John 12:27-36

Jesus had just spoken about the fruit that would come from His death, now He turns the anguish He will have to go through. The same pattern may apply to us at times in our life. The ultimate goal is for God to bring fruitfulness (John 15:8), but the path may involve pain.

Jesus did not flinch from the path ahead of Him. he experienced the torment in full, but he knew the purpose for which His Father had sent Him. The Father spoke to the Son. Again, in the midst of difficult times we should expect God to encourage us. Note also that Jesus' overriding goal was for the Father's name to be glorified.

The crowd heard the voice, but not all were sure what or who it was. Jesus declared that it was for their benefit. On the cross the religious and political leaders though that they were getting rid of Jesus. In truth God was judging the world, and satan (the ruler of this world) was being driven out. Far from getting rid of Jesus, Jesus would draw more people to Himself.

The people did not understand what Jesus meant. He instructed them to walk in the light, ie to listen and obey what Jesus said. Then they would become children of light. The more we obey God, the more we are changed, and the more Christlike we become.

John 12:20-26

Up until now John has said three times that Jesus' time had not yet come, in v23 Jesus declares that the time has now come. The stimulus for this is some Greeks coming to meet Jesus. They went to Philip, who in turn consulted Andrew. These two disciples may have been involved because they had Greek names. They would be cautious about letting Greeks meet Jesus because of past words that Jesus had said about His mission being first to the Jews (Matt 10:5-6; 15:22-24). The Greeks here had come to attend the Passover and would be either God-fearers or converts to Judaism.

Jesus would not be able to meet them yet, for first He had to die. The goal of His mission was to reach the whole world, but first He had to die and rise again. Jesus' death produces, and is still producing, a plentiful harvest of new lives.

Having spoken about Himself and His misson, He then applies this to all who will follow Him. Jesus is much more than an example, but He is an example, He is a model of how we will live. If we love our life in the worldly sense, then we will lose it, but if we are prepared to lose our life then we will have eternal life. This is not just a matter of what will happen when we die, but of the nature of life we will live here and now. We must follow Jesus, and be His servants. Then the Father will honour us.

John 12:12-19

Jesus now starts on the road to Jerusalem, and this creates great excitement among the crowds. Knowing how their mood would change within a few days is a stern warning against being caught up by popular emotion, it is a very fickle thing.

The crowd's declaration comes form Psalm 118:25, as does the motivation for waving palm branches (118:27). Significantly, Psalm 118 also contains the words about the "stone the builders rejected", something the same crowd would shortly do.

The people were hoping for a military messiah to set them free from Rome, but Jesus chose to ride on a donkey, emphasising the different nature of His kingdom. This was a fulfilment of Zech 9:9. Interestingly, Zech 9:10,11 then speak of the Messiah's rule extending to all nations, and of His blood covenant with the people.

At the time the disciples did not understand the significance of all these, only after the crucifixion and resurrection did they do so.

The Lazarus miracle had motivated the crowd to give such a welcome to Jesus. The Pharisees, however, were appalled at what was happening.

John 12:9-11

News that Jesus was in Bethany and spread and lots of Jews went to see Him, and Lazarus, motivated both interest in Jesus and in seeing a man who had been raised from the dead. Apparently many of the Jews were believing in Jesus because of this miracle. The response of the Chief Priests was typical and pathetic, they planned to kill Lazarus. Their solution to everything seemed to be to kill and destroy. The good news is that in Christ death has been defeated.

John 12:1-8

We now enter the crucial week before the crucifixion, with Jesus returning to Bethany to stay with Lazarus, Mary and Martha.

Martha served the food, and Mary anointed Jesus with perfume. This picture of Martha working and Mary doing the "spiritual bit" is consistent with the incident in Luke (Luke 10:38-42).

Mary anointed Jesus feet with the nard, and wiped them with her hair. This filled the house with a fragrance of perfume, but Judas filled it with a stench of criticism. He objected that the money spent of the perfume could have been better used to feed the poor. The unrighteous will often have seemingly plausible arguments,as Judas does here, but in reality they have no substance.

