If you’ll please turn with me in your Bible to the Gospel of John, chapter 7, beginning at verse 25. John writes, ‘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.’ 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. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.’ So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, ‘When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?’
And the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word and the wisdom and understanding that it gives us. Help us to appreciate and be patient for your kairos time, the appropriate times that you appoint all things to happen when it is right and necessary and good. Give us confidence and help us to trust and know that all things happen in your time and for your reasons, for the good of those who love you. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Now, the question of is Jesus really the Messiah is the most important question any of us can be asked to decide, and it is the most important question for us to answer correctly. There are very few people today willing to argue that Jesus never was. Few suggest that he is simply a fictional character. The preponderance of evidence accepted supports this probability that a tradesman, by vocation, named Jesus from an inconsequential town called Nazareth lived, worked, and developed a social and religious following in the Roman province of Judea during the first century AD, and furthermore that this Jesus and his followers later experienced religious and political persecution.
It’s pretty well accepted, however, even as the world is willing to accept the premise of a historical Jesus, there is little agreement regarding who and what Jesus is, was, or did. Sadly, this even holds true with some that claim to be Christian. For example, Jehovah’s Witnesses completely deny the deity of Christ, as present-day Arians, believing that there once was a time when Jesus was not. They believe that both before the incarnation and after his resurrection, Jesus was or is actually the archangel Michael, believing that he is the greatest of created beings, misunderstanding him this way as the firstborn of creation. Instead, they believe that he was simply a or the perfect man, and to justify this, they assert that the text of the New Testament has been corrupted or mistranslated.
For example, they claim that John 1:1 should read, ‘In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god,’ according to their New World Translation, instead of ‘the Word was God.’ Mormons, on the other hand, deny both the inherency and finality of the New Testament scriptures, and although they admittedly accept the essential details of the Gospel, those remain undefined for them. They do believe that Jesus was fully human and fully the Son of God, possessing the powers of a God but not himself God. Instead, they believe that Jesus’s teachings and his own matchless and perfect life provide a pattern for men and women to live by, and that we must emulate that pattern as best we can to find true happiness and fulfillment in this life.
They furthermore deny the doctrine of salvation or justification by grace alone according to the monistic work of the Holy Spirit. Instead, they affirm a form of cooperative salvation, believing that we need to work to our limit and then rely upon the merit, mercy, and grace of the Holy One of Israel to see us through the struggles of life into life eternal. In doing so, they define our human faith, what we believe, as being a salvific work. Meanwhile, if you look outside, much of the secular world seems to agree with the Mormons’ view about Jesus as being just a moral exemplar and a good teacher.
But I think C.S. Lewis best overturns that argument, arguing that on account of Jesus’s many claims of divinity, if those claims were false, then Jesus must be recognized as a liar, which would cause him to lose all credibility as a moral exemplar. Outside the faith, many Hindus and their religious and political leaders, like Gandhi, have considered Jesus not in a historical context but as an incarnation of divine origin, accepting him as a highly evolved spiritual being that transcends any particularity of time, place, or context, who provided a message and example of universal relevance. To their view, Jesus is not God, nor is he numbered among their gods, even though many Hindus will honor and revere Jesus and affirm his moral teachings from the gospels.
Lastly, the Quran teaches, and Muslims believe, that Jesus, whom they call Isa, was merely a prophet and not God, not Allah, nor was he even the Son of God. They believe that he was born of a virgin, but in a completely different manner from the Gospel narrative, and that he lived as a witness to Allah by performing miracles and doing works of kindness. They deny the historical fact of the crucifixion and the resurrection, but they affirm his ascension into heaven, similar to Elijah or Enoch, asserting that he will return one day on the day of judgment to condemn the wicked and repudiate both the Jews and us Christians for our lack of faith and our idolatry.
So you see, it’s quite plain that the important question of who and what Jesus is—of is Jesus really the Messiah of God—has confounded people for the past 2,000 years, and it continues to do so today.
Returning to our text, during this particular Feast of Booths, while Jesus was teaching in the temple, some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, ‘Is not this the man of 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?’ However, the question is, who were the ones speaking here? Since the crowd had just recently responded to Jesus’s assertion that the Jews were trying to kill him, saying, ‘You have a demon; who is trying to kill you?’ so who were these people of Jerusalem?
Throughout his Gospel, John uses certain expressions and euphemisms to describe different classes or specific groups of people, and the most commonly used euphemism appears to be ‘the Jews,’ which is used 56 times in his Gospel in specific reference to the religious leadership, the priests, and the Pharisees. John does not use this expression as a reference for the general corporate body of Jewish believers.
