Reactions to the Claims of Christ
John 7:25-36
Open your Bibles to John chapter 7 as we continue our study together in John's gospel, this morning, we come to verses 25 through 36. Beginning in chapter 7 and verse 25, John records for us, "Then said some of them of Jerusalem, Is not this He, whom they seek to kill? But lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto Him. Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ? Nevertheless we know this man from where He is, but when Christ cometh no man knoweth from where He is. Then cried Jesus in the temple as He taught, saying, Ye both know Me and ye know from where I am. And I am not come of Myself, but He that sent Me is true to whom ye know not. But I know Him, for I am from Him and He hath sent Me. Then they sought to take Him but no man laid hands on Him because His hour was not yet come. And many of the people believed on Him and said...When Christ cometh will He do more miracles than these which this man hath done? The Pharisees heard that the people murmured such things concerning Him and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him. Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you and then I go unto Him that went Me. Ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me and where I am, there ye cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves, Where will He go that we shall not find Him? Will He go unto the dispersed among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What manner of saying is this that He said ye shall seek Me and shall not find Me and where I am there ye cannot come?"
May God bless to our hearts this important passage which we shall study in a few moments.
This has been a rich study in John's gospel. Just primarily it's a study of the person of Jesus Christ. Incidently, if you don't have a Bible with you, why you will probably be able to find one in the pew rack there and we hope you'll be able to follow along verse by verse. You really don't get as much out of it if you don't follow in your Bible as you study and as you listen. This really helps to tack you down. In the earlier service I mentioned something which may be a help to you, as well. If you will daily the week following the given message reread that passage, you will find that it will become indelible in your mind. We'll endeavor to present to you the truths of a certain passage. If each day, and it will only take you about five minutes, you'll reread that passage, these truths will have a way of embedding themselves in your mind while they're still fresh. And this is how you really study and really absorb things, so we want to encourage you to do that. Follow through on following up on what we study on Sunday.
All right, coming then to chapter 7 we have come to what really begins John's account of the final period in the ministry of our Lord. The Lord has just told His disciples prior to the events of John 7, He has just told His disciples for the first time that He is going to die on the cross. This is the first introduction they've had to this. Having told them this, and incidently, it's recorded in the other gospels, having told them this He sets out for Jerusalem for the last time. And it is only a matter of months until He will die. And from John 7 through the end of John's gospel, chapter 21, is recorded for us the final words and activities of Jesus Christ leading to His death and resurrection. This is the period of the final ministry of Jesus Christ. And so, He leaves Galilee and so He goes to Jerusalem.
It's autumn. In fact, it's early autumn. It's October. It's Feast of Tabernacles week when He goes. The harvest operations are all over. The people can take a week off. The tints of gold have just begun to streak the leaves and Jesus moves to Jerusalem. Strangers are there, countrymen from Judea, strangers from Peraea, Galilee, other places mingling in the streets of Jerusalem at the feast time. And they are mingling in the ever-present shadow of the great sanctuary, the temple. Its glorious marble, its cedar wood, its gold, it sits up there high on Mount Moriah and casts its shadow over the whole of Jerusalem, and its shadow is all the more indelible because the Feast of Tabernacles concentrates on it in particular.
And Jesus is also there and He walks in Jerusalem, not so much under the shadow of the temple as under the shadow of a wooden rugged cross soon to be erected high on a different hill, Mount Calvary. And starting with John chapter 7, Jesus begins to walk in the relentless lurking shadow of the cross. He has come to Jerusalem because it is time to come to Jerusalem. He does everything when it is time to do it. He delayed because His time was not yet come. His time has come and thus He has arrived in Jerusalem. He comes to Jerusalem knowing He will die. He comes to Jerusalem knowing He will be hated and persecuted. But He comes anyway because He had to present His truth, and secondly, His death will mean redemption. And so He comes. And from now on, from chapter 7 to the end of this gospel, we are in the shadow of the cross.
