John 7:17-19 17If anyone wants to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God or I am speaking on my own. 18The one who speaks on his own seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in him. 19Did Moses not give you the law? Yet none of you practices the law. Why do you seek to kill me?”
Jesus’ response shows the importance of accepting his teaching. Verse 17 begins with a conditional statement. It was not enough for the Jews to sit or stand around the temple courts listening to famous teachers. They could spend all day in the “ivory tower” of their time and not do God’s will. There were outstanding scholars of the Scriptures in Judaism of the first century. These rabbis spent their entire lives studying and memorizing the Hebrew Bible and various oral interpretations of it. But that knowledge itself was not enough to do God’s will. God’s will is intimately connected with what Jesus was saying and doing. Those who really wanted to know and do God’s will should have recognized the truth of what Jesus said. All truth is ultimately from God, but Jesus’ truth was at a higher level than the general knowledge gained through human effort. His truth came by direct revelation between of his close connection to the Father.
Verse 18 shows the big problem for a lot of people, especially those who pursue education or earn high degrees: speaking on one’s own authority or seeking one’s own glory. In the highly competitive world in which we live, people have to fight for positions. Some will spend years in preparation to teach at a university only to find that there are no job openings. One must gain more knowledge, write books and articles, and prove oneself adept at knowledge in the field to gain recognition. The adage is “publish or perish.”
Pursuing knowledge is not necessarily bad but it must be put through the filter of the truth revealed in Jesus. Jesus sought only to glorify the Father, so his words are far superior to anything else. His words were supported by his righteous character. The Jews should have believed in Jesus because the evidence was right in front of them. They could find no fault with Jesus’ character or words. Therefore, what he said must have been true. But they could not get past seeking their own glory and trying to make themselves look smart and righteous by their pious study. They supposedly knew the law intellectually but not spiritually. Jesus claims that if they knew the law, they would not try to kill him.
Although most who read this will not be so antagonistic toward Jesus, many forms of intellectualism can be a barrier to faith. Human knowledge without divine revelation only ends up glorifying the person or humanity as a whole. To accept the truth of Jesus requires humility and openness to the claims about it. The Jews in the temple courts during the Feast of Booths were struggling at this point.
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