Tuesday after the Eighth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 1, 2023 by under
Scripture: St. John 7:14-24 (NKJV)
7:14 Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught. 15 And the Jews marveled, saying, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?”
16 Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me. 17 If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority. 18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him. 19 Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”
20 The people answered and said, “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?”
21 Jesus answered and said to them, “I did one work, and you all marvel. 22 Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath? 24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
Devotion
Yesterday we heard Jesus say, “…these sayings of Mine…” Today, Jesus says, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” So which is it? First of all, we need to be careful that we do not think Jesus doesn’t know what He is saying.
We do well to go back to the Athanasian Creed to understand that Jesus is not contradicting Himself: “Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood; Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ: One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking the manhood into God; One altogether; not by confusion of Substance, but by unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ.” So when Jesus says, “these sayings of Mine,” He isn’t lying. He is God, and God’s Word is His Word. Yet, when Jesus says, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me,” He isn’t lying either, because according to His humanity Jesus, true Man, is delivering the Word that has been given to Him by His Father.
True men still deliver God’s Word to His people. When the called and ordained servant of the Word, the pastor, brings God’s Word to you in all its truth and purity, he comes with the authority that God the Father gave to His Incarnate Son.
Prayer: Grant to us, Lord, we beseech Thee, the Spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without Thee, may by Thee be enabled to live according to Thy will; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
