Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to John · About this commentary
Judge Righteous Judgment
John 7:14-24
14 But when it was now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught. · WEB
They marvel that an uneducated man can teach, and he gives a test anyone can run.
When it was now the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and taught John 7:14.
He waits until the week is half over and then simply appears in the temple courts and starts teaching, in the most public place in the country, having entered the city quietly.
"How does this man know letters, having never been educated?" John 7:15.
The question is about credentials rather than content. Rabbinic training was a formal apprenticeship, and a teacher was expected to be able to name the master he had studied under. He has no such name to give, and his handling of the Scriptures is evidently of a quality that makes the omission strange.
"My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me" John 7:16.
The answer concedes the point and answers it. He does name a master. He simply names a different kind.
"If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God or if I am speaking from myself" John 7:17.
This is the most practical sentence in the chapter and it deserves to be sat with. A test is being offered for distinguishing a message from God from a man's own invention, and the test is not an argument, a sign, or a set of credentials.
The condition is a settled willingness to do God's will — desires to do — held before knowing what it will turn out to be. On those terms the knowledge follows. And the order is the opposite of what people expect: understanding is promised to those already willing to obey, rather than obedience being asked of those who have first been convinced.
It also explains the whole chapter. The men who cannot see it are not short of evidence; they are unwilling in advance.
"He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true" John 7:18. A second test, and it is about direction. Where a teacher's reputation is being deposited is usually visible.
"Didn't Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?" John 7:19.
The turn is abrupt. They are questioning his standing under the law while planning a murder, and the charge is put as a question.
"You have a demon! Who seeks to kill you?" John 7:20. The crowd's denial is probably sincere — the ordinary pilgrims did not know what was being discussed in council — and it is exactly the situation described in verse thirteen, where nobody would speak openly.
"I did one work and you all marvel because of it" John 7:21. One work — the paralyzed man by the pool, two chapters and many months ago John 5:9. The whole of the hostility traces back to one Sabbath afternoon and one mat.
"On the Sabbath you circumcise a boy... are you angry with me because I made a man completely healthy on the Sabbath?" John 7:22–23.
The argument is legal and it is unanswerable on their own ground. Circumcision on the eighth day overrode the Sabbath when the two collided; they performed it without hesitation, because a positive command of the law outranked the day's rest.
So the principle was already conceded. The only question is scale — and the comparison is between a rite performed on one part of a body and a whole man made completely healthy.
"Don't judge according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment" John 7:24.
The instruction is not to stop judging. It is to judge properly, which requires going beneath the surface of the case — and in this chapter the surface is a man carrying a mat and a teacher with no diploma.
settled What this mark means