John 5:30-47 “The Three Witnesses”

1:02I mean, the concept is almost absurd. You hit a little white ball one and a half to two football fields away into a little hole in the ground that's barely bigger than the size of a coffee mug. Who could do such a thing? At any rate, I almost always play golf by myself, so even if I did make a hole in one, I would have no witnesses. So I'd call my buddies and I'd say, I made a hole in one. And they'd be like, really? Who saw it? I'd be like, me.

1:37They'd be like, yeah, I don't think so. We are naturally skeptical of people who make big claims that don't have any witnesses to back up those claims. And in John chapter 5, Jesus has made some really big claims to be equal with God, to have the authority to give life, and to have the authority to judge. But are there any witnesses for these claims? Yes, there are, and Jesus is going to call three different witnesses to the stand in his defense in our text today. So let's pick up here in verse 30 of chapter 5.

2:19You see in that verse that for the second time this chapter, Jesus repeats the truth that he can do nothing on his own. He's going to say later on in chapter 10, I and the Father are one. So when Jesus judges, his judgment is just because he seeks the Father's will. He is not a corrupt judge who's looking out for his own interests. He is an impartial judge who is only concerned with justice based on God's perfect, righteous, holy standard. So this is now the third time in this chapter that Jesus has claimed the authority to judge. He also claims it in verse 22 and verse 27 of this chapter. As we saw last week.

3:02But how do we know that Jesus has the authority to judge? Just because he says so? Let's look at verse 31 again. He says, if I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true. Now, in the Greek, the text really emphasizes the word I. Greek is a language like Spanish and French and a lot of other languages where the verb and the subject are in the same word. So in this verse, I is actually pulled out. It stands alone by itself. And so it's like, if I, I alone bear witness, he's really emphasizing, like, if I do this all by myself, then my testimony is not deemed true.

3:48And that, of course, makes sense based on what we know from the Mosaic law. Take a look at Deuteronomy 19. A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall the charge be established. So truth in a Jewish court of law couldn't be established on the basis of a single witness. You had to have at least two or preferably three to establish truth in court.

4:22And Jesus knew this, and so he will call three witnesses to testify on his behalf in our text today. He's Going to call John the Baptist, God the Father Himself, and Moses, all to testify and back up what he's saying. So let's pick up in verse 32. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.

4:51Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. So the first witness Jesus calls to the stand is John the Baptist, his cousin. And that shouldn't be a surprise because, as Jesus noted, the Jews have already sent to John. They've already gone to him and they've already examined him, as it were. I want to remind you about what happened in John chapter 1. Take a look on the screen, verse 19.

5:20And this is the testimony of John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you? He confessed and did not deny, but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, What then? Are you Elijah? He said, I am not. Are you the prophet? And he answered, No. So they said to him, Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself? He said, I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said.

6:00So John told the Jews, I'm not the Christ, I'm not Elijah, I'm not the prophet. Rather, I've been sent by God in fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy to prepare the way for the Messiah. And as soon as Jesus came, John pointed everyone to him. Take a look at John 1:29. The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So Jesus said that John's testimony was true, that he was, in fact, the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

6:38But he did not need any testimony from man. He did not need man's testimony. Look again at verse 34. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. Now, that is such an interesting statement, isn't it? I don't need John's testimony. I don't need testimony from any man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. Why does Jesus say that? Well, according to the apostles, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. Mark says this. Luke says this. Paul says this multiple times throughout his ministry. John's baptism is a baptism of repentance. Well, what is repentance?

7:27The Greek word is metanoia. It means. To turn around or to change your mind, it represents a complete 180, a different way of thinking, a different way of living. That's what repentance is. But unfortunately, repentance is just not a word you hear that often anymore. You don't hear it from Christians. You don't hear it from pastors. You don't hear it in sermons. What you typically hear from pastors who are preaching is: if you want to be saved, all you need to do is believe.

8:02There's no mention of repentance as part of coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ. There's no mention of repentance being an ongoing part of the Christian life, that we are continually turning away from our sin, continually turning to Christ in faith day after day, as the way that we are conformed to the image of Jesus. But repentance and faith are always linked together in the scriptures. You don't find one without the other, whether it's explicitly stated or whether it's implied in the lives of those who come to saving faith and are obviously living out the acts of repentance.

