THE JEWS' PLAN:
1. THEIR SYSTEM WAS THE LAW.
- John 7:21-24.
- The miracle that is referred to in v. 21 is almost certainly the healing at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15). John records miracles after that, but that was the miracle that brought out the issue of healing on the Sabbath. The words that follow indicate that the religious leaders’ beliefs on the Law were a point of contention.
- The point that Jesus is making is essentially this: “You don’t have a problem circumcising a child on the Sabbath day. In fact, you celebrate the fact that circumcision came from Moses and the patriarchs. Why are you willing to ‘break the Sabbath’ to circumcise when that could have been put off a day but you are adamantly opposed to ‘breaking the Sabbath’ to make someone whole? Why do you blithely give one an easy pass while the other you’re willing to kill over?”
- In v. 24 Jesus accuses them of judging in a shallow way. They judge by mere appearances. They don’t judge with a righteous judgment. Their system was petty and lacking in depth and maturity. There was little subtlety or insight in their approach. They were distant from the heart of God.
- So they were totally focused on the Law, but they were not consistent in their interpretation of the Law. Which leads us to the second thing.
2. THEY WERE HYPOCRITICAL IN THEIR APPLICATION OF THE LAW.
- John 7:19.
- I’ve already noted what vv. 21-24 tell us about the religious leaders and the Law. Verse 19 finds Jesus accusing them of blanket hypocrisy. They said their way was the Law, yet that approach did not get them to God. They fell short of keeping the Law.
- As Paul notes in Romans, the point of the Law was ultimately not to get us to God, but rather to show us how far from God we are. It did not provide a way for us to be right with God. Instead, it showed us how much we need to change for our lives to be right with God.
- But the religious leaders didn’t acknowledge any of that. They held the Law high and said that it was their way to God. They did that even as they were not keeping the Law.
- It’s a little like saying how great a certain car is and proclaiming how much you love it. Then you have someone ask you it that car could get you to New York from here and you say, “No, it can’t get you there.” If it can’t get you there, it’s not really all that great, is it?
- The Law can’t get us to God because we can’t perfectly keep the Law.
WHAT JESUS OFFERED:
- vv. 14-15.
- Note their confusion about Him. He didn’t fit into their system, including that the new teachers learned from the established rabbis through their standard channels.
- v. 19b-20.
- Their response was not mild. They wanted to take Him out.
- Jesus does not go into great and lengthy teaching here about what His approach is going to be. They wouldn’t have been able to comprehend it anyway because the idea of a crucified Savior was beyond their comprehension.
- But Jesus does set up a clear marker between what He is bringing and what the religious leaders are offering.
1. JESUS WAS PERFECTLY REPRESENTING GOD IN HIS SYSTEM.
- John 7:16, 18c.
- Verse 16 tells us that Jesus is not coming with His own ideas. Rather, He is living to be a conduit of the Father’s ideas.
- Jesus limited Himself in taking on human flesh (Philippians 2:5-11). In so doing, He relied on the Father (and the Spirit) to enable what He was doing. This was true, for instance, with the miracles. It wasn’t His own power doing that – He relied on the Father and Spirit’s power flowing through Him. It was also true of His teaching. He didn’t make it up on His own. No, He listened to His Father and taught what the Father instructed Him to. Verse 16 reminds us of Jesus’ reliance.
- The end of v. 18 gives us another piece of essential information. Jesus is talking about “He who works for the honor of the One who sent Him” – which, translated, means Jesus working for the honor of the Father. He tells us that He is a “man of truth” and also that “there is nothing false in Him.”
- This tells us that Jesus is perfectly representing God. Unlike the religious leaders, He is not a hypocrite in what He’s putting forward. Jesus is the perfect embodiment of what God is doing.
- This is essential truth when we are talking to people about knowing Jesus. When you know Jesus, you know God. When you hear Jesus, you’re hearing God. When you know the heart of Jesus, you know the heart of God.
- Not mostly or partly. No, fully.
2. YOU LEARN THE TRUTH OF HIS SYSTEM BY DOING IT.
- John 7:17.
- What Jesus says in v. 17 is also interesting.
- Jesus in Matthew 23 goes to great lengths to expose the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the religious leaders. He explains point by point where they are hypocrites and blind guides. One of the main accusations He throws at them is that they do not do what they teach. They love to be considered the religious experts and to explain the Law to everyone, but that they don’t actually follow the Law.
- What Jesus says in v. 17 is important. You come to know whether what Jesus is saying is true or not by actually doing it.
- This is a wildly different approach than most people want to take. The approach they want is like this: show me it’s true and then I’ll obey. What Jesus offers here is the opposite: obey and I’ll show you that it’s true.
- We are called to actually obey Jesus. We are invited to actually do what He said to do and see the change it makes in our lives.
- I have talked numerous times in sermons about the empty belief that plagues the church in America today.
- We have so many who “say the right words” but have no actually “walking with Christ” in their lives. They say they believe in Jesus but have no obedience to Christ in their daily lives. That might work in the religious leaders’ system, but not in Jesus’. That’s because Jesus came to actually change our lives.
3. THIS WILL BRING GLORY TO GOD.
- John 7:18a.
- What is the result of this?
- The result of the religious leaders’ system is again displayed for us in Matthew 23. Jesus tells how the people are burdened down by the Law commands that the religious leaders lay on them. Burdensome commands that they can’t hold up under.
- Jesus here says the new system that He is coming to inaugurate will bring glory and honor to God. Verse 18 says that Jesus is not interested bringing honor to Himself, but instead to shine honor on the Father.
- What does that look like? Basically, it’s that Jesus is going to obey the plan of the Father and win our salvation. Jesus’ sacrifice will open the door to our transformed lives, which will bring great glory to the Father. Our saved, changed lives will bring glory to the Father through the Son!
CONCLUSION:
- What all this adds up to is two wildly different systems.
- Jesus is saying that the religious leaders’ way of doing things is woefully inadequate but that He has come to do a new thing.
- This morning we need to grasp on to Jesus and all that He is offering.
