Chapter VII
Verses 1-9. It must be remembered that the ministry of our Lord as reported by John is confined to Jerusalem and Judea, with the exception of the first, second, fourth and sixth chapters. After the events recorded in the previous chapter the Lord left Judea and for months labored in Galilee. The omniscient One knew all the plottings of the leaders of the Jews, how they hated Him, and were in council to do away with Him. Not alone did He know all this, but He also knew the exact time, when and under what circumstances, His passion should begin. The time was not yet and therefore He withdrew from Judea. The Passover feast, which comes in the spring, was past; the feast of Pentecost, the feast of weeks, which comes after Passover, is not mentioned here. He did not go to Jerusalem for that feast. It is a significant fact that the feast of Pentecost is nowhere mentioned in the Gospels. ‘That feast is mentioned only in the Book of Acts, and once in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, when Paul wrote of being in Ephesus at Pentecost.
The law commanded that every male Jew should attend every year the three great feasts in Jerusalem, Passover, Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacles. Our Lord according to the Gospel records went to Jerusalem for Passover and for the feast of Tabernacles, but not once is it said that He attended the feast of Pentecost. These feasts have a great typical and prophetic meaning. The Passover stands for the Cross, and the blessed work the Lamb of God finished there; Pentecost is typical of the coming of the Holy Spirit for this dispensation, for the outgathering of the Church, and the feast of Tabernacles proclaims the blessed and glorious consummation when Christ comes again to bless His people and set up His Kingdom.
The summer months were then spent by our Lord in Galilee; He was absent from Jerusalem, but came back when the feast of Tabernacles was about to be celebrated. It foreshadows the character of the present dispensation which began with Pentecost. During this dispensation the Lord is not here in person, but when this age closes He is coming again to reveal Himself, to manifest His glory in Jerusalem, and then the feast of Tabernacles will have its blessed fulfillment. The Lord therefore never appeared in Jerusalem during the feast of Pentecost.
His brethren in Galilee urged Him to depart at once for Jerusalem and show Himself in public. Much has been written on the question of the brethren of our Lord. Some say that they were the offspring of Mary by Joseph after the birth of our Lord. In the early Church two opinions were held regarding the relationship of those who are termed “‘the Brethren of the Lord.” Some maintained that no blood relationship existed, that these brethren were the sons of Joseph by a former wife, before he espoused the Virgin, and that they are called His brethren only in the same way in which Joseph is called His father. On the other hand others maintained that they were the Lord’s brethren as truly as the Virgin Mary was the Lord’s mother, being her sons by her husband Joseph. During the end of the fourth century Jerome advanced another theory. In answer to one Helvidius, who had attacked the prevailing view of the superiority of a Virgin over a married person, and laid great stress on the fact that Mary had other children from her husband, Jerome declared that the Lord’s brethren were His cousins. We do not think that this question can be definitely settled; nor is it of any importance. They were blood relations of some kind. The text shows that they did not believe on Him. They questioned His Messiahship and urged Him, perhaps sarcastically, to come to the front and demonstrate before the gathered multitudes in Jerusalem that He is the promised King — Messiah. From the first chapter of Acts we learn that they were converted afterward, for they are among the waiting company in Jerusalem (Acts i:14).
He answers them calmly. His time was not yet come. Their time was always. They had nothing to fear from the side of the Jews and the world would not hate them, for being unconverted, they were still of the world. It was otherwise with Him. He was not of the world and His testimony He bore about the world was that its works are evil, that is why He was hated. Well has it been said “the wickedness of human nature is painfully shown in this sentence, “The Lord Jesus was hated’ — it is an utter delusion to suppose that there is an innate response to perfect moral purity, or an innate admiration of the true, the pure, the just, the kind, and the good in the heart of man. God gave 1900 years ago, a perfect pattern of purity, truth and love in the person of our Lord, and man’s response was ‘hatred.’ Nor has the human heart changed since. If our Lord were to come again in humiliation the world today would hate Him, as they hated Him then. If Christians live true Christian lives, walking even as He walked, testifying against evil, if their lives are a constant testimony against the world, then the hatred of the world will be their portion. Thus He prayed: “The world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.’ How little of all this is known to Christians today! The great professing church seeks the favor and applause of the world and makes common cause with the world which lieth in the wicked one. Let a believer live in separation from the world and its ways and he will soon find out that he is hated by the world, including what has been called ‘the religious world.’ Erasmus used to say that Luther might have had an easy life, if he had not touched the Pope’s crown, and the monks’ bellies.