8:40So take a look at a few of these examples from Scripture. Ezekiel 18:30, you've got an Old Testament prophet here. Therefore, I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, declares the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Look what Jesus said. Now, after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God and saying, The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.

9:15Look what Peter said when he preached his sermon at Pentecost. And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Look what the Apostle Paul said when he preached in Athens to a largely secular crowd. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. And of this, he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

9:53So back to Jesus' statement, he said that he didn't need man's testimony. He didn't need any man to tell anyone who he really was, but he said he pointed back to John and John's words and ministry so that they would be saved. John's ministry was to prepare the way for the coming Messiah. And he prepared the way for the coming Messiah by calling people to repent, to turn around, to change their thinking, to change their behavior in light of the fact that the Savior was coming. And friends, that was necessary because repentance. Precedes faith.

10:33Repentance precedes faith. As my late seminary professor, Dr. Norman Geisler, used to say, you cannot come here unless you leave there. You have to leave there in order to come here. Before we will ever come to Christ, our hearts and minds have to change. The way we view God has to change. The way we view ourselves has to change. The way we view our sin has to change. Because if you don't see yourself as a creature in rebellion against your creator and therefore as a sinner in need of a savior, you will never come to Christ for forgiveness. Repentance precedes faith. That's why John's ministry came before Jesus' ministry, because John's ministry was a ministry of repentance. He was calling people to turn away from their sin and to turn to Christ.

11:29So, friends, someone may have told you that all you need to do is accept Jesus into your heart in order to be saved. And while we understand what they're going for and what that language is intended to represent, I think it's important for all of us to understand that that language is never ever used in the Bible. The language of accepting Jesus into your heart is not used in your Bible. What is used in your Bible is the language of repentance and faith. The command again and again is to repent. And believe. Change your mind about your sin. Sin is not just small errors in judgment. It's not just little mistakes that we all make. Sin is rebellion against a holy God.

12:15And so we have to see our sin for what it is and run to Jesus the Savior, who promises to receive and forgive all who come to Him in faith. And so John is the first witness to Jesus' deity. He says here in verse 35 that John was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. Isn't that an interesting statement? The Jews were willing to rejoice for a little while in John's light. As long as he was calling out the sinners, the tax collectors, the Gentiles, they were okay with that. When John started preaching against the Jews and their self-righteousness and their hypocrisy, they didn't like that so much anymore. So John is that first witness. The second witness that Jesus calls to the stand is God the Father Himself. Let's pick up in verse 36.

13:16But 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. And the Father who sent me has 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.

13:45Jesus says that the testimony that he has is greater than John's. And the greater testimony that he has is the works that the Father has given him to accomplish. In other words, his miracles that he's been performing. So remember, Jesus has said multiple times now that he can't do anything of his own accord. He can only do what he sees the Father doing. The Father shows him what he's doing so that Jesus can join in that work and people would marvel, especially at the works of him raising others and raising himself from the dead. Now Jesus says that the works that he's doing, turning water into wine and the miracles at Jerusalem, healing the official's dying son or healing the paralyzed man that we saw a couple weeks ago, Jesus says that the works that he's doing, all of those works bear witness to the fact that God the Father sent him.

14:42And that is a greater testimony than John's. Because you can argue the validity of John's testimony. You can say, well, I just don't agree. I don't think John's telling the truth. I think John's crazy. But you can't argue with water turning into wine. You can't argue with a paralyzed man who is now able to walk for the First time in 38 years. So Jesus says in verse 37 that the Father has borne witness to Jesus, but the Jews didn't hear his voice. They didn't see his form. They don't have God's word abiding in them. Why not?

