John 7 — Read & Listen Online | Father's Heart Bible™

His Time Has Not yet Come

Chapter 7.

After this, Jesus traveled around Galilee. He did not want to travel in Judea, because the Jewish leaders there were looking for a chance to kill him. But the Jewish Festival of Booths was near. ^a So his brothers said to him, "Leave here and go to Judea, so that your disciples there can also see the works you are doing. No one who wants to be known openly does anything in secret. Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world." For not even his brothers believed in him.

So Jesus told them, "My time has not yet come, but for you any time is right. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me, because I testify that its works are evil. You go up to the festival yourselves. I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come."

After saying this, he stayed in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the festival, then he also went up — not openly, but in secret.

So the Jewish leaders were looking for him at the festival and asking, "Where is he?" And there was much whispering about him among the crowds. Some were saying, "He is a good man," while others said, "No, he deceives the crowd." Yet no one spoke about him openly, for fear of the Jewish leaders. About the middle of the festival, Jesus went up into the temple and began to teach.

The Jewish leaders were amazed and asked, "How does this man know so much, when he has never been taught?"

So Jesus answered them, "My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me. Anyone who is willing to do his will, will know whether my teaching comes from my Father or whether I speak on my own. Whoever speaks on his own is seeking his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is no falsehood in him. Did not Moses give you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?"

The crowd answered, "You have a demon! Who is trying to kill you?"

Jesus replied, "I did one work, and you are all amazed. Moses gave you circumcision — though it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs — and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If a man can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me for making a man's whole body well on the Sabbath? Stop judging by appearances, and judge with right judgment."

Where Is He From?

Then some of the people of Jerusalem said, "Is this not the man they are trying to kill? Yet here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the rulers really know this is the Christ? But we know where this man is from. When the Christ comes, no one will know where he is from."

Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple, cried out, "You know me, and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on my own; the one who sent me is true, and you do not know him. I know him, because I am from him, and he sent me."

At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. Still, many in the crowd believed in him. They said, "When the Christ comes, will he do more signs than this man has done?" The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering these things about him, so the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him. So Jesus said, "I am with you only a little while longer, and then I am going to the one who sent me. You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come."

So the Jewish leaders said to one another, "Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? Does he intend to go to our people scattered among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, 'You will look for me, but you will not find me,' and, 'Where I am, you cannot come'?"

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and cried out, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." He said this about the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were going to receive. For the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

When they heard these words, some of the crowd said, "This really is the Prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from David's line and from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?" So the crowd was divided over him. Some of them wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

Then the temple guards went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked them, "Why did you not bring him?"

The guards answered, "No one ever spoke the way this man does."

"Have you also been deceived?" the Pharisees answered. "Has any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd, who knows nothing of the law — they are under a curse."

Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and was one of their own number, asked them, "Does our law condemn a man without first hearing from him to find out what he is doing?"

They answered him, "Are you from Galilee too? Look into it, and you will see that no prophet comes from Galilee."

Then they all went home,

❤️ FHB? Review Now