The Hope of
the Faithful
John 7:1-13
Introduction: One of the jobs I had after
High School occasionally put me in the office at the Landfill, collecting cash
payments from truck drivers. When the boss came in at the end of the day, he
would quickly count through the bills in the cash box, and take the deposit to
the bank. I recall on one occasion he was counting the money and as soon as his
fingers touched a particular $20 bill he stopped, felt it between his fingers,
looked at it closely and said, “This bill is counterfeit!” Whether intentionally or not, someone had
paid with “funny money!” My boss used to be a bank manager, so he had extensive
experience handling cash – I was a 20 something part time college student – I
didn’t have very much experience with cash at all! He tried to show me the bill
and how it was clearly false, but it looked the same as the real money to me. If
you know the real thing well, you’ll more easily recognize a counterfeit. If the question is, “what does unbelief
look like?” the answer is not so simple, but we can say that it is anything
different than authentic saving faith. John is writing his Gospel to lead
us to recognize Jesus for who He is and to embrace authentic, saving faith in
Him. That kind of faith believes who Jesus really is—and trusts in what He has
done for us: These things have been
written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that believing you might have life in His name… Implicit in today’s text is
a call to examine ourselves. Are we sure of our salvation? Remember that
Jesus had just said that He had chosen the twelve, and that one of them was a
devil. Did Judas know his own heart? Did the other disciples suspect
anything? Jesus knew them, and He knows us. Have we really recognized
who Jesus is and trusted in His finished work as our only hope of salvation?
The setting for
chapters 7-9 transitions in today’s passage, from Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, back
to Judea, specifically to Jerusalem during the Jewish Feast of Booths. It was
one of the three pilgrim feasts, occasions when all Jewish men who were able would
travel to Jerusalem for worship.
The Big Idea: Jesus is God and we are saved by His grace, we should submit to
Him as Lord and desire His glory above all.
I. Why did He
come? Jesus
came to fulfill the plan of God, in God’s time (7:1-5).
After this
Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews
were seeking to kill him. 2
Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand.
3 So his brothers said to him, "Leave here
and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. 4 For no one works in secret if he
seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the
world." 5 For not even
his brothers believed in him.
“After these things Jesus walked in Galilee for … the Jews sought
to kill him…” (v.1). This kind of violent hatred against Jesus appeared back
in John 5:16-18 after Jesus healed the cripple by the pool of Bethesda.
16 And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was
doing these things on the Sabbath. 17
But Jesus answered them, "My Father is working until now, and I am
working." 18 This was
why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he
breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making
himself equal with God… (John
5:16-18).
There is not much question about “unbelief” here… despite the sign
they would not see, they were determined not to accept who Jesus is. Here in
our passage, we are simply told “He would not go about in Judea because the
Jews were seeking to kill Him” (7:1). We see overt, determined unbelief at
times. Like the atheist science teacher who scoffs at the Christian student who
makes mention of the evidence for Creation. We’ve heard of situations where a
Muslim extremist who killed his own child for “converting” to Christianity. Some
of our missionaries, in some parts of the world, live and serve with that kind
of hatred around them. We see it in the Gospels, John simply summarized that
level of rejection in the Prolog when he said, “He came unto His own, and
His own people did not receive Him.” At the final Passover in the Gospel it
will reach a climax when the people cry out, “Crucify him, we’ll not have
this man to be our king!” That kind of rejection is not disguised—there is
no mistaking it—an overt and unambiguous rejection of Jesus as the Son of God,
who came to die for our sins and who was vindicated as Messiah by his
resurrection.
Of course, there are
more subtle faces of unbelief. We see an example here in Jesus’ brothers
(vv.3-5). On the surface they seem to be encouraging Him to embrace His
messianic calling. We see here the
laughable situation of Jesus’ brothers telling him what he should do,
giving him some brotherly “advice.” They
were concerned, perhaps, with his lagging popularity, it was time to stage a
big “comeback.” He needed a little help, a couple of “campaign managers”
perhaps. This kind of unbelief is more
subtle, it can even sound religious. At
the end of chapter six Jesus mentioned the twelve, and that “one of them was a
devil.” Judas probably looked a lot like the other disciples until that last
week. There is no indication that anyone, other than the Lord himself,
suspected anything. Counterfeit faith can be convincing…
The chilling truth is that the warning we see
in the Bible reminds us that unbelief hides in at least some of the pews of
even faithful churches. And we have
enough warnings in the Bible to be on guard against false teachers to know that
we need to be discerning about the podcasts and broadcasts we listen to. We
have to test what we hear against the Bible. Counterfeit faith is any belief
system that fails in some way to recognize rightly who Jesus is, or that won’t
submit to his Lordship, or rejects or denies that salvation is only through the
finished work of Christ.
