Will You Be Able to See the Father? John 7:32-52

Jesus IS RETURNING TO HIS FATHER: THEY CANNOT COME TO HIS FATHER (John 7:32-52)

See the Irony: The Jews Cannot Go to the Father

John 7:32–36 ESV

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’?”

Jesus is on His way back to the Father. Time is running short for the Jews to respond to Him. A time is coming when they will no longer be able to find Him and His offer of life, and nor will they be able to come to His Father. His greatness comes not only from the fact that He has come from the Father, but also from the fact that He is going back to the Father (cf. 16:28). The Jews still fail to understand what Jesus is saying. Note the irony of verse 35. In verse 32 comes the first mention of the Jews taking active steps to arrest Jesus – the pace is hotting up!

Jesus’ mission: Be Hope and Life to God’s People (John 7:37-39)

John 7:37–39 ESV

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Even as the Jews fail to understand what Jesus is saying, He makes His offer to the world, to the ‘anyone’ and the ‘whoever’ who believes. This offer, coming at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, is a claim to be the fulfilment of all that the Feast signified, all that it pointed back to and all that it anticipated. Jesus is the one true Rescuer who will provide the outpouring of the Spirit of God. The Spirit’s rich abundance of life will be like a self-replenishing stream in the believer; this will be the ‘eternal life’ that has been spoken of from the start of the Gospel. But note the key reference to Jesus’ ‘time’ which John provides in his interpretative comment (v. 39). Once again we are being shown that Jesus is the true Christ who has been sent by His Father to accomplish a specific mission at a specific time and through a specific action.

Amidst all the division and confusion Jesus stands firm, continuing to develop His teaching that He has come to provide eternal life for God’s people. As He teaches it becomes increasingly evident that without Him there is no hope of life, but that with Him life is possible.

How do the people respond to Jesus (John 7:40-52)

John 7:40–52 ESV

40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So there was a division among the people over him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. 45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 47 The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? 48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

The people respond to this teaching in a whole variety of ways: they are divided, confused, and amazed. Their leaders deny that Jesus is the Christ. The shock of this chapter lies in the gradual and sustained exposure of the Jews. They are shown to be God’s enemies who do not, in fact, listen to Moses. (Their failure to see in Jesus the fulfilment of the Feast of Tabernacles is another example of the failure of 5:39.) They may appear to be religious people, serving God, but their reaction to Jesus and their attempt to arrest Him give them away. They are evil people. Of course, there is nothing new about this. It has always been God’s verdict on His people that they cannot keep the Law and that they need rescue. The remarkable thing is that Jesus continues to offer to rescue anyone who will believe in Him. And it appears that there are some who are beginning to respond in genuine faith.

Key themes

1. The exposure of the hypocrisy and failure of God’s people

• They cannot recognise Jesus, for the following reasons: − They do not keep Moses’ law.

− They hate Jesus for saying that they are evil.

− They have failed to understand the Law and so can only make ungodly human judgments. They do not know God, and they will not go to Him.

2. The offer of Jesus to provide rescue as He steadily pursues His God-given mission − He is the one from God who is going back to God.

3. He alone can provide the cleansing and spiritual life that His questioners need; this He does through the giving of the Spirit.

− He is only here for a short time. He demands a response.

− His offer is to ‘anyone’ who will believe, and to ‘whoever’ will believe, in Himself.

4. The polarization of those who would call themselves God’s people as they respond in confusion, denial, hostility, and also faith.

Application

To them then:

The confusion, division and growing polarization recorded in the chapter demonstrate how Jesus’ claims applied to the people He was speaking to. He exposed the failure of the most religious people imaginable (like Nicodemus). In spite of all their claims and pretence, they did not know God. John’s inclusion of Jesus’ explanatory comment in verse 7 makes it all clear: ‘it [the world] hates me because I testify that what it does is evil’. John’s descriptive comments also help us to see the points that he wants his original readers to realize. God’s people appear to be unable to respond to this uncomfortable Messiah in repentance and faith. They are not God’s people. At the same time, Jesus purposefully pursues His God-given mission. He is God’s Son, sent from God and returning to God. Those who turn to Him will have eternal life.

To us now:

The application to us now is parallel. The shock of the passage, for us as for the Jews, is that Jesus is an uncomfortable Messiah who exposes the hypocrisy of all human beings towards God. Even the most religious people need His rescue. This has relevance for us, both in our own attitude to Jesus and in what we should expect when we teach the ‘real Jesus’ to our friends. We should expect to find confusion, division, and polarisation. We should expect hatred of Jesus from people to whom we bring the gospel, however religious they may appear to be. And yet we should realise that His response to that rejection is to continue to extend His offer of rescue. Therefore we should be unmoved as we continue to hold out His offer of life. More personally, we are to rejoice in the salvation that Jesus came to bring.