in the streets and market places, and on the flat terraced roofs of the houses. From this circumstance it was called the feast of tents (text and Lev_23:34). It was likewise named the feast of ingatherings (Exo_23:16; Exo_34:22), because it took place at the close of the vintage, when the fruits of the year were gathered in. It was designed as a sort of a national praise-offering. The people assembled in the courts of the sanctuary to adore the bountiful providence of God which had crowned their labours with success, to rejoice in His goodness, and to implore His blessing on the following year. Josephus calls it a most holy and eminent feast. (J. T.Bannister, LL. D.)
Church festivals
Let it suffice men of sober minds to know, that the law both of God and nature alloweth generally days of rest and festival solemnity to be observed, by way of thankful and joyful remembrance, if such miraculous favours be showed towards mankind, as require the same; that such graces God hath bestowed upon His Church as well in later as in former times; that in some particulars, when they have fallen out, Himself hath demanded His own honour, and in the rest hath left it to the wisdom of the Church, directed by those precedents and enlightened by other means, always to judge, when the like is requisite. Touching those festival days, therefore, which we now observe, what remaineth but to keep them throughout all generations holy, severed by manifest notes of difference from other times, adorned with that which most may betoken true, virtuous, and celestial joy. (Hooker.)
His brethren.--The family dispute which John relates from personal knowledge, with the frankness and simplicity of a genuine historian, gives us an insight into the domestic trials of our Saviour. The unbelief of His brothers need not surprise us any more than the unbelief of the Nazarenes generally (Joh_4:44). Not un-frequently the nearest relatives throw more obstacles in the way of Gods children than strangers. Christ entered into the condition of fallen humanity with all its temptations and miseries. Hence His sympathy in this as in all (Heb_2:17-18; Heb_5:7-8). But the full significance of the passage depends upon the proper view of the brothers of Jesus. Here I must dissent from the cousin theory of Jerome, which assumes that three of them, James, Simon, and Jude, were apostles. This passage is one of the strongest arguments in favour of the more natural view that they were members of the Holy family, and under the care of Joseph and Mary, in whose company they constantly appear.
1. It is plain that John here, as in chap. 2:12, and in harmony with the Synoptists and Act_1:13, 1Co_9:5, distinguishes the brothers of Jesus from the apostles.
2. But what is more conclusive, John represents the brothers as unbelievers, and as using irreverent language against Christ, which could not have been the case had they been apostles. Not that they were unbelievers in the same sense as Jews or pagans, but not believers as the apostles must have been, at least from the miracle at Cana (Joh_2:11; comp. Verse 22; 16:17; 17:8). It would have been easy for John to have said, some of His brethren did not believe, had the others been believing apostles. John recognizes different degrees of belief (comp. Joh_2:23; Joh_4:39; Joh_8:31; Joh_12:42), and of unbelief, but he never confounds the sharp lines between belief and unbelief. Moreover, the language of the brothers contrasts with the reverence shown by the apostles on every occasion, even when they could not understand His conduct (Joh_4:27).
3. Our Lord characterizes them as men of the world whom the world cannot hate (verse 7); while He says the very reverse of the apostles Joh_15:18; Mat_10:5; Mat_10:22; Mat_10:40). We infer, then, that all the four brothers were distinct from the apostles, and not converted till after the Resurrection (Act_1:14; 1Co_15:7). As to the other question whether they were older from a former, otherwise unknown, marriage of Joseph (the Greek tradition defended by Epiphanius), or younger children of Mary and Joseph (the view held by Tertullian and Helvidius, and denounced first by Jerome as heretical and profane, because of its conflict with the tenet of Marys perpetual virginity), the passage gives no decisive answer. The patronizing tone of the brothers seems to favour the former view; but may be found also with younger brothers. (P. Schaff, D. D.)
Jesus and His brethren
The injunction was neither inspired by a too impatient zeal for the glory of Jesus, nor by the odious desire of seeing Him fall into the hands of His enemies. The truth lies between both these extremes. They seem to have been puzzled by the claims of their brother. On the one hand, they could not deny the extraordinary facts which they every day witnessed; on the other, they could not decide upon regarding as the Messiah one with whom they were accustomed to live upon terms of the greatest familiarity. They desired, therefore, to see Him abandon the equivocal position in which He placed Himself, and was keeping them, by so persistently absenting Himself from Jerusalem. If He were really the Messiah, why should He fear to appear before judges more capable of deciding on His pretensions than ignorant Galileans? Was not the capital the theatre on which Messiah was to play His part, and the place where the recognition of His mission should begin? The approaching festival, which seemed to make it a duty that He should visit Jerusalem, appeared, therefore, to make a favourable opportunity for taking a decided step. There is a certain amount of similarity between this and Marys request (chap. 2.), as there is also between our Lords conduct on the two occasions. (Prof. Godet.)
For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly
Show thyself to the world
A single word will often lay bare a mans object, habit of mind, whole bent of nature. This is a revealing sentence involving a perpetual principle of the carnal mind. Christ had been doing and saying great things, but of the latter these people made no account. They fix upon that which struck the eye.
I. THIS IS A SPEECH OF WORLDLY MINDED MEN, and presents to us the worldly mind in its foolishness, making false deductions because unable to understand the things of God. Rising no higher than Christs outward deeds, no wonder that they anticipated no nobler result than the worlds praise. It is just the old story What will the world say? It is sad to judge and live with a false standard of value. Were a man to go about with a piece of straw and measure men and even principles by his worthless standard we should think him mad; and yet this is the world all over. It takes its own empty opinion as the standard of all things. What did this involve? It put before Christ a false end of action, and had He gone on the principles here suggested, He would have become alienated from the Father, and been of the world, and so no Saviour. For there is here involved an entire perversion of His mission. His whole life was a testimony against the world, but His brethren say, Go and take its admiration by storm with your wonderful deeds. Note the following lessons
1. How entirely the things of God are mistaken by the world, and not only by the profligate, but by the simply unbelieving.
2. How foolish for the people of God to be led by the worlds opinion.
3. How it requires sympathy with the mind of Jesus to detect and repel the mind of the world.
4. What mischief results from ignorant or bad advice, even when well meant and of friends.
5. What a warning against what is merely colourably good!
6. What little importance is to be attached to the terrible formula, What will the world say?
7. Beware of mistaking the end of your position, life, gifts, none of which is given to gain the worlds praise.
8. Beware of reasoning on the worlds principles.
9. Be wary when a course of action has as its simple end your own honour.
10. In all solicitations of the world go down into the mind of God and your relationship with Him, and judge each by the light you have of them.
II. THE WRONG THOUGHTS WHICH, IN CONNECTION WITH THIS MATTER, RISE IN THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD.
1. Discontent at being put and kept in the background--and hence discomfort and weakness in work. This arises from exaggerated views of our importance, and from not seeing that God will appoint what is best, and from that superficiality which prevents our seeing that show and noise are Dot power, and that many of the greatest processes which issue in manifold results are secret. We do not understand the beauties of the background of the Christian life where Jesus was for many a long year. This background is at least safe, and many of Gods dearest walk there unnoticed of men but honoured by Him.
2. Discontent at there being so little to show. What is this but coming into the worlds court and pleading for a verdict there. The believer must have no care about his work being seen by the world. If he live there will be no occasion for him to thrust himself forward. He must by his life condemn it, and that will create sufficient attention. Gods child must not be discontented at seeing honours and riches flowing in upon those who serve the world. The world loves its own. Let us calmly live before God. Here is comfort for those who are laid aside too weak or poor to do aught that can attract observation. They are seen by God in secret and will be rewarded openly. (P. B. Power, M. A.)
Self revelation
Cnidius, a skilful architect, building a watch-tower for the King of Egypt, caused his own name to be engraved upon a stone in the wall in great letters, and afterwards covered it with lime and mortar, and upon the outside of that wrote the name of the King of Egypt in golden letters, as pretending that all was done for his honour and glory. But herein was his cunning, he very well knew that the dashing of the water would in a little while consume the plastering (as it did) and then his name and memory should abide to after generations. Thus there be many in this world, who pretend to seek only the glory of God, the good of His Church, and the happiness of the state; but if there were a window to look into their hearts we should find nothing there within but self-seeking. (J. Spencer.)
For neither did His brethren believe in Him.--The prophecy that the Messiah should be despised and rejected by men was here fulfilled to the very letter. His brethren, who should have been the first, were the last to believe on Him.
I. HOW STRANGE THIS WAS.
1. They had heard His doctrine, not as strangers or near neighbours, but in the familiar intercourse of home.
2. They had seen His miracles (Joh_2:11-12).
3. They had known the circumstances and manner of His life. They had heard no doubt of the marvels attendent on His birth, and had watched His pure and benevolent life for thirty-three years.
II. HOW IT MAY BE ACCOUNTED FOR. This is necessary, for the text is a great favourite with modern Jews and infidels, who hold that His brethren could not have been more incredulous than others. It is singular, however, on this theory, that John should have made so damaging an admission. But
1. It is no uncommon thing for men to disbelieve in the face of the clearest evidence. To the Jews we reply that the Israelites did not believe in the Lord and Moses, though they could not deny the miracles; and to the deists that many deny God and immortality, notwithstanding the variety and strength of arguments in favour of both.
2. These men had strong prejudices against Christ.
(1) Some were common to them as sinful men, arising from the purity of His doctrine and the stringency of His demands.
(2) Some were peculiar to them as Jews arising from their conceptions of a temporal Messiah. They did not contest His miracles but thought that they should be displayed, if Messianic, at Jerusalem, so as to receive the suffrages of the great, and not in the obscurity of Galilee.
3. They were under the influence of an ambitious worldly spirit as Christ intimates in the next verse.
Application:
1. Let us not wonder if some, who have enjoyed the greatest religious advantages, do not believe. What advantages these brethren must have had! And yet how little the impression produced. Do not wonder then, Christian parents, if, with the best of training, your children are not yet converted. But do not despair. Remember that Christs brethen eventually became His disciples (Act_1:14).
2. See what an enemy to Christianity a worldly spirit is. With their views Christs brethren held that if He were Messiah they would share His temporal glory. A worldly covetous disposition hinders multitudes from believing and obeying Christ. How much better is a relation to Christ by faith than by nature. (J. Orton.)
The unbelief of Christs brethren
The subject suggests that
I. CHRIST OWED NOTHING TO MANS SYMPATHY. A mans own relations of all men ought to manifest this. They are his own flesh and blood. To feel for him is only a step beyond feeling for selves. We do for the inner circle of our relatives what we should never think of doing for outsiders. But this common privilege was denied our Lord. We gather that His brethren were aware of His pretentions and of His works in support of them. But all they do is to dare Him to go to Judaea (Joh_7:4). An enemy might have spoken so, as indeed the Pharisees (Mat_16:1), the chief priests Mat_27:41-43), and the soldiers (Mat_27:29). In all cases He was treated as one who bad His claims to make good, so great was the chasm between those nearest to Him and Himself. There was one world of feeling within Him, and another around Him. How much went out from the One; how little came in from the other.
II. HE OWED NOTHING TO MANS HELP. The rare instances in which He received a little sympathy show this. The confession of Peter (Mat_16:16) fell on His heart like cold water on a thirsty tongue; but like water spilt on the ground, so the next moment it was gone. In Gethsemane the disciples so far sympathized with Him as to catch the infection of His grief, but that which made Him watch made them sleep. It was not by His disciples, or mother, or brethren (Luk_2:49; Joh_2:4), but notwithstanding them that He effected His great work. Consider the cost of that work to Himself. It was one continuous sacrifice, and through the whole He was unaided and alone. (Mathematicus.)
An unsuccessful ministry
I. THE UNSUCCESSFULNESS OF OUR SAVIOURS MINISTRY.
1. The causes of our unsuccessful ministry.
(1) Ignorance of Scripture truths.
(2) Lack of effective expression.
(3) Want of harmony between the ministers private life and public teaching.
(4) Absence of a prayerful spirit.
2. These causes did not operate in the case of Christ. He knew the Scriptures, spake as never man spake, was blameless, and went about doing good, and was mighty in prayer. Still, His brethren did not believe in Him.
3. The lessons which the Saviours unsuccessful ministry suggest.
(1) That a man should not always be held responsible for the unreligiousness of his family.
(2) A true ministry may be unsuccessful when the greatest success may be expected.
(3) Success is no proof of the true value of a ministry.
II. INFIDELITY EXISTING IN THE MOST FAVOURABLE CIRCUMSTANCES TO BELIEF. This must be because of
1. Prejudice.
2. Intellectual pride.
3. Hardness of heart. (D. Lewis.)
Unbelief an obstruction
An empty vessel capable of holding water, if tightly corked none can enter it, though water is poured upon it in abundance; nay, it may be thrown into the sea and still remain empty. So it is with our hearts. Unbelief closes them so that overwhelming evidence can bring no conviction of the truth, and the most powerful influence can secure no entrance for the grace of God.
Want of religious sympathy at home
When Bunyans Pilgrim became alarmed about his state he found no sympathy from his friends. He told them of his fears, but at this his relatives were sore amazed, nor for that they believed what he had said to them was true, but because they thought some frenzy distemper had got into his head, therefore, it drawing toward night, and they, hoping that sleep might settle his brains, with all haste they got him to bed. When the morning was come they would know how he did. He told them worse and worse. They thought to drive away his distemper by harsh and surly carriage to him; sometimes they would deride; sometimes they would chide, and sometimes they would quite neglect him. (Pilgrims Progress. )
My time is not yet come; but your time is alway ready
I. GLORIOUS DANGER.
1. Jesus was in extreme peril. The storm, the first mutterings of which had been heard long before seemed now to concentrate its violence upon Him. Derision had become inveterate hatred. The scribes, etc., now longed to kill Him, and were doing all in their power to compass that end. That end was only a matter of time, and the limit was only imposed by Christ Himself.
2. He might have escaped it all, and been the leader and King of the people had He conciliated, compromised, and compounded.
3. But He would not. He saved others, Himself He cannot save. His danger was glorious, because it arose from a persistent refusal
(1) To live any life lower than the highest.
(2) To accept any modification of the supreme law of righteousness.
(3) To become anything less than the Saviour of the world.
II. INGLORIOUS SAFETY. His brethren were safe. They might go when and where they liked. They would meet with no exasperated enemies, lint rather with their true relations--unbelievers They were safe because
1. They were not opposing evil. Their true kinship was with the world, and the world would love and spare its own (Joh_15:19; cf. 1Jn_4:5). They were going with the stream.
2. They were not accomplishing any high mission in life. Having no work of Divine appointment--their time was alway ready; they had no hour, no climax.
III. IN VARYING DEGREES THE CHOICE BETWEEN GLORIOUS DANGER AND INGLORIOUS SAFETY LIES BEFORE EACH ONE OF US, in regard to
1. Business. Which shall we conform to, tile average standard of commercial morality or the highest?
2. Politics. Shall we merely follow the party, or be true to our deepest conviction of rights?
3. Religion. Shall we accept doctrines and creeds that are simply popular, or stand by that which in our heart we feel to be the truth?
Conclusion:
1. To live the high life, to be true to conviction, to dare to stand alone--if need be, oppose evil, breast the stream--this is hard, painful, dangerous, but gloriously so.
2. To live the average life, to accept the present condition of things, to conform, to compromise, to go with the tide; this is easy, generally pleasant, profitable, and for awhile safe, but inglorious. (L. Shackleford.)
Salvation
The world never ready for Christs salvation, but always ready for its own secular pleasures and profit.
I. The ABSORBING EXCELLENCE of Christs salvation.
1. We fail to properly esteem it.
2. Or, confessing its excellence, we are too indolent to give it the preference over our other pursuits. Other things take our time and energy.
3. Or, proposing to pursue it, we do not make it our sovereign pleasure.
(1) This is because of our vitiated taste.
(2) We do not acquire the liking for religious duties by sufficient practice of them.
(3) Or, if we give them time, we do not give to them more than half our hearts.
II. HELPFUL RULES.
1. Study the reasons for Christian life until you have a strong conviction regarding them.
2. In all doubt, be reminded that Christian life alone has a hope set before it. Let this determine the scale. (Massillon.)
Limitations of human greatness
1. Those who believe in the Divinity of Christ may wonder that He should be under the limitations of time. It was not until the time appointed that He was born, nor could He die till His hour was come. The Redeemer is put under sharper restrictions than are His disciples, for their time was alway.
2. Here was a focal centre to which preparatory events converged. The promise in the garden; the words of prophecy, the symbolism of ancient days--all were knit into the Redemptions plan. But why was salvation so circuitous? Why wait so long?
3. We cannot comprehend the secrets of the Infinite Mind, nor argue a priori in the matter. We must move from our standpoint upward. Consider the limitations of human greatness and, by inference, those of Omnipotence itself.
I. INCREASE OF POWER DOES NOT INCREASE THE RANGE OF FREEDOM FROM LAW. It rather hinders. Power can do some things, and some things it cannot do. To weld iron to iron, a man needs a blacksmiths arm and muscle. To instruct a childs intellect or develop its moral nature, physical power is not counted.
1. We cannot argue from the almightiness of God, seen in the material creation, that He will force men into heaven. The order of things is a narrowing condition. For example, an act of parliament cannot banish the plague. The disciples would have called down fire from heaven and have honoured God by destroying His enemies. This spirit established the Inquisition. It would break through the order of the universe to accomplish a subsidiary end. But God does not propose to outrage mans faculties in mans salvation.
2. Increasing power puts under restraint, by making needful the hiding of power. The crowd would proclaim Christ king. He checked them. So, again and again, He said to those on whom He had wrought miracles, Tell it to no man, knowing that the blazing abroad of it at: that time would precipitate His conflict with the civil power. He also guarded these miraculous energies, so as not to paralyze human responsibility. Thousands of hungry ones were fed. Their horizon is opened and they thought, perhaps, that no more labour would be needful, now that the granaries of heaven were open by Divine power. Gather up the fragments! How strange, when there is such a power to create supplies! So, too, there was danger of becoming estranged from the practical duties of life, as in the case of Peter, who wished to abide on the mount. This was rebuked by Christ. He kept in the realm of humanity. He laboured to prove Himself human. Men were already convinced that He was Divine.