15:18Because they didn't believe Jesus, whom the Father sent. Take a look at what the author of Hebrews wrote in chapter 1. He begins the letter this way: Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

16:03So the author says that in the old days, God spoke through the prophets, but now he has spoken through Jesus himself directly. But the Jews missed the voice of God because they rejected Jesus, the Son. The author says that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, but the Jews missed the voice of the name of the name. The form of God because they rejected Jesus the Son. And earlier on in the Gospel of John, in chapter 1, verse 14, John wrote this: And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

16:55The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. But the Jews missed the Word of God because they rejected Jesus, the Word made flesh. There is no excuse. Jesus is performing these astounding miracles, which bore witness to the fact that the Father sent him. I mean, Nicodemus, the great teacher of Israel, he said to Jesus, no one can do these works that you're doing unless God the Father is with him. He recognized that. He wasn't even a believer at that point. And he says, nobody can do this stuff unless God is with you. But the Jews always had an excuse. They always had an excuse not to listen to Jesus, not to draw the obvious conclusion from the miracles that he was performing. So when Jesus healed the paralyzed man earlier in chapter five, what did they say? They say, we reject that because you did it on the Sabbath.

17:58When he heals a man born blind, In John chapter 9, they're going to reject it for the same reason. Say, look, you did that on the Sabbath. You're not from God. And then in chapter 12, God the Father Himself will speak from heaven audibly and authenticate Jesus' ministry. And many in the crowd who hear the voice of God will say, it thundered. Friends, nothing has changed in terms of how people respond to God. Arrogance makes modern people think that these ancient men and women were just gullible goofballs who attributed everything that they didn't understand to supernatural occurrences.

18:51That because they didn't have science, they thought that everything that happened was a work of the gods. But that's just not true. A crowd of ancient people heard the voice of God speak audibly from heaven, and they said, eh, it had to be thunder. They attributed supernatural things to natural things just like we do, just like every skeptical person today. Nothing has changed. Jesus' miracles spoke for themselves, especially his resurrection. But the Jews explained the miracles away. And they didn't draw the obvious conclusion because they didn't want to believe that Jesus was the Christ. They refused to come to him.

19:40What about you? Have you wrestled with the historical accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus as recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Have you wrestled with those things? Their claims. I mean, the fact is, these men had nothing to gain and everything to lose by lying about Jesus. But they said that he claimed to be the Son of God and that he proved it through countless miracles and by rising from the dead. You can try to convince yourself that none of this stuff happened in real life, that it's all embellished or made up.

20:28But just think for a moment about what these guys record about themselves. They were often clueless about what Jesus was saying and doing. They denied and ran away from Jesus on the night that he was arrested after promising that they would be willing to die with him. They were hiding in a locked room after Jesus was crucified and resurrected because they were scared for their lives. On the third day, when Jesus said that he would rise from the dead, their female friends went to the tomb to weep and to mourn, not because they thought that Jesus was actually alive, but at least they had the courage to go out there and identify themselves with Jesus. The men were hiding in a locked room.

21:19And their female friends were the ones who first discovered that Jesus was alive. Even after Jesus appeared to them, the gospel writers record that after seeing him, touching him, and eating with him, some still doubted that he was really alive. If that stuff didn't really happen, it sure makes you wonder why four guys would say that it did. It sure makes you wonder why almost all of them would be executed for insisting that Jesus rose from the dead bodily. It makes you wonder why Christianity spread like wildfire after the resurrection of Jesus and is still spreading all throughout the world at a rapid pace today.

22:16Jesus said that his miracles were proof that the Father sent him. What do you believe? It's so important to answer that question. So John the Baptist is the first witness. The Father is the second witness. The third witness that Jesus is going to call to the stand is the one that the Jews would least expect: Moses. Let's pick up in verse 39. Verse 39, 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.

23:05When it comes time to share prayer requests in our life group, I have always had one ironclad rule. You are never allowed to say, pray that I would read my Bible more. That is against the rules. You can repent or be expelled. No one is allowed to say, pray that I would read my Bible more. Don't we all need to read our Bible more? Okay. I want you to think about this for a minute. How many times have you heard another Christian say that to you?

23:47How many times have you said it yourself? How many times has a Christian brother or sister asked you, how are you doing spiritually? And you've said something along the lines of, Not very good. I haven't been reading my Bible very much. I think we've all done that. And if a non-Christian heard us sharing that prayer request as often as it gets shared, I think they might be tempted to conclude that the entire point of the Christian life is reading the Bible.

24:29Let me be clear. I am a Christian. I am a pastor. I believe that the Bible is nothing less and nothing other than the Word of God. I believe every person should read it, study it, meditate on it, and memorize it. I mean, that's the whole point of Together in 22. We are reading through the Bible this year and we are memorizing it together. I think there is great value in that, and that every Christian should do that.