We've already seen the progression of rejection that Jesus Christ has met. We've already seen how people responded to Him. We saw it in the previous chapters, from the very first chapter where John told us He came unto His own and His own...what?..received Him not. And that's how it's been and that's how it always was. We've already seen it that way in Galilee, and now we see it again in chapter 7...only this time it's intensified. This time it reaches kind of a fever pitch and it's not any kind of indifferent hate, it's volatile, violent hate that brings about a plot to murder Him. We've seen already in chapter 7 and verse 5 the rejection of His brothers, His own brothers rejected Him. We saw in verses 15 to 19 rejection by the Jewish leaders. We saw in verse 20 rejection by the crowd made up primarily evidently of pilgrims from Peraea, Galilee and the other extremities. And now in our passage this morning we will see rejection by the citizens of Jerusalem themselves. One by one, group by group, Jesus is rejected. And though there are varying groups and though there are varying degrees of rejection, it's all unbelief and it all comes out the same. And eventually it was all these groups, except His own brothers, who stood together in one voice and cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him and we will not have this man to reign over us."
There's really no difference and some people have the mistaken idea that people who are tolerant of Jesus Christ and who maybe to some degree even acquiesce to some of His truth are in a better position than people who blaspheme Him. That is not so. That is not so. To receive Jesus Christ is the only hope. To stand on the outside and say, "Yeah, He's a wonderful person, I think I believe some of the things He said. I think I do. I'm not ready to commit my life to it," is as blasphemous or more blasphemous as the one who stands aside and spits and mocks Him because to know the truth and not to do it is the greatest blasphemy.
And so, whether or not it is the leaders, or whether or not it is the pilgrims who make up the crowd, or whether it is the Jews of Jerusalem themselves, or whether it is the Romans who nail Him on a cross, whoever it is, to reject is to reject and the point of degree is not even an issue. The common people were no better than the rulers. The Lord's own brothers were no better than the rest of the world. The inhabitants of Jerusalem had no more heart for Christ than did the people from the provinces. You see, it becomes very obvious very soon that faith is not a class issue. And faith is not a matter of degrees or non degrees. Either you believe and you commit yourself to that belief, or you don't commit yourself to that belief or you don't believe. And human nature is the same. It has nothing to do with who you are. And to be very frank, it is only the distinguishing grace of God that even makes one differ from another at all. And so the hostilities begin and the flames of hostilities flame higher than they ever have. And what was somewhat indifferent to begin with, now becomes absolutely violent. And in this section we see Jesus having already confronted His brothers, having already confronted the leaders of Israel and the temple crowd, and now He moves into direct confrontation with the citizens of Jerusalem themselves and their reaction and their response is no different than anybody else's. And incidently, He makes the very same claims to these people that He's made all along. And He...in fact, reiterates the one claim that always incensed everybody. He made a lot of claims. We went over them last week. He made a lot of them. But the claim that really flipped everybody and just made them violently against Him was the constant claim that Jesus kept making to the fact that He was God, equal with God and came from heaven. That they could not tolerate. To them that was blasphemy.
And every time Jesus confronted them He said, "I am the one that came from above, I am the one that came from God. I know God, you don't know Him. But when I'm done I'm going back to Him." And they did not buy that. It humiliated them in the first place. In the second place, their ignorance would not let them believe it. And the fact of divine origin and divine citizenship of Jesus Christ was the claim that infuriated them the most. So naturally Jesus makes the same claim again because if you don't understand that claim, all the other claims of Christ don't mean anything. And Jesus again in verses 25 to 36, as we shall see this morning, makes the same identical claims again. And He again talks about His divine citizenship, that He came from God. And again, they are incensed at Him.
In fact, in this passage we see three problems that they face. The Jewish population of Jerusalem faces three problems. You have your little outline there in the bulletin, you can follow along. We've noted them for you there. They are faced with three really serious problems. Christ confronts them and He brings up three problems, three dilemmas. The problem of dense confusion, the problem of divided conviction, and the problem of delayed conversion, these three problems leave these Jerusalemites in a state of utter despair. And I want you to see these problems as they unfold for us.
Jesus Christ created problems, He still does. First problem is the problem of dense confusion, verses 25 to 29. Now I want you to catch the feeling of what's going on so I'm going to back up and I want you to listen very carefully to what I say.
