John 8:12-20

This will be the last post until Monday, December 29th.





Dispute Over Jesus' Testimony
12 When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."

13 The Pharisees challenged him, "Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid."

14 Jesus answered, "Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid, for I know where I came from and where I am going. But you have no idea where I come from or where I am going. 15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two witnesses is true. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me."

19 Then they asked him, "Where is your father?"

"You do not know me or my Father," Jesus replied. "If you knew me, you would know my Father also." 20 He spoke these words while teaching in the temple courts near the place where the offerings were put. Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come.



Dig Deeper
A few months ago I had the chance to watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games while my oldest son, my wife and I were in South Africa. The opening ceremony is always an incredible display that seems to transcend the moment. They get bigger, more elaborate, and more impressive each year. The opening ceremonies are especially important because they symbolize all that is supposed to be good about the Olympics. This is the time when the nations of the world forget all of their problems, tensions, and even wars, and look to a time when there is real peace between the nations. After the many dances and incredible performances, it was time for the torch lighting ceremony. The torch lighting ceremony not only signals the opening of the games but it is symbolic of the hope of peace and unity of the Olympic games that will hopefully never be quenched. Imagine if, after all of the pomp and circumstance and ceremony of the opening show, right after they lit the big torch that would burn throughout the games, someone got up and, with their voice booming through a microphone, declared that they were the true flame of peace. They had the only genuine solution to what the world hoped for and what was symbolized by the Olympic games. That would be a heady claim and would be quite a memorable moment.

What Jesus did as the Festival of the Tabernacles drew to a close was every bit as stunning as our imaginary Olympic scene. The Festival of Tabernacles was, in many respects, the biggest festival of the Jewish religion. It was the big moment of the year full of pomp, ceremony, circumstance, and memorable moments. Everything that took place at the Festival meant something that usually hearkened back to God’s glory in the past and looked ahead to His might hand working in the future. Jesus, like any Jew of his day, knew the meaning of the symbols of the Festival quite well and used them to his advantage to teach the people. The hopes that the most awesome moments of the Festival of Tabernacles pointed to, were all embodied in Jesus. In a move just as stunning as someone grabbing a microphone and making such bold claims about themselves during the Olympics, Jesus declares to the people of Jerusalem that he is what they have been waiting for. Everything they hoped for and celebrated during the Festival was right there in front of them if they would only believe.

Verse 12 comes right on the heels of 7:52, which took place on the final morning of the Festival of the Tabernacles. You might have noticed that, in this study guide, we have skipped 7:53-8:11. It’s not a mistake. That section, although inspiring, was clearly not present in any of the earliest manuscripts of John’s Gospel. In fact, it did not appear in any manuscripts until the fifth century, and even then it was only slowly added into the Gospel. Nor did any of the early church leaders seem at all aware of this passage in John until the fifth century. It also appeared in at least five different locations, including after John 7:36, 44, 52, at the end of the Gospel or even after Luke 21:38 (the section clearly interrupts the flow between 7:52 and 8:12). It seems, then that this passage bounced around and may have even come from a non-cannonical work called the Gospel to the Hebrews. Even though it is possible, then, that this passage happened in Jesus’ life, it was clearly not in the original Gospel of John and we cannot rightly ascribe inspiration to that passage. With that in mind, we will pass over that section with no comment and move on to the present passage.

Chapter 7 ended during the morning of the water pouring ceremonies on the last day of the Festival. It is quite possible that verse 12 picks up about eight hours later that evening. The illumination ceremony was, along with the water pouring ceremony, one of the two great moments that took place daily during Tabernacles, although the illumination ceremony began on the second night of the Festival and continued through the end. In Hebrew the illumination ceremony was called simhat Beit ha-Sho’eva, which means the rejoicing at the place of the water drawing. Yet, interestingly it did not occur where the water was drawn but inside the Temple itself, in the area called the Court of the Women (John carefully tells us in verse 20 that this took place in the court where the treasury was located, which was the Court of the Women, giving a strong indication that this scene did indeed take place during or shortly after the lighting ceremony).

The Levites and priests, along with musicians with instruments of all kinds moved from the Court of Men through the Nicanor Gate and down the steps into the Court of Women. As they made their way through the Temple, the processional of people following them would sing songs from Psalms 120 through 134, known as the Psalms of the Ascent. Inside the Court of the Women stood four huge candelabras, which according to the Talmud, towered above the Court, standing 73 feet high. At the top of each candelabra were four bowls for lamps that were filled with oil. Wicks made from the priest’s worn-out robes were carried up ladders by young priests who then lit these giant lights. As they were lit, the entire Temple was illuminated by these candelabras. At the moment that they were lit, the priests and Pharisees picked up torches and danced around with joyous abandon, mimicking the way King David once danced in celebration of God. This jubilant dancing and singing would continue late into the night, until three loud trumpet blasts were sounded. At that moment, the people would all turn to the East and declare, "Our fathers who were in this place stood with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the East and they worshiped. But for us, our eyes are turned to the Lord." This was the way the Jews fulfilled Deuteronomy 16:15 and it’s command to make their joy complete.

The illumination ceremony was far more than just a celebration, though. Like everything else in the Festival of Tabernacles, it had deep and profound meaning. The candle lighting ceremony was a symbol for the Jews of the presence of YHWH, the God of Israel. It was He who, during the time in the wilderness, graciously led the Israelites with His presence through the pillar smoke and cloud during the day and the pillar of fire at night. The light signified the Shekinah glory of God that had once inhabited the Temple, and declared the desire of the Jewish people to see the Temple once again filled with God’s glory.

Imagine, then, that it was at this moment, perhaps just after the candles had been extinguished that Jesus once again declared to be the fulfillment of an element of the Festival. He was the light of the world (the second of Jesus’ "I am" statements in the Gospel of John). He was, in other words, the Shekinah glory, the presence of God, the pillar of fire. He was the one who fulfilled the messianic role of God’s servant in Isaiah, the one who would be the light to the world that Israel was supposed to be, but had failed to do so (Isa. 49:6; 60:1-2). Jesus was in no uncertain terms, claiming to be the Messiah and the very presence of the almighty God, but he was also doing something else. One of the criticisms against Jesus was that he could not be the Messiah because no Messiah would come from Galilee. Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world, pointed directly to Isaiah 9:1-2, "In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations, by the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan— The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned." Jesus was informing them that they were wrong, the Messiah could come from Galilee (John, of course, expects us to put all of this together and see how Jesus was the fulfillment of this passage and Micah 5:2 which intimated that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem). In a fell swoop, Jesus has answered questions about himself and made an incredibly bold claim.

In John 5:31, Jesus claimed that if he served as his own witness, then his testimony could be disregarded. The Pharisees jump on that as a chance to put Jesus on trial and convict him by his own words. Jesus is not contradicting himself, but moving his critics on to a new understanding of who he is. In chapter 5, Jesus descended to human standards and offered other testimony, but now he is showing them that he is the light, and he can testify about himself. It all has to do with the fact that he has come from God’s presence, heaven, and will return there one day soon. Jesus stands as one with the Father, so the Father’s testimony is his, and his testimony is the Father’s. The Law declared that in order for anything to be considered valid, there must be two witnesses, well here thy are. Jesus’ has narrowed down the witnesses that to him matter, he and the Father alone. Yet because he has come from the Father and is one with the Father, then his testimony is just as valid. If they want to follow the law and demand two witnesses, they have them. The Pharisees then demand that Jesus produce this father that will verify his claims, but in doing so they make Jesus’ point. They think they represent God’s interests, but they don’t even know Him, because they don’t know His Son. If they truly knew the Father, they would know that the light of the world was standing in their presence.




Devotional Thought
Can you ever identify with the Pharisees here? Do you truly accept Jesus as the light of the world? It is easy to forget just how deeply the darkness can run through each one of us. It is easy to start out with a calling to be God’s people, but to somehow turn that calling into privilege for ourselves. When we do that, we have rejected the light of the world and embraced our own will rather than God’s.

John 7:40-52

40 On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet."

41 Others said, "He is the Messiah."

Still others asked, "How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David's descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.


Unbelief of the Jewish Leaders
45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, "Why didn't you bring him in?"

