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.
7:25-26 Though many of the Jewish pilgrims in the temple courtyard did not realize how antagonistic the religious leaders were to Jesus (v. 20), some of the locals did. They marvelled that Jesus was speaking out publicly and the authorities were not opposing Him. They expected that if Jesus was a deceiver they would lock Him up, but if He was the Messiah they would acknowledge Him as such. The authorities acted as they did because they feared the people. The situation led some of the locals to suspect that the leaders might really believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
7:27 The people of Jerusalem felt inclined to disbelieve that Jesus was the Messiah because they believed that their human Messiah's origins would be unknown. This belief was a tradition.278It was certainly not scriptural since the Old Testament clearly predicted that Messiah's birthplace would be Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2). The common understanding of Jesus' origin was that He grew up and had evidently been born in Nazareth. Not only did they fail to perceive His heavenly origin, but they were also wrong about His earthly origin. Indeed they did not know Him very well at all.
7:28-29 Whenever John described Jesus as crying out, an important public pronouncement followed (cf. 1:15; 7:37; 12:44). Jesus said that His hearers did know Him. Probably He meant that they knew who He was superficially (cf. v. 24) and knew that He had an earthly origin (6:42), but they knew less than they thought. Jesus was speaking ironically. They did not know the One who had sent Him, though Jesus did because He had come from that One.
The One who had sent Jesus was true (Gr. alethinos, real). Jesus meant that God really had sent Him regardless of what others might think about His origins. Unfortunately they did not know the One who had sent Him even though they prided themselves on knowing the true God (cf. Rom. 2:17-19). They did not know God because they did not know their Scriptures (cf. 5:46). They did not know Jesus because they did not know the Father who had sent Him. In verse 16 Jesus disclaimed originality for his teaching, and here he disclaimed responsibility for his mission.279
"He was once again claiming to be God! He was not simply borninto this world like any other human; He was sentto earth by the Father. This means that He existed before He was born on the earth."280
7:30-31 Evidently those Jews who tried to seize (Gr. piazo) Jesus did so to restrain Him (cf. vv. 32, 44; 8:20; 10:39). However they could not because His hour (Gr. hora), the time for His crucifixion and its consequences, had not yet arrived. God prevented Jesus' premature arrest. Even though some of the Jews tried to arrest Jesus, many from the multitude believed on Him. Jesus' presence provoked a division among His hearers (cf. 1:11-12; 3:18-21).
Some believed because of the signs that He had performed. This was not a strong basis for faith (cf. 2:11, 23; 4:48). They concluded that He was the Messiah, but the common understanding of Messiah was that He would be a powerful human deliverer. Probably few if any of these Jews believed that Jesus was also God incarnate.
"But throughout this Gospel it is better to believe on the basis of miracles than not to believe at all, so there is no condemnation of this faith as inadequate."281
7:32 The Pharisees heard some of the Jews present voicing their belief that Jesus must be the Messiah. These comments moved them to act immediately to arrest Jesus. When the common people turned to Jesus, they turned away from the Pharisees and their teachings. Together with the chief priests, who were mainly Sadducees and not friendly to the Pharisees, they ordered the temple soldiers to seize Jesus. This attempt illustrates the seriousness of the situation as the authorities viewed it. Probably the arrest warrant came from the Sanhedrin. The temple police were Levites responsible to the Sanhedrin.
7:33-34 Jesus again said that His hour had not yet come, only in different words. When His hour came, He would return to the Father. The Jews would search for Him but be unable to find Him. He was going where they could not come, namely to heaven. Death was not the end. They could not come where He was going in their present condition. That required regeneration and translation (cf. 8:21; 13:33).
Time was running out both for Jesus to finish His work and for the Jews to believe on Him. The Jews had only a little longer to place their faith in Him before He would leave them and depart to heaven. After that, many Jews would seek their Messiah but not find Him. That is what has been happening since Jesus ascended, and it will happen until He returns to the earth at His second coming (Zech. 12:10-13; Rev. 1:7). Jesus was, of course, referring enigmatically to His death.