3. This necessary control and restriction of increasing power is seen among men. A little boat in the river moves hither and thither as its rower pleases, but the huge ocean steamer, with its vast momentum, must be guarded in its movements, lest its iron weight and onward speed send it crashing into other craft, like some blind Polyphemus to devour and destroy. A childs movements may not affect anything outside its home, but a Napoleon is watched by the nations with fear. How much more the tremendous power of God and His responsibility as related to the order and harmony of the universe!
II. THE INCREASE OF KNOWLEDGE ALSO BRINGS RESTRICTIONS.
1. The child sees no significance in the congeries of forces about him. He moves about freely. He plays with water, and knows not that each drop is a universe, and that every motion of his finger is felt in Sirius. Higher knowledge puts us under sense of higher responsibility.
2. The power and use of speech is another field of illustration. As childhood ripens into manhood, this trust is more appreciated. Christs use of parables is a solemn rebuke to those who, had they fully known the truth, would have abused it--would have held down the truth in unrighteousness (Rom_1:18). Throw pearls to swine, and they will rend you. Fools rush in where angels dare not tread. Knowledge dwarfs our self esteem. The more wisdom the more modesty. The ignorant look at the sky and see but specks of light, and fancy this globe great. The astronomer reveals a gigantic system. We shrink abashed before the Father of lights, and fear to despise His mercy or trifle away our probation.
III. GOODNESS DOES NOT BROADEN, BUT LIMITS FREEDOM IN SOME RESPECTS.
1. The wicked have no bands in their death, and in life they often revel in unlicensed liberty; but men like Paul deny themselves meat if it cause a brother to fall. Christ says, For their sakes I sanctify Myself. The good man separates himself from luxury and ease, and from all that hinders his work.
2. The man obtuse through sin or self-will shuts his eyes and ears to the suffering. The good man is sensitive. If any suffer, I suffer; if any is weak, I am weak.
3. A pure heart, too, is pained by sin, as a cultured ear is pained by the discords of music. The man who is destitute of musical sensibility is unaffected. Holiness, essentially, is a separating process. A Brahmin cannot touch food or drink prepared by one of lower caste. The shadow of such a one pollutes the air. He must therefore assume the burden of furnishing himself with food.
Conclusion:
1. As obedient to the Fathers will, Christ the Holy One was under restrictions the most exacting. Step by step He fulfilled His course. Christ could not wander a vagrant. He steered between those who, on the one hand, said, Show Thyself, and those who, like Peter, cried, Far be it from Thee, and kept to the lines appointed him. When the clock of the universe pointed to the hour, He must be put upon the cross.
2. Gaze into the heavens where stars are wheeling in courses, the delicacy and exactness of whose curves it takes pages of figures to compute. The safety of worlds depend on their perfect harmony of movement. The astronomer calculates, centuries in advance, their various intersections. But in the moral world there is the same exactness. Jerusalem had her day of visitation. You and I have our day of mercy. The hour hastens when it will be said, It is the last time. God will not then move back the index on the dial plate. (J. B. Thomas, D. D.)
Your time is alway ready.--Did we see the husbandman dreaming away his time, when all his fields lay uncultivated; or the generals of an army trifling an hour at cards, when the enemy was preparing to storm the camp; or a pilot asleep, when the ship was running directly upon a rock; and did all these allege, as the reason of their behaviour, that they had nothing to do, we should think a madhouse the only proper place for them: and we should think right. But why do we not perceive that there is not less of absurdity and madness in the con- duct of that Christian who wastes his precious hours in idleness, and apologizes for it by saying in the same manner, that he has nothing to do, when perhaps the work of his salvation, that greatest of all works, the very work for which God sent him into the world, is not yet so much as entered upon, or even thought of Joh_11:9; 1Co_4:2). (Bp. Horne.)
Misused opportunity
Many do with opportunities as children do at the sea shore; they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through, one by one, till they are all gone. (T. Jones, D. D.)
Opportunity unused
Opportunity is like a strip of sand which stretches around a seaside cove. The greedy tide is lapping up the sand. The narrow strip will quickly become impassable; and then how sad the fate of the thoughtless children who are now playing and gathering shells and seaweed inside the cove! (Union Magazine.)
Opportunities of doing good should be seized eagerly
When the earth is soft the plough will enter. Take a man when he is mourning, or newly stirred by some moving sermon, and then set it home and you may do him good. Christian faithfulness doth require us not only to do good when it falls in our way, but to watch for opportunities of doing good. (Richard Baxter.)
Christians may find opportunities of doing good at any time and anywhere
Some persons are so extremely particular as to where they begin to work for Christ that they lose much time in what they think is wise waiting for opportunities. But it was not so with Uncle John Vassar (the American colporteur). He would begin anywhere. One day a minister met him at the railway station and was about to take him home with him before commencing his work. Uncle John proposed that they should work on the way home. But where shall we begin? said the minister. Oh, he replied, let us begin at the station-masters. They did so, and before ten minutes had passed one poor discouraged backslider had opened her heart to the strangers earnest appeals and was kneeling in true penitence at the throne of Divine mercy. (R. Brewin, Lecture on Uncle John Vassar.)
The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth
The antagonism between Christ and the world
I. CHRISTS POSITION ONE OF ANTAGONISM TO THE GENERAL CURRENT OF HUMAN THOUGHT AND FEELING. The great idol of humanity is self. Every one worships it in one form or other. Christ comes to overthrow this idol and to claim all men for His Father. This claim is resented. In other words, Christ, by His Person, teaching, example, testifies of the world that its works are evil. The light rebukes the darkness. Christ does not say, You are very nearly right; but, You are altogether wrong. Nor will He rest until His statements are believed and His claims accepted. So He is hated. Men say they are indifferent, but they hate.
II. IT IS THE FACT OF THIS ANTAGONISM WHICH MAKES MANY SHRINK FROM JOINING HIM. They dread running counter to general opinion. They cannot stand opposition or ridicule. They feel instinctively that the dislike with which the worm regards Christ is extended to His disciples; and at this dislike they shudder. But their condition is a very perilous one. It is to Him that overcometh that the blessing is given. The fearful are cast out with the false and abominable. Hence infer
(1) that weakness towards the world is hardness towards Christ; and
(2) that Christ, if we look to Him, will give us the needful strength. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
The worlds treatment of Christ
The world gave Him a cradle, but it was a manger; a throne, but it was a cross; a crown, but it was thorns; a sceptre, but it was a reed; homage, but it was derisive mockery and bitter scorn; companions, but they were crucified criminals; a kingdom, but it was a grave (Jam_4:4). (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
The worlds treatment of the Church
In Brazil there grows a common plant, which is called the matodor, or murderer. Its slender stein creeps at first along the ground; but no sooner does it meet a vigorous tree than with clinging grasp it cleaves to it, and climbs it, and as it climbs, sends out at short intervals arm-like tendrils that embrace the tree. As the murderer ascends, these ligatures grow larger, and clasp tighter. Up, up it climbs, one hundred feet, nay, two hundred, if needs be, until the last loftiest spire is gained and fettered. Then, as if in triumph, the parasite shoots a huge flowery head above the strangled summit, and thence from the dead trees crown, scatters its seed to do again the work of death. Even thus does worldliness strangle churches. (S. Coley.)
Truth begets hate. (Terence.)
Go ye up to this feast. I go not up yet.--Whether not yet or not be adopted as the true reading, the utterance is not to be explained as an indication of fickleness, or of honest purpose subsequently changed, or of intentional evasion as if He wished to leave His counsellors uncertain how He meant to act, or signified that though He was really going to Jerusalem He was not going just yet--with a mental substitution of a now, or with the public caravans and feast trains, or to attend the feast in a legally prescribed man-nor, all of which have been suggested. The sense Christ desired His words to bear was probably that He was not yet (though afterwards He would), or not (absolutely for the present) going up to manifest Himself unto the world; if He went up, it would not be yet for any such purpose as they contemplated, because His time was not yet fulfilled. The seasonable moment when He would manifest Himself into the world was not to arrive till the next passover. And, having said these things, He abode in Galilee, waiting the signal from His Father which determined all His earthly movements (chap. 11:6). His brethren having gone, then went He also up, not publicly as they desired, but as a private person incognito.
Whether or not Christ travelled through Samaria, thus avoiding the ordinary path, He did not accompany any of the public caravans, but selected a solitary route. The in secret shows that this was neither the journey mentioned in Luk_9:51, nor the final departure from Galilee Mat_19:1-2), both of which were public. Though Christs journey was in secret it is not said that His visit to the feast was. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.)
Then the Jews sought Him at the feast
Striking contrasts
I. BASE COWARDICE AND SUBLIME COURAGE.
1. Base cowardice (Joh_7:11-13).
(1) For these chief men of the nation to be in cunning search for the life of one lonely man. Where is He? We want Him. What for? To listen to His doctrines? honestly to test His merits, to do honour to His person or His mission? No; but to kill Him. Here are a number of influential men banded together to crush one humble peasant!
(2) In the people meeting together in secrecy, and talking about Him. Why not openly? Sin is always cowardly: virtue alone is courageous. Sins talk is swaggering, and its attitude often defiant; but it is essentially craven-hearted. Thou wear a lions hide! Doff it for shame, and hang a calfs skin on those recreant limbs (Shakespeare).
2. In contrast with this, we have the sublimest courage (Joh_7:14). When the festival was at its height, and the concourse swollen to the greatest number, and national enthusiasm most intense, this poor peasant Reformer confronted public sentiment when its billows were thundering at high tide. Where in all history have you an example of courage comparable to this?
II. CONVENTIONAL SCHOLARSHIP AND DIVINE INTELLIGENCE.
1. Conventional scholarship (Joh_7:15). The question breathes contempt. The idea is, He has never been to our seats of learning and studied under our rabbis; what can He know? He is an uneducated man and, forsooth, presumes to teach. There is much of this spirit now. There are those who hold that a man cannot know much unless he has graduated at some university. This is a great fallacy; some of the most educated men have never passed the college curriculum. This idea fills society with pedants, and our pulpits with men who have neither the kind of lore, or genius to preach the gospel.
2. Divine intelligence. Note here that
(1) God is the sole Teacher of the highest doctrine (Joh_7:16). Although I have not studied under you, rabbis, I have got my knowledge directly from the primal source of all true intelligence. Do not content yourself with sipping at the streams of conventional teachings, go to the fountain head.
(2) Obedience is the qualification for obtaining the highest knowledge (Joh_7:17). Philosophy and experience show the truth of this. The essence of goodness consists in wishing to be good, says Seneca. And well too as Pascal said, that a man must know earthly things in order to love them, but that he must love heavenly things in order to know them.
(3) Entire devotion of self to the Divine is necessary in order to communicate the highest knowledge (Joh_7:18). It is not only as a man becomes self-oblivious, and lost in the love and thoughts of God, that he can reflect the bright rays of Divine intelligence upon his fellow-men. We must allow ourselves to become mere channels through which the Divine will flow. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Why Christ hid himself
To kindle the desire of seeing and hearing Him so much the more; or to discover whether there were any numbers disposed by His first preaching to receive Him, to the end that He might not show Himself in vain. (J. Trapp.)
Where is He.--Jesus went to the feast in secret, and the Jews sought Him. From differing motives they inquire for Him, but they did inquire. No man, having once heard of Jesus, can any longer remain indifferent to Him: he must take some sort of interest in the Lord Jesus. From many quarters come the question, Where is He? We will at this time
I. CONSIDER THE WAYS IN WHICH THE QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED.
1. Hate, ferociously desiring to slay Him, and overthrow His cause. Herod was the type of this school.
2. Infidelity, sneeringly denying His existence, taunting His followers because His cause does not make progress (2Pe_3:4).
3. Timorous fear, sadly doubting His presence, power, and prevalence (Job_23:8-9).
4. Penitence, humbly seeking Him that she may confess her sin, trust her Lord, and show her gratitude to Him (Job_23:3).
5. Love, heartily pining for communion with Him, and for an opportunity to serve Him (Son_3:3).
6. Fear, bitterly lamenting His absence, and craving His return.
7. Desire, ardently aspiring to meet Him in His second advent, and to behold His glory (Rev_22:20).
II. GIVE THE SAINTS EXPERIMENTAL ANSWER. He is
1. At the mercy-seat when we cry in secret.
2. In the Word as we search the sacred page.
3. In the assemblies of His people, even with two or three.
4. At His table, known in the breaking of bread.
5. In the field of service, aiding, sympathizing, guiding, and prospering. In all things glorified before the eyes of faith.
6. In the furnace of trial, revealing Himself, sanctifying the trial, bearing us through.
7. Near us, yea, with us, and in us.
III. RETURN THE QUESTION TO YOU. Is He
1. At the bottom of your trust?
2. At the root of your joys?
3. On the throne of your heart?
4. Near by constant converse?
5. Is His Spirit manifested in your spirit, words, and actions?
6. Is He before you, that to the end of your journey, the terminus towards which you are daily hastening?
IV. ASK IT OF THE ANGELS. They, with one voice, reply that He is
1. In the bosom of the Father.
2. In the centre of glory.
3. On the throne of government.
4. In the place of representation.
5. In the armoury of mercy.
6. Within reach of you and all needy sinners who will now seek Him.
Conclusion:
1. Come, let us go and find Him. We will hold no feast till He is among us. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
Where is He?
I. IS HE IN YOUR CHURCH ON SUNDAY?
1. Do you thither repair expecting to meet Him?
2. Does His presence banish every irreverent and worldly feeling?
3. Does He meet out to you the Word of Life, and render it sweet to your taste, and nourishing to your soul?
II. IS HE IN YOUR PRAYER-MEETING?
1. Do you, in company with others, meet together weekly and claim the fulfilment of His promise?
2. Is He then causing your hearts to burn within you, and strengthening your grasp on His promises?
3. When you leave does your conduct say, We have been with
Jesus?
III. IS HE IN YOUR FAMILY?
1. Has he made your home His abode?
2. Does His presence refresh the weariness of toil, loosen the burden of care, and brighten the smile of affection?
3. Does He take your children in His arms and bless them?
4. Does He assure you that you shall form an individual family in heaven?
IV. IS HE IN YOUR HEART?
1. If so He is ever near.
2. If not, seek the Lord while He may be found.
(Homiletic Review.)
Motives for seeking Christ
How diverse were the motives from which men sought Jesus: the Magi to adore Him; Herod to crush a rival prince; Greeks to satisfy curiosity; Jews to see miracles, or to crown Him a king to promote their carnal interests; only a few hungry souls sought Him as the Bread of Life. Some seek Him to find ground of objection to His mission. How many frequent His church and ordinances but never seek Him. To how many of the earths feasters would He prove an unwelcome guest? (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)
Christ found
Many years ago, there was a young man in Birmingham whose dissipation and excess had brought into a condition from which he endeavoured to extricate himself by crime. The fear of detection, exposure, and ruin goaded him on to such a pitch of desperation that he left his fathers house resolutely bent on self-destruction. Gods good providence led him through Bond Street; and, under some inexplicable impulse, he found himself sitting in the Baptist Chapel almost before he was aware. The minister, a Mr. Edmonds, was reading from the Book of Job, occasionally throwing in some shrewd parenthetic remark. Coming to verses 8 and 9, the young mans attention was irresistibly arrested: Job, Job, the preacher cried entreatingly, why dont you look upward? These words were as nails fastened in a sure place, and the young man ever thanked God for the belief that he was unconsciously drawn by the Holy Spirit to enter that place, and that the preacher was impelled to the use of those words, to the end that his life might be redeemed from destruction, and crowned with lovingkindness and tender mercy. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Where to find Christ
I saw a young brother last Friday, and, in answer to the question, How were you converted? he said it was through reading Luther on the Galatians. I said, I am glad to see the man that reads Luther on the Galatians. He was a young man employed in the city, and I admired him for preferring Luther to the wretched novels of the period. I read it two or three times, he said, and I saw the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace; I saw how man was ruined by his works, and how he must be saved by faith, and I found the Saviour while reading that book. Oh, if people would but read the Bible, and books about the Bible, with the desire to know what the gospel is, they would soon find Him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. (C. H.Spurgeon.)
And there was much murmuring among the people concerning Him.
Christ when He comes brings division
Describe the scene, the variety of characters and feelings and opinions, at this most popular of all the feasts; the movement, the stir, all circling round the central figure, Christ. Now discussion about Christ may be allowable enough, but as discussion proceeds the crowd takes sides, and there is a party for, and a party against, Christ. It is so now. The proclamation of truth separates men.
Jesus is either a great foundation or else a stone of stumbling. Men are attracted or repelled, hardened or softened. Let us consider then
I. THE DIVINE INTENTION. This is that all men shall be saved. God so loved the world, and His goodness should lead to repentance. But
II. Such is the mystery that attaches to our creation, that MAN HAS IT IN HIS POWER TO FRUSTRATE THIS INTENTION OF GOD. The Holy Spirit pleads with him, but he resists. He can resist. Were it not so, he would be but a machine. Hearts cannot be compelled; they can only be drawn. Christ knocks at the door; but we can, if we choose, keep it bolted on the inside, and Christ will not force the way in. We must be persuaded to admit Him. He wishes to be a guest. I will come in and sup with him, and he with me.
