John 7:32-8:11

Let’s recap a little, Jesus has gone to Jerusalem and is teaching in the temple. There are skeptics listening who wrongly think that they would not know where the Messiah was from. Scripture does not support this. They are questioning the Jewish authorities for not stopping Jesus from speaking. We then pick up in verse 32:

John 7:32-34 “32 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees sent officers to seize Him. 33 Therefore Jesus said, “For a little while longer I am with you, then I go to Him who sent Me. 34 “You will seek Me, and will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come.”

Vs 32: The Pharisee’s and chief priests who were more often Sadducee's did not get along. But when they both see Jesus as a problem for them, amazing how they come together and try to arrest Jesus. Isn’t it ironic that people are more likely to unite in their hatred rather than their joy? There are some significant Doctrinal issues that should cause a church split. But in my experience, the vast majority of reasons why people leave a church or a church splits is not for these Biblical reasons. We cannot unite in the Joy of the Gospel, but we will unite for dissension. The greatest unity found in the American church is through dissension.

vs 33-34 There are 3 other verses which bring to light what Jesus is saying. The first shows the distinction is between believers and non-believers, John 14:2-4 “2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. 4 “And you know the way where I am going.” The first distinction is between the believers and non-believers. The second distinction is Christs mission. These are found in 2 other verses, John 13:33 “33 “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’” Again we see Jesus is saying to His disciples, John 8:21 “21 Then He said again to them, “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.” The second distinction, we will call, Christs’ mission. Why would Jesus tell His disciples in one place they cannot go where he is going and in another that He will bring them to where He is going? These might seem like contradictions but that is why these two distinctions are important because one was temporal while the other is eternal. The Temporal is the second distinction. Christ is speaking of His crucifixion and death which would result in His being with the father until the resurrection. The disciples, or anyone for that matter, are a part of that Mission. This is what Christ came to do and we cannot take part in that. However, upon Jesus’ ascension we have the eternal, the first distinction which is, to reject Christ is to not go where He is, where He will take us. So one speaks of Christs’ mission the other of salvation. What we will see here in a moment is, without the seal of the Holy Spirit we cannot go to Him. The Holy Spirit has not been given yet and without Him we cannot go to where Christ is.

John 7:35-36 “35 The Jews then said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find Him? He is not intending to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks, and teach the Greeks, is He? 36 “What is this statement that He said, ‘You will seek Me, and will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come’?”

The Jews of course took this literally. That Jesus was going to another earthly place. They thought that Jesus was going to flee or take this message to the gentiles. This is made clear by their thought that, there is no way Jesus is going to take this message to the Greeks. They are pagan and they are not the people the Messiah would come to save. This is yet another piece which feeds their misconception of the Messiah. They must have misunderstood Isaiah 49:6 “6 He says, “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel; I will also make You a light of the nations So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” This is why they were so upset with Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. Their messiah would neglect the gentile but God never closed the door to them.

John 7:37-39 “37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

I like how John explains what Jesus says here. But there is a context I was unaware of, Jesus is making this statement in light of a ceremonial practice. By this time in the fall, the water cisterns would be near empty for the priests and their need for rain was evident. But the water ceremony which took place was this, “the seven-day water ceremony... On each of the seven days prior to the final day, priests drew water from the Pool of Siloam and carried a golden pitcher full of the water to the temple and then around the altar with the high priest leading the way. As the priests neared the water gate, the shofar was blown, and then the psalms of praise and thanksgiving were sung to God for the harvest. On the seventh day, the priest would circle the altar seven times in succession—as the people of Israel had encircled the walls of Jericho. When he came around for the sixth time, he’d be joined by another priest carrying the wine. They would pour it on the altar.” The text tells us that Jesus made this proclamation on the last day. John gives us the explanation, Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit who was to come. John 16:7 “7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” What could be better than God walking among us? How about God indwelling us? Joel 2:28-29 “28 “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. 29 “Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.”

John 7:40-44 “40 Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.” 41 Others were saying, “This is the Christ.” Still others were saying, “Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. 44 Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.”

Verses 40-41: might seem confusing to us because we read both of those are the same. The Prophet spoken of by Moses and the Christ in our understanding are the same. But the Jews saw these as two different persons. We saw signs of this with John the Baptist in their questioning of who he was. It was the Christian’s who recognized the Prophet is the Messiah (The Christ). The Jews did not accept this view and saw the Prophet as one person and the Christ as another. Christians saw that Jesus fulfilled both.

Going back to earlier in the chapter form last week, some discounted Jesus because they knew where He was from, but clearly they did not know where Jesus was form or they would know He was in fact born in Bethlehem.

John 7:45-51 “45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?” 46 The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” 47 The Pharisees then answered them, “You have not also been led astray, have you? 48 “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? 49 “But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.” 50 Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them) said to them, 51 “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?””

