Anchor My Faith

Jesus Causes Division Among the People

Scripture: John 7:40-44

In the previous lesson, Jesus tells the crowd that if they thirst, they are to come to him and drink and then from them will flow rivers of living water. Jesus continues to tell them things they cannot comprehend in their natural, spiritual dead state, but one day, when the Holy Spirit comes, and they are born spiritually, they will understand. In their present spiritual condition, how do you expect they will respond to what they just heard? Let us read ahead and see.

^{Jn 7:40} “When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This really is the Prophet.” ⁴¹ Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? ⁴² Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” ⁴³ So there was a division among the people over him. ⁴⁴ Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.”

We see divisions growing within the crowd. First, there is division over who Jesus is. Some say he is the Prophet while others say he is the Christ or Messiah. This prophet they speak of is referenced in Deuteronomy 18:15 – 18 (ESV): ¹⁵ “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen— ¹⁶ just as you desired of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’ ¹⁷ And the Lord said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” Some who hear Jesus believe he is this prophet Moses spoke of.

Others believe Jesus is the Christ or Messiah which refer to the anointed one. Messiah is a summary term that brings together many strands of Old Testament expectations about the coming anointed one who would lead and teach and save God’s people. He is seen as the great King and Savior in the line of David. We see this in Isaiah 9:6 – 7 (ESV): ⁶ “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ⁷ Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”

There were some in first-century Judaism who saw the Prophet and the Christ as two different people. Jesus is both.

The second division among the people was over the location Jesus came from. Some thought he was born in Galilee and others thought it was Bethlehem. The Scripture said that the Christ was to come from Bethlehem, the village where David was from. If Jesus was from Galilee, then he couldn’t be the Christ. So, there was division over this. While some embraced him for who he claimed to be, others wanted to arrest him.

Conclusion

Going back to the previous lesson, we learned that temple police were sent to arrest Jesus, but so far, they haven’t made their appearance to arrest him. Why their delay? We speculated that they came and began to listen to Jesus and were intrigued by what they heard and waited to hear more.