25 Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? 26 And here He is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to Him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? 27 But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.” 28 So Jesus proclaimed, as He taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and Him you do not know. 29 I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent me.” 30 So they were seeking to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. 31 Yet many of the people believed in Him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will He do more signs than this man has done?”
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Him. 33 Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to Him who sent me. 34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” 35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What does He mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
Just as in the days of Jesus, we live in a world of great spiritual confusion. Contrary to popular belief, human beings do not define spiritual truth. God does. He is our only source of truth. The term “relative truth” is an oxymoron, because when you have varying degrees or definitions of what is true, you have no truth.
There are not many ways to God, so that you can just pick whichever belief system suits your requirements. Jesus left no room for debate when He said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The bare facts are that either He was right or He was wrong. We need to decide, because spiritual truth is narrow, while spiritual confusion is very broad.
In John 7 we have different groups of people who were confused about Jesus. There is the group that John simply calls “the Jews.” These were the religious leaders, the Pharisees and chief priests, who were Sadducees. They often differed on issues of doctrine, but Jesus was a mutual enemy. Their problem was that many of the common people liked Jesus, so they had to tread carefully. The last thing they wanted was to cause enough of a fuss for the Roman soldiers to get involved. As oppressive as the Romans were, they did allow a fair amount of latitude for the Jews to practice their religion, and they couldn’t afford to put that at risk by causing some kind of riot.
Then there was a larger group of people whom John calls “the crowd.” These weren’t just the citizens of Jerusalem. The setting of chapter 7 is the Feast of Tabernacles, so there were Jews from other parts of Israel in Jerusalem at the time.
A third group which John mentions is the people of Jerusalem. They are the ones who were confused about not only who Jesus was, but they also wondered why the authorities had not arrested Him yet. We meet them in verses 25-27. “Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, ‘Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here He is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to Him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.’”
Because of a misunderstanding both about the origins of the Messiah and Jesus’ origins, they came to the conclusion that He was not the expected Messiah.
Do a snap survey of people both inside and outside the Church today, asking people who Jesus is, and you’ll soon see that confusion over just who He is remains, but as John writes in 20:31, He wants us to know the truth about Christ. “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”
The “people of Jerusalem,” as John calls them, wondered out loud whether Jesus might really be the Christ and whether the Jewish leaders were not arresting Him because they thought that He was, but they soon dismissed this idea. Verse 27: “But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.”
This statement is based on a misunderstanding of Malachi 3:1. “Behold, I send my messenger, and He will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.” They took this to mean that the promised Messiah would appear mysteriously, or suddenly, and they would not know where He had come from. This prophecy was actually fulfilled in chapter 2 when Jesus cleared the temple, but because He was rejected as the Messiah, they failed to make the connection.
Added to this was the fact that they knew where Jesus had come from. Born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, He was just a normal man to them. He was Jesus of Nazareth. Again, because they rejected His claims to be the Messiah, they completely missed the significance of Micah’s prophecy in chapter 5 verse 2. “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” God had told them through the prophet Micah exactly where the Messiah would be born, but they just didn’t get it.
Just as today, there was a lot of confusion about Jesus. Verse 12, “There was much muttering about Him among the people. While some said, ‘He is a good man,’ others said, ‘No, He is leading the people astray.’”
Jesus warned us against being confused about His true identity. When speaking about the end times, He said to His disciples in Matthew 24:23-24, “If anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There He is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”
It is so important that we don’t become confused about who Jesus is. We need to guard our hearts and believe the truth about Him, because once we are certain about Jesus, we will be equipped to filter out the lies and deception which are all around us.
In response to the confusion in the temple that day, Jesus replied in verses 28 and 29, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and Him you do not know. I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent me.” This statement would have got their attention. For Jesus to tell them they did not know God was a stunning accusation to make. The Jews prided themselves on knowing God. They were, after all, God’s chosen people, so how dare Jesus tell them that because they didn’t know Him, they could not know God?
Yet, this truth was at the heart of His message, and it is at the heart of the Gospel itself. We looked at John 14:6 earlier: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” But look at what Jesus says in the very next verse: “If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.”
Don’t miss what Jesus is saying here. If you want to know God, you must come to Jesus. There is no option B. The world may say that it doesn’t matter what you believe, just so long as you’re sincere, but Jesus never said it. The Bible is very clear - there is only one way to the Father and to salvation: Jesus Christ.
Jesus testifies to the truth of who He is, and to truly know Him, we must understand and believe His testimony on His terms, and not ours.
Again, Jesus makes it clear that He had been sent here by the Father, and in so doing He reaffirms both His authority and His deity. Jesus did not begin His existence the night He was born in Bethlehem, or even when He was conceived for that matter.
God the Son has existed eternally in glory with God the Father and God the Spirit. John makes this truth clear in the first two verses of his Gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” Jesus is the eternal God in human flesh, and there has never been, nor will there ever be a time when He didn’t exist.
In trying to understand the nature of the God-man, Philippians 2:6-7 is often misunderstood. “Though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.” This does not mean that Jesus reduced His Divine nature when He took on human flesh. He wasn’t some kind of 50/50 hybrid. No - He remained fully God while He was fully man. He emptied Himself of the power that He had in that, in humility and in obedience to God the Father, He did not exercise the Divine power He has always had. satan tempted Him to turn stones into bread. The Roman soldiers who arrested, tortured and crucified Him, He could have vapourised in an instant, had He wanted to. The crowd taunted Him, saying that if He really was God, He should save Himself and come down from the cross. He could have done all of these things and so much more, but He did not, because He came as the suffering servant, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
When Jesus took on human flesh, His deity was not diminished by the tiniest fraction. At no time was He anything other than fully God. Through the virgin birth, Jesus’ deity was not reduced or changed in any way. Instead, He added sinless humanity to His Divine nature.
