John 7:25–52
25 7:25Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, “Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? 26 7:26And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? 27 7:27But we know where this man comes from, and when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” 28 7:28So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, “You know me, and you know where I come from. But I have not come of my own accord. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. 29 7:29I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me.” 30 7:30So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 7:31Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?”
32 7:32The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. 33 7:33Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. 34 7:34You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” 35 7:35The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 7:36What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”
37 7:37On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 7:38Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 7:39Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
40 7:40When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” 41 7:41Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 7:42Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 7:43So there was a division among the people over him. 44 7:44Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
45 7:45The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 7:46The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 47 7:47The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? 48 7:48Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 7:49But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” 50 7:50Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 7:51“Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” 52 7:52They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Section Overview: Rivers of Living Water
There are some things that humans cannot live without. We cannot live without water. We cannot live without food. We cannot live without light. It would be hard to live without hope. When Israel lived in booths in the wilderness, the Lord provided water that kept them alive. At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus promised that the thirsty who came to him to drink would enjoy a river of living water. John explains this as a promise of the Holy Spirit. In the context of Passover (John 6) and the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7), this indicates that after Jesus accomplishes the new exodus, he provides a river of living water, the Holy Spirit, to sustain his people for their journey to the new and better Land of Promise.
At the time of the Passover (6:4), Jesus provided food in the wilderness and then walked on water, matching the manna from heaven and the Red Sea crossing. He then spoke in the synagogue in Capernaum (6:59) of how the Passover meal would be fulfilled in the Last Supper he would institute, as eating his flesh and drinking his blood would give people life (6:35–58).
Passover celebrated Israel’s exodus from Egypt by Yahweh’s strong hand and outstretched arm, and the Feast of Tabernacles celebrated Yahweh’s preservation of the people as they lived in tabernacles during their years of wilderness wandering on the way to the Land of Promise. These feasts celebrated what God had done for his people in the past and anticipated the pattern of God’s future salvation, which he would accomplish through the promised seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), the expected king from the line of Judah (Gen. 49:8–12), who would be the prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15–18) and the priest according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 110:4).
At Tabernacles, Jesus came secretly and subverted the false narrative his enemies used against him by telling the truth. They alleged that he had broken the Sabbath by healing a man (John 5:1–16). Jesus showed that if circumcision on the eighth day could be done on the Sabbath, it was right to heal a man’s whole body on the Sabbath as well (7:23). Jesus also continued his argument that the Scriptures testify about him (5:39, 46–47) as he asserted that those who seek to kill him fail to keep the law (7:19).
The argument Jesus made about circumcision on the Sabbath seems to have settled the question of whether it was right for him to heal on the Sabbath. The Jews continue to seek his life, but the Sabbath healing ceases to be referenced as the reason for their pursuit. Moreover, in the discussion that follows in chapter 7, the question is no longer whether it was right for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath. In verses 25–52, the focus of the dispute over Jesus shifts to the question of where he comes from and where he intends to go.
Section Outline
- IV.C.2. Rivers of Living Water (7:25–52)
- a. Where He Comes From (7:25–30)
- b. Where He Is Going (7:31–36)
- c. Rivers of Living Water (7:37–39)
- d. Is the Christ from Galilee? (7:40–52)
Response
Truth will not aid the enemies of Jesus. Investigation of the facts will not advance their purposes. Logic will not move their arguments forward. Sound words will not make their song sing. The case against Jesus depends on misinformation. The rejection of Jesus is sustained by a refusal to examine the evidence. Arguments against Jesus exemplify fallacious reasoning, distorted perception, and ad hominem attacks. God’s creatures oppose him by perverting what God himself has given them: thought, reason, speech, and emotion. The right use of these will lead to a river of living water.
Jesus came from heaven, and after his death and resurrection he returned to the Father in heaven. Jesus offered rivers of living water to those who came to him to drink, those liberated by the fulfillment of the Passover by the death of the Lamb of God. As those redeemed and freed by Jesus travel through the wilderness, the living water he provides for them is the Holy Spirit. Come to Jesus. Come to the waters. Drink. Believe. Live.
