Jesus Christ, the Great Divider
John 7:40-53
Let’s start today by reading our text:
40 Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, “Truly this is the Prophet.”
41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Will the Christ come out of Galilee?
42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?”
43 So there was a division among the people because of Him.
44 Now some of them wanted to take Him, but no one laid hands on Him.
45 Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?”
46 The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!”
47 Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived?
48 Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?
49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”
50 Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them,
51 “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?”
52 They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.”
53 And everyone went to his own house.
There are some things in life that you can be neutral about but Jesus is not one of them. Yet many people in our world are still trying to be neutral about Jesus. They claim that Jesus was a good man, maybe a even a great man, a prophet, a teacher, but that was long ago and in another time and it has nothing to do with our world today. And it certainly does not require that I go to church much less belong to a church. They say, “You don’t have to go to church to believe in Jesus.”
In Luke 11:23 Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.” (also Matt. 12:30). Jesus says that neutrality to Him is really opposition to Him. To decide for God, one must decide for Jesus.
In John chapter seven Jesus has been teaching at the temple during the Feast of Tabernacles. He had made a big impression on both the people and the Jewish authorities in the temple, but the verdict about Him was certainly not unanimous. In verse 12 we saw “there was much complaining among the people concerning Him. Some said, “He is good”; others said, “No, on the contrary, He deceives the people.”” In 7:31 John told us, “And many of the people believed in Him, and said, ‘When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?’” At the same time, verse 32 gave the opposite response to Jesus, “The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.” In John 7:43 we see again what we have experienced over and over in the Gospel of John, “So there was a division among the people because of Him,” (7:43).
The words “a division among the people” seem almost an understatement. Some were believing in Jesus and others were violently rejecting Jesus. This should not surprise us. Jesus expected it would be this way. In Luke 12:51-53 Jesus said, “Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (also Matt 10:34-35).
This is the way it happened in Jesus’s lifetime on earth: people divided over Him. And it’s the way it keeps happening wherever Christ is presented faithfully today. Faith in Jesus always has been and will continue to be a dividing line in this world. In parts of the world today where Christianity is not the predominant religion it is still very much so. In countries in which Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam are the predominant religions, to come to faith in Christ often means being disowned by your family.
You may be saying how does that concern me in modern America? R. Kent Hughes reminds us how it often works in our society today. He writes,
Christ brings division to everyday life. We all have experienced this. Maybe we are at the store, in school, or at work, and we are talking animatedly with someone about any number of things – maybe politics or education or sports or even the weather. Then someone says something like, ‘My life has really been different lately because of Christ.’ Suddenly there is a silence and a shuffling of the feet. Someone coughs. Someone else looks at his watch and says, ‘I’ve got an appointment to get to or I’ll be late.’ Another says, ‘Oh, yes I have to go feed the dog. I must be going.’ But in reality the man who said he had to feed the dog did not have a dog to feed and the other person’s appointment was the next day. Yet the mere mention of Christ brings division to life. [R Kent Hughes. John: That You Might Believe. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1999) p. 222]
The great sadness of this division is that it means that there are those who choose not to believe in Jesus and by that decision reject the only means of being saved. I pray that in this very moment you won’t be on the wrong side of this division.
The division we see in John 7 reveals to us different kinds of unbelief. The first one is:
1. Some have an inadequate view of Jesus (7:40)
Therefore many from the crowd, when they heard this saying, said, “Truly this is the Prophet.”
Jesus has just given that great invitation to believe in Him in verses 37-38:
37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
Jesus’ words are compelling. They call for a response. He is claiming to be the One who satisfies the thirst of our innermost being. Some of the listeners were sure that Jesus was “the Prophet” (7:40). They are surely referring to the prophet predicted by Moses in Deut. 18:15, “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear.” It’s what those who saw Jesus feed the 5000 said when they saw the sign that Jesus did, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world,” (6:14). But significantly here, they think He is the Prophet not just because of what Jesus did, but what He said. Verse 40 says, “when they heard this saying,” they said “Truly this is the Prophet.”