46 "No one ever spoke the way this man does," the guards replied.

47 "You mean he has deceived you also?" the Pharisees retorted. 48 "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them."

50 Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, 51 "Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?"

52 They replied, "Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee."



Dig Deeper
It quickly became clear that this guy didn’t want any actual debate, he wanted everyone to agree with him. I was watching a television show that was supposed to be a forum where the host/ moderator asked questions and fostered a debate between himself and his four guests. The topics were usually centered around political and social issues that were quite controversial at the moment. What became painfully obvious after watching the show for just a couple of times, however, was that the host, who was also the creator of the show, did not want real debate. He usually stacked the guests so that anyone who disagreed with his positions would be outnumbered four to one, or at least three to two. Whenever anyone did disagree with the host, though, he would not actually challenge their position in a logical manner. He would generally resort to calling them hicks, idiots, simpletons, or something similar. Anyone who held differing political or social views would also incur his wrath and be subject to his name calling. He didn’t want real debate or a truly open marketplace of ideas, he wanted allegiance to his ideas and he would basically attempt to intimidate and belittle anyone who might dare disagree with him.

Whether they liked it or not, the chief priests and the Pharisees simply could not control public opinion. They were certainly very influential but they couldn’t determine what each and every person might believe about Jesus. It certainly seems that, above all else, they didn’t want to investigate Jesus’ claims and have an open and public discourse with him. That might be too risky and definitely would be too hard to control. What they would do instead is what so many people like that television talk show host did. They sought to discount, intimidate, and belittle anyone who might cross them or think differently. Perhaps using the authority and influence they did have, to intimidate people, would keep belief in this dangerous man to a minimum.

The danger, of course, was coming from the fact that some people were beginning to believe in Jesus, despite his difficult and challenging words. The reaction of the crowds and people of Jerusalem was all across the board, as reactions to Jesus continue to be to this day. Some thought he was demon-possessed, some thought he was worthy of death, some thought he might be the Messiah, and some were now saying, "surely this man is the Prophet," while others said, "He is the Messiah." This was actually two different lines of thought, as most Jews in the first century, though certainly not all, believed that the Prophet of Deuteronomy 18:15-18 and the Messiah were two different figures.

It is of great importance to John that these people came to belief in Jesus based solely on faith in his words. There were no great signs that convinced them. It was simply the power of what he was saying. John uses the theme of belief in Jesus’ word throughout his gospel. Jesus was the logos, the word that had become flesh. The matter of belief in his life, for John, comes down to whether or not people will have faith in the words, the logos of Jesus (Jn. 2:22; 4:39-41, 50; 5:24, 37-38; 6:60; 8:31-32, 37, 43, 51, 55; 10:19; 12:48; 17:14, 17; 20:29) or are they looking for something more, something more in line with their expectations.

The response to the idea that Jesus is might actually be the Messiah, shows just how varied the beliefs in the Messiah were in the first century and how across-the-board the reactions to Jesus were. Earlier, some had disavowed that Jesus could be the Messiah because no one would no where he came from (7:27). Now the objection is that it was well known that Jesus had come from Galilee. He couldn’t be the Messiah because he was from Galilee in the minds of some. Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem? (Likely they were referring to Scriptures such as 1 Sam. 20:6; 2 Sam. 7:12; Ps. 89:3-4; Mic. 5:2). John surely expects that his readers are familiar with the other Gospels and the fact that Jesus was, in fact, born in Bethlehem but grew up in Galilee. Thus, the objection raised here is actually confirmation of his Messianic claim. The real issue is not where Jesus was born, however, but whether or not they would have faith in him. The reactions remained mixed. Some believed, others wanted to get rid of him, but his time had not yet come so no one laid a hand on him.

The Temple guards, who were sent to arrest Jesus, were those who didn’t lay a hand on him. John takes special care to draw attention to the fact that they weren’t rebuffed because the venue was too public or because those who favored Jesus protected him and repelled the guards. No, they were deterred simply by the power of his words. These were no simple muscle head guards, by the way. The Temple guards were chosen from among the Levites. They would not have had the Scriptural knowledge of the priests themselves, but they were trained in the Torah and they would have heard all kinds of teachers and rabbinical debates. They were fairly well-schooled men who stood awestruck at Jesus’ words in such a way that they were rendered incapable of doing their job. They had never heard anyone speak the way that Jesus did. We aren’t told that any of them specifically came to faith but they were certainly struck by hearing Jesus’ words, and as Paul would later write, faith comes from hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17).

The guards have just given high praise to Jesus’ words but the chief priests and Pharisees want no part of it. They don’t ask what he said that might have been so convincing, nor do they go and investigate for themselves. They won’t even consider what Jesus has to say. This response is sadly mimicked by many today who reject the entire concept of Jesus as Lord without ever actually knowing much about what he said or what he truly called his followers to be. The Jewish leaders, though, rather than considering Jesus’ words resort to intimidation and minimizing the credibility of those who believe in Jesus. Their immediate question insinuates that those who believe have only been deceived, the guards have not been tricked as well have they? After all, the people who really know their stuff, the true experts in the Scriptures, you don’t see any of them being so foolish as to believe in this drivel.

This is not an appeal based on fact or proof that Jesus was not the Messiah, but simply the dismissive attitude that the really smart people didn’t believe in him so why would the guards. They next turn to the tactic of heaping insults, scorn, and abuse on the crowds that are believing. They are not experts. They don’t know anything. They are a mob that knows nothing of the law. They are the very ones who have brought all of the trouble on Israel in the first place. They don’t know the law, therefore they don’t follow the law in the proper way that the Pharisees and the chief priests do, so they are under a curse anyway. Why would anyone want to side with a bunch of superstitious, ignorant fools? The irony is that it is God who makes the wisdom of the world look foolish (1 Cor. 1:20). The leaders who are so sure of their own wisdom and knowledge of the Scriptures are the very ones that are missing the boat. The ones that they are accusing of being foolish and under a curse are the ones who actually have the opportunity to find and embrace the truth.

Just when we think that the Jewish leaders are at their most condescending, we are re-introduced to Nicodemus who we have not heard of since his encounter with Jesus in chapter 3. Nicodemus came to Jesus in the dark during that incident but now perhaps he has stepped into the twilight, so to speak. He was, as we learned in chapter 3, a Pharisee and a member of the Jewish ruling council; he was one of their own number. Nicodemus certainly doesn’t make any grand statement of faith at this point or number himself among Jesus’ disciples but he does call for fairness based on the common ground respect for the law that they share. He has, perhaps seen the hypocrisy of the others and is not impressed. They have made a judgment on Jesus without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing as the law demands. He has exposed that the supposed guardians of the law do not hold themselves to the law. Rather than listening to Nicodemus’ appeal for law-abiding and cautious behavior, they resort to the same tactics of intimidation and belittlement that they used on the guards. Why would Nicodemus stick up for this would-be Messiah? Is he from Galilee too (a modern-day equivalent would be like asking someone in America if they are a hillbilly from West Virginia or someone in Africa if they are a villager from Cameroon)? In their anger, they retort that a prophet does not come out of Galilee. In their haste they demonstrate that despite their alleged expertise, they have made an error, for Jonah came from Galilee (2 Ki. 14:25) and possibly so did Elijah (1 Ki. 17:1) and Nahum (Nah. 1:1). The so-called experts have appealed to their earthly wisdom, but are wrong on nearly every single point.



Devotional Thought
The Jewish leaders met the growing belief in Jesus with intellectual intimidation, scorn, and by heaping abuse on those who would believe. Those same tactics of intimidation and abuse are often used against Christians today where the world often accuses Christians of being superstitious, foolish, backwards, or just plain idiotic. Are you ever tempted to cower from those attacks? Can you get intimidated by the "intellectual" prowess of those who criticize your faith? The way to truth that is found in Jesus is based on belief in his word not what the intellectuals of the day are saying. Be confident of that and don’t waver in the face of criticism.

