Jesus Teaches in the Temple

John 7 and the Feast of Booths

If you will turn your Bibles with me, please, to the Gospel of John, Chapter 7. The Gospel of John, Chapter 7. As most of you undoubtedly have heard by now, Pastor Fry is not feeling well today. I think, in my recollection anyways, which is not nearly as good as certain other people's recollections, who will remain nameless, I think, since I became an elder here, this is the first time that I've gotten the call about 24 hours out.

I don't recall any other time. We always talk about keeping a sermon in the back of the Bible or something like that, but if I had ever put one back there, it would be so old by now, it would be on yellowed paper, and I'm not sure I'd remember what it was about.

So, it is indeed an unusual circumstance, and we can be very thankful for that, especially because it then afflicts you all with two weeks in a row from me. But certainly, you can tell we're not going to be in Deuteronomy, when not only am I leaving on a Tuesday evening for a little marathon jaunt, first to Heathrow, and then from Heathrow to Johannesburg, and while down there, debates on homosexuality, and two nights in a row in the Juma Masjid, which is an amazing opportunity.

So, all those things to be working on. But last night was also the first sleepover that we had with Clementine. So, that was already planned, and thankfully, she slept well. So, we actually, for once, sleep like a baby, had a nice positive ring to it, as far as that was concerned.

So, no problems there. But, because of that, a little bit of an unusual study this morning. I started thinking about what I could do on short notice, and what I'm normally most comfortable with, as most of you know, is basically reading through a text of Scripture, commenting as I am reading through it, and then going back and dealing with it on an exegetical or interpretational theological level.

And so, as I thought about what passage we might look at, the thought crossed my mind. You know, when you're given very short notice, no one really minds if you sort of bring out one of your stump speeches.

I mean, I am a traveling individual. I speak at churches all the time. Every time I go to Kiev, for example, I know that on very short notice, sometimes, well, once it was on about five minutes' notice, I will be asked to speak in the chapel there, with translation, which always makes it all the more interesting.

And so, you've got certain texts that you've preached in many churches across the land, or it's even more safe when you preach across the seas. A little less likely that people are going to be familiar with things, but, you know, so you've got John 6, and you've got John 8, and you've got things like that.

But the thought crossed my mind as I was thinking about that. You know, I don't think I have ever preached out of John chapter 7. And as I thought about the Gospel of John, certainly a favorite book of many Christians in the modern world, and from evidence, I speak as one dealing with textual criticism, the most widely and earliest attested book of the New Testament in the early papyri is the Gospel of John.

And so it seems to have been a favorite of the people of God for a very long time. But when you think about the big chapters, John chapter 7 doesn't really rank up there, does it? We think of John chapter 3, being born again.

We think of chapter 4, the woman at the well. I think of chapter 5 a lot because my Muslim friends bring it up a lot. I do nothing of my own self. Chapter 6, well, if you're a Calvinist, you have that memorized.

Chapter 8, the I Am sayings. Chapter 9, the man born blind. Chapter 10, the good shepherd. I mean, really, chapter 11, Lazarus. And chapter 12, the end of Jesus' ministry and the judgment passages. And then 13 through 17, ministry to the apostles.

And then the crucifixion narratives. And you'll notice in there, you know, John 1, of course, you know, the prologue and the word. 2 and 7 just sort of don't automatically pop into people's minds. You think of chapter 2, hopefully you think of the wedding and King of Galilee and things like that, okay.

But chapter 7, it's just sort of the quiet chapter. Even though it's got a good number, you know, I mean, for most folks. Ooh, 7, that's good. But as we all know, those were added long after the original writing.

And so it just seems to be somewhat the chapter that, yeah, okay, there's some interesting stuff in there, but just not one of the ones we're most familiar with. And so I decided it would be a good corrective for myself and maybe the rest of us as a group to take a look at chapter 7 because there are some very important things to learn from this chapter in God's words.

So I'm not sure exactly how far I will read at first here. As I said, I'm reading through and I'll be making some brief comments on the translation as I'm doing it so that you might want to make some notes on that.

