Navarre Bible Commentary:Saturday, 4th Week in Lent

Christ the Redeemer

John 7:40-53

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

Division among the People

40 When they heard these words, some of the people said, “This is really the prophet.” 41 Others said, “This is the Christ.” But some said, “Is the Christ to come from Galilee? 42 Has not the scripture said that the Christ is descended from David, and comes from Bethlehem, the village where David was?” 43 So there was a division among the people over him. 44 Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him.

The Unbelief of Those in Authority

45 The officers then went back to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” 46 The officers answered, “No man ever spoke like this man!” 47 The Pharisees answered them, “Are you led astray, you also? 48 Have any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? 49 But this crowd, who do not know the law, are accursed.” 50 Nicode′mus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, 51 “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?”52 They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee.”53 They went each to his own house,

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraph 574, 575, 588 and 595.

Commentary

Different opinions about Jesus

7:40–43. “The prophet” refers to Deuteronomy 18:18, which predicts the coming of a prophet during the last times, a prophet to whom all must listen (cf. Jn 1:21; 6:14); and “the Christ” (“the Messiah”) was the title most used in the Old Testament to designate the future Saviour whom God would send. This passage shows us, once again, the range of people’s attitudes towards Jesus. Many Jews—not taking the trouble to check—did not know that he had been born in Bethlehem, the city of David, where Micah (5:2) says the Lord will be born. It was their own fault that they used this ignorance as an excuse for not accepting Christ. Others, however, realized from his miracles that he must be the Messiah. The same pattern prevails throughout history: some people see him simply as an extraordinary man, not wanting to admit that his greatness comes precisely from the fact that he is the Son of God.

7:46. The truth begins to influence the straightforward souls of the servants of the Sanhedrin but it cannot make headway against the obstinacy of the Pharisees. “Notice that the Pharisees and scribes derive no benefit either from witnessing miracles or reading the Scriptures; whereas their servants, without these helps, were captivated by a single discourse, and those who set out to arrest Jesus went back under the influence of his authority. And they did not say, ‘We cannot arrest him, the people will not let us’; instead they extolled Christ’s wisdom. Not only is their prudence admirable, for they did not need signs; it is also impressive that they were won over by his teaching on its own; they did not say, in effect, ‘No man has ever worked such miracles,’ but ‘No man ever spoke like this man.’ Their conviction also is worthy of admiration: they go to the Pharisees, who were opposed to Christ, and address them in the way they do” (St John Chrysostom, Hom. on St John, 9).

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

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"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome