Have you ever been so sure about something, so confident in your position on a matter that you doggedly held fast to your belief only to find out later that you were wrong? In John chapter 7, we read about two groups of people who were confident in their assertions about Jesus. But they were wrong. Confidently wrong. Let’s examine the passage and find out what we can learn from their error.
Many people were coming to believe that Jesus was the promised Christ. The miracles he performed provided the proof they needed of his anointing. They reasoned, “When the Christ comes, he will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will he?”[1] On the other hand, there was another group of people who were not willing to accept that Jesus was the Messiah. Some based their unbelief on inaccurate information:
John 7:40-43 (NASB) Some of the people therefore, when they heard these words, were saying, “This certainly is the Prophet.” 41 Others were saying, “This is the Christ.” Still others were saying, “Surely the Christ is not going to come from Galilee, is He? 42 “Has not the Scripture said that the Christ comes from the descendants of David, and from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him. (emphasis added)
The people were familiar with Micah’s prophecy that the Christ was to arise from Bethlehem.[2] They reasoned that since Jesus was called the Nazarene[3] and not the Bethlehemite, he didn’t meet the prophetic requirement. What they didn’t know was that Jesus had been born in Bethlehem. Had they asked his close disciples or even Jesus himself about his background, they would have discovered that he fulfilled Micah’s prophecy. But they failed to thoroughly investigate the matter. Their ignorance of the facts, at least in part, kept them from believing Jesus was the Christ.
Others refused to believe in Jesus, not out of ignorance of his background, but out of ignorance of the Scriptures. Continuing in John 7, we read that when the religious leaders heard that the people were believing in Jesus because of the miracles he was performing, they were angered and responded by sending officers to seize Jesus and present him before the council.[4] Their unbelief was based on many factors, including any number of cognitive biases, but their misunderstanding of the Scriptures strongly contributed to it. They were experts in the law, but they were wrong about some things that the Scriptures taught:
John 7:44-53 (NASB) Some of them wanted to seize Him, but no one laid hands on Him. 45 The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, and they said to them, “Why did you not bring Him?” 46 The officers answered, “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” 47 The Pharisees then answered them, “You have not also been led astray, have you? 48 “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he? 49 “But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.” 50 Nicodemus (he who came to Him before, being one of them) *said to them, 51 “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” 52 They answered him, “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.” (emphasis added)
The chief priests and the Pharisees were very knowledgeable about the law (Scriptures), having spent decades studying, teaching, and applying it. They looked down on those who did not know as much as they did, even calling them “accursed.” When in reality, they were the ones who were accursed for rejecting Jesus as God’s Messiah. They confidently asserted that no prophet came from Galilee, and since Jesus was from Nazareth in Galilee, he could not be the Christ. They even challenged Nicodemus, one of their own, to search the Scriptures himself and see that they were right. But they were dead wrong on at least two counts. Jonah, the prophet who had spent three days and nights in the belly of the large fish, was from Galilee, Gath-Hepher,[5] to be exact, located less than five miles from Nazareth.[6] They were also wrong about the prophet Jesus as this Galilean was the promised Messiah.
Both groups of people, the crowd and the religious leaders, rejected Jesus as the Christ based, at least in part, on their misunderstanding of who Jesus was and what the Scriptures had to say about the Christ. What can we learn from their grave error?
Confidence and Sincerity Do Not Guarantee Truthfulness
Confidence is not a marker of truthfulness. Neither is sincerity. You can be confident about a matter, but still be wrong. The apostle Paul understood the danger of those who confidently speak about the Scriptures but don’t really know what they are talking about:
1 Timothy 1:6-7 (NASB) For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, 7 wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. (emphasis added)
Christians tend to be confident in their understanding of what the Scriptures say about Jesus. But many read them through the prism of Church tradition and not as they were written, resulting in a distorted view of the man God exalted to His right hand.
Scholars Can Be Wrong
Unfortunately, it is not just aspiring Bible teachers who can be wrong learned scholars can be wrong as well. Paul, himself a Pharisee who had studied under the famed rabbi Gamaliel, could identify with the latter.[7] Before he came to confess Jesus as Lord and Messiah, he was confident that this Nazarene was not the Christ. So confident that he aggressively hunted Christians down like animals in order to persecute them, and, when the time came, cast his vote in favor of their execution.[8] Although he was trained in the Scriptures, Paul, like the Pharisees of John chapter 7, was terribly wrong about who Jesus was. Thus, a formal theological education is not a guarantor of truth, nor does it exempt one from error, even grievous error.
When Your Understanding is Challenged, Go Back to the Bible
When the Pharisees were challenged by those less educated, they failed to humble themselves and consider the possibility that they could be wrong. But, as someone once said, if you aren’t open to being wrong, you aren’t committed to knowing the truth. Paul wrote that a love of the truth is vital to salvation.[9] It’s no surprise then that Jesus said the Father is seeking worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth:
John 4:23-26 (NASB) “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman *said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” 26 Jesus *said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” (emphasis added)
The Pharisees lacked a love of the truth. They failed to go back and examine the relevant passages about the Messiah, relying instead on what they had been taught or on their ability to rightly recall what the Scriptures said. They were unwilling to test their favored paradigm against God’s word.
Shamefully, as teachers, neither did they take time to patiently discuss the matter with those they thought were in error. Instead of speaking the truth in love,[10] they lashed out in anger and spoke a curse upon them. Is it any wonder that James wrote that teachers will incur a stricter judgment?[11] That admonition in itself should motivate us to humble ourselves lest we are found to be wrong in our confident assertions.
There are so many things that can keep us from seeing Jesus as he truly is and not who the creeds tell us he is. Our ignorance of Church history, misinterpreted Scriptures, and an unwillingness to thoroughly investigate a matter can create barriers that keep us from seeing the first century Jesus in all his humanity and God-given authority. Now, more than ever, we must humble ourselves and ask God to open our eyes and give us understanding.[12]
[2] Micah 5:2.
[3] Mark 10:47; 14:67; 16:6, Acts 2:22; 4:10, 22:8, etc.
[4] John 7:32, 44-45.
[6] International Standard Bible Encyclopedia places Gath-Hepher two miles from Nazareth. https://biblehub.com/topical/g/gath-hepher.htm While Easton’s Bible Dictionary says it’s about five miles from Jesus’ home town. https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/gath-hepher/
[7] Philippians 3:5; Acts 22:3, 19-20; 26:5.
[8] Act 8:3; 22:4-5; 26:9.
[9] 2 Thessalonians 2:10.
[10] Ephesians 4:11-16.
[11] James 3:1.
[12] Psalm 119:18, 144.