There were two things wrong with Judas' arguments. First his own character, for he himself had periodically stolen from the common purse that the disciples had. Secondly, the words of Jesus. Jesus knew the true significance of what Mary was doing, preparing Him for burial. This should remind us that not everything we should do as individuals and as churches will follow a nice neat logic, some things that are motivated by the Holy Spirit will seem strange. Finally, they could have helped the poor at any time. The use of the nard did not stop them helping the poor.

John 11:38-44

Jesus was again deeply moved. When He came to the tomb He commanded that the stone be removed. This caused some consternation because of the natural expectation that there would be a strong smell because of the decomposition of the body.

Jesus replies by reminding Martha that He had said that if they believed they would see the glory of God. To generalise this lesson, we can all be faced with situations which seem utterly lost, but the word of God is that if we believe in what He has said then we will see the glory of God. Ie we will see that what God says is of greater effect and importance than even the most serious of "facts". Note that this does NOT mean "whatever we believe will happen". It does mean that If God has said something will happen then it will happen.

Jesus prayed to His Father, but did this for the benefit of the people, to help them understand and believe. Jesus then commanded Lazarus to come out, which he did. Lazarus was then restored to normal.

John 11:28-37

Jesus told Martha to go and fetch Mary. Jesus was seeking her out in her grief. In the midst of grief we can become so overwhelmed by the situation, but Jesus actively seeks us out in such situations. On hearing Martha's message Mary ran out to find Jesus.

Mary kneels down before Jesus. Like Martha, she reproaches Jesus for not being there to heal Lazarus. It then says that Jesus was greatly disturbed when he saw Mary weeping along with the Jews who were with her. Now apparently the Greek word used here can mean He was angry, or He was deeply moved with compassion. Kruse takes the line that Jesus was angry because of the lack of faith. Now I am not a Greek scholar, but with that caveat, I must say I find that interpretation highly unlikely, and I think it much more likely that Jesus was genuinely moved with compassion. This seems to fit much better with the passage. Moreover, Paul tells us to mourn with those who mourn. So what follows is based on that interpretation.

Jesus was going to raise Lazarus from the dead in short while, yet He was still upset and mourned along with Mary and Martha. Now there are some pains that we go through that are totally unnecessary, anxiety is one of them (Matthew 6:25-34). But at other times very serious thinks happen. Now in the end Jesus will sort everything out. Here He was going to raise Lazarus very soon. In all things, at the last day every tear will be wiped away, but this does not mean that Jesus does not empathise with us now. The fact that God knows what He is going to do about a situation, does not mean that He does not care about the pain we may be experiencing in the meantime.

John 11:17-27

As Jesus had said, Lazarus was dead, and had been so for four days (see notes on 11:1-6 for the significance of this). Jewish custom allowed for three days of very heavy mourning, fours days of heavy mourning, and then less intense mourning for the remainder of thirty days. Friends and relatives would come to help with the mourning.

Martha ran out to meet Jesus when she heard that Jesus had arrived, but Mary remained behind. In Luke it seems to be Mary who is the more devoted one, but here it is Martha who rushes to be with Him. Martha has a high level of faith. She knows that Jesus would have healed Lazarus if He had been there, but even though this did not happen she still has faith in the Lord.

In response Jesus announces that her brother will rise again. Now Martha held the fairly orthodox Pharisee view that there would be a resurrection on the Last Day, and thought that Jesus was referring to this. Jesus had something more immediate in mind. "I am the resurrection and the life".

Martha was about to learn what Jesus really had in mind. Now we too can be like Martha or the Pharisees. We truly believe in the resurrection, but consign it totally to the Last Day. Now it is absolutely true that the complete fulfilment of the resurrection will occur only at the Last Day, but resurrection power also has a relevance for now. New life in Christ starts the day we are born again, and it starts to have an effect from that day on. When we are born again we become a new creation. Earth is not a waiting room for heaven, the transformation of our lives starts now.

John 11:7-16

It was not that long since Jesus had left Judea, where the Jews had tried to stone Him, hence the disciples' reaction.

Jesus' response seems to mean that since they have Jesus they are walking in the light and can see what is happening. In short, they can trust Him. This has an important lesson for us. There was an obvious danger. Sometimes God may seem to lead us along dangerous paths, but we can always be confident in His leadership. It is those who do not live by His light who will stumble.

