The Known Unknown
Introduction: The Arrogance of Unbelief
We come now to a confrontation in the heart of the Jewish world, the Temple in Jerusalem during a high holy day. The air is thick with religious fervor, political tension, and Messianic expectation. In the middle of it all stands Jesus of Nazareth, a man with a death warrant on His head, teaching openly as though He owned the place. And of course, He did.
The passage before us is a masterful depiction of the psychology of unbelief. Unbelief is never a simple lack of information. It is not a void waiting to be filled with facts. Unbelief is an active, industrious, and arrogant state of the heart. It busies itself with collecting what it considers to be disqualifying data. It prides itself on its "knowledge," a collection of half-truths, popular myths, and earthly facts that it uses as a shield to deflect the piercing truth of God. The Jerusalemites in this scene are the archetypes of this mindset. They have a file on Jesus. They know His town. They think they know His family. And with this thin file of mundane information, they feel perfectly qualified to dismiss the Lord of glory.
This is a temptation that is perennially modern. Men still do this. They think that by explaining the historical context of the Bible, they have explained it away. They think that by pointing to the humble origins of the church, they have discredited her message. They think that because they know Jesus was a first-century carpenter from a backwater town, they can safely place Him in a box labeled "interesting historical figure" and slide it onto a dusty shelf. But Jesus will not be managed. He will not be contained. And here, in the midst of His enemies, He confronts their confident ignorance with a truth that shatters their categories and enrages their hearts. He tells them that for all their knowing, they do not know the one thing that matters: they do not know God.
The Text
So some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, "Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill? And look, He is speaking openly, and they are saying nothing to Him. Do the rulers truly know that this is the Christ? However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from." 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. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me." So they were seeking to seize Him; yet no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. 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?"
(John 7:25-31 LSB)
Confused Speculation (vv. 25-26)
The scene opens with the buzz of the crowd. They are watching a high-stakes drama unfold, and they are trying to make sense of it.
"So some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, 'Is this not the man whom they are seeking to kill? And look, He is speaking openly, and they are saying nothing to Him. Do the rulers truly know that this is the Christ?'" (John 7:25-26 LSB)
The first thing they note is the glaring contradiction. Everyone knows Jesus is a wanted man. The Sanhedrin wants Him dead. Yet here He is, in their territory, on their holy day, in their Temple, speaking with absolute authority. And the rulers are doing nothing. They are paralyzed. This is the restraining hand of God's providence. The wicked have the will to act, but they do not have the power or the permission. God holds their leash, and He had not yet loosened it.
This inaction breeds a wild conspiracy theory in the crowd: "Do the rulers truly know that this is the Christ?" It is a sarcastic, gossipy question. They are not genuinely considering that the rulers have had a change of heart. They are mocking the rulers' impotence. The rulers' inaction is so baffling that the only explanation seems to be that they have secretly caved. But this flicker of a thought is immediately snuffed out by their own superior "knowledge."
The Nazareth Objection (v. 27)
They quickly dismiss the possibility of Jesus being the Messiah based on a piece of what they consider to be solid, incontrovertible evidence.
"However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from." (John 7:27 LSB)
Here is the linchpin of their unbelief. "We know where this man is from." We know his address. He's from Galilee. He's from Nazareth. We know His people. This is the appeal to the ordinary. It is the pride of the insider who thinks he has the dirt. Because they can explain His earthly origins, they feel they can explain Him away entirely. They have reduced the Son of God to a geographical data point.
But notice the foundation of their argument. It rests on a piece of popular, but unbiblical, theology: "whenever the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from." This was a common superstition, a bit of rabbinic folklore that the Messiah would appear suddenly and mysteriously out of nowhere. This is a classic example of the traditions of men making the Word of God of no effect (Mark 7:13). They held this flimsy, romantic notion in higher esteem than the clear prophecy of Micah 5:2, which plainly stated the Messiah's origins would be in Bethlehem. Their "knowledge" was, in fact, ignorance dressed up in the robes of popular opinion. They preferred a mysterious, ethereal Messiah of their own imagination to the flesh-and-blood Messiah standing right in front of them.
