25 At that point some of the people of Jerusalem began to ask, “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? 26 Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Messiah? 27 But we know where this man is from; when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he is from.”
Nowhere in the Old Testament does it say that no one would know where the Messiah was from. In fact, it says just the opposite! Matthew shows that Micah 5:2 names Bethlehem in Judah as the town in which He would be born, and that Isaiah 9:1-2 identifies Galilee as where He would launch His ministry.
Where did the Jews get such an outrageous, unbiblical idea? It was someone's private opinion that over time had become tradition, an accepted "fact."
Reference: https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/26356/eVerseID/26356/version/NASB
The generality of the people knew very well that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, in the city, and of the family, of David; see John 7:42. But, from Isaiah 53:8, Who shall declare his generation? they probably thought that there should be something so peculiarly mysterious in his birth, or in the manner of his appearing, that no person could fully understand. Had they considered his miraculous conception, they would have felt their minds relieved on this point. The Jews thought that the Messiah, after his birth, would hide himself for some considerable time; and that when he began to preach no man should know where he had been hidden, and whence he had come. The rabbins have the following proverb: Three things come unexpectedly:
1.A thing found by chance.
2.The sting of a scorpion: and,
3.The Messiah.
It was probably in reference to the above that the people said, No man knoweth whence he is. However, they might have spoken this of his parents. We know that the Messiah is to be born in Bethlehem, of the family of David; but no man can know his parents: therefore they rejected him: John 6:42, Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
Reference: https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/26356/eVerseID/26356/RTD/Clarke/version/nasb
Fast forward: 41 Others said, “He is the Messiah.” Still others asked, “How can the Messiah come from Galilee? 42 Does not Scripture say that the Messiah will come from David’s descendants and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?” 43 Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. 44 Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.
Not everyone was ignorant about the Scriptures and knew that it had been prophesied about His birth.
28 Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, “Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own authority, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, 29 but I know him because I am from him and he sent me.” 30 At this they tried to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come. 31 Still, many in the crowd believed in him.They said, “When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?”
The crowd was divided. Some believed in Him and some did not. Why? Not because Jesus didn't look like Messiah or because they were questioning the Jewish traditions about Messiah but because of what Jesus said about Himself and about them. Jesus said that the most religious, the most privileged, the most well-taught people in the world, the people with the very oracles of God, the Jewish Scriptures — did not know God. "This is why you want to kill me. I know God. I am from God. God sent me. And since you don’t know him, you can’t recognize me."
Over and over in this Gospel, Jesus makes plain that if you reject him as God’s Son, his Messiah, and as the supreme Treasure of your life, you don’t know God or honor God or love God or have God as your Father — no matter what your religion, and no matter what you say your relationship with God is. Here are five examples:
- John 5:23 — “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.”
- John 5:42–43 — “I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me.”
- John 6:45 — “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.”
- John 8:19 — “You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
32 The Pharisees heard the crowd whispering such things about him. Then the chief priests and the Pharisees sent temple guards to arrest him.
Because some believed in Jesus, the chief priests and the Pharisees took action to have Jesus arrested. And the temple guards were obedient and left to go arrest Him. However, their response is amazing.
Fast Forward: 45 Finally the temple guards went back to the chief priests and the Pharisees, who asked them, “Why didn’t you bring him in?”
46 “No one ever spoke the way this man does,” the guards replied.
The Temple guards did indeed go out to arrest Him but they returned empty handed. Why Because Jesus spoke with authority....He spoke the Truth....He spoke of Promise that resonated with their being. What was it that He said....stay tuned for verse 37, the last day of the feat to find out.
[Matthew 7: 28
28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astonished at His teaching, 29 because He taught as one who had authority,and not as their scribes.]
33 Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I am going to the one who sent me. 34 You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.”
Jesus responds with calm and authoritative words. In other words, you may try to arrest me but I will choose where I go, when I go, and who will follow. You can’t take me early. You won’t keep me here when I choose to leave. And you can’t follow me later. Your plans with me are futile. I have come to do my Father’s will, not yours. And it will be done. Exactly on time. And in the way he has designed it.