John 7:37-39

37 On the last and greatest day of the Festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.


Dig Deeper

I realized the other day just how spoiled we are. I was standing in my bathroom, having just flushed the toilet. I ran the water in my sink quickly as I brushed my teeth and then flipped on the shower. All the while, I had a glass full of water on the counter that I was drinking from. We tend to take water for granted in our society. It is everywhere and we don't even have to think about it. We are so comfortable with the over-abundance of water that we have, that most of us can leave the water running in a sink while we go do something else and not really even consider how wasteful it is. Water is simply not a concern for us (at least for those of us in the United States), whether it be something we worry about having, or something we think about needing to be thankful to God for.

That was not the case in Israel in ancient times. Water could be scarce and hard to come by. Times of drought would be devastating, causing many people to lose their lives. The need for water was quite simply a matter a life and death for the people of biblical times, especially for the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. They came to see the provision of water as something that was directly connected with God's provision for them as His people. The vital need for water became a main concern for the Jewish people, as for most of the people that surrounded them, and instigated a great deal of prayers and thanksgiving during harvest time for the continued provision of water.

The Festival of Tabernacles was, when you boil it all down, a ceremony of joy, celebrating the harvest and God's provision for his children. Israel was commanded to celebrate God's gracious provision through the harvest in Deuteronomy 16:13-15: "Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Be joyful at your Festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. For seven days celebrate the Festival to the LORD your God at the place the LORD will choose. For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete." Above all else, the Festival of Tabernacles celebrated with all joy the fact that God would always provide everything that His people truly needed. What could be more fitting than to celebrate the fact that "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit" (Lev. 26:3-4).

The Festival of Tabernacles began each morning at the crack of dawn with one of two very symbolic acts (we will discuss the second of these in 8:12) that Jesus would pick up on and use to teach about who he is and what he was doing. Every morning a grand procession of priests, musicians, and other worshipers would wind their way the full half-mile from the Temple to the pool of Siloam. The High Priest would dip a golden pitcher into the pool and then return to the Temple where the trumpet players would play three loud blasts on silver trumpets. At that moment the priests would cry out from Isaiah 12:3: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." The High Priest would then slowly ascend to the top of the altar via the ramp where he would pour the water from the pool of Siloam into one silver basin and wine into another silver basin. As he was pouring, the trumpet players would sound off three more blasts on the trumpets. Then the whole congregation would sing from Psalm 118. This Psalm was part of the hallel, the Psalms of praise from 113-118. Psalm 118 speaks of God's deliverance for His people in the past and His sure salvation in the future. It looked forward to the time when God would finally deliver His people once-for-all and dwell with them forever. It reaches a crescendo in 118:24-25, which says, "The LORD has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad. LORD, save us! LORD, grant us success!"

The Festival itself began as a seven-day Festival but there came to be an eighth day that was associated with the Festival but could also be spoken of separately (Lev. 23:36). It appears, though, that the seventh day was still spoken of as the last and greatest day of the Festival. The last day of the Festival was called Hoshana Rabbah. Hoshana Rabbah means "Lord, save us," a reference to Psalm 118:25. The seventh day of the Festival was a bit different from the previous six days. On the seventh day, the altar was circled seven times and the three trumpet blasts were sounded seven times. During each circuit around the altar, the crowd would shout, "Please bring salvation now. Please, God, please, save and bring salvation now!" With each time around the altar, sounds of the chants would grow louder and more intense. All of this pointed back to the conquest of Jericho and the deliverance of God's people from their enemies. There was certainly a sense of being delivered from their enemies in all of this, but even more importantly, there was hope that when the Messiah came, he would bring the salvation and deliverance that they so longed for.

We can imagine thousands of pilgrims and devout Jews singing together, watching the life-giving water flow into the basin as an appeal to God for continued deliverance and thanksgiving for His past provision, and shouting, "Lord, save us." The last of the seven circuits is made in a crescendo of jubilation. It is time to make their joy complete (Deut. 13:15). It is at this moment, perhaps, that Jesus steps up and cries out in a loud voice so that all can hear, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them." When we understand all that is going on at the moment that Jesus utters these words, they suddenly leap off the page. All that they are celebrating and hoping for, Jesus is saying, is right there. It is him. The word has become flesh and contains all of the hopes of the people of God.

When Jesus declared that Scripture has said all of this, he is not referring to one passage in particular. He means that there are a combination of Scriptures that delivered the ideas that he has put forth, no one text has these particular words. The Festival of Tabernacles was associated with rainfall as a provision from God (Zech. 14:16-17) but it pointed to a time when all those who thirsted could come drink forever form the Lord's provision (Isa. 55:1). Isaiah 12:3, another passage associated with the Festival looked forward to drawing from the wells of God's salvation. Psalms 42-43 speak of thirsting for God as the only source that will truly quench the thirst of those who love Him. A key passage from which Jesus undoubtedly draws is Ezekiel 47 which points to a time when Jerusalem will be brought back once-and-for-all from it's exile. Ezekiel says that a new river will flow from under the Temple and will completely renew and bring life to the entire land. This is the same picture that John uses in Revelation 22 for his description of the New Jerusalem as it comes from God's presence into the earthly realm.

The Old Testament also has many prophecies that foretold of a time when God would pour out his Spirit like water: "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants" (Isa. 44:3; see also Ezek. 36:25-27; Joel 2:28). It is to all of this that Jesus appeals as his witness in Scripture. The Festival of Tabernacles looked forward to the ingathering, the harvest when all people would be brought under the reign of the Messiah through the outpouring of God's Spirit. It would be the coming of God's Kingdom. Jesus has boldly gathered all of that imagery and pointed it squarely to himself.

Jesus uses the specific term "living water," which was distinctive from the stagnant and dead water found in ponds or pools. Living water was water that moved and brought life to everything. He is not calling them to be dead pools that take in God's provisions and store it up for themselves. No, if they drink from his life they will have God's Spirit welling up inside of them, pouring out like a river, overflowing out of their life and into others around them. The pilgrims at the Festival prayed for rain and the time of the resurrection of the dead, well, this was indeed the moment of water and new life. That's what this is all about, life. As Jesus told the Samaritan women at the well, the water that Jesus is offering is "a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The good news for the pilgrims at the Temple that day, and for us, is that they didn't have to wait anymore. They no longer needed a celebration that pointed ahead to what God was going to do one day. That day had come and is still here.








Devotional Thought

The Essenes were a sect of Jesus' time that were serious about being God's people. They were so serious that withdrew from society at large to Qu'mran so as to keep themselves pure from the rest of society. The problem is that societies like that, no matter how well meaning, become stagnant and usually don't impact society around them at all. Jesus said that his followers would have an overflow of the living water that would effect everyone around those who would drink of him. Is your life more like a stagnant pond or a river flowing with the waters of life that bring nourishment and healing to everyone around you? Make a renewed effort to let the living water flow through you and into the lives of those in your life.

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.

John 7:14-24

Jesus Teaches at the Festival

14 Not until halfway through the Festival did Jesus go up to the temple courts and begin to teach. 15 The Jews there were amazed and asked, "How did this man get such learning without having been taught?"

16 Jesus answered, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. 17 Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own. 18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?"

20 "You are demon-possessed," the crowd answered. "Who is trying to kill you?"

21 Jesus said to them, "I did one miracle, and you are all amazed. 22 Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a boy on the Sabbath. 23 Now if a boy can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing a man's whole body on the Sabbath? 24 Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly."



Dig Deeper

I once had a friend that led the singles ministry in his church. We were having a long conversation about different aspects of the ministry especially as it related to working with single people. He pointed out that one of the constant complaints that he heard from the young men in his ministry was that there just weren't any single ladies available in their particular Christian community to date. He thought this was an odd complaint because there were actually a lot of incredibly spiritual single women that were available and willing to enter into a dating relationship with Christian men. He said that all of the men claimed that they wanted to find someone who was especially spiritual, but he just didn't believe that that was the case. I thought that perhaps he was being a little hard on the young men until he recounted a bemusing incident. A young lady that had left God and their church quite a while before had begun to come back into the fellowship. She was still going through a lot of spiritual struggles but she was officially welcomed back into the community one Sunday. The thing about this young lady was, that despite her spiritual struggles, she was extremely beautiful. My friend chuckled as he recounted how all the single men in the church nearly tripped over one another as they made their way to "encourage" this sister by asking her out on a date. They had all claimed that they wanted to date spiritually strong and focused women, but they failed to notice sisters like that all around them, because that really wasn't what they wanted, truth be told.

