Or, A Case of Ignoring Your Own Witnesses
Scripture: John 5:31-40
Date: April 1, 2012
Speaker: Sean Higgins
In medical speak, Failure to Thrive (FTT) describes the life-threatening condition of a baby, and sometimes of an older adult, who shows signs of malaise and underdevelopment, often as simple to diagnose as failure to gain a certain amount of weight. The reasons for failure to thrive can be internal or external. Sometimes a child has a physical problem, say, a digestive difficulty, that prohibits the absorption of nutrients necessary for growth. Other times the problem is external to the child, when the caregiver(s) are unable or unwilling to supply enough food. Ignoring failure to thrive may cause irreparable developmental damages or even death. FTT is a serious problem.
The world has an even bigger problem than cases of failure to thrive. We all have—of ourselves—an internal refusal to thrive. Jesus told the Jews, “You refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:40). That could be translated even more simply: “You do not want to come.” In other words, men don’t want life if they have to get it from Jesus. RTT is the inborn heart condition in every human.
It wouldn’t be so bad if Jesus was a life-option, one of many valid paths to life. But He is the life (John 14:6). He has life in Himself (John 5:26). He gives life to whomever He will (John 5:21). No one has life apart from Him. A refusal to come to Jesus is a refusal to thrive, a refusal to have life and life abundant.
Jesus makes this case in John 5 as He answers the attack of the Jews. What’s even worse, or at least sad, is that the witnesses Jesus brings forth in His defense are on the prosecution’s witness list. Jesus shows that the witnesses they thought were on their side actually testify against them. Their refusal to thrive comes from ignoring their own witnesses.
We’re in the middle of Jesus’ monologue answer to those who were “seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God” (5:18). Jesus had healed a paralyzed man on a Sabbath (verses 1-15) and justified His work by claiming that He was only doing what God does. The offended Jews came after Him (16-18) and Jesus responded with three truths about His authority (19-31). First, everything He does He does in dependence on the Father (19-23). Second, He delivers believers from death to life, just like His Father (24). And third, He decides judgment for all because His delegated authority from the Father (25-30). Starting in verse 31 Jesus presents expert testimony on His behalf.
If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true. (verse 31)
Jesus brings out witnesses for a couple purposes. The first purpose follows the Old Testament requirement in court cases, especially capital cases. According to Deuteronomy 19:15 (and other passages such as Deuteronomy 17:6 and Numbers 35:30, no one was to be convicted, let alone put to death, without the testimony of two or three witnesses. This was already a capital case; they were seeking to kill Him. Another reason He brings out witnesses is because they refused to listen to Him. His witnesses will show their own inconsistency, not His lack of integrity. He’s not saying that He isn’t saying true things, He’s saying “You don’t have to take my word alone for it.”
The most important witness, the star witness, is mentioned but unnamed in verse 32.
There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. (verse 32)
It’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t identify the another yet. That may be because they weren’t ready to accept this witness. In fact, if they had accepted this witness, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.
The theme in verses 31-40 is “witness” or “testimony.” The verb and related noun (μαρτυρῶ and μαρτυρία) are used 11 times. While verses 41-47 finish the monologue, they focus on the cause and consequences of ignoring the witnesses.
Who are these witnesses for? The witnesses are for those who thought they knew better. How do you prove that you are who you say you are, when your accusers are already mad because of who you said you are, when they don’t have the right to judge you, and when you know that their motivations are wrong?
Jesus reminds the Jews of their own investigation.
You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. (verses 33-35)
You sent to John , a story we’ve already studied in John 1:19-28. The religious leaders in Jerusalem sent an investigative committee and the results were that John claimed to be the pointer, “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23). The Baptist identified Jesus as “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Jesus says, John has borne witness to the truth and “you yourselves” heard it already.
”But I myself” don’t need to investigate. In verse 33 Jesus is actually bearing witness to John. In verse 34 Jesus explains that He doesn’t need men to prove who He is, even though He does use men to recognize and proclaim His identify. In fact, it is for the good of men that God uses men, so that you might be saved . God is pleased to use flawed men as instruments who witness to His Son. John the Baptist occupied a privileged prophetic place that benefited people more than it benefited Jesus. Men may behold His authority (like men can corroborate gravity), but men can’t bestow authority on Him; it’s already His.
These men should have listened to John. They should have believed him. He was a burning and shining lamp , and it could be translated “the lamp” rather than “a lamp.” He wasn’t the “light” (John 1:7-8), he “came to bear witnesses about the light.” John lit the right road. And they were willing to rejoice for a while (for an hour) in his light . Many of the Jews were excited at Messianic news. They had been without a prophet bringing word from God for more than a few centuries. Not everyone received the Baptist’s message but some, at least for a brief while, were elated about the potential of life under the Messiah’s reign.
