054. Chapter 33 - Witnesses for the Son of God
Chapter 33 - Witnesses for the Son of God
John 5:17-47 Background of the Sermon The selfish multitude about the pool probably did not give any heed to the miracle as Jesus healed the lame man. But they, and all the crowds in the temple and city, were not permitted to ignore the miracle for Jesus deliberately chose to heal the man on the Sabbath day and to send him through their midst bearing his bed in bold disregard of the traditions of the elders. The man was immediately halted and challenged for his open violation of this tradition. His explanation of his conduct filled Jerusalem with excited discussion of the miracle and of the mysterious Person who had healed him and dared to command him to carry his bed home on the Sabbath. The man was not able at first to make known the identity of his Benefactor. This must have vastly increased the excitement and suspense as the people sought to learn if Jesus was present. When Jesus sought out the man and made Himself known, the man then supplied to the Jewish leaders the confirmation of the fact that it was actually Jesus who had healed him. The persecution which had been heaped upon the lame man was now turned in a furious attack upon Jesus. In the white-heat of this controversy Jesus stood forth to make the first clear, public declaration of His deity. The dramatic circumstances surrounding the sermon gave peculiar weight to His words. This sermon in the temple is the first public utterance of Jesus which is recorded in such lengthy detail. It arose in course of defense against the charge that He was a Sabbath-breaker, but it immediately merged into the larger claim that He was the Son of God. The same thing had happened when He had healed the man sick of the palsy in Peter’s home at Capernaum: all minor considerations had been swallowed up in the amazing claim of Jesus to have authority to forgive the sins of the man. Any careful study of the criticisms of Jesus by His enemies will find them constantly merging into an attack on His claims to deity.
I. The Fundamental Proposition (John 5:17-29).
1. The Proposition Stated: “My Father worketh even until now, and I work” (John 5:17). When Jesus met the fierce persecution of Jews for His breach of their Sabbath regulations, He did not attempt to justify His conduct by an attack on the absurd character of the traditions by which they had superseded and annulled the great beneficial regulations of the law. He followed this line of argument at a later time. He cut straight to the heart of the whole matter in this first great declaration in Jerusalem by making a sweeping claim to authority over the Sabbath as He had claimed authority over the temple when He had cleansed it. His assertion of deity based His defense upon His unity and equality with God. In one all-inclusive declaration of just nine words Jesus made His amazing claim to deity. The defense of His healing on the Sabbath became a corollary to the main proposition of His divine person and authority. The Sabbath had been given by God in token of His rest on the seventh day after the completion of the work of creation. But Jesus pointed out that this rest of God was not a state of inactivity: God did not create the world and straightway desert it to its fate. He had continually labored to sustain that which He had created and to bring about the fulfillment of His divine purposes in man for whom all had been created. Thus it was not merely in imitation of God or in harmony with God’s own course that Jesus had acted; His healing of the lame man had been co-ordinate with that of God who was His Father and with whom He acted in perfect unity. The Jews had interpreted the day of rest in purely negative terms of rest from physical labor. Jesus showed by His assertion that a positive interpretation should be given which would enable man to rest from worldly labors in order to carry on the heavenly labor which God desires. His own authority over the Sabbath, He declared to be as absolute as that of God Himself.
2. The Proposition Resented: “He called God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). The Jews were quick to perceive the nature and implications of Jesus’ declaration. All objections to His non-conformity to their Sabbath regulations were dwarfed by this breath-taking revelation of the extent of His claims. They saw immediately that Jesus was claiming to be the Son of God in an intimate and unique sense, and that the implication of the manner in which He referred to God as His Father and identified His conduct with that of God constituted a mysterious claim to equality with God. Is it not exceedingly strange that anyone in this present generation, which boasts of its enormous superiority to all preceding ages and of its mental alertness, should be so blind as not to see that which was apparent to the auditors of Jesus in a moment? How many radical scholars attempt to read out of the words of Jesus any claim to deity! But even the Jews who were so full of hostility and unbelief were able to see instantly that the declarations of Jesus made explicit and implicit claim to deity. They were able to see this even before the gospel had been unveiled with its recital of the virgin birth, the atoning death, the resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Much of modern radical comment on the Gospels gives startling confirmation to the increasing blindness of those who refuse to see. “The Gentiles rage, And the peoples imagine vain things. The kings of the earth set themselves in array, And the rulers were gathered together, Against the Lord and against his Anointed.” By this defiant opposition to God, the prediction of Isaiah has been repeatedly fulfilled: “By hearing, ye shall hear, and shall in no wise understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall in no wise perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, And their ears are dull of hearing, And their eyes they have closed; Lest haply they should perceive with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And should turn again, And I should heal them.” The fierceness of the Jewish resentment against Jesus is revealed in the fact that after this declaration, they “sought the more to kill him.”
