Skip to main content

Who Is This Jesus? (John 7:25-36)

 Some of the people knew that Jesus had begun to get an infamous reputation, and that some of the leaders wanted to kill him. Maybe they were taken aback by his gentleness, or they wondered why the leadership would hesitate, if they were so set in their opinions against Jesus.

Some leaders thought they knew where Jesus had come from, because they knew his family. They could not account for his special knowledge, which he did not get from studying; he got it from His divine nature. Jesus once more speaks of his special relationship with the Father, and that he is the one whom the Father has sent. To say this is not very prudent, because it is not an accepted custom for an Israelite to speak about God so intimately. St. John tells us that the reason why the leaders could not lay hands on Jesus is that his hour had not yet come. This means that everything that will happen in Jerusalem is a spiritual mystery that will unfold according to the Father's plan, and not a moment before.

Some holy citizens start to recognize that the coming of the Messiah will bring miracles, and they ask the natural question, "Will the Messiah do more miracles than this man?" It's a good question. It's not necessarily the case that every miracle worker is the Messiah, but it was generally believed that a person who did miracles was most likely sent by God for some purpose.

As you might expect, growing support for Jesus among the people did not go over well with the religious and political leadership of the nation. Jesus is well aware of what is happening, but he also knows that they won't succeed in arresting him until the Father permits it. He is speaking in a spiritual way about his death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. But again, without the grace to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, everything Jesus says would sound completely crazy.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Friend I Once Had, And The Dogmatic Principle

 I once had a friend, a dear friend, who helped me with personal care needs in college. Reformed Presbyterian to the core. When I was a Reformed Presbyterian, I visited their church many times. We were close. I still consider his siblings my friends. (And siblings in the Lord.) Nevertheless, when I began to consider the claims of the Catholic Church to be the Church Christ founded, he took me out to breakfast. He implied--but never quite stated--that we would not be brothers, if I sought full communion with the Catholic Church. That came true; a couple years later, I called him on his birthday, as I'd done every year for close to ten of them. He didn't recognize my number, and it was the most strained, awkward phone call I have ever had. We haven't spoken since. We were close enough that I attended the rehearsal dinner for his wedding. His wife's uncle is a Catholic priest. I remember reading a blog post of theirs, that early in their relationship, she told him of the p
Hilarious Com-Box Quote of The Day: "I was caught immediately because it is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Acts of the Holy Spirit Acting Erratically."--Donald Todd, reacting to the inartful opposition of the Holy Spirit and the Magisterium. Mark Galli, an editor at Christianity Today, had suggested that today's "confusion" in evangelicalism replicates a confusion on the day of Pentecost. Mr. Todd commented after this reply , and the original article is here. My thoughts: By what means was this Church-less "consensus" formed? If the Council did not possess the authority to adjudicate such questions, who does? If the Council Fathers did not intend to be the arbiters, why do they say that they do? At the risk of being rude, I would define evangelicalism as, "Whatever I want or need to believe at any particular time." Ecclesial authority to settle a particular question is a step forward, but only as long as, "God alone is Lord of the con

Just Sayin.' Again.

One interesting objection to this chart has been to say that one gets stuck in a "loop" that doesn't resolve. This is a thinly-veiled way of putting forward the argument that we don't need absolute certainty in religious dogma. But Fred Noltie already dealt with this in the comments on another post. And to the specific objector, no less. I'll be blunt: The only principled thing to do is put down your Bible, resign your pulpit, and lead tours in Europe. Because a man must be able to distinguish dogma from human opinion, and this epistemology doesn't allow us to do that. One of dogma's distinguishing characteristics is infallibility; another is certainty. Without this, essential characteristics of God Himself are put into question. If we say that the most important Person any person could know is God, and the content of that knowledge (doctrine) is the means by which we know Him, it must be certain. This Reformed argument that certainty is a dangerous or un