“Let us note, that unpopularity among men is no proof that a Christian is wrong, either in faith or practice. The common notion of many, that it is a good sign of a person’s character to be well-spoken of by everybody, is a great error. When we see how our Lord was regarded by the wicked and worldly of His day, we may well conclude that it is a very poor compliment to be told that we are liked by everybody. There can surely be very little ‘witness’ about our lives if even the wicked like us. ‘Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you’ (Luke vi:26). That sentence is too much forgotten.”’*
He refused to accompany them. And while they journeyed towards Jerusalem He abode in Galilee, awaiting the time of His departure.
Verses 10-13. His relations had gone, probably disap-
*Notes on John.
pointed at His refusal to join them. He did not want to attract attention, nor give an occasion to repeat what had been attempted before, “to make Him King” (vi:15) and so He went not openly, joining a larger company, but as in secret. The Jews, the rulers and the Pharisees, were on the lookout for Him, expecting that He would appear at the feast. They asked ‘Where is He?’ More literally translated this question is “Where is that man?” It implies contempt. Not alone did the Jewish leaders expect Him and look for Him, to vent their hatred upon Him, but the mass of people also expected Him and had Him in their thoughts. How could it be otherwise? The healing of the impotent man and the great message the Lord had delivered in connection with the miracle was still vivid in their minds. The miracle of the feeding of the multitudes was also known to them. Probably there were hundreds of those who had been fed in Jerusalem, as the requirement was that every Jew should participate in the great feast of Tabernacles. ‘They must have scattered the news of what had taken place in Galilee and what He had said as to Himself being the Bread of Life come down from heaven. ‘The gathered masses were divided as to Himself. Some proclaimed Him to be a good man; but others, and they were most likely the larger class, denied that He was a good man, and branded Him as a deceiver. But there were no voices heard which spoke of Him as the Messiah, the King of Israel. Those who believed in Him as a good man were afraid to declare themselves for fear of the leaders.
Verses 14-20. The feast of Tabernacles lasted for seven days and was, and still is (among orthodox Jews), an occasion of great rejoicing. Booths of tree branches were made, commemorating the dwelling in booths when their fathers left Egypt. The law commanded great sacrifices (Numbers xxi1x:12-34) to be brought throughout these seven days. It followed immediately after the feast of the blowing of the Trumpets (foreshadowing the future regathering of Israel) and the great Day of Atonement (typical of Israel’s spiritual restoration and the forgiveness of their sins), and, as already stated, the feast of Tabernacles is typical of our Lord’s Return and the blessed results of peace and joy which will follow that coming great event. When the feast was in full swing, in the middle of the week, He appeared in their midst. He went at once up into the Temple to teach. The portion of the Temple where teaching was permitted was the outer Court. Over twenty years before the boy Jesus was in the same outer Court, sitting in the midst of the teachers, hearing them and asking questions. We wonder if some of the older teachers and doctors of the law remembered that boy.
It has not pleased the Holy Spirit to record what our Lord taught when He entered the Temple. But we know that it was wonderful, for the Jews marveled. Where did He receive all His knowledge? Did He ever attend a great school of learning? Did He sit at the feet of some great Gamaliel? Had He conformed to the demands of rabbinical custom, that anyone who appears as teacher must have been for a number of years the companion of a learned rabbi? And furthermore did He not come from Nazareth? Was He not brought up in that town of ill-repute on account of its uncultured and ignorant population? What good thing can come out of Nazareth? “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?”’
He answered their question. What He taught He had not learned of others; nor was it something which He had brought forth out of His own mind. The Father had taught Him and therefore He spoke these things (Chapter vili:28). The doctrine He taught was not of Himself, but of another, even of Him that sent Him into the world, the Father with Whom He is one, and apart fom Whom He does nothing. The great truth He uttered in the fifth chapter is here once more put before them. It is again mentioned by Him in the twelfth chapter: “I have not spoken of Myself, but the Father which sent Me; He gave Me commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (xii:49). All then which came from His blessed lips is the revelation of God. But He gives them a test. They also may know whether His doctrine is of God or that He speaks from Himself. If anyone is willing to do His will, that one shall find the truth.
