45 Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?” 46 The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!” 47 Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived? 48 Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him? 49 But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”
7:45
Then the officers came to the chief priests and Pharisees,
The temple guards who were assigned to arrest Jesus came to report to the members of the Sanhedrin at their official meeting (Jn 7:30, 32).
who said to them, “Why have you not brought Him?”
The guards came to the Sanhedrin without fulfilling their assigned task of apprehending Jesus. An obvious question arose out of this: “Why did you not arrest Jesus?”
7:46
The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this Man!”
The temple guards answered that Jesus’ communication was completely unique. They were fully moved by Him.
7:47
Then the Pharisees answered them, “Are you also deceived?
The Pharisees were not impressed by the temple guards’ response. They accused the guards of being deceived by a religious charlatan. All temple guards were Levites who were trained in theology, not brutal thugs, so they had some moxie about the Old Testament.
7:48
Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in Him?
The Pharisees had a fear that other “rulers” might believe on Jesus. Nicodemus had, in fact, believed on Jesus. However, he did not make his decision public. The assumption by the Pharisees was that no one educated in theology would make this decision. Only the stupid mob would believe in Him.
7:49
But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”
The Pharisees implied that the general population was too ignorant to understand that a decision for Jesus put them under a curse from the Bible (Dt 28:15). “What does this riffraff and rabble know?” The irony was that it was the Pharisees who were under the curse.
PRINCIPLE:
Religious pride is the foundation for apostasy.
APPLICATION:
There are religious teachers today who view themselves as the spiritual elite. The foundation of religious error is pride. This was Satan’s problem when he fell from being a good angel. He said, “I will be like the Most High.”
This kind of mentality views others as obscurantist, gullible, uneducated, and simple minded. From this viewpoint, only these special people hold the truth; no one can come to their special understanding without their help.