Certainly, Jesus was the Prophet of whom Moses spoke. He was much greater than Moses, both in the signs that He performed and in the teaching that He gave. But by itself, to believe that Jesus was the Prophet was an inadequate view. A mere prophet, no matter how great, could not authoritatively claim what Jesus just claimed, that whoever would come and drink of Him would have rivers of living water gushing up inside of him and flowing out of him. Only God in human flesh could make such a claim.
There are many people today who think highly of Jesus and His teaching, but they do not believe that He is God. A partial faith is not a saving faith. They do not submit their lives to Him as their Lord and God. They have correct, but inadequate views of Jesus.
2. Some have a correct but uncommitted view of Jesus (7:41)
You see them in verse 41. They went a step further and said of Jesus, “This is the Christ.” “The Christ” was God’s promised “anointed one,” the promised redeemer and king who would reign on David’s throne (Psalm 2). While that view is absolutely correct, and a step up from viewing Jesus only as the Prophet, it is inadequate because it does not reflect any personal commitment or submission to Jesus as Lord. The text suggests that they held their view as debaters, but not as disciples willing to follow Him no matter what the cost. As verse 13 points out, “no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews.”
Just a knowledge of the facts about Jesus and even believing them to be true does not save a person. Many people have grown up in Christian homes, attended good sound Bible believing churches, gone to Church camp, attended Youth group, and yet have never come to trust Christ. They can quote Scripture verses, and can believe them all to be true and still be lost. One commentator calls this having a “orthodox head wedded to a rebellious heart.”
A.W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) says, “Unless our hearts are affected and our lives molded by God’s Word, we are no better off than a starving man with a cook book in his hand.” Intellectual acceptance is not saving faith. Do you have a correct view of Jesus, but remain uncommitted to Him as your Lord and Savior?
3. Some reject Jesus for faulty reasons (7:41-42)
We see these people in verses 41-42, “…But some said, “Will the Christ come out of Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the seed of David and from the town of Bethlehem, where David was?”
They question if Jesus could be the Christ because He was a Galilean. They obviously knew that Jesus had grown up in Nazareth but had they cared enough to check out the facts they would have found that He was actually born in Bethlehem and that He was indeed of the tribe of Judah and of the line of David.
Some times people make up their minds before they have all the facts. Like these people they end up rejecting Jesus for a flimsy reason that was really nothing but an excuse.
These critics had to ignore Jesus’ many miracles, some of which they had no doubt seen with their own eyes or heard credible reports of. They had to dismiss Jesus’ powerful teaching, which even the arresting officers admit is like no other teaching they’ve ever heard (7:46). They had to shrug off Jesus’ astounding claims, such as the one He just issued, to be able to give rivers of living water to all who believed in Him.
But the truth is, they weren’t interested in believing in Jesus. If they had been interested, they could have cleared up the question of His origins very easily. But they didn’t want to believe; they just wanted a comfortable excuse to reject Him.
We come to verse 43 where John reminds us again, “So there was a division among the people because of Him.” It was such an intense division, verse 44 says, “Now some of them wanted to take Him, but no one laid hands on Him.”
Now we switch scenes, from the open temple where all the people are gathered listening to Jesus and debating their judgments about Him, to the gathering of religious leaders who already have already condemned Jesus as a fraud.
In this encounter we also see three divided responses to Jesus.
4. Some are impressed by Jesus but too fearful to believe (7:45-46)
These are the officers who come back empty handed from trying to arrest Jesus. “Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?”
The Pharisees and chief priests had sent out these temple servants on their mission to arrest Jesus back in verse 32. No doubt as these guards stood around waiting for an opportune time, they were astonished by what they heard Jesus say. They returned from their mission, but without Jesus. When their leaders demand an explanation of their failure, they gave a clear and yet very unexpected testimony. They said, “No man ever spoke like this Man!”
Although the guards did not intend this meaning, considering all that John has written so far in his Gospel, he probably wants us to think, “Precisely! Jesus is not merely a man! He speaks as He does because He is the eternal Word of God made flesh!” But the impression is that these temple guards were too fearful of the chief priests and Pharisees to take a bold stand with Jesus. That would have meant their jobs! So when they are rebuked, they fade from view.
There are many in our day who are impressed with Jesus’ eloquence or His wisdom. They think He was a great man and a brilliant religious teacher. But they don’t see Him as the eternal Word of God in human flesh and so they don’t believe in Him as their Savior and Lord. Out of fear of what others may think, they don’t take a bold public stand of faith in Christ.