Jesus them announces that Lazarus has "fallen asleep". The disciples take this as a good sign, not realising what Jesus really means. Jesus then puts the matter bluntly, Lazarus is dead. We see hear how in control of the situation Jesus was. The disciples thought they knew the real danger (namely the religious leaders), but Jesus knew that the real problem was that Lazarus was dead. He also knew what he was going to do about the situation, namely raise Lazarus from the dead. We need to learn to have a much greater trust in Jesus.

Thomas' remark could be taken as a cynical comment about them all being doomed, or as a sign of commitment to Jesus, being prepared to dies with Him.

John 11:1-6

This is the last miracle recorded by John, and undoubtedly the greatest.

Lazarus is not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible, though his sisters, Mary and Martha, are (Luke 16:19-31). In chapter 12 John will tell of Mary's anointing of Jesus with perfume. However, v3 indicates that Jesus did know Lazarus. There is a lesson for us in this too. Jesus knows us and loves us personally. And He will act on our behalf, personally, as He did with Lazarus. As we know, Lazarus died, yet Jesus raised him. It seemed as though Jesus had missed out on the chance to help him, but this was not true. In fact He was going to do an even greater miracle than "merely" healing Lazarus, He was going to raise him from the dead! Now this of course applies to all who die in the Lord, at the last day all who have died in the Lord will be raised to new life. Death is not the end. Even if it sometimes seems as though Jesus has forgotten about us. this is never true.

Jesus knew what was going to happen, the out turn of events was not a surprise to Him. The Son and God would be glorified through this. Now some may say that it is rather selfish for God to let Lazarus (and his relatives) go though all this in order for His name to be glorified. But the purpose of God's name being glorified is that we realise just who He is, and the extent of His power and love.

"So when he heard Lazarus was sick .." (TNIV). The NIV says "yet when he heard", implying a sort of callousness on Jesus part. The Greek does not have the word "yet", and the TNIV seems to have corrected this. Even if He had left straight away it would have taken two days to get there, so Lazarus would still have died. In fact he had been dead four days when Jesus got there. The significance of this is that there was a belief that the spirit of the dead hovered over the dead for three days (this is not to say there is any scientific or theological substance to such a belief!), so after four days they would know that Lazarus was well and truly dead, so they would realise the enormity of the miracle that would take place.

John 10:22-42

We now move on to winter and the Festival of Dedication (or Hanukkah). This commemorated the dedication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in December 165 BC. Jesus was there, and the Jews were impatient for Him to say whether or not He was the Messiah.

The problem was not with Jesus not saying, but with the Jews not listening. This can still be the case today with all of us. Often when we complain that God is not answering the truth is that we are not listening.

The things that Jesus did demonstrated who He was, for He did the Father's works. The Jews did not believe because they did not really belong to God.

Conversely, those who are His sheep do believe and do hear, and do follow Jesus. We are portected by the Father. In 1 Peter 1:4-9 Peter tells us that we are shielded by God's great power. This is especially so in times of trouble. The Father guards and protects us.

The Jews wanted to stone Jesus, but He challenged them as to which of His good works they were objecting to. They retorted that it was because he was a mere man and claiming to be God. Of course, Jesus was not a "mere man", He is fully human, but also fully God.

Jesus answers them according to their own theology, quoting from Psalm 82. The "gods" referred to there are the people who received God's word and should have administered it to the people, but they failed to do so, and died as a result. Since Jesus was sent by the Father He had every right to call Himself the Son of God. At the end He urges them to at least believe in His works, but the Jews persisted in their rebellion.

Jesus then went to the place where John had baptised.Here the people responded with faith. John may also have included this as a further message to those who still followed John the Baptist that the whole point of John's ministry was to point people to Jesus.

John 10:7-21

Jesus now likens Himself to both the gate and the shepherd. He is the gate for the sheep, ie He is the only way to the Father, the only way into the kingdom of God. Jesus may be referring back to Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34, passages which condemn the false prophets and bad shepherds. Or He might be referring to the false messiahs who had lived in Israel.

When we come to Jesus we find pasture, ie we find security and are able to go about our lives. Jesus brings the freedom to live. Cults and other false teachings brings bondage, they enslave people, often with fear. Even in the Christian church teachings can arise that make people slaves to fear. If a teaching does this, then it is not of God. The enemy comes to take away life, Jesus comes to give life. The more we know Him the more we will know true life.