Jesus has stressed over and again that he is only doing what the Father has sent him to do. He does not do his own work, he doesn't testify about himself, and he doesn't even speak his own words. Everything that he does comes directly from the Father. Just as surely as the Father sent him, people can only come to him if the same Father testified about him and sent people to him through his word. This is exactly what Jesus said the Father had done. Yet, there was a problem. The people of Israel had waited for God to send his Messiah. They said that that was what they wanted. Now he was here, but they were soundly rejecting him. The reality was that, despite their claims, they didn't really want and weren't really looking for what God was doing. If they did, they would accept his teachings. What they claimed to have wanted was right there in their midst, but that wasn't really what they wanted, truth be told.

Jesus finally did go up to the festival in Jerusalem but he intentionally did not go with the pilgrims and did not go as a public part of his ministry. He began to teach, presumably in one of the outer porticoes of the Temple but probably not in the Temple itself where the festival of Tabernacles was still being observed. As Jesus enters into Jerusalem and begins to teach, there are two concerns or questions that are raised. The first was brought up in verse 12. Jesus was a teacher that was deceiving the people. This doesn't sound like a significant charge, but it was in Judaism. Beginning in Deuteronomy 13, and continuing throughout the Old Testament, Israel was warned that false teachers and prophets would come, testing them to find out whether they truly loved the Lord their God. They were to adamantly reject these false teachers and anyone associated with them. They were, in fact, to destroy the false teachers with impunity. Deceiving God's people was a serious charge, worthy of death, and would not be tolerated.

The other issue at hand is how did this man get such learning without having been taught. It would not have been unique for a Jewish man to know the Scriptures well, in fact that would have been expected. What was disconcerting to the Jewish leaders was how Jesus could apparently teach the Scriptures and ask pointed questions the way only a well-trained rabbi or Pharisee could. He hadn't been trained by anyone that they knew of, so where did all of this ability and knowledge come from? In addition to that, no Jewish teacher or rabbi would ever claim that his knowledge was original to himself. They would always appeal to other authorities or rabbis but Jesus did not offer any such verification except to say that he was telling the truth and had come from the Father.

Yet, his teachings were not his own. In the Judaism of his time, Jesus would have been immediately rejected if he had made such a claim. He had no mentor or rabbi to appeal to, his teachings came directly from God. Thus, Jesus was claiming that his teachings were not those of another rabbi but was direct knowledge from the Father himself. He was no false teacher, they were deceived listeners.

You see, it all comes down to the will of the Father. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose, at the behest of the Serpent, to do their own will rather than God's. When you boil it all down, sin is simply doing our own will rather than God's. The long, sad history of a sinful world is the history of human beings doing their own will rather than doing the will of the God who made us. Verse 17 is the key to what Jesus is saying here. Those who really are interested in doing the will of the Father rather than their own will, will accept Jesus' teachings and recognize that they come from the Father. Those who reject Jesus' teachings, do so because, when it comes right down to it, they would rather do what they will rather than God's will. It should come as no surprise that the motto of one of the most sinister and evil (yet also one of the most well-followed with self-proclaimed disciples from the members of the Beatles to Timothy Leary who began the drug revolution in America) Satanists of the 20th century, Alesiter Crowley, was "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."

The reality is that when people do their own will, they are doing for their own personal gain or glory. When people reject God by rejecting Jesus, they were exalting their own desires and will over that of the Father's. In contrast, nothing Jesus did was out of his own will. His brothers wanted him to be exactly the kind of religious leader that gained personal glory and did things that were beneficial to him. Jesus wanted none of that. He was not doing things that were personally beneficial, quite the opposite. False prophets and teachers almost always engage in teachings that benefit them personally. Jesus, though, was doing things that benefited the Father and followed His will. In fact, any version of Christian or religious teachings that are based mostly on benefiting the individual, with only a thin veneer of doing God's will, will be clearly false to those who truly seek the will of God rather than their own benefit.

The main problem with clinging to our own will and things that are comfortable to or benefit ourselves, is that when we put a value on things of this age, we discount the values of the things of the new creation. Jesus' critics could not recognize the new creation that the Father was enacting through Jesus' words because they were holding too tightly to the old. One simply must die to themselves and their own will in order to recognize, appreciate, and embrace the values of the age to come and the will of God when we encounter it.

They have so embraced the old to the exclusion of the new that they have failed to accurately see that they have never, and never truly could uphold the law. The leaders themselves have demonstrated that they are incapable of keeping the law by the fact that they have plotted to kill Jesus. Moses gave them the law, they have not kept it, but now they want to kill him for supposedly breaking it (we can infer that this conversation has to do with the controversy still boiling over the man from chapter 5 that Jesus healed). The crowd, made up of primarily pilgrims, claim to know nothing of this plot and accuse Jesus of the blind ramblings of a demon-possessed man.

Jesus puts the whole issue in perspective by appealing all the way back to Moses. He had given two commandments that could apparently come into contradiction. Jews were supposed to keep the Sabbath but also circumcise their sons on the eighth day. What if those days coincided? It had been decided that it was permissible to perform the circumcision because it was the greater good. How then could they argue against healing a man completely on the Sabbath? They were clinging so tightly to the old order of doing things, that when a moment of the new creation broke in as Jesus healed this man, they simply refused to comprehend the truth. If they had judged the situation correctly they would have realized that Jesus was fulfilling the purposes of God not breaking them. This demonstrates the truth that it is quite possible to hold so tightly to faulty ideas, as religious as they might sound, that we can miss the truth, even when it is right in front of our face.



Devotiional Thought

Have you ever been tempted to be like the Jewish leaders here and emphasize a rule or tradition over the greater good of enabling God's new creation to break through in someone's life? Standards and beliefs are good but they must be tempered, balanced and placed in proper relation to God's overall purposes of reconciling people to Himself through His community of those who have entered into the life of Christ.

John 7:1-13

Jesus Goes to the Festival of Tabernacles

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

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 going up to this Festival, because my time has not yet fully come." 9 Having said this, he stayed in Galilee.

10 However, after his brothers had left for the Festival, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. 11 Now at the Festival the Jewish leaders were watching for Jesus and asking, "Where is he?"

12 Among the crowds there was widespread whispering about him. Some said, "He is a good man."

Others replied, "No, he deceives the people." 13 But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the leaders.



Dig Deeper

It was a special day and the bride and groom couldn't just go walking around on the stage once the guests started arriving. They had been up there earlier quite a bit for different reasons to get ready for the wedding, but once everything was set, timing was everything. This was especially true of the bride. Imagine the disappointment of all of the honored guests if the bride had suddenly sauntered out to adjust some flowers on the stage or to go over one more time where she would stand. Other people, even people in the wedding party, could and did go down the aisle and even up on the stage for various reasons and nobody much cared or noticed but the bride simply could not do that. When she came down the aisle it meant something. When the time was right, though, the attendants proceeded down the aisle, everyone took there places, and then with a dramatic pause, the music began. The time was now. The doors swung open and the bride appeared. Everyone knew that the wedding had officially begun. All the signs were in place and now the bride had arrived.

Although this isn't a perfect analogy, they never are, it does help to keep this concept in mind as we read through this passage. Jesus wasn't just running around Israel making things up as he went along. He had a plan, and there was specific timing and specific symbolism involved. It just wouldn't do for him to saunter into Jerusalem, get the Jewish leaders angry, and be put to death. Nothing In Jesus' life just happened without forethought and meaning. He carefully followed the will of the Father. There was a timing and a reason to everything he did, and whether or not he would go to Jerusalem during the festival of the Tabernacles was included in that. There were many things about this festival that did point to the Messiah and John will make that fairly clear, but the ultimate timing involved Passover. The death of the Lamb of God had a Passover flavor to it, not the festival of Tabernacles. When the Messiah arrived in Jerusalem with all of the attention and fanfare that demonstrated that what he was going to do was at that moment, must hap[pen during Passover. Here is the major difference between the wedding analogy and what we see here. The bride remains safely hidden from the eyes of the guests until the wedding begins. Jesus would go to Jerusalem this time, but in a way that made it very clearly that this was not the big moment. The time for that simply hadn't come yet.

