Where You Can't Come

The Jerusalem crowd had a problem. Everybody in town knew the rulers wanted this man dead (John 5:18, 7:1). And there He was, halfway through the feast, teaching in the temple courts while nobody said a word to stop Him (John 7:25-26). The pilgrims from out of town might not have known about the plot (John 7:20). The locals did. So they started asking a dangerous question.

John 7:25-27 — We know where He’s from

They wondered out loud whether the rulers had quietly decided He really was the Christ (John 7:26). Why else would they let Him talk?

Then they talked themselves out of it. They knew where this man came from. He was the carpenter’s son from Galilee, and they’d met His family (John 6:42) (Mark 6:3). But when the Christ came, they figured, nobody would know where He was from (John 7:27). There was a popular idea that the Messiah would show up out of nowhere, hidden until the moment He was revealed.

Look at what they did. They didn’t open the Scriptures. They checked their assumptions against Jesus, found a mismatch and threw Jesus out. Their objection sounded humble, but it was just a convenient reason to stop thinking.

And they were wrong twice. He’d been born in Bethlehem, the town the prophet named, and the same prophet said this Ruler’s origins reached back to days of old (Micah 5:2). So they didn’t really know His earthly origin, and they had no idea of His eternal one (John 1:1, 14). They knew a hometown. They didn’t know a thing about Heaven.

Plenty of men still do this. They grew up around church. They know the stories, the songs and the Christmas pageant. They think familiarity is knowledge, so they’ve filed Jesus away and moved on. Knowing about Him isn’t knowing Him.

John 7:28-29 — Sent by One you don’t know

Jesus heard them, and He didn’t whisper. He cried out in the temple (John 7:28). He agreed they knew Him and where He was from, at least on the surface. But He hadn’t come on His own. The One who sent Him is real and true, and they don’t know Him.

That’s a staggering thing to tell a crowd in God’s own house. These were people with the Law, the prophets and the temple. They had every outward advantage (Romans 9:4-5). And the Son of God told them they didn’t know the God they were worshiping (John 8:19, 55).

Then He told them how He knows Him. He knows the Father because He comes from Him, and the Father sent Him (John 7:29). Nobody has seen God, so the Son who’s always been with Him is the One who explains Him (John 1:18). He isn’t one more prophet who got a message. He’s the Son who came from the Father’s presence (John 3:13, 16:28).

That’s the whole point of verse 27 turned upside down. They thought the Christ’s origin would be hidden. It was hidden, just not the way they meant. He came from the Father, and nobody knows the Father except the Son and whoever the Son chooses to reveal Him to (Matthew 11:27). Knowing God isn’t something a man works up. It’s a gift the Son gives to the ones the Father gave Him (John 17:2-3, 6).

John 7:30-32 — Nobody could touch Him

That was more than they could take. They tried to seize Him, but nobody laid a hand on Him, because His hour hadn’t come yet (John 7:30).

John doesn’t say the guards were slow or the crowd got in the way. He gives the real reason. The Father had set the hour, and until it came, the most powerful men in Jerusalem couldn’t touch Him (John 8:20). When that hour did come, Jesus would say so Himself (John 12:23, 13:1, 17:1). Even then, the men who nailed Him to the cross carried out exactly what God had ordained beforehand (Acts 2:23, 4:27-28). They meant it for evil, and they’re guilty for it. But they never once got ahead of God.

Meanwhile, many in the crowd believed in Him (John 7:31). They reasoned that when the Christ came, He wouldn’t do more signs than this man had. Some of that faith was real. Some of it would fall apart the moment Jesus said something hard (John 2:23-25, 8:30-31, 59). John doesn’t sort them for us. God knows which of them the Father had drawn, and every one of those would come and never be cast out (John 6:37, 44).

The Pharisees heard the crowd murmuring, and they didn’t like it. So the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Him (John 7:32). Men who couldn’t agree on much agreed on this. John will report later in the chapter that those officers came back empty-handed, amazed at how He spoke (John 7:45-46).

John 7:33-34 — A little while longer

Jesus answered the arrest warrant with a calendar. He’d be with them a little longer, and then He’d go to the One who sent Him (John 7:33). The cross was months away. He wasn’t running from the officers. He was telling them He’d leave when He chose and go where He came from (John 10:18).

Then came the hardest words in the passage. They’d look for Him and wouldn’t find Him, and where He was going they couldn’t come (John 7:34).

That’s not a riddle. It’s a warning. A day comes when men who wouldn’t have Him will want Him, and the door will be shut. Wisdom warned that those who hated knowledge would call and get no answer (Proverbs 1:28-29). Jesus said it even more plainly later: if they didn’t believe He was the One, they’d die in their sins (John 8:21, 24).

Compare what He told His disciples. He used almost the same words with them, that they couldn’t come where He was going (John 13:33). But to them He added that they’d follow later, and He’d come back and take them to Himself (John 13:36, 14:3). The difference wasn’t that the disciples were better men. The difference was the Father’s gift and the Son’s promise to keep everyone the Father gave Him (John 6:39, 17:24).

John 7:35-36 — Off to the Greeks?

The leaders mocked Him. Where could He go that they couldn’t find Him? Was He going to the Jews scattered among the Greeks and teach the Greeks (John 7:35)? They kept chewing on His words because they couldn’t make sense of them (John 7:36).

They meant it as a joke. God meant it as a forecast. Before long, Greeks would come asking to see Jesus (John 12:20-23). After the cross, the gospel went out to them as God’s power to save Jew and Greek alike (Acts 11:20) (Romans 1:16). Like Caiaphas later, these men said more than they knew (John 11:49-52). Christ had sheep outside Israel too, and He’d bring every one of them in by name (John 10:16). They’re individuals He ransomed out of every tribe and nation (Revelation 5:9).