A Study of John 7:14-18

“About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.”

John 7:14–18 ESV

Observation/Summary (short explanation of what the passage says in your own words):

About halfway through the week-long Feast of Booths celebration in Jerusalem, Jesus went to the temple and began to teach. As Jesus taught, the people marveled at Him and asked how He could have taught with such knowledge and authority when He had never studied in a formal educational setting. Jesus answered their questions by telling them what He taught came from the One who sent Him. Next, Jesus said if anyone truly desired to do God’s will, they would be able to discern that His teaching was from God, and not simply human in origin. The one who speaks in their own authority and not from God’s, is only seeking to make a name for himself, and he does not desire to glorify God. However, the one who desires to glorify God, speaks and acts truthfully, and such a person does not act deceitfully.

Implication (what does this mean to us):

At the beginning of this chapter we found out Jesus had been ministering for a few months in His hometown region of Galilee. We also learned He had been avoiding the region of Judea because the religious authorities were looking for Him to kill Him, and the time for such a confrontation had not yet arrived. Next, we learned the Feast of Booths, also known as “Succoth,” was about to begin, and Jesus’ brothers urged Him to go into Judea and Jerusalem, which would have been full of people visiting for the festival, to perform more miracles and attract a larger following. However, John also told us Jesus’ brothers did not believe in Him as the Messiah, and therefore their advice came from worldly wisdom and motivations. Their unbelief in Jesus was proof that their suggestion was not in line with the will of God the Father. Jesus told them as much, and then refused to go to Jerusalem with them in a loud, public manner. So, they went ahead without Him.

After His brothers had gone to the Feast, Jesus went too, except He went quietly to avoid publicity and attention. As Jesus arrived without being noticed, the Jewish religious authorities were looking for Him at the Feast, but they were unable to find Him. The people in the region of Judea and the city of Jerusalem also muttered about Jesus among themselves in hushed tones for fear of drawing the ire of the ruling authorities who wanted Jesus dead (John 7:1). Some said He was a good man, but others said He was a deceiver. Whatever their opinions were though, no one was neutral on the topic of Jesus. Confronting the life and teaching of Jesus leaves no room for neutrality if His statements are taken seriously. What He says demands a position be taken.

Now, in verse 14, we find it is the middle of the week-long Feast of Booths, a time when Israel celebrated and remembered Yahweh’s (God’s) deliverance of their ancestors from Egypt many centuries earlier, when they lived in temporary shelters or “booths” as they traveled through the wilderness to the promised land they now lived in. At this time, Jesus, who previously had been celebrating the Feast quietly and without drawing attention Himself, went up to the temple court in Jerusalem and began to teach.

Reading this we might wonder why Jesus went to the temple to teach if He had been avoiding attention. The reason He avoided being noticed on the way into Jerusalem was because it was God the Father’s will that He do so. Now, during the middle of the festival, it was the will of God the Father for Jesus, God the Son, to go to the temple courts and teach, so that is what Jesus did. One reason it was the Father’s will for Jesus to conduct Himself this way is likely because if Jesus had made a loud boisterous entry into Jerusalem with crowds hailing His approach, a confrontation with the religious leaders would likely have ensued. Consider His triumphal entry just before His crucifixion (John 12:12-19). That was the appointed time for Jesus to make such an entrance, but this was not the time for that. The time for His triumphal entry, arrest, and crucifixion had not yet come.

Also, importantly, it was not timidity or cowardice that prompted Jesus to quietly go to Jerusalem. As we can see in this passage, He boldly went to the temple to teach publicly. He never shrank back from declaring the truth and doing the Father’s will. The reason Jesus quietly went to Jerusalem, and then boldly went to the temple courts to teach publicly, is that it was the will of the Father for Jesus to do this. Doing the Father’s will was and is Jesus’ primary concern, and as we learn from Jesus, this should be our primary concern as well.

As Jesus taught, in verse 15 we read that the crowds of Jewish people who heard Him marveled, or in other words, were amazed by His teaching and His grasp of the Old Testament Scriptures. The “Jews” described here likely includes the common people as well as the religious authorities. And John records them asking the question, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?”. The question in Greek is literally, “How does this man know letters (grammata)…?”. This does not refer to knowing how to read and write in this context though. At this time it was common for Jewish people (especially men) to be able to read, write and have at least a basic, foundational understanding of the Old Testament Scriptures. But there was a difference between the literate common man, and the learned rabbis and scribes who studied under prominent Rabbis in a formal educational setting before they began teaching others. Interestingly, in Acts 4 as Peter and John taught, they met with a very similar reaction (Acts 4:13).