John's, "after this", doesn't mean it happened immediately. In fact, the time period that passed between Passover (6:4) and this incident would have been about six months. This demonstrates that John isn't writing a complete blow-by-blow history of Jesus' ministry but recording what is necessary so that people might come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah (20:31). John doesn't tell us precisely what Jesus had been doing during this time, but he does stress that Jesus had stayed out of Judea, for the most part, because the Jewish leaders were constantly seeking to kill him. John does tell us that he "went around" in Galilee, using a word that indicated the actions of a rabbi or sage walking among the people and teaching. Since Galilee was ruled by Herod Antipas and Judea by the Roman Governor, staying in Galilee would have provided Jesus a certain amount of protection.

As this scene unfolds, it is obvious that there is a basic conflict between Jesus and his brothers. They simply don't understand what he is doing. Whether they thought he might be the Messiah or not, they certainly didn't understand what sort of Messiah he was going to be, so John uses their misunderstanding to show us exactly what shape his Messiahship will take. His brothers want him to go to Jerusalem for the festival. If he is truly going to be a public figure, a public Messiah, then the issue must be settled in Jerusalem. That's where he is going to really gain the most attention and the most followers. It's quite possible, in fact, that his group of followers remained relatively small since the events of chapter 6. He has been doing some incredible things, which his brothers seem to accept that he has, but how will anyone know? How can he truly be the Messiah of the whole nation if he continues in the relative secrecy of Galilee? They disapproved of Jesus' handling of the situation. If he was the Messiah, then he needed to step up and prove it in the only place that mattered for such things. They simply could not conceive of a Messiah that would be largely unpopular. In that sense, his brothers, to this point, have the same attitude as the crowd of 6:15 who wanted to make Jesus king, or even Satan who tried to lure Jesus into a form of Messianic fulfillment that would be self-aggrandizing (Mt. 4:5-7).

They didn't understand the full impact of what they were asking Jesus to do. If he was going to do something, it might as well be now. But they had no divine mission. They had no commission from God to fulfill a specific role. The world wouldn't reject them (hate them) because they were very much of the world. They were still stuck in the same small pattern of expectations that the world was, so it would have no reason to reject them. Jesus, though, had opposed the values and reality of the world with everything that he had said and done, and the world would simply not accept that.

Jesus tells his brothers to go to the Festival whenever they like, because what they do is not that important in the grand scheme of things. If they went up with the regular band of pilgrims, it would not mean anything (we get the idea from Luke 2 that these pilgrim caravans could be quite large as it took Joseph and Mary an entire day to figure out that the twelve-year old Jesus was not with the group). Jesus, however had a specific time. His work had to be completed and his time had not yet fully come. John doesn't explain explicitly why this would not yet qualify as his time, but he has already given us several hints that Jesus' hour would be at Passover time, not the festival of Tabernacles. Like a bride coming down the aisle, the timing and attention were of vital importance. Jesus simply could not make a spectacle of traveling to Jerusalem in a Messianic fashion yet. The timing was not right. He had more of the Father's work to complete.

This leaves us with a bit of puzzle, though. Jesus appears to say that he is not going to Jerusalem, but then he turns right around and does exactly what he seemingly just said he was not going to do. What Jesus appears to be declining, however is the option of going up with the regular band of pilgrims. He will not go with the caravan, making their way to Jerusalem to observe the festival of Tabernacles in the traditional manner. Jesus will not do that. He will not meet the expectations of the public and the Jewish leaders, who were evidently expecting that he would make the most of this very public opportunity.

Rather than doing what might have been expected, Jesus waits. He goes by himself, in relative secrecy (that doesn't imply that he snuck around or wore a disguise, simply that he did not go publicly with a great deal of fanfare). We could almost say that Jesus won't be making an "official Messianic" visit to the holy city of God. He will go and he will teach but it is not yet time for the new Exodus that Luke will describe as Jesus quite deliberately and publicly makes his way to Jerusalem before the Passover which would mark his death.

John tells us that the crowds were quite split on their perceptions of Jesus. Some thought he was a good man, while others charged him with deceiving people, in essence, making him a false prophet, a charge worthy of death in ancient Israel. Regardless of how they felt, however, no one wanted to say much of anything publicly. The risk was simply too great.

What John has given us as this scene opens is a picture of a Messiah who is on a very specific mission. He is not being tossed around, back and forth, by the whims and wills of the Jewish leaders, the Romans, or even Satan. The Word has become flesh to do only what the Father has sent him to do. His mission is not a haphazard one of random teachings and miraculous signs that resulted in his tragic and untimely death. No, everything he was doing was pointing to his death. The new creation was coming, but it would somehow come, strangely enough, through his own death (this is precisely the point that so many of his own disciples simply could not understand). Jesus would complete his work and go to his death, but that would not happen until his hour had come. His life would not be taken until he laid it down.



Devotional Thought

Does Jesus' careful thought, planning, and timing inspire you at all? Do you carefully think through your spiritual life and growth or even opportunities to evangelize the lost in your life the way that Jesus did? We certainly don't have the same type of specific commission from God that Jesus did, but we do all share a commission to demonstrate a life reconciled to God and to call others to that life. Make some efforts this week to consider the careful thought that went into each of Jesus' actions and learn and apply what you can to your own life.

John 6:60-71

Many Disciples Desert Jesus

60 On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?"

61 Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, "Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! 63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life. 64 Yet there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. 65 He went on to say, "This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them."

66 From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

67 "You do not want to leave too, do you?" Jesus asked the Twelve.

68 Simon Peter answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God."

70 Then Jesus replied, "Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" 71 (He meant Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, who, though one of the Twelve, was later to betray him.)



Dig Deeper

When I was still in college, I found what seemed to be an incredible job opportunity. It was working for a company that made and sold very high quality but also very expensive knives. The cool thing seemed to be in the fact that it wasn't a store. All of the sales were made through in-home demonstrations. This meant there were no set hours, I could make my own schedule, and I would be making straight commission, which could be rather lucrative with the price of these knives. After a little research I discovered that this place was legitimate and that there were a lot of people who had made a lot of money working in sales for this corporation. It seemed perfect for the first few weeks. I went and did demonstrations in the homes of my friends and family members and made quite a few sales and quite a bit of money. Then I went to a sales conference and heard what it was really going to take to be successful in the long term in this corporation. It would take me gathering names and phone numbers from my friends and family members and calling people I didn't know at all and making appointments with them and trying to sell to them. It would, they told us, take a total dedication to selling knives. That must become the most important thing to us if we really wanted to be successful. I recall leaving that conference and telling our supervisor as we traveled home that I was done. I just didn't understand, I told him. He wanted to know what I didn't understand, and it was then that I explained that it wasn't that I didn't comprehend, it was that I didn't understand why someone would want to commit like that to selling knives. I knew perfectly well what they were calling us to do, I just wanted no part of it. It was way too demanding.

This whole discourse that continues on through the end of this chapter began with the crowds looking for Jesus. Well, they've certainly found him. Only he isn't giving them the sorts of signs and teachings that they particularly wanted. They want something that would benefit them and meet their expectations, but now he is talking about being from heaven and hinting that he is going to suffer and die and that they will have to benefit from that and find him as their whole source of sustenance if they want eternal life. This is not at all what they were looking for. Oh, they understand the important aspects of what Jesus is saying (even if they don't understand every detail) but most of them wanted no part of it. It was way too demanding.

We find out in verse 60 that the ones arguing about Jesus' words here and now the ones that are grumbling openly (an act which connects them once again to the people of the Exodus who complained and grumbled against Moses' leadership and, ultimately, against God) about it. They complain that what Jesus has just told them is a hard teaching. They language here, in the original Greek, does not mean that they couldn't comprehend what Jesus was saying, it is actually more along the lines of saying, "this is an offensive teaching." How could he stand there and call Jews that were loyal to God and the Torah (Scriptures) and tell them that everything they needed for life would come through him? They wanted some kingly leader that would throw off the oppression of the Romans, not some guy who was talking of his own death and saying that they would have to benefit from it somehow in order to be part of the resurrection and the age to come.