5. Some arrogantly reject Jesus and any who believe in Him (47-49).
The way that the Pharisees respond to these men shows us three tactics of those who are against Christ. People use these same tactics today to avoid the truth about Jesus Christ.
Notice how the Pharisees who reject Christ behave. Do they ask the officers, “What is it about Christ that makes Him so compelling?” No. Do they debate the merits of His claims? No. Do they say, “Let’s go hear Him for ourselves?” No. Here is what they do:
A. They ridicule. (v. 47)
Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? (v. 47). It is apparent by their question that the Pharisees, were afraid that the officers had become so thoroughly convinced that they had been come followers of Jesus.
They use the same tactic with Nicodemus in verse 52 as they accusingly ask, “Are you also from Galilee?” In other words, “You’re not one of those ignorant fools from the back woods of Galilee too, are you?” Ridicule attacks the person instead of engaging with the truth.
B. They use peer pressure. (v. 48)
“Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?” The implication of their question is that no educated or intelligent person would believe in this Jesus. In fact, they were using peer pressure in the very way they formed their rebuking question. Expecting a negative answer they ask, “You are not also deceived, are you?” They are accusing these officers of not being able to see through the deception of Jesus, like they can. If the religious leaders do not believe in Jesus, then anyone with any sense won’t believe in Him either. It still a tactic used by the enemy today to make it appear that education and intelligence are the opposites of faith.
Which leads into the third tactic:
C. They call those who believe ignorant. (v. 49)
Here they turn their accusation toward the crowd who seem to be following Jesus. in verse 49 they arrogantly pronounce, “But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” They are saying that the common people not knowing the Scriptures are not only confused, they are condemned. By virtue of their position as religious leaders, the Pharisees should have been loving, caring shepherds over God’s people, teaching them His Word, binding up their wounds, and leading them by example in the ways of the Lord (Ezek. 34). But here they show their true colors. They despised the common people as a bunch of ignorant reprobates.
The ironic thing is that when they say that these people do not know the law they indict themselves, for they are the teachers of the law. And as Jesus has pointed out in verse 19, none of them keeps the law. In reality, it is the Pharisees who are under a curse. Remember what John wrote in John 3:36? “He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
6. Some are willing to seek the truth (7:50-52)
In the middle of all this unbelief is one word of defense in verses 50-51. Nicodemus (he who came to Jesus by night, being one of them) said to them, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?”
There is a double irony here. First, the Pharisees had implied with their question (v. 49) that no important person had believed in Jesus. But Nicodemus, one of their own, and an important one at that, spoke up in defense of Jesus. Whether or not Nicodemus is a believer he at least attempted to make them follow the law and give a fair hearing to Jesus.
And second irony here is that they spoke of those who did not know the law as being “accursed” (v. 49) and yet Nicodemus had to be reminded them that they were not themselves acting in accordance with the Law. The law demanded that a man could not be condemned outright, based solely upon what a man’s opponents thought about him. Everyone had to be given an opportunity to defend themselves. So Nicodemus registers this mild objection to their murderous intent.
The Pharisees respond to Nicodemus in verse 52, “They answered and said to him, “Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee.””
The Pharisees taunted Nicodemus as being a Galilean and it seems at this point he said no more. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have felt called upon to defend your faith, and like Nicodemus you made some kind of half-hearted defense, but then you were shamed into silence?
It makes us ask the question, What is my public stand on Jesus?
We end where we began with the acknowledgement that you cannot be neutral about Jesus. We may speak politely about him. We even speak fondly of Him at Christmas and Easter. But the truth that we must face is that we cannot just casually brush aside His claims, treat Him as if there is nothing to really get serious about.
Those people in Jerusalem who held to favorable opinions about Jesus (“He is the Prophet; He is the Christ”) were on the side of the truth, but there’s no indication that they were committed to Him. Nicodemus would eventually come out of the closet for Christ. So must you! Jesus warns (Mark 8:38), “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
You are either for Him or Against Him, for He will not allow anyone to be neutral. You either believe in Him and receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior or my failing to do so, you are flat out rejecting Him.
So let me ask you, What have you decided about Jesus?
