A Difference Between Choosing and Knowing

August 25, 2009, 8:09 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 7

I had forgotten the controversy over the Gospel of John and anti-Semitic teachings in the European society until reading this chapter. Even though it is clear that John uses the term “the Jews” in positive, neutral, and negative connotations, it is also true that something sparked anti-Semitism throughout Europe for nearly a millennia.  There is no disputing that the Jews were treated horribly during the Inquisition (1288) and all the way up to the Holocaust (1938).  One book that I want to get my hands on is “The World and the Jews in the Fourth Gospel” by Lars Kierspel.  It seems to be an apology for the misinterpretation from the Gospel of John that allowed for this anti-Semitism to grow.  Even though many modern apologist will vehemently attempt to separate the Gospel of John from anti-Semitism, historical documents do indicate that due to the poor translations of this Gospel anti-Semitism grew from mistranslations of this Gospel.  Which begs the question: it was the Kings James Version that was in use during this growth of anti-Semitism, why should this translation be kept?

But of course, this is not the topic of this chapter.  This is story of Jesus choosing to go to the Feast of the Tabernacles at his own time.  Early in this chapter his “disbelieving” brothers (including James?) teased him about going to the Feast.  Jesus uses this as a chance to tell them that it is not “his time”, even though shortly after that, well, actually it was “his time”.  It would seem that Jesus just did not want it to look like he was accepting their “dare you”.  So he goes to the Festival (even though it is not “his time”) secretly and begins to teach the masses. 

This is one of the first circular reasoning used in the Word of God.  The concept that you must already be doing the work of YHWH to discover if Jesus was from YHWH is circular reasoning at its best.  Basically, Jesus is claiming that if you are following me then you will know that he is from YHWH, if you don’t follow him you cannot know that he is from YHWH.  Here is where Atheists have the biggest problem with any supernatural teaching.  Buddhism, Wiccan, Scientology, and Alchemy also teach this same philosophy.  Basically, it works like this: before you can believe you must be “roped in”.  Once you are “roped in” it is more difficult to un-entangle yourself before you find out that at least one of these “faiths” is wrong.  In the particular case of Christianity, getting tangled up in the “wrong” faith is even more devious.  Since many of them are mutually exclusive, once you are in the “wrong” denomination your sense of spiritual balance is forever skewed.  Then you are in a quagmire of logical discontinuities that make no sense.  And since you “chose” the wrong denomination to start with, YHWH is unwilling (or unable) to clarify the muddy water that you now find yourself in.  As a result, many (if not most) people stay in the denomination that their families belong to.  Yet these denominations teach Traditions of Men that will no doubted lead to sin and to the punishment of four generations of innocent people.  All because:

John 7:17 If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teachings comes from god or whether I speak on my own.

It is a wonderfully insidious trap of join my religion to find out if my religion is correct, but you cannot find out (if this is correct) unless you join!   Since there are now 45,000 denominations to choice from, one lifetime is too short to “try them all”. 

Jesus does seem to be persuasive.  Many people (Jews) begin to question if he is their Messiah.  But somehow all these people in Jerusalem know that he is from Galilee.  This is sort of like heading to New York City, without a name badge, and everyone knowing that I am from Tennessee.  Maybe he had a thick Galilean accent!  In the end the same people who wanted to kill Jesus from the start of the chapter (the Jewish authorities) still want to kill him, yet many people believe that he is at least a Prophet. 

One of the other odd verses in this chapter is this one:

John 7:33-34 Jesus said, “I am with you for only a short time, and then I go to the one who sent me.  You will look for me, but you will not find me, and where I am, you cannot come.”

Does this mean that many who will look for Jesus cannot come to Heaven?  Or is he pointing out a simple fact that a living person cannot follow a dead person?  Other places in the Word of God do make it clear that those seeking him will not always find him (Matt 7:14, Acts 17:27, Mark 25:1-13).  This line of reasoning leads to this verse:

Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.

If we are all lost, Jesus is not seeking.   All he would have to do is point there, and there, and there.  Yet it is obvious that only some will be allowed to understand and “be saved”.  The implications are that we cannot choose to follow Jesus “there is no on/off switch to believe”. (h/t to Mark at the Proud Atheists blog).

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