At this point in the Gospel of John, we are
told that His own brothers, or more specifically, His half-brothers, “did
not believe in Him.” Think about
that. There is no doubt they heard from
Mary as they grew up that big brother Jesus was special. They saw how he lived
and reacted to life around him. They never, not even once, saw Him sin. But
even here, as they are “giving him advice,” telling Him, God Incarnate, what He
should do to advance His plans. If we had any doubts, John tells us, not
even His own brothers believed in Him. At least not yet. One of them,
James, would later become a leader in the Church in Jerusalem. (After James the
apostle is killed in Acts 12, it is James the Lord’s brother who leads the
Jerusalem Council, and who write the Epistle of James). But as of now, His
brothers have not correctly understood who He is. If they did, they surely wouldn’t be telling
him what he should do (or would they?). We don’t ever allow our prayers to descend
into human attempts to manipulate God, do we?
John Piper made an
interesting point that these two groups, the Jewish leaders intent on killing
Jesus, and the brothers, who “were not believing in Him” actually had
perhaps a common theme: the leaders were
jealous of His popularity and the brothers who perhaps wanted to share in it.
The praise of men was more important than the glory of God. But, *If we believe
that Jesus is God and we are saved by His grace we should submit to Him as Lord
and desire His glory above all.
II. What does
it mean to believe in Him? (7:5-10). Read again verse 5 and following…
5 For not even his brothers believed in him. 6 Jesus
said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always
here. 7 The world cannot hate
you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. 8 You go up to the feast. I am not
going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come." 9 After saying this, he remained
in Galilee. 10 But after his
brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in
private.
Jesus declines the
“invitation” of His brothers to make a public entrance into Jerusalem revealing
himself as Messiah in Word and power. We don’t fully know the motivations of
the brothers of the Lord. Were they hoping for a new wave of popularity that
they could grab onto, riding on the coattails of their half-brother? He would not make a public entrance with them;
his “time” had not yet come. As faithful
Jews it was time for them, at the Feast of Tabernacles to go to the Holy City,
but it was not time for Jesus to make a “triumphal entry.” Six months or so from then there would be
another entrance into Jerusalem, not at the feast of Tabernacles, but later, at
the feast of Unleavened Bread, as Passover approached… The crowd would indeed
hail Him as Messiah, and then reject him as the Scriptures predicted.
Jesus says in John 7:7,
“The world cannot hate you, but it hates
me…” The first creative word in the
Bible was God said, “Let there be light…” And it was good. Paul later
alludes to that when he says, in 2 Corinthians 4:6,
6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"
has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ.
We’ve seen the theme of “light” and “darkness” in chapter 1 and
chapter 3 of John. It will appear again in John 8 and 9 when Jesus twice says,
“I am the Light of the world.” Jesus was the light shining in darkness,
the Light that exposes sin and convicts men of their spiritual need. The Light
that illumes the path to Life. The world, in rebellion against the Creator, does
not come to Him on its own, it is repelled by the light.
I have to confess, when
I go to the eye doctor I am a big baby when he dilates my pupils and “tries” to
shine a bright light into my eye to get a look inside… Jesus, the True Light, is hated by the world.
When we belong to Him, to the degree that we reflect him in our lives, we will
experience some of that as well. Later in this Gospel we read:
"If the world hates you, you
know that it hated Me before it hated you.
19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its
own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
therefore the world hates you” (Jn 15:18-19).
So, Jesus sent them
on without Him, and then, He went on his own, quietly, without fanfare, “…not
openly, but, as it were, in secret…” (10). He is still carrying out the
plan that had been established by the Father.
He is not going to be manipulated or forced into anyone else’s
timetable, He is in control. And the time for the final confrontation
with the Jewish leaders had not yet come. It was not yet his “hour.” *Jesus is God and we are saved by His grace,
we should submit to Him as Lord and desire His glory above all.
