John 7:37,38 - Living Waters

7:37

There is some debate about whether this is the seventh or eighth day of the festival. It will be helpful to look a little at what happened at the festival (Kruse) as it will add poignancy to Jesus’ words. For the first six days a flagon was filled with water from the Pool of Soloam and carried back to the temple and the water poured over the altar. On the seventh day they processed around the altar seven times and the people believed that when the Messiah came he would provide water. Then there was one extra day but there was no water related activities involved in that day. That is why some people think John must have been referring to the seventh day. However, I don’t think it really matters, and think that Jesus’ words would have been just as poignant on the eighth day, and in fact was more likely to have said them on that day.

So Jesus’ talking about providing living water is highly significant. People were looking for fulfilment in the wrong place, Jesus is the fulfilment of all things. Jesus invites all to come to Him and drink. In fact He invites all who are thirsty. If we have a need we should go to Jesus. If we realise that we cannot cope with life on our own, that there is something vital missing we need to go to Jesus.

7:38

It is not absolutely clear which part  of Scripture this is a quote from. Moreover, the comma can be placed in different places. The standard text implies that if we believe in Jesus then living waters will flow out from us. However, it is also possible for it to mean that if we are to believe in Jesus and living waters will flow out to us from Jesus. In one sense it isn’t that important as both are essentially true. If we believe in Christ that He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit, and if we are filled with the Spirit then we will have a godly influence on those around us.

John 7:32-36 - Where's He going?

7:32

These developments were worrying the Pharisees and Chief Priests: Jesus was a threat to the established religious leaders. Human religion puts men in charge, in true religion we all humble ourselves before the Lord. Notice also how the Pharisees and Chief Priests are not in control, but are responding to events. They are acting not because they have planned to do so but because the mutterings in the crowd are forcing them to act. The same is true of all power structures. They can seem for a time to be “in control” to be the dominant force, but in reality they are at the mercy of events. So they sent guards to arrest Jesus.

7:33,34

In these verses Jesus makes an oblique reference to His death. The Greek has “therefore” at the start of this verse, which is omitted by NIV. So He said these words in response to the Jewish leaders’ decision to send the guards. His being with them for only a short time can be taken in two ways. He would only make two other visits to Jerusalem, once at the feast of dedication, and then the final Passover visit. It is also a reference to the fact that He would soon, after His death, return to the Father. The Jewish leaders thought they could control the situation, just as political and cultural leaders today think they can silence the word of God. Men cannot control God! The Jewish leaders certainly could not go chasing after Jesus in heaven!

7:35,36

Not surprisingly the people did not understand these words. We should not be surprised at this, nor should we look down on them. In the same circumstances we would not have understood them either! We know what Jesus meant only because we know and believe about the cross and resurrection. We should also recognise that some of the things that we take for granted will not make sense to people who do not yet know Christ.

So they wondered if Jesus meant He was going to go among the Greeks. Because of the many invasions and exiles that the Jewish people had suffered there were Jews scattered throughout the Greek world, ie the diaspora. These Jews were sometimes referred to as Hellenistic Jews. This is why in Acts, and Paul’s letters we frequently encounter Jews wherever Paul went.

Of course, in a sense Jesus was actually going to go to the Greek Jews for after the resurrection the gospel did spread to these parts of the world.

Sex and Relationships

A recent post in my other blog on sex and relationships

John 7:30,31 - You can't touch Him

7:30

There are some who argue about whether or not Jesus did claim to be God. However, the people at the time were in no doubt at all. They knew that what Jesus was saying meant He was claiming equality with God, so they tried to seize Him. Note also in Jesus’ claim He always stresses that He is under authority (see verse 28, for instance). If you look at man he always seeks to get authority by claiming his own authority. True authority comes when we submit to God. However, no one was able to lay a hand on Him “because His hour had not yet come”. The sovereignty of God is a theme that shines out of John’s gospel. It was God who was in control of events and things happened according to His timing.

7:31

While there were those who doubted Jesus  (see verse 27) there were others who put their faith in Him. So we see a very mixed reaction. If we rely on the “crowd” to determine our view of Jesus then we will be very unstable indeed, tossed here and there, for we will find all sorts of views, most of them totally misinformed. We need to look to the Bible as our primary source of information, and we need to go to Jesus ourselves.

The earlier doubts had been focused on the fact that they “knew where Jesus came from”. Those here who had faith in Jesus based it on what they had seen happen. So the doubters were basing their views on the misguided traditions, the believers were basing their views on what was actually happening. In this case it was the miracles that Jesus was doing. It is amazing how we can so easily let the plain facts of a matter be totally obscured by our traditions.

