John 7:12 Commentary and Bible Study

He is a good man, some said. He heals, he takes no money, he lives very frugally. He goes around with his disciples. He is not on the make. He seems to be a holy man, a good man. But they fall short of the truth. He is just a good man, leave him alone. He has done a great deal of good. But even they, who were favourable toward him, did not grasp the point. He is ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.’ He is going to do something marvellous to deal with our sin, to secure our forgiveness, to fulfil all the sacrifices over the centuries, which symbolise that God will do something astonishing to atone for sin. This man is the embodiment of that. He is our Redeemer, our Saviour. Through him and belief in him, we can be reconciled with God.‘Others said, Nay; but he deceiveth the people.’ Whatever did they mean? It was not as though he was like one of these phoney preachers of today. You hear of some of these Prosperity Gospel men that they have millions. I do not know how authentic it is but I read of one them, one of the most significant so-called Prosperity Gospel preachers who amassed a fortune of 150 million pounds. Well, part of what they meant is this. They only wanted that political Messiah, who would make them prosperous on earth. They were not thinking about heaven, and so they said to themselves, well here is the man. He can do it. He can work miracles. Look at him, he is just wandering about Galilee, preaching away things we are not interested in and we do not like to hear, and he is not getting on with the deliverance of the nation. He is no good, he is a deceiver of the people. Yes, but it was they who had put him in the mould of a political deliverer. He was heading to Calvary to be a spiritual deliverer, for people, millions and millions of people, Gentiles as well as Jews, throughout the entire world, from every land and nation, for centuries, until he would come again. He was doing a far greater work, and they did not get it, they did not see it. He is not getting on with delivering us from the Romans and making this a prosperous nation. That is no doubt what some of them meant. And some of them meant worse things for which they had no ground, but they dismissed him as a person.How hard it must have been for the Lord who came to die for us during those years of his humiliation, when he walked as a man and even his brothers did not get it and did not believe in him and trust his word, perfect as he was and gracious as he was. And the leaders and the common people, the people would shout out and whisper, he is a deceiver. Yet he was the eternal Son of God. The cost even before Calvary of coming to be our Redeemer.