But this will not be the actual study itself, just more of a looking at the text itself and then going back and, as the Lord gives us time, listening to what the text has to say. So remember, of course, the context really is 5 and 6 because in chapter 5 you had the healing of the man by the pool of Bethesda and you had the great escalation in the opposition to Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees because he had healed on the Sabbath day.

That's going to come up in chapter 7. And then chapter 6, of course, the longest chapter in the Gospel of John, you have the feeding of the 5 ,000, the walking on the water, and then the incredible sermon in the synagogue there in Capernaum that we know so very, very well.

And it may just be because of the brightness of the light in chapter 6 that chapter 7 is not one of those chapters that necessarily just automatically grabs our attention or that maybe we're as familiar with as we might be otherwise.

Jesus' Brothers and the Feast of Booths

And after these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee for he was not wishing to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Again, connecting us back to chapter 5 and what had taken place there.

Now, the feast of the Jews, the feast of Booths, was near. Therefore, he said to his disciples, I'm sorry, not his disciples, therefore his brothers said to him, this would be actually his physical brothers, go up now, leave here, go up into or go into Judea so that your disciples might gaze upon or see the works which you do.

There seems to be some real sarcasm in these words. I hope you hear it. For no one does things in secret, is doing things in secret, and himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, then make yourself manifest to the world.

Show yourself to the world. And then you have the sad commentary of verse 5. For even his brothers did not believe in him. John 7, 5. For even his brothers did not believe in him. Therefore, Jesus said to them, my time is not yet.

Notice the exact parallel. Your time is always ready. Your time is always ready. My time is not yet. We will definitely look at that. The world is not able or cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I am testifying concerning it that its deeds, its works, are evil.

You go up to this feast. I am not going up to this feast. Now, let me just stop immediately. There are two strains of translations sitting in the pews in front of me. And we've talked about this before, but let me mention it again.

Because this text is a text that will be thrown at you as an example of contradiction and error in the Bible. And you know me. I don't ever want you caught by something like that. We talk about these things, even though it may be difficult to do so at times.

If you have the King James or the New King James, it says, I am not yet going up to this feast, correct? If you have almost any other modern translation, it says, I am not going up to this feast, or I do not go up to this feast.

Now, there is but a tiny particle difference between the Greek manuscripts at this point. It's pretty obvious what the original was. And the original was, I do not go up to this feast. The explanation is going to be given within just a few verses.

But, obviously, there were some scribes that were troubled by the fact that Jesus did go up to this feast. Now, here is an example of what happened over the years because of the split that took place between the church and the synagogue.

And that is, many later scribes did not understand what it meant to go up to a feast. You and I would think to go up to a feast is, well, it's that weekend in October when, for 18 years, I wouldn't have been here.

Some of you may remember, we used to go up to the general conference of the Mormon church, the first weekend in April, the first weekend in October. And the Mormons are having their general conference this weekend.

And for most of us, it would just seem to be, well, I'm going up to the conference, which for years meant a long drive. And then finally, eventually, we got smart enough or old enough, one of the two, to not be able to survive the long drive anymore.

And it became a plane trip. But it's not like there was some special procession. And so just going up to the general conference is just traveling. That's how most of us would think. That's not how you went up to the feasts.

And we all know that if we read the Psalter. Right now, which Psalms are we in on Wednesday nights? We're in the Psalms of Ascent, remember? Well, what were they for? They were for going up to Jerusalem, going up to the temple.

And so there was an entire procession. And there would be songs that would be sung. And there would be places to stop. And there would be prayers. It was a big thing. And so what people didn't understand is what Jesus, when it says he went up, but as verse 10, as if not publicly, but in secret, that's not going up to the feast.

So he wasn't lying. He did not join in the procession to go up to the feast. And so later scribes, not knowing that there was a public, religious activity involved in the ascents and the Psalms of Ascent and all the rest of that stuff, a later scribe goes, whoa, oh, my.

And it probably wasn't the scribe going, I better fix this. It was probably the scribe going, reads it and goes, oh, man, the guy that wrote this copy I'm copying from messed up. Obviously, he skipped a word.

And so probably out of concern and out of ignorance, the word was inserted to try to smooth things out, not realizing what the actual background and context was. And so I can't count the number of times I've had someone at some point in time raise this issue and say, see, here's an error in the Bible.