“They would know this, if they were but willing to do the
Father’s will, for the spirit of obedience clears out the earthvapors that obscure the heavens; he who has not heart-felt desire for the truth will scarcely learn it. This is itself simple, if only we believe that God can certify the truth to His creatures, and that He cares enough for them to desire that they should have it. But, simple as it is, if we believe it, what does it reveal with regard to the condition, not of the world merely, but of the children of God today? The various and conflicting views of Christians as to almost every Christian truth, how are they to be accounted for, with the Bible open before us, and the Spirit of Truth to lead us into all truth? What heart searching should it not give us, to learn how far we are really willing to have the truth — the whole truth, at whatever cost.’’*
He gives another test. The man who speaks from himself always seeks his own glory; speaking from himself, he speaks for himself and tries to advance his own interests. This is the mark of all teachers of error, who speak not according to the truth of God and through the guidance of the Spirit of God, but from themselves. But the statement “He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent Him, He is true and no unrighteousness is in Him” can only be fully true in Him Whom the Father sent, our Lord. Yet every servant of God, who seeks. the glory of God and not his own glory,will be kept from that which is untrue and unrighteous.
But they rejected Him and the doctrine which the Father had given Him to proclaim, yet were they boasting of the law given by Moses. “Did not Moses give you the Law?” From Deuteronomy xxxi:10, we learn every seventh year the Law was to be read publicly during the feast of Tabernacles. It is quite possible that it was a seventh year feast which the Lord attended, and if this is the case the statement as to the Law has additional meaning. But with all their boasting in the law they did not keep, little did they know that the omniscient, holy Lawgiver stood in their presence. They were going about to kill Him and thus breaking that Law. Not the rulers and the Pharisees answered Him, but the people, those who did not believe on Him as a good man,
*Numerical Bible.
but thought Him a deceiver. They were ignorant of the secret plottings of the religious leaders. Not knowing the truth they charged Him with having a demon. Thus they treated Him who is the Light and the Life.
Verses 21-24. From these words spoken by our ominiscient Lord it becomes apparent that the great miracle performed by Him at the pool of Bethesda was the real cause of their hatred. They had not forgotten the healing of the impotent man. They persecuted Him then and sought to slay Him because He healed the man on the Sabbath. They had nourished the same feeling against Him ever since. He reminds them of circumcision given by Moses, yet it was not appointed by Moses, for circumcision was prior to the law, given unto the fathers. The law commanded that the Sabbath should be kept holy and no work to be done in it; but the law also demanded that every male child should be circumcised on the eighth day. The eighth day many times fell on the Sabbath, and that the law of Moses might not be broken, the child was circumcised on the Sabbath. He showed them thereby that they did a certain work on the Sabbath, a religious ordinance made necessary by the commandment of God. But what is circumcision in comparison with the great work He had done, a work which glorifies God and made a man perfectly whole! Why should they be angry with Him because He had healed the man on the Sabbath? They had judged Him hastily; they condemned Him because they were blind ritualists, standing and defending the letter of the law. ‘Their lips were silenced. They could not give Him an answer.
Verses 25-27. Jerusalem was crowded with people on account of the feast,and those who speak now were not visitors but natives of Jerusalem. In a preceding verse the people said: “Who goeth about to kill thee?’ (verse 21). These inhabitants of Jerusalem were better informed; they knew something of the hatred, and of the plans which were being made against Him. ‘Is not this He, whom they seek to kill?” They were astonished that He spoke openly in the way He did. None of the Elders or Priests said anything to Him. They did not open their mouths to denounce Him, nor did they lay hands on Him. They could not explain the inactiveness of their rulers, when they had such a good opportunity to arrest Him. Some even thought that their leaders had changed their minds about Him. ‘Have the rulers indeed acknowledged that this is Christ?”
Mockery and sneers followed. They thought they knew where He came from. They knew Him by the name “Jesus of Nazareth.” These proud Jerusalem Jews said, “He is nothing but a Galilean, from that little town of Nazareth.” And later, when He rode into Jerusalem, the people said: “This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth.” Then it was written over His cross, ‘‘Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.”? They knew this much, that the Messiah must come from Bethlehem. But this man, they said, is a Nazarene, brought up as a carpenter in Nazareth. They did not know of His virgin birth, nor that He was born in the city of David, Bethlehem. ‘They manifested their ignorance by their statement: “As to Christ, when He comes, no one knows whence He is.”’ Perhaps back of this strange question lie some of the foolish traditions and sayings of the Jews, which even then, at least in part, were circulating among the people.
Verses 28-32. This is one of the few passages in the Gospels in which it is recorded that He cried, which means that He spoke with a loud voice. The Prophet Isaiah had announced, ‘“‘He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall any man hear His voice in the street” (Isa. xlii:2). This was His lovely and meek character, yet at times He spoke with aloud voice. Once more in this chapter He cried (verse37); also in chapter xii:44. Then He cried with a loud voice on the cross (Matt. xxvii:46) and also when He yielded up His spirit.
