John 7:40-44 40Therefore, when they heard these words, some of the crowd were saying, “This man truly is the Prophet.” 41Others were saying, “This man is the Christ.” But some were saying, “Surely, is the Christ not to come from Galilee? 42Has the Scripture not said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43So there was a division among the people on account of him. 44Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.
The controversy in Jerusalem continued to grow in these verses. John records the mixed responses to Jesus. The first response is positive but only partial. Moses predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15–18 that a prophet would come one who would speak the words of God. The key identifier in this phrase is the article the, which is used to point out one special person. The one who would come would be unique and powerfully proclaim God’s plan and purpose. Those who thought Jesus was a prophet saw God’s power in his teaching. Jesus’ teaching about water, Moses, the law, and other matters may have reminded these people of the passage from Deuteronomy. Jesus fit the description. His words did have prophetic power to them. Some people accept Jesus as one of the great teachers of history and may even accept that his words have moral and spiritual power, but they do not accept the claims of his full identity.
Another group identified Jesus as the Messiah. Again, this group is correct, but the challenge is their confused understanding of the Messiah. In their thinking, the problem was that Jesus had come from Galilee and not Bethlehem. Obviously, they did not know the birth story of Jesus and that he did indeed come from Bethlehem. These people had some knowledge of the Bible, or at least had heard of oral traditions and expectations about the Messiah. Jesus fit many of their expectations about the Messiah but was missing the key element of coming from Bethlehem. He was from Nazareth, and nothing good ever came from that little backwards village (1:46). Some people see truth in Jesus and believe him to be a great teacher but do not know the full story of the Bible that shows how he fulfilled all prophecy.
The third group just wanted Jesus out of the way. They did not believe anything positive about him but only that he was an imposter, lawbreaker, and troublemaker. He was neither the Prophet or the Christ but a fake, like others who tried to rile up the people. Their eyes were blinded to the truth, which only then hardened their hearts against God’s convicting voice and invitation. They would not believe the words Jesus spoke and doubted the obvious miracles he did. Their big problem was how to get rid of Jesus, but they could not and would not out of fear of the great crowds enthralled by his teachings.
The implied message of John’s Gospel is that it is not enough to be curious about Jesus or believe him to be a great teacher. One must come to complete faith in the claims about him and accept his identity as the incarnate Son of God who came from God and will return to God. Believing this claim requires also believing in the miracles he did and accepting the truth of the words he spoke.
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