Q. In John 7, Jesus tells his brothers he’s not going to go to the Festival of Tabernacles, but then he goes anyway. By faith I’m accepting that this is not sinful deception, but do you have any thoughts about why it’s not?
I don’t address this question specifically when I come to this episode in the John study guide, but I do note earlier in the guide (pp. 27-28) that often in conversations between Jesus and others:
“Jesus speaks of spiritual realities, but his listeners misunderstand him and think he’s speaking about material realities. They ask questions to try to clear up the confusion, and this gives Jesus (or John, speaking as the narrator) the opportunity to explain the spiritual realities further.”
I discuss this dynamic specifically in the cases of people like Nicodemus and the woman at the well, and the same thing is going on when Jesus speaks with his brothers here.
When he says, “I am not going up to this festival, because my time has not yet fully come,” his brothers think he’s speaking on a material level and saying that it’s not a convenient or strategic time for him to travel to Jerusalem. But since he does then go to Jerusalem, readers of the gospel are supposed to understand that this wasn’t what he meant. Instead, his reference to “my time” (a richly symbolic phrase in this gospel) shows that he means he won’t be “going up,” that is, ascending to the Father after dying as the Savior of the world, at this particular festival, but rather at a later Passover.
Raymond Brown, in his excellent commentary on John in the Anchor Bible series, observes that “John is giving us a play on the verb anabainein, which can mean go up in pilgrimage to Mount Zion and Jerusalem, and can also mean ‘to ascend.’ In 20:17 Jesus uses this verb when he speaks of ascending to the Father, and that is the deeper meaning here.”
So this is one of the many places in John’s gospel where a deeper meaning lies behind Jesus’ words and where the difficulty we have in understanding those words should drive us to seek that deeper meaning. (“How can someone be born when they are old? Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb!” “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?”) Accepting by faith, as you did, that Jesus is not being deceptive is the first step in discovering the true, rich, saving meaning of his words.
Good Question 
I was wondering the same thing not too long ago. Thanks Chris!! š
I am Catholic, and I like to congratulate you for the explanation on Jn 7:8-10. I read many dissertations about this Bible passage whose authors tried to explain adding words and blaming bad translations etc. Yours came out directly from the Holy Spirit. Thank you for helping me to clarify this doubt that was burning my heart. I respect you and God bless you.
Thank you very much for these encouraging words. I’m glad the explanation in the post was helpful to you. I have to acknowledge Raymond E. Brown’s commentary on John as the real source of the insights I shared in the post. I recommend that commentary for everything it has to say about John’s gospel.
The Feast of Booths was also one of the events that all the males were commanded to attend. It would have been a sin for Christ not to go, and his brothers would have known this. For me, this adds weight to the “not yet” interpretation that his brothers seem to have understood. Perhaps later they also understood the word play. Are there any commentaries that mention the compulsory visit to Jerusalem in this context?