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Among Snares
This chapter is based on John 7:16-36, 40-53; 8:1-11.
All during the feast Jesus was shadowed by spies. Day after day
brought new attempts to silence Him. The priests and rulers were
planning to stop Him by violence. On the first day at the feast they
demanded by what authority He taught.
“My teaching is not mine,” said Jesus, “but his who sent me.
Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether
the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own.”
John 7:16, 17
, NRSV. Understanding and appreciating truth, He
said, depends less on the mind than on the heart. Truth claims the
allegiance of the will. We can receive it only through the work of
grace in the heart, and its reception depends on our renouncing every
sin that the Spirit of God reveals. There must be a conscientious
surrender of every habit and practice opposed to its principles. Those
who yield themselves to God in this way will be able to distinguish
between someone who speaks for God and someone who speaks
merely from himself. The Pharisees were not seeking to know the
truth but to find some excuse to evade it. This was why they did not
understand Christ’s teaching.
“Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the
one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is
nothing false in him.” NRSV. The spirit of self-seeking reveals its
own origin. But Christ was seeking the glory of God. This was the
evidence of His authority as a teacher of the truth.
Jesus gave the rabbis an evidence of His divinity by showing
that He read their hearts. They had been plotting His death, and so
they were breaking the law that they claimed to be defending. “Did
not Moses give you the law,” He said, “yet none of you keeps the
law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”
Like a swift flash of light, these words revealed the pit of ruin
into which they were about to fall. For an instant they saw that they
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