“If Thou do these things, shew Thyself unto the world.” For neither did His brethren believe in Him.” John 7:4, 5 KJV
“If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” John 7:4-5 NASB
“The Lord Jesus was a Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief.” His sorrows and inward suffering arose from many sources. None, of course, apart from the cross were effective for our atonement. But all were needed that He might be “a merciful and faithful High Priest.”
For many believers, family sorrows are the most bitter and most keenly felt. Our Lord Jesus was no stranger to that source of sorrow. In John 7 we read that His own brothers did not believe in Him. Despite perhaps 25-30 years in which He lived a spotless and selfless life before them, they did not believe. Even though as the perfect Man He had loved them with pure love which always saw to their welfare, they did not believe.
Add to that sorrow the fact that their words were a repetition of the words which Satan had taunted Him with in the wilderness: “Cast Thyself down,” or show everyone Who you are! Though John does not record the temptation by Satan in the wilderness, a reading of his Gospel will show that the words of Satan with the exact same temptations were put into the mouths of men.
If, as the inspired record suggests, His brothers were not saved, it would have been a grief to Mary, the Lord’s mother. That would have been a sorrow that He also bore: the sorrow that sin was causing a godly woman. He would have sorrowed over the wasted hours and days of the lives of His brothers; and the worship of which God was being deprived.
The Lord Jesus did not crave significance or appreciation as we might. He needed nothing from men; there is nothing we can add to Him. His grief and sorrow would not be a self-pity over what He was losing. It would be sorrow over what God was not getting and at what men were missing. He would, however, feel the sorrow of rejection which springs from the effects of sin in our hearts. He would grieve over the ravages of sin all around Him.
If you can imagine the revulsion of your soul if you were exposed to the vilest of human behavior, then you can begin to have empathy with how He felt, not in the worst of company, but in the best of human society. Where others saw normal human behavior, He saw the havoc which sin had wrought in human lives. He not only suffered for sins; He suffered because of sin to which He was exposed. Each day, each hour, His holy soul was sorrowful because of all that sin had brought into God’s creation.
“Neither did His brethren believe,” was only one of the myriad of things which intensified His sorrows day by day.
It was a lonely path He trod,
From every human soul apart.
Known only to Himself and God
Was all the grief that filled His heart.
Consider:
The Lord Jesus suffered from sinners, when accused of sin, when exposed to sin, and when bearing sin on the cross.