III. GOD DOES ALL IN HIS POWER TO WIN THE HUMAN HEART. To say that He multiplies kindnesses is to say little. He sends, He gives, He spares not His own Son. This is His last effort. Beyond this there is nothing. And if the heart can resist such an evidence of His love, its case is hopeless. There is nothing left that will touch it. How is it with us? Which side are we taking? For Christ? or against Him? He that is not with Me is against Me. There is no intermediate region; no neutral ground. Men start in lifo as boys, hand-in-hand, but on opposite sides of a little mountain rill. The widening stream soon compels them to unclasp their hands; and the distance between them increases as they advance. Presently they are out of sight of each other; and at last a broad, impassable gulf rolls between them. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
Diverse effects of contact with Christ
The coating of our Lord acted as a moral shock upon the existing fabric of thought and life; it broke up the stagnant, fixed modes of feelings and thinking; it set men in movement; it led to anxious self-questionings, to widespread anxiety of mind, to general unsettlement; it destroyed that tranquil satisfaction with things as they were in Israel which had secured so much repose of mind to so many classes. Such an event would reveal above all the true character of the time; it would act as many a flash of lightning on the crew of a wreck; it would dispel illusions somewhat rudely, often at the cost of happiness and temper, and as a result it would be regarded in more ways than one. Those who wish to know the truth and to live in it at all costs, would welcome it, and thank God for it; those who did not wish this would slink away from an influence which made them uncomfortable, even though they might have reason to think that in the end it would make them better than they were. In ordinary life there are occurrences which act upon men in different ways, which bring out unsuspected tendencies for good or for evil. A railway accident, a fire, the outburst of aa epidemic, or the sudden inheritance of a fortune, are each in their own way revelations of character. They break through the ordinary habits, and surprise men for the moment into being perfectly natural, They reveal unexpected beauties in this mans character, heroism, generosity, etc.; or they bring any little weakness to the surface in that man, and show him to be selfish or cowardly, or in other ways unlike what he was supposed to be. In the same way a great controversy acts as a solvent upon all sorts of persons. It throws them back upon the principles which really rule them; it precipitates a great deal in them which else might have remained undecided; it forces them to take a side, and, by taking that side, to make a revelation of character. And much more is this the case when men are brought into contact with a mind and heart of unwonted greatness. Such a personality is too imperative to leave other men just as they were; such a personality sets feeling, thought, will, all in motion--not always in friendly motion--towards itself, not unfrequently in hostile and prejudiced motion. And this was especially the case with our Lord. Men could not, if they would, regard Him with indifference. They could not escape from some sort of profound emotion at coming into contact with Him. When He made His entry into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? And this was a sort of concrete representation of what took place on a vast historical scale on His entrance into the world. That event produced a varied and prolonged emotion in human souls. It stirred the lowest instincts as well as the highest thoughts of men. It was a fulfilment of that pregnant saying, Yet once more do I shake, not the earth only, but heaven. But its result was not, could not be, uniform. It was for the rising or fall of many a human soul. (Canon Liddon.)
Howbeit no man spake openly of Him for fear of the Jews
Moral cowardice
I. THE FACT--No man spake openly of Him. To this there was a large exception. His friends were silent, not His enemies. They were loud enough in their reproaches, etc. This is the case still to a large and lamentable extent. How much there is said and written against Christ which His professed followers allow to pass without protest or counter demonstration! There is no lack of private confession it may be. They that fear the Lord still speak one to another; but those who love Him will surely speak to others also. What Christ wants is confession before men, for the defence of His honour, the confutation of unbelief, the extension of His cause.
II. ITS EXPLANATION--For fear of the Jews. This fear was and is twofold.
1. Nervous shrinking. To men, e.g., in the position of Nicodemus, there was not much to dread from the hostile majority. So many to-day hesitate to confess Christ and rebuke sin, say, to relatives and intimate friends, not because of consequences, but because of the tax it would make upon a highly-strung nervous organization. Over sensitiveness an enemy to the cause of Christ.
2. Rank cowardice. Taking sides for and with Christ in the case of many then meant pains and penalties, and they were not prepared to pay the cost of their convictions. To some extent discipleship still involves tribulation, but of how much milder a type! Yet men and women seal their lips because they are afraid of being called contemptuous names.
III. THE LESSONS FOR US.
1. Our duty--to make a bold, manly, and decisive stand for Christ.
(1) He deserves it. What a stand He made for us! hie fear of the Jews deterred Him from pleading our cause.
(2) He will reward it with present approval and final blessedness.
2. Our privilege. God hath not given us the spirit of cowardice, etc. Christ does not ask us to undertake this or any duty without qualifying us for its discharge.
3. Our warning. Whoso is ashamed of Me of him will I be ashamed. (J. W. Burn.)
The folly of moral cowardice
When the passengers gallop by as if fear made them speedy, the cur follows them with an open mouth. Let them walk by in confident neglect, and the dog will not stir at all. It is a weakness that every creature takes advantage of. (J. Beaumont, M. D.)
Cowardly Christians
What would Her Majesty think of her soldiers, if they should swear they were loyal and true, and yet should say, Your Majesty, we prefer not to wear these regimentals; let us wear the dress of civilians! we are right honest men, and upright; but do not care to stand in your ranks, acknowledged as your soldiers; we had rather slink into the enemys camp, and into your camp too, we therefore prefer not to wear anything that would mark us as being your soldiers! Ah! some of you do the same with Christ. You are going to be secret Christians, are you, and slink into the devils camp, and into Christs camp, but acknowledged by none? Well, ye must take the chance of it, if ye will be double-minded; but I should not like to risk it. It is a solemn threatening--Of him will I be ashamed when I come in the glory of My Father, and all His holy angels with Me! It is a solemn thing, I say, when Christ says, Except a man take up his cross and follow Me, he cannot be My disciple. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
We must openly show our love to Christ
Some time ago, when in a mine, looking through its dark corridors, I now and then saw the glimmer of a moving lamp, and I could track it all through the mine. The reason was the miner carried it on his hat--it was a part of himself and showed where he was. I said, Would that in this dark world every miner of the Master carried his lamp to show where he walks. (Dr. Cuyler.)
Openly religious
It is not sufficient to carry religion in our hearts, as fire is carried in flint stones; but we are outwardly, visibly, apparently, to serve and honour the living God. (Hooker.)
Christ must be openly praised
If people are loud in the praise of a physician who has cured them of some deadly malady--recommending others to trust and seek his skill, why should not Christs people crown Him with equal honours, commend Him to a dying world and proclaim what He has done for them? (Dr. Guthrie.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 16
Chapter 16
JESUS DISCUSSED IN JERUSALEM.
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And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for He would not walk in Judæa, because the Jews sought to kill Him. Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence, and go into Judæa, that Thy disciples also may behold Thy works which Thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If Thou doest these things, manifest Thyself to the world. For even His brethren did not believe on Him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is alway ready. The world cannot hate you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because My time is not yet fulfilled. And having said these things unto them, He abode still in Galilee. But when His brethren were gone up unto the feast, then went He also up, not publicly, but as it were in secret. The Jews therefore sought Him at the feast, and said, Where is He? And there was much murmuring among the multitudes concerning Him: some said, He is a good man; others said, Not so, but He leadeth the multitude astray. Howbeit no man spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews. But when it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. The Jews therefore marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus therefore answered them, and said, My teaching is not Mine but His that sent Me. If any man willeth to do His will he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak from Myself. He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory: but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you doeth the law? Why seek ye to kill Me? The multitude answered, Thou hast a devil: who seeketh to kill Thee? Jesus answered and said unto them, I did one work, and ye all marvel. For this cause hath Moses given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the Sabbath ye circumcise a man. If a man receiveth circumcision on the Sabbath, that the law of Moses may not be broken; are ye wroth with Me, because I made a man every whit whole on the Sabbath? Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgement. Some therefore of them of Jerusalem said, Is not this He whom they seek to kill? And lo, He speaketh openly, and they say nothing unto Him. Can it be that the rulers indeed know that this is the Christ? Howbeit we know this man whence He is; but when the Christ cometh, no one knoweth whence He is. Jesus therefore cried in the temple, teaching and saying, Ye both know Me, and know whence I am; and I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true, whom ye know not. I know Him; because I am from Him, and He sent Me. They sought therefore to take Him: and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour was not yet come. But of the multitude many believed on Him; and they said, When the Christ shall come, will He do more signs than those which this man hath done? The Pharisees heard the multitude murmuring these things concerning Him; and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to take Him. Jesus therefore said, Yet a little while am I with you, and I go unto Him that sent Me. Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, ye cannot come. The Jews therefore said among themselves, Whither will this man go that we shall not find Him? will He go unto the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? What is this word that He said, Ye shall seek Me, and shall not find Me: and where I am, ye cannot come? Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive: for the Spirit was not yet given: because Jesus was not yet glorified. Some of the multitude therefore, when they heard these words, said, This is of a truth the prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, What, doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said that the Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was? So there arose a division in the multitude because of Him. And some of them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him. The officers therefore came to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why did ye not bring Him? The officers answered, Never man so spake. The Pharisees therefore answered them, Are ye also led astray? Hath any of the rulers believed on Him, or of the Pharisees? But this multitude which knoweth not the law are accursed. Nicodemus saith unto them (he that came to Him before, being one of them), Doth our law judge a man, except it first hear from himself and know what he doeth? They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and see that out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.- Joh_7:1-53
After describing how matters were brought to a crisis in Galilee, and pointing out that, as the result of our Lords work there, only twelve men adhered to Him, and in even this final selection not all were to be trusted,-John passes on to describe the state of feeling towards Jesus in Jerusalem, and how the storm of unbelief gathered until it broke in violence and outrage.[28] This seventh chapter is intended to put us in the right point of view by exhibiting the various estimates that were formed of the work and person of Jesus, and the opinions which any one might hear uttered regarding Him at every table in Jerusalem.
But the motive of His going to Jerusalem at all calls for remark. His brothers, who might have been expected to understand His character best, were very slow to believe in Him. They only felt He was different from themselves, and they were nettled by His peculiarity. But they felt that the credit of the family was involved, and also that if His claims should turn out to be true, their position as brothers of the Messiah would be flattering. Accordingly they betray considerable anxiety to have His claims pronounced upon; and seeing that His work in Galilee had come to so little, they do their utmost to provoke Him to appeal at once to the central authority at Jerusalem. They did not as yet believe in Him, they could not entertain the idea that the boy they had knocked about and made to run their messages could be the long-expected King; and yet there was such trustworthy report of the extraordinary things He had done, that they felt there was something puzzling about Him, and for the sake of putting an end to their suspense they do what they can to get Him to go again to Jerusalem. The lever they use to move Him is a taunt: If these works of yours are genuine miracles, dont hang about villages and little country towns, but go and show yourself in the capital. No one who is really confident that he has a claim on public attention wanders about in solitary places, but repairs to the most crowded haunts of men. Go up now to the feast, and your disciples will gather round you, and your claims will be settled once for all.
To this Jesus replies that the hour for such a proclamation of Himself has not yet come. That hour is to come. At the following Passover He entered Jerusalem in the manner desired by His brethren, and the result, as He foresaw, was His death. As yet such a demonstration was premature. The brothers of Jesus did not apprehend the virulence of hatred which Jesus aroused, and did not perceive how surely His death would result from His going up to the feast as the acknowledged King of the Galilæans. He Himself sees all this plainly, and therefore declines the plan of operation proposed by His brothers; and instead of going up with them as the proclaimed Messiah, He goes up quietly by Himself a few days after. To go up as His brothers nominee, or to go up in the way they proposed, was counter to the whole plan of His life. Their ideas and proposals were made from a point of view wholly different from His. Very often we can do at our own instance, in our own way and at our own time, what it would be a vast mistake to do at the instigation of people who look at the matter differently from ourselves, and have quite another purpose to serve. Jesus could safely do without display what He could not do ostentatiously; and He could do as His Fathers servant what He could not do at the whim of His brothers.
The feast to which He thus quietly went up was the Feast of Tabernacles. This feast was a kind of national harvest home; and consequently in appointing it God commanded that it should be held in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field; that is to say, in the end of the natural year, or in early autumn, when the farm operations finished one rotation and began a new series. It was a feast, therefore, full of rejoicing.[29] Every Israelite appeared in holiday attire, bearing in his hands a palm-branch, or wearing some significant emblem of earths fruitfulness. At night the city was brilliantly illuminated, especially round the Temple, in which great lamps, used only on these occasions, were lit, and which possibly occasioned our Lords remark at this time, as reported in the following chapter, I am the Light of the world. There can be little doubt that when, on the last day of the feast, He stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink, the form of his invitation was moulded by one of the customs of the feast. For one of the most striking features of the feast was the drawing of water in a golden vessel from the pool of Siloam, and carrying it in procession to the Temple, where it was poured out with such a burst of triumph from the trumpets of the Levites, aided by the Hallelujahs of the people, that it became a common Jewish saying, He who has not seen the rejoicing at the pouring out of the water from the pool of Siloam has never seen rejoicing in his life. This pouring out of the water before God seemed to be an acknowledgment of His goodness in watering the corn-lands and pastures, and also a commemoration of the miraculous supply of water in the desert; while to some of the more enlightened it bore also a spiritual significance, and recalled the words of Isaiah, With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
But this feast was not solely a celebration of the ingathering, or a thanksgiving for the harvest. The name of it reminds us that another feature was quite as prominent. In its original institution God commanded, Ye shall dwell in booths or tabernacles seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths, the reason being added, that your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. The particular significance of the Israelites dwelling in booths seems to be that it marked their deliverance from a life of bondage to a life of freedom; it reminded them how they had once no settled habitation, but yet found a booth in the desert preferable to the well-provided residences of Egypt. And every Feast of Tabernacles seemed intended to recall these thoughts. In the midst of their harvest, at the end of the year, when they were once more laying up store for winter, and when every one was reckoning whether it would be an abundant and profitable year for him or no, they were told to live for a week in booths, that they might think of that period in their fathers experience when God was their all, when they had no provision for the morrow, and which was yet the most triumphant period of their history. All wealth, all distinctions of rank, all separation between rich and poor, was for a while forgotten, as each man dwelt in his little green hut as well sheltered as his neighbour. And to every one was suggested the thought, that let the coming winter be well provided or ill provided, let it be bleak to some and bright to others, at bottom the provision of this world is to all alike but as a green bough between them and destitution; but that all alike, reduce them if you will to a booth which has neither store nor couch in it, have still the Most High God for their deliverer, and provider, and habitation.[30]
Even before Jesus appeared at this feast He was the subject of much talk and exchange of opinions.
1. The first characteristic of the popular mind, as exhibited here by John, is its subservience to authority. Those who had a favourable opinion of Jesus uttered it with reserve and caution, for fear of the Jews-that is, of the Jerusalem Jews, who were known to be adverse to His claims. And the authorities, knowing the subservience of the people, considered it a sufficient reply to the favourable reports brought them by their own officers, to say, Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him? This seems a very childish mode of settling a great question, and we are ready to charge the Jews with a singular lack of independence; but we reflect that among ourselves great questions are settled very much by authority still. In politics we take our cue from one or two newspapers, conducted by men who show themselves quite fallible; and in matters of even deeper moment, how many of us can say we have thought out a creed for ourselves, and have not accepted our ideas from recognised teachers? And whether these teachers be the accredited representatives of traditional theology, or have secured an audience by their departure from ordinary views, we have in our own conscience a surer guide to the truth about Christ. For much that we may build upon the foundation we must be indebted to others; but for that which is radical, for the determination of the relation we ourselves are to hold to Christ, we must follow not authority but our own conscience.
Our equanimity need not, then, be greatly disturbed by the fact that so many of the rulers of public opinion do not believe in Christ. We need not tremble for Christianity when we see how widely extended is the opinion that miracles are the fancy of a credulous age. We need not be over-anxious or altogether downcast when we hear philosophers sublimely talk as if they had seen all round Christ, and taken His measure, and rendered satisfactory account of the pious delusions He Himself was subject to, and the groundless hallucinations which misled His followers into unheard-of virtue, and made them good men by mistake. Consider the opinions of men of insight and of power, but do not be overawed by them, for you have in yourself a surer guide to truth. Look at Christ with your own eyes, frankly open your own soul before Him, and trust the impression He makes upon you.
2. Again, John notices the perplexity of the people. They saw that, much as the authorities desired to put Him out of the way, they shrank from decisive measures. And from this they naturally gathered that the rulers had some idea that this was the Christ. Then besides, they saw the miracles Jesus did, and asked whether the Christ would do more miracles. They saw, too, that He was a good Man, and on the whole, therefore, they were disposed to look favourably on His claims; but then there always recurred the thought, We know this Man whence He is; but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence He is. They thought they could account for Christ and trace Him to His origin; and therefore they could not believe He was from God. This is the common difficulty. Men find it difficult to believe that One who was really born on earth and did not suddenly appear, nobody knew whence, can in any peculiar sense be from God. They dwell upon the truly human nature of Christ, and conceive that this precludes the possibility of His being from God in any sense in which we are not from God.
To this perplexity Jesus addresses Himself in the words (Joh_7:28), Me you do in a sense know, and also whence I come, but that does not give you the full knowledge you need, for it is not of Myself I am come; your knowledge of Me cannot solve your perplexity, because I am not sent by Myself; He that sent Me is the real[31] one, and Him you do not know. I know Him because I am from Him, and He hath sent Me. That is to say: Your knowledge of Me is insufficient, because you do not, through Me, recognise God. Your knowledge of Me is insufficient so long as you construe Me into a mere earthly product. To know Me, as you know Me, is not enough; for not in Myself can you find the originating cause of what I am and what I do. You must go behind my earthly origin, and the human appearance which you know, if you are to account for My presence among you, and for My conduct and teaching. It matters little what you know of Me, if through Me you are not brought to the knowledge of God. He is the real One, He is the Supreme Truth; and Him, alas! you do not know while you profess to know Me.
3. John notes the insufficient tests used both by the people and by the authorities for ascertaining whether Jesus was or was not their promised King. The tests they used were such as these, Will Christ do more miracles? Will He come from the same part of the country? and so forth. Among ourselves it has become customary to speak as if it were impossible to find or apply any sufficient test to the claims of Christ; impossible to ascertain whether He is, in a peculiar sense, Divine, and whether we can absolutely trust all He said, and accept the views of God He cherished and proclaimed. Certainly Christ Himself does not countenance this mode of speaking. In all His conversations with the unbelieving Jews He condemned them for their unbelief, ascribed it to moral defects, and persistently maintained that it was within the reach of any man to ascertain whether He was true or a pretender. There is a class of expressions which occur in this Gospel which clearly show what Jesus Himself considered to be the root of unbelief. To Pilate He says, Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice. To the Jews He says, He that is of God, heareth Gods words; ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. And again in this seventh chapter, If any man is desirous to do the will of God, he will know of My doctrine whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself. All these statements convey the impression that Christs person and teaching will uniformly be acceptable to those who love the truth, and who are anxious to do the will of God.
