Commentary - John 7:25-31

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the conflict surrounding Jesus intensifies, moving from a private discussion among the religious leaders to a public spectacle. The scene is crackling with tension. Jesus is teaching openly in the Temple, the very headquarters of the men who want Him dead, and the common people are buzzing with confusion, speculation, and a mixture of nascent faith and hardened unbelief. This is not just a theological debate; it is a spiritual showdown. The crowd thinks they have Jesus figured out based on superficial data, His earthly origins. Jesus counters by exposing their profound ignorance of the ultimate reality, His divine origin from the Father. The whole exchange hinges on the difference between carnal knowledge and spiritual revelation. It culminates in a stark demonstration of God's absolute sovereignty, where the murderous intent of men is completely shackled by God's perfect timing. His hour had not yet come.

John masterfully arranges the scene to highlight several key themes. First, the cowardice and confusion of the ruling class. They want Jesus dead, but are impotent to act. Second, the fickle nature of the crowd, whose understanding is based on rumor and worldly wisdom. They know where He's from, they say, which to them is a disqualifier. Third, the divine authority of Christ, who speaks with unnerving boldness and turns their accusations back on them. And finally, overarching everything, is the sovereign hand of God. Men may plot, but God directs. Men may seek to seize, but they cannot lay a hand on Him until the appointed hour. This is the gospel in miniature: man's rebellion and God's unassailable plan of redemption unfolding on His own schedule.

Outline

Commentary

25 So some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill?

The scene opens with the locals, the Jerusalemites, weighing in. These are not the Galilean pilgrims; these are the people who live in the capital, and they are privy to the high-level gossip. They know the score. They know there is a contract out on Jesus. The Sanhedrin wants Him dead. Their question is dripping with a kind of cynical astonishment. Here is this wanted man, not hiding in some back alley, but standing in the most public place in the nation, teaching as though He owned the place. The question reveals the tension. Everyone knows what the rulers want, but no one can understand why they are not acting on it.

26 And look, He is speaking openly, and they are saying nothing to Him. Do the rulers truly know that this is the Christ?

The astonishment grows. "Look," they say, pointing Him out. He is not whispering; He is speaking openly, with boldness. And the response from the authorities is... silence. Crickets. This is baffling to the crowd. Their logic is straightforward: if the rulers wanted to kill Him but are now doing nothing, something must have changed. The only explanation they can imagine is that the rulers have received some new information. Perhaps they have been persuaded. "Do the rulers truly know that this is the Christ?" This is not a statement of their own faith, but rather a cynical question about their leaders. They are attributing the rulers' inaction not to cowardice or confusion, but to a possible, secret conviction. They are trying to make sense of the situation using their political, worldly logic, and it's leading them down the wrong path. They assume the rulers hold all the cards, and so their inaction must be a calculated move.

27 However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from.”

Here is the objection, the piece of carnal knowledge that serves as their stumbling block. "However..." You can feel the turn. Even if the rulers are convinced, we, the savvy locals, are not. Why? "We know where this man is from." They know His family. They know He is from Nazareth in Galilee. They have the street address, as it were. And this, in their minds, is a slam-dunk disqualification. They are operating on a piece of popular theology, a distorted tradition, which held that the Messiah's origin would be mysterious. This was likely a misinterpretation of passages like Micah 5:2, which speaks of His origins from of old, from everlasting, combined with a misunderstanding of Isaiah's "who can declare His generation?" They had turned a profound truth about His eternal nature into a cheap riddle about His earthly birthplace. They are proud of their little factoid, and they use it as a shield to protect themselves from the force of His words and works. This is the essence of unbelief. It seizes on a partial truth, a bit of data, and uses it to reject the overwhelming truth of God's revelation right in front of them.

28 Then Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying, “You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.

Jesus does not let this stand. He "cried out," which indicates the passion and volume of His response. He is making a public declaration. And He begins with a stunning piece of divine irony. "You both know Me and know where I am from." He grants their premise, but only to turn it on its head. It is as if He says, "Oh, you know Me, do you? You know I'm from Nazareth. You think you have Me all sorted and filed away. You have the facts, but you have missed the truth entirely." He concedes their superficial knowledge in order to expose their profound, damning ignorance. The second half of the verse is the hammer blow. "I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know." You know my earthly address, but you do not know the One who sent Me. You know my mother and brothers, but you are ignorant of my Father. You pride yourselves on your knowledge, but the source of all reality, the true One, is a complete stranger to you. This is a devastating indictment of their spiritual condition.

