Page 67 - The Gospel of John - Student textbook

Historically, the church has embraced the dual nature of Christ, that He is – truly man and truly God, one person
with two natures. If we are to have a correct understanding of Jesus, we have to understand that His divine
nature has all the attributes of deity while the human nature has all the limitations of humanity. When Jesus was
hungry, that was a manifestation of His human nature, not of His divine nature. However, there are times when
Jesus manifested supernatural knowledge. For instance, at the beginning of His public ministry, He told
Nathaniel everything about him, even though he’d never met Nathaniel (1:47 – 49). Likewise, He knew the
sordid past of the Samaritan woman (4:17 – 18). He read what was in people’s minds, He knew what people
were going to say before they said it. Jesus gave many such evidences of supernatural knowledge. Where did
that come from? It came from the communication of the divine nature to the human nature.

Jesus voluntarily set aside omniscience to be fully human.

17 If anyone wants to do His will, he will understand whether the teaching is from God or if I am speaking on
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My own. The one who speaks for himself seeks his own glory. But He who seeks the glory of the One who
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sent Him is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. Didn’t Moses give you the law? Yet none of you
keeps the law! Why do you want to kill Me?” “You have a demon!” the crowd responded. “Who wants to kill
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You?” “I did one work, and you are all amazed,” Jesus answered. “Consider this: Moses has given you
circumcision—not that it comes from Moses but from the fathers—and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses won’t be broken, are you angry at
Me because I made a man entirely well on the Sabbath? Stop judging according to outward appearances;
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rather judge according to righteous judgment.” Some of the people of Jerusalem were saying, “Isn’t this the
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man they want to kill? Yet, look! He’s speaking publicly and they’re saying nothing to Him. Can it be true
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that the authorities know He is the Messiah? But we know where this man is from. When the Messiah
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comes, nobody will know where He is from.” As He was teaching in the temple complex, Jesus cried out,
“You know Me and you know where I am from. Yet I have not come on My own, but the One who sent Me is
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true. You don’t know Him; I know Him because I am from Him, and He sent Me.” Then they tried to seize
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Him. Yet no one laid a hand on Him because His hour had not yet come. However, many from the crowd
believed in Him and said, “When the Messiah comes, He won’t perform more signs than this man has done,
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will He?” The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering these things about Him, so the chief priests and the
Pharisees sent temple police to arrest Him. Then Jesus said, “I am only with you for a short time. Then I’m
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going to the One who sent Me. You will look for Me, but you will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot
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come.” Then the Jews said to one another, “Where does He intend to go so we won’t find Him? He doesn’t
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intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, does He? What is this remark He
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made: ‘You will look for Me, and you will not find Me; and where I am, you cannot come’?” On the last and
most important day of the festival, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me
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and drink! The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, will have streams of living water flow from
deep within him.” He said this about the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were going to receive, for
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the Spirit had not yet been received, because Jesus had not yet been glorified.

In a ritual observed each day of the Feast of Tabernacles involved a solemn pro session in which a priest carried
a goblet of water from the Pool of Siloam (which was fed by the Gihon Spring), through the water gate, and into
the inner Temple Court. As a congregation sang a hymn based on Isaiah 12:3, the priest poured the water on the
altar, commemorating the Lord’s provision of water in the wilderness (numbers 20:8 – 11).

The Feast of Tabernacles built toward a climactic convocation (Leviticus 23:36), during which Jesus stood to
address the throngs of people in the temple. Perhaps just before or even during the priest’s procession from the
pool of Siloam, Jesus called all people to receive from Him “living water,” not unlike his offer to the Samaritan
woman (4:13 – 14). John’s editorial comment clarifies for the reader that the “living water” is indeed the Holy
Spirit, which would not be given to believers until after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension.

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