It’s important that we remember this truth as we come to the final six months before Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and ascension, because He remained in full control throughout His earthly life. In John 10:17-18 He said, “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”
At no point did the Jewish leaders, the crowds or Pilate and his soldiers have any authority or control over Jesus. This helps us to understand verse 30. “They were seeking to arrest Him, but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” We’ve seen that phrase often in our journey through John’s Gospel.
Jesus’ hour or time for which He had come was the Cross of Calvary, and there was nothing the authorities or even satan could do which would thwart God’s eternal plan of salvation.
John Calvin wrote, “When the ungodly do not hinder the progress of the Gospel as they would wish, we ought to be sure that their efforts are ineffective because God has set His hand against them.”
No one could so much as lay a finger on Jesus until the hour that God had predetermined in eternity for Him to go to the cross as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
This is the true Jesus in whom we put our faith, because it is only by knowing Him that we can know the Father, and is only through Him that we can be forgiven for our sins. Verse 29: “I know Him, for I come from Him, and He sent Me.” Jesus had a unique and thorough knowledge of the Father because He is eternally one with the Father. He has existed with the Father from all eternity, which means that it is Jesus and Jesus alone who can reveal God to us. No other man-made philosophy or faith system will do. Every other religion is false, because they have no authority whatsoever on which to base their truth claims.
John 1:17-18 says, “Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, He (Jesus) has made Him known.”
What is eternity? What is eternal life? We have all conjured up images in our minds of what the next life for those who put their faith in Jesus will be like, and countless books have been written on the subject, but Jesus actually gives us the answer in chapter 17. He very simply, and very plainly defines eternal life in verse 3. “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Jesus describes the essence of eternal life as knowing God.
Do you want to spend eternity in heaven? Then you must know God first. And how do you do that? You must come to Christ. And you do that by confessing your sins, repenting and by putting your faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ on the cross on your behalf.
Salvation is available through Christ, and through Christ alone. Look at what He says in Luke 10:22. “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.” What this means is that the only way we can know God is through Jesus, when Jesus chooses to reveal Him to us.
God says through the prophet Jeremiah, “Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight.” (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
You see, it’s all about Christ, but so many fail to see Him, because of the spiritual confusion we see in the world. “It doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you’re sincere,” may sound all nice and flowery and virtuous, but it is an empty philosophy, devoid of all truth. “Living your own truth” means nothing, because it denies the truth of who Jesus is.
The apostle Paul says of those who reject Jesus that “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity.” (Ephesians 4:17-18)
Compare that with how he describes the goal of the Christian life in the preceding verses. He says we are to “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” (Ephesians 4:13-14)
There are many confused opinions out there about who Jesus is, so we need to believe the truth about Him. He was sent here by God and He knew God in a unique way. We can only know God through faith in Jesus, and in verse 31 we do see genuine faith. Verse 31. “Many of the people believed in Him. They said, ‘When the Christ appears, will He do more signs than this man has done?’”
Many did believe, and their reasoning was, what more could Jesus do to prove He was the Messiah? Unfortunately though, many did not believe, and the final verses of our text today give us a warning.
We have to believe in Christ as Saviour and Lord while we still have the time, but many will miss the opportunity to receive salvation by faith. Jesus tells the crowd in verses 33-34, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to Him who sent me. You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.”
Reject the gracious offer God gives you through His Son Jesus Christ, and all that awaits you is God’s awful judgment. Jesus knew that His hour was rapidly approaching, but after He was gone, they would seek Him, but they would seek Him in vain. Paul quotes Isaiah 49 when he writes in 2 Corinthians 6:1-2, “We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says, ‘In a favourable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
The reaction to Jesus’ words from the Jewish leaders in verses 35-36 was typical. “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find Him? Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does He mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come?’”
They were mocking Jesus here. By calling Him “this man” they insulted Him, asking among themselves if He intended leaving Jerusalem to go and teach the Jews who had left (the dispersion) and were living in other countries. Notice that Jesus didn’t answer them. He just left them wondering about what He meant. It is a dreadful thing to walk away from the day of salvation and be left in spiritual confusion about just who Jesus is.
Where could He go without their being able to follow Him? The Jews here illustrate the blindness of unbelief. There is no heart as dark as the heart that refuses to accept Christ. You often hear the saying, “there are none so blind as those who will not see.” This is exactly what happened here.
This window of opportunity to accept salvation through Christ is not without end. He told His listeners in Jerusalem that He would only be with them a little longer, because the cross was drawing near. His hour was only months away. The time for Jerusalem was short, because their long-awaited Saviour had come, but in rejecting Him their only hope for salvation would be lost.
The time is short for us too. We don’t know how much longer God will put up with the world’s ungrateful rejection of His Son. We don’t know when Jesus will return.
This is why, as Isaiah 55:6-7 tells us, we must “Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 7:25-31
Why do you believe there is so much confusion about who Jesus Christ is?
What did the people mean in verses 25-27?
Jesus’ reply in verses 28-29 would have caused quite an uproar among His listeners. Why is that?
Bearing in mind the exclusive truth claims of the Christian faith, how would you respond to those who say that it doesn’t matter what you believe, just so long as you’re sincere, or that all religions teach basically the same thing?
Is it possible to know God without coming to Jesus Christ in faith? Why, or why not?
How do you deal with the accusations that Biblical Christianity is intolerant of other faith systems?
How can we effectively, yet graciously share the Gospel message with those of other faiths?
Discuss Jesus’ statement in verses 33-34.
How do we urge non-believers to turn to Christ while there is still an opportunity?
Close by praying for those you love the most who have yet to accept salvation through Jesus.