Jesus knew they were grumbling, just as God knew the hearts of the Israelites in the wilderness, and asks them if they are offended. The issue is basically that they do not understand who it is that has been speaking to them. They were unwilling to surrender control of their lives to Jesus, but that is because they were unwilling to accept who he might really be. What if they were to see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before? Would that convince them or would it just offend them more? Where was he before? In God's presence in the realm of heaven. When Christ returns there through his death, resurrection and ascension, which is often viewed by John as one theological event, what will their response be then? If they could only humble themselves to the fact that the one they have been following really is from heaven and really will return there, they might be convinced.

They are so focused on their earthly expectations and demands that they are missing the spiritual truths being laid out before them. Jesus is speaking of things that can only come through understanding things at a spiritual rather than natural level. His words are full of spirit and life but their hearts are full of the flesh and death. The implication is that they will not accept the things of the Spirit and the life he is offering because they will not accept the Spirit. When they reject Jesus' teachings, they are rejecting God's Holy Spirit.

All of this comes as no surprise to Jesus, however, John tells us. He knew from the beginning that that some would not believe and that some would betray him. John is not telling us that Jesus was just really insightful and discerning. He means to relay to us that behind Jesus' statement "there are some of you who do not believe," there was divine insight. Jesus knew all along who would believe and who would not. This does, however, imply that these people did not have free will or the choice to believe or not believe. The fact that God has foreknowledge of all things does not mean that they are predetermined or that humans have no free will.

Jesus has already stated and now reiterates the fact that no one can come to him unless the Father has enabled them. All humans are slaves to sin and stuck in that slavery without the real possibility of coming to God or reconciling ourselves to him on our without Him taking initiative. This is, of course, the whole point. The Father has enabled all to come to him, but they have chosen not to. The responsibility for their unbelief does not lie with God, it is with them.

It is at this point, that many of Jesus' disciples turned back and no longer followed him. These weren't just part of the crowd that had stayed and watched from the periphery. These were people who had counted themselves among his disciples. They had followed Jesus and were prepared to recognize him as the Messiah. The demands that he had made on them, namely laying down their own agendas and relying on nothing other than the bread of life available in the life of Jesus, were just too much for them. They understood precisely what Jesus was saying to them, but wanted nothing to do with it. This is instructive for those of us who have experienced times when we have shared the message of the gospel of Jesus with someone, only to be disappointed as they have walked away and not accepted it. We then begin to blame ourselves as if we had just presented it better or done something differently they would have listened. The fact is, some simply will not. They will hear the demands of laying down their life and want nothing to do with it. It has little to do with the presentation and everything to do with the willingness to be obedient to the Word.

Many of those who had supposed to be his disciples simply leave Jesus and fall away. This is not the Messiah they wanted and they will no longer follow him. With the migration of many of his disciples, Jesus turns to the Twelve, the men into whom he has poured the most time and training. Will they leave too? The question is worded, in the Greek, in such a way that demonstrates that Jesus expects a positive response. Peter, in his usually impetuous manner, takes up as spokesman for the group. He addresses Jesus as Lord, a word that could mean anything from a respectful "sir" all the way to the name used for God in the Greek translation of the Old Testament that most Jews used in the first century (Septuagint). It is likely that Peter means to use this term in the highest possible sense. He is the Holy One of God. He is the one who speaks the words of eternal life, meaning that he doesn't just speak of the age to come, but his very words actually are in the process of bringing the new creation into reality.

It is fitting that they recognize this because they have a high calling. They have been chosen, just as Israel was chosen as God's people. Yet one of them was a devil. Just as Jesus knew who would and who would not believe in him, he knew that Judas would betray him. The point is clear. Jesus was the one whose very words were bringing God's new creation into existence, but some just were not ready for that and would not embrace it, regardless of what Jesus said or did. Some would enter into eternal life because they believed while some would refuse to believe and refuse to enter into that life.



Dig Deeper

You probably wouldn't be reading this if you weren't willing to follow Jesus at some level. Yet, there is still a challenge out there for us in a passage like this. Are there any areas of your life in which you read the words of Jesus but just simply aren't too interested in following them? Have you truly laid down your life in every area and grabbed hold to the eternal life that is available to all of those in Christ or have you walked away from certain aspects of Jesus' teaching?

John 6:47-59

47 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which people may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."

52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

53 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. 57 Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." 59 He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.



Dig Deeper



I had one basketball coach in my past that stands out from all of the others that I had. I didn’t play for him for very long but he was particularly tough. He would demand the very best effort out of us in everything that we did, including things that weren’t seemingly directly related to basketball like grades. He would come to our dorm rooms and make sure that we went to classes, he would drive alongside of us when he sent us on long runs, and he would stand behind us and scream at us to work harder in whatever drills or activities we might be engaged in. He demanded maximum effort and got it most of the time. I remember after one particularly challenging practice I passed the dean of students in the cafeteria and he asked how basketball was going at that stage when we were practicing but had yet to play any official games. I told him that the coach was "sucking us dry." This, of course, is a bit of a veiled reference to vampire imagery, drawing on the lore of vampires sucking all of the blood from their victims. It was, in fact, a colorful figure of speech. Figures of speech can mean very real and important things, but can also be easily misunderstood if we attempt to inappropriately take those words to be literal. Can you imagine the misunderstanding that would have ensued if he had truly thought that I was being literal.

Almost every human culture that I have ever heard of, uses figures of speech in some form or another, and the Jewish people were no different. In fact, they used some of the most colorful idioms and imagery in the history of the world. Jesus was a man of his times and culture and used many of those idioms. Sometimes those images could be misunderstood, but usually other Jews clearly understood what Jesus meant. It is often the readers of his words, hundreds of years later who read some of the things that Jesus said and completely misunderstand what he was saying. We must, in situations like those, take special effort to understand Jesus’ words in the context and culture in which they were spoken so we can clearly comprehend his meaning.

Jesus begins this passage by summarizing what he has already stated. He is the bread of life and anyone who believes will possess the life of the age to come, eternal life. In the Jewish way of thinking, bread was the very sustenance of life. It stood for the thing that was needed in order to live. But the kind of life that he is talking about is not the typical sort of physical life that the Jews were so interested in. When Jesus began speaking of bread, they wanted the kind of bread that would keep them supplied forever. They wanted more manna. Think, after all, of all the resources you could save if God sent manna once again. The problem is that manna kept Israel sustained physically in the wilderness, but those people died. That manna had it’s limitations because its purpose was limited.

His life is the true bread that comes down from heaven. Jesus is not just referring to the source of the bread, because presumably the manna also came from God, but he is referring to the nature of the sustenance. The manna came from God but was limited to physical benefits. Yet, this is all the Israelites can think of. Shouldn’t they know better? Shouldn’t they want something more? This bread comes directly from the presence of God and will usher those who partake of it into eternal life. Whoever eats of this bread will have eternal life both now in the present age and, of course, the promise of the age to come. This bread is Jesus’ life, his very flesh that he will give for the life of the world. "Flesh" is a striking word that stands apart from "my body" or "myself." It focuses on the fact that Jesus will (notice the future tense) give his physical flesh and body so that the world might have life. Truly the kernel of wheat must fall and die (Jn. 12:24) before life can be granted to the world. Jesus would die, in other words, so that whosoever would could enter into his life and live. This is not just an idea or simple imagery. He is using the imagery of bread as the very sustenance of life to make the very real point that he would be the only way for the world to have life.

It seems unlikely that the Jews have so missed Jesus’ point that they think he is actually urging them to cannibalism. That would have been detestable to the Jew to the point that there would be no argument from any of those present. John tells us that they began to argue amongst themselves, indicating that at least some, perhaps just the twelve, were taking Jesus’ side. We can’t seriously think that even the disciples would argue in favor of Jesus if they thought he was speaking of literally eating his flesh. The crowd well understands what Jesus is saying, but how can he provide the type of sustenance that he is talking of? How could his life, and even more puzzling, hi death possibly feed them spiritually for eternity? They simply could not wrap their minds around such a thing.

