43 So there was a division among the people because of Him. 44 Now some of them wanted to take Him, but no one laid hands on Him.
The divided opinions about Jesus’ identity allowed Him to continue to minister without being arrested.
7:43
So there was a division among the people because of Him.
This verse summarizes the division of people currently in Jerusalem. There were different conclusions about Jesus.
7:44
Now some of them wanted to take Him,
There was a strong desire by some to arrest Jesus. This was the third attempt to imprison Jesus.
but no one laid hands on Him.
The divided opinion about Christ meant that no one tried to arrest Jesus because it might cause riots in the streets of Jerusalem.
PRINCIPLE:
Divisions are natural where truth is at stake.
APPLICATION:
The result of the dispute about Christ was that groups listening to Him were split. Nothing good comes from splits like these because people remain in a vicious cycle of debate. Everyone remains in a standoff about Christ.
Jesus said that recognition of who and what He is causes division (Mt 10:34). Truth always forces people into a decision. When it comes to Jesus, the issue is either-or, not both-and. Either He is who He claims to be or He is a fraud.
Finite man does not have the capacity to come to truth by his reason. God must take the initiative to reveal eternal truth (Jn 6:44). Our responsibility is not to initiate truth but to discover it. We cannot discover it without God igniting our presuppositions about truth.
When we listen to various debates on television, we get the impression that there is equivalence between the two positions, as if there is a moral equivalence between every issue. Jesus said, “I am the truth.” He is ultimate truth. There is no equivalence in that. God must help us to come to certainty about what is true. No one can have ears to hear eternal truth without God’s initiative. He is the One who launches our ultimate presupposition about what we believe.