The Divine Clarification (vv. 28-29)
Jesus, hearing their confident muttering, does not let it stand. He raises His voice and confronts their error head-on.
"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. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.'" (John 7:28-29 LSB)
The phrase "cried out" signifies a loud, public, prophetic proclamation. He is not having a quiet debate. He is issuing a divine ultimatum. He begins with searing irony: "You both know Me and know where I am from." He grants their premise. "Yes, you are correct. You have the facts. You know I am from Nazareth. You have seen Me." But then He pivots to the devastating conclusion. "And I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know."
He is telling them that their earthly knowledge is useless because it is disconnected from heavenly reality. They know His earthly origin, but they are ignorant of His heavenly origin. And this ignorance is not incidental; it is a symptom of a much deeper problem. They do not know God. In the middle of the Temple, surrounded by all the rituals and sacrifices, Jesus tells the religious establishment that they are strangers to the God they claim to worship. This is the ultimate indictment.
In contrast, Jesus makes one of the most profound statements of His own identity in the Gospel of John. "I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me." The knowledge Jesus has of the Father is not academic; it is innate. It is the knowledge of essential, shared being. The phrase "I am from Him" points to His eternal generation from the Father. He is not just a messenger who received a briefing; He is the Son who proceeds from the Father. His mission is rooted in His identity. He can reveal the Father because He is from the Father. He is the perfect envoy because He is the perfect Son.
Providence and Polarization (vv. 30-31)
A claim this audacious cannot be met with neutrality. It forces a division, and the response is immediate and polarized.
"So they were seeking to seize Him; yet no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come. 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?'" (John 7:30-31 LSB)
The first response is murderous rage. To the unbelieving heart, the claims of Christ are blasphemous and intolerable. They must be silenced. So they sought to seize Him. But their arms were held back by an invisible power. "His hour had not yet come." This is not fate. This is not luck. This is the sovereign, meticulous timetable of God the Father. Jesus' life was not going to be taken by a random mob in a moment of anger. It would be laid down by Him, willingly, at the precise moment appointed by the Father for the salvation of the world. Until that hour, Jesus was the safest man on the planet.
But the Word of God is a two-edged sword; it not only hardens, it also softens. The second response was a dawning faith. "But many of the crowd believed in Him." Their faith is not yet mature. It is based on pragmatic reasoning from the evidence of His miracles. "When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than this man did?" They are weighing the evidence. They are looking at the sheer volume and quality of His works and concluding that He must be the one. This is not the highest form of faith, but it is a genuine starting point. God is gracious to meet us where we are. While the "knowledgeable" ones were blinded by their trivial facts, these humble people were simply overwhelmed by the manifest power of God in their midst. They let the evidence lead them to the obvious conclusion, a conclusion their rulers were too proud to entertain.
Conclusion
The confrontation in the Temple is a confrontation that continues in every generation. The world still prides itself on its "knowledge" about Jesus. It has categorized Him as a moral teacher, a revolutionary, a myth. It knows where He is from, historically and culturally. And with this knowledge, it dismisses Him.
But Jesus still cries out in the temple of His Word, and His message is the same. You can know all the facts about Me, but if you do not know the Father who sent Me, you know nothing at all. True knowledge of Jesus is not found in historical criticism or sociological analysis. It is found in revelation. It is found when the Spirit of God opens your eyes to see that this man from Nazareth is, in fact, the eternal Son who is "from Him."
The choice before us is the same choice that faced the crowd in Jerusalem. We can either take offense at His claims, seeking to seize Him and remove His authority from our lives. Or we can look at the evidence, the signs of His power in creation, in history, in the changed lives of His people, and ask the honest question: "Will the true Christ do more than this?" The answer is a resounding no. He has done it all. His hour came, He was lifted up, and now He calls all men to abandon their proud and petty knowledge and believe in Him.