Jesus has for a while now, at the midst of the feast in Jerusalem, been really firing both barrels at the Jewish people. He has flung accusations right into the teeth of His opponents. He has absolutely defied them. He has shut them off. He has charged them and their followers, that is the Jewish leaders and the people who follow them, He has charged them with the most disgusting kind of legalistic hypocrisy and inconsistency imaginable. He says, "You hypocrites, you claim to follow the Law of Moses and you don't even know how to interpret it. Not only that, you disobey it openly. Your logic is poor. Your insights are worse. Your knowledge is terrible. Your hypocrisy gross." And I mean, He really laid them out and we saw it in the last passage. They were dumbfounded, standing there in paralyzed silence as He called them what they were...hypocrites, fakes. And He was talking to the Jewish leaders who were the spiritual hypocrites. And the pilgrims, evidently, that is the people who were to make their pilgrimage from other parts, they didn't know this plot was going on. And back in verse 19 Jesus had said to them, "You know, you follow Moses, you say, and then you go about to kill Me. What kind of stuff is that? Don't you know Moses said you shouldn't kill? Hypocrites. You want to kill Me," Jesus said.
Well, the crowd who had come in from other parts didn't know about this plot and so they replied by saying, "Well wait a minute. You must have a demon. Who is going to kill You?" And they just don't know, see. So the crowd reacted to what Jesus said. His absolute condemnation of these leaders, the crowd reacted to that in ignorance. But that's really immaterial. The thing that stunned me was the fact that the rulers never even reacted. They never moved a muscle. He confronted them and He told them what they were and they were stunned and they were speechless and they had been publicly humiliated. And nobody tried to move toward Christ. Nobody touched Him.
You know, they weren't stupid and they probably had good memories for the things they wanted to remember. And they may have remembered this. Number one, you don't want to get into an argument with this guy, He'll really shut you off. He is so devastating.
The second thing they may have remembered was this, the last time He arrived in the temple and took over the place, He made a whip and He chased everybody out of here. Now this is no average-type individual. And I think what you have there is a good illustration of collective cowardice. Nobody dared open their trap. And not only that, nobody dared take a step toward Jesus Christ, they were probably scared to death of Him. One good indication of that is the very likelihood that when they came to take Him in the Garden of Gethsemane to crucify Him later on, they brought the whole entourage from Fort Antonious which probably numbered just under 500 soldiers. Now when you've got to have 500 people to go get one, you've got something boiling in the back of your brain. And nobody was about to attack Jesus Christ. And they stood there dumbfounded, silent and that brought up the confusion.
With that in mind, look at verse 25. "Then said some of them of Jerusalem." Now stop right there. Some of the people who live in Jerusalem are looking at these leaders who are just standing there frozen. And they're kind of looking at each other and some of the people of Jerusalem say this, verse 25, "Is not this He whom they seek to kill?"
Well what do you mean by that? Well just this, they are confused about why the leaders are just standing there, taking this when they already know that the leaders want to kill Him. The Jerusalemites know well the plot that's kind of simmering. And they are confused as to why these leaders don't take some moves to shut up Jesus Christ, to close His mouth since they are already aware that they want to kill Him. They can't figure out what's going on. And so they sit there in this kind of confusion...why don't they act? And the rulers are standing there in confusion saying...what do we do? The rulers are confused and the Jerusalemites are confused trying to figure out why the rulers are confused. And nobody moves, nobody even takes a move toward Jesus Christ.
And the Jerusalemites further their little argument in verse 26. "But lo He speaks boldly and they say nothing unto Him." He's just standing there in the middle of this place and He's just ripping them up one side and down the other and they don't even say anything. They didn't even speak. They have their chance, they want to kill Him, why don't they act right now while He's giving it to them? They'll get the support of the population. If they move now the people will stand behind them. But they don't move, they stand there speechless, paralyzed.
They probably remembered the last time they opened their mouth in verse 15, how fast it got shut. They tried to knock Jesus Christ by saying He didn't go to the right rabbinical schools and He said, "You're right, I didn't go to your schools. God taught me directly." How do you handle that one? And so they don't say anything. And Jesus just speaks boldly. That means He just confronted them with what they really needed to be confronted with.
