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JOHN 7: THE QUESTION THAT WON'T GO AWAY

An Expository Devotional

THE QUESTION BEFORE THE CROWD

"Who is this man?" That question ran like a current through every scene in John 7. It is asked openly, whispered in secret, debated in the streets of Jerusalem, and finally argued on the floor of the Sanhedrin. John 7 is, from beginning to end, a chapter organized around the identity of Jesus Christ rCo and the inescapable pressure that identity puts on every person who encounters Him.

The setting is the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the great pilgrimage feasts of Israel. The city was full. Every conversation was a potential confrontation. And Jesus walked into the middle of it, knowing exactly what awaited Him there.

DIVISION ONE: THE PRESSURE TO PERFORM (vv. 1rCo9)

The chapter opens not with enemies but with family. The brothers of Jesus rCo still unbelieving at this point rCo pressed Him to go public at the feast. "Show yourself to the world," they said (v. 4). Their counsel carried a subtle worldly logic: if you have something to offer, market it. Get yourself seen. Build a following.

It is the oldest temptation dressed in new clothes rCo the idea that the mission of God must be served by the methods of the world. Jesus answered it plainly. "My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready" (v. 6). The difference was not strategy. It was lordship. The brothers operated on their own timetable. Jesus operated on the Father's. No amount of public pressure, family expectation, or ministry urgency could move Him before the hour the Father had appointed.

Here is the devotional word for every servant of Christ: the pressure to perform is not the voice of the Spirit. Faithfulness is not measured by visibility. God's man or woman moves when God moves, not when the crowd is ready.

DIVISION TWO: THE DANGER OF TRUTH-TELLING (vv. 10rCo24)

Jesus did go up to the feast, but quietly and without announcement. Midway through the feast He appeared in the temple and taught. The crowds were astonished. "How does this man know letters, having never studied?" (v. 15). They expected learning to come with credentials. Jesus had none they recognized.

His answer pointed them past the question of His credentials to the question of their own hearts. "If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority" (v. 17). This is one of the most searching statements in the Gospel of John. The obstacle to understanding Jesus is not intellectual rCo it is moral. The man who is genuinely committed to doing the will of God will recognize the teaching of Jesus for what it is. The man who is not will find reasons to reject it no matter how clearly it is presented.

Jesus then turned the charge of Sabbath-breaking back upon His accusers. They circumcised a child on the Sabbath to fulfill the law of Moses, and no one objected. Why then did they rage when He made a whole man well on the Sabbath? "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (v. 24). Selective outrage in the service of opposition is not righteousness. It is prejudice wearing a theological coat.

DIVISION THREE: THE OPEN SECRET (vv. 25rCo36)

A fascinating exchange followed. Some of the Jerusalem crowd reasoned that if the rulers had truly wanted Him dead, they would have already arrested Him. Perhaps He was the Christ after all? But then came the objection: "We know where this man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from" (v. 27).

Their theology was sound in one sense rCo the Messiah's origins would indeed be mysterious and divine. Their error was in thinking they knew everything there was to know about Jesus of Nazareth. They knew His hometown. They did not know His origin. Jesus called this out directly: "You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me" (vv. 28rCo29).

The crowd thought the question of Christ's identity was settled by geography. Jesus pressed them to a deeper question rCo the question of the Father. To know where Jesus came from in the deepest sense, you must know God. And the willingness to know God comes before the ability to recognize Christ.

DIVISION FOUR: THE INVITATION AND THE RIVER (vv. 37rCo39)

On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out rCo the word suggests He raised His voice for the crowd to hear: "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (vv. 37rCo38).

This was the climax of the chapter. The Feast of Tabernacles included a daily water-pouring ceremony at the temple, commemorating the water from the rock in the wilderness. Jesus stood in the middle of that ceremony and announced that He was what the ceremony pointed to. He was the rock. He was the source. Every thirsty soul that came to Him in faith would not merely have thirst quenched rCo they would become a channel of living water to others.

John explains this is a reference to the Holy Spirit, who would be given after Jesus was glorified (v. 39). The promise is inseparable from the cross. The Spirit is given because Jesus died. The rivers flow because the rock was struck. Every drop of spiritual life that any believer has ever known traces back to the sacrifice of Christ at Calvary.

Are you thirsty? That thirst is not an accident. It is a mercy. It is God's way of directing you to the only One who can satisfy it. Come to Christ. Drink. The invitation has never been withdrawn.

DIVISION FIVE: THE DIVIDED VERDICT (vv. 40rCo53)

The chapter ends in division. Some said He was the Prophet. Some said He was the Christ. Some said He could not be, because He came from Galilee. The officers sent to arrest Him returned empty-handed, able only to say, "No man ever spoke like this Man!" (v. 46). Nicodemus, appearing for the second time in John's Gospel, offered a quiet word of legal caution rCo and was scorned for it.

Everyone in this passage had an opinion about Jesus. No one remained neutral. That is the nature of the encounter with Christ. He does not permit indifference. The crowd divided, the officers were arrested by His words before they could arrest Him, the rulers seethed, and one man asked a quiet question that the powerful ignored.

John 7 does not resolve with a verdict. It leaves the reader exactly where the original crowd stood rCo forced to decide. The question the chapter raises, it also hands to you: Who is this man? The answer you give will determine everything.

CLOSING WORD

Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of every feast, the substance of every shadow, the source of every thirst-quenching stream that ever flowed in the experience of God's people. He taught with authority not His own in the sense of being self-generated, but His own in the deepest sense rCo because He and the Father are one. He moved on the Father's timetable. He offered living water at the Father's appointed moment. He stood in the temple where sacrifice was the daily business of the nation, and He announced that He Himself was the answer to everything the temple represented.

If you have come to Christ in faith, you have drunk of that living water. Let it flow. If you have not, the invitation of verse 37 still stands. He is still crying out. The feast is not yet over.
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Good News rCa

Christ's death on a cross paid the debt we owe God for our sins (Colossians 2:14). The proof is God raised Him from the dead (Romans 1:4).

This means God can now remain right, while forgiving our sins (Romans 3:26) and delivering us from His coming wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10). It's a free gift for those who believe in Christ (Romans 6:23).

If you believe, call on the Lord to save you (Romans 10:9-13).

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