The crowds here may have been pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for the festival.

John 7:25-29 - Where do you come from?

7:25-27

Apparently the people of Jerusalem were aware of some sort of plot to kill someone. Rumours were going around, but as with most rumours things were far from clear.

The people were confused by the authorities action, or rather their lack of action. They wanted to kill Jesus, and Jesus was there openly speaking in Jerusalem, but the authorities were taking no action.  So some were wondering if the authorities had decided that Jesus was the Messiah after all.

The statement in verse 27 is based on Jewish tradition, that the Messiah would effectively come from nowhere, yet they did know where Jesus came from. It should be noted that this thinking was based on tradition not the Bible. The Bible says that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem (Mic 5:1,2).

7:28,29

The people thought they knew who Jesus was and where He came from, but they only knew part of the story, they only knew His human ancestry. Jesus says, as He did after the feeding of the five thousand, that He had been sent by the Father, and that the people did not know God. Men’s views on God are worthless. People, both theologians and sceptics alike (and the two are not always exclusive) claim to know what God is like. They do not. The only reliable source of what God is like is the Bible. We are dependent upon revelation, and Jesus is the best source of that revelation for He does know the Father and the Father sent Him.

John 7:19-24 - Getting religion right and wrong

7:19,20

Jesus now highlights the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders. They based everything on keeping the Law, yet not one of them managed to keep the Law. This is the fundamental problem of every single man and woman on the planet. We are sinners. Now we have a choice. We can either face up to the reality of this and go to Christ to seek forgiveness, or we can deny the reality of the situation and try and cover it up. This is what the Jews were doing. And see how elaborate a setup they had created with all the extra rules added on to the Law. This is a common human failing, it is also a something that we can do in the church as well.

Jesus was the only One who had kept the Law, yet they were trying to kill Him.

At this point the crowd join in and we see how fickle their attitude is. Previously some had said Jesus was good, now they think He is mad or demon possessed. They thought it ridiculous that anyone was trying to kill Jesus.

7:21-24

Jesus further highlights the hypocrisy of the Jews. The fact that Jesus had healed a man on the Sabbath had caused great consternation. Jesus then draws attention to the fact that they were quite happy for someone to be circumcised on the Sabbath.

Now this illustrates something interesting. Whenever we draw up a set of rules or guidelines there will come some points where two rules are in conflict. We can react in one of two ways. We can try and make the rules non-contradictory. Sometimes this can be done, but more often than not we will just end up with rule upon rule. The alternative is to exercise common sense. Now with the matter of circumcision the Jews had done this. They had decided that being circumcised on the eighth day was more important than keeping the Sabbath, so circumcision was allowed on the Sabbath. Jesus is not criticising this, what He is criticising is their failure to apply this principle more widely. Setting a man or woman free was more important than a strict observance of the Sabbath, and it was more of a work of God than circumcision was.

The Jews needed to get their own hearts sorted out.

John 7:17,18 - Heart condition

7:17

How does one know if Jesus is indeed speaking God’s words? Jesus’ answer is that if someone really wants to know God’s will then they will recognise that Jesus is speaking from God. Now this might seem a bit circular, but the truth is that we have to start somewhere. We have to make some basic assumptions or we can get nowhere. My background is mathematics and that is how the whole of maths works. We start with some basic axioms and then everything else is built on top of that.

Jesus words here also get to the heart of the matter. The Jews were asking about the authority of Jesus, was He authentic? The really important question was the condition of their own hearts. The Jews claimed to be following God, but if this was really true then they would have known whether Jesus was genuine or not. The root of the problem was that they were not truly seeking to do God’s will. Atheists and sceptics often accuse God of various things, we need to be aware that the real issue is the condition of our own heart. Sin obscures our vision, and the way to get clearer vision is to repent and be committed to the Lord.

7:18

Jesus then gives another test. If someone speaks on his own authority then he seek his own glory, he is trying to show how clever he is. This was a criticism of the Jewish leaders. They were seeking their own glory, seeking to protect their own position. Jesus, on the other hand, sought the glory of the Father. There was no falsehood in Jesus, there is no other person in history of whom this can be said. Even think of great figures like Churchill, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, all of them were deeply flawed characters, as well as people who achieved great things.

We should also look at our own hearts. Whose glory are we seeking? We should constantly check ourselves to do our best to seek the glory of Christ, not ourselves.