I love the fact that it says, "He spoke boldly." Christ was always bold. He always was. He never backed off an inch. He was absolute boldness personified. Back in Isaiah chapter 50 in a prophecy of Christ, as clear a prophecy of Christ as anywhere, we see this character of Christ portrayed by the prophet. In chapter 50 verse 6 Jesus is talking prophetically. "I gave My back to the smiters," which He did, "My cheeks to them that plucked off the hair," which He did. "I hid not My face from shame and spitting." Jesus wasn't ashamed. He wasn't ashamed. He took it. "For the Lord God will help Me." He had confidence. "Therefore shall I not be confounded. Therefore have I set My face like a flint and I know that I shall not be ashamed. He is near who justifies Me. Who will contend with Me? Let us stand together. Who is Mine adversary? Let him come near Me. Behold, the Lord God will help Me. Who is he that will condemn Me? Lo, they all shall grow old like a garment, the moths shall eat them up."
Jesus says I stand boldly, unashamedly. I don't worry about anybody confounding Me. I don't worry about anybody harming Me. God is on My side. Such boldness. Such boldness! Jesus Christ stood in the face of those hostile people ready to kill Him and He was bold and it didn't matter what they did. Tremendous lesson for us, tremendous. You know, most of us don't even know what the meaning of boldness is. If we're ever confronted with an antagonistic situation toward Christianity, we tend to crawl in a shell and die. Jesus was bold. And I'll tell you something, if you really know and love Jesus Christ and you're really next to Jesus Christ and you're really living in constant communion with Jesus Christ, this same boldness is going to capture you. Remember in Acts chapter 4 verse 13 when the people looked at Peter and John and they proclaimed that they spoke boldly? They said they were amazed that they spoke so boldly and they perceived that they had been with...whom?...Jesus. You get with Jesus Christ in any kind of constant proximity and the boldness of Christ is going to become your boldness. Jesus Christ was bold. The apostle Paul had something of that same boldness and he told the Ephesians about it when he said this, "And for me...and he's asking them to pray...pray for me that utterance may be given unto me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in bonds that in this I may speak boldly...watch this...as I ought to speak." We ought to speak boldly.
Second Timothy 1 verse 7, Paul told Timothy who was having a little trouble with boldness and he was really getting very shy. And some of the errorists had gotten to him and some people were getting to him because of his youth. And he had an ulcer that was bugging him. And he was kind of crawling up and shriveling away and Paul says to him, "God hath not given us the spirit of...what?...fear, but of power and love and a sound mind." There's no fear, power, boldness. So should we follow the example of Jesus Christ, confront the world with boldness as He did.
And He confronted them and shattered their hypocrisy and they couldn't move, they couldn't react. In stunned silence they just...they just were captive by His absolute mastery of the moment. They were confused. And the citizens of Jerusalem were confused because they didn't see any action coming from these leaders who had been chastised so. Then almost like a flash of lightning some of the Jerusalemites evidently got an idea of why the rulers weren't moving. They were trying to justify the fact that they were just standing there and they get a little idea. Well maybe this is it, verse 26, it says this, "But lo, He speaketh boldly and they say nothing unto Him," and then this question and here's what's running through their brain, "Do the rulers know indeed that this is the very Christ?"
Do they know something we don't know? They aren't acting. They aren't responding. Why aren't they responding? Maybe they know that this is the Christ. But then there's a very interesting thing in the Greek construction of this sentence. The Greeks had many interesting things that they did with their language. One thing the Greeks could do that we can't necessarily do in English is this, the Greeks could put a word in a sentence that you didn't even translate, but that word all by itself made the question have a no answer automatically. In other words, they had a wonderful ability to ask and answer their questions while they were asking them. They had the answer in there. The little particle is a two-letter particle m-e, me, pronounced may. Whenever me appeared in a Greek sentence, that was a negative reply expected. And that me is in this sentence. And in effect they're saying this, "Well the rulers haven't decided this is the Messiah? No way." See. No, that can't be. The question just kind of skips across their brains and they don't really even give it a second thought. They don't really believe it's possible. It's as if they say, "Well there's no possibility that they could think this is the Messiah, that would be ridiculous." And yet they did for a second entertain the thought as a justification for their inaction. So they're confused. They don't know why they're not acting. They ask themselves a question, before they even finish it they've stuck the me in there and said no to it. So they don't know what's going on.
