Surprise Appearance & Teaching

John 7:14-24, CEB

Halfway through the festival, Jesus went up to the temple and started to teach. Astonished, the Jewish leaders asked, “He’s never been taught! How has he mastered the Law?”

Jesus responded, “My teaching isn’t mine but comes from the one who sent me.  Whoever wants to do God’s will can tell whether my teaching is from God or whether I speak on my own.  Those who speak on their own seek glory for themselves. Those who seek the glory of him who sent me are people of truth; there’s no falsehood in them.  Didn’t Moses give you the Law? Yet none of you keep the Law. Why do you want to kill me?”

The crowd answered, “You have a demon. Who wants to kill you?”

Jesus replied, “I did one work, and you were all astonished. Because Moses gave you the commandment about circumcision (although it wasn’t Moses but the patriarchs), you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.  If a man can be circumcised on the Sabbath without breaking Moses’ Law, why are you angry with me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath? Don’t judge according to appearances. Judge with right judgment.”

                In the passage just before this one, we hear Jesus instruct his disciples to attend the Festival of Booths without Him.  However, Jesus then attends the festival separately in order to maintain a lower profile.  This obviously proves to be an effective strategy because when he suddenly shows up teaching at the temple about halfway through the weeklong festival, it is unexpected.  What is also unexpected is the acumen and understanding He demonstrates as He teaches.  Even the Jewish leaders are astonished and wonder aloud how He knows so much without formal teaching. 

                This gives Jesus an opportunity to teach on the very nature of authority and how one is to discern whether specific teaching is from God.  He makes surprising assertion that anyone who is earnestly seeking to do God’s will can discern whether or not a teaching constitutes revelation from God.   This is surprising because it seems to open a dangerous can of worms.  I can think of several examples of individuals who obviously believed they were sincerely seeking to do God’s will who have claimed the veracity of a particular teaching that proved not to be God-breathed – the Crusades, Nazi Germany, project 2025 – just to name a few.  However, Jesus was only talking about His own teaching, which was the unfiltered revelation of God.

                It’s clear that Jesus is making this claim, because he moves directly from that claim to point out the fallacy of the teaching of the religious leaders, who have now put their own spin on a previous revelation that came directly from God.  Sabbath “laws” originate from one of the Ten Commandments, which is to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy.  However, dozens (if not hundreds) of laws concerning the Sabbath were developed by Moses and other leaders in an effort to deal with every possible situation where the question of how Sabbath is observed comes up.  None of those laws have the gravitas of the Ten Commandments because none of those laws came directly from God.  Jesus is pointing out that the religious leaders are looking to kill Him because he has “broken” a law that is not directly from God.  The extremely thick irony lies in the fact that they are seeking to “kill” Jesus, which is a direct violation of one the Ten Commandments, something God said directly not to do. 

Further, Jesus’s offense was that healed someone on the Sabbath.  It doesn’t take a theological “expert to discern that if circumcising a baby is not a violation of the Sabbath, then making someone whole shouldn’t be a violation either.  Neither does it take a trained teacher of the law to surmise that killing someone is a direct violation of a law that comes directly from God. 

What the author of John (and the other gospel authors for that matter)  want us to see is that in Jesus, we have an unfiltered revelation of God’s desire for creation.  It supersedes even the Torah while not abolishing it.  It further clarifies God’s intent in the Torah.  So if you want to know what God’s heart is on a particular issue, look to the teachings of Jesus.  We reference Jesus the same way Judaism references the Torah.

The crowd hearing Jesus accuse the leaders of murderous intent think Jesus is crazy (which is why they say he has a demon).  They don’t know that the leaders are already planning to “off” Jesus, but Jesus making the accusation publicly actually keeps the leaders from killing Him, at least for the moment.  The leaders know that, if they kill Jesus now, everyone will know that they did it in violation of God’s directly-given law.  Their murderous hypocrisy would be displayed in plain view.  As Lesslie Newbiggin puts it:

[Jesus] gives life; they want to kill.  This what happens, and will always happen, when the attempt is made to capture the revelation of God and make it a possession of men.”  (p. 96)¹

In any case, this little episode, which will continue to unfold throughout the rest of chapter 7 and chapter 8 will have much more to teach us all the while moving closer to the time when Jesus will allow Himself to be killed.  But more on that later.

Question:  Can you think of examples of “laws” that govern your faith that as you think about them, do not originate from Jesus?

Prayer:  Lord, help us hear Your heart clearly.  Keep us from codifying anything other than direct obedience to You.  Amen.

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you know in different traditions of the Christian church than you are.

Jeremy Camp – Deeper Waters