If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority

 Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught.  And the Jews marveled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, having never studied?"  Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.  He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.  Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law?  Why do you seek to kill Me?"  The people answered and said, "You have a demon.  Who is seeking to kill You?"  Jesus answered and said to them, "I did one work, and you all marvel.  Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.  If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?  Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."  Now some of them from Jerusalem said, "Is this not He whom they seek to kill?  But look!  He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him.  Do the rulers know indeed that this is truly the Christ?  However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from."   Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, "You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.  But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me."  Therefore they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.  And many of the people believed in Him, and said, "When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?"

The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.  Then Jesus said to them, "I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me.  You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come."  Then the Jews said among themselves, "Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him?  Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?  What is this thing that He said, 'You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come'?"

- John 7:14-36

Yesterday we read that after Jesus' teachings on His Body and Blood, He walked in Galilee; for He did not want to walk in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him.  Now the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand.  His brothers therefore said to Him, "Depart from here and go into Judea, that Your disciples also may see the works that You are doing.  For no one does anything in secret while he himself seeks to be known openly.  If You do these things, show Yourself to the world."  For even His brothers did not believe in Him.  Then Jesus said to them, "My time has not yet come, but your time is always ready.  The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.  You go up to this feast.  I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come."  When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee.  But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret.  Then the Jews sought Him at the feast, and said, "Where is He?"  And there was much complaining among the people concerning Him.  Some said, "He is good'; others said, "No, on the contrary, He deceives the people."  However, no one spoke openly of Him for fear of the Jews.

 Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught.  And the Jews marveled, saying, "How does this Man know letters, having never studied?"  Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.  If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.  He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him."  My study bible tells us that the simple desire to know and follow God's will is the key to understanding it.  Spiritual blindness, it says, comes from unwillingness to know God or to recognize God's authority.  It cites St. John Chrysostom, who paraphrases Christ as follows:  "Rid yourselves of wickedness:  the anger, the envy, and the hatred which have arisen in your hearts, without provocation, against Me.  Then you will have no difficulty in realizing that My words are actually those of God.  As it is, these passions darken your understanding and distort sound judgment.  If you remove these passions, you will no longer be afflicted in this way."  But moreover, Jesus speaks of humility, and goes to the heart of our personal aims.  His teachings here reflect what He's said earlier in John's Gospel, when He asked:  "How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?" (see John 5:41-44).  What we note, also, is Jesus' full dependence upon the Father, including for the doctrine which He teaches.

"Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law?  Why do you seek to kill Me?"  The people answered and said, "You have a demon.  Who is seeking to kill You?"  Jesus answered and said to them, "I did one work, and you all marvel.  Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.  If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?  Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." At the previous feast in Jerusalem, the Feast of Weeks (or the Jewish Pentecost, also called Shavuot in Hebrew, which commemorates the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai) Jesus healed a paralytic on the Sabbath, making him completely well (see this reading).  In Matthew's Gospel, when He is questioned about "work" on the Sabbath (His disciples plucked heads of grain to eat), Jesus gives several examples of blameless "violations" of the Sabbath (see Matthew 12:3-5).  In that case and in this one, Jesus expresses the idea that the law is not absolute over human need or service to God.  This is part of what it is to judge with righteous judgment, and not merely according to appearance.

Now some of them from Jerusalem said, "Is this not He whom they seek to kill?  But look!  He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him.  Do the rulers know indeed that this is truly the Christ?  However, we know where this Man is from; but when the Christ comes, no one knows where He is from."   Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, "You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.  But I know Him, for I am from Him, and He sent Me."   The crowds think they know where this Man is from.  But they are mistaken, in both an earthly and divine sense.  They know Jesus as being from Nazareth of Galilee, but He was actually born in Bethlehem (7:42; Luke 2:1-7).  Beyond this, my study bible says, they can't comprehend His teachings that He's come from the Father in Heaven, eternally begotten before all ages, and therefore His divine "origin" is unknown to them as well. 

Therefore they sought to take Him; but no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.  And many of the people believed in Him, and said, "When the Christ comes, will He do more signs than these which this Man has done?"    Jesus' hour is the time of His suffering and death on the Cross.  He is the Lord over time, an authority which is possessed by God alone.  Christ comes to the Cross both of His own free will and in His time -- not according to the plots of human beings (see 8:20; 10:39).

The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring these things concerning Him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to take Him.  Then Jesus said to them, "I shall be with you a little while longer, and then I go to Him who sent Me.  You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come."   Jesus refers here to His death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven.

Then the Jews said among themselves, "Where does He intend to go that we shall not find Him?  Does He intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks?  What is this thing that He said, 'You will seek Me and not find Me, and where I am you cannot come'?"  As so frequently happens in John's Gospel, Jesus' words are misunderstood by those who simply take in their surface meaning.  To go among the Greeks means to go among the Gentiles.  It is an unwitting prophesy, my study bible says, the first of others the leaders will similarly make (see also John 11:49-52).  Here, they point to the time after Christ's Ascension, when His name will be preached among the Gentiles by the apostles.  

 Jesus speaks quite plainly, but as He preaches and speaks among both the people and the religious leaders, confusion and misunderstanding abounds.  In yesterday's reading (above), the Gospel gave us the conflicting and contradictory opinions of the people about Jesus.  Not only do the people disagree among themselves, they they are all afraid to speak for fear of the leadership, who seek to put Jesus to death.  The Gospel seems to give us a message that the ways in which we "hear" Jesus' words, or the "face value" that we give them, seem to depend upon where we are coming from in the first place.  That is, our understanding of the Person who is Christ will shift depending upon our own inner orientation to begin with.  Indeed, the greatest point that Jesus repeatedly makes is that our impression of Him will be aligned with our own relationship to the Father in the first place, and will reflect the love of God (or lack of it) in the heart.  In short, everything depends upon faith to begin with, and faith is a much larger issue -- reflective of a much more central and significant piece of ourselves -- than we might normally conceive it to be.  What role does the state of the soul play within us?  As we have seen, those who are receptive will grow in their faith.  The disciples themselves begin without much understanding of Jesus at all.  They are not chosen for their great learning or impressive religious credentials.  On the contrary, for the most part they are simple men "of the land."  Jesus does have followers among the leadership, such as Nicodemus, who is given to us in chapter 3 as one in need of Christ's teaching, despite already being a "teacher of Israel."  It's not a question of how much faith or knowledge we already have, but it all comes down to how receptive we are to His words in the first place.  And that receptivity depends upon the state of the heart and its orientation toward God, its love of God.  In that understanding, the Gospels seem to say to us that this very core of who we are is either something we are invested in or not.  We either depend upon that love and rely on it to inform our lives, or we neglect it.  From the perspective of Christ's teachings, those who neglect this depth or core within themselves simply lose out.  They lose out on all that He has to offer, even life itself (6:63).  At the festival, the confusion over Jesus' identity mirrors the confusion and conflict over the very issue seized upon by the leadership.  What does the Messiah do?  What is a violation of the Sabbath Law?  Who is Christ if He is not the giver and teacher of the Law?  All of these questions are contained in the central identity of Jesus, the biggest question of all.  In order to answer that question, we search our own hearts for the place in which we truly hear.