“Ye both know Me and ye know whenceI am.” This was His utterance. He acknowledged they were right in saying that they knew Him, yet they knew Him not in the real sense of the word. ‘They knew He was from Nazareth; they knew about His relatives, those called “his brethren”; they knew that He had lived for thirty years and over in Nazareth; yet of His miraculous birth, of His Deity they knew nothing whatever. ‘That is what He affirms: “But He that sent Me is true, whom ye know not. But I know Him because I am from Him, and He hath sent Me.” Brief, yet weighty words these are. Once more the Lord bears witness as to His Deity and Oneness with the Father. He is the sent One of God; He is from Him; He knows Him. He was always with Him, one with Him, equal with Him. They understood at once what He meant. His former words when He had healed the impotent man must have been remembered by some: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (verse-17). They were then ready to kill Him. And here He had made statements of the same character. Their antagonism was raised to the highest pitch, and they sought to take Him, but they were divinely restrained from laying hands on Him. No hand could touch Him, for His hour had not yet come. That hour when He was to be delivered into the hands of men, to be crucified and to finish the work He came to do, was scheduled from all eternity. The exact hour was known and appointed before the foundation of the world.* When His enemies finally laid hold on Him, it was because His hour had come.
Another effect of the words of our Lord was that many believed on Him. They probably believed in the same way as those mentioned at the close of the second chapter. They may have been Galileans, for they said: “When Christ cometh, will He do more signs than these which this man has done?” But few signs and miracles had been done by Him in Jerusalem, but His great signs had been wrought in Galilee. They seemed to be convinced that He was the Messiah, but we hear nothing of them that confessed Him as Lord and as Christ, nor did they follow Him. The Pharisees soon discovered that He whom they hated was the most talked of person at the feast. Everybody spoke of Him, and when they found that many voices were heard that He must be the Messiah, they thought the time for action had come. They therefore commissioned officers to arrest Him.
*In a certain Bible Study Magazine we saw recently the statement that our Lord died ‘‘a premature death.”? We suppose the author of the article from which we quote this, which also contains other dishonoring statements about our Lord, means that He might have lived longer. It is foolish for any one to write such inventions. Think of Christ dying a premature death, when a certain hour for His death on the Cross was known in all eternity!
Verses 33-36. Surrounded by the multitudes, with the officers of the Pharisees approaching to carry out the command of the chiefs of the people, the Lord addresses them. The officers were not only powerless to do what they had been told, but they were forced to listen to His words. Later we find what they said to their superiors about what they had heard from His lips.
They had come to lay hold on Him. His words tell them that it could not be done, for yet a little while He was to be with them, and when that little while is gone He would go back to the Father who sent Him. He speaks in full assurance, in perfect knowledge of what would take place. He would accomplish the great work and then go back to Him, the Father. And after He is gone, He said, “Ye shall seek Me and not find Me.” This is a prophetic utterance of our Lord; it goes beyond the people who listened to Him at that time. It concerns the nation itself, that after He had gone back to the Father, they would look in vain for the promised Messiah. ‘They would then seek Him and not find Him. Still more solemn is the next sentence, ‘‘Where I am ye cannot come.” Let us notice that our Lord does not say, ““‘Where I am going ye cannot come,” but “‘Where I am.” ‘The place He speaks of is heaven; this is the place which is His, and even while He was on earth in creature’s form in His Deity He was in heaven, and did not cease from being there when He walked on earth (see John iii:13). Well may we confess, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me.’ And those who reject Him, who do not believe on Him, can NEVER be in the place where He is. This one sentence answers all the unscriptural inventions of a second chance for those who rejected Christ and died unsaved, it is a complete refutation of the “larger hope” and the cunningly devised fables of “reconciliationism,” the misapplication of the Scriptural term “the restitution of all things.” It is an utter impossibility that those who die in their sins and in unbelief can ever reach the place where He is. Men may please themselves with thinking it is kind and loving and liberal and large hearted to believe and to teach that all men and women of all sorts will finally be found in heaven. One word of our Lord Jesus Christ’s overturns the whole theory: Heaven is a place, He says to the wicked, where “ve cannot come.”
They understood not what He said. They imagined that He thought of going to those Jews who were dispersed among the Greeks and then also teach the Gentiles. They surmised something which came true after His death, resurrection and ascension. The Holy Spirit came down from heaven, and the witness was first given in Jerusalem. Once more the kingdom promise is preached. ‘They rejected the message, and then theGospel was sent far hence unto the Gentiles.