Faith in Christ is thus represented as an act rather of the spiritual nature than of the intellect, and as the result of sympathy with the truth rather than of critical examination of evidence. A painter or art-critic familiar with the productions of great artists feels himself insulted if you offer him evidence to convince him of the genuineness of a work of art over and above the evidence which it carries in itself, and which to him is the most convincing of all. If one of the lost books of Tacitus were recovered, scholars would not judge it by any account that might be given of its preservation and discovery, but would say, Let us see it and read it, and we will very soon tell you whether it is genuine or not. When the man you have seen every day for years, and whose character you have looked into under the strongest lights, is accused of dishonesty, and damaging evidence is brought against him, does it seriously disturb your confidence in him? Not at all. No evidence can countervail the knowledge gained by intercourse. You know the man, directly, and you believe in him without regard to what other persons advance in his favour or against him. Christ expects acceptance on similar grounds. Look at Him, listen to Him, pass with Him from day to day of His life, and say whether it is possible that He can be a deceiver, or that He can be deceived. He Himself is confident that those who seek the truth, and are accustomed to acknowledge and follow the truth always, will follow Him. He is confident that they will find that He so fits in with what they have already learnt, that naturally and instinctively they will accept Him.
It is at the point in which all men are interested that Christ appeals to us-at the point of life or conduct; and He says that whoever truly desires to do Gods will, will find that His teaching leads him right. And if men would only acknowledge Christ in this respect, and begin, as conscience bids them, by accepting His life as exhibiting the highest rule of conduct, they would sooner or later acknowledge Him in all. A man may not at once see all that is involved in the fact that Christ exhibits, as no one else exhibits, the will of God; but if He will but acknowledge Him as the Teacher of Gods will, not coming to Him with a spirit of suspicion but of earnest desire to do Gods will, that man will become a convinced follower of Christ. There are, of course, persons of a sound moral disposition who get entangled intellectually in perplexing difficulties about the person of Christ and His relation to God; but if such persons are humble-and humility is a virtue of decisive consequence-they will, by virtue of their experience in moral questions, and by their practical knowledge of the value of harmony with God, prize the teaching of Christ, and recognise its superiority, and submit themselves to its influence.
It was on the last day of the feast that our Lord made the most explicit revelation of Himself to the people. For seven days the people dwelt in their booths; on the eighth day they celebrated their entrance into the promised land, forsook their booths, and, as it is said in the end of the chapter, went every man to his own house. But on this great day of the feast no water was drawn from the pool of Siloam. On each of the preceding days the golden pitcher was in request, and the procession that followed the priest who carried it praised God who had brought water out of the rock in the desert; but on the eighth day, commemorating their entrance into a land of springs of water, this rite of drawing the water ceased.
But the true worshippers among these Israelites had been seeing a spiritual meaning in the water, and had been conscious of an uneasy feeling of thirst still in the midst of these Temple services-an uneasy questioning whether even yet Israel had passed the thirsty desert, and had received the full gift God had meant to give. There were thinking men and thirsty souls then as there are now; and to these, who stood perhaps a little aside, and looked half in compassion, half in envy, at the merry-making of the rest, it seemed a significant fact that, in the Temple itself, with all its grandeur and skilful appliances, there was yet no living fountain to quench the thirst of men-a significant fact that to find water the priest had to go outside the gorgeous Temple to the modest waters of Siloah that go softly. All through the feast these men wondered morning by morning when the words of Joel were to come true, when it should come to pass that a fountain should come forth of the house of the Lord, or when that great and deep river should begin to flow which Ezekiel saw in vision issuing from the threshold of the Lords house, and waxing deeper and wider as it flowed. And now once more the last day of the feast had come, the water was no longer drawn, and yet no fountain had burst up in the Temple itself, their souls were yet perplexed, unsatisfied, craving, athirst, when suddenly, as if in answer to their half-formed thoughts and longings, a clear, assured, authoritative voice passed through their ear to their inmost soul: If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
In these words Christ proclaims that He is the great Temple-fountain; or rather, that He is the true Temple, and that the Holy Ghost proceeding from Him, and dwelling in men, is the life-giving fountain. All the cravings after a settled and eternal state, all the longings for purity and fellowship with the Highest, which the Temple services rather quickened than satisfied, Christ says He will satisfy. The Temple service had been to them as a screen on which the shadows of things spiritual were thrown; but they longed to see the realities face to face, to have God revealed, to know the very truth of things, and set foot on eternal verity. This thirst is felt by all men whose whole nature is alive, whose experience has shaken them out of easy contentment with material prosperity; they thirst for a life which does not so upbraid and mock them as their own life does; they thirst to be able to live, so that the one half of their life shall not be condemned by the other half; they thirst to be once for all in the ampler ether of happy and energetic existence, not looking through the bars and fumbling at the lock. This thirst and all legitimate cravings we feel Christ boldly and explicitly promises to satisfy; nay more, all illegitimate cravings, all foolish discontent, all vicious dissatisfaction with life, all morbid thirst that is rapidly becoming chronic disease in us, all weak and false views of life, He will rid us of, and give us entrance into the life that God lives and imparts-into pure, healthy, hopeful life.
Christ stands and cries still in the midst of a thirsting world: Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely. Has His voice become so familiar that it has lost all significance? For all who can hear and believe, His truth remains. There is life-abundant life for us. Drink of any other fountain, and you only intensify thirst, and make life more difficult, spending energy without renewing it. Live in Christ and you live in God. You have found the centre, the heart, the eternal life. As Christ stood and cried to the people He was conscious of power to impart to them a freshly welling spring of life-a life that would overflow for the strengthening and gladdening of others besides themselves. He has the same consciousness to-day; the deep, living benefits He confers are as open to all ages as the sunshine and the air; there is no necessity binding any one soul to feel that life is a failure, an empty, disappointing husk, serving no good purpose, bringing daily fresh misery and deeper hopelessness, a thing perhaps manfully to fight our way through but certainly not to rejoice in. If any one has such views of life it is because he has not honestly, believingly, and humbly responded to Christs word and come to Him.
[28] It will be observed that the remaining part of the Gospel goes into very small compass as regards time. Chapters John 7 - Joh_10:21 are occupied with what was said and done at the Feast of Tabernacles, chapters John 12 - 20. with the last Passover.
[29] A mixture of religious thanksgiving and unrestrained social hilarity, analogous to the English celebration of Christmas.
[30] Psa_90:1.
[31] ἀληθινός.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 41, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50 1. After these things. The events narrated in the…
1. After these things. The events narrated in the last chapter. About six months of the ministry in Galilee intervened between the feeding of the Five Thousand and the Feast of Tabernacles. During this interval the Lord kept away from Judea on account of the enmity of the authorities there.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 14, 40, 53 Joh_7:1. Jewry.—i.e. Judæa. Kill Him.—See Joh_5:18.
EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL NOTES
Joh_7:1. Jewry.—i.e. Judæa. Kill Him.—See Joh_5:18.
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Joh_7:2. Feast of tabernacles.—Fifteenth day of seventh month, Tisri (September–October). See Homiletic Notes on Joh_7:37-40; and Joh_8:12.
Joh_7:3. His brethren.—See Joh_2:12. But see also Lightfoot on Galatians; and Homiletic Note below. “Thy disciples” seems to have especial reference to the “disciples” which had gathered round the Lord in Judæa (Joh_4:1).
Joh_7:4. Show Thyself to the world.—The meaning of the verse is that the Messianic claims of our Lord could not be confirmed and established in rural Galilee, which was, as it might be said, “out of the world.” He did not Himself manifest any desire to remain unknown; on the contrary, He in a very special sense seemed to desire to make Himself known publicly, and to communicate His teaching openly (“ἐν παῤῥησίᾳ means here ‘in public,’ ‘openly’ ”). And yet He confined His activity to rural Galilee, and in so doing seemed to contradict Himself. Jerusalem was the centre, the world, to which He should manifest the proofs of His Messiahship.
Joh_7:6. My time (ὁ καιρὸς ὁ ἐμός, My season) is not yet come.—The time for His revelation of Himself as the Messiah, the true King of Israel. That time would come, when in the depth of His humiliation He would reveal His glory (Joh_12:12-16; Joh_12:23-33, Joh_19:14-19, etc.); it was present to His mind even then, as we see from Joh_7:7, “Me the world hateth.” Your time, etc.—As His course was already determined, He waited for that appointed time. There was, however, no such set time for His brethren. They were then in harmony with the world, and at any time could show themselves in the world without drawing down on themselves its wrath and resentment (Joh_7:7, “The world cannot hate you”). “They who are friends of the world are never out of season. Their season lasts as long as the world lasts. But when the fashion of this world has passed away, then they will be out of season, and then will be the season of Christ and all His true disciples. Their harvest it the end of the world (Mat_13:39)” (Wordsworth’s Greek Testament).
Joh_7:7. He made known to the world its true nature, unmasked it and revealed it plainly (Joh_8:42-44; Mat_23:13-36).
Joh_7:8. Go ye up unto this feast.—With your present thoughts and feelings, you may indeed go up with your fellow-countrymen who are like-minded. I go not yet up, etc.—The reading here is doubtful:א, D, K, M, etc., and several ancient versions, Tischendorf and Tregelles read οὐκ, whilst οὔπω is the reading of B, L, T, X, etc., the Syriac version, etc. If οὐκ be the reading preferred, the meaning will be, I do not go up as the pilgrim bands do to keep this feast. For My time, etc.—“The feast of tabernacles was a festival of peculiar joy for work accomplished. At such a feast Christ had now no place” (Westcott).
Joh_7:9. He abode in Galilee.—He remained in Galilee for some days after the departure of His brethen. They probably took the longer route, east of the Jordan, whilst our Lord Himself might take the shorter route, through Samaria. So that He delayed following them during the greater part of a week.
Joh_7:10. Not openly.—He did not evidently go up to keep the feast, for He was not present on the day of Holy Convocation (15th Tisri). He went up quietly. He did not wish to force on the inevitable contest, in mercy to the lost sheep of the House of Israel (Mat_23:37-39). For this reason, and to avoid any appearance of desiring that His followers should carry out their intention of making Him an earthly King, He went up to Jerusalem as a humble wayfarer. The supposition advanced by Wieseler and others that this journey is to be identified with that recorded in Luk_9:51-62 cannot be entertained. The latter journey could in no way be described as going up “in secret.” See also Luk_10:1-16, etc.
Joh_7:11. The Jews, etc.—His enemies were apparently looking for His appearance. Where is He?—ἐκεῖνος = that one, fellow. The expression half displays their enmity. No doubt there were others anxious, others curious, to see the renowned teacher.
Joh_7:12. The people.—Multitudes (ὄχλοι). The mass of the people as distinguished from the ruling classes. Among these multitudes were included the crowds of Galilean pilgrims. Murmuring (γογγυσμός).—“Speech not venturing to break forth.” The scene called up is that of knots of the people speaking to each other in low, confidential tones. And this murmuring revealed two classes: the one friendly, whose candid minds were impressed by the evidences of Christ’s truth and goodness of character; the other hostile, probably a class of superior people who looked down on the multitude. It was perhaps the more cultured townsmen who held the hostile view. And in any case (Joh_7:13) all parties waited to see what the Jewish authorities would do.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Joh_7:1-13
Jesus’ action in view of the hatred of the world.—About six months had passed since the discourse at Capernaum, following on the miracle of feeding the five thousand. The green grass on Galilean hillsides was withered, and the flowers of spring and early summer had faded. When this chapter opens the fields had been reaped, the fruits gathered in, and the people were preparing for the joyous feast of tabernacles. The “brethren of our Lord,” before setting out, urged Him to go up and manifest Himself by mighty works to His disciples at Jerusalem, i.e. to those in Judæa and Jerusalem who believed in Him, and those who had gone up from Galilee, including probably some of the twelve. Our Lord, however, refused to go up publicly to the feast, remaining after His brethren some days, and then going up privately, reaching Jerusalem about three days from the close of the festival. In declaring His intention of not going up publicly He gave reasons why He did not do so—did not, at that special time, reveal Himself and show forth His glory. These reasons were—
I. The hatred and unbelief of the world.—
1. As the grass and flowers on the Galilean hillsides had withered, so the faith of many who had at first followed the Redeemer was now withered and dead (Joh_6:66). Even in Galilee, where there was less direct opposition to Him, unbelief and indifference were reigning. His own brethren, also, were among the unfaithful multitude.
2. But, sad as was the outlook in Galilee, it was worse in Jewry. Malignant hatred in Judæa was on the watch for His life; and had He gone up publicly at that time, raising expectations in some hearts of further and fuller revelations, this would have tended, in all likelihood, to bring the hatred of the rulers to a point, and thus hinder the work He had yet to do, and the further revelations of His glory which were yet to take place.
3. It was the hatred of the world to the truth, and to Christ as the King of truth, which hindered His life from shining out then in all its beauty and power to become the light of men (Joh_1:4-5). Our Lord was no exception; it has ever been so. But just as His life was so heavenly pure, and, by contrast, what was evil so plainly revealed, and those who were evil so startled by the opposition, so was the evil world’s hatred of Him more malignant.
4. But as it was with Him who was the Truth, so it has been at all times, and will be to the end. In Attica, reputed wise, they condemned their Socrates and honoured their Anytus. And thus, in greater or less degree, is it still (Mat_5:10-12).
5. To reveal Himself fully to that world would have only led to their greater condemnation. All too soon would they reject Him and desire a murderer to be granted unto them (Act_3:14).
II. His time was not yet come.—
1. There was a divine plan in the life of Jesus on earth, regulating, it would appear, all His movements (see Joh_2:4).
2. And at that period the time for a festive entry into Jerusalem (which probably would have been attempted, by over-zealous and mistaken followers, at the joyous festival of tabernacles) had not arrived. For that festive entry would be but the prelude to the suffering of the Via Dolorosa (Joh_12:12 seq.).
3. On the other hand, the time of His brethren was always ready. They had not to oppose the world,—neither its active hostility nor the perverted loyalty of worldly-minded and mistaken followers.
4. There was no intention on the part of Jesus to draw back from the goal which lay before Him. It was in mercy to the world, in order that He might yet plead with “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and show them unmistakable proofs of His loving patience and long-suffering (Mat_23:37-39), and further proofs of His glory as the incarnate Son. (Joh_9:1-7; Joh_11:38-45).
III. His manifestation of Himself “was not with ostentation.”—
1. His brethren did not then believe in Him (but see Act_1:14). They were, in all likelihood, puzzled to account for His action, and, it may be, desired that things should be brought to a head, that He should permit Himself to be declared a King. Thus they showed their unbelief, their inability to realise His Messianic mission. Their reproachful invitation was a repetition of the tempter’s wiles (Luk_4:13).
2. His brethren and His followers had to learn that it was not with outward pomp that He would manifest Himself. Truth does not need to blow trumpets (or engage others to do so) in the synagogues or at the corners of the streets (Mat_6:1-5). And the King of truth needed not ostentatiously to display Himself. Time and eternity are on the side of His kingdom, which advances by a silent, often unnoticed, development in the hearts of men.
3. And just as the King of truth, when He, hanging a dying victim on the cross of shame, seemed utterly defeated, was then on the eve of victory, so when His kingdom may seem well-nigh broken up will it rise in its grandeur and overcome. Magna est veritas et prœlavebit. Have men, even in Christian lands, still to learn this lesson after the experience of centuries? What, at all events, does political and other chicanery mean?
Joh_7:3-5. The unbelief of Christ’s brethren.—Whatever we hold to have been their actual relationship to Jesus according to the flesh (see Homiletic Notes), at all events these brethren were near kinsmen of the Son of man. But like their Galilean compatriots—even those to whom Jesus was best known—they did not understand the Saviour, did not comprehend the scope and purpose of His teaching and working. Thus they lacked belief in the truth that He was to set up the kingdom of God. The mention of this interesting fact by St. John only shows his close relationship with the Saviour. He was the beloved disciple (Joh_13:23). To His care Jesus, while on the cross, committed His mother (Joh_19:26-27). And probably we owe some interesting details in this Gospel to this affecting fact.
I. The unbelief of our Lord’s brethren was due to misconceptions.—
1. It was not manifested in hatred, like the unbelief of the Jewish rulers, Pharisees, etc. There is nothing in the gospel narrative to show that they were inimical to Him; rather from the scattered notices we may think they were solicitous for His safety (Mar_3:20-35 and parallels).
2. Nor would it appear that their unbelief was caused by sheer indifference, like that of the dwellers in Capernaum, etc.
3. It was due rather, as this passage seems to show, to their discontent with His action in not seeking publicly to gain that position and authority which His powers entitled Him to, and which the people were willing to accord Him. Like the majority of the disciples, they would have liked to share in the glory of His kingdom, to shine in the reflected light of His fame. “Show Thyself to the world” is their cry, but in that cry our Lord recognised the tempter’s wile, “Cast Thyself down from hence” (Luk_4:9-12).
4. Thus their unbelief arose more from misconceptions of His work and kingdom than from any other cause. Like the majority of their compatriots, they were allured by the dream of a material kingdom of the Messiah. And no doubt disappointed hopes and ambitions, leading to irritable vexation, lurked in their hearts, making them querulous and discontented.
II. Their unbelief passed away with their misconceptions.—
1. The best of all proof that it did so is found in the fact that they are found among the members of the infant Church after our Lord’s ascension, waiting for “the promise of the Father” (Act_1:4-14).
2. Their misconceptions of our Lord’s work and teaching had passed away. Christ’s wonderful works, and, above all, His glorious resurrection, had cleared away the mists that obscured their spiritual vision. And across the stormy, raging waters of His passion had come to their souls also the cheering message, “It is I, be not afraid.”
3. Here in this narrative they are like Joseph’s brethren, who scoffed at his dreams, which they afterward in act fulfilled. These brethren of Jesus apparently slighted His teaching regarding His being lifted up like the serpent in the wilderness (Joh_3:14), His giving His flesh for the life of the world, etc. (Joh_6:51), as incomprehensible, and as altogether too unworldly and impracticable. And by their unbelief they, no doubt, influenced others, who would make this an excuse for their want of interest. Yet afterward they, on their part, fulfilled His prophetic word, “If I be lifted up,” etc. (Joh_12:32).
III. Outward union with Christ is not always real and fruitful.—
1. The same truth meets us here that Jesus set forth in the parable of the vine, etc. (Joh_15:1-7). There may be outward, apparently very close, relationship with Him, and yet the want of fruit shows that unbelief is in some way interposing to prevent true vital union.
2. So there are many in full membership with Christ’s Church, in many ways friendly to Him and His gospel, but who by their evident misconceptions of His kingdom show that they are not truly believing.