So the situation we have is that the crowds have been told that they don’t know God, and the Pharisees have been told that they are powerless in their plots. Now what? What will Jesus do? What will he say? The Feast of Tabernacles, that brought him up to Jerusalem in the first place, is almost over. There’s one more day. He is surrounded by people that want him arrested. The Pharisees have sent officers to do it.
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”[a] 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
So you should ask now not only: Is He true? Is He real? How can I know? But also: Would I want Him if He were true? What would it mean if I did come to Him? What would it be like? Would it be worth it? Those are the questions Jesus is answering now.
- Jesus extends an open invitation
Part of the answer to whether he is the kind of person you might want to come to is that he is speaking these words to his enemies. He is issuing a totally open-ended invitation to everyone in the sound of his voice to come to him and drink. - Must be thirsty to qualify
And the only qualification he mentions is thirst. Verse 37: “If anyone (anyone!) — any Pharisee, any chief priest, any officer trying to arrest me, any offended person — if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”
And what would it mean if you came?
- First is that the gift of the water is free..
The condition you must meet is need. “If anyone thirst.” That’s the condition. And the action you must take is to drink. Receive the gift. There is no thought here of earning or meriting. Anyone. Anyone who knows his own thirst is invited. - Second, the human soul has thirst.
We know he is not talking about physical thirst. That’s clear. But what he is saying is that the soul has something like physical thirst. When you go without water your body gets thirsty. And the soul, when it goes without God, gets thirsty. Your body was made to live on water. Your soul was made to live on God.
Jesus doesn’t just have what our souls need; he is what our souls need. Recall John 6:35: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” He is the bread of life. He is the living water. Our souls were made for Jesus. The ache in our hearts is at root an ache for Jesus. This is how the soul lives on God. It lives on Jesus. - Third, implied in the word “thirst” is that what Jesus offers is satisfying.
Everything Jesus came to do and teach is aimed at providing the soul with food and drink that satisfy forever.
So be done forever with the sad notion that saving faith — that believing on Jesus — is a mere decision to believe facts. No. It is a coming to him as a feast. A treasure. A banquet. A spring in the desert when we are dying of thirst. This is what the apostle John meant when he connected believing on Jesus and receiving Jesus in John 1:12."But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." Believing is receiving him as water, food, and life for the soul. - Fourth, You will receive Rivers That Flow from the Soul
It means that when you come to Jesus to drink, you don’t just get a single drink, but you get a spring, a fountain, a well. You get Jesus. Rivers of water will flow because a River-Maker is in you. That’s the point. You will never have to search again for a source of satisfaction for your soul. Every river that needs to flow for the joy of your soul will flow from Jesus. When you come to him, you get him. And he never leaves. - More Specifically....You get the Spirit of the Glorified Jesus
There was an experience of the Spirit that could not be enjoyed until Jesus had died for our sins, been raised triumphant over death, and ascended to the right of the Father in glory — namely, the experience of fellowship with the Spirit of the glorified, risen Christ. This is what the Father gives to everyone who believes. The presence and power and fellowship of the Spirit of the risen and glorified Christ.
Once Jesus was with us as an incarnate man, and now he is in us by his Spirit. Listen to John 14:16–17: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
And he is indeed in everyone who believes on Jesus. Remember what Paul said in Romans 8:9? “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” If you come to Christ to drink for your soul’s satisfaction, you get Christ. And now we see that he means: you get the Spirit — the Spirit of God and of Christ.
- The Witness of Scripture to the Plans of God
There are so many Old Testament texts that point to this reality. For example:. Isaiah 58:11: “You shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail.”
The really wonderful implication for us that God spoke of this reality hundreds of years before it happened. It means that God was planning this for you. God was planning to send his Son. He created you to have an unquenchable soul thirst that could draw you to him. He planned for Jesus to stand in Jerusalem and cry out:
“If anyone thirsts, let him come to me [Jesus] and drink.”