Ken Boa Reflections Ministries

Ken Boa: I've got an outline of John 7 we're looking at this morning. I adapted it from a little commentary by Warren Wiersbe. He's always very clever in his little outlines and so forth. Before the feast, we're looking at the responses to Jesus of disbelief. Then in the middle of the feast, it was a debate. And then at the end of the feast is division. It's a pretty good outline, a pretty accurate way of looking at it, as we're going to be seeing.

So we're going to be going to John chapter 7 in our time together. We have the disbelief at the feast in verses 1 through 10. We see the response of Jesus after this miracle that had taken place in chapter 6. After these things, referring to that, there was growing opposition because of all the things that he was doing. This becomes a major theme. Verse 1 says that they were seeking to kill him. If you scroll down to verse 19, it says as well, "Why do you seek to kill me?" And then in verse 25, "Is this not the man they are seeking to kill?" In verse 30, they were seeking to seize him. And then in verse 32, they wanted to seize him.

This motif of rejection of Christ is only growing more because as time goes by, he gets away more from the crowds and more to his disciples, and there's an opposition that takes place that's increasing. This takes place during the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, the Tabernacles. This was a reminder of God's providential care for them during the wilderness experience. If you remember, there were four feasts in the spring. They were Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost. They were all fulfilled literally and on those very days. That's a very important theme.

Then there's a summer gap that takes place. After the summer gap, there are three remaining feasts, the fall feasts. I take it that they relate to Israel's regathering, its national repentance, and then Israel in the kingdom, corresponding to Trumpets, Atonement, and Tabernacles. There's this large summer gap between those three. My view is that because they were fulfilled literally on the first ones, I think that they will also be fulfilled in the same way in the Second Coming. So we're looking at this fourth one, though, this Feast of Tabernacles. It's a feast about the kingdom of God, and it relates to that very clearly.

During that Feast of Booths, there was this intensification of opposition toward him. But the temple would be illuminated at night, and they would pour out water from the Pool of Siloam each day. On the seventh day, they would go around seven times. It was a motif of light and also water, and he offers himself the water of life, so it becomes corresponding to that. This opposition is only increasing. In Matthew chapter 13, his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go into Judea so that your disciples may see your works which you are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world." For not even his brothers were believing in him.

Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet here, but your time is always opportune. The world cannot hate you because it hates me, but it hates me because I testify that its deeds are evil. Go up to this feast yourselves. I do not go up to the feast because my time has not fully come." Having said these things to them, he stayed in Galilee. It's an interesting theme because it tells us that his brothers were there. Matthew 13:55 says, "Is this not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, and his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And his sisters, are they not all with us?"

It's clear that Mary bore other children after she had him. The doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary is not really supported in scripture at all. It's a very clear thing that she did have children and he had half-brothers. That was through Joseph. But he was, of course, born of a virgin for his birth. But they lived with him all their lives. Stop and think about that for a moment. They knew his life. They saw his miracles. In spite of that close contact with them, they still were unbelievers. I think that's absolutely remarkable.

This unbelief had been prophesied in Psalm 69:8. "I have become a stranger to my brothers and an alien to my mother's son." It's an illustration of the truth in Luke 4: "No prophet is welcome in his own hometown." We often find the same things happening to us as well. It's an interesting thing. You have a lack of credibility, maybe, with your own family. I've found this in my own family. They admire my stuff that I've done, but they don't take me that seriously sometimes. It's an interesting thing how that works.

His brothers went up to this feast. Even though they were unbelievers, it was a very common thing, of course, for us to see that people— it's easy to follow tradition and miss eternal truth. So they were going up to a religious feast anticipating the coming of the Messiah, but they didn't know the Messiah. This was a very common thing. They're offering the world's perspective on what to do. They're saying, "You ought to take advantage of this. After all, your crowd has gotten smaller." Remember at the end of John 6, a lot of people were leaving him because he cut the edge of his teaching.

They were seeking to make him king and so forth, so he sharpened his teaching and made it more difficult for people to really want to follow him. There was this debate about him. They're saying with all these people, "Here's a chance for you to display yourself to the world." It's again the difference between the world's perspective and our perspective, the idea of earthly versus divine wisdom seeking the applause of the crowd and celebrity versus the true success of servant-leadership. He went up then at the feast, but he would do it secretly because he was not ready. His hour had not yet come.