Verses 37-39. The feast of Tabernacles terminated with the eighth day. It was on this last day, that the voice of our Lord was heard uttering this most blessed invitation and promise. For seven days water had been drawn from the brook Siloam and poured out, under the rejoicing of the people assembled to keep the feast. It was a memorial of the miracle in their history, when the Lord, during their wilderness experience, supplied water out of the cleft of the rock. But more than that, for the well informed Israelite, who believed the promises of God made to the nation, it was prophetic. Zechariah’s final vision tells of the time ‘“‘when living waters shall go out from Jerusalem” (Zech. xiv:8). Ezekiel, too, had beheld the waters like a mighty river flowing forth from the great temple. And in the distant past Balaam, likewise, had spoken a similar prophecy (Num. xxiv:7). All these prophecies will be fulfilled in the day the King comes back to be in the midst of His people. The last great day of the feast was called “the Hosanna Rabba,” when the air was fairly rent with the Hosannas of the multitudes. But on the eighth day the ceremony of pouring out water ceased. It was symbolical of the fact that after the wilderness wanderings were over they entered the promised land, where the springs of water supplied all their need to the full.
And here their own King-Messiah is with them. He through whom all these promises can only be fulfilled, He who is the rock which followed them (1 Cor. x:4) is in their midst. He is the rejected One. The hour nears when He will be cast out and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles to be lifted up on the cross. All that the feast of
Tabernacles signifies prophetically cannot be now; it cannot be fulfilled, “rivers of living water” flowing forth from Jerusalem. In this last day, when the feast was about ended, He stood and uttered these wonderful words: “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink”; and then the promise, “He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, from his belly shall flow forth rivers of living water.” While the national promise is impossible, on account of His rejection, He offers something new, giving an individual invitation, and an individual promise. He is the fountain of living water and He invites the thirsting one to come to Him and drink. Then having come to Him to drink, believing on Him, He gives the great promise, from that one, should flow forth rivers of living water. We are told in the next verse that this means the gift of the Holy Ghost, which all those receive who believe on Him. Yet this gift was conditioned on the death of Christ and the resurrection and ascension of Christ; the words ‘“‘for Jesus was not yet glorified” include all these great events in the redemption work of our Lord.
The promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. Christ was glorified and the Glorifier of Christ, the Holy Spirit came down from heaven to earth. He came to dwell in and to fill those who have come to Christ and believed on Him. And so it was on that memorable day when the promised gift was given. Ever since, whosoever believes on Him shares in that gift and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And that Spirit is to manifest Himself through the believer as streams of living water, flowing forth from Him. It does not mean that there is to be a supernatural manifestation of the presence of the Holy Spirit in some startling sign — gifts, such as the “gift of Tongues,” the lowest of all the gifts, but that the believer is to be the source from which blessings flow forth to others by bearing witness to Christ.*
Noteworthy is Martin Luther’s vigorous and simple paraphrase on these words of our Lord. ‘He that cometh
*“The possession of the gifts of the Spirit, it is evident, in the early church is quite compatible with an ungodly heart. A man or a woman might speak with tongues, and yet be like salt that has lost its savour.
The possession of the fullness of the graces of the Spirit, on the contrary, was that which made any man a blessing in the world.”
to Me shall be so furnished with the Holy Spirit, that he shall not only be quickened and refreshed himself and delivered from thirst, but he shall also be a strong stone vessel, from which the Holy Spirit with all blessing shall flow to others, refreshing, comforting and strengthening them, even as he was refreshed by Me. Peter on the day of Pentecost, by one sermon, as by a rush of water, delivered three thousand from the devil’s kingdom.” An old comment says: “When a man turns to the Lord, he is like a fountain filled with living water, and rivers flow from him to men of all nations and tribes.” Even so it is. God’s people are not called to be stagnant pools, or reservoirs which only receive and never give forth, but our calling is to be rivers, which constantly give because they have in themselves the fountain of living water.
“But where else shall we find so wonderful a picture of what the man indwelt of the Spirit is in the world, as witness of the glory of His rejected Lord? As we have to say of kindred utterances in this Gospel, it seems too highly drawn for a picture of any save the rare exceptions among Christian men. But let us accept the reproof of this, and try rather to realize what a man indwelt of the Spirit would be normally as that. The Spirit of God — God dwelling within one — the Living Center of the practical life; the Enlightener of mind and conscience; the Energy of the affection and the will: all power, all wisdom in Him who as Vice-regent of Christ has come to hold me for Christ against all that in a world opposed to Him would hinder my witness! — what competency, what fulness at all times accessible to me does all this imply!
