John 7:50 Commentary and Bible Study

Nicodemus said to them – and he was one of them, and a senior man among them, one to be respected. What Nicodemus says to them is immensely strategic. He does not challenge them head on. He knows what is one Pharisee against all the others, but he points out something that they are doing which is against the law. The upholders of the law, the guardians of the law of Moses are breaking it. And he puts it gently, no doubt, but it trips them up. You are sending the officers to arrest him, you want him dead – we have not heard him, he has not had reasonable defence. But they have no time for that. And so certain are they that they are joined to God, that they have the power, and that they know what is right, that they simply retort insultingly to this senior member of their own body – ‘Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.’