Here's where change has been made. Here's where Jesus lied or something like that. Be aware of these things. And here's one of the biggest examples. And what does it all go back to? Well, very few people today and even back in history understood what it meant to go up to the feast.

And when Jesus says, I am not going up to this feast, what he's talking about is joining in the public procession with the singing and everything else that went with it. So he says, verse 8, go up to the feast yourselves.

I do not go up to this feast. Why? Because my time has not yet fully come. Obviously, if he had joined the procession, everything that happens after this, what's going on, all the talking in the crowds and the people asking questions, all the rest of that stuff, would have resulted in a very different situation than that which actually did take place.

So verse 9, having said these things to them, he remained in Galilee. Verse 10, but when his brothers went up to the feast, then he also went up, not openly, but, as it might be said, in secret. Therefore, the Jews were seeking him.

They were seeking him at the feast and they were saying, where is that man? Where is that one? And there was muttering. It's one of my favorite Greek words. My kids know this Greek word. One of my kids is staring at me right now hoping I don't ask him to tell him what this Greek word might be, but I've said many times that I would use this Greek word with my children in the back seat.

Stop gungus-mooing back there. Gungus-moo, one of the greatest Greek words ever. For parents to remember this one, gungus-moo. Do not gungus-moo at the table. It's muttering. It's complaining. It's what the Jews were doing in John chapter 6, for example.

There were gungus-mooing about Jesus because he had said he had come down out of heaven. Who is this man? We know who his father and mother were, and so on and so forth. And so, there was gungus-moss going on concerning him.

Much gungus-moss going on amongst the crowds, according to verse 12. And, indeed, some were saying, he's a good man. Others were saying, no, no. He deceives or he leads astray the crowds. But no one was speaking openly concerning him.

Why? Because of the fear of the Jews. But when it was now, verse 14, the midst of the feast, so about halfway through the feast, Jesus entered into the temple and began to teach. And the Jews were amazed, saying, how does this one literally know letters not having been taught?

How does this one know letters not having been taught? And Jesus answered and said to them, My teaching is not my own, but it is the teaching of the one who sent me. If anyone, and this is a literal but not overly smooth translation, but I want to give it to you so you can see.

If anyone wills to do his will, if anyone desires to do his will, but it's the same root for his will as the action of the person willing. So, if anyone wills to do his will, they will know concerning the teaching whether it is of God or whether I have spoken from myself.

It's a very important verse. We definitely want to spend some time on that one. The one speaking from himself is seeking his own glory. But the one seeking the glory of the one who sent him, that one is true and there is no unrighteousness in him.

Verse 19. Did not Moses give you the law? And none of you do the law? Not just keep, but it's actually the word to do, to perform, to carry out. Why are you seeking to kill me? The crowd answered, you have a demon.

Who is seeking to kill you? Now, certainly some people in that crowd were well aware of what had happened in Chapter 5. What happened in Chapter 8. I'm sorry, what will happen in Chapter 8 shows that this was indeed their intention.

They're going to pick up stones to stone him. But they knew what had happened in Chapter 5. But others, I mean there were people obviously that came up for the feast that might not know what was going on, might not be aware.

Maybe you just heard a few things or were inaccurately informed. There's going to be a lot of inaccurate information about Jesus that's going to come out in the comments of the crowd here. And from that I think we can learn something about the danger of misinformation about Jesus and how many people in our society are sorely, badly misinformed about Jesus.

And the only way they're going to know the truth is if they encounter people who know the truth about Jesus and who are willing to instruct and to inform and to correct. And so, who is seeking to kill you?

Jesus answered and said to them, One work I did and you all were amazed. One work, one deed I guess you say, and you all marvel at that. And this was of course the healing back in, specifically in Chapter 5.

He's not talking about the miracle in Chapter 6, the feeding of the 5 ,000. For this reason, Moses has given to you circumcision. Not that it came from Moses, but came from the fathers. That might be a commentary, a parenthetical phrase that's placed in there just for historical information.

