Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Seven

                                                                                                                                                Verses 14-20

About the middle of the feast, Jesus went to the Temple, and He openly began to teach. He evidently taught out of the Old Testament because the Jews were amazed that He could read having never been to a scribe's school.

Jesus began to openly preach to them that His doctrine came from His Father. Jesus preached that if anyone truly opened their spiritual nature with a desire to do God's Will, then that person would be able to hear the Word of God and believe it. Jesus told them that those who preach about themselves seek their own glory, but Jesus preached only to glorify His Father, and whoever truly believed in His Father would also be able to believe that God had sent Him to the world as a sinless and righteous Son who only preached the truth. Jesus preached directly to the unbelieving Jews because they sought their own glory and to protect their own power over the people, and they only paid lip service to a loving and compassionate God.

Jesus enraged these self-righteous Jews when He told them, who were so proud of Moses and their supposed ability to keep the law, that none of them had obeyed it. Jesus preached to them the very purpose of the law. The righteous law exposes anyone who reads or hears it as being a person who has not kept it. Galatians 3:24. The first step toward repentance and faith happens when the Holy Spirit causes the spiritual nature of a person to realize that they happen to be a helpless sinner before the righteous law and that only Jesus possesses the power and the self-sacrifice necessary to save them from eternal death that sin and evil causes. I Corinthians 6:11; John 5:24; Romans 5:6-11. The ability to acquire such repentance and faith requires humility before God which these proud Jews certainly did not have. Luke 18:9-14. Jesus then asked them why they sought to kill Him since Moses had told them: "Thou shalt not kill." Exodus 20:13. One of the reasons they were not able to arrest Jesus was because God had let them know deep in their hearts, but they could not admit to themselves because of their pride, that Jesus had to have come from God.