But Jesus says plainly that unless people eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they have no life in them. Many people think, at first glance, that Jesus was speaking of the coming institution of communion, the Lord’s Supper here, but that simply cannot be the case. It is possible that, as John was writing this down years later, he saw echoes and foreshadowing of the communion ritual, but in its direct form, Jesus is simply not referring to the communion meal. This is clear by the entire context but most notably by his assertion in verses 53 and 54 that the eating of the flesh and the drinking of his blood are the only means to eternal life. Even those who read this passage in a woodenly literal fashion and argue that this is about communion where believers literally eat the flesh and drink the transubstantiated blood of Jesus, would not argue that partaking in the communion is the only means to eternal life. This makes it clear that Jesus is referring to his own sacrifice and life rather than the communion meal.

But what about the talk of drinking the blood? Drinking blood was strictly forbidden in the Old Testament, but again, Jesus is speaking metaphorically. In 1 Chronicles 11:16-19, we are told of an account where David, embroiled in battle, desires a drink of water from the well near Bethlehem. After three of his bravest soldiers broke through Philistine lines to retrieve water from that very well, David "poured it out to the LORD," saying, "God forbid that I should do this! Should I drink the blood of these men who went at the risk of their lives?" This demonstrates the type of figure of speech that Jesus uses here. David refers to the act of benefiting from the sacrifice or even death of others as drinking their blood. This is Jesus’ point, and it is similar to his point of the need to eat his flesh. Not only would they need to find sustenance from his very flesh, they would, in some way yet unknown to them, benefit directly from his sacrifice and death.

Those who embrace the need to eat his flesh, being sustained by the life of Christ, and drink his blood, benefiting from the sacrifice and death of Jesus, will remain in him. They are the ones who truly believe in his life, truly die to themselves, and truly remain in his life. They in turn will find that he will remain in their lives for eternity, transforming them into his own image. Truly the only thing that can separate us from the life of Christ is our own decision to walk away from it.

Jesus’ words were challenging but clear to his hearers. They wanted the Messianic signs that they were expecting. They didn’t want something new. They were hoping for another manifestation of manna from God, but, in the process, they were selling themselves short. Their ancestors ate manna and died, but those who feed on the life of Christ will live forever.



Devotional Thought



We are trained, by the world around us, throughout our lives to believe that we need many different thing in order to truly have and enjoy life. We must, we are told, be well-rounded. Yet, Jesus says that in order for us to have eternal life, the only thing we must do is eat his flesh and drink his blood. Is the life of Christ enough for you or are you constantly tempted to look to other things for enjoyment, comfort, and security? What changes, if any, would have to be made in your life in order for you to truly eat nothing but his flesh and drink nothing but his blood?

John 6:36-46

36 But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. 37 All whom the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. 38 For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40 For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day."

41 At this the Jews there began to grumble about him because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is this not Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"

43 "Stop grumbling among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.46 No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.



Dig Deeper

We thought that we were going for a fun evening of dance lessons. At least that's what my wife had told me. She had received a flyer about a swing dance event that was happening in our town. On the flyer it mentioned, she said, that there would be a time of free swing dance lessons for anyone who wanted them and then there would be a time of open dancing. This all sounded horrible to me but she wanted to go, so I agreed. When we got there, we found out that it was not at all what we were expecting. In fact there were no lessons at all. In reality, it was a local swing dance competition between swing dance schools. This was all on the flyer, but my wife had missed all of that. All she had noticed was the bold writing that mentioned free swing dance lessons. She assumed that this would take place during this evening but had missed the smaller writing at the bottom that explained that in order to get the dance lessons you had to go to the studio that was sponsoring the event and then you got one free lesson. We went to this event thinking it was something else entirely, and complained about it at first, until she pulled the original flyer out and we looked at it and realized that the details had been there all along, we had just missed them.

In a somewhat similar manner, the Jews had been reading the Old Testament their entire lives and had certain expectations. The details often varied, but there was an overall agreement on what they could expect when the Messiah came. The problem was, when he got there, he wasn't at all what they were expecting. He was something completely different but he was still, nonetheless, calling them to believe that he was from the Father and claiming that he, himself was the new sustenance from the Father. He was, according to him, the new thing that the Father had promised all along. How could they possibly believe all of this? Especially when he wouldn't do the sorts of signs that they expected and demanded of a Messiah. He demanded belief. He refused to meet their expectations, but instead insisted that they go back and read the Scriptures again. If they did that with humility and a desire for the truth rather than to be right, they would see that the Father had been pointing to him and drawing them towards him all along.

Many have supposed Jesus to be saying in this passage that only certain people can come to God. God has chosen some to come to him in belief and the others will simply not have that opportunity because they have not been sent or drawn to him by the Father. This is simply not the case, however, and doesn't really work if we continue to consider the full context of this passage and the Gospel as a whole throughout this passage.

John stated in 3:16 that whoever would believe in the life of Christ would have eternal life. Jesus has just finished saying as much by stating in verse 35 that whoever comes to him will never go spiritually thirsty or hungry again. This is an offer, not a statement that only some can come. He is offering them the life of the new creation. They have seen him and the signs that he has offered but they still do not believe. Jesus is not trying to take any credit for attracting people to himself. If he had done that he would be serving as his own testimony which he has already clearly rejected as an option (5:31). Those that are coming to Jesus are not coming as a result of his own testimony or acts but as a clear result of the Father pointing the way. Jesus continues to stress throughout this passage that is he is not about his own will or actions. He is the apprentice, sharing in the works that the Father has already been doing for a long time.

Jesus says in verse 44 that no one can come to him unless the Father who sent him draws them, and in verse 37 that all whom the Father gives him will come to Jesus. His point is not that the Father has chosen only certain people to come to faith in Jesus. His point is well in keeping with the tenor of John's Gospel that salvation is available to whosoever will (it would not, for instance, make much sense if, in 3:16, John says that God loved the whole world so much that he sent Jesus so that only some have eternal life). Jesus is saying that all who do come to him in faith are there because the Father enabled it. He worked through Moses and the prophets to point to Jesus. Everything in the Old Testament pointed to Jesus. The Father has made this available to all, so when someone does come to Jesus in faith, it is because the Father has pointed and drawn him rather than Jesus testifying to himself. The whole thrust of the argument here is that Jesus' work is really a continuation of the work of the Father rather than something new altogether.

It is, after all, the will of the Father that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life. It is not that only some will be caused to look and believe in Jesus. It is God's will that all men be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9; cf. 1 Jn. 2:1), but only those who believe in the Son will have eternal life. In other words, God wants all men to be saved and has made the life of His Son available to all humans but it is also His will that only those who enter into that life will, in fact be saved. Those who come to belief in Jesus and take up His life, will not be lost. They will be raised up, but raised up to what?

Jesus makes clear here what he and John have alluded to throughout the Gospel thus far. Eternal life and resurrection are two sides of the same coin. As we have discussed previously, most Jews believed in the age to come, eternal life, and the fact that this would be the time of resurrection when God would dwell with His people. What they couldn't fathom was that Jesus was announcing that eternal life was available now. It was a share in that life that Jesus came to announce. Eternal life doesn't just mean that it goes .. death, it describes what kind of life it is now. In order for one to grab hold of it, though, they must first lay down their own life and enter into his. Eternal life doesn't mean what so many people today envision when they hear this term, that of a disembodied spirit floating off to some non-physical location forever. It is the realization of the life of Christ (and the process of being transformed into his image) now. This is a process that continues in the present age when someone believes in the life of Christ and will eventually take the form of the resurrection when Christ does return to restore all things (Matt. 19:28). Those who share in Christ's life now, will surely be raised up at the last day. So, eternal life does have to do with eternity, but it also has to do with the quality and source of life now.

Once the Jews heard all of this they began to act just like the Israelites in the wilderness who did not like how God was working, so they began to grumble. How could Jesus be claiming all of this and that he came down from heaven when they knew very well who his father and mother were? Once again, John gives us a picture of humans stuck in the earthly way of thinking who are simply unwilling to look beyond the normal limitations to the deeper spiritual truth.