And on the Sabbath, you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, in order that the law of Moses might not be loosed or undone, why are you angry with me that I made a man whole on the Sabbath?

Judge with Righteous Judgment

Then, verse 24, you might want to make a note to yourself. I'm going to suggest this to all of us. I think any Christian who wants to be able to open your mouth and say anything in our society should have John 7, 24 memorized.

You know why? Because what is the one verse that our society has memorized? Judge not. And what is the absolutely best verse to respond with? Verse 24. Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

Now, if you want to throw in a Paul Washerism along with that, and do not twist the scriptures lest you be destroyed. So, you might want to just throw that in there for the fun of it. But, it is a good verse, I think, to add to your memorization list.

Review it once in a while because you hear it all the time. Now, I realize most of the people quoting it don't know how it functions in the Sermon on the Mount. But, John 7, 24, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with a righteous judgment.

I think I'll go ahead and stop there, because I don't think I'll be able to comment on all of that in the time that we have this morning. So, there is our text. Let's consider what we can learn from this portion of John 7.

The Father's Will, the Son's Teaching, and Human Unbelief

Now, Jesus is ministering. He's walking. It doesn't just mean the physical activity, but this is where he's planning out his journey. This is where he's ministering. This is where he's teaching. In Galilee, for he was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill him.

And so, Jesus is well aware. And this is really... We're still fairly early on in the Gospel. I guess we're sort of toward the middle. But, in reality, there's some water on the bridge. This is still fairly early on.

And yet, now is where we're really going to start getting an emphasis, a repeated emphasis upon this phrase, His hour, His time is not yet. I do not understand how anyone can read the Gospel of John without a solid understanding of the kingly freedom of God to rule over events in time.

Because over and over again, hour has not yet come. Hour has not yet come. Hour has not yet come. My hour is here. It seems so plain and so obvious that there is a divine decree. And Jesus isn't going, Well, I hope my hour hasn't come, but it could come at any time.

Well, He says that to His brothers. Your time is always ready. Why? Well, because they don't know what their purposes are. They may think, Well, you know, God has a purpose for me. And that purpose means that I'm going to live to 85 years of age.

Well, you may think that. You may have gone to some miracle healing rally someplace and somebody prophesied over you and told you that, but they don't know that either. The reality is that Jesus here is demonstrating having knowledge of something that would be true only of Him in the sense that because of who He is, He has supernatural knowledge and He has a mission to accomplish that is absolutely central.

But to the unbeliever, like His brothers, your time is always ready. Your time is always ready. We'll talk a little bit more about that. So, at the Feast of the Jews, the Feast of the Booths was near.

Now, you know something about the Feast of the Booths. It was to remind the people of Israel about their time in the wilderness. It was obviously intended to remind them of God's faithfulness to them, even in those wilderness wanderings where they had so often rebelled against God.

And it was meant to remind them that they shouldn't get too comfortable in their nice, comfy houses, that they are still to be pilgrims, in a sense, in this world. And so the Feast of the Booths was near.

And so His brothers... And, you know, we only get a few very brief insights into the family life of Jesus. That's why, obviously, later generations, and in fact, especially unorthodox individuals later in church history, felt the need to fill that story out.

And so some of the strangest, and in fact, deleterious, dangerous, damaging books that have ever been written were written over the next couple of hundred years. And they give us traditions, or they give us myths and mythology about what Jesus' life was like as a child, what Jesus' life was like within the family.

The Spirit of God did not give us these things because it is not for us to inquire into those things that God does not feel necessary for us to know. And that may make a few people chafe in Western society where we seem to feel that we have the right to all knowledge.

But God says, No, I am not going to satisfy your desires to know everything about what it's like. I don't care how often you sit around going, I wonder what it would have been like to have had a perfect brother.

I mean, that would have been rough. Always doing the right thing. Well, it must have been quite the interesting situation, especially when your parents are sinners. Yeah, that must have been a pretty difficult situation, but the fact of the matter is the Word of God does not spend its time telling us about these things.

But we are given some insights into the family of Jesus. And here we see a mockery. We see an opposition. We see probably long-term jealousy. I'm sure that Joseph and Mary struggled in that family situation.

