Last Sunday evening we looked at how to overcome any mocking or unbelief when it comes to us being Christians. We looked specifically at the response of Jesus’ half-brothers.
Tonight we look at another reaction to Jesus’ claims from the Jewish crowds. The Jewish crowds including both the religionists and the pilgrims had four false beliefs about Jesus. These beliefs are still prevalent in today’s society. See if you don’t recognize some of them. They include:
1. Jesus was only a good man.
2. Jesus was a deceiver.
3. Jesus was a man not important enough to defend.
4. Jesus was a man unaccredited.
So what we see tonight is that the Jews were seeking something, but they were questioning as well.
Jesus’ brothers had challenged Jesus to go to the Feast in Jerusalem but Jesus told them in verse 8, READ.
READ v. 10. It appears from this verse that Jesus’ brothers left for the Feast, and that Jesus finally, in fact, went up to Jerusalem to attend the Feast as well, but He didn’t go up with His brothers. His brothers had left some time before, probably in a caravan. People traveled in caravans in that day for safety reasons. The caravans of the day were huge expeditions so Jesus went quietly, almost in secret, so as not to attract too much attention.
Jesus is going to step forward to teach publicly, but He needed to be inconspicuous until that moment came. We will see that in v. 14 in a moment. If He had traveled to Jerusalem publicly, the people might have escorted him into the city, proclaiming Him King and causing His arrest before His time. This would have been much like His Triumphal Entry and would have taken place too soon.
READ 11-15. We kind of notice from these verses that the Jews’ response to Jesus was that of seeking Him and of questioning and murmuring about Him. The term “Jews” in this instance probably refers to all Jews, not just the religionist Jews.
Everyone wanted to find Him. The Jewish authorities wanted to entrap and discredit Him before the people. This was an ongoing thing during Jesus’ ministry because they wanted to have Jesus arrested and sentenced to death.
The common people wanted to find Him so they could hear His teaching and see His miracles for themselves.
So the Jews were seeking Jesus but not in the right sense of the word. Everyone should seek Jesus. But the motives of the religionists were evil. They weren’t seeking Jesus to worship and learn of Him but to harm Him. They wanted to discredit Him, otherwise they would lose the loyalty of the people and their own security and position. You see, up until Jesus entered the scene, the Jewish religionists were pretty much the way things were. What they said was the truth as far as anyone else knew. They were the law or at least that’s how it seemed. Jesus threatened all that.
But even the motives of the common people were corrupt. They weren’t seeking Jesus as Savior and Lord, the One to whom they owed their allegiance. They were seeking Him out of curiosity, to see Him perform spectacular miracles. (Not unlike many of the tent revivals and miracle healing evangelists of today.)
So the response of the Jewish crowds was that of whispering and questioning. It wasn’t a discontented whispering, in fact, they were kind of excited. People were quietly asking and discussing their opinions about Him; but in soft voices and off to the side, in the corners and away from strangers. They didn’t want to arouse suspicion that they were followers of Jesus and endanger their own lives. Let’s look at what these people thought for a minute because it’s not unlike people of today.
1. Some thought He was a good man. There are people today that will say the same thing. They think Jesus was a man to be supported, listened to, and heeded. By good they meant a man who was:
• Loving and caring.
• Giving and unselfish
• True and honest
• Just and moral
• Believing and worshipful
But this belief is inadequate and it’s really weak. It sees Jesus only as a man, a good man, but still only as a man. This belief doesn’t believe Jesus is the Son of Man or God’s Son.
2. Some thought Jesus was the exact opposite: a deceiver, a man who was deliberately deceiving and leading the people away from the true religion. And by deceiving they meant that Jesus was:
• Misleading, actually leading the people away from God.
• Boasting about Himself; His own ideas and position.
• Trying to be recognized as a man of new ideas.
• Trying to attract attention and secure a following.
In reality, they said He was not of God, but of Beelzebub (the devil). They accused Him of being a drunkard and a glutton, and associate of sinners, a criminal, and a lawbreaker.
Now if all this were true, then Jesus was the most evil and deceptive man the world has ever seen.
3. Some thought Jesus was a man not significant enough to defend. Even those who felt Jesus was a good man cowered in fear rather than speak up for Jesus. They feared the religious authorities. They felt Jesus wasn’t worth the bother, the cost, the risk of jeopardizing their own safety.
4. Some thought Jesus was a man unaccredited and without proper credentials. About the middle of the Feast, Jesus ended His seclusion and hiding. He went into the temple and began teaching. (v.14) The people were astonished. They were amazed at His knowledge.