3.The Proposition Defended: “that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father” (John 5:23). The opening statement of Jesus in explanation and defense of His first startling proposition set forth that even though His authority arose from His immediate relationship to God, as Son to Father, and though His working was co-ordinate with that of God, yet all He did was subject to God and not of Himself, apart from God: “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing.” This decidedly limits the conclusion which the Jews had drawn from His original proposition. They had summed up thus: making himself equal with God.” Jesus immediately attached an amendment to this by affirming that He was subject to God, although His very Son and working in conjunction with God. But this amendment was so stated as to make still clearer His claim to deity. He represented Himself as able, while on earth, to look up into heaven and see what God was doing and also to have authority and power on earth to do what God was doing (John 5:19). The fact that the Son does not work apart from God is no real limitation of His power and authority, for the perfect obedience which the Son shows to the Father is matched by the perfect love which the Father shows to the Son in revealing all things to the Son (John 5:20), and in giving Him power to raise the dead back to life (John 5:21), and to be the eternal Judge of mankind (John 5:22). Thus while Jesus made clear that He was not detracting from the glory of the Father and was Himself subject to Him, yet the very purpose of God in sending His Son into the world, clothed with such authority and power, was to bring men to honor the Son even as they honored the Father (John 5:23). Thus far the defense of Jesus has centered in the relation of the Son to the Father in His nature and work; the latter part of this section deals with the relation of the Son to men, especially in giving them eternal life (John 5:24-29). Hearing the gospel of Jesus and believing as true the revelation from God which He brings, the Christian passes out of death (he has been separated from God by his sins) into life (forgiveness and the new life in fellowship with God result from his obedience to Christ) through a spiritual resurrection. This is to be followed by the general resurrection of the dead in the judgment when eternal condemnation shall await the evil; as eternal blessedness, the righteous. The statement that the one who believes “cometh not into judgment” uses “judgment” in the sense of “condemnation.” It cannot refer to the judgment day when every man must be judged according to the deeds done in the body, for this passage clearly points first to the hearing of the gospel by those dead in sin, which, through faith, brings life in Christ (John 5:24-26), and then to the final judgment and the separation of the good from the evil, which brings eternal life to the faithful (John 5:27-29).
II. Witnesses for the Son of God: “These are they that bear witness of me” (vv. 30-47).
1. Jesus Bearing Witness (John 5:30-32).
Having made clear His claims, Jesus proceeded to introduce in rapid succession the witnesses which testified to the truth of His claims. He had solemnly given His testimony concerning Himself and His relationship to God both in person and work. Now He turns to show that He has not offered this testimony independent of God, hut only as God has directed Him. “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true” (John 5:31), must necessarily be understood in the light of its immediate context where He declares,” I can of myself do nothing” (John 5:30). On a later occasion, He affirmed in answer to the objection of the Jews that His testimony was not valid since He was bearing witness of Himself: “Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true...for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me (John 8:13-18). These two declarations seem contradictory, hut a study of the two sermons will show that on both occasions He affirmed exactly the same thing from opposite angles. He first affirmed that His witness to Himself would be false, if given independent of God; He later declared that His testimony to Himself was true since it was given in conjunction with God. The modernist is accustomed to declare that he does not object to the teaching of Jesus in the general field of morals and religion, but that he cannot accept the teaching of Jesus in regard to Himself. But this is the very heart of the gospel. It is found on every line and in every sentence of this great sermon. It cannot be stripped from any sermon of Jesus. The unbeliever attempts to maintain that only the sermons in the Gospel of John represent Jesus as speaking of Himself in this fashion; hence the violence of his attack on this Gospel. But even a cursory examination of the Synoptics will show that this is not true. Take the first sermon Jesus preached at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30) as an example: take the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1-48; Matthew 6:1-34; Matthew 7:1-29): take the sermon on John the Baptist and the Unbelief of the Generation (Matthew 11:1-30); take any sermon of Jesus and this teaching of Jesus concerning Himself is either explicitly declared or inherently implied. To deny this is to destroy the historic record of His life.
