A Sovereignly Delayed Time
4/11/25 Bible Thought (John 7)
Reading through the Gospel of John, we find Jesus testifying to His hour or time that will be coming again and again. Right at the outset, at the wedding in Cana, Jesus responds to His mother, “My hour has not yet come” (Jn. 2:4).
We see this again in John 7. His brothers desire to see Him go and do mighty works in Judea. They wanted proof He was the Messiah, for at that time they didn’t believe in Him (Jn. 7:5). They expected some credentials. (Now, we do know that later, Jesus’ half brothers James and Jude would come to faith and write the letters bearing their names in the New Testament. James would also be the leader of the church in Jerusalem). Yet, at this time, they didn’t believe, and they desired for Jesus to go and work signs and prove Himself.
To this, the Lord responds, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here” (Jn. 7:6). He would later go to the feast and would remain incognito until the end when He taught in the temple.
What is important for us to notice and remember though is that the Son’s will was always to do the Father’s will. As He said back in John 4:34, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.”
As such, everything in His life was under the sovereign direction of Almighty God. His growing popularity was in God’s hands. Truly, His miracles were authenticators that He was sent by the Father, and they were in alignment with His will and given at His time.
Jesus wasn’t going to be manipulated by His earthly family or even His disciples. He wouldn’t work miracles on demand like some sort of circus act. Every step He took in life until the final step of death was in alignment with the Father’s sovereign decree.
So, His popularity, His hatred, and His death were in higher hands than man’s. In John 12:23 as His earthly days were nearing an end He declared, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” On the eve of His death, John records that Jesus knew, “his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father” (Jn. 13:1).
His hour came as His life tragically ended on Golgotha’s hill, but again, this was the Father’s purpose.
Peter recounts it so well in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost when he lays the blame for the Messiah’s death at the people’s feet by saying,
“this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:23-24).
It was their sin that was to blame. Yet, all along it was the Father’s plan! The scandalous, unjust, and fraudulent trial that convicted Jesus the Christ by the hands of sinful men was also God’s display of love for the world (Jn. 3:16; Rom. 5:8)! It was what the Father ordained beforehand.
He is sovereign through and through, His will will be done and we see this again and again in the earthly ministry of the Son of God. Until His hour came, no one could touch Him for good or for evil.
If God was sovereign then, He’s still sovereign now, and He’ll be sovereign tomorrow. It’s who He is! This same God that perfectly planned the atonement at the hands of rebellious men is at work in the world today to bring the knowledge of Him to a lost and dying world.
I find this truth incredibly comforting as we are regularly exposed to just how sin-stained and broken our earthly home is.