7:14 Toward the middle of the week Jesus began teaching publicly in the temple. This verse sets the scene for what follows immediately.
7:15 It was quite common for Jewish males to read and write. The people do not appear to have expressed amazement at Jesus' ability to do that. The Judean Jews (cf. 1:19) marvelled at Jesus' understanding of religious matters (cf. Matt. 7:28-29; Mark 1:22). They knew He had not had a formal theological education under the rabbis (cf. Acts 4:13).
7:16 Jesus responded by explaining that His knowledge had come from the One who had sent Him, namely God the Father (cf. 5:19-30). It had not come from Himself. He meant that His was not knowledge that He had dreamed up or arrived at through independent study. Jewish rabbis normally cited other rabbis as the sources of their information. Jesus avoided giving the impression that He was an inventive upstart, but He also implied that His teaching was not simply the continuation of rabbinic tradition. His teaching did not come from the rabbis or from self-study but directly from God.
"It is characteristic of many of the outstanding men of the Bible that they are convinced that they must do what they are doing, and say what they are saying, because they have received a divine commission."271
7:17 Jesus further claimed that the key to validating His claim that His teaching came from God was a determination to do God's will. The normal way that the rabbis settled such debates was through discussion. However, Jesus taught that the key factor was moral rather than intellectual. If anyone was willing to doGod's will, not just to knowGod's truth, God would enable that one to believe that Jesus' teaching came from above (cf. 6:44). The most important thing then is a commitment to follow God's will. Once a person makes that commitment God begins to convince him or her what is true. Faith must precede reason, not the other way around.
"His hearers had raised the question of his competence as a teacher. He raises the question of their competence as hearers."272
Jesus was not saying that the accuracy of our understanding is in direct proportion to our submission to God. Some very godly people have held some very erroneous views. There are other factors that also determine how accurate our understanding may be. He was not saying that if a person happens to do God's will he or she will automatically understand the origin of Jesus' teaching either. His point was that submission to God rather than intellectual analysis is the foundation for understanding truth, particularly the truth of Jesus' teachings.
"Spiritual understanding is not produced solely by learning facts or procedures, but rather it depends on obedience to known truth. Obedience to God's known will develops discernment between falsehood and truth."273
7:18 The person who advances his or her original ideas will glorify self. That may not be his or her underlying motive, though it often is, but that will be the result. Conversely the one who advances the ideas of another ends up glorifying that person rather than himself or herself. Jesus claimed to do the latter and to desire the glory of the One who sent Him. That desire indicated His righteousness and made it unthinkable that He would be deceiving the people (v. 12).
7:19 Jesus had claimed that God had given Him His teaching and that He proclaimed it faithfully as a righteous man. Now He contrasted His critics with Himself. They claimed that Moses had given them his teaching, but they did not carry it out faithfully as righteous men. Therefore it was incongruous that they sought to kill Jesus (cf. vv. 44-45). They accused Him of unrighteousness, but really they were the unrighteous ones. They sought to kill him even though Moses had taught that God's will was to refrain from murder (Exod. 20:13). Obviously they had not submitted to God's will that came through Moses. It is no wonder that they failed to understand Jesus' teaching.
7:20 Many of Jesus' hearers did not realize the depth of the animosity of Israel's leaders toward Him. They naively thought He was crazy to think that someone was trying to kill Him. The Jews of Jesus' day commonly thought of mental illness, in this case paranoia, as being demon-induced. This explains their reference to Jesus having a demon (cf. 10:20). These people were not charging Jesus with getting His power from Satan, as others had (Matt. 9:34; 10:25; 12:24; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15; cf. Matt. 11:18).274
7:21 The one deed (lit. work, Gr. ergon, i.e., a miraculous work) that He had done to which Jesus referred was evidently the healing of the paralytic at the Bethesda pool (v. 23; 5:1-9). It had caused all who heard of it to marvel (5:10-18). It had begun the controversy about Jesus in Jerusalem.
7:22 The antecedent of "On account of this"or "Yet"(Gr. dia touto) is unclear. It could refer to what precedes. This interpretation would yield a translation such as "you all marvel because of this."275However, John consistently placed this phrase first when he used it in other clauses.276Probably Jesus was referring to His healing of the paralytic (v. 21) as representing God's desire for physical wholeness.
Moses prescribed circumcision for the physical well-being of the Israelites as well as for other reasons (Lev. 12:3). The Jews recognized this and consequently circumcised male infants on the eighth day following their births even if that day was a Sabbath. Normally observant Jews did no work on the Sabbath.
Jesus' parenthetic reference to the fact that the circumcision legislation really began with the patriarchs and not Moses was probably a sleight depreciation of Moses. Jesus' critics claimed to follow Moses faithfully, but in keeping the circumcision law they were not truly honoring him but Abraham (Gen. 17:9-14). Technically Moses only incorporated the circumcision law in the Mosaic Code, as he did many other older laws.
7:23 Jesus' critics permitted an act on the Sabbath that resulted in the health of part of a person, and an infant at that, on the Sabbath. They should not, therefore, object to His healing a whole adult then. Moreover they performed circumcisions regularly on the Sabbath, but Jesus had only healed one man on one Sabbath. Circumcision was an operation designed to insure good health. The circumcised child was not even ill. Jesus on the other hand had healed a man who had suffered with a serious handicap for 38 years. Moreover circumcision was only a purification rite, but healing a paralytic involved deliverance from enslavement. Therefore it was unfair for Jesus' critics to be angry with Him for what He had done.
The Jews had established a hierarchy of activities by which they judged the legitimacy of performing any work on the Sabbath (cf. Matt. 12:9). They based this hierarchy on necessary need, urgency. Jesus also operated from a hierarchical viewpoint, but He based His hierarchy on what was best for people (Mark 2:27).
"Had his opponents understood the implications of the Mosaic provision for circumcision on the Sabbath they would have seen that deeds of mercy such as he has just done were not merely permissible but obligatory. Moses quite understood that some things should be done even on the Sabbath. The Jews had his words but not his meaning."277
7:24 Jesus concluded by warning His hearers against judging superficially (cf. Deut. 16:18-19; Isa. 11:3-4; Zech. 7:9). Their superficial judgment about what was legitimate activity for the Sabbath had resulted in superficial judgment about Jesus' work and person. He told them to stop doing that. They needed to judge on the basis of righteous criteria, what was truly right.
