The Witnesses-Part I
“The Witnesses”
John 5:32-47
Introduction:
People have two choices to make about the claims of Jesus Christ. They are either real or they are false. Christ is either the God in Flesh that He said that He was or He is the biggest phony and liar the world has ever known. Listen, the thing that we need to understand is that people do not ride the fence of this issue. They either believe the claims or they do not. I was speaking to person just a couple of weeks ago and they were telling me that they did not know whether or not they believed all of the things that I was telling them or not. As if coming to that conclusion would give them some kinds of safety come judgment time, because they were not sure. There is not such thing, you need to understand this. You either believe it or you don’t. And disbelief always turns to hostility. People stand at the cross either with those who love him or those who nailed but it never with those who are not sure.
So we come to our next section is our study and Jesus begins in verse 30-31 which we will use as an introduction and then begin the outline in verse 32. Jesus says in verse 30 that does nothing of Himself. Again, nailing them in their accusations earlier when Jesus told them that if you are accusing me you are accusing the Father because I do nothing of myself. He does not act independently of God. In other words, you cannot accuse me without accuse God.
Now, notice verse 31. Now that's been kind of a mysterious statement to a lot of people. They say, "Wait a minute, does Christ say there that He's not telling the truth?" Not at all. When you understand the context and you understand the dialogue and what's going on, it's very clear what He's saying. He's saying, let me read it this way, "In your opinion or in your estimation, if I am the only one to testify about who I am, that's not good enough." Right? He's saying you're not going to believe just Me, you've got to have some other witnesses. In your own mind it's not enough for Me to claim this, just on My own.
And, you know, He's got a good point. I mean, I could stand up in the pulpit and say, "I want you to know, ladies and gentlemen, that I am God...I'm God." Now I doubt very seriously whether there would be anybody who would believe that. You'd say, "Oh yeah? Well I'm not going to believe it just because you said it." In effect that's what Jesus is saying here. He's saying if I'm the only one claiming to be God, you're not about to believe Me. You don't like Me anyway, you want to get rid of Me.
Now that sets the stage for Christ bringing four witnesses about His deity. The Forerunner’s Witness; The Finished Works; The Father’s Word’s ; and the Faithful Writings.
I. The Forerunner’s Witness (vs. 32-35)
The Forerunner is, of course, John the Baptist that we have looked into in some detail in the past. Christ realizing that the Jews would not believe the witness that He made about Himself begins to call in certain witnesses to bear record of the truth about Him. The first witness that He calls in is John the Baptist.
Now, Jesus in verse 32 brings back to us an OT principle. Now, would the testimony of Jesus be enough? Yes, for those who already believed in Him. There is no doubt that the followers of Jesus Christ already believed every word that He had said about Himself. However, His own testimony would not be enough for those that did not believe. They would have the attitude, “Well, of course you would say this about yourself you are trying to get a following, but we need more proof than just your testimony about yourself.” Which, again, is why Jesus said what He did in verse 31, because He knew that the people would not believe His own testimony about Himself.
Now, the OT law made a wonderful provision for this that is alive and well in our court systems today, the principle of witnesses. In Dt. 17:6 and Dt. 19:15, the law is handed down by God through Moses that only at the word of two or three witnesses should a matter be received as true. If only one person makes a claim, good or bad, it should not be established, but at the consistent word of two or three other people the saying should be established. This is repeated, at least in a narrower sense, in the NT in 1 Tim. 5:19, speaking about the Elders. And Jesus Christ knowing the unbelief in their hearts is going to go beyond the criteria of the OT and bring in four witnesses to the truth about Him and He begins with John the Baptists.
He begins with a reminder to the Jews in verse 33, “You have sent to John….” Jesus would have made an excellent prosecutor. In His first statement to the people He makes an amazing comparison. He reminds them that they went to John. John did not run up to the palace of Caesar or the home of the High Priest and begin to shout about the Messiah. Jesus reminds them that they went to John; so they must have taken some veracity in what he said.
Back in chapter 1 of John’s Gospel verse 19-27, the text tells us that the Jews sent priests and Levites to see John to ask him questions. According to Luke not only did the Priests and the Levites come but also did the Publicans and the Soldiers. John had a massive following. Jesus said that when you came to John he bore witness of Me. Now, the wonderful comparison is found back in chapter 3:26. Remember when we looked at that passage and some of the followers of John were becoming jealous of the popularity of Christ? They began to question John about Him and in verse 26 they reminded John of the one that He bore witness to beyond Jordan. Now, the wonderful thing that Christ brings into this, and I know that they remembered this when Christ spoke in verse 33, is the fact that not only did the Jews sent to John, but many of them believed John and followed him. Christ, in this statement, reminds them that they were curious enough to find him and ask him questions, and then reminds them that they believed him enough about the Christ to follow him. Amazing comparison and reminder.
Now notice verse 34. Jesus sets the record straight that He does not need a human testimony. He tells them that I am not telling you about John the Baptist for My sake. Christ does not need John to remind Him of who He is. This is for their sake. Jesus does not need men telling Him who He is, He knows who He is. Jesus did not have John out there for his health. He did not have him point to Him and say, “Behold the Lamb of God….” He did not have him out there to remind Christ of who He is. He had him out there, why? “….that you might be saved.” Human testimony is not for the sake of Christ, human testimony is for our sakes. That was the only reason that Christ had John out there was for a witness, not to remind Him of who He was, but so the people could be saved. Now right there we introduce two important truths. And this is something you can remember, this is kind of a overriding truth in many things in the Christian experience. Now listen to this. Human testimony is important but it is weak theoretically. In other words, a lot of people say, "Well how do you know that Christ is really real? I mean, how do you know that Jesus Christ can change your life?"
