“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.
31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.
32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true.
33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.
35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.
36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
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.
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. 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?
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 For 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?”
Sometimes hearts are so hard that God leaves them as a testimony to man’s rebellion. We have that illustrated for us this morning in our text. The religious leaders
simply will not because they do not want to believe that Jesus is who He says He is.
When Jesus says that if he bore witness of himself his witness is not true, he is not saying his testimony is false. Jesus knows that the Law of Moses requires a matter
being established by two or more witnesses. In effect Jesus is saying: If I merely bore witness of myself then you might be suspicious and think I have no case…So, Jesus is going to present his testimonies, four of them, that speak to the truth of who He is.
The testimonies are John the Baptist, the signs that He does, the Father and Moses.
Let’s start with Moses, verses 45-47. Jesus really confuses them by telling them that Moses testifies about Jesus. Moses wrote, Jesus says, about Jesus. You
have to appreciate the fact that the Jewish religious leaders would have thought themselves to have Abraham and Moses on their side. The Jews put their trust in Moses as the great prophet, and yet Jesus tells them that they do not even
understand Moses and that Moses would and will, reject them….for if they did understand Moses they would rejoice in Christ, because Christ is the point of all that Moses lived for as well as the focus of all the revelation that Moses received from heaven. To
believe the writings of Moses, is to believe Jesus.
Everything in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, tells us about Jesus…All preaching, from all parts of the Bible, has to have Christ at the center of it, or it
misses the point. The Pharisees missed this completely. But so do many today. Much of Christian teaching borders on the same thing, moral lessons for life…the moral of the story is be nice, don’t do drugs, have a good self-image, but where is Christ, where
is grace, where is redemption?
In verse 37-40, Jesus says that another witness is the Father Himself. Jesus tells the religious leaders that their reverence for God is a sham, it is all pretend.
That the truth of the matter is that they are ignorant of God’s mind and their zeal for Him was blind fanaticism. They knew no more of His mind, than they knew of His shape or His form, as Jesus says in verse 37.
Now you might be tempted to read this and say, “Well, so what if they did not hear the voice of God, lots of people don’t hear the voice of God.” But you will
notice as you read your bible, the connection between hearing God and the Word of God, in fact we see the connection in this text.
The Scriptures are the voice of God to His people. Jesus tells them, “You think you know the Bible, in this case the OT, but you are completely clueless about what
the Bible teaches, you are NOT hearing God’s voice, but you should be.”
They do not believe what the Word is saying, because the Word is speaking all about Jesus. Jesus says in verse 43 that an evidence of their unbelief is that they seek
honor from one another, and do not seek the honor of God, which would be to submit to the claims of the Word, and Jesus IS THE WORD.
In verse 36 Jesus says that the works that He did testify and bear witness of Him. The works that Jesus did, puzzled the religious leaders, what were they to say about
them? Even Nicodemus began his discussion with Jesus by saying, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher from God for no one can do these signs that you do
unless God is with him.” As you read your bible’s note that the miracles of Jesus were mighty in number, he did not do just a couple here and there. They
were not little, but mighty interferences with the ordinary course of nature. They were public, they were generally not done in a corner, but in the open and before many to see and hear and often done in the very presence of his enemies. These works were direct
appeals to men’s senses. They were visible and verifiable, people saw them, felt them, heard them and were astounded by them…and all the religious leaders could think about was how to get rid of Jesus.
I saved John the Baptist’s witness for last because there are some particular applications for us in John’s life and testimony. The Jews themselves would not deny
that John was a prophet and at first, they too, were taken by the Baptist and excited about what he was saying and doing.
In verse 35 Jesus pays him high honor, as Jesus has done elsewhere, calling him a burning and shining lamp and reminds the Pharisees and Scribes that they too, for
a time, were pretty excited about John.
At first John had quite a bit of popularity and everyone was excited about the new guy, the new preacher and boy is he ever different from what they were used to.
However, pretty soon, the excitement wore off, and people, especially the religious folks tired of his constant demanding that men repent and prepare for the kingdom of heaven…I mean, John actually expected people…to humble themselves, to repent and to follow
this One called the Messiah!
After a short while John’s message began irritating them greatly. It wasn’t what they wanted to hear; it began to disturb their comfortable religious lifestyles. They
had been part of the religious community for a long time now and had good seats in the synagogue, in fact they had been leaders at the church since John was just a little boy. But just because people say they know God and have a long history in the church
doesn’t mean that they have a biblical image of God, as the religious leaders prove, the longer they have hung around religion the greater the chance that they have acquired some false ideas about God. It seems the religious leaders were thinking: Wait a minute,
it is one thing to call HEROD a sinner, which remember John did, and publicly at that, but he is actually acting as though I am in some way unworthy for the kingdom, He thinks I need to repent of MY sin, like I am some kind of sinner…and….he won’t let
up!!!
John seemed little affected by his popularity. We have no evidence that John was moved when he was great, and even less that he was bothered when his popularity waned.
John knew that he was to burn and to shine and he did so with equal zeal and luster right up until the last, even though the people changed their thoughts of him. He was not concerned with man’s thoughts of him, but rather, he was concerned with what heaven
thought of him. He came as a no one, he became very popular, very quickly, but when he would not change his message or water down his convictions, he lost his popularity as quickly as he gained it.
John is an interesting study for us, and if truth be told we would love to keep John to himself, that is, we don’t want to think that he is in some way an example
for us…his life was so…well, extreme. We know that we are to surrender to Jesus, but not as radical as John, right? We speak of surrender to Christ but many can’t even surrender an evening around the television to disciple their children. Whose applause are
we living too…really? To whom do we look to be told, well done?
There is something about John that attracts us to him; something about him that we want to be more true of ourselves…something about him that we are missing today,
and, and there is something in him that frightens us to the core of our being. Here is the thing about John the Baptist…he lived in perfect freedom because he lived without veneer, without pretending, he lived what he was, who he was. He cared for the Lord’s
pleasure from there and everything else took its place, and there was no cost too high to pay to so live. He was free from the fear of man, free from thinking man’s praises in some way identified or defined him, he was free from this world to truly live to
another world. May this be true of us as well.
Prayer: Father, I confess that I am deeply affected by the opinions that others have of me. While seeking to have a good name among men, I often go too far and
desire their praises above Yours. Forgive me. Help me to live to You, to desire my “well done” to come from You and not men who seek their own purposes. Give me holy boldness and Spirit led conviction to set my course to the glory of my Savior alone, in Jesus
name, Amen.
Hymn: How Firm A Foundation. (Note the tune!)
