God's Witness to the Truth: Part 2 - John 5:39-47

 

God’s Witness to the Truth, Part 2

John 5:39-47

Introduction: Remember where we started in this chapter. Jesus was in Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews, and He healed a man who had been lame for 38 years.  The miracle is another sign, revealing the glory of Messiah Jesus, the Son of God. It also encourages us that He is able to meet our deepest need. We too should look to Jesus with hope, fully experiencing the life He is offering us. The reaction of the leaders to that sign continues the language of a courtroom.  As Jesus responds to their accusations against Him, He turns the tables and it is the leaders who are on trial, and their guilt is revealed by their unbelief.  Jesus is uniquely the Son of God; as such He is the Lord of Life and the coming Judge. 

Jesus was not simply unilaterally claiming to be the Messiah and Son of God.  God had given through Moses a principle for judging testimony: “By the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established” (Dt 19:15).  If Jesus claimed to be the Messiah, with no corroborating testimony, how could anyone know if he spoke the truth?  But his claims have been clearly confirmed by the Father, through His word from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, and again at the transfiguration – He is the beloved Son, the Chosen One, in whom the Father is well pleased. But only a few heard that testimony, John at the Baptism. Peter, James, and John the apostle at the transfiguration. God gave further testimony. 1) To and  through John the Baptist; 2) Through the miracles that Jesus did, which were signs, revealing who He is; and 3) extensively and in detail, through the Scriptures, written centuries before, that spoke of his person and his work.  Jesus said in 5:37-38,

³⁷ And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,  ³⁸ and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 

The failure of the leaders to recognize that Jesus is the promised Rescuer revealed their spiritual blindness and dead hearts. They didn’t yet have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand. God’s abiding and extensive testimony is available in the Scriptures. The Bible exposes human sin, and our desperate need for a Savior. It all points to Jesus as the Promised One, God’s Son, and for believers, our Savior. May we have hearts to understand the truth!  We look at that now… 

The Big Idea: The Bible is God’s written Word, and it affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior. We’ll look at that from three perspectives: 1) The Bible is the Word of God written, and it points to Jesus as the Son of God and the Way to Life (39-40); 2) Jesus was approved of God and committed to His will, fallen humans pursue human approval (41-44); and 3) The Law exposes our need of a Savior, and points to Jesus as the Way to forgiveness and life (45-47).

I.  The Bible is the Word of God written: It points to Jesus as the Son of God and the Way to Life (39-40). 

    ³⁹ You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,  ⁴⁰ yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

Jesus had just charged the leaders with not having the Word abiding in themselves (v.38). The condemning proof was that they didn’t believe in the One whom God had sent. He then points to the written Word, something they would have devoted their lives to studying, alongside the oral traditions of the fathers. The first part of v.39 they would have proudly affirmed,  “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life…” The NIV translates, “You diligently study the Scriptures.” The term speaks to careful, diligent examination. One thing I saw when I took a couple of doctoral seminars at Princeton Seminary, someone can engage in in-depth study of the Word without a personal relationship with the God who gave the Word. They can read it as literature, or out of critical-historical interest. It is also sad for a born-again believer to neglect the reading and study of the Bible. It is God’s Word to us, we should hunger and thirst to hear His Word for us! One rabbi said that “He who has acquired the words of the Law has acquired for himself life in the world to come,” and “"Great is the law for it gives to those who practice it life in this world and in the world to come." They saw in devotion to Scripture the key to eternal life. God had indeed commanded the diligent study and teaching of His Word, for example the famous words in Dt 6…

⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise… (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

God’s Word is truly the way to life. The New Testament affirms the same truth, for example, in Romans 10:17 Paul said,  “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” Somehow the Spirit uses the Word of God, to stir faith in our hearts. Yet we need to read it with an open and sincere heart, allowing it to convict and expose us, and ultimately submitting to the Spirit as He opens our heart, illumines our understanding, and leads us to Jesus. As the writer to the Hebrews said,

¹¹ Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.  ¹² For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:11-12).

So, here in John 5:39 Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life…” And then He returns to the theme of v.38, their unbelief reveals that they have not seen in the Word its central truth: Humans are sinners in desperate need of a Savior. Their unbelief, their rejection of Jesus, revealed their spiritual blindness. Remember the Prologue, in 1:11, “He came unto His own, and His own people did not receive Him.” Here, in 5:39-40, Jesus says that though the leaders diligently search the Scriptures seeking life, they have failed to see that the Bible points to Jesus as the Way to Life. He said, “…you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (40). They did not receive Him. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (1:4). They did not have eyes to see the Light of the World, the Promised Messiah, our Great God and Savior, even as He stood before them. The evidence was clear, and they stood guilty, condemned by their unbelief. *The Bible is God’s written Word, and it affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior. 

II. Jesus was approved of God and committed to His will; fallen humans pursue human approval (41-44).

    ⁴¹ I do not receive glory from people.  ⁴² But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.  ⁴³ I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.  ⁴⁴ How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? 