The Spirit flows from Jesus into the people of Jesus. If we believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit indwells us. If the Holy Spirit indwells us, we have everything we need for life and godliness.
At long last the seed of the woman, the scion of David, the anticipated Messiah has come. At long last Yahweh is on the move to deliver his people. At long last the many prophecies of the Scriptures are being fulfilled, but the crowd here speaks as though they have gotten their information from Satan’s ministry of propaganda. That is to say, the crowd has bad information that gives an incomplete picture that leads to false assumptions. Some in the crowd have evidently not gotten the word that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Luke 2:1–20), and they assume that the fact that Jesus was raised in Nazareth means he was born there: “We know where this man comes from” (John 7:27). Moreover, it seems that the Malachi 3:1 reference to the Lord’s sudden appearance in the temple has given rise to the idea that the Messiah’s origin will be unknown: “And when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from” (John 7:27b).
Those with the patience to examine the facts could easily discover where Jesus was born, and they could also learn to read Malachi 3:1 in light of Micah 5:2. Those who will not examine their assumptions are at the ruthless mercy of misinformation. If the truth were known, everyone would see the authenticity of Jesus.
Jesus is not afraid of falsehood. He stands up and challenges the misinformation in a thought-provoking way in John 7:28–29. He takes the issue of his birthplace as a point of departure for asserting his deeper, earlier, true point of origin from the Father’s side. Jesus had asserted in 5:37 that his opponents had not experienced God, and now he declares that they do not know God (7:28). Jesus himself, by contrast, came from the Father, was sent by him, and knows him as no one else does (v. 29; cf. 1:18).
Jesus has told the truth, and his opponents do not like it. They seek to arrest him, but just as Saul sought David but could not kill him because of God’s protection of David, so the opponents of Jesus can do nothing against him until the appointed hour (7:30).
7:31–36 Where He Is Going. Verse 31 shows that some people are examining the evidence and thinking for themselves. These people recognize the impressive signs Jesus has done and come to the conclusion that he cannot be outdone. In verse 32, the Pharisees hear the crowd’s mutterings and join with the chief priests in trying to arrest Jesus. It would take something as objectionable as Jesus to unite the chief priests and the Pharisees.
The crowd was questioning where Jesus came from (v. 27), and Jesus tantalized them with references to his heavenly origin (vv. 28–29). He intrigues them further in verses 33–34 by referring to his heavenly destination. For Jesus to assert that he is going to the one who sent him is to assert that he is going to the Father (v. 33). His opponents will not share his risen and ascended body, and they will not ascend to the Father, as Jesus will (v. 34).
The enemies of Jesus are naturally perplexed by what he says and speculate as to what he means, questioning whether he will leave the Land of Promise to teach the Greeks (vv. 35–36). The opponents of Jesus cannot overcome his arguments, and they cannot comprehend his statements: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1:5).
7:37–39 Rivers of Living Water. The celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in the time of Jesus likely included both a water-pouring ceremony and a lighting of candles (cf. m. Sukkah 4:9–5:3). This background seems to inform Jesus’ asserting himself as the source of living water (John 7:37–39) and the “light of the world” (8:12).
The Jewish texts describing the water-pouring ceremony at the Feast of Tabernacles do not comment on what it symbolized. It may have commemorated the Lord’s provision of water from the rock for the people in the wilderness as they tabernacled their way to the Promised Land. If so, the water Jesus describes as flowing from himself in 7:38 would be a fulfillment of the water from the rock in the wilderness. The Lord stood before Moses on the rock when he struck it (Ex. 17:6), implying that Moses struck the Lord when he struck the rock. On the cross, the soldier struck Jesus, and blood and water flowed from him. Many interpreters have connected the water that flowed from Jesus on the cross with the water from the rock in the wilderness. All this likely informs Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 10:4, “They drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”
Israel was thirsty in the wilderness and disputed with Moses (Ex. 17:1–3). At the Feast of Tabernacles in John 7, spiritually thirsty people are disputing about where Jesus came from (7:25–30) and where he is going (vv. 31–36). Moses struck the rock and water flowed to quench the people’s thirst. At the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus offers living water to those who come to him. Jesus is the Rock. Jesus will be struck. Water will flow from Jesus, and Jesus will give the Holy Spirit to sustain his people on their journey to the Promised Land.
