What Do You Believe About Jesus?
John 7:1-13
Even though I have read through all the Gospels a number of times and taught from them often, I have been utterly amazed as we have studied the Gospel of John over the last few months. The Apostle reports so many extraordinary events and astonishing words from the Lord Jesus Christ. These events and words serve to take away our false views of Jesus, salvation, and what it means to follow Christ. I don’t know if you have felt this way, but sometimes I’m left with my mouth hanging open and my head drowning in the deep truth of God. I find myself like Peter at the end of chapter 6 saying, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (6:68-69). Or even like Thomas at the end of the book, I find myself falling down at Jesus’ feet and crying out, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28).
Why does John report so many things that seem to stretch us and cause us to marvel? I think that what John does is in his Gospel is this: he removes any false ideas about who Jesus is and what true saving faith really is. He wants us to believe and to have life in His name (John 20:31), but that believing, that faith must be a real, saving faith in the true Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as He is revealed in scripture.
We must be able to recognize in ourselves true belief which results in eternal life from false belief resulting in eternal death. John has already pointed out false belief several times. We saw it in chapter 2 when Jesus was in Jerusalem the first time. There were a number of Jews that believed when they saw the signs Jesus did, but Jesus did not entrust Himself to them because He knew theirs was not a true saving faith (2:23-25). We saw it again in chapter 3 when Nicodemus knew Jesus was a teacher sent from God, but he still needed to be born again. He lacked a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
We saw widespread unbelief in Galilee in chapter 6 after Jesus fed the 5000 and then taught about Himself being the Bread of Life who came down from heaven and who gives His flesh for the life of the world (6:35-36, 51, 64). After His teaching in Capernaum about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, many of His disciples abandoned Him. John points out that Jesus knew that even one of the twelve, Judas Iscariot, was an unbeliever (6:64, 70-71).
I highlight this problem because in our text today we are going to see some people very close to Jesus who believe in His power and miracle working abilities but who do not yet truly believe. When you see who they are, you might be very surprised.
Listen in our text for who they are. John 7:1–13:
1 After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.
2 Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.
3 His brothers therefore said to Him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing.
4 For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.”
5 For even His brothers did not believe in Him.
6 Then Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.
7 The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.
8 You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.”
9 When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee.
10 But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.
11 Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, “Where is He?”
12 And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, “He is good”; others said, “No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.”
13 However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews.
On one level, John 7:1-13 functions to set the stage for the rest of chapters 7 & 8. Look at verse 1: “After these things Jesus walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.” We have here summarized in one verse what the other gospels focus upon: the Galilean ministry of Jesus. Verse 2 gives us the time frame, “Now the Jews’ Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.” Remember that chapter 6 took place near the Passover feast (6:4) which was the first month in the Jewish calendar. The Feast of Tabernacles began on the fifteenth day of the seventh month (Leviticus 23:34). So John skips over a six month period of Jesus’ Galilean ministry in verses 1-2.
What is the Feast of Tabernacles and why is that important? According to Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29 Israel was commanded to keep this “holy convocation,” and to offer “an offering made by fire to the Lord” (Leviticus 23:36). The feast lasted for a week and celebrated the gathering of the fruit of the land (Leviticus 23:39). Israel was to take “the fruit” and “branches of trees,” (Leviticus 23:40) and to “rejoice before the Lord your God seven days” (Leviticus 23:40). They were to “dwell in booths” (Leviticus 23:42) to remember when the Lord “made the children of Israel dwell in booths when He brought them out of the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 23:43).
It was the most joyful of the three pilgrim feasts of the Jews. In Jesus’ time it included pouring out water as a remembrance of the water from the rock that sustained Israel in the wilderness, and a candle-lighting ceremony that commemorated God’s presence with Israel through the pillar of cloud and fire. Jesus will play off these two ceremonies when He invites those who are thirsty to come to Him and drink (7:37), and when He proclaims (8:12), “I am the Light of the world.”
So John sets the scene for these next two chapters, but in these verses he also reveals to us some wrong views about Jesus that the Jewish people, including Jesus’ own brothers, had about Him. And it causes us to ask ourselves, what do I believe about Jesus?
There are three groups pictured here, all of which to one degree or another have wrong views of Jesus: His brothers, the Jewish leaders, and the multitude at the feast.
