John 7:25-31 Could Jesus Really Be the Christ?

The crowd thinks they have Jesus figured out: they know His hometown, His family, His visible story. But as we walk through John 7:25–31, that certainty starts to crack, and a bigger truth breaks through—origin is not the point; sending is. We unpack why Jesus anchors His identity in the Father who sent Him, how that claim confronts our love of tidy frameworks, and why hostility cannot outrun divine timing. When the temple bristles and hands reach to arrest, nothing moves because “His hour had not yet come.” That line changes everything about authority, risk, and trust.

We get honest about our own habits too. It’s easy to judge by appearances, retreat to tradition, or keep Scripture inside the safe lanes that confirm what we already believe. But Jesus presses past comfort and calls for right judgment. We look at why the law exposes rather than fixes, how sovereignty reframes growth, and what it means to let Scripture speak even when it unsettles us. Along the way, we draw threads from Joseph’s story to the cross itself—places where human intent meant harm, yet God meant good—showing how divine purpose can run straight through the darkest turns without conceding an inch of holiness or hope.

By the end, the question turns personal. If Christ’s mission begins in the will of the Father, can we trust our placement, our timing, and our path to that same sovereign care? Many in the crowd begin to believe as signs, words, and timing accumulate into an unavoidable witness. We invite you to step into that clarity: trade control for worship, assumptions for Scripture, and a made-to-order god for the living God who sends, saves, and sets the hour. If this conversation stirred something in you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more deep dives in John, and leave a review to help others find the show. What expectation is God asking you to lay down today?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

In John chapter 7, the tension surrounding Jesus continues to rise. The crowd has heard his teaching, they have seen his signs, the authorities hesitate, yet hostility simmers beneath the surface. And now the question shifts from what he does to where he comes from. In this episode of The Takeaway, Pastor Harry Barens walks through John chapter 7, verses 25 to 31, where the people attempt to judge Jesus by origin, heritage, and expectation while missing the greater reality that he was sent by the Father. Here is Pastor Harry Barens with today's message.