He had never been a student of their school or of a Rabbi, yet He knew the Scriptures well. So they asked, “How does this man know so much? Who is He claiming to be? What right does He have to teach? He’s never learned or studied in our schools, under our teachers. He’s a mere carpenter, uneducated, and unlearned. What right does He have to set Himself up as a great teacher, a person to be heard? He’s neither accredited nor ordained by our schools or leaders.” (Questions not that much unlike those asked of many churches searching for a new pastor today) Ouch!
How often people are rejected, despite their call from God and their gifts, simply because they are not accredited by the right schools or leaders or don’t have the proper education. And I thank God that SEBC was not like that when God led me here. Many of you don’t know but I only had the equivalent of about 1 semester of seminary behind me when Southeast called me as pastor. But you were patient. You put up with a lot. Amen? And allowed me to finish my seminary degree. Not many churches will do that. So everybody reach up really high and pat yourself on the back.
READ 16-19. Jesus’ reply was threefold. He answered all four charges that He was:
• Only a good man
• A deceiver
• A man not significant enough to defend
• A man unaccredited.
He says right up front that “My teaching is not my own, but God’s. Note, He didn’t claim to be the source of His message. He claimed to be “sent” by God, to be the Representative, the Ambassador of God. He claimed to have been in the most intimate relationship with God. He claimed that His message and teaching were God’s and that He was only the Messenger.
Then He said that a person can actually test His claim and He gives three tests that prove His claim.
1. There is the subjective test, the inward or moral test. How can a person know if Jesus’ claim is true? He can know by doing God’s will. If a person will do what God says, that person will know the truth.
Jesus was saying that:
• God’s teaching, His Word, is not for storing up head knowledge, but for experiencing real life.
• He was saying that the person who really knows God is not the person who has some thoughts about God, but the person who does and lives as God wills, the person who is holy even as God is holy.
• That the only person who can know God is the person who thinks and lives as God lives. A person who doesn’t live as God lives doesn’t know God; they only know about God.
• That the only way to know God is to “BELIEVE that He exists, and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”
So in summary, there is a way to know if Jesus’ claim is true. You can know by believing and seeking to know God, believing that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him AND by living and doing God’s will, by being holy even as He is holy.
2. The second test of Jesus’ claim is the objective test, the outward or observation test. Does Christ speak for His glory of for God’s glory? A person can simply look at Christ and see the truth.
• A person who is sent by another person and ends up speaking for himself is not a true representative. He is seeking his own glory.
• A person who is sent by another person and speaks the message of that person IS true, because he is doing what he should do: representing the person who sent him.
Jesus is pretty clear here. He didn’t seek to glorify Himself, but God. Jesus sought to stir men to glorify God in their lives. That effort is the constant subject of Jesus’ preaching and teaching. He claimed to be empty of personal ambition and glory. He wasn’t just claiming to TELL the truth, He was claiming to BE the truth. He claimed that there was no unrighteousness in Him. (1 Peter 2:22; Jn. 8:46; 2 Cor. 5:21)
3. Finally, the third test of Jesus’ claim is the personal test. A person can use the law to tell if Christ is true. A man can measure himself by the law and clearly see that he doesn’t keep it. He breaks the law; so he stands in need of God’s forgiveness. This was exactly what Jesus was preaching and teaching. HE cried out that God loved the world and had sent His Son to save the world.
Note what Jesus said (v.19): “You are the recipients of the law. God has been very gracious to you in giving the law. But being a recipient is not enough—you must keep the law. However, you don’t keep the law. You go about opposing and standing against me, not surrendering to God’s Son. You oppose me, even seek to kill me, God’s Son.”
So again false beliefs about Jesus are used to protest the fact that Jesus is the Son of God and that only through Him can we be filled and have eternal life. Jesus proposes three tests to know for sure that Jesus is true:
• You will KNOW the truth by doing it. So many, in fact, I think all who oppose Jesus Christ don’t want to practice and live the truth. To do that they would have to give up their sinful ways.
• The second test, to know if the message or the messenger is true, ask, “Does the person speak for his own glory of for God’s glory?” Too many are seeking fame and fortune through the ministry.
• Ask, “Are you keeping the law?” The Bible says that if you don’t keep every letter of the Book of the Law, then you are cursed. (Gal. 3:10) Jesus knows there is no way that a human being can keep every letter of the law, so in that, they are unrighteous. The only way to be cleansed from that unrighteousness is through Jesus Christ.
Next time we will see more questioning and charges of insanity.