Even though John the Baptist was sent by God and bore witness to the truth , Jesus is ready to rest His case.
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. (verse 36)
The works are the “signs that he was doing” (John 2:23), His demonstrations of divine knowledge, as with the woman at the well, His divine teaching, and His divine power, as with the healing of the Capernaum official’s son and the healing of the paralytic. What Jesus did was greater evidence about who He was, His works were more important, than what John said.
Claiming that He was doing God’s work got Him in this position (5:17). He explained that He only did what He saw the Father doing (5:19), especially in giving life. The fact that Jesus was doing things only God could do, along with the fact that He explained that He did what the Father does, should have tipped off the Jews that He was sent by the Father. They missed it.
We shouldn’t take for granted that works speak, that what we do says something. I’m fond of repeating a mantra I learned in Junior High, “Our talk talks and our walk talks but our walk talks a whole lot louder than our talk talks.” A man’s behavior shows a man’s nature; depend on it. At least part of the reason why men don’t want anyone identifying them by their works is because they don’t want to believe Jesus (who is identified by His works). They want to ignore what He does so that they can ignore who they are. They don’t want Jesus to be identifiable by His works because they don’t like how that applies to them. Unbelief drives the (dualistic) separation.
The seed of this unbelief remains in Christians. When we argue that others can’t know our hearts by watching what we do, we open the door for them to disregard what Jesus did. Works don’t matter. Externals don’t prove anything about who a person really is.
Now Jesus calls His key witness, the “another” He first mentioned in verse 31.
And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. (verses 37-38)
Jesus doesn’t say exactly when or how The Father…himself [bore] witness . He may be referring to His baptism, an event not recorded in the Fourth Gospel, though it was an event that involved John the Baptist and was presumably well-known enough that these religious leaders had heard about it. At Jesus’ baptism the Father said, “this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased” (see Mark 1:9-11). At the same time, the Father also bore witness through the testimony of John the Baptist and through Jesus’ works.
The Jews condemned Jesus on God’s behalf. They charged Jesus with breaking God’s law and blaspheming against God. Jesus turns the indictment on them in three ways: they hadn’t heard God’s voice, they hadn’t seen God’s form, and they hadn’t been changed by God’s word. How could they make a case for God when they didn’t actually know God? They were unlike their hero Moses with whom God “used to speak…face to face” (Exodus 33:11; Deuteronomy 34:10), Moses who “beholds the form of the LORD” (Numbers 12:8), Moses who wrote the first books of God’s Word. Yet Jesus says, “His word you do not have remaining in you.”
Verse 38 provides the evidence, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent . If they had known God, they would have recognized Jesus as the Son of God.
Jesus calls His final witness, another one that the Jews claimed on their side.
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. (verses 39-40)
The Jews boasted in their Bible study, they searched and carefully examined the Scriptures. It was Sabbath law that provoked the current situation. They believed that the Word was their life. Rabbi Hillel, a well-known first century teacher, wrote:
more Torah more life; …who has gained for himself words of Torah has gained for himself the life of the world to come. (Pirke Aboth or, Sayings of the Fathers, 2.8)
Yet they didn’t know their own Book. They had the Sword of the Spirit, but they were holding the wrong side; the business end was pointed at them.
The Scriptures witness about Jesus. What Scriptures? In this case, the Old Testament. Jesus wasn’t talking about the Gospels, let alone the New Testament epistles, none of which were written until after His ascension. Jesus doesn’t say which passage or book. Based on verses 45-46, He’s certainly including Genesis through Deuteronomy, the books of Moses. It seems that He’s saying the whole thing looks to Him. As with the two travelers on the road to Emmaus, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
The implications of verse 39 include at least:
The Jews searched the Scriptures for Sabbath rules, not a Savior, and not life.
The Jews refused , they “do not want to come to Jesus in order life might have.” We’ll see in the next verses (especially verse 44) the cause of their refusal but, for now, Jesus says that the problem is with their wants, not their knowledge. That also implies that knowledge by itself, even Bible knowledge, isn’t sufficient to change wants.
They had a prophet who was sent from God, they saw Jesus’ works which were the works of God, they knew of Jesus’ baptism which was the testimony of God, and they studied a whole book which is the word of God. But for all that, they did not believe God, they did not receive Jesus or the Father who sent Him. They refused to come to Jesus which meant they refused to live.
Our daily quiet times and study Bibles and commentary collections and our mobile Bible apps will accuse us because they point to Jesus. We don’t want to use the name “Jesus” like the Jews used the word “Messiah,” turning Jesus into a concept rather than our King.
What should we do if we diagnose RTT in a neighbor or loved one?
The Gospel is a Father & Son (& Spirit) production: life-giving through want-changing. They love to give life.