John 7:32-52--"No One Ever Spoke Like This Man"

John 7:32-51
English Standard Version

Officers Sent to Arrest Jesus
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about him, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him. 33 Jesus then said, “I will be with you a little longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. 34 You will seek me and you will not find me. Where I am you cannot come.” 35 The Jews said to one another, “Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? 36 What does he mean by saying, ‘You will seek me and you will not find me,’ and, ‘Where I am you cannot come’?”

Rivers of Living Water
37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Division Among the People
40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So there was a division among the people over him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

​45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” 47 The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? 48 Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” 50 Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” 52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

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The Pharisees and chief priests here the murmurings of the people and realize they must do something as the people are starting to believe them to be impotent (powerless) or that they might actually believe who Jesus is who He said He is.  If they believed He was lying and a threat like they said and they believed they had jurisdiction over Him, then why not arrest Him, especially here and now where they believe they have the "home turf" advantage?  We'll see that the time is still not right as we're still six months before the time of the Passover when Jesus will return to Jerusalem once more to be crucified, but the time is getting near and the people are being called to make choices about who Jesus is.  Is He a lunatic?  Is He demon-possessed or maybe even a demon or a Samaritan or a liar or some sort?  Or is He God in the flesh, the Prophet promised by Moses and the Messiah promised by the Prophets?  We're going to see some very different reactions today from the religious leaders who had access to all of the Scriptures and should have known and the people who had limited access to the Scriptures and some of them believed.

The Jews as John will call them are the religious leaders--the Pharisees, teachers of the Law, and the chief priests, were not going to let Jesus come onto their turf and make them look bad, especially in front of the entire nation (all the Jewish citizens that lived even far, far away had to travel to Jerusalem for this feast).  They would take the opportunity to try to arrest Jesus publicly so as to affirm their authority and put to rest any rumors that they approved of His teachings, but they needed to be careful to do it in such a way so that the people would be with them and would not riot.  This looked like just the time as the hearts of many people seemed to be questioning Jesus' sanity when He told the Jews that He knew they were trying to murder Him (which was completely true, but not public knowledge).

The Jews send the Temple guard (called "officers" here) to arrest Jesus wile He's teaching in the Temple.  Jesus sees them and makes a comment about soon He is going away to the place He originally came from and that where He's going is a place where they cannot follow Him.  All this sounds to them like He's planning to become a fugitive, yet they do not arrest Him (because it is not His time), but instead stand there and listen to His teaching.  While it may seem clear to use that Jesus is talking about going back to heaven and sitting down at the right hand of the Father, they imagined that He was somehow going to the Gentile nations to preach and teach to both the Jews and the Gentiles there where He would be outside of their realm of influence (we'll see these same people try to create problems for the early Church and specifically the apostle Paul when he does take the gospel to the Jews of the Dispersion and to the Gentile nations).

Jesus makes it clear that those who have chosen to not believe in Him will not be able to get to heaven because He is the only Way there, but for those who believe He will satisfy their deepest thirst--their longing to be reunited with God.  Jesus said that out of the heart of the one who believes in Him would come rivers of living water which sounds a lot like what He told the Woman at the Well in John 4.  These people don't seem to react the same way that she did though.  That was the best news that she had ever heard and she wanted to know how to get that water and where was its source.  The Jews here probably think that Jesus is just making some connection to the feast that ongoing as they poured water onto the altar every day of the festival and this being the last day of the feast there was a large gathering there for them to perform this ceremony, and Jesus' statement most likely lines up with this as for Him to say--that thing that you're doing there is really about Him being poured out for them.  Jesus is the Water of Life that we are to be thankful for.

We see that many people have many different reactions to what Jesus is saying.  Some say that He must be the Prophet and the Messiah (the Christ).  Still others say that there's no way that Messiah could come from Galilee because the Christ was supposed to be from the City of David, and the Temple guards responded not really caring who He was, but said, "We've never heard anyone teach like this with such authority?"

The Pharisees and chief priests get mad at the guards for not arresting Jesus and ask if the guards have been deluded by Jesus.  Their statement of saying they had never heard anyone teach with such authority was also a dig at the Pharisees, teachers of the Law and chief priests who taught in the Temple every day.  They were basically saying "None of you can hold a candle to Him."  The Pharisees cite their unbelief as a reason that the guards should not be persuaded by Jesus because they argue that if He was the real deal then they would have been the first to believe in Him (we know that SHOULD have been the case, but that wasn't God's plan).

We then see a name come back that we haven't seen since chapter 3.  Nicodemus, the Pharisee that came to Jesus in secret earlier in the book of John, speaks up and asks if Jesus isn't to be afforded the due process commanded by the Law.  They don't like this and will start to become suspicious of Nicodemus that perhaps he has become indoctrinated by Jesus, but they know that Nicodemus is right and they therefore will put on the appearance of a trial and conviction when the time does come in about six months.  For now though, Jesus will once again escape because His time had not yet come.  Their response to Nicodemus's question is also telling as they had already prejudged Jesus by all the evidence they were willing to look at--they believed he was from Nazareth, and that was more than enough evidence to disqualify Him in their books.  They knew the verdict was "guilty" and now they just needed to find the crime and the "evidence" and "testimony" to fit that sentence that they so desired.  The trial, when it does occur, will be anything but fair and impartial.