“A perpetual spring in a vessel must needs overflow the vessel in which it is, the smallness of which is no limit to the spring itself. When once the vessel is full, all the power of the spring will manifest itself in the overflow. Hence, (if we think of the spring and not of the vessel), ‘rivers of living water’ are not too much to predicate of the outflow from this divine Source of blessing within the soul, which, first filling to complete satisfaction the soul! itself, must surely then flow out for the need of others.
“This is the Lord’s own witness to the gift He gives, who cannot err in the estimate He makes of it. When we realize what it is, we cannot think it to be too high. Our experimental knowledge will depend indeed upon our practical subjection to the Spirit indwelling us; but how blessed te know that this is to be gained in so simple a way, and that this is the picture the Lord can give us of the normal Christian.”*
Verses 40-44. Evidently the attention was arrested. To see this One standing up, and telling out such a message, must have astonished the multitude. We doubt not there were thirsty souls there, sin-laden souls, souls to whom these words went home. They thought that He must be the Prophet, the one whom Moses had announced would come some day (Deut. xviii:15-18). But there were others and they seemed to be convinced that “this is the Christ”; they saw in Him, as He really was, the promised Messiah, the King, the Son of David. They were probably saying this one to another, so that others heard of it. Therefore some made objection. They knew Messiah could not come out of Galilee; they thought our Lord was nothing but a Galilean, and therefore He could not be the Messiah. They knew that Messiah must be a Son of David and come from the city of David, Bethlehem; and they knew not that He was the Son of David from Bethlehem. The result was a division among the people. Some said He is the Prophet, some He is Christ, others objected and still others hated and despised Him. And so it is still, there is ‘‘a division among the people on account of Him.” Some day the burning question, “What think ye of Christ, whose Son is He?” will be forever settled for Jew and Gentile, and that will be the day of His coming Glory.
Verses 45-53. These officers had been sent several days before (verse 32) to arrest our Lord. They probably watched Him very closely and looked for a convenient time to carry out their commission. They could not do so, because His hour was not yetcome. Here they return empty handed and when asked why they did not bring Him a prisoner, their defense is, “Never spake man like this man.” It was not cowardice on their part, that, fearing the great mass of
*Numerical Bible.
people, they refrained from touching His person. The power and beauty of the words of the Son of God restrained them completely from taking action. They listened to Him and then forgot all about the orders they had received. Often has this been repeated in the lives of evangelists and missionaries who preached faithfully the Word of God and did not know that wicked men were plotting to do them harm; the Word preached touched their consciences, and they were unable to carry out their threats.
“Are ye also deceived?” said the Pharisees to them. “Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed on Him?” ‘Who are ye, hirelings of the Sanhedrim that you should be captivated by His words? We, the rulers and the Pharisees, we, the learned doctors of law, men of authority, are the judges. This miserable mob which shouts out that He must be the Prophet, and others saying He must be Christ, know not the law; they are cursed.”” Perhaps they meant with this that they had sympathy with Him, whom they considered a law-breaker, because He had healed on the Sabbath, and therefore, the multitude also not knowing the law, were cursed. Everything shows that the Pharisees were. beside themselves, filled with rage, with envy, hatred and malice against the Lord.
But suddenly one of their own number speaks; it is Nicodemus. The Holy Spirit adds, so that there might be no question as to who this Nicodemus is, “he that came to Jesus by night.” As we know from the third chapter, Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler and the teacher in Israel. That he speaks now in the presence of his associates, members of the Sanhedrim, shows that the blessed words our Lord had spoken to this man in that memorable night had not been spoken in vain; they had touched his heart. He ventures, though weakly, to defend the Lord. “Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?” He appealed to the law (Deut. i:17, xvii:8, xix:15). They knew the law well, and also the instructions by the elders which required that every accused person should have a hearing, with an opportunity to confront the witnesses against him and to cross-examine them. They felt the rebuke and could not answer; instead they sneered at their colleague, “Art thou also of Galilee?” which meant, are you also ignorant, thou, our great teacher, the honored and respected Nicodemus? Then sarcastically, “Search and look, out of Galilee hath arisen no prophet.” Their fury and malicious bitterness had blinded them completely. They quite forgot that Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Jonah and probably Nahum were Galilean prophets. Then they dispersed.