29 I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.”

In stark contrast to their ignorance, Jesus states His unique and perfect knowledge. "I know Him." This is not the speculative knowledge of the crowds or the political maneuvering of the rulers. This is the intimate, essential, eternal knowledge of the Son for the Father. And He gives the basis for this knowledge: "because I am from Him, and He sent Me." This points to both His eternal origin and His divine commission. He is "from Him" in His very being, proceeding from the Father before all worlds. And "He sent Me" speaks to His incarnation, His mission in time and space. He is not a self-appointed prophet. He is the Sent One, the apostle of the Father. His authority is derived directly from the ultimate source of all authority. He knows the Father because He is from the Father.

30 So they were seeking to seize Him; yet no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.

The response to this bold declaration is immediate hostility. The "they" here likely refers to the Temple authorities and their sympathizers in the crowd. His words have cut them, exposed their ignorance, and challenged their entire religious framework. Their only recourse is violence. "They were seeking to seize Him." The verb tense suggests a continuing desire, an ongoing effort. But desire is not enough. "Yet no man laid his hand on Him." Here we have the collision of two wills: the will of sinful man and the sovereign will of God. Man's will is to destroy. God's will is to protect. And there is no contest. The reason for their failure is given plainly: "because His hour had not yet come." This is one of the great theological refrains in John's gospel. The entire timeline of redemptive history is not subject to the whims of the Sanhedrin or the mood of the crowd. It is fixed by God the Father. Jesus is not a victim of circumstance; He is the Lord of history, moving inexorably toward an hour appointed for Him before the foundation of the world. His enemies are utterly powerless until God releases the restraints.

31 But many of the crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, “When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than this man did?”

The response is not uniformly hostile. The crowd is divided. While some were seeking to seize Him, "many of the crowd believed in Him." Now, we must be careful with this "belief." John often presents a kind of preliminary, signs-based faith that is not yet true, saving faith. But it is a start. Something is happening. The Spirit is stirring. Their reasoning is simple and straightforward, a stark contrast to the convoluted objections of the Jerusalemites. They are looking at the evidence. They are looking at the miracles, the "signs." Their question is rhetorical: "When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than this man did?" The implied answer is no. The sheer quantity and quality of Jesus' miracles were an overwhelming testimony to His identity. They are reasoning from effect back to cause. The works He does point to who He is. While the "experts" were disqualifying Jesus based on a faulty tradition about His address, these common people were looking at the raw power of God at work and drawing the logical conclusion. This is the beginning of faith, a faith that rests on the objective work of God in Christ.

Application

This passage puts its finger directly on one of the central problems of the human heart: the pride of partial knowledge. The Jerusalemites were not ignorant pagans; they were Bible-savvy people. They knew their stuff, or so they thought. But they used their knowledge of Scripture not to find Christ, but to reject Him. They are a standing warning to all of us who have Bibles on our shelves and theology in our heads. It is entirely possible to know all the facts about Jesus, where He was from, what the prophecies say, and still be utterly ignorant of God the Father. True knowledge is not the accumulation of religious data; it is a personal, saving relationship with the living God through His Son.

We must also take great comfort in the absolute sovereignty of God displayed here. Jesus was surrounded by men who hated His guts and wanted Him dead. From a human perspective, He was in mortal danger. But in reality, He was safer than any king in a fortress, because His life was governed not by their hatred, but by His Father's timetable. "His hour had not yet come." This is true for the church as well. We live in a world that is increasingly hostile to the claims of Christ. But no plan of the enemy, no plot of man, can touch God's people or thwart God's purposes until the appointed hour. Our help is not in our own strength, but in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. We are not victims of fate; we are actors in a story whose ending has already been written by our sovereign God.

Finally, we see the power of Christ's work to create faith. While some plotted, others believed because of the signs. The gospel is not a set of abstract propositions; it is the proclamation of the mighty acts of God in Jesus Christ. His life, His miracles, His death, and His resurrection are the signs that testify to who He is. Our task is to point people to these signs, to the man who did what no other man could do, so that they too might ask, "When the Christ comes, will He do more?" And in asking, they might come to believe that He has already come, and that in Him alone is life and peace.