This is a major motif in this scripture here. John 7:6 says, "My time has not yet here, but your time is always opportune." He was operating according to the Father's timetable. It's very important for us to see. If you look at these texts in John 2:4, "My hour has not yet come." It's an intriguing thought that you've got all these texts of scripture where his hour becomes a major motif. In John 2, verse 4, "Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come." In John 7, verse 6, "My time is not yet here."

In verse 8, "I do not go up to this feast because my time has not yet fully come." And then in verse 30, "His hour had not yet come." So it's a major theme here. In chapter 8, verse 20, you'll see this again. "These words he spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple, and no one seized him because his hour had not yet come." In chapter 12, verse 23, "Now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified." Glorification meant his death, burial, and resurrection. So he's on the Father's timetable. In chapter 13, verse 1, "Jesus knowing that his hour had come."

Finally, in chapter 17, verse 1, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son." This is a huge theme that we can see in the gospel. This is something that is a divine sovereignty, human responsibility. You and I are in the same way. He's got a purpose for you and for your life. His desire for you is that you walk on his timetable. Realize you have an hour that he's appointed for you. You have a certain amount of time to live in this world. Every day matters. Every day is precious. Don't take it for granted. Use it and invest it wisely because you're never going to get this day again.

You'll either squander it or you're going to invest it, but you're not going to get it again. Having that perspective makes a lot of difference, having a sense of urgency, though without anxiety. It's a divine sovereignty, human responsibility. Rest in his care, but also be aware that every day has a concern that we need to be aware of and that we need to be focused on how we can honor God in this very day. After he went up to the feast, he went up privately, quietly. He didn't want public accolades, but he did go up to the feast because he had to. It was obedience to the law.

Every male Jew had to go up to Israel for those three times. Jesus answered them and said, "My teaching is not mine." Beginning in verse 11 through 36, we have the debate. The Jews were seeking him at the feast and were saying, "Where is he?" There were three groups. There were the Jewish leaders, called "the Jews." Then there was the multitude who had come to the feast. That multitude from outside of Jerusalem were not aware of the fact that anyone wanted to kill Jesus, so they thought he was nuts saying that they wanted to kill him. Then there was another group, the people of Jerusalem.

These were the three groups here, and the debates centered on Jesus' character. They were seeking him. There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning him, saying, "He's a good man." Others were saying, "No, on the contrary, he leads the people astray." Yet no one was speaking openly of him for fear of the Jews. So it centered on his good character, or whether it was good or not. Is he a good man or is he a deceiver? In verse 14, Jesus goes up to the temple and begins to teach. The Jews were astonished, wondering how this man became learned, having never been educated.

Jesus answered them and said, "My teaching is not mine." He didn't have the proper credentials, so there's this whole idea of saying that we don't know how this could be. But he goes on to answer and says, "My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself." This moral and spiritual prerequisite of entering into spiritual knowledge is important. We enter into the truth when we submit to God. You have to be willing to do His will.

This is a condition that we have. The will can be stubborn in some ways but flabby in another way. By this, I mean that when I look at John 7:17, we struggle from having anemic values of what we treasure, sloppy thought lives, but also flabby wills. Flabby for what God wants, but stubborn on our own base. This whole notion of being willing to do His will falls on this concept here. He who speaks from himself— if you're willing to do it, obedience becomes the key. You ultimately find that it is obedience and a willingness to do what God wants that allows you to enter into truth.

There's a reciprocal relationship between knowledge and obedience. As you obey Him, you get to know Him. As you get to know Him better, then you're going to have a growing intimacy with Him. It's a growing process that takes place. He continues, "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory. But he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true and there is no unrighteousness in him." The whole idea is that there is this seeking God's glory rather than seeking your own accolades.

That's what the brothers were saying: "Get yourself known. This is an opportunity to make yourself famous." Actually, though, here's an opportunity for us to decrease. It's the downward mobility of the kingdom of God, where we're called to trust in Him in spite of what takes place and depend upon the Father's timetable. In verse 19, "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you carries out the law? Why do you seek to kill me?" The visitors didn't know that the leaders wanted to kill Jesus. They thought he was demonized.

These were the ones from out of town who were in for the feast. They were saying, "Who wants to kill you? You have a demon." Jesus answered them, "I did one deed and all of you marvel. For this reason, Moses has given you circumcision, not because it is from Moses but from the fathers, and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath?" He's basically saying that they're using the wrong standard of judgment.