3. How many, e.g., make their own personal enjoyment of religious ordinances, etc., the only end of their so-called faith, and when asked to aid in the extension of Christ’s kingdom either do so grudgingly or not at all! Missions to Jews and Gentiles—what are these to them?
4. But are they not thus showing themselves like the brethren of Jesus before they believed, and who evidently thought the ideas of Jesus regarding the kingdom of God were visionary? or like the Jews of His time, who instead of seeking to spread that kingdom (Psalms 67.) would have restricted it selfishly to themselves?
5. Outward conformity to Christ is not sufficient—resting in external privileges and ordinances alone is to want true faith. Those who do so cannot understand Christ’s kingdom. Its spiritual laws are incomprehensible, its speech a shibboleth, and its requirements grievous to them. But they are not necessarily inimical to Christ. And what is needed is that the true members of His Church, and especially the Church’s ministers and office-bearers, should seek to instruct them, and above all should pray for their spiritual enlightenment through the Holy Ghost, that the power of Christ’s risen life may be manifested to and in them (Php_3:10).
Joh_7:10-24. Seeking Jesus.—The opening verses of this section (10–13) show that the minds of men were much exercised as to the person and work of Christ. He had made a deep and ineffaceable impression. The absence of Jesus from the feast was speedily remarked, and eager inquiry was made concerning Him. The thoughts of all were concentrated on Him. The hatred of the official class—though disguised—leaks out in the expression, “Where is that one?” And murmurs not loud but deep passed from lip to lip among the body of the people concerning Him. But there was no open declaration either for or against Him. The official class had not yet spoken; and until they had decided the multitude kept discreetly silent. The power of the Sanhedrin was great (Act_8:3), and none would willingly incur the hostility of those who possessed so much power. Meantime Jesus had gone up quietly, probably through Samaria, and appeared in Jerusalem when the greater festival was concluded. There He entered the temple and taught, apparently for the first time, to the wonder and astonishment of the learned Jews (see note Joh_7:14, p. 201). Such a teacher! and yet not of the schools. Notice in reference to this interesting incident—
I. How the Jews sought Jesus.—
1. Here we have a variety of opinions regarding Him. It was impossible to be unmoved by Christ’s teaching and activity. Even His enemies were astonished at it, for it was with authority (Joh_7:15; Mat_7:28-29). He could not be ignored. The people were too deeply moved by this unique and wonderful phenomenon.
2. Some expressed the opinion that He was a good, a true man. And they could allege as confirming their opinions His holy life and teaching, and His mighty works of beneficence. These were probably people who had nearer knowledge of Him.
3. Others, influenced by the scarce concealed hostility of the rulers to Jesus, declared that He, instead of being true, was indeed an impostor. These no doubt represent what might be called the servile element, found in every community, who cringe before mere authority, and make it their law, uninfluenced by the question of right or wrong.
4. Among the crowd there were those moved by bitter hatred, and others who, though secretly, were yet drawn by love toward the Saviour—men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathæa (Joh_3:1; Joh_19:36).
5. And all of them were seeking Jesus, and desired to have Him among them,—those to carry out the evil designs already formed (Joh_7:16); these to see if He might not be prevailed on to yield to their desire, and permit Himself to be declared a king. Few there were who sought Him as the Redeemer of men.
II. How men seek Jesus now.—
1. As we look abroad on the world to-day, we find the same divided sentiments regarding the Saviour everywhere expressed. There is no question more profoundly discussed than just this: “Where is He?” What is His place in history? What is His position in the scale of being? Is He in reality what He claimed to be? or is the story of His life entirely mythical, and His gospel a delusion? But, whatever position be taken up, there is no escape from the necessity of deciding one way or other concerning Him.
2. There are those who continue the bitter enmity and hatred of the Jews, not only among bigoted descendants of those unhappy men, but among the secularist and atheistic communities who would fain see His religion abolished and forgotten—the darkness inimical to the light.
3. There are those who would write imposture on the history in which His holy life and atoning death are recorded, and others who, while admitting that the narratives do with more or less veracity present us with the record of a true and noble life, affirm that it is the life of a good man, and nothing more; whilst there are also a large number practically indifferent as to the opinion they entertain, and who are swayed by what seems the authority of the hour.
4. But whilst there are still many of all these classes, they are now relatively in the minority wherever the gospel of Christ is widely known. The disciples of Jesus have marvellously increased in numbers, and are no more secret followers, although among heathen communities this class is still largely represented.
5. Now the erewhile despised Nazarene is chief ruler in the world. No kingdom is so powerful as His—no other power is so extended—no other influence is so gracious and benignant. And millions untold have since learned the truth of His words: “If any man will to do His will,” etc. (Joh_7:17).
III. Seek Him.—Let us seek Him in earnest; and as the feast of tabernacles may be said to have been typical of His incarnation, so life will be to us a feast of tabernacles, when He will be manifested in us, the hope of glory (Col_1:27), earnest and promise of the time for which His Church is longing and praying (Rev_22:20), “when God will dwell with men,” etc. (Rev_21:3; Joh_17:24).
HOMILETIC NOTES
Joh_7:12. The multitudes murmured.—There will be no end of such murmuring among the multitudes of those who are superficial, who conform themselves to this world only and fear men. Some will praise Christianity as a whole, without actually having any real part or lot in it; whilst others will protest against it. Both, however, know little about it. Even whilst the former class accord praise, it is simply in ignorance of it. But those who have really experienced what it is, and then undertake to praise, must be prepared to bear the hatred of the world.—Dietrich.
Joh_7:14. Supposing the σκηνοπηγία, or feast of tabernacles, to be typical of our Lord’s incarnation and sojourn in this world, we may see thence some fresh light reflected on the incidents of this chapter. Our Lord went up to this feast (Joh_7:10), not openly, but as it were in secret. His nativity was private, in a poor inn. He spent a great part of His life in obscurity at Nazareth.… “He abode in Galilee.” But when His time was come, He went up and taught publicly at Jerusalem, in the temple (see Luk_19:47; Luk_21:37; Luk_22:53).—Wordsworth’s “Greek Testament.”
Joh_7:15. Our Lord spoke with power, so that even His adversaries were compelled to admit the influence of His teaching. But as they did not desire to do the divine will (Joh_7:17), the voice of truth, to which their consciences bare witness, spoke in vain to them. So did they reject afterward the testimony of our Lord’s inspired apostles (Act_4:2; Act_4:13). Class prejudice and official intolerance and superciliousness helped to cloud their judgment, as they often do among men, especially in questions regarding religion.
ILLUSTRATION
Joh_7:11. Seeking in vain.—But even in that hour of peril He thinks less of Himself than of men, and turns to these listeners with almost a wail of sad forecast, through which the tone of beseeching is heard. The incarnate Wisdom laments even while He foretells, as did the personified Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs: “They shall seek Me diligently, but they shall not find Me.” The sad prophecy (of Joh_7:34) does not refer to penitence, but to the vain longings and futile seekings which have been that strange nation’s bitter food ever since. The whole tragedy of its history is condensed into a sentence. Like all prophetic threatenings, it was said that it might not have to be experienced, and mercy shaped His lips to stern speech. Why would their seeking be vain? Because they had not the conditions needful for that place and state of communion with the Father whither He was going and to which He can lead any of us. Earthly-mindedness shuts us out from heaven and from finding Christ here. If we are to be with Him there, we must have sought Him here, with that true desire and seeking which ever finds. Mark that He “is,” even when on earth, where He goes when He leaves earth. Mark, too, the tone of invitation to make the best use of the “little while.” Conscious security till His work is done, prophetic warning and loving call to present faith, are all contained in these words.—Dr. A. Maclaren.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv2, 11, 17, 19, 24, 32, 33, 37, 39, 40, 45, 50 Joh 7:2-10. “And the feast of the Jews, called…
FINAL DEPARTURE FROM GALILEE
Joh 7:2-10. “And the feast of the Jews, called Tabernacles, was nigh.” (Lev 23:34.) This great annual solemnity was held in September, commemorative of their sojourn in the wilderness forty years, dwelling in tents. Therefore all Israel, beginning on the Sabbath and closing on the following Sabbath, dwelt in tents eight days, in the enjoyment of what we would now call a holiness camp-meeting. As the Temple Campus contains thirty-five acres, there all of their great national feasts were held.
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“Then His brothers said to Him, Depart thence, and go into Judea, in order that Thy disciples shall see the works which Thou art doing; for no one doeth anything in secret and himself seeketh to be public.” “If You do these things, manifest Yourself to the world;” for His brothers did not yet believe on Him. “Jesus says to them, My time is not yet, but your time is always ready. The world is not able to hate you; but it hateth Me, because I testify concerning it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast; I do not go up to this feast. Speaking these things, He remained in Galilee; but when His brothers went up to the feast, then He also went up; not publicly, but in secret.” Six months previously He had declined to go to the Passover, having attended the two preceding, at the first of which He began His ministry; evidently because He saw they were determined to crown Him. King. Though He goes to this Feast of Tabernacles, after it gets under headway, He declined to go at the first with the crowd, as they were intent on His royal coronation. He says, “I do not go to this feast;” not saying He did mot intend to go at a later date. Here we see that even at this late period of His ministry, two and one-half years having rolled away, His brothers — i.e., James, Judas, Joses, and Simon — did not believe on Him. They believed that He was a mighty prophet, and in all probability entertained vague hopes that He might prove to be the Christ who was to redeem Israel. As He had hitherto spent nearly all of the time of His ministry in the comparatively obscure regions of Galilee, they were anxious to get Him off to Jerusalem, where He would meet the vast multitudes at the feast, and come in contact with the thronging population of South Palestine, that they might witness His mighty works. His brothers thought He needed pushing out, and were trying to do it. None of His four younger brothers were among the original Twelve; James and Judas (called Jude in E.V.) falling in about the time of His resurrection — the latter becoming the apostle of Tartary; and the former, the pastor of the Apostolic Church at Jerusalem, a signal compliment paid him because of his brotherhood to the Lord.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 The general principle affirmed in the text is, that…
Joh 7:17
The general principle affirmed in the text is, that there is an unalterable connection between the perceptions of the mind and the moral state of the heart—between the understanding of truth and the practice of godliness. In other words, that spiritual intelligence grows as proficiency in spiritual practice grows; and that, other things being equal, nay, even under circumstances of the most unfavourable intellectual disparity, that man will have the clearest, fullest, richest, deepest insight into Divine things, whose will is most obediently and deeply fashioned after the will of God. The text holds good:—
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I. Because a life of true obedience to the Divine precepts is most favourable to the operation of those thinking and feeling faculties, in and through which the knowledge of God reaches the soul. Religion, we must remember, addresses itself to the whole nature of man—that is, to all the parts of his intellectual, moral, and spiritual being. No man could know the doctrine, whose whole life was consciously opposed to the will of God, for he has determined not to know it; has raised as many obstacles as he can in the way of knowing it; used his reason, as far as he has used it, to sustain a false and foregone conclusion; putting out his own eyes, in order that he may be in a position to say, "I cannot see."
II. But the principle of our text goes much farther than this. Not only will a life opposed to the will of God raise up influences unfavourable to the reception of Divine truth, but a life which is according to that will, or which tries to be according to it, shall be blessed with a peculiar and special measure of religious knowledge—an understanding hid from the wise and prudent—of the deep things of God. Obedience strengthens love, and love induces likeness, and likeness is that which leads to the most perfect knowledge; nay, is the very means by which, in our glorified state, we are to have a true vision of God. The steps, or processes, of knowledge are unbroken; we pass from light to light, from glory to glory; from a comprehending with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, to a state in which, with the strong eagle gaze of our resurrection faculties, we see God face to face.
D. Moore, Penny Pulpit, No. 3412.
References: Joh 7:17.—J. N. Norton, Every Sunday, p. 150; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 399; Church of England Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 187; A. W. Hare, The Alton Sermons, p. 42; W. Thomson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 193; S. G. Matthews, Ibid., vol. xxiv., p. 37; G. Dawson, Sermons on Disputed Points, p. 249; F. W. Robertson, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 94; H. Melville, Penny Pulpit, No. 2992; J. Clifford, The Dawn of Manhood, p. 83. Joh 7:19-35.—H. W. Beecher, Plymouth Pulpit Sermons, 5th series, p. 417.
Joh 7:24
I. Are we to judge men according to the appearance of their life? There is a general social judgment which we must give. We look upon a man’s outer life, and pass a sentence on it, either of praise or blame; and, so far as appearance goes, that sentence may be just, as long as the matters it judges are within the sphere of the broad lines of right and wrong. But in other matters it may be quite unjust. The human heart is hidden from us, and out of that alone can be drawn the materials for a righteous judgment of the lives of men.
II. Again, you are forbidden to judge the whole of a man’s life from the results of his acts upon his own life. That is the way in which the world, while the man is alive, usually judges; and it is almost always wrong. We thank God that in the life of the Son of God, in the central life of history, a divine and eternal contradiction has been given to the world’s lie—that obloquy and slander, and suffering and poverty, and shame and death, are any proof that a man’s life is base or foolish or degraded. It is emblazoned on the walls of heaven and earth by the death of Christ, that the prosperous are not always right, and the sufferer not always wrong.
III. Again, you cannot judge a man’s character according to the appearance of any single act. You must know the man before you can blame or praise him for the act. You must know the circumstances which preceded it, the many motives which entered into every act—the sum of which impelled it—before you can truly judge the man from the action.
On the whole, we have scarcely any right to judge at all, just because we know nothing but the appearance. When we know more, then we may with diffidence judge; but, for the most part, we have no business to make the judgment openly, unless it happen to be a judgment of love. Still, after long experience, a long labour towards certain qualities, we may attain some power of judging righteously. (1) The first of these qualities is to love men as Christ loved them, through utter loss of self; the other qualities are secured by love. With love comes (2) patience; (3) freedom from prejudice. These qualities are modes of love; and, in truth, love includes all we need for judging righteously of men.
S. A. Brooke, The Spirit of the Christian Life, p. 42.
References: Joh 7:24, Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. iii., p. 18; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. viii., p. 223.
Joh 7:37
All human desire, all human need, is expressed in this one word thirst.
I. Take, first, what may be called the lowest thirst of all—the thirst for happiness. If any man thirst, not for grace, but simply for happiness, let him come unto Jesus Christ and drink. If it is not a spiritual desire at first, coming to Christ will make it so; and if the man does not see how Jesus Christ can be of any service for his need, let him just look at the fact—made abundantly plain in this text, and in many a text besides—that Jesus Christ says He is able to meet that need exactly and completely, and then let him come and see.
II. Coming so, a man soon begins to be conscious of higher desires than this natural universal desire for happiness. Any one really coming to Jesus Christ, in that very act has grace, although he may not know it. He has the true beginnings of the gracious life; he has therefore—begins at least to have—thirsts of a higher and nobler kind, and these also he will have assuaged and satisfied. Thirst for righteousness arises, for a personal rectitude, for conformity of heart and habit and life to the holy will of God. Jesus, knowing on the feast day that He carried atonement and rectification and purity in Himself—in His blood and life, in His love and purpose—stood and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink."
III. But, once more, the thirst for righteousness does not contain within itself all the desire of a renewed soul. The affections are not satisfied with truth and rectitude in their abstract forms; but they have a distinctive thirst of their own, which we may call the thirst for love. The love of Christ will sanctify, ennoble, fulfil, all other; it will be to your yearning and sorrowing affection what no love but His can be.
IV. There is yet another thirst—profounder, vaster, more awful—which Christ only can satisfy,—the thirst for very life. Back from the dark realm of eternal oblivion the living soul recoils, and cries for life; out towards the realm of life it stretches, wherever that realm may seem to be. Who gives us this stupendous faith in life—future, eternal, happy life? Who but He who is the Life, and who brings life and immortality to light through the Gospel. "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink."
A. Raleigh, Penny Pulpit, No. 323.
Christ’s Call to the Thirsty
I. Note, first, who are called. The invitation is to the thirsty. This thirst may be either general and unfixed, or it may be special and definite. It may be a thirst for something, many things, anything,—we scarcely know or care what; or it may be a thirst for some one precise thing, of which we have in part a distinct conception. To both kinds of thirst—but especially, as I think, to the latter—is our Lord’s invitation in the text intended to be applicable. (1) It applies to the first sort of thirst. To the many who say, "Who will show us any good?" is the invitation addressed. Your conscious uneasiness indicates something wrong. Do not hastily conclude that the wrong is irremediable. You have been seeking more from the world than it was ever fitted or intended to yield. It is the tabernacle of your pilgrimage; it cannot be a home for your hearts. Seek ye then the Lord, and let your souls thirst for the living God. (2) The thirst referred to in the invitation of our Lord may be regarded as somewhat more definite and precise—as the thirst of a guilty conscience, a heart estranged from God, seeking and needing peace. Here is Christ, having all blessings in store for you—pardon, peace, reconciliation, renewal, hope, joy, the water of life; come unto Him without hesitation, without delay, without fear, without doubt. Come unto Him, and drink freely, copiously, continually.
II. The invitation is as simple as it is suitable. "Come unto Me and drink." It is faith viewed (1) as the faith of application—"let him come unto Me"; (2) as the faith of appropriation—"Drink." Whatever you need, seek not to attain to it directly, as if by an effort of your own; but go to Christ, seek it through Christ, seek it in Christ, seek Christ Himself, and the thing you need and want will be yours. You cannot directly, by any exertion of your own, compass any spiritual achievement. If you complain of weak faith, by no wishing and working can you make it strong. If of a cold heart, no working in or upon the heart itself will warm it. Come to Christ; be ever coming to Christ to drink.
R. S. Candlish, The Gospel of Forgiveness, p. 37.
Consider:—
I. Man as a thirsty creature. We thirst for life, pleasure, activity, society, knowledge, power, esteem, and love. And we thirst for God. (1) All men have natural thirsts. (2) Besides these, there are secondary—derived thirsts. (3) The entrance of sin has produced depraved thirsts. (4) The return of man to God, and his salvation by Jesus Christ, involve new thirsts. There is the thirst of the quickened spirit for particular religious knowledge, and the thirst of the penitent for pardon, the thirst of the new-born spirit for righteousness, the thirst of the godly for God, and the abiding thirst of the child of God for all that is godly, for being filled with the fulness of God.
