Skip to main content

Notes on John 7 v1-10

By

John 7:1-10New International Version (NIV)

7 After this, Jesus went around in Galilee. He did not want[a] to go about in Judea because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a way to kill him. 

  • Themes appearing: Persecution and tribulation already in view for Christ and His people.
  • Jesus was hated because he was scandalous to them. He was scandalous because he claimed to come from heaven and that he had to be believed upon for salvation. It was also scandalous because Jesus told them that "no one can come to me unless the Father enables them." This again was offensive to them.  
  • They despised him because he taught that the whole world needed salvation and not just the Gentiles. 
  • They despised the truth of total depravity. This was an offensive doctrine to the self-righteous. They wanted to think that there was something righteous about themselves. 

2 But when the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles was near, 3 Jesus’ brothers said to him, “Leave Galilee and go to Judea, so that your disciples there may see the works you do. 4 No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world.” 5 For even his own brothers did not believe in him.

  • Unbelief and an earthly focus contrast real faith and the Kingdom of Heaven that Christ was preaching. 

  • The disciples believed that more signs would convince people. However, that was there misunderstanding and a sign of their unbelief. No amount of signs would convince the public; only a changed heart wrought by the Holy Spirit. 

  • The disciples do not understand that the first coming of the Lord Jesus was to give himself as a sacrifice. A suffering Messiah was offensive. The idea that it would take God himself to come down from heaven and offer himself as a substitute seemed unacceptable to them. 
6 Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do.7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. 8 You go to the festival. I am not[b] going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come.” 9 After he had said this, he stayed in Galilee.
10 However, after his brothers had left for the festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret.
  • God's providence continues to be seen. Jesus' own life would not be taken prematurely and not by the will of men. God's plan works out in God's timing. We have ability and choice, but God is still in total control, working all things together. 

  • The world hates the Gospel because it addresses sin and evil in each of us. When ever sin is testified to and when we are faithful to the message of the Gospel, we can expect to be hated. Sin hates the light. Humanity hates the light for fear of exposure. We are to continue to share faithfully until our time has come. 

Footnotes:

  1. John 7:1 Some manuscripts not have authority
  2. John 7:8 Some manuscripts not yet

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Berkoff: "The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works. "

By
  The giving of the law did not effect a fundamental change in the religion of Israel, but merely introduced a change in its external form.  The law was not substituted for the promise; neither was faith supplanted by works.  Many of the Israelites, indeed, looked upon the law in a purely legalistic spirit and sought to base their claim to salvation on a scrupulous fulfillment of it as a body of external precepts.  But in the case of those who understood its real nature, who felt the inwardness and spirituality of the law, it served to deepen the sense of sin and to sharpen the conviction that salvation could be expected only from the grace of God . L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 498–499.
Post a Comment
Read more

John Stott on the "old man" and the "body ruled by sin" in Rom 6 v 6

By
  There are, in fact, two quite distinct ways in which the New Testament speaks of crucifixion in relation to holiness. The first is our death to sin through identification with Christ; the second is our death to self through imitation of Christ.  On the one hand, we have been crucified with Christ. But on the other we have crucified (decisively repudiated) our sinful nature with all its desires, so that every day we renew this attitude by taking up our cross and following Christ to crucifixion.  The first is a legal death, a death to the penalty of sin; the second is a moral death, a death to the power of sin.  The first belongs to the past, and is unique and unrepeatable; the second belongs to the present, and is repeatable, even continuous. I died to sin (in Christ) once; I die to self (like Christ) daily. It is with the first of these two deaths that Romans 6 is chiefly concerned, although the first is with a view to the second, and the second cannot take place w...
Post a Comment
Read more

F.F. Bruce: ...know their father's will...

By
The NT does not contain a detailed code of rules for the Christian. Codes of rules, as Paul explains elsewhere, are suited to the period of immaturity when the children of God are still under guardians; but children who have come to years of responsibility know their father’s will without having to be provided with a long list of “Do’s” and “Don’t’s.” What the NT does provide is those basic principles of Christian living which may be applied to varying situations of life as they arise. So, after answering the Corinthian Christians’ question about the eating of food that has been offered to idols, Paul sums up his advice in the words: “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Phrases current in worship, like “to the glory of God” or (as here) “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” were given a practical relevance by being applied to the concerns of ordinary life. Bruce, F. F. (1984). The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the...
Post a Comment
Read more