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." So you're not even being consistent with your own law. Some of the people from Jerusalem were saying, "Is this not the man who they were seeking to kill?" Some of the residents of Jerusalem knew that was going to happen, but the outsiders didn't. When they said this, "He's speaking publicly," they're saying nothing to him. "The rulers do not really know that this is the Christ, do they? However, we know where this man is from. But whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where he's from."

They were saying that he can't be the Christ; he's from the wrong place. He's not from Bethlehem; he's from Galilee. They didn't grasp the import of that. Jesus then cries out in the temple and makes himself known. It's like wisdom going to the temple. He says, "You both know me and know where I am from. And I have not come of myself, but he who sent me is true, whom you do not know. I know him because I am from him and he sent me." Again, this causes disagreement and unsettling consequences.

The responses that you had here were a strong assertion that they didn't know the Father, but that he was sent by him. So you have these responses. They were seeking to seize him, and yet no man laid his hand on him because his hour had not yet come. But many of the crowd believed in him, and they were saying, "When the Christ comes, he will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?" There's a disagreement, a debate over that. He's describing here his own signs and his own authority.

The Pharisees heard of the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and the Pharisees decided to send officers to seize him. So they send a temple guard to arrest Jesus, but Jesus, as we see later, arrested them. In verses 45 to 46, jumping down for just a second, it says the officers then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they said to him, "Why didn't you bring him?" The officers answered, "Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks." Something powerful happened, something about his authority, something about his character, that became evident.

There was a power in his claims, but he also had a life to support it. This is why there was a debate over him, because he seemed to have authority. He was performing signs and wonders. How can he be doing this if he's demonized? If you put these things together and you look at his claims on the one hand, which no one ever made, and you look at his credentials which were extraordinary, you see that everything he did, everything he claimed, he was able to back up. So his words and his works work together as a seamless tunic.

He had a power and authority, and this led to a conflict among the leaders. The question is whether he is really who he claims to be. He says, "Why do you seek to kill me?" He says, "I'm actually the one who is the fulfillment." But the people said, "Isn't this the one he's seeking to kill?" On the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out. On this last day of Tabernacles, they'd march around the altar and they would draw water from the Pool of Siloam and pour it into a golden vessel. This would refer back to Moses in Exodus 17, where he was struck the rock and the water came out of that.

It's an image of the water of life that would come, and it was a symbol of the Holy Spirit who satisfies the inner life. This was an important theme as well. That day of the Tabernacles was something that was predicted for him as well. There are different responses that you have. I go back to Haggai just a second, because it's important for us to see the connection. Haggai 2:1-9 says He's going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea, and the dry land. "I'll shake the nations and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory."

The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former. In this place, I will give peace. He's actually predicting that the temple itself would be visited by one greater and that there would be a great glory that would take place. That's also seen in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 26 and following. "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heaven." This text from Haggai is on this very day of the last day of the feast. "Yet once more" denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things.

So we're receiving a kingdom, and this is what this feast is about, which cannot be shaken. Let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. I love that verse. There's something powerful about that and this idea of a kingdom. You and I are in an uncertain, shaky world. Everything is going to be shaken, but ultimately we are looking for a kingdom that cannot be broken. It's a prediction that Haggai made and it's picked up in Hebrews chapter 12 as well.

I find that to be an important text for our view. In verse 40, some of the people, when they heard these words, were saying, "This is certainly the prophet." Others were saying, "This is the Christ." Still others were saying, "Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" So a division occurred in the crowd because of them. They didn't realize that he had been born in Bethlehem.

Some of them wanted to seize him, so you have this debate. Different responses take place in this context. In verse 45, the officers then came to the chief priests and the Pharisees. They said to him, "Why didn't you bring him?" because never has a man spoken the way this man speaks. You wonder what it was like for them to encounter this man and they found that they could not resist him. There was a power, there was a moral authority that caused them to recognize who he was.

But they're saying, "No, we are the authorities. None of the rulers of the Pharisees have believed in him, have they? But this crowd, which doesn't know the law, is accursed." This has been true: the desire for social and academic and religious respectability has always become a stumbling block. Matthew 11:28-30: "Come to me all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

So there's this picture here of how this is something that is coming to him as a little child would come to him. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 is very similar in this respect. Consider your calling, that there are not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. He's chosen the weak things of this world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of this world and the despised He has chosen.

