THE WISDOM OF NICODEMUS

John 7:44-53 And some of them would have taken Him; but no man laid hands on Him. Then came the officers to the chief priests and Pharisees; and they said unto them, Why have ye not brought Him? The officers answered, Never man spake like this Man. Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived? Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him? But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. Nicodemus saith unto them, (he that came to Jesus by night, being one of them,) doth our law judge any man, before it hear Him, and know what He doeth? They answered and said unto him, Art thou also of Galilee? Search, and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet. And every man went unto his own house.

At the beginning of this chapter of the gospel according to John, Jesus had made plans to celebrate the feast of tabernacles in Jerusalem and had now arrived in that city (Vs. 1-10). Now, about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and taught (Vs. 14). The message He taught was not His own, but was the doctrine of God that had sent Him (Vs. 16). He accused the Jewish leaders of not receiving Him as God's Son because, due to their corruption of the Mosaic Law, they had abandoned the wisdom of God and replaced it with the doctrine of mankind - the traditions of the elders. The reason they didn't know Jesus was because they didn't know God, His Heavenly Father (See Vss. 25-27). The multitude was divided in its opinion of Jesus' identity. Some contended Him to be a prophet; others said He was the Christ; some denied Him to be either because they believed Him to be a Galilean (See Vss. 40-43).

Because of their indecision some of them would have taken Him, or had a mind to take Him, but refrained from doing so for fear of some of the Jewish people that believed in Jesus' deity. No doubt those that wished Jesus to be taken captive, tried, and slain were the ones that were influenced by the Jewish leaders into denying Him to be the promised Messiah and considered His claim to be the Son of God as blasphemous. However, because of those that accepted Him as the Savior of mankind and others that were doubtful, no man laid hands on Him. This is the same reaction of the multitude that John wrote about in the preceding verse 30, but there it appeard that the militant Jews did not take Jesus because God prevented them from doing so - because His hour was not yet come.

We note in verse 32 above, that the Jewish leaders had sent officers, the Sanhedrin's designated temple police, to take Jesus captive. Now, here in verse 45 we find those officers returning without having arrested Jesus. They had the Sanhedrin's authority to do so, and, in number, they most certainly had the military might to take one meek, nonviolent Jew into custody. But since they returned without Jesus, this prompted the chief priests and Pharisees to ask them why they disobeyed their orders - Why have ye not brought Him?

It seems that these officers came to Jesus at the very moment He was teaching the multitude significant tenets of the New Covenant doctrine He was sent by God to deliver to the people. They seemed to become awed by, not only the message He delivered, but also the knowledge He possessed as well as the eloquence in which He preached to the Jews that were gathered in the temple. Their reply to the Jewish leaders was, not that they were fearful some violent reaction of the multitude, but of profound, reverential fear. They said,Never man spake like this Man. Their answer brought an immediate, severe rebuke for their disobedient failure to take Jesus into their custody. In a scathing charge for their insubordination, the Pharisees asked this rhetorical question: Are ye also deceived? These leaders disregarded all of Jesus' miracles saying that Satan himself designed them, which made Jesus an imposter. In the form of another rhetorical question they further told the Jewish people that they should not believe Jesus to be the Messiah, because, as their spiritual leaders, not any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him. Verse 49 tells us how spiritually ignorant the Jewish leaders thought the Jewish people, the unlearned multitudes, to be. They considered them to be cursed, that is, ignorant of the Jewish law and easily led astray.

Then came the wisdom of Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin. No doubt he was a wealthy, educated, and well respected in this governing body of the Jewish nation, as well as among the average Jewish people. This was the same man, after having heard of His miracles, came to Jesus by night desiring to learn more from Him as a teacher come from God (See John 3:1-21). In defense of Jesus on this occasion, Nicodemus questioned these Jewish leaders by asking, Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth? The Law of Moses demanded righteous judgment without respect to the social status of that person (Lev. 19:15); judgments were not to be decided based on the testimony of unrighteous witnesses bearing false reports (Ex. 23:1-2); accusations of wickedness against any person can only be established by two or more righteous witnesses (Deut. 19:15-19). It is evident that Nicodemus knew the law under which the Sanhedrin was bound to righteously judge the miracles and teaching of Jesus.

Irritated by the cautioning recommendation of Nicodemus, the other members of the Sanhedrin scathingly condemned him as being a follower of Jesus, Whom they falsely called a man of Galilee. They asked him, Art thou also of Galilee? Immediately they told Nicodemus to thoroughly search for evidence that any prophet ever came out of Galilee, and therefore neither could Jesus be a prophet of God, since they had assumed that He came from the Palestinian province of Galilee. However the false wisdom of these members of the Sanhedrin was demonstrated in this accusation, because Jonah, Elijah, and Nahum were all prophets of God coming from Galilee (See 2 Kings 14:25, 1 Kings 17:1, Nah.1:1 respectively).

With the life of Jesus Christ on earth continuing, and being prolonged by the mighty hand of God until the time appointed for His departure, the instance recorded here, depicting the wisdom of Nicodemus, concludes when every man went unto his own house.