The key feature of Jesus is that He lays down His life for the sheep. We are His, He is not a hired hand who is only doing a job. Jesus is passionately committed to us, He loves us deeply. Therefore we can be confident in His care, knowing that He will not forget about us or abandon us. We need to meditate on the love that Jesus has for us.

Moreover the sheperd knows us and know Him (Jer 31:14). The good news is not about following a code, or believing a creed (though it does matter what we believe), but about knowing God and being known by God. The other sheep probably refers to the Gentiles believers, ie us. Note the centrality of Jesus to all this. Jesus does not call us to a teaching, but to Himself.

The Father loves the Son because of His obedience. Jesus would soon lay down His life for the sheep. This is one of the few passages where it talks about Jesus raising Himself, normally it is the Father who is referred to as raising the Son.

This talk of dying and rising caused confusion amongs the Jews. Some thought He was demon possessed, others could not believe that this was true,

John 10:1-6

Jesus' teaching here is still taking place at the Feast of Tabernacles, verse 21 referring back to the healing of the blind man.

In these first few verses Jesus is saying that the good shepherd enters by the normal route, he would not enter surreptitiously, for there would be no need to do so. He has every right to be there.

Why was Jesus saying this? Presumably the thieves are the current Jewish leaders, and of course Jesus is the good shepherd. It was the Jewish leaders who were using underhand methods. They were secretly plotting against Jesus, and at the climax of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus all sorts of legal conventions were broken. Jesus, on the other hand, acted openly. Later on the apostle Paul would make much of the openness and straightforwardness with which he presented the gospel.

There are two who give approval to the good shepherd. One is the gatekeeper, ie God. He sent Jesus and approved of Him (Matt 3:17). The gatekeeper opens the door for the good shepherd. Second are the sheep. They will recognise the voice of the good shepherd, and will listen only to him. Conversely, they would not follow the voice of a stranger.

There is a principle here that we can apply to ourselves. We should always act in an open and straightforward manner, and shun the use of underhand methods. For if we are acting on God's behalf, then He will open the door for us. Moreover, if we are truly acting on God's behalf, then His sheep will respond to us.

Furthermore, if we here some teacher or teaching and it seems to jar with us, ie there seems to be something not quite right about it, then we should be very cautious. It is easy to think that we must be wrong, not wanting to seem to be rebellious. Now we must be teachable, and all of us have much that we need to learn, but as God's children we also need to be aware that sometimes it will be the Spirit who is warning us.

John 9:35-41

At last the man meets up with Jesus again. The healing was all about blindness, and Jesus uses it to teach on spiritual blindness.

Jesus had heard what had happened to the man, and went to find him, and asks him if he "believes in the Son of Man". The man's expulsion from the synagogue was not the most important matter, his belief or otherwise in Jesus was what really mattered. We very easily become overwhelmed by things that happen to us in day-to-day life. Now these things are not unimportant, but increasing our faith in Jesus is always the most important thing. We should always ask how can our faith in Christ grow.

The man did not really understand what Jesus was saying. Now it may be that he did not understand the concept of "Son of Man", or it may be that he did not recognise that Jesus was the one who healed him, for remember that the man had not seen Jesus before this point. Hence Jesus reply "you have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he" shows that one who healed him and the Son of Man are one and the same.

The man's immediate response is to declare hid belief in Jesus.

Jesus then talks about spiritual blindness. Jesus bring sight to surprising people. It is often not those who are considered "religious", but people looked down upon by society. Conversely, people who are proud of their wisdom or "goodness" can become utterly blind. This latter group included many of the Pharisees. They read the Scriptures, but failed to see the truth.

John 9:18-34

John now refers to the Jews again, remember the Jews usually signifies the ruling religious leaders in John's gospel. It therefore seems that the there was some division over Jesus amongst the Pharisees, but the religious leaders were strongly against Him.

The Jews initial reaction was to disbelieve that a miracle could have happened at all, so they sought out his parents and questioned them. The parents were very cautious, because the Jews had agreed to excommunicate anyone who said that Jesus was the Messiah. In the society of the day this would have been a very serious matter. Therefore the parents were careful only to say what they were sure of, and in fact they probably did not have first hand knowledge of the healing itself. Finally they suggested the Jews question the man himself. any man over 13 years of age was able to give testimony.

So the Jews questioned the man again. "Give glory to God", means give importance or weight to God. Ie answer the question knowing that you are answering before God and that He knows everything anyway, so you should tell the truth.

They wanted the man to declare that Jesus was a sinner, but he refused to do so. The man refuses to give in to their pressure, and even becomes quite cheeky, asking if the Jews want to become disciples of Jesus. The Jews fall back on their supposed being disciples of Moses. The man declares that the evidence clearly shows that Jesus was a man of God, and proceeds to give the Jews a theology lesson.

As a result the Jews expelled the man form the synagogue.

John 9:13-17

The people brought the man to the Pharisees. They might have done this just because the Pharisees were the respected religious authorities, or it may have been to cause trouble, or keep on the right side of them. Whatever the case, the Pharisees were more interested in the supposed Sabbath breaking than the fact that God had healed someone.

Now Jesus had broken their rules on the Sabbath, but from all the confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees on this matter it is clear that God's view of the Sabbath was quite different from that of the Pharisees. All of us need to be careful with man-made rules. Every church, whether an old denomination or a relatively new charismatic church, has rules. Now there is nothing necessarily wrong in having rules, we need some guidelines to enable us to function, but we need to always watch ourselves that we do not start putting the rules above God's purpose.

It is also worth noting that it would be perfectly possible to put together a case saying that the Bible says we must observe the Sabbath, therefore Jesus was in contravention of the Old Testament. Such a case would be worthless and wrong, but we need to be careful of our innate tendency to produce sets of rules, and totally misunderstand God.

There were some Pharisees who were impressed with the miracles that Jesus did, and wondered if perhaps He could be from God. Ironically they turned to ask the man (ironic because of their general view of the common people).

John 9:6-12

This is another healing that occurred on the Sabbath. Both healing, and mixing the mud, broke the Jewish Sabbath rules. Notice that there is no record of the man actually asking to be healed, though maybe it is implied that he did.

Jesus put the mud on the man's eyes and told him to go and wash. The man, being blind, would not have known what Jesus looks like. Jesus gave the man something to do. Strictly speaking, there was no need for this, for Jesus could have just spoken the work and the man would have had his sight restored.

The man obeyed and went to wash in the pool of Siloam. He was then able to see. His neighbours were amazed, and found it difficult to believe. This is not unusual. If we see someone in a context that we do not expect to see them, we will often wonder if it is really who we think it is.

The man recounted what had happened, but Jesus had left by this time. Why did Jesus leave? Was it because He knew what would follow?

John 9:1-5

Giving sight to the blind is one of the signs associated with the Messiah in Isaih (Isaiah 29:18, 35:4, 42:7).

The disciples first reaction on seeing the blind man was to ask who was to blame. The rabbis taught that all suffering was directly correlated to sin. They even went so far as to say that a child could sin in the womb. Now it is true that ultimately all sickness and death is a result of sin. It is also true that some suffering is a direct consequence of sin. We can see this in obvious ways, for instance if someone drinks too much they will be likely to have liver disease and other health problems as a direct result. There are also instances where sin is a direct spiritual consequence of sin (1 Cor 11:30). However, it is not true that all sickness is a direct consequence of sin, and in general you cannot say that someone is a worse sinner because they are ill!

Jesus took a very different approach to the disciples. He was concerned with the works of God being displayed in the man. Jesus was going to heal the man. v3 reads a little like saying that the man had been inflicted with blindness so that the works of God could be displayed. However, there is another way of reading it (Kruse). In the original Greek there were no punctuation marks, and it is possible to take v3 with v4 (rather than two separate sentences), so that it reads "but so that the works of God might be displayed in him we must do the works of Him who sent me". Whatever the case, the focus of Jesus was on healing the man.

This incident has implications for us. Sometimes we too can be overly obsessed with why someone is suffering from something, and overly concerned with digging back into someone's past (our own past). The emphasis of Jesus was on setting free and healing.

The section finishes with Jesus reminding us of the urgency of doing God's work. There is a limited amount if time within which God's work can be done, so we need to take every opportunity.

John 8:48-58

The dispute becomes more intense. The Jews had a very low view of the Samaritans. In accusing Jesus of being a Samaritan they may have just been saying He was very lax in regard to the Law. This is not the only time Jesus was accused of being in league with the devil (Matt 12:23, Mark 3:22).

Jesus' response is to be ever more emphatic about His divinity. This is a lesson to us that we must never backtrack on claims about Jesus. He is the Son of God, He is the Lord of Lords, He is both fully human and fully God. Jesus honoured His Father, the fault of the Jews was to dishonour Jesus. The Father seeks the glory of the Son. God's will is that Jesus is honoured and worshipped.

Jesus then says that whoever obeys His word (note He does not say the Father's word, Jesus is amking no bones about the matter that they need to obey Him) will have eternal life.

The Jews cannot grasp this at all. Note that the disciples were no better either at understanding Jesus' later statements about His need to die, and then rise again. Notions that the 1sr century people were credulous and readily accepted talk about rising again are without foundation. Resurrection was as radical a concept to them as it is to us. Abraham and all the prophets had died, yet they had obeyed God. So Jesus could only be speaking nonsense, or so the Jews thought. "are you greater ...", of course Jesus was greater than all who had gone before Him.

It was the very One the Jews claimed to worship who glorified Jesus, yet the Jews refused to believe in Him. Jesus was the one who spoke the truth. Abraham, and all the prophets, were looking forward to the coming of the true messiah.

The Jews think Jesus has finally gone too far, but then Jesus goes even further, using a term (I am) that could only be applied to God.

John 8:39-47

The Jews thought they were Abraham's children, and humanly speaking they were. But if they were his children spiritually they would recognise who Jesus was, instead they intended to kill Him. Abraham is one of the most important figures in the Old Testament, especially in the writings of Paul.

"We are not illegitimate" may have been a slur on Jesus. Whether it is or not, they were very proud of their Abrahamic ancestory.

Jesus again replies that if this was true then they would love Him. The Son and the Father are one, and we cannot have one without the other. Jesus came only to do His Father's will. The Jews were actually children of the devil. Note that this is referring specifically to the Jewish religious leaders, it is not anti-Semetic. The devil has been a liar from the very beginning, it is fundamental to His very nature, The Jews were taking on his nature.

Jesus challenged them to prove Him guilty of any sin.

John 8:31-38

We have just been told that many of the Jews believed in Jesus, but this is not the end of the matter. There was still much that they had to learn, and Jesus starts right away. Jesus starts talking about freedom, and says that continuing in His word (ie living by His word) is crucial. Now this caused a problem for the Jews, because they already counted themselves as free. They were very proud of their Abrahamic background, and the prospect of needing to be made free offended them.

When we come to Christ there will be areas in our lives where He needs to work and bring changes, and in some cases we might react against this. We need to watch ourselves carefully if this is happening, and make sure we are not reacting against the truth.

Jesus then goes on to talk about sin. Sin is every person's biggest problem, and usually the one we do not want to face up to. But the truth is that sin makes us slaves of sin, and we need to be set free from this. Sin ties our lives up in knots in many ways. We are set free from some things the day we turn to Christ, but other matters take time.

The good news is that Jesus came to set us free from sin, and while sin makes us a slave, Jesus makes us a child of God. He brings true freedom into our lives.

John 8:21-30

The Pharisees were expecting a messiah, and would continue to search for one, not realising that they had missed Him. Jesus was going away, this refers to His death and ascension. The Pharisees had a limited time in which to come to their senses, otherwise they would die in their sin.

The Jews had no idea what Jesus was talking about, thinking that He was contemplating suicide. The fundamental difference between Jesus and the Jews was that Jesus was from above, from heaven, whereas they were firmly rooted in the earth.

Jesus seems to be saying that once they had crucified Him they would realise who Jesus was. Now after the resurrection most of the Jews (as in religious leaders) still did not believe. So was it did dawn on them who He was, but even so they shut their minds to this?

Jesus did only what the Father told Him to do. While the religious leaders refused to believe, man others did believe in Him.

John 8:12-20

This passage is generally accepted to occur after 7:52. Light was a significant part of the Feast of Tabernacles, every night candles were lit. Light was also a common theme in Isaiah's prophecies of the Messiah (Isaiah 9:2, 42:6,16; 49:6). Jesus called on the people to follow Him.