"Well I know because He did it to me. I know Christ is real because I walk with Him. I know what He's like because I love Him and I share His life in me and I read the Word of God and He speaks to my heart. And I know because I've experienced Him."
That's all right. That's kind of exciting, in fact. But you know what? There's a big problem with that and that's this, you know something, even if you never did experience Him He'd be real, right? If nobody in this world ever believed in Jesus Christ He'd still be the Son of God, wouldn't He? So, you see, you can't make Christ the Son of God just because you've experienced it. He's the Son of God whether you experience Him or not. So from a theoretical standpoint, that criterion for judging Jesus Christ is lousy. There's got to be higher testimony than that because people are having experiences all the time. I mean, I talk to people who thought they saw pink elephants, but they didn't. And there are kids who have experiences from drugs. And I'm sure there are Buddhists who sit under a tree and think themselves in a nirvana and they're having an experience. And I'm sure some people go see a guru and have an experience. But I don't want to judge truth on experience. I want my Jesus Christ to be what He is if I don't even experience it. I want Him to be that because He's absolutely that.
So, theoretically experience is a terrible proof of the deity of Christ. Lest you be upset, practically, now watch this, I just shifted gears, practically it's probably the best. Did you get that? Because when somebody comes to you and says, "Man, I'd like to believe in something, what can I believe in to give my life meaning?" You say, listen; let me tell you about Jesus Christ. He touched my life. He changed my life.
You know what happens? That devastates people. Theoretically it's no good, practically it's terrific. That's what Jesus is saying. Verse 34, I don't need the testimony of man to corroborate who I am, theoretically. But practically it just so happens to reach people's hearts, human testimony does, doesn't it? I imagine many of you were saved because you saw what Christ was doing in the lives of others, or you heard somebody's testimony. He'll use your testimony, not theoretically but practically, it works cause it touches people where they live in the experiential world.
So John the Baptist's testimony wasn't for Christ's sake, it was for the sake of those who didn’t believe, that they might hear a human testimony to the reality of Christ.
Notice verse 35. Jesus gives a testimony here of the life of John the Baptist. Jesus says that John was a burning and a shining light. I want you to notice that Jesus refers to John as the light and himself as the light. There is a difference in these words which mark the difference between Jesus and John. The first word is “λύχνος” and it literally means “portable lamp”. The second word is the word that Christ uses in regard to Himself and that is the word “φῶς” and has to do with the source of light. You see Jesus said that John was a light, burning and shinning, but he was not the source of light, he was just a portable lamp. Just like we are, we are witnesses of the goodness and the grace of God to the world, but we are just portable lamps. We shine and burn for Christ but are not the source of any light. We are like the light that was put on the lamp stand. But Christ is the source of that light. He is the radiance of light; He is the source of it.
Jesus says that they were willing for a while to rejoice with him. You went out there, "Oh, it's so wonderful to have a prophet in Israel, 400 years we've had nobody around, now we've got a prophet and look at him, he's a fascinating character, strangest clothes, sort of a modified Tarzan suit made out of camel's hair, has a very strange diet of grasshoppers and wild honey. Oh he's a most dynamic young preacher, you've got to hear this guy." And the mobs are going out there. Fabulous, we've got a prophet at last. They were eating it up.
And then John got out there and he started hammering on repentance and saying you're in sin, you need to get down on your knees before God and repent and turn in faith to God. And they said, "Oh, I don't like him so well. Beginning to step on our ecclesiastical toes." And they didn't like it.
So it was a little while they rejoiced in his light and then when the light was not the kind of light they liked, they wanted to get rid of him. They didn't want the light. You know why? Men love darkness rather than light. For what reason? Because their deeds are evil and they don't want to come to the light because the light will shine and reprove their deeds. So for a little season they kind of bashed, you know, they were kind of like gnats dancing in the sunlight. Oh it was just a glorious little heyday for a while until John started getting too personal, talking about repentance. And then they really turned him off. And by the time chapter 5 is happening, John is no longer in the wilderness preaching, you know where he is? He's in prison and he's waiting for the day when he loses his head and it gets served on a platter. That's how far it went from rejoicing in his light to taking his life by chopping his head off.
You see, you cannot, say it again, you cannot reject the truth of the preacher of God without it turning to hostility. You just don't hang in some kind of nebulous nowhere. And so Jesus says you went out to John but you were phony about it, you were insincere. And when the message came and it was repentance and faith and all of that and the declaration that I am the Christ, you didn't like it. And your rejoicing turned to hatred and persecution and ultimately John lost his life. Now the Jews did not kill John but they without any qualms let him be turned over to the Gentiles who did it.
So Jesus says My first witness is John. And in effect He's saying to them, "And you've already heard him and you thought he was so great, how could you think so much of him and not hear what he said?" And again that's hitting at the hypocrisy of their religion.
So that was Christ first witness, the witness of John and He has three more witnesses that He is going to call, next time.