10 But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. 11 The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” 12 And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” 13 Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.
14 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. 15 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning,[a] when he has never studied?” 16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. 17 If anyone’s will is to do God’s[b] will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. 18 The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” 20 The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” 21 Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. 22 Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? 24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
Introduction
One of the things that happens throughout the gospels, that happened throughout Jesus’ life, is the revealing of who Jesus is. As things progress in Jesus’ ministry the contrast and the tension between Jesus and the Jewish leaders increases more and more. Every miracle and teaching draws a more clear line between those who believe in Him and those who do not. He reveals more of who He is, culminating when He breathes His last on the cross and the Roman soldier looks upon His lifeless body and says, “Truly this was the Son of God.”
In our passage today there is certainly an increase in the dividing line Jesus was drawing. Jesus causes quite the stir, though of course not because of any wrong in Him. He begins to show Himself more and more in His own way and time according to the will of the Father who sent Him. Indeed the passage before us drives us to ask the question, “Who is this Jesus?”
As we consider this question together this afternoon, we do not merely ask it in historical context relative to the Jews and their Messiah, but this question is posed upon us today. Indeed every person must grapple with this question, for Jesus is Lord of time and history, as He is Savior of the nations and the gospel is to be preached unto every creature on earth. As much as he would like, the modern man cannot escape Jesus Christ. We have not enlightened ourselves passed the need for belief in Jesus of Nazareth. We have not progressed beyond the necessity of a bloody cross, an empty grave, and an occupied throne in heaven. Still today as the gospel has gone forth and continues to go forth into all the world, every person is confronted with the person of Jesus Christ and must answer rightly the question, “Who is Jesus Christ?”
I mentioned that Jesus caused quite the stir in the passage before us today. As mentioned it was not because of any wrong in Him, but because of two main things: His teaching and His confrontation of sin. Within these things we can begin to see and answer the question by God’s grace, “Who is Jesus Christ?”
Our text reveals to us at least three things that Jesus is for us: Jesus is our Prophet, our Perfect Law-Keeper, and our Great Physician.
Jesus is our Prophet
After Jesus’ brothers tried to get Jesus to reveal Himself in their own time and in their own way, Jesus later on goes up to the feast according to the Father’s timing, He goes up in private. In verse 11-13 there is an interesting little scene where all the people at the feast are murmuring about Jesus under their breath. Some say He’s a good guy, others think He’s leading people astray. But either way they are keeping that conversation on the down low for fear of the Jewish leaders. Apparently it was known at least to a certain degree that the Jewish leaders did not like this Jesus fellow. Jesus, like a true prophet here, polarizes everyone. That’s one thing about prophets, they were either hated or loved. Jesus did and still does today draw such responses, either love or hate. So Jesus has privately gone up to the feast and everyone’s whispering about Him; but then about the middle of the feast Jesus makes a move. He causes a bit of a stir. He gets up in the Temple and begins to teach. Like a true prophet-teacher He is teaching in such a marvelous and astounding way that people begin to take notice. It is teaching like they had never heard before. They are so astounded by His teaching, the Jews wonder how this can be since Jesus has not had learning. In other words, Jesus did not have His seminary degree. How can He teach so well?
As our true Prophet, Jesus says that His teaching is not His own but it is of the Father who sent Him, He once again is grounding His words and authority in divine authority. This is what a prophet did – he spoke the words of God with the divine authority of God.
Whatever it was that Jesus was teaching, it astounded the Jewish teachers and was greater than all the prophets and teachers who came before Him as forerunners. Here Jesus is doing what He does as our Great Prophet, shining light in the darkness, opening the eyes of the blind, putting sound in the ears of the deaf, and testifying to the truth of God. Jesus came and He came preaching the Kingdom of God.
Remember what God says to Israel through Moses in Deuteronomy 18:18, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” This promise in Deuteronomy 18 is ultimately about Jesus. Jesus is speaking the words that God put in His mouth saying “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” But now that God has sent His long-promised prophet, the people want to kill Him.
This is like the parable of the tenants in Matthew 21. Jesus told a parable about a vineyard owner who set up his vineyard and leased it out to tenants and traveled to a far country. While the owner is away he sends his servants to get some fruit, but the tenants beat one, killed one, and stoned one. So then again the vineyard owner sends more servants but the tenants did the same thing to them. Finally the vineyard owner decides to send his son thinking that they will respect his son. But instead when they saw the heir coming they took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. And then Jesus said, “What do you think the vineyard owner will do to the tenants when he returns to his vineyard? He will put those miserable wretches to death and give the vineyard to others.” Then it says that when the Pharisees heard this, “they perceived that he was speaking about them. And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a prophet.” God had sent Israel so many prophets throughout the years calling them to return unto the Lord, and they disregarded the prophets, and finally God sends His Son to them and they seek to kill Him.