One key characteristic of the way rabbis taught at this time was to refer to the teaching of rabbis they had studied or learned from directly. This is kind of like citing legal precedent in a case or citing previously published peer-reviewed literature today in an academic paper. But Jesus did not do this. He did not appeal to previous rabbinic authority to make His case. He only appealed to the authority of God the Father, and the way He masterfully handled the Scriptures as He taught left no room for those who heard Him to find any fault in His teaching. The way Jesus taught, and His knowledge of the text astonished them. For this reason, no one could lodge a legitimate complaint against Him. They could not dispute His teaching, or deny His miracles which they and many others saw, so they had to resort to slander and lies as they accused Him of sorcery or demon possession (Babylonian Talmud, Sota 47a; John 7:20).

This is why Jesus says, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” in verse 16. He did not say He studied under Rabbi “So-and-So,” appeal to previous rabbinic precedent, or anything like that. He did not make the logical fallacy of appealing to imperfect human authority and traditions. He pointed to the inspired Word of God in the Old Testament as where His teaching came from. In other words, by saying “…his who sent me” He pointed directly to God the Father when asked to validate His teaching just as we have seen Him do elsewhere in passages like John 5:19, 30. In saying this Jesus invited them to examine the OT Scriptures for themselves. When done with a heart and mind sincerely seeking to know the truth of God’s will, they would be able to see Jesus spoke rightly. But when those who did not seek to truly know God’s will examined the Scriptures and found no fault in what Jesus said, they had to resort to suppressing the truth and defaming Jesus (John 7:20).

This is something Jesus speaks to directly in verse 17 by saying, “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.” This means there is a moral aspect involved in determining the validity of Jesus’ claims. To rightly determine the truth of Jesus’ words, a person must be committed by faith to knowing and doing the will of God. Jesus has already told us that while we must choose to respond to God, we must also first be called by Him. Intellectual assessment on its own is not enough. Rabbinic debate and precedent is not enough. While God gives us a choice, we also have no hope of coming to Him unless He first comes to us, or “draws us” to Himself as Jesus said in John 6:44.

God is the first mover in all things, and we cannot come to Him unless He comes to us first. We do not need to do a certain amount of good deeds or anything to earn this favor from God, but as we seek Him we must be sincerely committed to finding Him on His terms according to His will and not our own. We are invited to examine the evidence seen in the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ life, miracles, death, resurrection and ascension, but we need more than that. We need to have a commitment to knowing and doing God’s will. The person who is sincerely committed to this will be granted the ability to determine the truth of Jesus’ words. As Jesus said in Matthew 7:7-8, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.”

In verse 18 Jesus explains more about why His teaching is true and also why many of the famed religious teachers and leaders of Israel at this time did not, and indeed were unable to, receive Jesus and believe His teaching by saying, “The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” The religious leaders who attacked Jesus, taught and led the people in order to gain reputation and influence. They were not concerned with glorifying God and helping the people to know and honor God. They only wanted honor and glory for themselves. For this reason they were blind to the Truth embodied in Jesus. If they had been sincerely serving and seeking after Yahweh, the one true God, they would have recognized Jesus as Yahweh incarnate (John 1:14). There were some like Nicodemus who wrestled with the truth they saw and heard from Jesus, but most only saw a threat to their power (John 7:50-52).

Here Jesus provides a stark contrast between them and Himself. Jesus was not concerned with gaining worldly glory for Himself. He came to seek and work for the glory of the one who sent Him; God the Father. This is why He can be trusted. He did not teach to fulfill selfish motivations. He could have compromised and led a popular uprising, but He didn’t (John 6:15). He continued to faithfully and truthfully declare a message that He knew would lead to His arrest, torture and death.

Even in the manner He went about delivering His message, He prioritized His Father’s will while rejecting earthly ways and means which contradicted the will of the One who sent Him (John 7:3-8). This is instructive for us. The end does not justify the means. God is just as concerned with “how” we do His will, as He is with “what” we do that is aligned with His will. We must never use sinful means to try to accomplish the righteousness of God (James 1:19-21). Jesus did not have mixed motives. He was unwilling to use methods that did not align with the will of the Father to convince other people. In all His ways Jesus was and is primarily concerned with doing God the Father’s will. For this reason, Jesus is trustworthy, “and in him there is no falsehood.”

We must not marvel at Jesu in disbelief like many of the people in the temple court where He taught. We must marvel at His perfect truthfulness, life, death and resurrection and believe in Him. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Response (How does this change how I think, act and pray?):

This passage should cause us to consider Jesus’ priorities and how our priorities compare. Jesus prioritized obedience to God the Father over His own safety. He did not act recklessly, but rather, He acted obediently. Are we willing to obey and seek to do the will of our Father in heaven even at the expense of our life on earth? Do we truly believe, as Jesus does, that the smallest sin (sin is disobeying God) is infinitely worse than the greatest persecution? Or conversely, do we believe, like Jesus, that living for the glory of God instead of ourselves is infinitely more satisfying than anything this world can offer (John 4:34)?

As we seek to know God and His will for us we should also know it is a gift from God to rightly discern between truth and lies. While we need to make a sincere effort to know Him, we must do so in faith knowing it is only by His grace that we can know the truth. But also, He delights in generously giving wisdom and knowledge of the truth to all who seek Him with sincerity (Matthew 7:7-8; James 1:5-6). Therefore we can have confidence that He will reveal Himself to all who seek Him and call on His name.

Lastly, this passage should give us confidence that Jesus is trustworthy. He is fully God and fully human, and He did not come to seek earthly glory, fame or riches. He came to fulfill the will of God the Father in heaven, whom He is one in essence with, and everything He says and does is perfectly aligned with the will of the Father. He never acted or spoke from selfish human motivations. He came to us to deliver us from darkness and bring us into His glorious light. He is faithful, true, and in Him there is absolutely no deceit. Our response to Him must be to trust in Him. He laid aside heaven’s perfect splendor to come to us down here in the dirt, declared the message of freely offered salvation by faith in Him, and then died in our place for our sin before rising to life again and ascending to His throne in heaven at the right hand of the Father.

Self Reflection:

1. Is my motivation each day, in each situation I face, to do the will of my Father in heaven even at the expense of my own life on earth if necessary? (The people running the temple wanted Jesus dead but He went there anyway because it was  the Father’s will)

2. Do I understand I believe in Jesus because He has graciously revealed Himself to me? It is not that I am especially smart or anything. I have made a choice to receive Him, but I could only make that choice because He came to me and granted me repentance and knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 2:24-26).

3. How does my confidence in Jesus and the truthfulness of His words affect my daily life? Who am I living for? Am I living for His glory or my own?

Definitions of the original language in the context of this passage:

-Jesus: “Ἰησοῦς”, “Iēsous”; noun, nominative, singular, masculine | proper name – Jesus = Yeshua = “Yahweh is salvation”; Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of mankind, God incarnate.

-Temple: “ἱερὸν”, “hieron”; noun, accusative, singular, neuter | prepositional object – a sacred place, a temple; used of the temple in Jerusalem.

-Began Teaching: “ἐδίδασκεν”, “edidasken”; verb, imperfect, active, indicative, third person, singular | finite verb – to hold discourse with others in order to instruct them, deliver didactic discourses.

-Jews: “Ἰουδαῖοι”, “Ioudaioi”; adjective, nominative, plural, masculine | substantival adjective – Jewish as respects to birth, origin, religion; those who (not only at Jerusalem, but also in Galilee, cf. John 6:41, 52) opposed [John’s] divine Master and his Master’s cause — especially the rulers, priests, members of the Sanhedrin, Pharisees — [John] does not hesitate to style οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (The Jews), since the hatred of these leaders exhibits the hatred of the whole nation toward Jesus.

-Marveled: “ἐθαύμαζον”, “ethaumazon”; verb, imperfect, active, indicative, third person, plural | finite verb – marvel, be astonished, wonder at.

-Has Learning: “γράμματα οἶδεν”, “grammata oiden”;

– “γράμματα”, “grammata”; noun, accusative, plural, neuter | direct object – letters, i.e. learning, of sacred learning.

– οἶδεν”, “oiden”; verb, perfect, active, indicative, third person, singular | finite verb – to know.

-When He Has [Never] Studied: “μεμαθηκώς”, “memathēkōs”; verb, perfect, active, participle, singular, nominative, masculine | concessive participle – to learn, to be educated, to increase one’s knowledge.

-Will: “θέλημα”, “thelēma”; noun, accusative, singular, neuter | direct object of the dependent clause – determination, choice, will.

-Authority: “ἀφʼ”, “aphʼ”; preposition | preposition of source – from; source of power or judgment.

-Glory: “δόξαν”, “doxan”; noun, accusative, singular, feminine | direct object – opinion, estimate, whether good or bad, concerning some one; but (like the Latin existimatio) in secular writings generally, in the sacred writings always, good opinion concerning one, and as resulting from that, praise, honor, glory.

-True: “ἀληθής”, “alēthēs”; adjective, nominative, singular, masculine | predicate adjective – loving the truth, speaking the truth, truthful.
-Falsehood: “ἀδικία”,”adikia”; noun, nominative, singular, feminine | subject – specifically, unrighteousness by which others are deceived.