First, Jesus’ brothers show us a,
1. Worldly unbelieving view of Jesus (7:3-9)
Verse 3 says, “His brothers therefore said to Him, “Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing.”
Who are these brothers in verse 3? These are Jesus’ brothers, other sons that Mary and Joseph had after the birth of Jesus (Matt. 1:25, “until; Luke 2:7, “firstborn”; Mark 3:31-35; 6:3). These brothers were Jesus’ half-brothers, born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus’ birth. Matthew 13:55 gives us their names: James, Joses, Simon, and Judas.
Here Jesus’ brothers offer Him some unsolicited “career” advice in verse 3: “Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing.” Jesus has been away from the crowds for a few months. He has been teaching in the more remote areas of Galilee. His brothers want Him to go to Judea, to Jerusalem, and to go big. In verse 4 they give their reasoning behind their advice: “For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” Then John explains what underlies their advice (7:5), “For even His brothers did not believe in Him.”
We don’t know for certain what motivates His brothers’ advice. Some say that they were sarcastically ridiculing Jesus: “You want to be famous. Go to Jerusalem, do some miracles, and you’ll hit the big time!” Or, they could have been motivated by family shame: Jesus, at first popular, was now losing disciples. If He went up to Jerusalem for this big feast, perhaps He could gain back some of them and save the family name. Or, at best, they were offering sincere, but worldly advice: “If you want Your Messianic claims to be made known, You need to go prove Yourself to the authorities in Jerusalem.”
In essence, the brothers’ advice to Jesus was similar to the temptation that Satan put before Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple and let the angels carry Him safely to the ground so that everyone who saw it would be astonished and bow before Him as the Son of God (Matt. 4:5-7; Luke 4:5-8). The brothers are saying to Jesus, “Go up to Jerusalem and do a few more spectacular miracles and everyone will follow You.” It was a worldly-wise publicity and marketing strategy, but it was unbelieving and even satanic at its core.
Jesus replied to His brothers (7:6), “My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.” He tells His brothers (7:8), “You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.” So verse 9 tells us “He remained in Galilee,” at least until after His brothers left for the feast. Then verse 10 tells us, “then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret” (7:10).
The context (7:6) makes it clear what Jesus meant when He told His brothers He was not going. He meant “I am not going with you because it is not the Father’s time for Me to go. You can go any time, but I must go at the time and in the manner that My Father directs Me to go.” So John is showing Jesus’ firm resolve to do the Father’s will, not the will of His unbelieving brothers, even if they meant well.
Verse 7 gives us the reason for their worldly unbelief, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.”
He tells His brothers that the world cannot hate them. Why? As Jesus told His disciples at the Last Supper (John 15:19), “If you were of the world, the world would love its own.” The world loves its own. The unbelieving world hates Jesus and those who truly follow Him. Jesus knows His brothers are of the world because they are seeking the same things the world seeks: fame, power, influence. Do you see the difference between Jesus and His brothers? One seeks fame the other seeks to do the will of the Father. One is self-exalting, the other self-humiliating. One seeks the opportunity of the world, the other follows the Father’s timing.
Then our Lord explains to us why the world hates Him… “but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.” John has already written about Jesus in chapter 3:
(John 3:19-20) 19 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
Jesus, by His holy life and His powerful words shines the light on the darkness of this world. And the world hates Him for it. J.C. Ryle has a powerful comment on this verse:
The real cause of many people’s dislike to the Gospel is the holiness of living which it demands. Teach abstract doctrines only, and few will find any fault. Denounce the fashionable sins of the day, and call on men to repent and walk consistently with God, and thousands at once will be offended. The true reason why many profess to be infidels, and abuse Christianity, is the witness that Christianity bears against their own bad lives. Like Ahab, they hate it, “because it does not prophesy good concerning them, but evil.” (1 Kings 22:8).
Tell someone they are a sinner and need to repent or simply tell someone no and see how the world treats you. Implicit in Jesus’ words is the truth that if you follow Him, the world will hate you because of your holy life. You will not be the most popular person at the office or at school if you don’t join the world in its sinful ways. James (one of Jesus’ brothers who later believed) draws the line (James 4:4): “Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” You have to choose sides. Which side are you on?
