NOTES for Joh 7:47-49
It would seem that the best witness is the manifestation of what those to whom you witness are waiting for. In Gospel times people spoke, argued, and preached a great deal about the Messiah and the messianic Kingdom. They argued about what it would be like, this Kingdom. About what the Messiah would be like and how He would come. And now at last the One appears who bears witness to the Kingdom not in words but in deed. At this point, it would seem, there is nothing left to say or argue about: "come to Me and drink." What else is there to argue over? What further proof is needed when one can simply come and taste? But it turns out that this is not simple for everyone.
For some people, conformity to criteria they themselves have invented is still important, and otherwise even the Kingdom is not the Kingdom. Why is this so? The people accept it, but they are no authority; they are "ignorant of the Torah." The authority is the one who thinks as we do, the guardians and bearers of tradition. And here is the paradox: the very Torah that for Paul, for example, became a tutor leading the apostle to Christ became for the "guardians and bearers" a wall separating them from Christ and from the Kingdom.
How and why does this happen? Of course, the issue here is not the Torah as such. The issue is precisely tradition. And perhaps not even tradition as such, but the fact that this tradition is put in first place. It becomes an end in itself. That is how religion is born when it hides from a person the living Revelation, Christ, the Kingdom. And the issue here is not the Torah as such. The Torah was given precisely as living Revelation. It was given in order to mark out for a person the spiritual path that should lead him to God. To Christ. Into the Kingdom. It is at once a map of the spiritual path and a spiritual compass given to a person by God.
And it is also an instrument for spiritual work. But it also happens that potential travelers, carried away by maps and guidebooks, remain only virtual travelers. For a long time. Sometimes for their whole life. And an entire tradition of such virtual travel takes shape. But if a real traveler suddenly enters such a community, the outcome may be very different from what that real traveler had counted on.
They simply will not accept him there. He is a violator of tradition. Even if he is the very author of those maps and guidebooks, popularity among virtual travelers is by no means guaranteed to him. They have their own priorities and their own authorities. No one is waiting for outsiders. So it is with those for whom religion has become an end in itself, the virtual travelers of the spiritual world: even the Author Himself of their maps and guidebooks is no authority to them. They know His Kingdom better than He does. And no "ignorant people of the Torah" will persuade them otherwise, even if in the heart of one of those "ignorant people" there is the whole fullness of the Kingdom.