We start to see some drama here. We see an elitism within the leadership. They see the people as ignorant and stupid when it is the people who see Jesus for who He is. The officers they sent to arrest Jesus would not because they recognized, “This Jesus is different.” I remember when I graduated from college and I was attending a church, listening to a congregant teach. He was intimidated by my being there because I had a degree. I will tell you something, I have never had an experience when, I listened to a layperson, and did not learn something new. God’s Word has depth and God uses people. I did not know he was intimidated by my being there until afterward because I approached him and told him what I learned and how much I appreciated him teaching. Then he told me. This elitism in leadership is still in the church. When a leader see’s they are above something, when they look down on their parishioners, when they think they are something special. A Pastor, elder, Shepherd, Bishop, a Deacon, a servant is exactly that. Leaders are servants to the church. A church who loses this, loses the heart of the Gospel. Jesus came to serve, and then he turns to His apostles, and then His apostles turn to the church and say, “Leaders, serve.” The pharisee’s saw the crowds as ignorant and stupid and yet with all their so-called knowledge they cannot see Jesus for who He is. Mark 8:34-37 “34 And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” If anyone aspires to be a leader, Paul says to be an Elder is a noble call, and if you are called to lead in any capacity, I agree with Rick Rigsby whose father told him, “Make sure your servants towel is bigger than your ego.” The Pharisee’s had it wrong.

John 8:1–10 (NASB95)

1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 Early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to Him; and He sat down and began to teach them.

3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,

4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.

5 “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”

6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.

10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”

Time for some teaching. This text only appears in the gospel of John and it is believed to not be a part of the original manuscript. We do not see it in early manuscripts, we see it arise later. Is this a problem? No. I will explain, but first why do we know this was not an original record in the Gospel of John? We look at two area’s and I think John MacArthur does a good job explaining this. Internal and external. The internal: The text itself disrupts what John is recording. Jesus refers to one of the rituals of the feast, which we covered, the water pouring ceremony. In verse 12 He alludes to a second which was a lamp lighting ceremony. This entire Chapter and the next is only found in the Gospel of John, yet verses 8:12-9:41 are not in question. Why? We see this interruption even more as we look at John 8:12-14 “12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” 13 So the Pharisees said to Him, “You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true.” 14 Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.” Jesus is addressing the very objections made in the previous chapter of Jesus’ origin. This story interrupts that. In addition to the ceremonial interruption of the water and lighting ceremony as well as Jesus’ direct rebuttal of His origin, we also see that this story is placed elsewhere in the Gospel as well as a complete relocation to the Gospel of Luke. Dr. James White is correct when he says, “Such a moving about by a body of text is plain evidence of its later origin and the attempt on the part of the scribes to find a place where it fits.” The External evidence, the earliest manuscripts from other translations omit this story. Also, none of the early church fathers who wrote in Greek ever commented on this text. There is speculation, most notably Augustine, who believe this may have been removed due to what appears to be Jesus’ lenient response to adultery. But we do not have any other example of this happening in Scripture. Also Jesus interacts with other people in merciful ways, the Samaritan woman at the well for example. So where does this leave us? We should not trust the Bible? That’s silly. First the simple fact we are discussing this tells us we have a very firm grasp of what is in the text. But this does beg the question, then why do we make note of it not being in the original writing and yet put it in the text? John Westcott said the text, “Is beyond doubt an authentic fragment of apostolic tradition.” Meaning, though John did not write it, it was oral tradition which has made its way in. There were testimonies of Jesus passed along orally alongside Scripture. Notice that the text in no way affects Doctrine and the character of Jesus is not compromised or changed. So how are we to handle the text? We can read it and glean from it truth but it cannot be the basis of Doctrine. Though the oral tradition of this text aligns with the character of Jesus elsewhere in the Gospel’s it cannot be the basis of church practice or Doctrine.

So lets do that: vs 3-5, how would they know? How convenient for them to find this woman. Based upon their lack of self-awareness would we be surprised they know because one of them was apart of the adultery? She may have been brought to them by her husband, we don’t know. They did not care about what was right they wanted to trap Jesus.

verses 6-8, we have no idea what Jesus was writing. Some interesting speculation has been Jesus was writing the sins of those around Him. That would be pretty cool. Jesus writes out your sin on the ground, without your name but, you see it and He says, “You who have no sin throw the first stone.” That would be really cool. One of those questions to ask Jesus. We do not know what He wrote on the ground.

Vs 9, communicates what we should still be seeing, the oldest have enough self-awareness to know they are not the one capable of enacting this condemnation. In their maturity they step away, from the oldest to the youngest. The older model this to the younger.

verses 10-11, we see an interaction which is paralleled by the woman at the well. Jesus doe snot have to reveal her sin to her as her sin is made aware to Jesus publically. Whereas the woman at the well did not know Jesus knew her life. We must also note that Jesus asks, “Did no one condemn you?” and then He says, “From now on do not sin any longer.” Jesus judged her and he judged her sin to be bad, so he tells her to stop it. But He does not condemn her. He does not leave her to her sin to die and be damned. He calls her out of her sin. Sometimes, we need to be reminded that we can come out of our sin. We are not trapped. In Christ we can come out of our sin. Yes we will fight against sin our entire lives, but this woman was told to not go back to adultery, not back to that man she cheated with. This might mean that according to Jesus teaching on divorce she must lead a life of celibacy because her being remarried would be adultery. She was told to come out of that, not to go back to it.