Authority From The Father

Appearance Versus Right Judgment

Sovereign Origin And Calling

Crowd Confusion And Competing Claims

Let Scripture Speak For Itself

Tradition Versus Fulfillment

Sent By The Father

Divine Authority And Timing

Many Believe As Evidence Mounts

Joseph, The Cross, And Sovereignty

Surrendering Our Image Of God

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Have you ever been judged based on where you're from, how you speak, what you look like, who your parents are, or the culture you grew up in? That tension is heavy in our world today. Everyone feels it on some level. Some experience it more directly, being judged by their background, while others experience it more subtly, judging others by theirs. And if we're honest, even when we are the ones being judged, we often respond by judging back. What we've learned over the last two episodes is this. First, confidence in the authority given to us from above, just as Jesus demonstrated, and second, resisting the instinct to defend ourselves when hostility arises. When we operate in the authority God has given, attacks will come. Not because we are wrong, but because righteousness exposes unbelief. It exposes misuse of what God has given. That exposure creates hostility. We see that in the life of David. He knew who he was because God had anointed him in 1 Samuel 16. Yet he did not force his environment to match his identity. He lived in the promise without demanding that everyone acknowledge it. He embraced who God said he was and trusted God to shape the timing. Now that same tension escalates here in John chapter 7, verses 25 to 31. At first, the issue was authority. Where does he get this authority, they said? Jesus made it clear it comes from the Father in John 7.16. Then, when pressed, instead of defending himself, he exposed their misuse of the law, which is mercy, not aggression. The law was given to them to reveal sin, not to weaponize against others. That is why he concluded in verse 24 do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment. And right judgment begins with examining ourselves. Now the crowd shifts the focus. If they cannot dismiss his authority directly, they will judge his origin. They say, We know where he came from. They know his parents, the town he grew up in, and his earthly background. And this becomes the next layer of blindness because when we judge by origin, we forget sovereignty. We forget that none of us chose when we would be born, where we would be born, or to whom we would be born. We had no control over our entrance into this world. There was no exercise of personal freedom in that moment. Birth itself is a sovereign act of God. It is sovereign placement. And Jesus is about to say something that pushes beyond even that. He says, You know where I come from, but I have not come of my own accord, in verse 28. He is pointing beyond Bethlehem, beyond Nazareth, beyond Mary and Joseph. His origin does not begin at birth. And in a lesser but real sense, neither does ours. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, that we were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. That is an origin statement, not merely when you were born, but when God ordained that you would be. Isaiah echoes this in 43 7. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory. We are who we are because of God's sovereign will to form a people for his glory. That is what the crowd is missing here. They are judging by culture and visible origin. They are operating within their framework and expecting God to act according to it. And when he doesn't, they resist him. But God does not bend to man's assumptions. The issue here is not geography, it is sovereignty. And until our eyes are open to see God as sovereign, not reacting or conforming to us, but ordaining according to his will, we will continue to misjudge people based on what we can see. But when our eyes and our ears are open, when we see God for who he is, we can finally embrace who we are, where we are, and when we are. And that is the tension unfolding in these verses. So starting in verses twenty-five and twenty-six, we read, Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, Is not this the man whom they seek to kill? And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? Now right away, there is confusion in the crowd. We saw this tension in the last episode. There was already division, some accusing him, others saying he is a good man in John 7.12. Nothing has changed here. The tension is still there and it's rising. The people are watching something that doesn't add up. They know the leaders want them dead. That has already been established in verse 1. Yet here he is teaching publicly in the temple, and no one arrests him. So they begin reasoning. They say, if he is a false prophet, why is he not being stoned? If he is blaspheming, why is he not being silenced? Because according to their law, a false prophet was to be put to death in Deuteronomy 13, 1 to 5. They know that. So now they're caught in that tension. They say, could it be that the authorities actually believe he is the Christ? That question exposes their uncertainty. They are trying to reconcile what they see with what they've been told. And this isn't foreign to us either. We live in a world where competing theological voices create confusion. One group defines who Jesus is one way, another group answers the same question differently. And often we are told simply to dismiss the other side. Now I've spent nearly 20 years believing in a particular understanding of human free will. It was what I had been taught. I was told we ultimately choose Christ by our own decision. Along the way, I heard names associated with strong Calvinistic theology, but I was warned not to listen. I was told they were dangerous, heretical, and not worth engaging. So I ignored it because I trusted the leadership I was under. But then later a friend challenged me with scripture. He pointed me to passages like Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, that say he chose us in him before the foundations of the world. He pointed me to John chapter 6, where Jesus says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him in John 6.44. Now I had to wrestle with that. And I want you to hear me clearly. This is not an episode about Calvinism versus Arminianism. This is not the point here. The point is this scripture must be allowed to speak. The Bereans were called noble because they examined the scriptures daily to see if these things were so in Acts 17, 11. They didn't blindly accept Paul's teaching. They tested it against the word. But we often don't do that. We become shaped by culture, tradition, by personalities, by platforms. We find a lane that feels comfortable. We say, I'm looking for a church