John – Chapter 7:1-13
Chapter 7-10 – Who is Jesus? – The transition is from Jesus’ activity in Galilee to His activity in Judea, which will end with His death and resurrection. All that preceded will give the perspective to final hostility and struggle Jesus will face in Jerusalem. While Jesus was initially met with enthusiasm (4:45), now the murderous hostility of the Jew is the constant subtext (5:18). These three chapters cover the span of a few months from The Feast of Tabernacles in the fall (7:1-2) to the Feast of Dedication in the winter (10:22), roughly five months after the feast of the Passover (6:4). The narrative changes to disparate dialogues and there is less of a coherence between them, except that Jesus’s conflict with “the Jews” is drawing to a close. Generally, Jesus is bringing out His unique relationship to the Father, His mission given by the Father, and how He is utterly different from what the Jews expected or desired of Him. v.2 “Now the Feast of Tabernacles was at hand” – This is a seven day feast, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first of Tishri (Sept-Oct). On the eighth day is a holy convocation and feast (Lv 23:34ff; Deut 16:13-15; Num 29:35). The feast is a harvest celebration with a solemn outpouring of water, the “wells of salvation” (Zc 14:16ff; Is 12:3). But as Jesus has come, this feast (type) has been fulfilled in Jesus, God in the flesh (antitype, Jn 1:14), the end-times (eschatalogical) gathering of all believers to Christ to dwell with Him in the tent that His body. v.3-5 “If You do these things, show Yourself to the world” – His “brothers” express their concern that many of the “disciples” are leaving (6:66). If Jesus remains in Galilee, many more will leave. The sense is, “Hurry up, Jesus! Do the Messiah job!” They are not all that different from those five-thousand fed, who wanted to take Him and make Him king (6:15). And also, this is similar to the response of his “brothers” (2:12) at the wedding at Cana (2:23ff; 4:45). They still had “worldly” expectations of Him, thus they ask Him to go public before more disciples take off. v.6-8 “My time has not yet come” – time (καιρὸς) is here meaning here “the decisive moment” also referred to by Jesus as “the hour” (2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 13:1; 17:1). It is…