Next, whenever he refers to ‘the crowd,’ he’s always dependent upon the particular narrative context of the people who are there, but generally and broadly, he means the common folk. But the expression ‘the people of Jerusalem’ is uniquely used by John here; this is actually the only time it’s used. Since the other two distinct classes are also mentioned in this narrative in this story, we need to try and reason out just who these people were and why they might have reason to say what they said.
Thinking it through, scripture implies, and the historical record affirms, that Jerusalem was the religious center, the religious capital for Jews in the region, but it was not an administrative center, and it hadn’t been since the death of King Herod in 4 BC, which caused the territory of Judea to be divided into three parts with three separate administrations.
Archelaus was over the southern and western half, a part that included Judea, Edom, and Samaria. Herod Antipas was over the northwestern region of Galilee, while their brother Philip was over the northeastern region, which is today the Golan Heights. But at the time of Jesus’s crucifixion, the region that was once ruled by Archelaus was under the authority of a Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who administered the region from the port city of Caesarea Maritima, while Antipas ruled Galilee from Tiberias.
So although Jerusalem was not a regional capital, its status as the religious center preserved its importance because of the three required annual pilgrimages that caused its population to temporarily swell. Since its principal importance was on account of the Jewish religion, we know that it was the primary home for the priestly caste and other dedicated religionists, namely the high priest and his family, the temple workers, religious students, scribes, and Pharisees.
Also, the Jews—since it was the Jews who wanted to kill Jesus, clearly they were not the ones speaking. So who else could it be? During this period, only the wealthy and socially preeminent devout Jews could afford to live in Jerusalem, and they could only do so if they were independently wealthy or if they were supported by the temple. So if the Jews were the main people living there and they weren’t the ones speaking, then who did that leave? Who else could rightly be called ‘the people of Jerusalem’?
I think the answer will seem simple and clear and obvious once you hear it. I suggest it was the help, the servant class, and their families. Just as the Jews lived in Jerusalem to serve the temple, the actual common people of Jerusalem lived there or nearby at least to serve the needs of the Jews. This is a little different from the present situation in Orlando, Florida, where people primarily live there.
The people who usually live there are the Disney executives, people who work in the parks, or people that serve all of the innumerable visitors that come to Orlando annually on vacation. This makes the executives like the Jews, the vacationers like the crowd, and all the rest like the people of Jerusalem. Recognizing this, we then begin to realize how that supports and influences John’s narrative.
Because as anyone who’s ever watched a show like Downton Abbey knows, the servants know all of their master’s secrets. They know what their bosses know and think and plot and plan. They know where they go, what they do, and who they’re doing it with. So it’s reasonable then that some of the people of Jerusalem, the servants of the Jews, might ask, ‘Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him?’ Because they were aware of their master’s plotting, really these questions are just simply downstairs gossip and musings from the unseen, common, and forgotten class of folks that really knows more than the general public but are unable to say so publicly because their knowledge comes from behind the scenes.
Now, this digression was just a short perspective shift in John’s narrative further showing the division between Jesus and the Jews. Through this, John is presenting us with a secondary human witness to the fact of their conspiracy against Christ. Then he describes these people’s observations along with their interpretation and conclusion.
See, these people knew the Jews were conspiring to kill Jesus, but since Jesus was teaching publicly in the temple and the Jews neither refuted nor opposed him, nor did they try to silence him, they interpreted this to mean, which led them to conclude that the Jews had decided that Jesus actually is the Christ. The silence of the Jews was interpreted as their consent and approval of Jesus and his teachings.
But then they also start to question and doubt that conclusion’s wisdom and correctness, saying, ‘But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.’ Although considered more socially common, we would expect that these servants here, these people of Jerusalem, were also more theologically knowledgeable and discerning than the average Jewish believer because of their proximate access to religious teaching; because they lived and worked there under the shadow of the temple.
But their reason for doubting is really quite odd. I haven’t found any biblical foundation for their belief, especially when we consider Herod’s question to the chief priests and scribes asking where the Christ child would be born—and they answered him, ‘Bethlehem.’ But one of the ancient church fathers, Justin Martyr, who died around 165 AD, recorded a Jewish tradition that asserted that the Messiah is unknown and does not even reveal himself at all, nor has any power until Elijah shall come and anoint him and shall make him manifest to all. This tradition is something that the 20th-century scholar F.F. Bruce suggests was the actual source for these people’s doubt.