that works for me, which often means we're looking for a place that affirms what we already believe, instead of allowing scripture to challenge us. Now, good teachers will press you, even when they agree with you. Jesus presses here, Paul presses in his letters. The word constantly confronts and refines. And my aim is not to sell you a theological system, it is to press you into the scriptures to seek God, to allow him to reveal himself through his word. And that's exactly where this crowd is. They hear Jesus, they see his works, they know the leaders oppose him, which creates confusion. And they say, can it be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ? The tension must be resolved. And now in verse 27, they attempt to resolve it on their own terms. Verse 27 says, But we know where this man comes from. And when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from. So here they are trying to reconcile what they believe with what they are witnessing. They've seen the miracles, they've heard the claims, they've watched the tension with the leaders. But instead of allowing the evidence to reshape their understanding, they retreat to tradition. They reduce everything down to something they think they can control. They say, We know where he comes from. There was an expectation that when the Messiah appeared, his origin would be mysterious, sudden, untraceable. And beyond that, many were expecting a military deliverer, someone who would overthrow Rome, establish political dominance, and restore national power. But Jesus doesn't fit their model. And instead of adjusting their model, they dismiss him. That's what's happening here. They are not evaluating scripture in light of Jesus, they are evaluating Jesus in light of their assumptions about scripture. And if we are honest, we do the exact same thing. Jesus says in John 5.39, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. And it is they that bear witness about me. That's the issue. The scriptures were never meant to be a self-help manual. What must I do? What steps do I take? How do I fix myself? How do I earn righteousness? And yet that's the question we constantly ask. Even back in John chapter 6, the people asked, What must we do to be doing the works of God? We ask the same questions today. What must I do to be saved, to grow, to become righteous? But when scripture is reduced to a list of steps, we miss its purpose. The law was never given to make us self-sufficient. Paul says in Galatians 3.19 that the law was added because of transgressions. In Romans 3.20, he says, Through the law comes knowledge of sin. The law reveals God's holiness. It exposes our inability and it drives us to a savior. It does not produce life. It points to the one who is life. And when we read scripture to know him, rather to construct our own righteousness, everything shifts. We begin to see sovereignty. Ephesians chapter 2, 10 says, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Prepared beforehand, not self-generated, not self-initiated. God works his will in us, as Paul says in Philippians 2 13. He says, For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So the crowd's tension here is this. But there is something you don't know. I have not come of my own accord. That's the issue. They understand his visible origin, but they do not understand his divine origin. Jesus is saying his coming precedes his birth. His mission did not begin in Bethlehem. It began in the will of the Father. He was sent. That language of being sent runs all through John's gospel. Jesus is constantly grounding his authority in the one who sent him. And here he makes it explicit. He who sent me is true, and him you do not know. This is the deeper indictment. The problem is not lack of information about Jesus' background. The problem is lack of knowledge of God. They believe they knew God, they believe they understood scripture. But when the one sent by God stands in front of them, they cannot see him. And this is not accidental. Jesus elsewhere quotes Isaiah when explaining why he speaks in parables. He says, Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And Matthew 13, 13, quoting Isaiah 6, 9, and 10. There is a judicial element to unbelief. God does things in such a way that those hardened in heart remain blind. Now that challenges our modern assumptions. Dead people do not initiate life. And then comes the turning point, but God in Ephesians 2.4. Faith begins with divine action, not human initiative. So when Jesus says, I have not come of my own accord, he is grounding his entire mission in the sovereign will of the Father. God does not conform himself to human expectation to prove that he is God. He acts according to his will, and we are the ones who must be reshaped. That's where Israel repeatedly stumbled. They had a model for how Messiah should arrive, a military deliverer, a visible conqueror. And because Jesus came in humility, because his entrance looked ordinary, they dismissed him. But what they called ordinary was actually divine. He did come suddenly. He did come from beyond, just not in the way they expected. And we need to be careful today as well. Throughout history, prophecy has often been misunderstood before fulfillment. That does not mean we should ignore it. We should study it. But prophecy is given first and foremost to authenticate who God is and reveal Christ. Revelation 1.1 calls it the revelation of Jesus Christ. It is about who he is before it is about what he will do. When we become more fascinated with predicting God's actions than knowing God's character, we drift into the same error. Israel wanted a Messiah who would act according to their desires. But the greater need was to know the one who sent him. That is what Jesus is pressing here. He says, You know where I was born, but you do not know the one who sent me. And that is the real blindness. And now in verse 29, Jesus intensifies that claim even further. He says, I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me. Now this takes us back to what we've already seen throughout John's gospel. Jesus continually grounds his authority in the Father. John 5 27, he says, Authority has been given to me. After the resurrection, he will say, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me in Matthew 28, 18. And here he is making the same claim in essence. I know him, I come from him, he sent me. That language points to oneness, to a shared origin. It points to divine intimacy. They claim to know God. Jesus says, You do not know him, I do. And I know him because I come from him. This would have been staggering to them because, in their framework, if God were to come, it would be unmistakable in the way they defined unmistakable. It would be overwhelming, military, political, conquering. Not a child, not