And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Judaea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
Chapter 7 opens with the Son of God under a standing threat of murder. That threat shapes His movements. He stays in Galilee and keeps away from Judea, the region around Jerusalem. Two questions follow. Why did the centre of Israel's religion become the one place He avoided? And what kept Him out?
In John's Gospel the phrase "the Jews" is narrower than it sounds. A Bible dictionary explains who is meant:
In the New Testament the name occurs most often in the Gospel of John. There it means those of Jerusalem and Judea, as distinct from "the people," who may have been Galileans or visitors from a distance. John speaks of "the Jews," "the Jews' passover," and so on, as though he were not a Jew himself. They had rejected the Lord, and in spirit John was separate from them.
The plot went beyond the leaders. One writer shows how far it had spread, and what it had already cost the Lord:
The Lord Jesus is shown to us here walking no longer in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill Him. It is not only that the leaders were jealous of Him. Now the people are as well — at least the people in Judea proper, for they are clearly meant. Their hatred was complete: they only lacked opportunity. They would be satisfied with nothing less than putting out this light of God as far as they could. […] Step by step the Lord had been driven away from the place of honour, of ancient tradition, of everything that boasted itself in religion.
The threat did not start here. It goes back to an earlier healing, at the pool of Bethesda. That healing "called forth the envious malice of the Lord's enemies" (J. N. Darby).
Keeping out of danger could look like self-protection. One writer points instead to the Father's will and the Father's timing:
This was certainly not fear, but sober, lowly wisdom that sought only the will of the Father. He would not needlessly stir up the hostility of the Jews. He had told the disciples the same thing: if they were persecuted in one city, they should flee to another. But He would be in Jerusalem at the proper time to offer Himself as a sacrifice, as God had ordained. Meanwhile He would avoid whatever would hinder the prospering of the ministry of the word of God.
Being shut out of Judea did not stop His work. It moved it. Galilee was the despised place, and that is where He walked:
So we see the Lord in the despised place — the True Light . He is not in the city of solemn feasts, where darkness reigned all the more because it was the last place anyone suspected it. In Galilee He walks about on His errand of love. He does not wait for souls to seek Him; He seeks them, that believing they might have life in Him.
Another writer draws the practical line from it: "If you really want Christ, you will have to go where He is to be found. And where is that? In Galilee, then despised by Israel, and the symbol now of our outside place as followers of Christ" (W. T. P. Wolston).
The plot to kill Him ran alongside the keeping of a feast. One writer puts the two side by side:
You may have noticed something in the opening chapters of John's Gospel. The inspired writer always calls the feasts feasts of the Jews. Not only that: we find the Lord Jesus taking the place of one feast after another, and offering Himself as an object for the heart. […] A terrible contradiction! A deadly delusion! Seeking to murder the Son of God, and yet keeping the feast of tabernacles! Such is religious man without God.
The change of title is itself the verdict. In Leviticus these are called the feasts of the Lord; here they belong only to the men keeping them. As one writer puts it, "the outward form was there, but the Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, had been rejected, and what joy could God have in empty forms?" (G. C. Willis).
- Rejected — the plot in Judea was not limited to the rulers. The people had joined it, and only lacked their chance.
- Withdrawn — He kept away not from fear but from obedience. He would not die a day before the Father's appointed time.
- Relocated — shut out of the religious centre, the Light kept seeking souls in Galilee, the despised province.
- Exposed — plotting to kill the Son of God while keeping the feast of tabernacles is religion without God. John marks it by calling the feasts theirs, not the Lord's.
- Followed — if the religious centre no longer holds Christ, those who want Him must go outside, to where He is.
Now the tabernacles, the feast of the Jews, was near.
Jesus was staying in Galilee because the Jewish leaders wanted to kill Him, and John dates what follows by the Feast of Booths, also called the Feast of Tabernacles. The way John names this feast, and Jesus' refusal to go up to it openly, shape everything the chapter says next.
John's wording is deliberate. Leviticus calls these gatherings the Lord's. John calls them the Jews'.
Notice that in John's Gospel the feasts are always called "the feasts of the Jews" (John 2:13; John 6:4; John 7:2; John 11:55). Leviticus 23 calls them "the feasts of Jehovah." This change in wording means something. They had become mere forms. They were no longer times when loyal hearts came up to the place God had chosen, moved by a sense of His goodness. That had faded completely, and the feasts had sunk into nothing more than rituals. There was no longer anything in them for God.
The same men who wanted Him dead were keeping the feast. He answered by setting the feasts aside and offering Himself instead.
We find the Lord Jesus setting aside one of these feasts after another and offering Himself as an object for the heart... What a terrible contradiction! What a deadly delusion! Seeking to murder the Son of God, and yet keeping the feast of tabernacles! Such is religious man without God.
The week in tents looked back to the wilderness and forward to a settled land. Its place in the calendar, after the harvest, matters too.
The Feast of Tabernacles was the last feast in the Jewish year. For seven days the children of Israel were to live in tents. This reminded them that they had once been pilgrims in a wilderness. It also bore witness that the promises were fulfilled, and that the nation now lived in peace and safety in the land (Leviticus 23:33-43). Israel kept the feast after the harvest and the grape harvest, and Scripture uses both as figures of judgment (Revelation 14:14-20). So Israel and the nations must pass through judgment before the earthly blessing this feast pictures can come.
Two of Israel's great feasts have already met their fulfilment. This one has not, and that explains why Jesus held back from it.
The Passover had its fulfilment at the cross, and Pentecost at the coming down of the Holy Spirit. The feast of tabernacles, so far, has had no fulfilment... So this picture will be fulfilled when God has carried out judgment, and Israel, restored to their land, holds all their promised blessing. Then Jesus will show Himself to the world. But at the time we are speaking of, His hour had not yet come.
His brothers saw the crowded festival as His chance. What they asked, and why He said no, both turn on timing.
His brothers said, "Show yourself to the world." But He could not do so, because His time had not come. He could go up to the Passover, for He was Himself the Passover... The Feast of Tabernacles is still to be fulfilled. But Christ says, if you believe, you will get your time of glory before that Feast of Tabernacles comes.
Jesus does not fill the empty festival. He gives something else in its place, on the extra day after the seven.
In chapter 7 comes the feast of tabernacles, and the Spirit instead of it... He gives the gift of the Holy Spirit in place of showing Christ to the world. That is the great truth in this chapter... Only this feast had an eighth day. He went up to it quietly, and on that last day, the eighth day, He "stood up and cried out, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.'"
That invitation exposes what the celebration was covering.
It should have been a feast of true spiritual joy, but it had turned into a religious show. On the surface everything went as planned, but fellowship with God and with the One He had sent was missing. On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles — the "great" day — Jesus stood up and said something in a loud voice that must have greatly displeased the leading Jews. He spoke of thirst! This was the truth: behind the religious front there was no real satisfaction, only "thirst."
- Name. A feast of the Lord had become a feast of the Jews. The ritual went on while the men keeping it wanted the One it honoured dead.
- Meaning. Seven days in booths recalled the wilderness and pictured the nation settled at last in the land. Israel kept the feast after the harvest.
- Timing. The cross fulfilled Passover. The coming of the Spirit fulfilled Pentecost. Tabernacles still waits, because the blessing it pictures comes only after judgment.
- Refusal. That day had not come, so Jesus would not use the festival crowd as a stage to show Himself to the world.
- Substitute. In place of that display He gives the Spirit. He calls the thirsty to Himself on the eighth day, and believers get their glory before the feast comes true.