But when we think about it, the Old Testament scriptures really do give clues regarding where the Messiah would be from, even if it does require hindsight and the Holy Spirit’s guidance and wisdom to understand it. I mean, Jesus coming from the town of Nazareth can be viewed as a fulfillment of Isaiah 11:1, ‘There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit,’ because the Hebrew term translated as ‘branch’ is ‘nator,’ which is the root of ‘Nazareth.’ Similarly, Jesus’s birth in Bethlehem was a fulfillment of Micah 5:2, ‘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 old, from ancient days.’
And then lastly, according to Matthew 2:15, the Egyptian sojourn of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus is viewed as a fulfillment of Hosea 11:1, ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.’ Regardless, although John demonstrates that the people of Jerusalem were trying to judge for themselves by not merely trusting the opinion of the Jews, it’s obvious that they were not judging with right judgment. They were not judging with right judgment because they did not rightly understand the scriptures; because not knowing the Christ’s point of origin was less a question of from where but more of who.
Then here again, Jesus demonstrates his extraordinary and supernatural knowledge and understanding of what is in the hearts and minds of men by answering and responding to the people of Jerusalem’s concern. 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. I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.’
He affirmed that they knew him as a person. He affirmed that they knew his personal background and details, but he denied that his teaching and his actions were for his own personal benefit. He affirmed that he was acting as someone else’s agent. He affirmed that he had been sent on a mission to reveal his sender—a sender that they did not rightly know—which actually would make the people’s incorrect assumption correct from a slightly different point of view.
But despite already knowing that some of the Jews, like Nicodemus, recognized and believed that Jesus did actually come from the Lord, this last point was the real rub for everyone that opposed Jesus because he was charging them with not knowing God—with not knowing the Lord Yahweh, the God of Israel. Not only did Jesus assert that he truly knows the Lord and that he was sent by him, but that corporately the priests and Levites and Pharisees did not.
He did so publicly within the temple precinct, from right within the boundaries of their sacred authority. How extraordinarily outrageous! How easy it would be for the Jewish leaders to take offense, and how politically dangerous this was for Jesus. So it is no wonder that the Jews would be seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come.
Remembering how Jesus had earlier explained to his brothers that it was not yet his kairos, John’s narrative demonstrates the omnipotent power of God’s sovereign decree. Because no amount of human self-control or restraint could prevent the insulted religious powers that be from immediately going after Jesus right then and there.
I can’t imagine the Jews simply listening to Jesus, suffering his righteous rebuke with silent, humble acceptance. I would instead expect that there would be a lot of clutching at pearls, cries of indignation, angry shouts, and loud protestations against Jesus’s accusation. Then I would expect immediate calls for his arrest, the summoning of the temple guards to seize him, followed by Jesus being hauled away to be tried publicly for blasphemy right then, with Jesus being convicted by the standard of Torah while at the same time the Jews would be justified according to their righteousness.
But no! Even though they did send folks to arrest Jesus, no one laid a hand on him, and I can only understand this as a miracle of God’s providence and protection of God’s eternal decree and plan because his hour had not yet come. Because it was not yet the right divinely appointed moment in redemptive history for this to happen. Thus, many people believed in him because of the silence of the Jews, because of their factless non-response to Jesus’s challenge against their religious authority and political power.
And not only this, but because of everything that Jesus had done, his publicly known miracles and wonders. Because they were emboldened by the implicit approval of the Jews, many of the people of Jerusalem were becoming convinced, beginning to wonder, ‘When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?’ So ultimately, the evidence that was convincing them were all the signs that Jesus had done—the specific evidences which John provides in this Gospel, because they prove who Jesus is. They prove that Jesus is really the Messiah.
Through this narrative, John shows us how those first-century folk were becoming convinced of this fact. Remember, the true purpose of prophetic signs of miracles and wonders was to confirm the messenger and their message, which is why there are only three periods in the history of redemption when miracles are commonly recorded and connected to individuals: Moses and Aaron during the time of the Exodus, Elijah and Elisha during the time of the divided kingdoms, and Jesus and the apostles during the first century.
Each group of miracle workers spoke uniquely for the Lord to the people, because God gave them the ability to perform their miracles to demonstrate their authority to speak on his behalf as his messengers and representatives. They spoke for the Lord and demonstrated his power before God’s chosen people and before the nations, with the miracles being the sign of their credentials.
Ultimately, those people who judged with right judgment using the revealed standard of scripture—the law, the prophets, and the writings, the people of Jerusalem who believed—reached the correct conclusion about Jesus, believing that on account of his signs and wonders, Jesus is the Messiah. They believed the evidence presented, and they believed God, trusting his revealed word.