born to a young woman in Bethlehem. But their own scriptures described it that way. Isaiah 7.14 says, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. Isaiah 9 6 says, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And Micah 5 2 told them he would come from Bethlehem. It was all there. The issue was not lack of prophecy, the issue was interpretation hardened into expectation. And when God fulfilled his word in a way that confronted their assumptions, they clung to their interpretation instead of surrendering to the fulfillment. And we are not immune to that either. We can hold our theological frameworks so tightly that when God works in a way that challenges our understanding, we resist him rather than adjust ourselves. Jesus is saying plainly, you think you know, but you don't. I come from him, he sent me. That is divine authority. And then verse 30 says, So they were seeking to arrest him, but no one laid a hand on him because his hour had not yet come. So why were they seeking to arrest him? Because this claim coming from God, being sent by God, knowing God uniquely, was a claim of equality. It was blasphemous in their ears. From their perspective, he was crossing a line no man should cross. But notice what happens. No one lays a hand on him. Why? Because his hour had not yet come. Jesus does not die because men overpower him. He dies when the Father ordains it. And until that appointed hour, no authority can touch him. That is sovereignty. Not just over events, but over people, over rulers, religious leaders, crowds. Psalm 115, 3 says, Our God is in the heavens. He does all that he pleases. And Proverbs 21:1 says, the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He returns it wherever he will. They wanted to arrest him. They intended to stop him, but intention does not override divine timing. God governs the moment. And this again exposes the illusion of control. They think they are deciding his fate. In reality, they are operating inside God's appointed hour. And that is the tension. Jesus comes from the Father. He speaks with the Father's authority. He moves according to the Father's timing. And man cannot accelerate or interrupt what God has ordained. And then in verse 31, we read, Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done? So something shifts. Jesus has spoken clearly, exposed the heart of the issue, and the authorities have not arrested him. There has been no rebuttal that silences him. And the people begin to reason. This is not the Christ, then who could do more than this? They are not yet fully formed in understanding, but the weight of the evidence is pressing them. His signs, his words, his authority, it is forcing a decision. And in verse 32, as we'll see next time, that when the Pharisees hear the crowd muttering these things, they send officers to arrest him. So the tension continues to rise. Why? Because authority is being threatened. And that thread is running through the entire chapter. Now we see the same pattern in the Old Testament in the life of Joseph. Joseph was hated by his brothers in Genesis 37. They plotted to kill him. One brother intervened. Instead of killing him, they threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery in Egypt. And Joseph was enslaved. He was falsely accused. He was imprisoned. And then by God's sovereign design, they were elevated to second in command in Egypt in Genesis 41. Years later, when his brothers stand before him fearing retaliation, Joseph says, As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in Genesis 50, verse 20. That is sovereignty. Human intent was evil, divine intent was good. Not in spite of evil, but through it. That is what we see here with Jesus. They intended harm. They questioned, they seek to arrest. But God is working a greater purpose. And this is where we struggle. We live in a culture that defines God primarily as love. And he is love, 1 John 4.8. But scripture speaks repeatedly of his glory. Isaiah 43 says, We were created for his glory. God's will is not first and foremost for our comfort, it is his glory, and our joy is found inside that glory. Romans 8 28 says, We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. All things. That includes suffering, injustice, misunderstanding. We want a God who works all things for good, but not through hard things. Yet look at Joseph, look at David, look at Jesus. The cross itself is the greatest example. Acts 22, 23 says Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Human guilt, divine decree, one event. God does not bend to our definitions. And here's the tension we have to wrestle with. Do we want a God formed in our image? Or are we willing to be formed according to his? We are comfortable with a God of love culture. But Scripture relentlessly points to a God of glory. Jesus lived for the Father's glory, John 17 4. He acted according to the Father's will, not human expectation. When we seek Scripture to know Him, to glorify Him, we will find life. When we seek Scripture to construct a God who affirms our preferences, we're going to miss Him. So the question becomes personal. Are you willing to accept who God formed you to be, where you were born, when you were born, and why you were born? Or will you cling to your own authority, just like the Pharisees, and reshape God to fit your vision? Because God will not bend to our will. But when we bend to His, we find freedom. When our lives begin to testify, not merely in song, but in speech and conduct, endurance and mercy to his greatness, his goodness, and his holiness. God delights to provide for his children in ways that magnify his glory. So the question is will we surrender our version of God to receive the true one? Let's pray. Father, open our eyes to see you as you truly are. Break down every image of you that we have formed in our minds. Teach us to trust your sovereignty even when we do not understand your ways. Form us according to your will, not our preferences. Help us to live for your glory, to find our joy in knowing you rightly. In Jesus' name, amen. I want to thank you again for joining us today. And I hope this message has helped you take a step closer in knowing just how much God loves you and wants you to know Him. Now, next time we're going to continue in John chapter 7, looking at verses 32 through 36, where Jesus says, Where I am, you cannot come. We're going to wrestle with what he meant by that and why those words stirred even greater tension among the people. Now, if anything in this message has resonated with you today, or if you have questions or comments, please visit us at thetaway. There you can send us an email, or you can click on the text us link in the episode description, as we would truly love to hear from you. God bless, and we'll see you next time on the takeaway.