And the reason they...you say, "Well why didn't they believe that the rulers were thinking that? Maybe the rulers were thinking this is the Christ." Well they don't believe that and the reason they don't is in verse 27. They say they couldn't be thinking this because, "We know this man from where He is, but when Christ comes no man knows from where He is." See, they say well this couldn't be, oh no, they know He's from Nazareth, the son of Joseph and Mary and he's just a carpenter, they know all that. Nah, nah, they couldn't think He's the Messiah, no way. You see, that shows their ignorance. They just say, "Nah, nah, they can't be thinking He's Messiah because we all know that He just, you know, lived up there in Nazareth. No big thing, He's been around for a long time." Same ole thing they said in Matthew 13:55 when they said, "You're nobody, You're just the son of the carpenter. You live in Nazareth, don't tell us anything." Same thing.
But interestingly enough there was a group of them that didn't feel that way. It was kind of a tradition that had grown up. You notice at the end of verse 27, they say, "When Christ comes no man knows from where He is." A tradition had grown up that Christ would appear suddenly. A beautiful job of misinterpreting Malachi 3:1, "The Lord shall come suddenly to His temple," and another beautiful job of misinterpreting Isaiah 53, "Who shall declare His generation?" gave them the misconstrued idea that when Christ arrived it would be zap, right out of the blue, and here's Messiah. And the fact that they knew Jesus had been around for 30 some years and that He came from Nazareth and that He was the son of Joseph and Mary, and the minds of some of them just purely disqualified Him. And that was really stupid. That was stupid cause had they known anything about the Old Testament they would have known that Micah told them exactly the city in which He was going to be born. "Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the sons of Judah, out of these shall He come forth who is to be ruler of my people Israel." And even back in Matthew in the second chapter when they had announced the birth of Christ, the chief priests and elders said He's going to be born in Bethlehem. Oh there was a group that believed that over in verse 42. Some of them piped up and said, "Now wait a minute, we know He's going to be born in Bethlehem." And verse 43 says, "That caused a division."
Now you've got two groups, some of them say, "Ah, this can't be the Messiah, He came from Nazareth." Other ones are saying, "Nah, this can't be the Messiah, He's got to come from Bethlehem and this one came from Nazareth." You see, they don't even bother to ask if He was born in Bethlehem. And so they decided it couldn't be the Messiah. No way this could be the Messiah because they knew where He came from. No big mystery. And even the ones who knew about the scripture of Bethlehem and understood that hadn't found out that Jesus was actually born there. They didn't even pursue that. And so they're standing there all confused and bewildered.
Now, you say, why did you choose the word "dense" confusion? Well, I chose it, first of all, because it starts with "d," but mostly...mostly I chose it because it means stupid. And they were ignorant, inexcusable and stupid in their confusion.
END OF SIDE ONE
SIDE TWO
You say, "Why?" Because of this, if they had believed, that is that little one part of the group, that He was to come from Bethlehem, then they should have found out whether Jesus did in fact come from Bethlehem, first of all. If they were that group that said He was going to come from nowhere, then they should have read Micah 5:2 and found out that He was going to come from Bethlehem. Whichever way you cut it, it comes out willful stupidity, dense confusion. They should have known. They were inexcusable from a human viewpoint.
See they...both of them...just were so smug and so arrogant that they had all the answers. This is how Jesus will be. This is where He'll come. He'll fit our little mold. See. You can't make Jesus fit your mold, no time, not then, not today. You know, some people have the idea that Jesus is instant Jello and that everybody has their own mold and you can make Him any shape you want Him to be. And that's not true. I suppose you've talked to many people like I have too that say, "Well let me tell you what I think about Jesus...I want to give you my opinion of Jesus." Who cares? Who wants it really? Don't tell me your opinion of Jesus. Jesus isn't up for opinions. You do not make Jesus conform to your mold. You don't do it. Jesus is what He is, either you believe it or you reject it, you don't change Him. Paul hit the nail right smack on the head dead center in Romans 8 verse 29, listen to this, "For whom He did foreknow He also did predestinate...listen...to be conformed to the image of His Son."
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