Jesus presented himself as the source of thirst-quenching living water when he spoke with the Samaritan woman (4:10–14). He asserted that all who believed him would have eternal life (5:24). He identified himself as the “bread of life” (6:35), and he said that anyone who wanted to do God’s will would know his teaching was from God (7:17).
Now, in the midst of a dispute over where he has come from (7:25–30) and where he is going (vv. 31–36), Jesus calls all who thirst to come to him and drink (v. 37). The drinking is immediately identified as believing (v. 38), and Jesus promises that those who come to him will experience what was promised in Scripture and will drink of the rivers of living water flowing from him (v. 38). Saying this at the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus implicitly offers the fulfillment of what the feast enacted.
John’s explanation that Jesus said this about the Spirit (v. 39) reflects passages in the OT prophesying that the rise of the Messiah to accomplish glorious eschatological restoration will be accompanied by a new and deeper experience of the Spirit of God, and some of these texts associate the Spirit with water (cf. Isa. 32:1–2, 15; 44:3; Ezek. 36:27; 37:14; 39:29; Joel 2:28–29; Zech. 12:10; 13:1). Jesus is teaching in the temple in John 7 (vv. 14, 28), and several OT texts speak of water flowing from the temple when God restores his people (Ezek. 47:1–12; Joel 3:18; Zech. 14:8).
John clearly states here that people who have believed in Jesus, people who have experienced the new birth (John 1:13; 3:3–8) by the life-giving power of the Spirit (6:63), have not yet received the Spirit (7:39). The reason stated is that Jesus had not yet been glorified (cf. 12:23–24; 13:31; 17:1). This would indicate that prior to the giving of the Spirit in 20:22, believers were regenerated by the Spirit but not indwelt by him.
In the midst of this controversy Jesus again offers the crowd a way to validate his claims: come and drink. Come believe. Jesus makes this offer in confidence that those who come to him will be swept up by his overwhelming goodness, freed by the one who is truth, set right by the one who is the way, and made alive by the one who is life (cf. 14:6).
7:40–52 Is the Christ from Galilee? John 7:40 shows that some people went to Jesus as he urged them to do (v. 37) and became convinced that he was indeed the prophet like Moses (cf. 6:14), while others recognized Jesus to be the Messiah, the Christ (7:41a). Even as some have gone to Jesus and become convinced, the last words of verse 41 show that some are still stuck in the fog of misinformation, thinking that Jesus comes from Galilee, evidently ignorant of his birth in Bethlehem. They thus cite the very promise that was fulfilled when Jesus was born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2) as evidence against the argument that he is the Christ. The result of the ignorance and misinformation is division (John 7:43), with some wanting to arrest Jesus but no one able to do so (v. 44). The hour has not yet come (v. 30).
In verses 45–52, John shifts from the divided crowd’s response (in vv. 40–44) to the return to the chief priests and Pharisees by the officers sent to arrest Jesus (cf. v. 32). The chief priests and Pharisees want Jesus arrested (v. 45). The officers have not done so because they recognize Jesus as a unique phenomenon (v. 46), which the Pharisees regard as their having been deceived (v. 47). That none of the authorities or Pharisees has believed in Jesus is provided as proof against Jesus, which is nothing more than an intellectually snobbish appeal to authority. To their thuggish logical fallacy they add contempt for the crowd, which they view as ignorant of the law (v. 49). Ironically, those who believe Jesus are believing the one who fulfills the law, the one to whom the law points. The Pharisees assert that the crowd is cursed, when in reality the faction of the crowd that has believed in Jesus is blessed.
Nicodemus shows his fair-mindedness when he objects that they should at least give Jesus a fair hearing (vv. 50–51). The dogmatism of the closed-minded enemies of Jesus can be seen in their foregone conclusion that Jesus is from Galilee and in their insulting question of whether Nicodemus also hails from that backwater in the boondocks.
1 Or let him come to me, and let him who believes in me drink. As
1 See further Hamilton, God’s Indwelling Presence.