Of course we know Jesus was eventually crucified even though it wasn’t time yet in John 7. But Jesus lives even today as our great Prophet, speaking His Gospel and Law Word to us. Jesus sits in heaven and rules this earth through His scepter which is His Word in the mouths of His servants. As people hear our great Prophet speak a true and better Word today through His appointed means, they either love Him or hate Him. They are either softened to come to Him or hardened in their sins. Every time we hear the Word of God we are being changed, one way or the other. We are either being molded more into the image of God’s Son or hardened in unbelief.
Jesus is our Perfect Law-Keeper
Jesus is our Great Prophet and He is also our Perfect Law-Keeper. Jesus not only dazzles His hearers with marvelous teaching, but then acutely points the application at their own sin. Verse 19, “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law.” You can imagine the anger of the Pharisees boiling up. This was the great area of pride in their lives – pride in their own righteousness. Yet they were great hypocrites and by their hypocrisy oppressed the people. They had all the laws in the law of Moses and they made even more numerous laws on top of that law and imposed them on the people. But they were hypocrites because they would keep their own laws but break the law of Moses. How angry they would have been to be exposed in front of all the crowds of people as not keeping the law. Jesus says “not one of you keeps the law.”
This same testimony can be said of each one of us today. “Not one of you keeps the law.” We are all exposed as lawbreakers before one another, no exceptions. There is no one good. None is righteous, no not one. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. The human flesh likes to think that it is good and we like to think that we are righteous. But God says that our righteous deeds are as filthy rags. There are many religions built upon false premises that we are good and could do enough good to achieve whatever goal it sets out to achieve. Yet Jesus tells us that not one of us keeps the law. This is not good for we are in need of a perfect righteousness to stand before God and not be condemned. God’s standard does not change simply because we have all transgressed His law. God does not judge on a curve. The standard is set by His perfect and holy character. We cannot be made righteous by works of the law. The Pharisees did not like to hear that they were not righteous, and neither do we. We like to think that we are good enough, but we are not. We don’t like to have our sin confronted. But Jesus goes right for it. He holds nothing back. So what are sinners like us to do?
Our only hope is if someone else could keep the law for us who represents us as our federal head. And someone has and does. The Lord Jesus Christ, “born of a virgin, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons…” Jesus came as the Perfect law-keeper to redeem law-breakers like us. Born under the law, lived perfectly under the law unto God, the perfect Jew. And in the great exchange of the cross, we trade in our rags of sin, for His riches of righteousness. By faith, His perfect record of obedience is credited to us. We are counted righteous in Him. In the gospel, what is required of us is given to us by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the prophetic message He comes preaching to us – righteousness by faith in Jesus Christ. If you find yourselves burdened with your sin and unrighteousness, laden with guilt and condemnation, you can find forgiveness in the blood of Jesus, and the righteousness of Christ given to you as a gift. You can throw off your unrighteousness and be clothed in the spotless robes of Christ’s, fit to stand before a holy and righteous God. If you find yourself a Pharisee today, trusting in your own self-righteousness, may the words of Jesus break your foolish pride, “None of you keeps the law.” At our home we have a children’s version of the Pilgrim’s Progress that I will often read to Elias, and when we get to the part where we are introduced to Mr. Morality, Mr. Morality boasts to Christian about his well-behaved town of people. I always tell Elias, “That’s Mr. Morality, he trusts in his own self-righteousness which is nothing more than filthy rags before God.” Do not trust in your own self-righteousness. Let your pride be broken by the Word of God and in humility receive the righteousness of another. Your best effort isn’t good enough, but Christ’s is for you.
Jesus is our Great Physician
Jesus is not only our Perfect Law-Keeper, He is also our Great Physician. After Jesus tells them that none of them has kept the law, He pushes the point even further upon them, asking, “Why do you seek to kill me?” He’s saying, “Look, you guys don’t keep the law, how can you seek to kill me, when I do keep the law?” The crowd then answers, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” When the crowd says, “You have a demon!” this was a way of saying, “You’re mad! You’re crazy!” Madness was often associated with demon possession at that time. So they say, “Jesus, you’re crazy!” Was He crazy? Was He demon-possessed? No, of course not. Jesus in verse 21-24 defends His claim that they wanted to kill Him, for He brings up the instance when He healed a man’s whole body on the Sabbath day and commanded Him to take up His bed and walk. This was back in John chapter 5. When Jesus did that, and the Jews saw it, do you remember what it told us? In John 5:15-18 it says this, “The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’ This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” So yes, Jesus was right, they were seeking to kill him. He did not have a demon. He was not crazy.
