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Chapter 50—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
new schemes to silence Him were tried. 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; if
any man’s will is to do His will, he shall know whether the teaching
is from God or whether I am speaking on My own authority.”
John
7:16, 17
, RSV. The perception and appreciation of truth, He said,
depends less upon the mind than on the heart. Truth claims the
homage of the will. It is to be received through the work of grace
in the heart; and its reception depends on the renunciation of 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 thus yield themselves to God will be able to distinguish between
him who speaks for God and him who speaks merely from himself.
The Pharisees were not seeking to know the truth, but to find some
excuse for evading it; this was why they did not understand Christ’s
teaching.
“He who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but
he who seeks the glory of Him who sent him is true, and in him there
is no falsehood.” RSV. The spirit of self-seeking betrays its 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
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that He read their hearts. They had been plotting His death, thus
breaking the law which they professed to be defending. “Did not
Moses give you the law,” He said, “and yet none of you keepeth the
law? Why go ye about to kill Me?”
Like a swift flash of light these words revealed the pit of ruin
into which they were about to plunge. For an instant they saw that
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