37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”
A short reminder that this was the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. Everyone was supposed to live in temporary shelters for the full week to remind them of their ancestor’s journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. Each day, a priest would go to the pool of Siloam to draw water in a golden pitcher. He would take it to the temple where it would be poured into a basin with holes in it – a drink offering. This was a reminder of the water that was provided for the Israelites in the desert upon leaving Egypt. The last day was the culmination of the feast and was also the day that Haggai prophesied about rebuilding the temple which has elements of Jesus return included (Hag 2:1-9).[1]
In this setting, Jesus interrupts the proceedings or perhaps makes his announcement after the water has been poured out. Three times in the exodus, the Israelites grumbled about not having enough water (Ex 15:24, 17:3, Num 20:5). He is explicitly telling the people assembled in Jerusalem that it wasn’t Moses who provide water for them, but God. Now, their greatest thirst and that of any person will be fulfilled if they come to Jesus. He is echoing what the Lord told the people hundreds of years before. “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money!” (Isa 55:1 NLT).
What a testimony about the grace of God! If we truly thirst for God, we can come to him and be satisfied. It doesn’t cost us anything, except to humble ourselves and admit our need. We can’t do anything to earn our salvation. It is a free gift.
38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
Jesus doesn’t stop at saying that the gift of salvation is free. He adds the qualifier that we must believe in him. It is free from works but salvation must still come from faith in Jesus. He also explains that when we believe, we will have living water flowing from us. Jesus must have stitched together several portions of Scripture and summed them up their meaning. We can see this in Isaiah 12:3 where God says we will drink for the fountain of salvation. It reflects the water flowing from the temple in Ezekiel which causes the Dead Sea to blossom with life (Eze 47:1-12). The stream just kept getting bigger and bigger which is what should be happening with each of us we grow in our walk with the Lord. We grow in our knowledge and love of the Lord leading to a more holy witness to the world. This is the new life created by the Holy Spirit as Jesus told the woman by the well (John 4:13).
Again, we must point out that there is some bad news in Jesus’ words. The Spirit only comes to those who receive Jesus. He isn’t given to the whole world, meaning all people. The Bible repeats this exclusion and inclusion over and over. It has been summarized on bumper stickers, “Know Jesus – know peace, No Jesus – no peace.”
This also points to the cross and the suffering Jesus had to endure before the Holy Spirit would be given to believers in a way that had not been known in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit would come and indwell all believers only after Jesus was crucified, buried, risen, and ascended back to his eternal position of glory with the Father.
40 Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, "This certainly is the Prophet." 41 Others were saying, "This is the Christ." Still others were saying, "Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?" 43 So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. 44 Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him.
Here comes the same confusion and error that occurred in verses 25 and 27. It shows the contrast between those who know Jesus and are instructed by the Holy Spirit with those who are trying to piece together who Jesus is by their fallen reasoning. They guess at who Jesus is and go back to the promised Prophet or the Christ. They do not understand that Jesus is both. Someone in this crowd knew the basics that the Messiah had to be a descendant of David and be born in Bethlehem.
The result of error is always the same. Division and discord arise. As it did with the crowd, so it happens even in the church today. Division over critical issues of theology should separate true believers from those who are heretics and false teachers who mean to lead people away from Jesus. The sad truth is that problems even occur when Christians who adhere to the same doctrines divide and become hostile to one another over things such as politics. This happens when they ignore the teaching of the Bible and let the errors of the world direct their thoughts and actions.
45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, "Why did you not bring Him?" 46 The officers answered, "Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks."
We have charismatic people today who awe their audiences with their charm or oratorical abilities. Some preachers are very gifted, and God uses them, but hopefully, it is the Holy Spirit working through them. We’ve also seen how some people like Hitler could sway a nation when spouting out evil. But there has never been anyone who spoke the way Jesus did. Jesus already gave the primary reason; he was teaching only what the Father wanted him to teach (John 7:16).
47 The Pharisees then answered them, "You have not also been led astray, have you? 48 No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? 49 But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed." 50 Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them) said to them, 51 "Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?" 52 They answered him, "You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee." 53 [Everyone went to his home.[2]]
This passage gives us a glimpse of several fallacies of debate.[3]Fallacies of debate are methods we use to put down those who have a different opinion than ours when we don’t have a good argument for our opinion or against theirs.
The first is Appeal to Authority. The Pharisees claimed that none of the rulers or Pharisees had believed in Jesus. Since the authorities didn’t believe in him, then they concluded that Jesus could not be the Christ. If the nonbelievers were not part of the authority structure, then this would have been an example of Bandwagon Fallacy where we are called to agree just because others do. Buried in their claim is also the fallacy called Hasty Generalization. They claimed that none of them had believed in Jesus without taking a census. Nicodemus may very well have been a believer by this time. We certainly don’t know the position of all the rulers and Pharisees.
They attacked the person instead of the issue. This is called the Ad Hominem argument. They based their conviction that the soldiers and the crowd were wrong because they were essentially incapable of being right. They accused the soldiers of being led astray and they called the crowd stupid or accursed because they didn’t know the Law, so they supposed.
When Nicodemus tries to inject some sanity to their bias by pointing to the Law, they also put him down. They also use the technique of Appeal to Ignorance. They argue that Jesus can’t be a prophet because their search of Scripture doesn’t predict a prophet from Galilee. However, they have been blinded to the prophecy in Isaiah 9:1-2 which predicts the people will see a great light in Galilee.
Nicodemus is the only one that is setting a biblical example. This is the pattern we should use when we are discussing how to live godly lives. I don’t want to fall into these fallacies either, but I have seen many Christians using these fallacies in their arguments instead of looking to Scripture to understand how we should live.
[1]“Festivals,” Unger, Merrill F., and R. K. Harrison. The New Unger's Bible Dictionary, Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1988. BibleSoft Database.
[2]The earliest and most reliable manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have John 7:53-8:11.
[3]https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/
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