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Commentary on John 7 (1)
Chapter 7 of the Gospel of John is Christology.
These days, there are more and more times when I feel upset by people who only know Jesus but do not know Christ.
Faith begins not from the moment you believe on Jesus, but from the moment you believe that Christ is in you.(2 Corinthians 13:5)
In that sense, the Corinthian church is a deformed church that is only flashy on the outside and has not entered the original path of faith.
The Bible reveals that the work of the Acts of the Apostles begins from the moment one believes that Jesus is the Christ, repents, receives forgiveness of sins, and receives the Holy Spirit as a gift.
The message of the apostles in the Acts of the Apostles is to proclaim that Jesus, whom the Jews killed, is the Christ and the Lord of salvation who now lives and works within you.
However, the key question is when Jesus becomes Christ within the believer.
So Christ is connected to a certain time.
John 7 speaks of that time.
When will the flesh and blood of the Lord become our meat and drink, and will we dwell in the Lord, and will Christians live by the Lord just as the Lord lives by the Father?
So Jesus goes up to a Jewish feast.
The feast is the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, a type of Christ.
It is the feast of the new commandment, the new covenant, in which the Lord is in the Father, we are in the Lord, and the Lord is in us.
In John 7:6, Jesus said, “My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready.”
Just as a will takes effect only after the person who made the will dies, the phrase “in a little while” appears several times in John 14 and 16, which means that there is a certain time, a certain point in time.
In Matthew 24, it says, Only the Father knows that day and that hour (Matthew 24:36).
But only the Father knows, and that time will come like a thief.
Then, everyone is probably curious about the second coming of the Lord. The Bible also says that the Lord will come like a thief and that he will come on the clouds of heaven.
Coming like a thief means coming within us as the Spirit of truth (Matthew 24:43), and coming on the clouds means coming for the white throne judgment. (Matthew 24:30)
Regarding this, Professor Antony Hoekma defined it as already and not yet.
So the Bible tells us to prepare for this time when the Lord comes like a thief.
The Lord, who comes on a cloud, comes to do the final counting of votes to determine whether or not one's name has been written in the Book of Life. Therefore, as in 1 Thessalonians 5, the children of light do not fear whenever the Lord comes.
There are people playing around with the Book of Revelation right now, but because the Book of Revelation is like a vote-counting situation, according to the Gospel of John, the Church Epistles, the Book of Hebrews, etc., if I am elected to salvation, even if it is only 1 and not 144,000, I will believe that it is me.
The Lord, who comes like a thief, comes into us and becomes the life of God's people who have been born again.
If we do not have his life, we will be under wrath of God and condemned due to death, so he is telling us to prepare for the time when he come into us and become life.
So, when I see a person who only believes on Jesus and knows only about Lord' being raised, and does not believe in the resurrection of oneself who died in Adam through Christ, I tell him that if you die now, you will be in the lake of fire.
It’s about waking up awareness.
The Lord, who is at the right hand of the throne, comes on the cloud to judge the living and the dead, but if you are not written in the book of life and remain dead, you will follow your death into the lake of fire.
Luke 12 talks about that time more clearly.
How will we know when Christ has come?
You can tell by looking at some signs. If that's a sign, this is it.
In John 7:16, “Jesus answered, ‘My teaching is not my own, but comes from the one who sent me.’” This is a sign.
A person who always uses his words as a lesson is not a sign sent by God.
People who speak the words of the world and the words of the earth, that is, people who repeat precept upon precept, are not sent by God.
The world is a place where you gain things on earth through faith.
John 7:17 “If anyone will do the will of God, he will know of the doctrine, whether the teaching is of God or whether I speak of myself.”
This is God’s sign.
Also, in John 7:18, “He who speaks on himself seeks his own glory, but he who seeks the glory who sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in him.”
It is a sign, a barometer, that lets you know whether a servant is working through the Holy Spirit of God or a servant who is trying to reveal himself through the will of man.
Therefore, a person of the Holy Spirit can never be arrogant.
Then do you know how to discern people?
It means that those who seek God's glory are sent by God, and those who seek their own glory exalt their own name.
But these days, many people use God’s grace to make their names known.
It means exalting one's name through the grace recognized by God.
Hiding heavenly assets is a crime, but in this case, it is a crime of embezzlement of heavenly assets, just as it is illegal for a public official to use a corporate card for personal purposes.
People like this are not servants sent by God.
He is a minister who does his own work as a self-made person.
Precepts or doing God’s will must be God’s teachings.
In the Holy Spirit, the Lord speaks in him, and outside, he himself proclaimes.
And the result of that ministry must bring glory to God.
To be a servant of the Lord, you must follow the example of the Lord when he said, “All that is mine is the Father's.”
Take a look at the Apostle Paul.
Even though he writes such tremendous words as Romans, he hides himself by saying, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33)
Purely give glory to God.
So, it means that there is no injustice in him.
It means that there is absolutely no desire to keep it as one's own.
This is the sign of a man of God.
It is a sign of a servant of the Lord through whom the Holy Spirit works.
So the perspective on people is simple.
Whether you have ability or not is not important.
Whether the words are fun or not is not important.
However, what is important is whether the glory goes to oneself or to God.
That is the sign of a servant of God.
It is the standard for determining whether or not a person is a person of the Holy Spirit, like the apostles in the Book of Acts.
A person who only knows Jesus cannot borrow the power and wisdom of Christ's message of the cross because he is in front of the cross, so he cannot make a deal to exchange himself and Christ by saying that he will die every day.
People like this are the most pitiful Christians in the world (1 Corinthians 15:19).
So, if you preach the gospel, do missions, or teach without knowing the eternal life in the Son and the Father in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, it is shameful in itself (1 Corinthians 15:34)
Written by Ptr. Yohan Kim.
Translated by Nancy Chung
COME AND SEE WORLD MISSION
To God be the glory.