25:01But, friends, reading the Bible is not the point of the Christian life. Knowing God and making Him known is the point of the Christian life. Reading the Bible is the means to the end of knowing God and making Him known, which is the point of the Christian life. Jesus says here in verse 39, I want you to. Take a look at that verse again. You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

25:41That is what so many Christians functionally believe. I read my Bible, I'm good with God. I don't read my Bible, I am not good with God. But Jesus says that's not true. You can read the Bible every day of your life, and if your Bible reading does not lead you to Jesus, then you have missed the point. Jesus says it right here. The scriptures bear witness to him. Every text points to Jesus in one way or another.

26:17Because every text either reveals our need for a Savior or it reveals that Jesus is the Savior that we need. If our Bible reading doesn't lead us to Jesus, then we're missing the whole point. Just like the Jews who knew the scriptures forwards and backwards and still refuse to come to Jesus that they may have life. Verse 41, let's pick up there. I do not receive glory from people, but I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in as Own name, you will receive him. How can you believe when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

27:12So Jesus reiterates this statement. He doesn't need glory from people, he's not seeking that. He doesn't need John's testimony, and he doesn't need it from the Jews either. But listen to this: the reason that the Jews don't affirm him is that they don't have the love of God within them. That's what Jesus says. What do they have within them? Desire for man's approval. That's what they have. They have desire for man's approval. That's what they covet. That's what they want. And listen to me. That's because they already assumed that they had God's approval. They assumed that they had God's approval, and so they weren't after that. They were after the approval of man.

27:57They cared more about what people thought than what God thought about them. And so they didn't seek glory from God. They sought glory from each other. And this is the very thing that John is going to record later on in chapter 12. Take a look at this. Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him. But for fear of the Pharisees, they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue. For they loved the glory that comes from man more. Than the glory that comes from God.

28:35They refuse to come to Jesus to receive eternal life because they were worried about getting kicked out of the synagogue. They were worried that they'd be dishonored among the people that they respected and that they wanted their respect. Friends, this is true of so many people today as well as in those ancient times. There are many people who are intrigued by Jesus. They consider following him, but they care too much about what people would think. They care too much about what they would have to give up, what people would say about them.

29:15And so, although they might really think that Jesus is who he claimed to be, they will not come to him because they love what this world has to offer. And they've got their hope set on that. And maybe that's true for you. Maybe you yourself have put off confessing Jesus as Lord and Christ. Maybe you've put off baptism. Maybe you've put off making a clean break with your old way of life because you are worried about what people will say and think, or because you're worried about what you'd have to give up in order to start following Jesus.

29:57You know, there are very few words of Jesus. That are repeated in all four gospels. But the words I'm about to show you appear twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, once in Mark, and once in John. It is one of the most repeated statements that Jesus ever uttered. So that shows you how important this was to him and his ministry, and it shows you how important the apostles thought it was. Take a look at this: Matthew 16:25: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

30:44If you want eternal life, then you have to be willing to lose your earthly life. Yes, Jesus is talking about being willing to die for him. But it is so much harder to die a thousand deaths every single day as you deny yourself and as you face humiliation and ostracism and everything else in your classroom, in your workplace, and among your family members and friends because you confess that Jesus is the Christ. I mean, we talk about this concept with married couples all the time or with engaged couples that are about to get married. Guys, it's not hard to say, I would die for my wife. I hope you would. I hope you would lay down your life to protect your wife. But that's not that hard to do. The worst husband in the world can lay down his life one time in a blaze of glory.

31:42The hard thing to do is to deny yourself as a husband every single day and say, What does my wife need? What does my wife want? How can I work and serve and care for her so that she flourishes every single day of the week? It's not hard to say that you would die for Jesus. All of the apostles did that right before they ran away. The hard thing to do is to deny yourself and to die a thousand deaths every single day and face humiliation and ostracism and everything else among the people that you most respect and most want their affirmation.

32:30So I want you to remember that what we said is that Moses is the final witness, but we haven't gotten to Moses yet. So let's pick up in verse 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. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe, His writings, how will you believe my words?

