John 7

     7:2.  The seventh month of the religious calendar began with the blowing of Trumpets on the first day.  The Day of Atonement was on the tenth.  The fifteenth began the harvest-ingathering feast called the Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, which ended on the eighth day, on the twenty-second of the seventh month (Lev.23:39).

     7:1-13.  Jesus’ brothers were good Jews.  They were angry, jealous, and offended by Jesus.  They challenged him (or Satan did again, Luke 4:13) with the same testing of God type display as leaping from the temple would have been (Luke 4:9).  That is, “Go to Jerusalem and show what you can do!  If you are really who you say you are, God will protect you from harm, and all the world will be impressed.”  All this proves the truth that we must be born again to believe (cf.7:5 with 6:65).

     7:8-10.  The apparent deception here is a problem.  Even if his words can be construed to mean no more than “Since my time is not yet, I do not go now,” it still appears deceptive, as does the secrecy in v.10.  This is dangerous stuff.  Men can rationalize any sin into a good.  The Jesuits practiced what they called “mental equivocation”.  For example, suppose some Jesuit enemy were to ask if you had ever seen a man you often see and talk with.  You might answer, “I have never seen him,” while thinking in your mind, “I have never seen him in heaven“.  According to the Jesuits, this would make the statement mentally and morally true.  Wm. Gouge, Hebrews Commentary, Vol.3, p.104.  Many of us have been to Jesuit school.

     On the other hand, murder is always killing, but not all killing is murder.  The laws of both God and man recognize justifiable homicide, where the guilt of blood rests with the killed, not the killer.  Is there such a thing as justifiable deception?  Does the father of lies always have a right to the whole truth?  Rahab did no such shifty business as the Jesuits.  She boldly and plainly lied, and for it is commended twice in the NT for her actions (Heb.11:31; James 2:25).  To do less than she did would have been false and treasonous to the covenant she entered into when she agreed to hide the spies.  The midwives who spared the baby boys they were supposed to kill, and lied about it to protect them (Ex.1:15-21), are said to have done so because they feared God, and God blessed them for it!  These were not evil acts.  We may be sure that Jesus did not sin.  Beyond that, I do not presume to go.

     7:15-19.  From obedience comes knowledge.  Those who have God’s law written on their hearts are willing to obey it, and those who obey it will recognize and know its source (17).  Christ has no vainglorious conflict of interest.  Seeking only the glory of God who sent him, he is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him (18).  In contrast to these principles, these men who say they serve Moses but do not obey him, actually have murder in their hearts (19; cf.5:45).

     7:20-24.  V.21 ff. is a reference to the Sabbath healing and resulting controversy of 5:2 ff.  Notice that he not only exposes their hypocrisy and double standard of judgment, but he takes full credit for the divine power evident in the healing miracle.  “I made an entire man well on the Sabbath.”  Can they justly accuse him of wrong?

     7:25-52.  The answer to the question in v.35 is yes, and to the whole world.

     7:41-42.  The apostle here assumes we know the irony of this.  John assumes his readers have read the other gospels when he wrote his.

     7:43.  This is a key concept.  Christ brings division.

     7:52.  They were even wrong in this.  Jonah was from Galilee (2 Kings 14:25, Gath-hepher had been near Nazareth).  Cf. Mt.12:38-41; Is.9:1.