The appeal to Jesus on the part of his unbelieving brothers.
I. THE OCCASION OF THIS APPEAL. "But the Jews' Feast of Tabernacles was at hand."
1. It was the last and greatest of the three yearly feasts, and occurred in our month of October.
2. It was intended at once to commemorate the forty years' wandering in the wilderness, and also to celebrate the ingathering of the yearly harvest.
3. The pilgrims, as well as the inhabitants of Jerusalem, left their houses for seven days to dwell in tents made of boughs. The feast was at once a solemn and a happy time.
II. THE APPEAL OF THE BROTHERS. "Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest."
1. Who were these brothers? They are not disciples, for they expressly exclude themselves from this class by their own words (John 7:3). The evangelist says expressly (John 7:5)they were not believers, and Jesus implies by his answer that they are not, for the hatred of the world could not touch them (John 7:7). The head of the brethren was James, afterwards chief pastor at Jerusalem.
2. It is this unbelieving attitude that explains their appeal. "For neither did his brethren believe in him."
(a) by the unnatural desire to see him sacrificed to the fury of his enemies,
(b) nor by an eagerness to precipitate events in his own honour,
(c) but rather by their anxiety to put an end to the equivocal position in which he stood in their eyes.
( α) They had known him so familiarly from childhood that his claims were hard to understand.
( β) They thought that he ought to submit his claims to Messiahship to those most competent to judge of their value. "For no man doeth anything in secret"—Galilee was an obscure corner of the land, far from the centre of ecclesiastical interest—"himself seeking to be famous. If thou doest these things, show thyself to the world."
( γ) The capital was the appropriate place for the recognition of his mission, and the approaching feast presented a favourable opportunity for making it known to Jews from all parts of the world.
III. OUR LORD'S ANSWER TO THE APPEAL.
1. His time was not yet come. "My time is not yet come."
(a) There was nothing discordant between the views of the brethren and the views of the world. There was a moral sympathy between them that made it impossible his brothers should risk anything by going to the feast.
(b) The world's hatred to Christ had its origin in his faithful testimony against its evil. He had roused its antagonism by his rebukes of Pharisaic hypocrisy and wickedness. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world; and men have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." The works were evil,
( α) because they were done, not according to Divine command, but according to the tradition of the elders;
( β) because they were done from a wrong principle, not from faith and love;
( γ) because they were done with a wrong motive, not the glory of God, but "to be seen of men."
2. He commands his brothers to go up to the feast. "Go ye up unto this feast: for me, I go not up to this feast, because my time is not yet fully come."
3. Our Lord's secret departure for Jerusalem. "When he had said these words unto them, he abode in Galilee. But when his brethren were gone up to the feast, then went he also up." The passage does not say that he went up to the feast at all. Contrast the privacy of this journey with the publicity of his solemn final entry into Jerusalem (John 12:12).