The Pharisees challenged Him, saying it was not valid for Him to testify about Himself. Here Jesus gives a rather different answer to the one He gave earlier (see John 5:31). The Pharisees would of course have accepted God's testimony about Himself. Jesus is God, so His testimony is valid. Moreover, He was sent by the Father and the Father would testify on His behalf.

The Pharisees were concerned with judging people, finding fault, and seeking to prove themselves superior. Jesus was concerned with giving life to people.

The Pharisees did not realise who Jesus was talking about when He mentioned His Father.

John 7:53-8:11

It is generally agreed that this incident did not appear hear in the original gospel. However, it is also regarded to be an authentic account of an incident that did happen, and certainly rings true.

It was normal for teachers to sit down to teach, unlike today where we normally stand. Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, and the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law brought in a woman. She had been caught in the act of adultery. Jewish law was quite strict, that there had actually to be witnesses, rather than just circumstantial evidence. However, an immediate question is where was the man?

The Jews wanted to trap Jesus. The Romans forbad the Jews from executing people, so Jesus could be either accused of rebellion against the Romans, or of ignoring the Law of Moses (which, by the way, demanded the stoning of the man as well).

Jesus bent down and started to write in the ground. There have been various speculations as to what He was writing, but speculations is all they are, and since the Bible does not tell us, then we are probably best not to waste our time trying to guess what He wrote. In fact, He may well have just been ignoring the Jews, or implying that He really wasn't interested in the matter.

The Jews persisted, and so Jesus said "let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Sin here is a general term, and does not necessarily refer to adultery. The people all drifted away.

Jesus then addresses the woman for the first time, and tells her to stop sinning.

People often use this incident as a pretext for refusing to define any behaviour as sin, but to do so is to misuse this passage. The key message is that our first concern must be our own sin. Jesus clearly agreed that the woman was in the wrong, but He came to heal the sinner, not to condemn. The Jews on the other hand were using the woman as a pawn in their game of seeking to trap Jesus.

John 7:42-52

The chief priests and Pharisees had earlier dispatched the temple guards to arrest Jesus (v32), but the guards had failed to do so. When questioned about this the guards could have referred to the divisions among the crowds (and hence the risk of a riot, which they would wish to avoid). Instead they referred to the way that Jesus spoke. Elsewhere it was noted that Jesus spoke with authority, and this was contrasted with the way that the Pharisees taught (Matt 7:29).

The religious leaders were utterly dismissive. They rebuked the guards with a series of rhetorical questions. Ironically, their answer to both were actually wrong. Nicodemus, a ruler and Pharisee, had been to meet Jesus and was impressed by Him. Hence Nicodemus speaks to urge caution on the Pharisees actions, though he does not admit outright to believing in Jesus.

The religious leaders were very dismissive of the general people, they considered them uneducated and unclean. In fact it was the Pharisees who were going against the Law, for they were willing to condemn a man without a proper hearing. Today, there are some educated people in the church who are dismissive of "ordinary" people who have a "simple faith". Often it is people with a simple faith who have the most wisdom.

They were also wrong in saying that a prophet does not come from Galilee, Jonah, Nahum and Hosea came from there. There is some evidence for saying that the text should read "the Prophet" rather than "a prophet". In this case they would still be wrong, for Jesus actually came from Bethlehem.

John 7:25-44

This passage contains two main elements. The first is the division among the people about who Jesus is, and the second is Jesus' promise of living water.

Division over who Jesus is

Why was there confusion? Perhaps the main reason is that Jesus had clearly performed miracles, thus indicating that He was someone special from God, yet His human family was also clearly known. He was the son of a carpenter from Galilee. However, it seems that they did not know about His place of birth, Bethlehem (v42).

The attitude of the religious authorities also engendered confusion. They were opposed to Jesus (because they felt threatened) and some knew they wanted to kill Him. Yet here He was out in the open and they were not arresting Him. They finally tried to do something when they realised the effect their inaction was having among the people, but they found they could not do anything. It was God who was in control, not men.