No doubt about it. And probably didn't handle everything aright. We can go ahead and blame them if we want, but at this point in time, Jesus' brothers are unbelievers. And as a result of their unbelief, they are goading Jesus into, basically from their mind's eye, doing some more magic tricks.

Why don't you go up to the feast? It would be a great time for your followers to see you and for you to be manifested to the world. As I said, Jesus' response demonstrates He knows. He knows the truth of verse 5.

He knows that even His brothers were not believing in Him. He knew their hearts. Now we know that at least for some, that's going to change, thankfully, after the resurrection. But, His response is, My time is not yet here.

Your time is always ready. The very same Greek word ready here is the term that is used when Peter says we are always to be ready to give an answer for the hopeless within us. We're always to be prepared.

But here it basically means I know what I have to accomplish. I know what my time means. I know what that hour is going to involve. You do not. You do not know the means of your death. You do not know the time of your death.

And that means it's always hovering over your head. We do live... One of the reasons, my friends, one of the reasons that we find the proclamation and preaching of the Gospel so often likened to, as Jesus said, the casting of the seed and so much of it falls upon what?

The path along the side. The hard ground, what happens? The birds come along and they just eat it straight up. There's never any growth. Immediate rejection. And in the secular world, that's what the proclamation of the Gospel is often like.

And you know why that is? When we think back upon what happened to the Reformation, sometimes we from the 21st century look back and we wonder what was with someone like Luther? That he could spend six hours in a confessional.

He's a monk. There's not that much trouble you can get into in a monastery. It would take you six hours to confess it. I mean, seriously. Why was there such a willingness to look inward? Why was there such a fear of death?

I don't remember how old I was. I remember my grandmother dying, but she was in Kansas. We were out here. And I think it was once I became a chaplain at Thunderbird. I think that was the first time I ever saw anybody die.

I'd never been in the presence of death. And we live in a culture that hides death. In the olden days, families would live together generations upon generations. Grandchildren would see their grandparents pass away.

They weren't hidden from death. And, of course, in the days of the Reformation, most people only lived in their 40s or 50s. I mean, the plague had come through only a few... It was within not anyone living's memory, but was still a fairly recent event when a third of Europe had died.

One out of three. That was still very much in people's minds. And the plague kept coming back every once in a while. And it's been said in many places a woman would have to have ten live births to get one through to maturity.

So the death of children was a commonplace thing. You couldn't make it to the age of five without seeing a dead body. But today, in our movies and our television shows, you can have dozens of people die, thousands of people die, and by the end of the program, everyone's happy, and you're getting ready for the next episode.

There's never any grieving. No one ever sees the results of death. And so as a result, you can talk about the fact that your time is always ready. Each one of us is going to leave this building and we're going to get into a metal and plastic contraption filled with combustible liquid, and we're going to hurdle down roads with other people who are in metal and plastic contraptions, some of whom are texting on their phone, and we've put that out of our minds.

We don't think about it. We know what could happen because we read in the newspaper, if you still read one of those, or you read online in your RSS feeds how many people died in car accidents. We read about people.

I don't know what it is. We've got some folks visiting with us this morning, heading up to Black Canyon City. Be careful up there. Have all the rest of you noticed one thing? Whenever I come down, I -17, from Flagstaff, and I come down Five Mile Hill into Black Canyon City, have you noticed how many times there have been accidents?

Somebody, don't ask me why, starts driving up the wrong side of I -17 into the oncoming traffic right there at Black Canyon City. I cannot tell you. I know of at least four head-on collisions of people who got on the wrong side of the freeway there at Black Canyon City and headed straight up into traffic that is hurtling down Five Mile Hill.

They're almost always fatalities. Almost always. Happens all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've come down that hill. I've been on a bike, for crying out loud. Once at 48 miles per hour. I happen to remember.

And if a car had been coming up, but we put that stuff out of our mind. We don't think about those types of things. Your time is always opportune. It is always ready. And when you live amongst secularists who do not think about anything past death, and who have been conditioned to automatically think it happens to others, not to me, even though they know in their deep down inside that's not true.

But when that's how they are conditioned to think, then talking about judgment and eternity, I'm going to live to be 95. That's way down the road. I don't have to think about such things. We see it around us all the time.