33:08It is difficult to convey how shocking and offensive those statements would have been to the Jews. Moses is the one through whom God gave the law. And in their minds, the Jews had gone above and beyond to keep God's law. So they assumed that when they died and stood before the Lord for judgment, Moses would step up and come to their defense and talk about how hard they worked to keep the law. And by contrast, they assumed that when sinners in their minds stood before God to be judged, that Moses would step up and accuse them for not trying hard enough to keep God's law.

34:00But Jesus says, Moses, and just let this phrase hit you, on whom you have set your hope, he's the one that's going to accuse you. I mean, that would have knocked the wind right out of them. You've set all your hope on Moses. You think he's going to come to your defense, and he's the one that's going to accuse you before God the Father. Why? Verse 46 says it: For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me.

34:37That is the whole point of the Mosaic law. The whole point of the law was to reveal God's perfect standard of holiness, a standard that is impossible for sinful human beings to meet. The whole sacrificial system was to remind them that without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins, and that the wages of sin is death. Every Passover, every day of atonement was designed to point to the promised Messiah, the spotless Lamb who had come once and for all, to be slain once and for all, to shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins once and for all.

35:24Guys, the Jews knew the scriptures forward and backward. They knew everything that Moses wrote. But Jesus said that the problem isn't that they didn't know what Moses said. The problem is that they didn't believe what Moses said. I don't want you to make the same mistake that the Jews made. They thought as long as they knew what Moses said, as long as they tried hard enough to keep the law, that God would save them. So they search the scriptures and they set their hope on Moses.

36:05And listen, your story may be very similar. It may be pretty similar to mine. You may have grown up in church your whole life. You may know the Bible forward and backward. And you may believe the very same thing that the Jews believed. As long as you try hard enough to keep God's commands, you'll be saved. And I know there's got to be some of you that did not grow up in church, and you've just thought, you know, if God exists, He will accept you because you have done your best to be a good person.

36:40But listen to me: God's standard is not, did you try really hard to be good? God's standard is perfection. He is our Creator. We are His creatures, and we will stand before Him to be judged according to that perfect standard. We do not meet His standard, not a one of us. No amount of trying, no amount of second or third chances is going to help us. Our only hope is Jesus, the one to whom John the Baptist and Moses, and even the Father Himself pointed.

37:30Jesus came to fulfill the law that we broke. Every single one of God's commands, Jesus kept perfectly. He did not deserve to die. He deserved full praise for keeping every command perfectly, and yet he willingly went to the cross to take your place and mine, to die for our sins, our failure to keep the law, to be buried and then to rise again so that through faith in him, we could be justified. We could be counted righteous. We could be forgiven and reconciled to God.

38:10And so this morning, I don't want you for another second to put your hope in yourself or your ability to try hard enough, to do well enough to keep the law. Instead, the message from Jesus to us is repent and believe, and you will be saved. If you're already a Christian, maybe you've lost Jesus a little bit in the shuffle of Bible reading and church programs and even giving and serving and making disciples. You've just lost Jesus. A bit in the shuffle of all of those things. I want you to remember: those things are not ends in and of themselves.

39:08Knowing God and making Him known is the end. This is what Jesus said, John 17. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Eternal life is knowing God and knowing God's Son, Jesus. So let's recommit ourselves to that end through the means of the Scriptures. Let's pray. Father, we are a very busy people. I think for a lot of us, Work has never been busier.

40:38Our home life has never been busier. School has never been busier. And we import so much of that busyness into what we call our spiritual life as well. And the Christian life gets boiled down to having a quiet time, to doing stuff for you, instead of knowing you and making you known. Father, I pray that our church would come to know you at a deep level through the means of your word and prayer and worship and our life groups and giving and serving and everything else that we do, but that those things would not become ends in and of themselves. We do not want to miss. Jesus for all of those good things.

42:07We pray that you would restore the joy of our salvation. And Father, we pray for those who you're speaking to this morning through the power of your Spirit. We pray that you would grant repentance and faith. That men, women, and children today would turn from their sin and turn to Christ in faith. That they don't leave this morning with a resolution to try harder to do better, but they leave this morning transformed by the power of the gospel, the power of your grace, the power of your Holy Spirit.

43:05God, thank you for giving us your word. May we not only read it, may we believe it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.