So Jesus’ brothers show us a worldly unbelieving view of Jesus. The second is the view of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem:
2. A hostile unbelieving view of Jesus (7:1,11,13)
When John mentions “the Jews” (7:1, 11, 13), John usually means, “the Jewish leaders.” In verse 1 “the Jews sought to kill Him.” In verse 11, “the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, “Where is He?” They were seeking Jesus, but not so they could learn from Him and believe in Him, but so they could kill Him (7:1, 19, 25, 30, 32, 44; 8:37, 40, 59). Jesus threatened their authority. They used their power to control the people through fear. Look verse 13, “However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”
Jesus upset their status quo. He didn’t fit their idea of a political Messiah who would play their political game and reward them all with nice positions in His kingdom. When cleared out the temple (2:14-16), He threatened their income. When He healed on the Sabbath He threatened their teaching (5:18). His popularity threatened their power (11:48). Jesus threatened their comfortable way of life. Jesus said about them in 5:44, “How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?”
There are many today who do not believe in Christ because they perceive that His way threatens their own way of life. They sense that to come to Christ would mean the end of their plans, their prestige, and their control over their lives. They like the comfortable lives that they have and they don’t want to face the truth that they are sinners in need of a Savior. They seek approval of men rather than approval from God.
We will see more of this hostility as we go further in the Gospel of John. Finally the third group has,
3. A confused unbelieving view of Jesus (7:12-13)
You see them in verse 12, “And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, “He is good”; others said, “No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.”” The word, “complaining” in this verse means they were “quietly debating among themselves,” since as John notes (7:13), they were afraid to speak openly.
The crowd in Judea was divided into two groups, both of which were wrong. Some said, “He is a good.” That was true as far as it went, but it didn’t go anywhere near as far as it should. John Stott points out (Basic Christianity [Eerdmans], rev. ed., pp. 23-26) that if Jesus was not God in human flesh, His claims would have meant that He was not a good man, but a very self-centered man. He was always talking about Himself and telling people that they should believe in Him as the only way to have eternal life. He claimed that the Old Testament was written about Him (5:39, 46). He claimed to be the living bread that came down from heaven, who could satisfy the hunger of all who come to Him (6:35). He claimed that whoever believes in Him would have rivers of living water flowing from his innermost being (7:38). He claimed to be the Light of the world (8:12). He claimed that before Abraham was born, He existed (8:58). No good man, who was not God in human flesh, could say such things without being considered a deluded megalomaniac.
The other group thought that Jesus was leading the people astray saying, “No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.” But if Jesus was a deceiver, He was a very good one! Think about it. He got many fiercely monotheistic Jews to believe His claims to be God to the extent that many of them eventually suffered persecution and death because of their belief in Him. But if He deliberately led people to believe in Him, knowing all the time that He was not the true way to eternal life, He condemned all those who believed in Him to hell. Nothing could be worse than knowingly to deceive people in this way.
So both groups were in wrong and both errors would result in people still being under God’s righteous judgment, because neither believed in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
There are many applications we could make from our text today. Let me hit just three very quickly:
A. Familiarity with Jesus does not guarantee saving faith.
If you grew up in the church and have been familiar with Christian teaching all your life, do not be fooled into thinking that you are saved by your familiarity with Jesus. If Jesus’ own brothers were not saved by their closeness to Him, it shows that no one is saved by familiarity alone. You must personally believe in Him as your Savior from sin, the one who bore your penalty on the cross.
Along with that word of warning, let me give you a word of hope. If you have a family member who was raised to know Christ but has not yet believed, their case is not hopeless. At least two of Jesus’ brothers, James and Jude, did later believe in Him. In Acts 1:14 we find the brothers of Jesus among the believers. James later became the leader of the Jerusalem church and wrote the Epistle of James. Jude, who humbly identifies himself (Jude 1) as “a bond-servant [slave] of Jesus Christ and brother of James,” wrote the short Epistle of Jude.
B. Love of the world is a sign of unbelief.
The world loves its own and unbelievers love the way of the world. Compare your love for Christ to your love of things and love of approval from others. Jesus said in If you have believed in Christ, you must let Him confront your sin so that you forsake it and walk in the light. Through God’s Word, Jesus tells us how to think, speak, and act in a godly way. If you are not letting the Word confront your sins, you are not walking with Jesus.
C. True believers, like Jesus will be at war with the world.
You are either a friend of the world and an enemy of God or a friend of God and an enemy of the world. As John wrote (1 John 2:15), “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Jesus said in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”
So what do you believe about Jesus?