In response to this Jesus said yes they did no His human family, but they did not know His Father. If we want to understand Jesus it is not enough to treat Him just as a normal humna being. Yes He is fully human, but He is also from God. Jesus was with God from the very beginning, was sent by Him, and came to do God's work. Only when we take Jesus on these terms will we fully understand Him.

Jesus also told them He was going away. He was referring to his death and ascension to heaven, but the people again (and not surprisingly) did not understand Him.

Living Water

Water played an important part in the Feast of Tabernacles, hence the poignancy of Jesus' references to living water. Jesus was claiming that He, not their religious festivals, were the source of life. Many people went to the religious festivals because they were thirsty for something, Jesus tells them that He is the one who can meet their need. In fact if they believe in Him living water will flow from within them. This is consistent with what Jesus told the woman at the well.

In the midst of disputes and controversy Jesus spoke life-giving truth. Sometimes we can experience confusion in our lives. In the midst of it we should look to the Lord and see what He is saying.

John 7:14-24

Jesus started teaching midway through the festival, this would be the busiest time, thus achieving maximum impact. Teaching was a key part of Jesus' ministry, and the Jews were amazed at His teaching, for He had had no formal training. The standard pattern in those days was for a person to learn from a rabbi. Remember that Luke records the teachers in the temple being amazed at His understanding when He was only 12. After Pentecost, the Jews were amazed at Peter and John, for they too had had no formal training.

Jesus answer was that it came direct from God. Even today we place great emphasis on theological training, or going to Bible college. Now we need to note that while Peter and John had little formal education, Paul was highly educated, and the Bible and the world has benefited greatly from this. The point is that formal education is good, but it is not essential. Submission to God, listening to Him is the crucial matter. In a healthy church there will be teachers who have had formal training, but there will be others who have not. Faith and obedience to God are what count. At the same time all of us should be teachable, we all need to learn from others.

Jesus claimed that His teaching came direct from the Father. We can discover this by doing the will of God. The best way to truly understand the word of God is to do the word of God.

Today we place a great emphasis on developing ones own thinking, but here Jesus says that the one who teaches truth is the one who seeks to represent the one who sent them. If developing our own thinking is the goal, then we end up seeking our own glory. Does this mean that we should not think for ourselves? No, but everything must be submitted to the word of God.

Jesus here is also referring specifically to Himself, He was sent by the Father, and came to do the Father's will. The Jews claimed to obey the Law, yet they did not do it. Very specifically they were plotting to kill Jesus.

The crowd (ie the general people), were clearly not aware of the desire of the Jews to kill Jesus, so they thought Jesus was demon possessed. We should probably read this in a similar way that we might say "he is a looney".

The root of the controversy was Jesus healing on the Sabbath. Jesus points out that the Jews themselves were prepared to overlook the Sabbath in order to circumcise someone on that day. God's desire for mercy, therefore, surely permitted healing on the Sabbath.

We have an innate desire to find a perfect set of rules, but no matter what set of rules we have they will never be perfect. We need to have rules and guidelines, but they always need to be applied with wisdom. Jesus summed up the will of God, as love God with all that we have, and love others as oursleves. No perfect set of rules exists, there will always be exceptions. In fact in mathematics there is Godel's incompleteness theorems that show that mathematically it is impossible to get a perfect set of rules. Govenernments are always trying to close tax loopholes, but clever accountants always find new ones.

John 7:1-13

The feeding of the 5 000 took place around the time of the Passover (6:4), the next few chapters took place around the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles celebrated God providing for the Israelites in the desert, and took place shortly after the harvest was brought in. It is about six months after the Passover, so John leaves a 6 month gap. The next few chapters focus on various disputes between Jesus and the Jews at this time, and claims that Jesus made about Himself. John started his gospel with what John said about Jesus, now he focuses on what Jesus said about Himself.

Jesus was fully aware of the Jews opposition to Him, and their plans to kill Him. His brothers had presumably heard about Jesus' miracles and urged Him to show Himself at the festival. Jesus was dismissive about their advice. His brothers had no appreciation of who Jesus really was nor of the situation. Jesus would not go up to the Festival until He was ready. When He did so He went up secretly, though He would then make Himself very public when He was actually at the Festival.

The Jewish leaders were looking out for Jesus. The people were divided over Jesus. Some thought Him a good man, others that He was a deceiver.