II. Jesus Christ as a fountain of supply. (1) We thirst for continued life. Jesus saith, "Come unto Me, and drink!" "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive." Instead of weakness there shall be power; instead of dishonour, glory; and instead of corruption, incorruption; instead of mortality, everlasting life. (2) Do we thirst for activity? Hear Jesus say, "He that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also." (3) We thirst for enjoyment, and still Jesus saith, "Come unto Me, and drink." Christ gives joy in every gift, and promises it in every promise. There is joy in the eternal life He gives, joy in the rest He gives, and joy in the peace which He bequeaths. (4) We thirst for power, and Christ continues to say, "Come unto Me, and drink!" for He makes His disciples now the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and ultimately He makes them kings and priests to God. (5) We thirst for society, and still Jesus saith, "Come unto Me, and drink." Our Saviour makes those who are strangers and foreigners and aliens, fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God. (6) We thirst for the love of others, and Christ saith, "Come unto Me, and drink." For He directs streams of kindness to every one who comes to Him by means of His new commandment: "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another." All the thirsts of the God-born spirit are recognised in our text. The thirst of the depressed in spiritual life for the renewing of the Holy Ghost, the thirst of the backslider for reunion with God and with His people, the thirst of the doubter for certain religious knowledge, the thirst of the weary and heavy-laden for rest, and the thirst of the exhausted for renewal of strength—all thirsts, whatever may be the thirst, Jesus can slake it with living water.
S. Martin, Rain upon the Mown Grass, p. 254.
References: Joh 7:37.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxi., No. 1875; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 367; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 286; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. xvi., p. 302; A. Raleigh, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 78. Joh 7:37-39.—H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxx., p. 91; F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of St. John, p. 209; G. Clayton, Penny Pulpit, No. 1724. Joh 7:38-39.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxviii., No. 1662. Obbard, Plain Sermons, p. 143. Joh 7:45-53.—Homilist, new series, vol. i., p. 509.
Joh 7:46
The Epiphany of Wisdom
I. On the nature of wisdom, the teaching of Holy Scripture is singularly clear and striking. It says there is a wisdom of man, and this is the knowledge of the true end or purpose of life—call it happiness, call it perfection, or what you will—a knowledge which answers, to some extent, those ever-recurring questions, "Why was I made?" and "What am I now?" and "Whither am I going?" This is the wisdom which the author of Ecclesiastes sought for everywhere, and yet hardly found. It is this, over which, as discovered, the Book of Proverbs rejoices as more precious than gold and jewels, and from the rough ore of which it forges the current coin of its proverbial philosophy. But there is also a wisdom of God, and this is the idea or purpose of His dispensation to man, rolling alike in the stately march of Nature’s law, or in the little world of the soul within. The fear of the Lord is declared to be the beginning of wisdom, and to the desponding author of Ecclesiastes, it seems to be the whole treasure of man.
II. The Epiphany of wisdom is, for us, unlike the Epiphany of power in this—that it is not removed far away in the past, so that its voice comes to us only like the reverberations of some distant thunder—grand, indeed, and solemn, but so vague and indistinct that they may be drowned by the more incisive sounds of ordinary life. No; the words of the Lord are as living now as on the very day they were uttered. They indicate their unequalled grandeur in this—that, uttered by a Galilean carpenter eighteen centuries ago, they are universal in their application to all time and place. "Never man spake as this Man." And if that be true, there are three short practical questions which we may well consider:—(1) What means the Epiphany of wisdom, if it does not mean that He who speaks, being true man, is yet more than man—is, in some supreme and unique sense, revealer of the very mind of God? (2) And then, if this be so, is it not, in the next place, reasonable for us, in reverence and faith, to try the effect of His guidance in all the perplexities and needs of this life? (3) And if here also we find that His wisdom is a sufficient guide in all these questions and needs that we can understand, is it not then natural that, with regard to all those deep mysteries of eternity, and of Godhead, and of salvation—which we cannot discover, but which yet are of infinite moment to our life—is it not reasonable that in these things we should yield also to His claim, and prepare, at least, to sit at His feet with something like inquiring and unhesitating faith?
Bishop Barry, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxi., p. 33.
References: Joh 7:46.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 951; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vii., p. 321; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. i., p. 35; G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 101; F. Trestrail, Ibid., vol. xxxvi., p. 141. Joh 7:53.,—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 137; W. Sanday, The Fourth Gospel, p. 144. Joh 8:1-12.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiii., p. 137. Joh 8:1-12.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 126. Joh 8:3-11.—Parker, Hidden Springs, p. 243; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. xv., p. 166. Joh 8:6.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 206. Joh 8:9.—A. Ramsay, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 100. Joh 8:11.—R. D. B. Rawnsley, Village Sermons, 2nd series, p. 100; J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 1874, p. 116.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Section 3. (Joh 7:1-53; Joh 8:1.)
Section 3. (Joh 7:1-53; Joh 8:1.)
The Spirit in the believer the manifestation of the glory of the unknown Christ.
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The connection between this section and the last is very evident. As we have already seen, life being so largely the subject matter in this gospel, the Spirit of God is necessarily connected with this as the Communicator and power of the life. Thus in the first subdivision we had life in the first two sections, and in the third the Spring of living water; in the present one, we have had in like manner life in the first two sections, and now, in the third, we have again the living water: but it is here not simply springing up within the believer, but pouring out from him in the world "rivers of living water." The world at large is not changed by it, but an oasis is created in the desert, a prophecy of what is yet to come for the whole world.
Thus the feast that brings the Lord at this time to Jerusalem is the feast of tabernacles, Israel’s joyful celebration in the land of her wanderings past, and with which the blessing of the earth is concurrent. But this has not come, and He who can alone bring it in for them is rejected by His own. Thus He goes up only to substitute as it were Pentecost for Tabernacles. The blessing is greater and of a higher order than anything the latter can show, but it is individual, not national; and still less world-wide.
For the blessing itself implies a Christ no longer present among men, but, according to the words which we have just heard uttered, "gone up where He was before." We have heard too by what way. Death has come on Him on whom it had no claim: a voluntary, sacrificial death, and His glory for ever; but the sign also of His rejection by men, a rejection which would even have been complete, had not the Father’s gift secured a people to His Son. Thus then we have been brought to where we are doctrinally in the present chapter: the world still rejecting Him; the Father acting for the glory of the Son; the Spirit manifested in the world itself in those who have believed on Jesus, the Witness of His unseen glory: these are the characteristics of that to which we have now come.
1. The state of the world is that which is first revealed, the Lord Himself in what complete solitude in the midst of it, without sympathy even from His human kindred, and the professing people of God only to be classed with the world: going on indeed with their feasts, the empty forms of a piety which for the mass does not exist, and which have become therefore the signs of hardness and levity of heart. What a witness against them is that history of divine deliverances which their feast of tabernacles commemorates, while those who are especially the clusterers round the holy places then, "they of Judea," are specially marked out here as those in open and deadly hostility to the Lord of life, the Son of Him they worship.
The Lord therefore does not go up at first, or openly, to the feast. He is neither Lord there, nor even welcome Guest. Nor is the time come for His open manifestation to the world, which hates Him for His faithfulness. Thus He abides solitary in His unique and perfect Manhood among men estranged from Him by His perfection.
2.(1) At the feast contradictory murmurings are heard about Him, some for, some against; suppressed however by the fear of those of Judea, who in all decisions concerning questions of authority and teaching had the upper hand. In the middle of the feast, Jesus who had come up privately to it, appeared in the temple and with the authority that belonged to Him, began to teach. Amazed at the knowledge which plainly He had not acquired at the ordinary schools of rabbinic learning, which it in no wise resembled, they inquire how He has come by it. He answers that His doctrine is not His own, but His who sent Him. He has not learned of men, nor put forth what was simply of His own mind; but what He taught He had learned of the Father in that abiding intercourse with Him in which He lived (Joh 8:28). And He adds that they too might know for themselves whether His doctrine were of God, or of a man’s mind merely. They would know this, if they were but willing to do the Father’s will: for the spirit of obedience clears out of the soul the earth-vapors that obscure the heavens; he who has not heart-felt desire for the truth will scarcely learn it.
This is itself simple, if only we believe that God can certify the truth to His creatures, and that He cares enough for them to desire that they should have it. But, simple as it is, if we believe it, what does it reveal with regard to the condition, not of the world merely, but of the children of God today? The various and conflicting views of Christians as to almost every Christian truth, how are they to be accounted for, with the Bible open before us, and the Spirit of truth to lead us into all truth? What heart-searching should it not give us, to learn how far we are really willing to have the truth -the whole truth, at whatever cost.
Another test the Lord gives here: "He that speaketh from himself seeketh his own glory; but he that seeketh His glory who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him." This is a personal test, as the other was the doctrinal. And here was the double witness to the glorious Speaker: who but Himself could have faced the application of these by the watchful multitudes that were around Him?
(2) He turns now openly upon His adversaries, to warn them how thoroughly the law to which they clung witnessed against them. He charges them plainly with their murderous designs upon His life; a charge which the Galileans, ignorant of what the Judeans were meditating, impute to the diseased fancies of a demoniac. The Lord goes back to the miracle which had aroused their malignant animosity. Circumcision, though incorporated by Moses in the law he gave, was yet not what came from Moses but from the fathers; it had another character, in fact, from law, as connected with those through whom God in His grace gave them the promises. Thus circumcision itself is by the apostle afterwards (Rom 4:11) shown to be the seal of the righteousness of faith in Abraham; and he receives it when his body is now dead and fruit from him naturally impossible, the very time of its reception thus corresponding with its spiritual meaning. This circumcision then, belonging to a period before law, and in its meaning the very opposite, is by the law itself preferred to the law, -that is, the commandment of the sabbath. Thus grace had, by the law itself, precedence above the law.
Now the impotent man was healed by the selfsame grace, his body now dead like Abraham’s. Grace, not law, had had the priority in divine order, as was evident; and law, as an incompatible thing, could not be added to grace when it did come (see Gal 3:19-26), but came to make man’s need of grace apparent. Sickness and death having come in through sin, only grace could heal the impotent; and this we have seen to be the principle which the miracle in all its details discloses. "Take up thy bed and walk" asserts the superiority of grace to law, as did the circumcision of a man upon the sabbath day. No doubt it required, as the Lord shows here, not to judge according to the appearance; but this is the true judicial spirit, and always necessary for righteous judgment.
(3) Again there is a stir among the crowd at His boldness, and on the part of some of Jerusalem, who know full well what is in the hearts of the rulers with regard to Him, an expression of astonishment that they do not interfere. Could it be possible, they ask each other, that a revulsion of mind has come, and that the rulers are beginning to recognize this Man as the Christ? But no: surely that were impossible; they knew Him and His origin, and there was no room for such mystery as they expected to attach to the coming of Messiah. Evidently to them He was but the simple Galilean, the Nazarene; and all that had taken place at. Bethlehem and Jerusalem had slipped entirely out of unretentive minds which cared too little to retain it. While they were murmuring such things, the voice of Him of whom they were speaking penetrated to them where they were, not to assert His birth in David’s city or of David’s line, nor to recall the vision of angels and the quest of the magi, graved in the hearts of many by the slaughter of the babes. Nay, He allows that they know Him in their mere external way (for of nothing else were they speaking) sufficiently: He did not propose to supplement that knowledge, which for them would still be ineffectual. That which they needed to know He had already declared, and the way to know it, but they recognized not divine truth, nor therefore His divine mission. He was from God; but they knew not that God from whom He was.
And still the hand of God kept back the angry outburst that was ready to break out against Him: Master of all circumstances till the appointed hour when He would yield Himself to the divine will which He came to accomplish. Moreover those quiet penetrating words were gaining ground with many of the multitude, who were asking if, when Christ came, He could be expected to do more signs than the Man they were refusing had already done.
(4) A more direct effort to take Him is the result of this, the chief priests and Pharisees sending officers to apprehend Him. The Lord, with perfect understanding of all that is going on, tells them that it needs not: He is going away -back to Him who had sent Him into the world. Days would come when at last in vain they would seek Him; and into that place into which He was going they could never come: -a solemn warning; but which they fling off from them in their scorn. He has indeed spoken of God as the One that sent Him, and then the warning is plain; but they will not have it so. No: He must be going to the dispersed among the Gentiles, and to teach the Gentiles; and this too was to be, though not according to their thought. Little did they realize that Lo-ammi ("not my people") was to be written upon them in the time soon to come, in a sterner fashion than ever yet had been. But beyond, in the place from which He had come, to which He was going to return, there could be no Father’s welcome for the rejectors of His Son.
3. He was going away, therefore. "He was in the world, and the world had been made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He had come to His own, and His own received Him not." In that which was considered the chief of their festivals, His voice was heard only as a strange and dissonant sound. He was going away now to where He was before.
The last day, the great day of the feast, had come; and those who had gathered to it from all parts of the world were soon to separate. It was a day of rest and of holy convocation, of gathering, not of scattering; and as an eighth day,* the commencement of a new week, it spoke of eternity, of an eternal reunion, when all servile work should be at an end for ever, sin and its consequences being together put away. It corresponds with this really, that dwelling in booths was only for seven days; the eighth speaking of the entrance into the land.
{* Edersheim does not regard it as the eighth day, which, he says, "in Rabbinic language was regarded as ’a festival by itsel’" but certainly not in the language of Scripture.}
Another ceremony, but which has no authority from Scripture, ceased also on the eighth day, -the pouring out of water drawn from the pool of Siloam. "This," says Lange, "was the celebration of the miraculous springs which God opened for the people on their pilgrimage through the wilderness. But because the eighth day marked their entrance into Canaan, the water-drawing ceased. On this day the springs of the promised land gave their waters to the people: an emblem of the streams of spiritual blessing which Jehovah had promised to His people."
They were still in the land, -a broken remnant of them, under the Gentile domination: and where now were those spiritual streams, the "living waters" that were to "go out from Jerusalem in summer and in winter"? (Zec 14:8). Centuries had come and gone, and there was no sign even yet of the fulfilment. The ceremonies survived, but with the heart-sickness of deferred hope. Seasons of expectancy had passed away, fading quietly into the ordinary vacant dullness, or sometimes crushed out fiercely under an armed heel. Now there was to some the breath of another revival, although the voice of him who had first announced it had been silenced in Herod’s prison. But John had given place to a Greater; and signs and wonders that might well be Messianic were waking up expectation from Galilee to Jerusalem. Yet why did He not use His power after another fashion than merely in feeding or healing the multitudes? why did He not rally around Him the strength of Israel, and strike off their fetters?
The booths were gone; the wilderness-journey had come to an end; the eighth day had brought them to the land: with their Messiah in their midst, would not the land, in all the breadth and fulness of the promise to Abraham, be before them now? Yet He had spoken of going away, and to a place inaccessible to those who should seek Him and not find Him. What could all this mean, they must have questioned, many of them in their bewilderment, and found no answer.
But "in the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any one thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
"Of those who had heard Him," says Edersheim, "none but must have understood that, if the invitation were indeed real, and Christ the fulfilment of all, then the promise had its deepest meaning, that he who believed on Him would not only receive the promised fulness of the Spirit, but give it forth to the fertilizing of the barren waste around. It was truly the fulfilment of the Scripture-promise, not of one, but of all: that in Messianic times the Nabhi (prophet), literally the ’weller forth,’ viz. of the divine, should not be one or another select individual, but He would pour out on all His handmaidens and servants of His Holy Spirit, and thus the moral wilderness of this world be changed into a fruitful garden. Indeed, this is expressly stated in the Targum, which thus paraphrases Isa 44:3: ’Behold, as the waters are poured out on arid ground, and spread over the dry soil, so will I give the Spirit of My holiness on thy sons, and blessing on thy children’s children.’ What was new to them was that all this was treasured up in the Christ, that out of His fulness men might receive, and grace for grace. And yet even this was not quite new."
The interpretation is given by John himself on account of the importance of it: "But this He said concerning the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
The fulfilment carries us on to Pentecost, when the Spirit of God came in witness to the glory of the rejected Saviour. And we must not suppose, because of the reference to the Old Testament, that in the manner of its fulfilment there was nothing but what the prophets of old declared. Peter’s quotation of Joel at the time when the Spirit came shows how really the promise of our Lord could fulfil the Old Testament prophet. It does not show that there was not a deeper and greater blessing in what took place at Pentecost. The Lord’s words here speak of the effect only -"rivers of living water" flowing out of the believer. The evangelist explains that this would follow the reception of the Spirit after Christ should be glorified. And the Lord’s previous words assure us that this would be in the day of His absence, not of His presence; although even yet it was assured to them that He would return if only (nationally) they repented. They did not; and the mystery of the Church came gradually out. Of that there is nothing here: all is individual; and even as to the individual, we must connect what is said here with what had been said to the Samaritan woman, before we can understand that the reception of the Spirit means that indwelling presence which is the abiding spring within the man from which these "rivers" issue. For the full truth and bearing of the doctrine we must look elsewhere.
But where else shall we find so wonderful a picture of what the man indwelt of the Spirit is in the world as witness of the glory of His rejected Lord? As we have to say of kindred utterances in this Gospel, it seems too highly drawn for a picture of any save the rare exceptions among Christian men. But let us accept the reproof of this, and try rather to realize what a man indwelt of the Spirit would be normally as that. The Spirit of God -God -dwelling within one: the Living Centre of the practical life; the Enlightener of mind and conscience; the Energy of the affections and the will: all power, all wisdom in Him who as Vice-gerent of Christ has come to hold me for Christ against all that in a world opposed to Him would hinder my witness! what competency, what fulness at all times accessible to me does all this imply!
A perpetual spring in a vessel must needs overflow the vessel in which it is, the smallness of which is no limit to the spring itself. When once the vessel is full, all the power of the spring will manifest itself in the overflow. Hence, (if we think of the spring and not of the vessel,) "rivers of living water" are not too much to predicate of the outflow from this divine Source of blessing within the soul, which, first filling to complete satisfaction the soul itself, must surely then flow out for the need of others.
This is the Lord’s own witness to the gift He gives, who cannot err in the estimate He makes of it. When we realize what it is, we cannot think it to be too high. Our experimental knowledge will depend indeed upon our practical subjection to the Spirit indwelling us; but how blessed to know that this is to be gained in so simple a way, and that this is the picture the Lord can give us of the normal Christian.