This whole narrative really begins to escalate tensions among the Jewish leaders, and we’ll see more of that later in the chapter in the coming weeks. The battle is brewing. The dragon is raging against the seed of the woman, the cross is looming. But this is what Jesus came to do – the will of the Father.
Just as Jesus was called “mad” or “crazy” for speaking the truth and confronting sin, so we also must be ready for such labels and accusation, when we live, speak, and act as faithful Christians. Though a defeated foe, the seed of the dragon still rages today against the seed of the woman.
In verse 21-24 Jesus talks about the law and circumcision and the Sabbath. So what’s going on here? The situation Jesus brings up is that of Sabbath and circumcision. The dilemma for the Jews here was that the Jewish boys, when they were born were to be circumcised on the 8th day. And of course there was no work to be done on the Sabbath. So what would they do if a Jewish boy was born and the 8th day fell on the Sabbath? Would they circumcise him? Yes, they would. They would circumcise on the Sabbath. Were they breaking the Sabbath laws to do this? No, because although through Moses circumcision was inscribed into the law, circumcision was first given to the Fathers before Moses. So Jesus then moves from this example of something they did on the Sabbath, to what Jesus did, which He frames as greater than circumcision – the healing of a man’s whole body on the Sabbath. Did Jesus break the law by healing on the Sabbath? Of course not. Ultimately, circumcision points to circumcision of the heart in the New Covenant, which is regeneration, which brings about the healing and the renewal of the whole man. So when Jesus raises a paralytic it can be seen as an even fuller fulfillment of the purpose of circumcision. The whole man needed renewal and healing, and Jesus brought that. So the logic is like this: for the Jews in that day, circumcision on the Sabbath still fulfilled the Sabbath; thus, how much more did the healing of the whole man still fulfill the Sabbath? If the small procedure is valid, how much more the much bigger one?
All of this points to the gospel fact that Jesus came bringing a greater mercy, a greater salvation, a greater healing, and a greater redemption. No longer is it salvation in signs, symbols, and ordinances, but it is salvation in Jesus Christ. Jesus not only heals the crippling of a man’s body, but now even greater, He is our Great Physician who heals our sin sick souls. Even more accurately, Jesus does not merely bring healing to sick and disabled people, but He raises dead people to life. He takes out our hearts of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. He does what the law could not do. The law strikes down, Jesus raises up. The law condemns the righteous, Jesus justifies the unrighteous. Jesus fulfills the law and does something better than the law.
As Jesus’ prophetic Word continues to increase throughout the nations, it goes forth with divine authority from the Father who sent Him, preaching good news to the poor, healing the sick, raising the dead, making sinners righteous, and the dragon and his brood can’t stop it. They no longer can deceive the nations as they once did. A small boy with the Word of the Gospel on his lips and in his heart has more power than all the hordes of hell combined. It is now the reign of Christ. He cannot be stopped. His gospel cannot be restrained. Pharisees can’t muffle it. Governments can’t censor it. Sin can’t overpower it. Jesus is the Great Prophet whose Word goes forth with divine power, triumphing over every false word and shedding light abroad in the dark places. It goes forth in gospel power, preaching righteousness, that none has it, and one gives it. It is a gospel righteousness that heals the whole man, providing the solution to man’s most deep and fundamental needs – forgiveness of sin and righteousness before God.
The Jews were wrong to accuse Jesus of sin for healing on the Sabbath. Jesus did not break the law in order to have mercy on a poor man. He fulfilled it by having mercy on a poor man. Likewise in the cross of Calvary, God did not break the law in order to have mercy on poor sinners like you and I. He is both the just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God did not set aside the law to forgive sin. Justice is upheld when forgiveness and righteousness is given. There was a covenantal transaction that took place. Our sin was imputed, or put on Jesus Christ. He bore our sins on the cross, and there He was punished for our sin, as if He was a sinner. Justice was upheld, sin punished, holiness maintained. And it is by faith in His life and death for us, that His righteousness is imputed, or given to us. We are justified before God in Jesus Christ, our head, our representative. Amen.
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