5:30-47
Witnesses to Jesus
Jesus often witnessed about himself, saying that he was sent by the Father, that he was the Son, and the people had to believe in him to be saved. But he also said he was in perfect unity with the Father an submission to his will.
In verse 30, Jesus reiterated this, saying he does nothing on his own, but only does his father’s will. He was perfectly obedient to the Father. Everything he did and said were what the Father wanted done and said. Therefore, Jesus’ implication is that his witness to himself is never his alone, but always also the witness of the Father.
Remember that Jesus is speaking to the Jewish leaders who want to kill him because he claimed God as his own Father, making himself equal to God. The Jewish leaders were outraged at this claim. So, in verse 31, knowing what the Jews would be thinking about his claim to be the Son of God (17), Jesus said if he alone bore witness about himself, his testimony is not true.
Jesus did not mean that he would be lying without a witness to back him up. Rather, he meant that the Jews would not consider his testimony to be true without witnesses to verify it. That is why the NIV uses the word “valid”, to explain this as opposed to translating the word literally as “true”.
The 2007 version of the ESV also tried to help us out by saying his testimony would not be “deemed” to be true. But the 2011 version went back to the literal translation of simply “true”. The Greek word is “alethes” and is usually translated as “true”.
This idea of requiring witnesses goes back to the Old Covenant law. For example, Deuteronomy 17:6 required at least two witnesses to convict a person of a capital offense and put him to death. Deuteronomy 19:15 required two or more witnesses to connect a person of any offense. Numbers 35:30 required at least two witnesses to convict a person of murder.
By Jesus’ time, though, this concept had been enlarged to require two witnesses to establish any important fact. Knowing this, Jesus goes into an explanation of the witnesses to his claims about himself.
So, as Jesus implied in verse 30, he states more clearly in verse 32 that there is another who bears witness about him. If we see verse 32 as connected to verse 30, we see that he was referring to the Father. The Father is the one who sent him in verse 30. Since the Father is God and is always true, his testimony about Jesus has to be true. The Father, therefore, is the first witness.
But, as the infomercial says, wait, there’s more. In verse 33, Jesus said that John the Baptist also bore witness to him. The Jews sent people to investigate John, just as they were doing to Jesus. Initially, the Jews were impressed by John, considering him to be the first prophetic voice for hundreds of years.
Jesus said he was a burning and shining lamp. (35) This again is John the Apostle’s use of dark and light. The world was dark in sin and ignorance, but John the Baptist shone the light of truth on them. He identified Jesus to the Jews who came to investigate him (1:19-28) and he identified Jesus as the Lamb of God to his disciples (1:29-34).
And Jesus said they rejoiced in for a while. That probably ended when John called the religious leaders to repent in order to prepare for the kingdom of God.
Although Jesus followed the Jewish requirement of two witnesses, he also pointed out to them that he did not need the witness of a man. But, he presented it to meet their requirements so that they might be saved. (34) This is Jesus taking the form of a servant rather than grasping his prerogatives as God, as Philippians 2:6-7 says. He does not need a human witness, but they do.
John the Baptist is, therefore, the second witness.
But wait, there’s still more! Jesus said he had a testimony greater than that of John. (36) That testimony is the works he was doing. The “works” is a reference to the healings he has worked on the people brought to him, including the paralyzed man at the pool.
Again, Jesus said those works are in line with the will of the Father because the Father gave him those works to accomplish. Since he accomplished the work the Father gave him to do, those works testify that the Father sent him. (37) So, each of his works are testimonies, not only of the Son, but of the Father who gave them. The works are the third witness.
In the last part of verse 37, Jesus turned from just explaining the validation of his testimony by the testimony or witness of the Father, John the Baptist, and his works, to adding a rebuke of the Jews who were questioning him.
He said they had never heard the Father’s voice, nor seen his form. (37) But, Jesus had. He was in heaven with the Father, the Father showed the Son what he was doing, and the Father sent him to witness to the human race.
They, on the other hand, had none of these things. This was true of the present generation. This was also true historically. When the Jews were at Sinai and heard the thunder and saw the lightning that accompanied the Lord coming to the mountain, they asked Moses to go meet God and listen to him because they were afraid to. (Exodus 20:19)
But Jesus went further and said they did not have the Father’s word abiding in them. (38) This would be a shocking statement because the Jews in general, and the Pharisees in particular, studied the Scripture, memorized it, and listened to rabbis teach it.
The proof that God’s word did not abide in them is that they did not believe the one God sent, meaning Jesus. (38) Although they searched the Scriptures to obtain eternal life, and those Scriptures bore witness to Jesus, they would not come to Jesus to receive eternal life.
How do the Old Testament scriptures bear witness of Jesus? They bear witness through prophecy and types.
As soon as the first man and woman fell into sin at the urging of the serpent, God told the serpent that the offspring of the woman would defeat him. That was prophecy. (Genesis 3:15)
God continued to reveal more and more to his prophets, who shared them with God’s people all through the Old Testament writings.
God also gave them types. The sacrificial system had many types to teach the people the need for atonement through the sacrifice of life. There were also people who were types of Christ, such as David.
There is a book by Christopher J. H. Wright called “Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament” which is a great study on this topic.
Despite the prophecies and types, the Jews refused to refused to come to Jesus, demonstrating that they did not love God the Father as they claimed. (42) They would not glorify Jesus, the one sent by the Father, but they would glorify men who came on their own. History tells us of many false Messiahs that came during this time period up to 70 A.D. There were also famous rabbis that the Jews glorified for their teaching. But they did not give glory to Jesus.
The Jews especially revered Moses as the giver of the law. The law, part of God’s covenant with Israel, was thing that made the Jews special. Yet, Jesus said Moses would condemn them, because he wrote about Jesus, but they would not believe. (45)
Although it could be said that all of what Moses wrote in the first five books of the Bible pointed to Jesus, one thing stands out. That is recorded in Deuteronomy 18:15, where Moses said “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, form your brothers, it is to him you shall listen”. In saying this, Moses reflected the words the Lord had spoken to him.
The Jews of Jesus time believed those words to be a prophecy of the Messiah. That is why people in the gospels speculated if John the Baptist or Jesus could be The Prophet. Remember in John 1:21, the Pharisees asked John if we was the Prophet. They were referring to the words of Moses.
We will see in the next chapter, after Jesus miraculously feeds the 5,000, that some declare him to be “the Prophet who is to come into the world”. (John 6:14)
But the leaders of the Jews did not want to entertain that thought. Jesus said if they had believed Moses, the would have believed in him. (46) Peter later condemned them for this, in his sermon in Acts 3, as he specifically identified Jesus as the prophet about whom Jesus spoke. So, the Scriptures are the fourth witness.
Take Aways
We have the witness of the Father, Jesus’s own words, and Jesus’ works all set before us in the New Testament, and the Old Testament with its prophecies and types. So, we should read and study the Scripture to know Jesus as fully as possible.
We should also share those Scriptures with those who do not know Jesus, so they may come to know him as well.
We must witness to people about Jesus where they are in life. Jesus did this with the Jews and their need for witnesses.
The Apostle Paul modeled this behavior to the Corinthians. He said, even though he was free from all people, he became a servant to all in order to win more of them to Christ. (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)
One thing we have to realize today as Americans is that lost people are no longer Christianized. They do not speak church language or know what the Bible says. Most of what they think they know about Christianity comes from unflattering portrayals in movies and televisions shows. We need to learn to communicate with them the truth of the gospel.
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