No one can boast before God. He's the one who becomes righteousness and wisdom and sanctification. So like Paul, some of us have to be knocked down before we're able to really entrust ourselves to Him. This whole idea is recognizing what's your authority and ultimately entrusting yourself to Him. Nicodemus, who came to him before, is referred to three times, and ultimately he is one who becomes one of his disciples. He said, "Our law doesn't judge a man until it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?"

So consider his works and his words before you pass judgment on him. But they couldn't answer him, and they resorted to ad hominem. They said, "You are not from Galilee, are you?" Instead of dealing with his objection, they just call him a name, basically saying he's from Galilee. "Search and see that no prophet comes out of Galilee." It's interesting they overlooked something because in Isaiah chapter 9, verses 1 through 2, He will come by way of the sea on the other side of Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. They will multiply the nation and increase their gladness. In Matthew chapter 4, he came and settled in Capernaum, which is by the sea in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: "The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, by way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who were sitting in darkness saw a great light, and those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death, upon them a light dawned."

Clearly, this is referring to a prophecy about Galilee. It's intriguing to me that they overlooked Jonah, too. Jonah was a Galilean. He was the son of Amittai from Gath-Hepher, which was three miles north of Nazareth in lower Galilee, making Jonah a prophet of the northern kingdom. So the Pharisees were wrong when they said, "Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee," because Jonah was a Galilean. It's intriguing as well that Jesus uses Jonah as a picture of his death, burial, and resurrection in Matthew chapter 12.

You see here a picture of how Jesus is authenticated by the scriptures. Putting it together, though, we have a picture of how one honors the Father and has made himself known to us and is manifesting himself to us in this way. We need to incline our will to His will and to entrust ourselves to Him, because we have the evidence from the scriptures, the authority of scripture, that supports the fact that here is one we have to make a decision about. I want to leave people always with this concept of what did he claim to be?

Who did he claim to be? What were his claims and what were his credentials? When I look at that, I find that the evidence supports entrusting myself to him. I have to choose what I am entrusting myself for my whole life, my disposition, my purposes. I want you to focus on this a little bit here and look at the claims and credentials of Christ because people need to make decisions about him. It's not just an intellectual decision, but a personal reception that needs to be made. That's what it always comes down to. What do you say about him? What do you do with him?

He's the one who has words of life, and his life is the light of the world. He manifests himself in power and authority, and he calls us to be his own people and to pursue him and to become like him. My own mind is that the heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects. There are good intellectual reasons for this, but at the end of the day, I still have to transfer my trust from myself to him. That's what it keeps coming down to. Let's take a look at your discussion of that and the power and the authority of his words on the one hand and his works on the other, his claims and his credentials, his belief and his behavior.

We want our lives to be that way as well, as there's a consistency between what we claim and how we live. The idea of this whole business being a faith founded on fact— and as I've often put it, it's not a question of a leap in the dark, but to entrust myself to Him is to take a step into the light. But a step is made because ultimately you can't prove it to somebody, but at the end of the day, we have to make a choice. I do believe it's a faith founded on fact. It's a reasonable faith. It's based upon good historical evidence and claims, and that's why I had this chart about the claims and credentials of Christ.

I'm interested in apologetics because it's an area of saying that the clarity of the message is based upon historical fact and there's authority in the life of Christ that supports this. In John chapter 5, remember Jesus himself spoke about his claims that everything refers to him: the scriptures, his works. "Look at my works; all these support me about my claims." So they all are based upon a real truth. But at the end of the day, a choice has got to be made, but you're going to have to believe in something. What's the basis for your decision?

No one can claim that they didn't have any evidence. It's a question of what did they do with it? But you're going to entrust yourself to something. If it's not to Jesus, what is your authority? Is it yourself? Your life hangs in the balance, but this is why I say it's needful for a person to make an honest decision as to whether they accept Jesus or reject him, but just not to believe that he existed or was a good man. One must entrust oneself to him. Once again, you can have religion without Christ. You can go to church and believe in the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed and even recite them, but you can go there again and again but not know Jesus because you didn't transfer your trust. He came to his own and his own rejected him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. To receive and to believe go together. So that's what I keep trying to do: bring a person to what's your basis for your understanding.

Guest (Male): I was really hoping to get more of your insights on verse 37 through 39. To me, if Jesus is standing up and shouting or crying out, "If anyone thirst, let him come to me and drink," and then he then goes on to explain he's talking about the spirit, I was just hoping for some more insight about that. It seems like one of the most important verses to me.

