John 7:16-40

16 Here we have the test of a true teacher. The greatest of all Teachers could easily have formulated a philosophy of His own before which all the wisdom of the ages would sink into insignificance. He could have eclipsed Socrates and Plato, discounted Confucius, silenced all the sages. Yet He did not originate a single doctrine, formulate a single principle, invent a single saying of His own. Though the embodiment of truth, He did not claim to be its source, but only its channel. "My teaching is not Mine, but His Who sends Me" is the disclaimer of the only One Who ever was qualified to teach the truth. It is the highest achievement of the truth seeker to discover that there is no truth outside of God, and originality is inevitably false unless it conforms with truth already immanent in God-which destroys its originality. Truth is one. Its source is God. Its expression is found in Him Who is the Word of God. Happy is the teacher who distrusts his own thoughts, and discards his own theories, and seeks to submerge his own personality by a constant and continuous contact with the living oracles of God! "My teaching is not Mine" will not be a reluctant, humiliating admission, but an exultant and eager desire to give God the glory for truth beyond our powers of apprehension and utterly foreign to our native faculties.

19 Sinning men are the same today as ever. The truth is always the signal for strife. This is especially so among those who consider themselves the sole depository of truth. We need not suppose that these Jews had a bad conscience in seeking to kill One Who seemed to be undermining their religion. We know that Saul of Tarsus opposed Him conscientiously. So today, Christendom still crucifies the truth, while loud in its professions of loyalty to the Bible. Indeed, so thoroughly has error saturated the atmosphere that it is practically impossible for anyone to view the truth except through the haze of error with which each is surrounded. Only continual contact with God's Word will avail us. Only a close acquaintance with the facts of the originals will save us from the prevailing apostasy.

28 Perhaps nowhere is the utter futility of human efforts to frustrate God's plans so evident as in this scene. It was God's definite counsel that they should slay Him. This they were all too eager to do. But the feast of Tabernacles was not the fit time for His sacrifice. So He boldly enters the sanctuary, the stronghold of His enemies. The Pharisees send deputies to arrest Him, but they simply do not do it, being restrained by an irresistible reluctance which they could not account for themselves. Like Daniel, He was in the lions' den, but God had shut the lions' mouths. God uses human wrath for His own ends and restrains its activities to accord with His purpose. He has all his enemies on a leash beyond which they cannot range. Satan himself is limited, and allowed to do only that which will eventuate in good. So it proved in the case of Job, and who can doubt that his case was typical?

33 When the deputies come to arrest Him, He is not disturbed, but calmly gives an outline of what will happen to Him in the future. It was still six months until the Passover, and He knew they could not arrest Him till then. So He says "Still a little time am I with you." Nor does He acknowledge that they will be successful in taking Him then, for it is His permission, not their power, that accomplishes it. So He simply says "and I am going away to Him Who sends Me."

34 The statement "where I am, there you cannot be coming" cannot be taken as their everlasting reprobation, for He uses the very same words to His disciples on a later occasion (Joh_13:33). Indeed, the form of the verb is the present active "be coming", not the indefinite

"come". Even the unbeliever enters the presence of Christ in the resurrection of judgment.

35 The Jews, in our Lord's day, were scattered all over the known earth, but were especially numerous in Egypt. Alexandria rivalled Jerusalem as a center of Jewry, but its culture was strongly Greek.

37 This last day concluded the cycle of yearly festivals and was a fitting time to foretell the fullness of spiritual blessing which it prefigured.