2. John the Baptist (John 5:33-35).
Jesus, in presenting the witnesses, quickly passed from His own testimony, for He had already delivered this in detail. The second witness He summoned was John the Baptist. He pointed out that the testimony of John was known to all. The Pharisees before Him could not deny this for they themselves had sent a delegation to John and had heard from him directly his testimony to Christ (John 5:33). Furthermore, his testimony could be denied by none (John 5:35). How beautifully Jesus pictured John bearing his tremendous witness to the Messiah: “He was the lamp that burneth and shineth.” They had rejoiced in John’s light for a time — until the light had been turned on their sins! We can hear again John crying aloud in the desert: “In the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not, even he that cometh after me, the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to unloose” (John 1:26); “Behold, the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29); “He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire” (Matthew 3:11); “He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above is above all” (John 3:30, John 3:31); “And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34).
3.The Miracles of Jesus (John 5:36). The third witness was described by Jesus as greater than that of John, because this witness was the direct work of God through His Son. No mere human agent intervened. This third witness was the miracles of Jesus: “the very works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me.” Nicodemus, one of their own number, had so declared and his conclusion was correct: No one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:2). The miracles of Jesus furnished the basis for this discussion with the Jews. We cannot but wonder if the lame man who had been healed was standing in the midst as Jesus summoned the miracles He had wrought to witness for Him. The Jews were unable to deny these miracles, as they later confessed: “For that indeed a notable miracle hath been wrought through them, is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it” (Acts 4:16). They could not deny the fact that Jesus had worked miracles, but they refused to accept the evidence which God thus offered to them. All the attacks of the centuries have not been able to erase from history the record of the miracles of Jesus. Yet how many still refuse to yield to the evidence which they cannot explain away or deny, but which they will not accept. The Christian, however, finds a firm foundation for his faith in the mighty works which Jesus did to prove His deity.
4. God, the Supreme Witness (John 5:37, John 5:38). The citation of the miracles of Jesus led directly to the introduction of God Himself as the supreme witness. “And the Father that sent me, he hath borne witness of me.” Jesus had already appealed to God as His chief Witness, without clearly identifying Him: “It is another that beareth witness of me” (John 5:32). He continually declared that God was His great Witness: “I am he that beareth witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me” (John 8:18). At the baptism of Jesus God had declared: “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased” (Mark 1:11). At the final passover Jesus cried: “Father, glorify thy name. There came therefore a voice out of heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (John 12:28). The multitude did not understand the words spoken in the second instance and probably not in the first, but the inspired writers of the New Testament have recorded this testimony along with the declaration of God on the Mount of Transfiguration, as strong evidence of God’s direct approval of Jesus’ claims. Thus while it was true in the absolute sense that “Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his form” (John 5:37), the testimony of God, nevertheless, was given with mysterious power. The attestation of God is also inseparably connected with the miracles which God did through Jesus and with the Scriptures which God had revealed through His servants. Thus, the last three witnesses Jesus presents are closely united.
5. The Scriptures (John 5:39-47).
“Ye search the scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me” (John 5:39). The first verb of this great declaration may be either indicative or imperative: “Ye search” or “search.” There is no emphasis on “ye think,” as if to say “ye mistakenly think”: the Old Testament taught the way to obtain eternal life, but the way it indicated was by faith and obedience to the Christ when He should come. The Jews were studying the Scriptures and rejecting the very fundamental obligation which such study implied: whole-hearted acceptance of the divine Person in whom the Old Testament found its fulfillment. The same method of studying the New Testament prevails today among unbelievers. The testimony of the Old Testament to Jesus is certainly one of the most impressive lines of argument to establish His claims. Read again the Gospel narratives with this in mind and see how often the writers appeal to the predictions made many centuries before. This is especially true of Matthew and John. As we read such passages as the second and the twenty-second Psalms, the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and similar passages which predict the place of Jesus’ birth, the manner of His birth, and all sorts of details of His life and death, we rejoice anew in this astonishing evidence which has endured the test of the ages. The sermon of Jesus finds a fitting climax in this recitation of the testimony of the Old Testament writers to His coming and claims. Jesus closed His address with a piercing analysis of the cause of the unbelief of His enemies: their desire for the praise and glory of men rather than the favor of God. The concluding words offer a mighty thrust. Moses, a strong witness for Jesus, will he the chief witness against them in the day of judgment.
It is strange that the Pharisees, who were the learned scholars and the intellectual leaders of the nation, would have been so blind in their study of the Old Testament as to miss the very objective of God’s revelation and to reject the Christ Himself whom the Old Testament predicted. But it was ever thus. The Pharisees but illustrate the incredible blindness which characterizes most of the philosophers, scientists, and theologians of our day, concerning whom someone has said: “They know so much that it is not true, about things that do not matter, that they are deaf, dumb, and blind to reality.”