Did Jesus Lie to His Brothers? (John 7)

This article is part of the Tough Passages series.

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¹ After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. ² Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. ³ So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. ⁴ For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” ⁵ For not even his brothers believed in him. ⁶ Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. ⁷ The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. ⁸ You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” ⁹ After saying this, he remained in Galilee.

¹⁰ But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. ¹¹ The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?” ¹² And there was much muttering about him among the people. While some said, “He is a good man,” others said, “No, he is leading the people astray.” ¹³ Yet for fear of the Jews no one spoke openly of him.

Sneaking into His Own Party

Jesus’s brothers urge him to go to Jerusalem so his disciples and the world can see the works he does, apparently assuming that he “seeks to be known openly” (John 7:4). John explains their counsel in verse 5 with the note that his brothers did not yet believe in him.

The statement of Jesus’s brothers could be taken in at least two ways. They could be scorning and mocking Jesus in open hostility to him. Alternatively, they could be responding positively to Jesus without understanding his agenda. They see the mighty works he does, understand he is the Messiah, and assume he should go public, as reflected when they counsel, “If you do these things, show yourself to the world” (John 7:4).

This second option seems to fit both the words of the brothers and what Jesus says in response. Jesus seems to speak in an explanatory tone here, not a defensive or rebuking one. If this is correct—if the brothers of Jesus are not being derisive and hostile to him—how are we to understand John’s comment that they were not believing in Jesus? It appears they do not understand what the signs signify, that his hour has not yet come, or what that hour will entail.

The brothers of Jesus would know the purity of his life. They would have seen the supernatural things he was doing. They would know their status in the line of David. They perhaps understood that their brother was the long-awaited Messiah, but they shared with their contemporaries a set of wrong assumptions and expectations about what he had come to do. As a result of their truncated understanding of his mission—they think he has come to conquer rather than to suffer and then conquer—they give bad advice that Jesus rejects.

If we are correct thus far about Jesus’s brothers, we have more insight not only into the nature of their advice but also into the sense in which Jesus rejects it. Jesus’s brothers tell him to go up to the feast (John 7:3), he says he is not going (John 7:8), but then he goes (John 7:10). We might think something amiss here if we fail to understand what the brothers are suggesting and what Jesus is saying he is not going to do. The brothers of Jesus seem to suggest that he should go up to the feast and enter Jerusalem in the very manner he will in fact follow when his hour comes, when the crowds wave branches of palm and cry “Hosanna!” (cf. John 12:12–15). The brothers are not simply suggesting that Jesus go to the feast; they are suggesting he parade in with the streaming crowds to be celebrated so that the movement can build momentum.

This understanding of what the brothers of Jesus have suggested explains why Jesus answers that his time has not yet come (John 7:6), and it allows us to see no contradiction between Jesus’s saying he is not going up to the feast in verse 8 and his going up to the feast privately in verse 10. Jesus does not mean he is not going at all. He means the time has not come for him to enter Jerusalem in triumph to thrill the throngs and marshal thousands for the taking of the kingdom. Jesus does not go to the feast in the way his brothers urge him to. They do not believe because they cannot, and they cannot believe because they do not understand his mission.

The Jews sought to kill Jesus (John 7:1), and his brothers did not understand his purpose (John 7:5). If ever someone deserved the esteem of his kinsmen, it was Jesus. If ever someone deserved the sympathetic understanding of his family members, it was Jesus. Rather than receiving what he deserves from countrymen and kinsmen, however, Jesus was met with hostility and unbelief, with wrong assumptions and misguided expectations.

Jesus explains himself and answers his brothers in verses 6–8. He states that he will not take the unbelieving advice of his brothers and go up to Jerusalem because his time has not yet come. While his brothers can go up, the time for Jesus to do so publicly has not yet arrived. That time will arrive at the triumphal entry narrated in John 12:12–19, when Jesus will declare that the hour had come (John 12:23).

Jesus also speaks to the hostility of those who seek to kill him (John 7:1; cf. John 5:18), explaining that the world hates him “because I testify about it that its works are evil” (John 7:7). Since “the Jews were seeking to kill him” (John 7:1), when Jesus speaks of the world hating him (John 7:7), he thereby identifies the unbelieving Jews as belonging to “the world.” By his presence, by his purity, by his power, and by his prerogative, Jesus testifies that the world’s deeds are evil. The world hates Jesus because he is the light and the world loves darkness.

The brothers of Jesus were calling for him to go public, for him to go to the feast so that his disciples and the world could see the things he was doing (John 7:4–5). Jesus asserted that he was not going up to the feast in that way for that purpose (John 7:8). Rather than joining the swarming hordes entering Jerusalem for all to see (John 7:9), Jesus went to the feast in private (John 7:10), avoiding those who were eager to find him (John 7:11).

The various statements John reports in verses 11–12 show the uncertainty of the time. On the one hand are the reports of the mighty deeds of Jesus and what seems to be the power of God at work, but on the other hand is the hostility of the establishment. Whom should the people trust? This uncertainty arose from a mix of expectation, assumption, and concern of different groups responding to Jesus. The Jews were disputing over whether he was good or a deceiver (John 7:12), but because of the intimidation of the authorities, no one felt free to speak openly about him (John 7:13).

How can such uncertainties be resolved? John presents the resolution for us in the structure of his narrative. He lets Jesus stand up and speak for himself. Those who want their uncertainty about Jesus resolved need only to listen to what he says.

This article is written by James M. Hamilton and is adapted from the ESV Expository Commentary: John–Acts (Volume 9).

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