III. Who is
this Jesus? Is He truly “good,” or a deceiver? (7:11-13). Who is this man who called himself God? Though many months had passed since His last
visit…
11 The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying,
"Where is he?" 12
And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said,
"He is a good man," others said, "No, he is leading the people
astray." 13 Yet for fear
of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.
There was still a
“buzz” about him, though some time had passed since the unnamed feast of
Chapter 5 and the uproar that resulted from Jesus healing on the Sabbath. 7:23
seems to point to that event—the healing of the man by the side of the pool. That
was quite awhile back, certainly over six months, and they weren’t letting go,
they weren’t forgetting the “offense” of what Jesus said and did. Was it
reignited by the pilgrims streaming into the city, and perhaps some who had
witnessed His ministry in Galilee arriving in Jerusalem and asking about Him?
There were some who saw
Jesus as a “good” man (7:12). That’s ok, but even that did not go far enough
unless you understood the full meaning of the term. Remember the Rich Young Ruler
called Jesus, “Good Teacher.”
Jesus asked, “Why do you call me good, no one is “good” except God
alone…” He was asking, “Do you really understand fully and correctly who I
am? Do you understand that the Messiah
is the Son of God, that is, He is God the Son?” The Eternal Word, who is God,
was made flesh to dwell among us (John 1:1,14). In Him dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. The Psalmist says in Ps 119:68, “You are good and you
do good; teach me your statutes.” It may be that those who were saying
Jesus was a “good man” only had partial understanding at this point.
Others argued that He
was “leading the people astray,” that is, leading them away from the
truth of Scripture and the traditions of the fathers. It is clear that the
Jewish leaders had made up their minds about Jesus, and that it was public
information among the people that anyone who identified openly with him would
be cast out of the synagogue. V.13 says that no one spoke openly about Him,
because of “fear of the Jews.” Again, except for the occasional
Samaritan or Roman, everyone in this story is Jewish, including Jesus and 12
disciples. John is using that term to describe the Judean Jews, and more
specifically, their leaders in Jerusalem. A bit further on during this visit to
Jerusalem, the investigation by the leaders of the healing of a man who had
been born blind, we read about the Jewish authorities investigating the
healing. When they ask the man’s parents if the healed man was indeed their son
and how he was healed, we read in 9:20-22…
20 His parents answered, "We know that this is our son and that
he was born blind. 21 But how
he now sees we do not know, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is
of age. He will speak for himself."22 (His parents said these
things because they feared the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that if
anyone should confess Jesus to be Christ, he was to be put out of
the synagogue.)
The minds of the rulers were made up. Who was this man? An imposter, a
deceiver, or a madman. He came unto His own, and His own people did not
receive Him.
What is God saying to me in this passage? Implicit in this text is a call to examine our own faith. Have
we really recognized who Jesus is? Have we trusted in his finished work as our
only hope of salvation? Why do we struggle with guilt, doubt, fear if we are
saved because of His work on our behalf? Why do we try to tell him what he
should do, rather than allowing him to tell us how we should live? *** If Jesus
is God and we are saved by His grace we should submit to Him as Lord and desire
His glory, not our own.
What would
God have me to do in response to this passage?
1) Be discerning. I hope none of you are ever fooled by a
counterfeit bill and so suffer a loss. Counterfeit faith is much more
dangerous. Overt unbelief that rejects Christ is easy to recognize. The atheist
who would debate us or the adherent to a false religion or cult that would seek
to convert us is easily seen. More subtle is counterfeit faith, that professes
to be “Christian.” It may look like the real thing, it subtly diverges from the
Truth and seeks the glory of self rather than the glory of God. We need to be
immersed in the Word, and given to prayer, and we will be guided by His Spirit.
2) The Feast of Tabernacles was a time of rejoicing for the Jews. We
should rejoice in the truth that Jesus tabernacled among us, that He is God, and
in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. He is good
and He does good. We can trust Him, always. The promises of God are
“Yes” and “Amen” in Christ (2 Cor 1:20).
3) The next couple of chapters occur at the Feast of Tabernacles. We’ve
gone from Passover (in John 6) to Tabernacles, a reminder of God’s faithful
provision as they past through the Wilderness. We know the God who sent the Son
to save us, is with us and will keep us, He is our life, and He will bring us
home. AMEN.
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