7:35-36 Again Jesus' hearers thought that He was speaking of physical matters and earthly places. The Dispersion was the term that described the Jews who had scattered from Palestine and were living elsewhere in the world. They thought Jesus was referring to ministering to Jews or perhaps Gentile proselytes who were living outside Palestine. In the New Testament the word "Greek"is synonymous with Gentiles (cf. Col. 3:11). This seemed too fantastic to be a messianic activity.
"Here, as more than once in this Gospel, the Jews are unconsciously prophesying. The departure of Jesus in death would indeed be beneficial, but not because it would remove from the earth a false Messiah, as they supposed, but because, as a result of the proclamation of the gospel which would follow His death and resurrection, Gentiles would be brought into the people of God."282
These Jews did not understand where Jesus was going any more than they understood where He had come from (v. 27). They were so exclusive in their thinking that they thought it very improbable that Jesus would leave Palestine. Ironically the Christian apostles did go to those very areas and people to preach the Christ whom the Jews rejected.
Having announced His departure Jesus proceeded to offer the Holy Spirit for those who believed on Him (cf. chs. 14-16).
7:37 The feast of Tabernacles lasted seven days (cf. Deut. 16:13). However the day following the feast was a day of convocation that the people popularly regarded as part of the feast (cf. Lev. 23:36). Probably John meant the eighth day when he referred to the last, great day since that was the very last day of the festival.
Jesus used the occasion to make another important public proclamation (cf. v. 28). Probably Jesus laid low until this day to avoid arrest and then presented Himself again publicly. He invited anyone who was thirsty spiritually to come to Him and take what would satisfy and sustain him or her (cf. 4:10, 14).
Early each of the seven mornings of the feast the high priest would lead a procession from the Pool of Siloam to the temple. Another priest would first fill a golden ewer with water from the pool. He would then carry it through the Water Gate on the south side of the temple and into the temple courtyard. There he would ceremoniously pour the water into a silver basin on the west side of the brazen altar from which it would flow through a tube to the base of the altar. Many Jews would accompany these priests. Some of them would drink from the pool while others would chant Isaiah 55:1 and 12:3: "Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. Joyously draw water from the springs of salvation."This was such a happy occasion that the Mishnah stated, "He that never has seen the joy of the Water-drawing has never in his life seen joy."283
The priest would then pour water into the basin at the time of the morning sacrifice. Another priest would also pour the daily drink offering of wine into another basin at the same time. Then they would pour the water and the wine out before the Lord. The pouring out of water represented God's provision of water in the wilderness in the past and His provision of refreshment and cleansing in the messianic age. The pouring out of wine symbolized God's bestowal of His Spirit in the last days. Every male present would simultaneously shake his little bundle of willow and myrtle twigs (his lulab) with his right hand and hold a piece of citrus fruit aloft with his left hand. The twigs represented stages of the wilderness journey marked by different kinds of vegetation, and the citrus fruit symbolized the fruit of the Promised Land.284Everyone would also cry, "Give thanks to the Lord!"three times. Worshippers in the temple courtyard would then sing the Hallel (Ps. 113-118).285
This "water rite"had become a part of the Israelites' traditional celebration of the feast of Tabernacles. Essentially it symbolized the fertility and fruitfulness that the rain brought. In the Old Testament, God likened His blessings in the messianic kingdom to the falling of rain (Ezek. 47:1-7; Zech. 13:1). The Jews regarded God's provision of water in the wilderness and rain in the land as harbingers of His great blessings on the nation under Messiah's reign. Thus the water rite in the feast of Tabernacles had strong messianic connotations.