But on the other hand, when the Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. The Jews that were not judging with right judgment, who were not using the revealed standard of scripture, the law, the prophets, and the writings, reached the wrong conclusion, believing that Jesus was a fraud, a blasphemer, a religious and political troublemaker upsetting the social order and not the Messiah. They did not believe the available evidence, and so by sending officers to try and arrest Jesus, they proved that they did not know God, the Lord, proving that they did not trust his revealed word and preferred the wisdom and judgment of sinful men.
But what does all this have to do with us today? Like the people in first-century Judea and across the Roman Empire, we are presented with an abundance of evidence—evidence for the existence of God, nature, and the whole ordered universe surrounding us; evidence explaining who God is, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit—that’s called the Old and New Testament scriptures; evidence confirming the truth of scripture, the miracles described within the Old Testament confirm the divine message and messenger, the miracles of Jesus confirm the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, the miracles of the apostles confirm their divine message, and the written law of God, his commandments, that confirms the correctness of our conscience as it convicts us of our recognition of moral absolutes of right and wrong, our internal sense that there must be justice.
We have evidence confirming people’s trust, confidence, and faith, both in scripture and in the truth of its reading—the willingness of the gospel eyewitnesses and of Jesus to die, rather than repudiate or count things as lies, falsehoods, or fictional myths. We have the witness and the willing of successive generations of Christian believers who died as martyrs, risking their lives in human comfort by living obediently to the propositions of scripture; by refusing to obey corrupt and pagan governments that tried to force them to engage in false worship; by entering into plague-infested places to love, care for, and show mercy to these least of these who were sick and dying; by adopting unwanted children that were abandoned to the elements and bringing them into their families.
We have the evidence from the historical record, both documentary and archaeological, that supports the biblical narrative and the absence of opposing evidence that refutes or contravenes the biblical narrative; and evidence by internal testimony of the Holy Spirit that dwells within the regenerate elect.
Now, five of those six evidences are primarily intelligence-based, being rational, logical, and physical, while only one is spiritually based and entirely dependent on faith. Those five evidences and their implications should be enough to cause every rational person to lean towards the Christian faith, as in Blaise Pascal’s famous wager.
So like those in first-century Judea and the Roman Empire, we must weigh the evidence and decide for ourselves by using right judgment: Is Jesus really the Messiah? Is Jesus Christ really the savior of mankind? Is Jesus Christ really the Lord of Heaven and Earth? Will Jesus Christ really return someday to judge the living and the dead? Will I really be able to stand justified and righteous in that judgment?
Those five types of evidences I listed are to us like the five signs that John has just demonstrated to the first-century Jews. So I ask you to consider for yourself and decide: Would or should the savior of humanity need to provide any more evidence to convince you? If a person has the ultimate power within yourself to choose whether or not to believe in Jesus Christ, is the physical evidence and the testimony of witnesses reason enough to believe in Jesus? Is your reason alone enough for you to believe and enough for you to unreservedly entrust the entirety of your present and future life to Christ, even though it might cost you your friends, your freedom, or your worldly future?
Do you trust your reason enough to judge rightly? Do you have enough confidence in your own personal decision-making capabilities? I can’t say that I do, which is why I’m so grateful that God gives us his Holy Spirit to give us faith and knowledge and understanding. This is why I am so eternally grateful that God first chooses us—that God chose me. Because I’m not at all confident that I could have chosen him on my own, because frankly, for much of my earlier life, I can’t say that I ever chose Christ over the things of this world.
While I believe that God is, and I believed that Jesus is who he says he is, my actions at the time proved that I didn’t really believe that God or his commandments held any priority or degree of importance for my life, for how I lived—something I’ve since repented of and asked his forgiveness for.
And I would not be truthful if I claimed to have been good or an entirely good person in those days; however, I remember that at that time I certainly did not think of myself as being bad, wicked, or evil. Looking back, I know how wrong I was. It took something more than just my mind to convince me of the truth. It required the work of the Holy Spirit to bring me around, to pick me up, and to set me down on the right and proper path.
That is something for which I thank God daily, and I would never want to go back. So with Jesus and with John, I encourage you and implore you to decide for yourself by using right judgment and become convinced that Jesus is really the Messiah. Then, once believing it, live life like you believe it. If you believe that Jesus is your savior, your rescuer, and your king, then live heeding his words; obey his commandments by loving God and loving your neighbors, repent and flee from your sins, and surrender your whole self to Christ, and be holy because he is holy.
So believe that Jesus is really the Messiah, the Son of God, and God the Son; the Logos who is Theos and Andros. Trust it and live according to, amen.