John 7:4 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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John 7:4

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You desire to be known, so you must show yourself. ‘If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.’ It is the reasoning of the sales world, the commercial world. Show yourself, be prominent, be seen in what you can do. ‘For neither did his brethren believe in him.’ They were not necessarily following him like the formal disciples were, but knew about his miracles and his preaching for two and half years already, and before that they had grown up with him. They knew he was unique, and yet in all that time, they still had not grasped his Messianic purpose.We will see it, of course, among the leaders of the people, the chief priests, the scribes, the Pharisees, the people of Galilee, the people of Judaea: they are all alike. The vast majority will not believe his Messianic mission and purpose: that he is the Son of God, that he has come to redeem. They had flocked to see John the Baptist who proclaimed, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world’, but they did not take it in. It is the same even with his own brothers, James, and Joseph, and Simon, and Jude. They would come to him, they would be converted. In Acts 1, after Calvary and the resurrection, you find them among the 120 gathered in an upper room, praying fervently for the guidance of the Lord, and the coming of the Spirit. They had been converted by that time. But while he was with them, and while he was ministering, at least for the first two and half years, they did not believe in him.

Application

What does that tell us, dear friends? It tells us the extraordinary hardness of the human heart. But they no doubt loved him, within the family. He was the perfect brother, the perfect elder brother, the perfect person. They no doubt respected him and regarded him. They were amazed during his ministry at all the things that he could do. But they still did not grasp or take seriously and accept the things that he preached. It is the amazing hardness of the human heart and reluctance of the human mind to accept these things. It is the same with us. I have known people, and they have grown up in Christian families, and they have been instructed in Sunday Schools. They have seemed to understand a good deal as children and youth, but they have gone away from God and from the Lord, and you meet them and talk to them in their 30s and 40s, and they seem to remember nothing. You cannot say, ‘Oh well, this person is instructed and knows a certain amount’; you find it has all gone. They never really absorbed it, never really took it in. It is possibly true with you. What is this all about? What is this about the need of salvation? About God and our unacceptability to him, his great perfection and holiness, and we are full of sin and far away, and we need a Saviour, that Christ came, the eternal Son of God to bear the punishment of sin for those who would be drawn to him and would repent and believe. What is that all about? You feel no need, no desire. You love this present world. So it was with the brothers of Christ.

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John 7:4 Commentary and Bible Study