We see it around us all the time. Jesus said to his brothers, your time is always opportune. And to any unbeliever, that must be our message. Your time is always ready. The world is not able to hate you.

Why? Because you're part of the world. That would be self-loathing. The unbeliever is part of the world. The unbeliever, by nature, is not going to be testifying that the deeds of the world are evil because their deeds are evil.

But me, the world hates. It hates me because I am testifying concerning it that its deeds are evil. Jesus, by his very nature of who he is, is light. His words, by nature, must expose the nature of evil deeds simply by the positive affirmation he makes of who God is and what his purposes are.

That light demonstrates the rebellion of the world. And so, there is a hatred here mentioned by Jesus that is going to be expanded upon, of course, in John chapter 15. The world has hated me. Do not be surprised if it hates you as well.

Because if you're in him, if you're indwelled by his Spirit, then you are also going to, by your life, testify concerning the world that its deeds are evil. Yes, I realize that's a word that is being banished from our vocabulary in our society today.

Evil? If anything, it's being brought back to describe that which is good. For a while you couldn't say anything's evil. Now you can say good things are evil. So he tells them to go up to the feast. He's not going up in the way that they're going up because my time has not yet fully come.

And so he stays behind. When they go up, he goes up secretly. And we are given an insight into what the Jews were saying. They're saying, where is that one? Where is that individual? They were seeking him at the feast.

And there was much gungus-mooing. There was much murmuring, grumbling, and there was division. There was division about him. Some are saying he's a good man. It just seems obvious. He heals the blind, and he raises the crippled, and he speaks about God's kingdom.

How can he not be a good man? But others are saying, no, no, no. You see, he's leading the people astray. He's leading the crowds astray. And how would he be leading them astray? Well, if you think that the Pharisaical interpretation and strictures are the Word of God and are necessary to be believed, then you would have to think that Jesus was leading people astray.

And certainly the Pharisees viewed it that way. This was being done in whispers because there was a recognition that the leadership of the Jews No one was speaking openly of him for fear of the Jews. There was already that recognition that's going to then come more fully into expression in chapter 9 when it is mentioned that the Jewish leadership had already decided that anyone who confesses Jesus or believes that Jesus is a prophet of God is to be put out of the synagogue.

And again, that's a whole lot more in that day than what in our society being put out of a church would mean, at least to most people. So the feast has been going on for a while. So in the midst of it, and if you arrive in the midst, you haven't gone up, again, is another way of expressing that.

Jesus goes into the temple and he begins to teach. And the Jews, again, are astonished at the level of his teaching. They're astonished that this is not... Some people actually assert that what's being said here is that Jesus was not taught to read or something like that.

That's not what it's saying. It could literally be understood that way, but that's not what it's saying. The point is he was not a part of the rabbinical schools. And yet he knew God's truth. And over and over again throughout the Gospels, it is mentioned that the people were astounded because he taught with such authority.

It wasn't like there were scribes who were just always saying, well, Rabbi so-and-so said this and Rabbi so-and-so said that. Jesus, knowing their amazement, answered and does what he did in chapter 5.

Once again, he emphasizes the absolute unity that exists between the Father and the Son. Unitarians see this and they assume that what Jesus is doing is making himself less than deity. He's somehow eschewing the very worship that's going to be given to him in chapter 9, the very claims that he makes in chapter 8 about being the I Am, etc., etc.

No. The emphasis is on the unity that exists between Father and Son. He says, My teaching is not my own, but it is His who sent me. The Father has sent me with a message and I am perfectly delivering that message.

It does not come from me. There is perfect unity between myself and the Father. I am not some competing deity. I am not calling for a division in the worship of God. Anything like that at all. There is perfect unity between myself and my Father.

And then we have verse 17. Now verse 17 is very often cited by individuals who deny the total depravity of man. It is often cited as a proof text saying, See? Everyone has this ability. This ability to be willing.

The text isn't saying anything about this. In fact, when Jesus actually does address whether a person has the power to believe on their own, to will, to know is true, anything like that, what is Jesus' constant refrain all through the Gospel of John?