       My first reaction to these verses were that Jesus seemed to be changing the subject. Reading it in the context however, it makes perfect sense. At issue is the unbelief of the leaders. Jesus says in v.41, “I do not receive glory from people.” It is similar to the language Paul used in Corinthians 4:3, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself… It is the Lord who judges me…” God’s approval, not human praise, is what mattered to Jesus, and it is what should matter to us. Jesus came to do the Father’s will. He had times of great popularity among the crowds to be sure (for example, in the next chapter when he feeds the multitude, and they want to make Him king by force!). But He knew that ultimately, doing the Father’s work would not bring popularity, it would bring rejection, it would lead to the Cross. Remember in John 3:14,

“…so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

There is a double meaning in those words. It must happen. That little word “must” (Gk, “dei”) is used in the New Testament to indicate divine necessity. The “lifting up” of the Son was necessary, He had to go to the Cross, it was why He came. But in being lifted up He is glorified, as He carries out the work the Father had given, and finally He could say from the Cross, “It is finished,” the work is done, completed, the debt is paid, the forensic basis for the salvation of all who believe, foreknown from before the foundation of the world, was provided.

       Jesus asks in v.44, “How can you believe, when you receive the glory that comes from one another, and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” If it is only human approval and popularity that matters to you, you are going to miss what is most important, eternally important, the approval of the God who is. God is real. He is the Creator. He graciously provided, in Christ, the Way for sinful humans to be reconciled to Him. By grace, through faith. He sent the Son, Jesus, as only One who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He has spoken in the Son.*The Bible is His written Word, and it affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our only Savior. 

III. The Law exposes our need of a Savior: It points to Jesus as the Way to forgiveness and life (45-47).

    ⁴⁵ Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.  ⁴⁶ If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.  ⁴⁷ But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?"

       The Jews were blessed to have been “entrusted with the oracles of God” (Rom 3:2). The God who is has spoken! For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, and a heart to understand, the word of Holy God shone as a flood light exposing the corrupt hearts of fallen humans. So exposed to God’s holiness, the filth of our sin drives us to cry out with Isaiah, “Woe unto me, I am undone! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!” (Isa 6:5). Though few have had a vision like that of Isaiah, we too can be equally exposed through the Word, convicted of our guilt before the holiness of God. Jesus says in our passage that Moses, the one in whom they have set their hope, is their accuser! The Law that God gave through Moses should drive a thoughtful reader to see their sin, and their inability to save themselves. It should move us to seek the Rescuer, the Hope of the Ages, the One of whom Moses wrote. Paul said in Romans 3:19-20,

¹⁹ Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.  ²⁰ For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

So, Paul could say to the Galatians that the Law was a school master, or guardian, to lead us to Christ [or, “until Christ came”] (Gal 3:24). In didn’t save, it exposed sin. And those so confronted, it drives to seek the Rescuer, the promised Seed, the Savior. Back in our passage, Jesus says in John 5:46, Moses wrote about Him…

       Moses of course is the human author of the first five books of the Bible. John is consciously writing His Gospel, revealing that Jesus is the One of whom Moses wrote. Moses wrote the Pentateuch, which is the introduction to and foundation of the Hebrew Scriptures. Think about what that includes. The story of Creation and the Fall, and with that, in the midst of curse on Creation because of human sin, the promise, already in Genesis 3, of the Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head.  That passage is called the “protoevangelium,” the first iteration of the Gospel, the good news of a coming Rescuer. And then in Gen 3:21 we are told that “…the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” The first animal had to be killed, by God Himself, so that the sin of Adam and Eve could be covered. They immediately were shown the meaning of death, and the need for a substitute.

       A few chapters later we see God showing His holiness, and His mercy, in the Flood of Noah’s day. Later we see the promises to the patriarchs, and His choice of the descendants of Israel as the guardians of the Word of God, and as the line through which the promised deliverer would come. God inspired Moses to write all of that history, along with the detailed requirements of the Law, which would separate His people from the pagan nations around them. And of course they kept the Law perfectly, right? Not so much. Even as God was giving the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, the people were breaking the commandments at the base of the mountain. In the historical books we see the failure of the human kings, and the hope of a future, ideal descendant of David who would have an eternal kingdom. Unbelief and unfaithfulness continues. The prophets were like prosecuting attorneys making it clear that sin would bring chastening, as Moses had warned back in Deuteronomy 27-28. Exile came, not because God’s promises had failed, but because of sin and unbelief. But even then came  promises of a remnant returning, and of a New Covenant. And in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those that were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons (Gal 4:4-5). Amazing Grace!

 What is God saying to me in this passage? *The Bible is God’s written Word, and it affirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior. 

What would God have me to do in response to this passage?

1)  Have you searched the Scriptures? Do so by all means. But don’t miss the One who is the subject of the written Word, the Living Word, Jesus. Every story, every book, is part of God’s Story. It all exposes our need, and, as a children’s Bible says in its subtitle, “every story whispers His name.” It all points to Jesus. He claimed to be the Son of God, God the Son. Jesus Christ is Lord. I urge you to read the Bible consistently, systematically, prayerfully. As you do so, always asking, what does this show about human need, about God and His commitment to His design in Creation, and how does it anticipate our Savior, Jesus. Seek and you will find!

2) God has given us His word as revelation, teaching us about who He is how we can come to Him in Christ. He also gave us the ordinances as visual reminders of the Gospel. Next week we anticipate a baptism, as a brother publicly affirms his faith in Jesus as his Savior and Lord. Today, on this first Sunday, we will follow the Lord’s instruction, sharing in the other ordinance he gave, Communion, the Lord’s Table. Baptism is done once, at the beginning of the Christian life. Since we repeat the ordinance of communion, we need to be intentional about pausing, and preparing our heart, and of participating worshipfully. Just as surely as Jesus reclined at the table with His disciples, He is present as we celebrate in His name! AMEN.