Digging Deeper: Can This Be The Christ?

The elders ignore Jesus, and the crowds take note of this, and they begin to ask each other if perhaps even the elders might be beginning to believe that Jesus is the Messiah since they have all suddenly grown so silent.

But they are also confused because they believe that when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from… and they know where Jesus is from.

In Jesus’ day, some people believed that no one would know where the Messiah would come from… but that is not what the prophets foretold. Still others got hung up for the opposite reason – they knew the Scriptures perfectly… but they didn’t know Jesus as well as they thought they did. And because they believed in things they had made up, they had a hard time recognizing Jesus and his fulfillment of the Scriptures when he arrived. We can sometimes be the same way.

Jesus then starts shouting in the Temple courts, “Yes! You know me! And you know where I’m from! I’m not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true! You don’t know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me!” 

When they heard Jesus saying such things, John tells us that the crowd tried to seize him, but that no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come… or in other words, God didn’t want him to be arrested just yet, so God didn’t let him get arrested.

Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They were in awe of Jesus and they decided that they didn’t need any more proof that he was who he said he was. And they said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?” 

But the Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him, so they sent temple guards to arrest him. 

Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.” Here, Jesus is saying that he is going to be killed, and when he is killed, he will return to his Father who sent him into the world.

But the people were confused by this and were like, “Where’s he going? Is he going to go teach the Greeks now?” They were thinking about what they themselves might do if they knew that their lives were being threatened. They would likely flee and go live among the Greek-speaking Jews scattered across the Roman Empire in the Jewish Diaspora. They don’t think for a minute that Jesus is actually planning on submitting to those who would put him to death and let them kill him. That’s not what Messiah’s are supposed to do!

Finally, on the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 

By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. 

Jesus screams out his words of truth and life to the people during the greatest day of the feast, when the Temple was filled to overflowing with people upon people. During the feast, two priests would enter the Temple and one would pour out golden pitcher of water at the base of the altar, and at the same time the other priest would pour out wine from freshly crushed grapes, and the two liquids would flow down the Temple steps and out into the Courts. And on the greatest day of the feast, the people would wave their palm branches and sing praises to God, as the priests performed their sacred rituals, begging God to remember his promises to them.

It is fitting that Jesus makes his declaration about streams of living water pouring out from within his people as the priests pour out their water and wine at the altar. Jesus is saying that he is the fulfillment of all their hopes, and the very reason why they perform these rituals in the first place. Everything points to him, and to the Holy Spirit that he will pour out on his people and who will overflow within them.

The crowd was divided – some people thought he was the Prophet, some thought he was the Messiah, and others thought he was a fraud and wanted him arrested. 

Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?” 

“No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied. 

“You mean he has deceived you also?” the Pharisees retorted. “Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? No! But this mob that knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them.” 

Nicodemus, who had previously met with Jesus in secret at night, was also one of the Pharisees, and he asked his fellow teachers, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?” 

They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”

And so the conflict continued to grow between Jesus and the Pharisees… which we’ll hear more about in the future.