Ken Boa: It is. It's all these images then of striking the rock and the water gushes forth. It's an image of the Spirit of God. Thirsting is a referral back to that. On the day of this Tabernacles, the pouring of the water, he's actually using a very specific thing that they were doing on that very day. Seven times they would go around there and they poured the water there. He's using the image of the feast as an image of thirsting and water that he provides, water in a wilderness of darkness and death.

That's the allusion. He keeps coming up with these claims and he also has these things to back them up. These "I AM" statements as well— the Way, the Truth, the Life, and so forth. We saw two of them last week in chapter 6 of John, the Bread of Life that he mentioned there. This idea of his claims versus his credentials, in my view, they go together. His life supports and fulfills these things, but you have to make a decision about him. So he points to the scriptures that point to him.

The better we know the scriptures, the better we'll understand. But we have to decide what's our authority for truth. It keeps coming down to authority, whether it's the authority of the world or not. He layers these claims but knows that many people will reject him because there's a spiritual warfare. It's not a neutral thing. This is a warfare. So there's going to be an opposition. The world, the flesh, the devil will oppose the workings of grace in a man's life.

Guest (Male): Ken, we had a couple of points from our table. One is referring to the sinlessness of Jesus and his ability to be able to forgive sin. Had he not lived a sinless life, had his brothers in and around him seen him commit sin at one point or another, that would have totally destroyed any credibility for him to forgive sin in anyone else. We discussed also his brothers and tried to imagine how it would be to grow up with Jesus and then not believe him. It's an amazing thing. It just blew us away. Again, it would be that we remember him when he was in diapers, so to speak. But where I stand, if you raise somebody from the dead, I'm with you, babe.

Ken, is not for us as believers one of the things that— if you're talking to somebody who's a doubter, the way Jesus addressed Thomas when Thomas didn't believe that he'd really risen from the dead? Finally, he said, "Thomas, look at my hands. Put your hand in my side." Is not that one of his main credentials— that is the resurrection? That he was crucified and the resurrection? Should not that be something that we could talk to somebody who is an honest doubter?

Ken Boa: That's why I keep coming back to this thing about the resurrection of Christ. Resurrection from the dead, but the power to change lives, what He's done more than any other human being ever did. He spoke words that no one ever spoke. He made claims that no one ever made. You've got to deal with Him because He's had such an impact on the world. You can't ignore Him, but many people choose to do that or to marginalize Him and think they can believe or even that they can just ignore His claims.

But ultimately, He's going to be judging us. What if He's right? You have to ask yourself, "What if He is who He claims to be? What difference will that make in your life?" At the end of the day, are we either going to be standing before Him or not? So we have to make a decision as to live in that light. I would like to say that when I see that he had this life that those who knew him best— not a one of them said he had any sin. They knew him best and they never saw that. The miracles, the signs that he did— these seven signs and then the eighth sign later on, the sign of the resurrection in this book.

He didn't come in a vacuum. This is what I'm saying. He didn't say to put your brain on a shelf, but rather, the evidence supports me. Reason supports me. The scriptures support me. My works support me. My life supports me. My miracles and what I've done to you and all these things that I've done— no one else has ever done before. So you've got to deal with Him in one way or the other. This is why I say you can't be neutral about it. You have to choose.

We live in a culture where people suppose that not to believe— agnosticism is a virtue. It's not. At the end of the day, you will give an account. We will either stand before him or we won't. So a choice is made, but it is a step into the light. It's a step of faith. Everyone lives by faith. The question isn't whether we live by faith; the faith is only as good as the object in which it's placed. Not how strong your faith is, but where the object is. That's what makes the difference in the end.

Whether you're an atheist and a materialist or whether you're a believer, the question is what's the evidence for your faith? To me, the case for the resurrection of Christ is powerful. The case for the reliability of the scriptures, the gospels as primary historical documents— I think there's nothing like it in the bibliographic test. The number of manuscripts, the time span, how little time there was and how accurate they were— there's nothing like it. I have to say, that doesn't prove it, but at the end of the day, you are having to put your trust in something. One day you'll discover whether it's going to let you down or not.

I would rather transfer my trust to him. A risk is taken, but at the end of the day, it's faith founded on fact. That gives me a confidence and an assurance that I otherwise wouldn't have.