They were grumbling for the same simple reason the Israelites of the Exodus grumbled. They didn't think that God should be working like this. Jesus was saying that what he was doing was what God was doing. They didn't like this train of thought one bit and began to rebel against Jesus just as the Exodus generation rebelled against God. Yet, Jesus makes clear that the Father has indeed sent them to Jesus. This is what the Father is doing, they need not complain or remain in their unbelief. Jesus quotes from Isaiah 54:13 in verse 45 which stands in testimony to the point he has been making. When God did do his new thing, they will all be taught by God. What Jesus is claiming, what he is teaching them, comes from the Father. It is He who is at work bringing His people back from exile. Anyone who has truly and humbly read the Scriptures with a heart to learn what the Father was teaching, will realize that Jesus is the fulfillment of all that they say. The passage in Isaiah goes on in 55:1 to invite all those who are thirsty and hungry to come and get their full. These are the very people Isaiah was speaking of, and if they will just believe that God is the author of everything that Jesus says, they will enter into eternal life. Jesus, is after all, the only one who has seen the Father, because he is the only one that is truly from God.



Devotional Thought

Eternal life is something that is available to Christians now. As Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:12: "Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses." Have you taken hold of that eternal life? Do you live the life of the age to come for all those who are lost in the present age to see?

John 6:26-35

26 Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

30 So they asked him, "What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"

32 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34 "Sir," they said, "always give us this bread."

35 Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.



Dig Deeper

Sometimes when you get a glimpse of your real self, it's not pretty, in fact, it's pretty ugly. I had been studying the Bible for a while but I had not yet become a true disciple of Jesus Christ. I was learning what that meant, though. During that time, I started playing in a basketball league that the church hosted and put on for disciples and those that were coming out to church. During one game, I got frustrated because the guys who were refereeing that game were not, in my biased opinion, doing a very good job. With each perceived slight I began to get angrier and angrier, and even convince myself that they were intentionally not giving me calls because I wasn't someone important in the church. Then a play happened where I thought I got fouled but no foul was called but as we ran down to the other end of the court, a foul was called on me, even though I didn't feel that I had fouled anyone. That was too much. I lost my temper. I screamed at the ref who gave me a technical foul, but I didn't stop there. I stomped off of the court, yelling the whole time, I threw my duffle bag, I kicked open the gym doors that opened into the hallway, and I threw my water bottle down the hall. How could this happen? I had played sports my whole life and had always been taught that sports built character. This incident, however, revealed a very real truth. Sports don't build character, they reveal it. They bring out certain emotions and responses that tend to show what is truly in your heart and character.

We tend to think that signs and miracles build faith. How many of us before we became Christians declared that if we could just see some sort of biblical-style miracle, then we would believe. That's all it would take for us. But is that really true? Nearly everywhere that Jesus went, he performed signs and wonders that pointed to the coming of the new creation of God, but yet many did not believe. In fact, many who saw those signs reacted in quite the wrong manner. They paid more attention to the spectacle of the signs than to what they were really pointing to. True faith comes from the humility of recognizing and embracing truth, it simply cannot come from being amazed. Signs won't create the faith in us, they can only offer an opportunity for our true characters and faith to be shown for what they are. This is because just as sports reveal rather than build character, signs and miracles reveal faith rather than build it.

We are told in the previous passage that the crowds were searching for Jesus and wanted to know when he arrived, apparently shocked or confused at how he got there so quickly. Jesus completely ignores there question and gets right to the heart of the matter. He's not at all flattered by the fact that they were searching for them, he's quite disturbed by it in fact. They weren't seeing the true sustenance and bread in the sign, all they were seeing was the show and the sign in the bread that Jesus multiplied. They weren't searching for the truth of the Word, they wanted more of a spectacle. Like the women at the well who wanted a fresh supply of physical water rather than realizing the spiritual truths of which Jesus was speaking. Jesus challenges them on working for earthly food that spoils rather than seeking the eternal life that was available through the Son of Man, who has been shown to be truly from heaven by the seal of approval that God the Father has placed on him.

To truly comprehend the exchange that is about to take place we need to understand a few things. The first thing is the Jewish assumption that God required certain works of the law in order for His people to stand in the right place and be considered righteous before God. The second thing is that there was a common Jewish Messianic expectation that when the Messiah finally returned he would usher in the age to come and the resurrection with him and would renew the miracle of supplying God's people with manna. These two assumptions lie behind the inability or unwillingness of the crowds here to accept what Jesus is saying.

The first of these two assumptions leads to the crowd's question of verse 28. Jesus has urged them to stop seeking more bread to fill up their stomachs and to search for eternal life, which for first century Jews meant their place and share in the age to come. So when they asked him, "what must we do to do the works God requires," it's a pretty natural question. In their mind a place in the age to come came to those who were righteous based on their adherence to the works of the law. So, when Jesus speaks of eternal life, they naturally want to know what works in particular that God is going to require of them. Jesus answers this question but changes their assumption of "works" to a singular "work." They were confident that they could meet the requirements of God if he would but tell them what they are, but the only requirement they need is to believe in the one he has sent. We, of course, understand this to mean that we must believe in his life. There is nothing that anyone can do to earn the eternal life that God has offered. We must enter into the life of Christ and there is nothing that we can do on our own to achieve that, except to die to our own life.

Jesus has just, in no uncertain terms, set himself up as the standard by which anyone gains access to the life of the age to come. The crowd responds with a demand, which in the original Greek makes clear that they have no belief that he will actually be able to do so. They want a sign, but haven't they already seen a pretty incredible sign of Jesus feeding multitudes with five loaves and two fish? Jews considered a sign done from heaven to be the highest form of legitimizing one's claim. It's not that they are denying that Jesus did a sign but it wasn't enough to convince them, nor was it the kind of sign they were looking for. We might think feeding a crowd of nearly twenty-thousand people with a few scraps is impressive, but in their minds Moses fed the people with manna that was from heaven for forty years. That's what they want to see. They want to see manna, then they will believe. They have certain expectations of what a Messiah is going to do and they are basically demanding that Jesus meets those expectations in order for them to believe. He had done something quite amazing, but could he prove that he was worthy of their belief by producing manna?

Their demand for a sign like the manna shows not that they are close to coming to faith but instead reveals that they do not have faith at all. They are missing the point entirely. Moses did not give them the bread from heaven, it is God who does that. It was God who gave them the manna, but that manna was not the true bread from heaven. The manna was temporary and to be given over and over again. It was given only to Israel. The bread of which Jesus speaks is far greater and far different from that bread. It is eternal and gives life to the world. The bread of which Jesus speaks is the sustenance of the age to come that can only come from heaven. Perhaps it should not surprise us that John refers to the bread that came down from heaven seven times in this discourse. John is again showing us that this is an act of new creation. Jesus did not come to concern himself with meeting the Messianic and materialistic expectations of the crowds, he came to usher those who believe in him into the new creation. This would take a totally rethinking on their part about who the Messiah was and what he came to do.

The crowds are ready for bread, but probably in the same sense that the woman at the well wanted the water. She initially wanted the water so that she wouldn't have to be bothered with going back to the well over and over again and being confronted with people. Similarly, Jesus seems to be referring to the fact that they want something easy and attractive. They don't want the bread that he has speaking of. They'll believe in him if he will only show them something that rivals the manna of Moses.

To their request to always give them this bread, Jesus makes a bold claim that will set up some of his hard teachings later in this discourse. He is the one who fulfills the Messianic expectations to satisfy hunger and thirst (Isa. 55:1-2; 49:10). He will not just facilitate the coming of this bread, nor will he merely tell them what to do to get the bread. He is the bread of life. This is the first of, you guessed it, seven "I am" statements that Jesus makes in the Gospel of John (the others will come in 8:12 & 9:5; 10:7, 9; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). The bread of life, living water, it's all him. To get these things every human must come to him. It's not about what we can go do. We must come to him and believe that he is the source and sustenance of life. In fact, as Jesus will state clearly in 11:25 and 14:6, he is the life. Until they, and we, recognize that he is the true bread of life, we will have a hunger that continues in us that can never be satiated.



Devotional Thought

Do you ever fall into the trap of thinking that we must do the works that God requires in order to find salvation? As noble as this might sound, it is simply another way to try to satisfy our hunger by our own efforts. Do you truly trust that the life of Christ is the only genuine bread of life? Spend some time meditating on that truth today.