Jesus stood to make His invitation. Normally rabbis sat when they taught. Therefore His standing position as well as His words stressed the importance of what He said. Jesus' claim was all the more impressive because on the eighth day no water was poured out. When Jesus called out His invitation, He was claiming to be the fulfillment of all that the feast of Tabernacles anticipated. He announced that He was the One who could provide messianic blessing, that He was the Messiah. His words compared Himself to the rock in the wilderness that supplied the needs of the Israelites.
7:38 Some commentators believed that the end of Jesus' statement did not occur at the end of this verse but after "Me."286They saw Jesus saying, "If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me, and drink he who believes in Me."This view results in the antecedent of "his innermost being"or "him"being Jesus rather than the believer. This view makes Jesus the source of the living water, which is biblical. However the punctuation in the NASB and NIV probably represents the better translation.287
The antecedent of "his innermost being"or "him"is probably the believer rather than Jesus. This does not mean that Jesus was saying that the believer was the source of the living water. The living water is a reference to the Holy Spirit elsewhere in John, and it is Jesus who pours out the Spirit as living water (4:14). Jesus spoke elsewhere of the living water welling up within the believer (4:14). The idea is not that the Spirit will flow out of the believer to other believers. We are not the source of the Spirit for others. It is rather that the Spirit from Jesus wells up within each believer and gives him or her satisfying spiritual refreshment. Water satisfies thirst and produces fruitfulness, and similarly the Spirit satisfies the inner person and enables us to bear fruit. The Greek expression is ek tes doilias autou(lit. from within his belly). The belly here pictures the center of the believer's personality. It may imply the womb, the sphere of generation.288
There is no specific passage in the Old Testament that contains the same words that Jesus mentioned here. Consequently He must have been summarizing the teaching of the Old Testament (cf. Exod. 16:4; 17; Num. 20; Neh. 8:5-18; Ps. 78:15-16; Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 39:29; Joel 2:28-32; Zech. 14:8).289There the ideas of the Spirit and the law sustaining God's people as manna and water converge. Jesus claimed that He alone could provide the satisfying Spirit. This was an offer of salvation.
7:39 John helped his readers understand that Jesus was referring to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that happened after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, on the day of Pentecost (cf. 15:26; 16:7; Acts 1:5, 8; 2). That outpouring was something that God had not done before. It was similar to what Joel predicted He would do in the last days (Joel 2:28-32; cf. Acts 2:16-21). "Those who believed in Him"includes subsequent believers as well as believers on the day of Pentecost (cf. 1 Cor. 12:13). Jesus announced that the Holy Spirit would come on believers in a new way, namely to baptize, seal, and indwell them. John frequently spoke of Jesus' death, resurrection, ascension, and exaltation as all part of His glorification (11:4; 12:16, 23; 13:31; cf. Phil. 2:8-9).290
7:40-42 Jesus' spectacular offer led some people to conclude that He was the promised Prophet (Deut. 18:15, 18; cf. Acts 3:22) or possibly the Messiah (Christ). Evidently it was His claim to provide living water as Moses provided physical water that led to their associating Jesus with one of those predicted individuals. Formerly Jesus had provided bread as Moses had provided manna (6:14). Apparently these Jews did not equate the Prophet with Messiah. They apparently looked for two separate individuals to come as they seem to have anticipated a suffering servant and a triumphant Messiah in two different people. Others doubted that Jesus was the Messiah because of His apparently Galilean origins. One indication that the Jews expected Messiah to appear soon is the fact that these people could refer to messianic predictions spontaneously.
"Perhaps this is another illustration of Johannine irony, for Jesus wasborn in Bethlehem. The very passage that convinced his critics that he could not be the Messiah was one of the strongest to prove that he was."291
7:43-44 These opinions divided the people then as they still do today. Some of them wanted to arrest Jesus (cf. vv. 30, 32; 8:20; 10:39), but no one did, undoubtedly because such action was contrary to the Father's sovereign will.
This concludes John's account of Jesus' teaching on this occasion.
