His hour was not yet come

Today’s passage is framed by time: ‘my time is not yet come’, v. 6, and ‘his hour was not yet come’, v. 30. In a Gospel packed with evidences (supernatural knowledge, sign miracles, fulfilment of scripture), His unfailing movement according to an eternal divine timetable is yet another testimony to the deity of Christ.

Of course the God whose name is I AM has no problems with time, being infinitely above and beyond it. And yet, ‘when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son’, Gal. 4. 4, so that in the miracle of incarnation the eternal Son wonderfully stooped to enter the temporal and spatial. The word ‘hour’ appears twenty-six times as John uniquely establishes with his careful references to the Jewish feasts a time sequence for the earthly ministry of Christ, 5. 1; 6. 4; 7. 2; 10. 22; 11. 55. His book ranges from brief time spans (thirty-eight years, three days, the tenth hour) to the vastness of eternity itself. It begins with an echo of Genesis chapter 1 verse 1, and ends with an anticipation of Revelation chapter 22 verse 20 (‘till I come’). Indeed, in chapter 11 the Lord Jesus demonstrates His deity by fast forwarding an advance preview of the ‘last day’ in the selective resurrection of Lazarus, John 11. 24-25.

In John chapter 7 reference to the hour is a reminder that with God there can be no accidents, no hastes, and no delays. Like the Lord’s unbelieving step-brothers, man always wants to rush ahead: ‘your time is alway ready’, 7. 6. But God’s steady programme is inviolable. The Lord Jesus is our model, gladly submitting Himself to the Father’s timing, v. 8. Even sinful men with no awareness of the divine purpose behind history found themselves, without any violation of their human responsibility, having to surrender to a pre-written calendar of events: ‘they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come’, v. 30. The Son rested in the Father’s plan and so can we. Every believer can confidently say, ‘My times are in thy hand’, Ps. 31. 15, for, as C. H. SPURGEON reminds us, ‘We are not waifs and strays upon the ocean of fate, but are steered by infinite wisdom. Providence is a soft pillow for anxious heads’. Our God is always in control.