Context No. 7 of 4322 · John
Context · Reflection
John 7:16-20: in context
16Jesus therefore answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. 17If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God or if I am speaking from myself. 18He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and no unrighteousness is in him. 19Didn’t Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill me?” 20The multitude answered, “You have a demon! Who seeks to kill you?”
John's Gospel is the last of the four and the most reflective, circling around who Jesus is. By this chapter he is a wanted man. The authorities have already decided to kill him (7:1), and he has come to Jerusalem anyway for the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the pilgrimage festivals that packed the city (7:2, 14). He is teaching in the temple, and people marvel that he knows so much without formal training (7:15). This is his answer.
He claims no originality. The teaching is not his own but comes from the one who sent him, a phrase John returns to again and again through the Gospel. Then he gives a test that inverts the usual order. Normally a person judges whether a teaching is true, then decides whether to obey. Jesus puts obedience first. Whoever is willing to do God's will is the one who recognizes where the teaching comes from. The proof goes to the obedient, not the curious.
He asks them outright why they are trying to kill him, and the crowd answers that he has a demon. A hard question is easier to wave off as madness than to answer. Am I willing to test a teaching by living it, or only by arguing it?