After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him. Now the Jews' Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” For not even his brothers believed in him. Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee. (John 7:1-9)
There is a
well-known Christian evangelist named Ray Comfort who begins his sharing of the
good news by walking people through the 10 commandments. He sees that “since
through the law comes knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20), people need to see themselves
first measured by the law so they realize they are condemned sinners, and then
to hear the good news of great joy that God has given us a Savior, Jesus Christ
our Lord, who came into the world to save sinners.
Today I noticed
that, when Jesus was explaining to his brothers why he wasn’t ready to go to
the “feast of booths” in Jerusalem, he distinguished between them and him by
the fact that they were of no threat to the world’s worldliness because they
were part of the religious world system of Israel, while he was a threat to the
world system of Israel because he was testifying “about it that its works are
evil.”
One thing that
really stood out was Jesus’ use of “the world” in relation to Israel. Israel’s
spiritual standing before God was so lost that Jesus identified it as “the
world”. The same world the Romans and Greeks lived in. It was the world system
operating without God. That world would hate him because he was not of the
world. He had a kingdom that was not of the world. Israel was not of his
kingdom because it was of the world. And, at that time, so were Jesus’ earthly
brothers.
What Jesus was
saying was that Israel’s worldly hatred toward him was based on him testifying
that their works were evil. What they were doing as a nation was evil. There
were some faithful ones in the mix (Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, Simeon,
Anna, John the Baptist, etc), but the nation itself was of the world. And it
hated being told that it was living in sin, particularly because they were such
good religious people.
As I pondered this
in prayer, it then stood out how the reference to “the world” is used in John’s
gospel. That famous verse, John 3:16, states it clearly, “For God so loved the
world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish but have eternal life.” For a long time, I have noticed the contrast
between God loving Israel (as seen throughout the Old Testament), and God
loving the other nations. John 3:16 is Jesus words to Nicodemus, a leader in
Israel, identifying that the message of love God had communicated to them was
for “the world”, meaning, all nations. But it also means that Israel was part
of that world as well and needed the same salvation as the despised Romans,
Greeks, and Samaritans of the day.
All of this
together got me realizing that if the world loves the message, the messenger is
likely NOT addressing that “its works are evil.” On the other hand, those who
know the good news of great joy the best know that “through the law comes
knowledge of sin” (Romans 3:20) leads to,
For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:22-25)
You see, even there
it’s “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” as a necessary-to-believe
truth that prepares hearts for “and are justified by his grace as a gift…” Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, so he told them the truth about their sin
(which is why the worldlings hated him), and told them the truth about the so
great salvation he would secure through his death (which is why the
poor-in-spirit sinners loved him).
We all know that Jesus
did not only go around testifying to the sinfulness of the world. He didn’t say
that was the whole message, only that it was the part of the message that
caused the world to hate him. But it was a necessary thing for people to know
that only because God put Jesus “forward as a propitiation by his blood” to
deal with the evil in us can we have a redemption that is “received by faith”.
The reason “repent”
and “believe” must always be kept together (even when one is used as a summary
for the whole) is because repentance focuses on changing our minds about our
evil deeds so that what we once loved we now hate, and faith focuses on
changing our minds about the triune God so that the God we once hated we now
attach to in childlike trust and love.
I am ever so
thankful that God has been quick and relentless to call me out on my evil
deeds. By seeing that I was,
dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. (Ephesians 2:1-3),
I could also see how,
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:4-7)
Earlier in John’s
gospel we read, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world,
and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were
evil” (John 3:19). Today we see how Jesus became hated by the world because he
was calling them out on their evil works in order to open their hearts to the
good news. Many continued loving the darkness, their very religious darkness,
while others heard the good news that there was a kind of redemption from sin
they had never experienced, and they came into Jesus’ kingdom to have it.
So, what is your
reaction to Jesus putting the spotlight on your evil works?
And does your
answer show you where you stand with him?
© 2026
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