4. From this we go back to see the world in which He is, and which does not know Him. Reasonings there are many, and contrary thoughts; false tests, and true tests falsely applied; the failure of His enemies to apprehend Him, failure from the timidity of the half-decided, as Nicodemus. Amid all this they scatter away from Him, every one to his own, and leave Him. He, solitary in the world He made, He to His solitude in the mount of Olives.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv33, 37 Joh 7:33 - Joh 7:34. - Joh 13:33.
John
ONE SAYING WITH TWO MEANINGS
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Joh 7:33 - Joh 7:34. - Joh 13:33.
No greater contrast can be conceived than that between these two groups to whom such singularly similar words were addressed. The one consists of the officers, tools of the Pharisees and of the priests, who had been sent to seize Christ, and would fain have carried out their masters’ commission, but were restrained by a strange awe, inexplicable even to themselves. The other consists of the little company of His faithful, though slow, scholars, who made a great many mistakes, and sometimes all but tired out even His patience, and yet were forgiven much because they loved much. Hatred animated one group, loving sorrow the other.
Christ speaks to them both in nearly the same words, but with what a different tone, meaning, and application! To the officers the saying is an exhibition of His triumphant confidence that their malice is impotent and their arms paralysed; that when He wills He will go, not be dragged by them or any man, but go to a safe asylum, where foes can neither find nor follow. The officers do not understand what He means. They think that, bad Jew as they have always believed Him to be, He may very possibly consummate His apostasy by going over to the Gentiles altogether; but, at any rate, they feel that He is to escape their hands.
The disciples understand little more as to whither He goes, as they themselves confess a moment after; but they gather from His words His loving pity, and though the upper side of the saying seems to be menacing and full of separation, there is an under side that suggests the possibility of a reunion for them.
The words are nearly the same in both cases, but they are not absolutely identical. There are significant omissions and additions in the second form of them. ‘Little children’ is the tenderest of all the names that ever came from Christ’s lips to His disciples, and never was heard on His lips except on this one occasion, for parting words ought to be very loving words. ‘A little while I am with you,’ but He does not say, ‘And then I go to Him that sent Me.’ ‘Ye shall seek Me,’ but He does not say, ‘And shall not find Me.’ ‘As I said unto the Jews, whither I go ye cannot come, so now I say to you,’ that little word ‘now’ makes the announcement a truth for the present only. His disciples shall not seek Him in vain, but when they seek they shall find. And though for a moment they be parted from Him, it is with the prospect and the confidence of reunion. Let us, then, look at the two main thoughts here. First, the two ‘seekings,’ the seeking which is vain, and the seeking which is never vain; and the two ‘cannots,’ the inability of His enemies for evermore to come where He is, and the inability of His friends, for a little season, to come where He is.
I. The two seekings.
As I have observed, there is a very significant omission in one of the forms of the words. The enemies are told that they will never find Him, but no such dark words are spoken to the friends. So, then, hostile seeking of the Christ is in vain, and loving seeking of Him by His friends, though they understand Him but very poorly, and therefore seek Him that they may know Him better, is always answered and over-answered.
Let me deal just for a moment or two with each of these. In their simplest use the words of my first text merely mean this: ‘You cannot touch Me, I am passing into a safe asylum where your hands can never reach Me.’
We may generalise that for a moment, though it does not lie directly in our path, and preach the old blessed truth that no man with hostile intent seeking for Christ in His person, in His Gospel, or in His followers and friends, can ever find Him. All the antagonism that has stormed against Him and His cause and words, and His followers and lovers, has been impotent and vain. The pursuers are like dogs chasing a bird, sniffing along the ground after their prey, which all the while sits out of their reach on a bough, and carols to the sky. As in the days of His flesh, His foes could not touch His person till He chose, and vainly sought Him when it pleased Him to hide from them, so ever since, in regard to His cause, and in regard to all hearts that love Him, no weapon that is formed against them shall prosper. They shall be wrapped, when need be, in a cloud of protecting darkness, and stand safe within its shelter. Take good cheer, all you that are trying to do anything, however little, however secular it may appear to be, for the good and well-being of your fellows! All such service is a prolongation of Christ’s work, and an effluence from His, if there be any good in it at all; and it is immortal and safe, as is His. ‘Ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me.’
But then, besides that, there is another thought. It is not merely hostile seeking of Him that is hopeless vain. When the dark days came over Israel, under the growing pressure of the Roman yoke, and amidst the agonies of that last siege, and the unutterable sufferings which all but annihilated the nation, do you not think that there were many of these people who said to themselves: ‘Ah! if we had only that Jesus of Nazareth back with us for a day or two; if we had only listened to Him!’ Do you not think that before Israel dissolved in blood there were many of those who had stood hostile or alienated, who desired to see ‘one of the days of the Son of Man,’ and did not see it? They sought Him, not in anger any more; they sought Him, not in penitence, or else they would have found Him; but they sought Him simply in distress, and wishing that they could have back again what they had cared so little for when they had it.
And are there no people listening to me now, to whom these words apply?-
‘He that will not, when he may,
When he will it shall be-Nay!’
Although it is {blessed be His name} always true that a seeking heart finds Him, and whensoever there is the faintest trace of penitent desire to get hold of Christ’s hand it does grasp ours, it is also true that things neglected once cannot be brought back; that the sowing time allowed to pass can never return; and that they who have turned, as some of you have turned, dear friends, all your lives, a deaf ear to the Christ that asks you to love Him and trust Him, may one day wish that it had been otherwise, and go to look for Him and not find Him.
There is another kind of seeking that is vain, an intellectual seeking without the preparation of the heart. There are, no doubt, some people here to-day that would say, ‘We have been seeking the truth about religion all our lives, and we have not got to it yet.’ Well, I do not want to judge either your motives or your methods, but I know this, that there is many a man who goes on the quest for religious certainty, and looks at, if not for Jesus Christ, and is not really capable of discerning Him when he sees Him, because his eye is not single, or because his heart is full of worldliness or indifference, or because he begins with a foregone conclusion, and looks for facts to establish that; or because he will not cast down and put away evil things that rise up between him and his Master.
My brother! if you go to look for Jesus Christ with a heart full of the world, if you go to look for Him while you wish to hold on by all the habitudes and earthlinesses of your past, you will never find Him. The sensualist seeks for Him, the covetous man seeks for Him, the passionate, ill-tempered man seeks for Him; the woman plunged in frivolities, or steeped to the eyebrows in domestic cares,-these may in some feeble fashion go to look for Him and they will not find Him, because they have sought for Him with hearts overcharged with other things and filled with the affairs of this life, its trifles and its sins.
I turn for a moment to the seeking that is not vain. ‘Ye shall seek Me’ is not on Christ’s lips to any heart that loves Him, however imperfectly, a sentence of separation or an appointment of a sorrowful lot, but it is a blessed law, the law of the Christian life.
That life is all one great seeking after Christ. Love seeks the absent when removed from our sight. If we care anything about Him at all, our hearts will turn to Him as naturally as, when the winter begins to pinch, the migrating birds seek the sunny south, impelled by an instinct that they do not themselves understand.
The same law which sends loving thoughts out across the globe to seek for husband, child, or friend when absent, sets the really Christian heart seeking for the Christ, whom, having not seen, it loves, as surely as the ivy tendril feels out for a support. As surely as the roots of a mountain-ash growing on the top of a boulder feel down the side of the rock till they reach the soil; as surely as the stork follows the warmth to the sunny Mediterranean, so surely, if your heart loves Christ, will the very heart and motive of your action be the search for Him.
And if you do not seek Him, brother, as surely as He is parted from our sense you will lose Him, and He will be parted from you wholly, for there is no way by which a person who is not before our eyes may be kept near us except only by diligent effort on our part to keep thought and love and will all in contact with Him; thought meditating, love going out towards Him, will submitting. Unless there be this effort, you will lose your Master as surely as a little child in a crowd will lose his nurse and his guide, if his hand slips from out the protecting hand. The dark shadow of the earth on which you stand will slowly steal over His silvery brightness, as when the moon is eclipsed, and you will not know how you have lost Him, but only be sadly aware that your heaven is darkened. ‘Ye shall seek Me,’ is the condition of all happy communion between Christ and us.
And that seeking, dear brother, in the threefold form in which I have spoken of it-effort to keep Him in our thoughts, in our love, and over our will-is neither a seeking which starts from a sense that we do not possess Him, nor one which ends in disappointment. But we seek for Him because we already have Him in a measure, and we seek Him that we may possess Him more abundantly, and anything is possible rather than that such a search shall be vain. Men may go to created wells, and find no water, and return ashamed, and with their vessels empty, but every one who seeks for that Fountain of salvation shall draw from it with joy. It is as impossible that a heart which desires Jesus Christ shall not have Him, as it is that lungs dilated shall not fill with air, or as it is that an empty vessel put out in a rainfall shall not be replenished. He does not hide Himself, but He desires to be found. May I say that as a mother will sometimes pretend to her child to hide, that the child’s delight may be the greater in searching and in finding, so Christ has gone away from our sight in order, for one reason, that He may stimulate our desires to feel after Him! If we seek Him hid in God, we shall find Him for the joy of our hearts.
A great thinker once said that he would rather have the search after truth than the possession of truth. It was a rash word, but it pointed to the fact that there is a search which is only one shade less blessed than the possession. And if that be so in regard to any pure and high truth, it is still more so about Christ Himself. To seek for Him is joy; to find Him is joy. What can be a happier life than the life of constant pursuit after an infinitely precious object, which is ever being sought and ever being found; sought with a profound consciousness of its preciousness, found with a widening appreciation and capacity for its enjoyment? ‘Ye shall seek Me’ is a word not of evil but of good cheer; for buried in the depth of the commandment to search is the promise that we shall find.
II, Secondly, let us look briefly at these two ‘cannots.’
‘Whither I go, ye cannot come,’ says He to His enemies, with no limitation, with no condition. The ‘cannot’ is absolute and permanent, so long as they retain their enmity. To His friends, on the other hand, He says, ‘So now I say to you,’ the law for to-day, the law for this side the flood, but not the law for the beyond, as He explains more fully in the subsequent words: ‘Thou canst not follow Me now, but thou shalt follow Me afterwards.’
So, then, Christ is somewhere. When He passed from life it was not into a state only, but into a place; and He took with Him a material body, howsoever changed. He is somewhere, and there friend and enemy alike cannot enter, so long as they are compassed with ‘the earthly house of this tabernacle.’ But the incapacity is deeper than that. No sinful man can pass thither. Where has He gone? The preceding words give us the answer. ‘God shall glorify Him in Himself.’ The prospect of that assumption into the inmost glory of the divine nature directly led our Lord to think of the change it would bring about in the relation of His humble friends to Him. While for Himself He triumphs in the prospect, He cannot but turn a thought to their lonesomeness, and hence come the words of our text. He has passed into the bosom and blaze of divinity. Can I walk there, can I pass into that tremendous fiery furnace? ‘Who shall dwell with the everlasting burnings?’ ‘Ye cannot follow Me now.’ No man can go thither except Christ goes thither.
There are deep mysteries lying in that word of our Lords,-’I go to prepare a place for you.’ We know not what manner of activity on His part that definitely means. It seems as if somehow or other the presence in Heaven of our Brother in His glorified humanity was necessary in order that the golden pavement should be trodden by our feet, and that our poor, feeble manhood should live and not be shrivelled up in the blaze of that central brightness.
We know not how He prepares the place, but heaven, whatever it be, is no place for a man unless the Man, Christ Jesus, be there. He is the Revealer of God, not only for earth, but for heaven; not only for time, but for eternity. ‘No man cometh unto the Father but by Me,’ is true everywhere and always, there as here. So I suppose that, but for His presence, heaven itself would be dark, and its King invisible, and if a man could enter there he would either be blasted with unbearable flashes of brightness or grope at its noonday as the blind, because his eye was not adapted to such beams. Be that as it may, ‘the Forerunner is for us entered.’ He has gone before, because He knows the great City, ‘His own calm home, His habitation from eternity.’ He has gone before to make ready a lodging for us, in whose land He has dwelt so long, and He will meet us, who would else be bewildered like some dweller in a desert if brought to the capital, when we reach the gates, and guide our unaccustomed steps to the mansion prepared for us.
But the power to enter there, even when He is there, depends on our union with Christ by faith. When we are joined to Him, the absolute ‘cannot,’ based upon flesh, and still more upon sin, which is a radical and permanent impossibility, is changed into a relative and temporary incapacity. If we have faith in Christ, and are thereby drawing a kindred life from Him, our nature will be in process of being changed into that which is capable of bearing the brilliance of the felicities of heaven. But just as these friends of Christ, though they loved Him very truly, and understood Him a little, were a long way from being ready to follow Him, and needed the schooling of the Cross, and Olivet, and Pentecost, as well as the discipline of life and toil, before they were fully ripe for the harvest, so we, for the most part, have to pass through analogous training before we are prepared for the place which Christ has prepared for us. Certainly, so soon as a heart has trusted Christ, it is capable of entering where He is, and the real reason why the disciples could not come where He went was that they did not yet clearly know Him as the divine Sacrifice for theirs and the world’s sins, and, however much they believed in Him as Messiah, had not yet, nor could have, the knowledge on which they could found their trust in Him as their Saviour.
But, while that is true, it is also true that each advance in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour will bring with it capacity to advance further into the heart of the far-off land, and to see more of the King in His beauty. So, as long as His friends were wrapped in such dark clouds of misconception and error, as long as their Christian characters were so imperfect and incomplete as they were at the time of my text being spoken, they could not go thither and follow Him. But it was a diminishing impossibility, and day by day they approximated more and more to His likeness, because they understood Him more, and trusted Him more, and loved Him more, and grew towards Him, and, therefore, day by day became more and more able to enter into that Kingdom.
Are you growing in power so to do? Is the only thing which unfits you for heaven the fact that you have a mortal body? In other respects are you fit to go into that heaven, and walk in its brightness and not be consumed? The answer to the question is found in another one-Are you joined to Jesus Christ by simple faith? The incapacity is absolute and eternal if the enmity is eternal.
State and place are determined yonder by character, and character is determined by faith. Take a bottle of some solution in which heterogeneous substances have all been melted up together, and let it stand on a shelf and gradually settle down, and its contents will settle in regular layers, the heaviest at the bottom and the lightest at the top, and stratify themselves according to gravity. And that is how the other world is arranged-stratified. When all the confusions of this present are at an end, and all the moisture is driven off, men and women will be left in layers, like drawing to like. As Peter said about Judas with equal wisdom and reticence, ‘He went to his own place.’ That is where we shall all go, to the place we are fit for.
God does not slam the door of heaven in anybody’s face; it stands wide open. But there is a mystic barrier, unseen, but most real, more repellent than cherub and flaming sword, which makes it impossible for any foot to cross that threshold except the foot of the man whose heart and nature have been made Christlike, and fitted for heaven by simple faith in Him.
Love Him and trust Him, and then your life on earth will be a blessed seeking and a blessed finding of Him whom to seek is joyous effort, whom to find is an Elysium of rest. You will walk here not parted from Him, but with your thoughts and your love, which are your truest self, going up where He is, until you drop ‘the muddy vesture of decay’ which unfits you whilst you wear it for the presence-chamber of the King, and so you will enter in and be ‘for ever with the Lord.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Feast of Tabernacles
The Feast of Tabernacles
Joh_7:1 to Joh_10:21. Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles, October, 28 a.d.
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After the discourse of John 6, delivered just before Passover 28 a.d., Jesus did not go up to Jerusalem (Joh_7:1), but devoted Himself for five or six months to active work in various parts of Galilee, of which St. John says nothing. At the close of this period He visited the country of Tyre and Sidon (Mar_7:24), made a tour through Decapolis, where He fed the 4,000 (Mar_8:1), retired to Cæsarea Philippi, where St. Peter made his great confession (Mar_8:27.), and subsequently, at a place not specified, was transfigured. To this period belong the gradual falling away of the people, the widening of the breach with the Pharisees, the deepening of the faith of the apostles, who are led to acknowledge Him as the Son of God, and the prophecies of Death and Resurrection which followed the Transfiguration. When, in October, Jesus went up to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, His Galilean ministry was over, and He knew that His death was impending.
The account of our Lord's teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles is remarkably vivid, and bears all the marks of historic accuracy (see especially the graphic details in Joh_7:11-15, Joh_7:25-27, Joh_7:31-32, Joh_7:40-52, and in John 9). He sets His claims before the inhabitants of Jerusalem with great urgency, knowing that His time on earth is short. His hearers will die in their sins unless they believe that He is the Messiah (Joh_8:24). He is more than the Messiah; He is the Son of God, self-existent and eternal (Joh_8:58), the Living Water (Joh_7:37), the Light of the world (Joh_8:12; Joh_9:5), the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep (Joh_10:14-15), and the giver of true freedom (Joh_8:36). He works only one miracle, but it is an important one, enforcing His claim to be the Light of the world (John 9).
1. To kill] see Joh_5:18.
2. Feast of tabernacles] or, 'feast of ingathering,' or, 'of harvest,' held in October, marked the completion of the harvest of fruit, oil, and wine. For eight days the people lived in booths, in memory of the wanderings in the wilderness. Numerous sacrifices were offered. Among the notable ceremonies were the procession to Siloam to fetch water, and its pouring out at the altar (cp. Joh_7:37), the singing of the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), the daily processions round the altar, and the lighting of the four great golden candlesticks in the Court of the Women (cp. Joh_8:12).
3. Thy disciples] Only a few disciples followed Jesus in His Galilean tours. At the great Feast of Tabernacles they would be gathered together in great numbers.
5. The unbelief of the brethren was removed after the resurrection by the appearance to James (1Co_15:7; Act_1:14). Being unbelievers, they were evidently not of the number of the Twelve. For an account of them see on Mat_12:50.
6. My time] as indicated by God's will. Your time] They, having no special commission from God, were bound by no such considerations as He. Moreover, they were in no danger: the world looked upon them as its own.
8. I go not up yet] Many ancient authorities omit 'yet,' but in any case it is to be understood.
14. Finding that He had a strong party on His side, Jesus came forth from His retirement and taught.
15. Letters] i.e. rabbinical learning. Having never learned] i.e. having never been the pupil of a recognised rabbi or scribe, as Paul was of Gamaliel.
