Where Did Jesus Go the Pharisees Could Not?

February 2, 2002

Tom:

We are currently in chapter 7 of the Gospel of John and we are going through John, verse by verse, taking quite a while, but it’s a good meal Dave, verse by verse, there’s plenty here for us. And again, why we picked the Gospel of John to go through is we want to encourage people to read the Bible and this is a good place to start. The Gospel of John talks about so many of Christ’s attributes, about the salvation that he has for us and we are going to pick up with verse 33. “Then Jesus said unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me.” Verse 34, “Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come.” Verse 35, “Then said the Jews among themselves, whither will he go, that we shall not find him? Will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles, and teach the Gentiles?” Verse 36, “What manner of saying is this that he said, Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?”

Dave:

They are going to question about that in the next chapter also and he is going to talk about that again. Tom, there is really a great confusion here among these people. It’s a tragedy that they didn’t know the scriptures, because there are several hundred, as you know, prophecies in the Old Testament, explaining how you would know who the Messiah was when he came. Now, going back just momentarily, to verse 31. Some of the people are reasoning like this, “…many of the people believed on him and said, When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man has done?” Some of the people are saying he’s got to be the Messiah, look at the miracles he has done. On the other hand, we have in John 3, Nicodemus, I don’t think was saying he was the Messiah but he said, “You are a teacher come from God, no man could do the miracles that you do except God be with you.” These people—if they only knew the time in which they lived, if they just knew Daniel 9 for example, it tells you exactly when the Messiah would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey. And, they were just within a couple of years of this time right now, you know. This was the time when the Messiah would come. There are all kinds of false Messiahs early before Jesus and after Jesus—just that chapter would have taken care of that.

Tom:

Dave, when the scripture says, “And many of the people believed on him,” in other words, they were gathering information. This was not a belief unto salvation; this was not a commitment, was it?

Dave:

It doesn’t tell us whether it was or not. In this case we know and in a couple of other cases, John 2, it says, “When he was in Jerusalem on the feast days, seeing the miracles that he did, many believed in his name.” It even says that “…but he did not commit himself to them.” Or, when we get over to 8:30, it will say, “As he spake these words, many believed on him.” And then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, and he goes on and talks and before you know it, they are arguing with him and finally, verse 59 they take up stones to stone him. So, I think what it means is, they believed that he was the Messiah but they didn’t understand who the Messiah was, what he would do, the purpose of the Messiah’s coming. So, on the one hand, they believe in Jesus, on the other hand, their belief is wrong. And, for example, we saw it in chapter 6. There were many who supposedly had believed on him and they turned back and they walked no more with him. But here it doesn’t specifically tell us that. But they are going by the miracles.

Tom:

So verse 36 it says, “What manner of saying is this that he said, ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come?” How are they to understand that?

Dave:

Well the Messiah, the Old Testament very clearly said was going to be killed. He was going to return to his Father. He came from the Father and he came to this earth. In Isaiah 53 for example, “…he was despised, rejected of men, we hid our faces from him, we esteemed that God’s judgment was upon him…”—well indeed it was because of our sin. But, Psalm 22, “They pierced my hands and my feet, I can count all my bones, they look and stare upon me,” and so forth. We quoted a few minutes ago Zechariah:12:10, “They will look on me whom they have pierced,” and the word in the Hebrew there is a “piercing to the death.” So, Jesus is clearly talking about he is going to die. And of course he is going to be resurrected. The scriptures indicated that as well, but he is not going to stay around, he is going to go away. You would have to know Tom, by reading the Old Testament that there were two comings of the Messiah. You have to know that he was going to go away, because you couldn’t put in one event, one time frame, what it said. For example, Isaiah 53 itself, there are contradictions unless there are two comings. Unless he comes once as the Lamb to die and goes away and returns as a lion of the tribe of Judah. Because on the one hand it says he is cut off out of the land of the living. “For the transgression of my people is he stricken.” But then it says, “He will see his seed prolong his days.” In Isaiah:9:7 says, “Of his kingdom and peace there will be no end.” So, when you try to put that together, he’s killed and yet, of his kingdom and peace there is no end and he comes in power and glory to rule on the throne of David. You’ve got to have two events here. They don’t understand that and this really throws them when he begins talking like that. Again Tom, he is only saying what they should have understood if they knew the scriptures.

Tom:

Verse 37-38, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

Dave:

Tom, again, I wish we could just reason with Roman Catholics, or some Lutherans and some Presbyterians, believe that—for example, John Calvin taught that—he didn’t believe in transubstantiation as the Catholic Church teaches, but that this wafer was literally spiritual food to feed upon, to strengthen.

Tom:

So, the element in itself had some efficacious value?

Dave:

Yes, it was spiritual food to feed the spirit of man. You will find that in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” And, this is why the Catholics feel the priest has to have the power to turn the wafer into the body and blood of Christ. We have dealt with that in the past, but look, Christ gives it to us in some many ways. To the woman at the well he said, “The water that I give you, you won’t thirst again. You take the water that I give you; it will be in you a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” He wasn’t talking about H2O; he was not talking about something physical. And, here he is saying, “If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink.” Was he talking about thirsting for water? Physical thirst couldn’t possibly, you couldn’t possibly believe that. Jesus is a water boy and he is going around, he has a bunch of water, he has a cart full of water and he is taking it around for anyone? He’s going through the people there on this great feast and he is saying, look guys, I’ve got some water here and I’m giving it away free—anybody want some water, come to me and I will give it to you. Tom, that’s ludicrous! He is talking about something spiritual, a spiritual thirst, and a spiritual hunger. The psalmist said it, “As the hart, the deer, pants after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, I thirst for God.” They should have known what he was saying. It was very clear in the Psalms, it’s very clear. Go back to Deuteronomy 8, “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word…” and so forth. And, Jesus had said, John:6:63, we read it a few weeks ago: “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” And yet, the Catholic says we’ve got to turn this into flesh. He wants to take the spiritual blessing, the spiritual life that God wants to give us and he wants to turn it into something physical. “He that believeth on me,” John:7:38, again it is clear that by eating and drinking, Christ means believing. “Any man thirst? Come to me and drink, he that believeth on me.” “As the scripture hath said”—that’s a key phrase, Tom—He’s not giving them something new. They should know this, the rabbis should know this, and the people should know this. When he begins to talk like this, it should just click in their hearts and minds. They should—wow—they should relate this to the Old Testament, the scriptures that they already have. “He that believeth on me,” as the scripture has said, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Tom, it speaks to my heart. I believe on Jesus. There ought to be falling out of me and all of you out there listening, if you claim to know Christ as your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ has come into your heart, by his Spirit, to live his life in you then, out of you should be falling rivers of living water. Physically water? No, life giving, the life giving words of Jesus Christ, of the gospel that will bring redemption, salvation, new birth, new life to the people that we come in contact with, that’s what it should be. This is what Jesus promised, so then let us trust him for it and may it happen in our daily lives.

Tom:

Verse 39, “(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified).” The Holy Spirit was sealed until the day of redemption.

Dave:

And, this living water is the Spirit of God and the Words of God. Tom, we are going to have to come back and talk about the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified because, obviously, the Old Testament prophets were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Tom:

So Dave, that’s right where we will pick up next time.

Dave:

Very good.

Program Number:

0212d