John 7:1–10 opens simply enough. John tells us that Jesus continued to minister in Galilee, but avoided the region of Judea because the Jews (specifically the leadership centered in Jerusalem, Judea’s capital) wanted to kill him. This comes as no surprise. Throughout the Gospels we see Jesus taking actions to control the timing of His death, because, as He says in John 17:4, Jesus had a specific God-given agenda to complete before going to the cross.
Returning to John 7, we learn that Jesus’ brothers, who did not yet believe in Him, taunted Him, trying to get Him to appear publicly at the Feast of Booths in Judea. This was one of the three special holidays prescribed in the Law of Moses; it lasted a week (cf. Leviticus 23; Deuteronomy 16). Jesus’ brothers reasoned that, if He was who He claimed to be, then He did not need to work in secret (vv. 4–5).
Jesus responds to His brothers in vv. 6–8. He first tells them that the timing is wrong. In particular, He says the hatred of the world stands in His way. Jesus knew His interactions with the Jews could lead to a physical altercation which might disrupt His message (cf. Luke 4:28–30; John 10:39) and prematurely threaten His life. Then He says, “You go…I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.”
A nagging feeling appears when one reads vv. 9–10. We learn that Jesus stayed in Galilee for a time, but then went to the feast privately. Later, Jesus makes His presence known publicly (v. 14)! The question many readers ask is, “Did Jesus lie to His brothers?”
We need to answer this question with care. Elsewhere, John asserts that Jesus speaks and embodies truth (cf. 1:14, 17; 8:40, 45; 14:6, etc.). In fact, John’s Gospel accounts for 25 of the 109 occurrences of the Greek word for truth in the New Testament. No other book of the Bible has anywhere near this number of occurrences. Romans comes in second place with 7.
Would John believe in Jesus if he knew He lied? If he did, would John present Jesus as a liar? Of course not. Further, do not assume John accidentally left proof that Jesus lied. The verses are right on top of each other. Clearly, John did not see this as a lie or he would’ve done one of two things: he would’ve rejected Jesus’ own claims about Himself or he would’ve refrained from sharing these details. John does neither.
If John sees no deceit in these events, then perhaps we need to examine them more closely. We have a few possible explanations of Jesus’ statements and actions here. One is the word “yet” which appears in the first part of v. 8 in some translations. Many manuscripts contain this “yet,” and it is possible that it was accidentally removed from some other manuscripts. In this case, Jesus simply says, “I”m not going up yet.” There is a similar explanation in the Greek grammar of the present tense verb Jesus uses, the intricacies of which we will not explore here.
Another possibility comes from Jesus’ statements concerning HIs full submission to the Father (John 5:19, 30; 6:38; 14:10 and many more). It could simply be that God the Father revealed to Jesus that it was time to go, but He did not do so until after Jesus’ conversation with HIs brothers. The Son was limited in some respects when He took on flesh and lived as a human being.
Finally, it is possible that Jesus was saying, “I’m not going up in the way you want me to go, because my time has not yet come.” This explanation fits the context well, and Jesus’ language does not rule it out, even though in our English translations it may seem to do so.
Clay Leonard