16, 17. 'My teaching, like that of the prophets of old, is a direct inspiration from God, and not, like that of the scribes, a tradition of men. It appeals to the heart, not to the head. Not the learned, but those who apply themselves earnestly to do God's will, will perceive that it comes from God. 19. You are not keeping the Law. Moses commanded you not to shed innocent blood, and yet you seek to slay Me, an innocent man.'
20. His opponents hypocritically try to make Him think them innocent.
21f. I did one work (eight months ago when I healed the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda), and ye are still marvelling (because I did it on the sabbath day). 'Moses would not have marvelled. Moses recognised that works of piety and charity may be done on the sabbath day. In fact, he commanded circumcision to be performed on the sabbath day as on other days, and you obey his command. How, then, can you object to My miracle of healing? To heal a man is as much a work of piety and charity as to circumcise him.'
22. Not because] RV 'not that.'
27. Jewish ideas as to the Messiah were not very consistent. One view was that His birthplace and lineage would be notorious (cp. Matthew 2); others held that His manifestation would be shrouded in mystery.
33, 34. A call to decision, and a reproach for rejecting their deliverer.
34. Hereafter, when misfortunes come upon you, you shall seek My help, and shall not find it.
35. The dispersed (RV 'the Dispersion') among the Gentiles (RV 'the Greeks')] i.e. the Jews living in heathen lands. The Jews, not seriously but mockingly, attribute to our Lord the design which St. Paul afterwards carried out, of abandoning the Holy Land, and making the Jewish synagogues throughout the Empire centres for diffusing the gospel among proselytes and other Gentiles.
37. The last day] The feast proper closed on the seventh day, but the eighth day, which is probably here meant, was kept as a sabbath with a holy convocation to commemorate the entrance into Canaan (Lev_23:36). If any man thirst] Here, as to the woman of Samaria, Christ declares Himself the giver of 'the living water.' This declaration is connected with the ritual of the feast. On every day of the feast except the last, a golden pitcher of water was fetched (in literal fulfilment of Isa_12:3) from the pool of Siloam by a priest, and poured together with wine on the W. side of the altar at the time of the morning sacrifice, amid the singing of psalms and hymns. This water was held to symbolise the miraculous water which supplied the Israelites in the wilderness, and also the outpouring of the Spirit promised in the days of the Messiah. On the eighth day, when the water was not poured out, Jesus came forward declaring Himself the giver of the true water which that water typified, viz. the Holy Spirit.
38. The scripture] Our Lord combines the sense of several OT. passages, e.g. Isa_44:3; Isa_58:11; Eze_47:1. Belly] here, by a Hebraism, for a man's inmost soul: cp. the use of beten ('belly') in Pro_18:8; Pro_20:27, Pro_20:30; Pro_22:18; Pro_26:22; Job_15:2, Job_15:35; Job_32:18, Job_32:19. Christ compares Himself with the Temple. As the fountain of Siloam poured forth its waters from the Temple mountain, so a stream of heavenly life issues from the Redeemer, and from all who have become like Him. We have here a striking expression of the power of Christian influence.
39. The Holy Ghost was not yet given] Under Christianity, the Holy Spirit, though personally distinct from Christ, is still the Spirit of Jesus, i.e. the Spirit of the Saviour. He could not, however, become this until the saving work of Christ was complete, until Christ had died for our sins upon the cross, risen again for our justification, and ascended into heaven to plead the merits of His sacrifice with the eternal Father. Hence the Comforter could not be given as the Comforter, until Jesus had been glorified: cp. Joh_16:7.
40. The Prophet] i.e. the prophet of Deu_18:15, regarded not as the Messiah, but as a forerunner of the Messiah.
42. Bethlehem] St. John was not ignorant of the birthplace of Jesus. He is here only reporting the words of others.
49. Cursed] RV 'accursed,' viz. because of their ignorance. The contempt of the Pharisees for those who have not received a rabbinical training is a touch true to life.
50, 51. Nicodemus has made some advance in boldness. He ventures, though timidly, to plead for justice for our Lord. He was certainly right on the point of law: see Exo_23:1; Deu_1:16; Deu_19:15.
52. The Pharisees were wrong not only in their law, but in their facts, for Jonah at least was a Galilean. In any case the saying would not apply to our Lord, who was a Judæan. The narrative, interrupted by the interpolation Joh_7:53 to Joh_8:11, is resumed Joh_8:12.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 10, 11, 53 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXV. Jesus Disregards…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXV. Jesus Disregards Tradition].
P A R T S I X T H. FROM THE THIRD PASSOVER UNTIL OUR LORD'S ARRIVAL AT BETHANY. (Time: One Year Less One Week.)
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LXV. JESUS FAILS TO ATTEND THE THIRD PASSOVER. SCRIBES REPROACH HIM FOR DISREGARDING TRADITION. (Galilee, probably Capernaum, Spring A. D. 29.) aMATT. XV. 1-20; bMARK VII. 1-23; dJOHN VII. 1.
d1 And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Judæa, because the Jews sought to kill him. [John told us in his last chapter that the passover was near at hand. He here makes a general statement which shows that Jesus did not attend this passover. The reason for his absence is given at Joh_5:18.] a1 Then there come to Jesus from Jerusalem b1 And there are gathered together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, 2 and had seen that some of his disciples ate their bread with defiled, that is, with unwashen, hands. [Evidently several days intervened between the address of Joh_6:22-40. and the events recorded here, for the Pharisees and scribes would not be likely to leave Jerusalem until after the passover. Isa_29:13], asaying, bas it is written, This people [394] honoreth me with their lips, But their heart is far from me. 7 But in vain do they worship me, Teaching i as their doctrines the precepts of men. 8 Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men. 9 And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition. [These Pharisees coming from Jerusalem could find nothing wherein Jesus or his disciples transgressed the law, so they eagerly grasped this transgression of the tradition as affording ground for an accusation. Jesus does not deny their charge, but justifies his disciples by attacking the whole traditional system, basing his attack upon a pointed prophecy which condemns it. It is hard for us to learn and apply the distinction between serving God as God wishes to be served, and serving him according to our own wishes and notions.] a4 For God bMoses said [that is, God said it through Moses], Honor thy father and thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death [see Exo_20:12, Deu_5:16, Exo_21:17, Lev_20:9]: 11 but ye say, If a man { aWhosoever shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me bis Corban, that is to say, Given to God; a6 he shall not honor his father. b12 ye no longer suffer him to do ought for his father or his mother; aAnd ye have made b13 making void the word of God by abecause of your tradition. bwhich ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do. [Leaving for a moment the main question concerning uncleanness and washing, Jesus makes good his indictment against their tradition by giving an example of the mischievous way in which it set aside God's commandments. The law required the honoring of parents, and for any one to cast off his parents in their old age, thus subjecting them to beggary or starvation, was to do more than to speak evil of them. Such conduct was practically to curse them, and to incur the death penalty for so doing. But at this point the Pharisees interfered with their tradition, which taught that [395] a son could say of that part of his estate by which his parents might be profited, It is a gift; that is, a gift to God, and by thus dedicating that part to God, he would free himself from his obligation to his parents. Thus tradition undid the law. God's law leads to pure and acceptable worship, while human additions and amendments make worship vain, if not abominable. There is probably not one such addition or amendment which does not to a greater or less degree make some commandment void.] 14 And he called to him the multitude again, and said unto them [Having been accused by the scribes and Pharisees of a breach of their tradition, Jesus points out to them generally the iniquity of tradition, for it lay within their power as leaders to remedy the whole system of things. Having done this, he turns to the multitude and answers before them as to the offense with which he is specifically charged. Thus he gives to the leaders general principles, and to the common people the single instance], Hear me all of you, and understand: a11 Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth a man. b15 there is nothing from without a man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. 17 And when he was entered into the house from the multitude, a12 Then came the disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying? [The entire speech offended them. He charged them with hypocrisy. He showed that their tradition, which they reverenced as a revelation from God, led them into sin, and he disturbed their self-complacency by showing that the ceremonial cleanness, which was founded on tradition, and in which they prided themselves, was worthless in comparison with the moral cleanness required by God's law, which they had ignored. It grieved the disciples to see Jesus offend these reverend gentlemen from Jerusalem. Like many modern disciples their respect for men counteracted their zeal for truth.] 13 But he answered and said, Every [396] plant which my heavenly Father hath planted not, shall be up rooted up. [God had planted the law with its doctrine: he had planted the Hebrew religion as given by Moses. He had not planted the tradition of the elders; so it, and the religion founded upon it, was doomed to be rooted up.] 14 Let them alone: they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit. [This proverbial expression is found in the Sermon on the Mount. See Psa_37:1, Psa_37:2). The words of Jesus are full of encouragement to those who adhere to the simple teachings of God; for they show that God guarantees that every error shall be uprooted, and that every teacher of error or false religion shall participate in the judgment which uproots, and shall fall into the pit of ruin; and his disciples, no matter how numerous, shall share his fate. In this particular instance, the destruction of Jerusalem was the pit. The Jewish leaders led their disciples into it, and God uprooted their system of tradition, that the pure gospel might be sowed in the room which they occupied.] 15 And Peter answered and said unto him, Declare unto us the parable. [The word "parable" is used here in its looser sense to indicate an obscure saying.] bhis disciples asked of him the parable. [They asked what he meant by the words contained in the Mat_15:11. 18 And he saith { asaid, bunto them, aAre ye even yet bso without understanding also? [It was to be expected that the multitude, swayed by the teaching of the Pharisees, would be slow to grasp what Jesus said about uncleanness; but the disciples, having been so long taught of him, and having felt free to eat with unwashed hands, should have been more quick of understanding.] Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, i it cannot defile him; 19 because it goeth not into his heart, but apasseth into the bhis belly, and goeth out into aand is cast out into the [397] draught? bThis he said, making all meats clean. 20 And he said, a18 But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart; and they defile the man. bThat which proceedeth out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, acome forth bproceed, aevil thoughts, bfornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22; covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye [an envious eye] afalse witness, railings: brailing, pride, foolishness: 23 all these evil things proceed from within, and a20 these are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashen hands, defileth not the man. [Thus Jesus sets forth the simple doctrine that a man's moral and spiritual state is not dependent upon the symbolic cleanness of his physical diet, much less is it dependent on ceremonial observances in regard to things eaten, or the dishes from which they are eaten. Of course, Jesus did not mean at this time to abrogate the Mosaic law of legal uncleanness. These uncleannesses worked no spiritual defilement, but were merely typical of such; for the food in no way touched or affected the mind or soul, the fountains of spiritual life, but only the corporeal organs, which have no moral susceptibility. The Pharisees had erred in confusing legal and spiritual defilement, and had added error to error by multiplying the causes of defilement in their tradition. By thus showing that legal defilement was merely symbolic, Jesus classed it with all the other symbolism which was to be done away with when the gospel reality was fully ushered in ( Col_2:16, Col_2:17). In saying, therefore, that Jesus made all meats clean, Mark does not mean that Jesus then and there repealed the law. The declaration of such repeal came later ( Act_10:14, Act_10:15). He means that he there drew those distinctions and laid down those principles which supplanted the Mosaic law when the kingdom of God was ushered in on the day of Pentecost. Here was the fountain whence Paul drew all his teaching concerning things clean and unclean.] [398]
* It was a whole year.--J. W. McG.
[FFG 393-398]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv4, 7, 20, 22, 24, 39, 53 kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
world
kosmos = mankind. (See Scofield "Mat 4:8").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. My Time is not Yet Come. (Joh 7:1-9.)
CHAPTER 7
1. My Time is not Yet Come. (Joh 7:1-9.)
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2. Departure from Galilee; Sought by the Jews. (Joh 7:10-13.)
3. In the Temple Teaching. (Joh 7:14-29.)
4. Opposition to Him. (Joh 7:30-36.)
5. The Indwelling Spirit Promised. (Joh 7:37-39.)
6. The Division Among the People Because of Him. (Joh 7:40-44.)
7. The Returning Officers and the Defense of Nicodemus. (Joh 7:45-53.)
The Lord tarried in Galilee. How He must have sought souls there as He walked in Galilee! He would not walk in Judea (not “Jewry,” as in the Authorized Version) because the Jews, that is the leaders of the people, sought to kill Him. The Feast of Tabernacles was at hand and what we find written in this chapter happened during that Feast. His brethren, no doubt sons born to Mary after His own birth, urged Him to go to Judea. Their motives were selfish. They did not believe on Him. However, later they believed, for we find them among those who waited in Jerusalem for the promise of the father. (Act 1:14.) The Feast of Tabernacles typifies the millennial blessings for Israel and the Gentiles, the great consummation. The world hated Him and He declared that His time had not yet come. We cannot follow at length the interesting account of His coming to Jerusalem, the words He spake, the answers He gave to those who hated Him. He taught and they marvelled. He declared that the doctrine He preached was of Him that sent Him. What a challenge He gave them! “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” Then He told them that they tried to kill Him. “Thou hast a demon,” was their reply, while others said: “Is not this He whom they seek to kill?” They sought to take Him and the Pharisees and Chief Priest sent officers to arrest Him. Thus the hatred against Him is manifested. His hour had not yet come; no one could touch Him. When the hour came He yielded Himself. The great center of this chapter is found in Joh 7:37-39. The last day of the Feast of Tabernacles was the greatest. It was the eighth day, a day of rest and holy gathering together. During the seven days of the feast water was daily drawn from the pool of Siloam and then poured out. On the last day this ceremony did not take place. The seven days typified their wilderness journey; the eighth day the entrance into the land. For seven days they drew the water and poured it out, commemorating the water the Lord had supplied to Israel during the wilderness journey. On the eighth day they enjoyed the springs of the land itself an emblem of the living waters which the Lord had promised to His people. Israel has these promises. “And it shall be in that day that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem.” (Zec 14:8.) The same promise we find elsewhere. (See Eze 47:1-23; Isa 12:1-6.) And He Who had given to His people these promises, Who had come to fulfill them, stood in their midst. They hate Him. They tell Him to His face, “Thou hast a demon.” They seek to kill Him.
On the last day of the feast, typical of Israel’s promised blessing and glory, He stood and cried: “If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink.” He offers now upon the rejection of Himself something new to “any man who thirsts”; the national promises of living water pouring forth from Jerusalem cannot be fulfilled now. They will be fulfilled when He comes again. It is an individual invitation, an individual promise, He gives. “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” We are then told that this means the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they were to receive who came to Him and believed on Him. The promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Then the Holy Spirit came to dwell in believers. The overflow, the streams of living water to flow from the believer, is the type of the Spirit, the Spirit of power manifesting Himself through the believer in bearing testimony for Christ. In the third chapter we saw the Holy Spirit communicating life; He is the Life-giving Spirit. In the fourth chapter the Lord spoke of the Spirit as the well of living water; He indwells the one who is born again to make communion and worship possible. Then followed His teaching in chapters 5 and 6, again concerning the life the believer hath in Him and how it is sustained. In the present chapter the indwelling Spirit, Who is the well of living water in the believer, is seen flowing forth to others, just as a spring will overflow.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 6, 10, 14, 20, 25, 31, 37, 40, 45 The Unbelief of Christ’s Relatives.
The Unbelief of Christ’s Relatives.
The sneers of unbelief:
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v. 1. After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill Him.
v. 2. Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.
v. 3. His brethren therefore said unto Him, Depart hence and go into Judea that Thy disciples also may see the works that Thou doest;
v. 4. for there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If Thou do these things, show Thyself to the world.
v. 5. For neither did His brethren believe in Him.
The evangelist includes a space of about six months in one short sentence. Jesus had been at Jerusalem for the Feast of Purim, returning immediately to Galilee, where He delivered His great sermon on the Bread of Life, after the feeding of the five thousand. He remained in Galilee on account of the open hostility of the Jewish leaders in Judea, for it was an open secret that they were seeking to take His life. Meanwhile, however, the Feast of Tabernacles was approaching. This was the third great festival of the Jewish calendar, a great harvest festival, with special reference to the sojourn of the children of Israel in the wilderness. It was held on the 15th
day of the seventh month, Tishri or Ethanim (October), and lasted seven days. The first day was a Sabbath with an holy convocation, and also the eighth day. Being the last harvest feast of thankfulness, it was the most joyous of all festive seasons in Israel. All the people erected booths made of boughs of goodly trees, branches of palm-trees, and the boughs of thick trees and willows of the brook, Lev 23:40. Christ’s brothers (half-brothers, cousins) took the opportunity to jeer at Him. A prophet of the Jews would be expected to perform his ministry, not in far-away Galilee, which was still known as the Galilee of the Gentiles, but in Jerusalem. Since Jesus therefore openly made the claim that He was a great Prophet, these brothers sneeringly urged Him to go to Judea and there publicly, before the whole world, reveal Himself as the King of Israel. His disciples would then also have a further chance to see miracles which He would perform in the capital to establish His position. The brothers of Jesus try to back up their challenge with a common saying, that no one does things in secret and then demands public recognition. Their argument was that He should not confine His activities to hidden and far-away corners, if He wanted to be accepted as the Messiah. He should show Himself and His miracles in public, before the whole world. The brothers of Jesus thus revealed their unbelief in Him and His work.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28, 30, 33, 35, 37, 39, 40, 43, 45, 47, 50, 53 General Information:
General Information:
Jesus is in Galilee speaking to his brothers. These verses tell about when this event occurred. (See: Background Information)
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After these things
These words tell the reader that the writer will begin talking about a new event. "After he finished speaking with the disciples" (See: John 6:66-71) or "Some time later"
traveled
The reader should understand that Jesus probably walked rather than riding an animal or in a vehicle.
the Jews were seeking to kill him
Here "the Jews" is a synecdoche for "the Jewish leaders." AT: "the Jewish leaders were making plans to kill him" (See: Synecdoche)
Now the Jewish Festival of Shelters was near
"Now the time for the festival of the Jews was near" or "Now it was almost time for the Jewish festival of Shelters"
translationWords
Jesus
Galilee
Judea
Jew
festival
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 15, 17, 19, 20, 22, 27, 29, 30, 32, 37, 39, 41, 45, 49, 52, 53 7:1-52 This chapter is another account of Jesus during…
7:1-52 This chapter is another account of Jesus during a Jewish festival, the Festival of Shelters. Jesus used elements of the festival to reveal his true identity to his Jewish compatriots and to show that he had fulfilled the festival’s essential meaning (see 7:37-39; 8:12).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.