John 7:25-36

Division Over Who Jesus Is

25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, "Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from."


28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, "Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me."

30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd put their faith in him. They said, "When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?"

32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.

33 Jesus said, "I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come."

35 The Jews said to one another, "Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Will he go where our people live scattered among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks? 36 What did he mean when he said, 'You will look for me, but you will not find me,' and 'Where I am, you cannot come'?"



Dig Deeper

Where we come from shapes us more than most of us probably realize. It has a great effect on how we think and how we go about most things we do. This can sometimes be a mystery to us because we forget that much of what we are comes from where we came, but it can be an even bigger mystery for those around us who usually have little to no idea about where we came from. Recently, a very good friend of mine lost his rather high-powered job and was busy looking for another one. Some people wondered if it would be a hardship on him because he made a fair amount of money. Would he be able to cope for a while without that income? He told me something very interesting, however, one day. He said that people didn't realize how we grew up. He had come from a small, fairly remote village in Africa and had grown up extremely poor. He wasn't worried in the least about money because of where he had come from. A little hardship was nothing for him. As it turns out, he found another similar job quite quickly and things worked out just fine, but he would have been okay even if they didn't. He had no problem trusting in God and losing some of his material possessions if need be, because of where he came from. Once people knew or remembered that, we understood a lot more about my friend and his situation.

In essence, this is the problem that lies beneath the misunderstanding that Jesus is having with the Jewish leaders and the crowds listening to him teach outside the Temple at the Festival of Tabernacles. They cannot quite understand what he is talking about or what he is doing because they do not understand where he has come from. They think they should be able to figure him out because they think they know where he is from, but that is exactly their problem. He has been telling them all along that he is not from where they think he is. Jesus is not from this world as far as his mission and his will. That all comes from heaven and until they embrace and accept that, they will never understand what Jesus is all about.

There are apparently, three different groups that John identifies in this section. We have "the Jews," which seems to denote the Jewish leadership; we have "the crowd," which was, presumably, primarily made up of pilgrims to Jerusalem during the Festival that seem largely unaware of the controversy between Jesus and the Jews; and now John describes the people of Jerusalem. These were the people that lived in Jerusalem and seem to be a bit more knowledgeable about Jesus and the opposition that he has received from the Jewish leadership. They are the ones that began to wonder aloud if Jesus is the man that the leaders in Jerusalem want to kill. Is this the man, in other words, that has caused the big stir in recent months? They seem to notice a discrepancy. The chief priests and the Pharisees would clearly like Jesus dead and out of the way, but here Jesus is speaking publicly. If they wanted him all they have to do is arrest him. So why aren't they saying anything? Are they afraid? Perhaps, the people reason, the authorities really think that he is the Messiah. That's the only reason that they could think of that would logically keep them from carrying out their plan. Of course, John's readers know already that that is not the case. They would love nothing more than to eliminate Jesus, and they certainly do not believe that he is the true Messiah. The reason that they have not arrested him yet, although unbeknownst to even the Jewish leaders themselves, was that it was not yet his time. His hour had not yet come.

The idea of Jesus being the Messiah simply doesn't fit into the worldview of the Jewish people, though. There was, evidently, a fairly popular belief at the time, although not all Jews believed this, that when the Messiah appeared, he would be born of a woman, but would appear somewhat mysteriously out of nowhere. It was this oral tradition that had no basis in Scripture that was keeping many people from fairly considering whether or not Jesus was the Messiah.

They thought that they knew that he had come from Galilee, and could not then, even be considered to be the Messiah. This is the point that Jesus picks and stresses as he continues to drive the point home that everything he does comes from the Father. They think they know him, they think they know where he comes from, and in one sense they do, but in the more important sense they do not have a clue. When it comes to where Jesus is truly from and where his mission comes from, it has nothing to do with Galilee. They cannot understand what Jesus is doing because they are thinking in purely earthly terms. If they would simply look at the things that Jesus is doing and listen to what he is saying, they would know where he came from, they would know on whose authority he is acting. Jesus is doing works and saying things that only the Father does and says. People generally act like where they came from, so if they would but stop and think, they would truly know that he was the Messiah.

The Jewish leaders understand Jesus' point and once again make an attempt to seize him, but they are kept from doing so, perhaps even miraculously (although not in a way that was obviously noticeable to those present). The people present had already noticed the contradiction between the Jewish leadership's desire to arrest Jesus with the fact that they had not. Perhaps this present effort and failure was enough for many in the crowd to put their faith in Jesus. It's a faith that seems predicated on the fact that Jesus seems to be performing more signs than any other potential Messiah might. It's not a strong faith, but even shaky faith is better than no faith at all.

The Pharisees were much more in the community and able to move about around the common people than the chief priests would have been (the priests and the Pharisees were usually opposed to one another but a common enemy makes strange bedfellows) and so they are down amongst the crowd as they began to whisper that perhaps this strange man from Galilee is the Messiah after all. The Pharisees would not have had any official authority to send the Temple guards but they likely urged the chief priests to do so after informing that public opinion was beginning to sway over to belief in Jesus as the Messiah. The guards go to arrest Jesus but they cannot. He rebuffs them simply by speaking. They will not touch him until his time has truly come.

They might think they can arrest him whenever they would like, but that's not the case. A time is coming when they want to stop him and the power of his teaching even more than they do now, but by then they will not be able to find him. Once again, the Jewish leaders cannot understand Jesus because they are thinking in earthly terms. They don't understand Jesus' message because they cannot understand the place from where he came. They do not know God so they don't recognize Jesus. And just as they don't truly know where Jesus came from they will not ever understand where he is going. He's not going off to teach, or even hide, among the Jewish Greeks spread throughout the world outside of Israel. He is talking of returning to the presence of the Father, a place they can never go in their present state.

The fact that they are puzzled by Jesus' words also seem to make them downright uneasy. What is this man talking about? Does he know something they don't? Is there some meaning behind what he is saying that still eludes them? The Jewish leaders prided themselves as the descendants of Abraham. They were the ones that knew God. Yet, the real problem was not that they did not know about Jesus or didn't understand him. The real problem was that they didn't know about God. They thought they were rejecting Jesus but the truth was they were rejecting God.

Surely, John wants us to hear, in this passage, echoes of the proverbial warning for rejecting wisdom. If they did understand the wisdom that Jesus had brought they would have embraced it. "But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you. Then they will call to me but I will not answer; they will look for me but will not find me" (Proverbs 1:24-28).



Devotional Thought

Jesus felt that it was a significant point that his contemporaries understand that he had come from the Father. He also hinted in several passages like this one that he would be returning to His presence, a place where he still resides to this day. Spend some time today thinking about the significance for us in understanding and embracing that truth. How does it effect our daily lives to know that Jesus is now enthroned in the presence of the Father.