Three Further Witnesses
For the Lord’s Day:  the 16^th of January 2005 

John 5: 36-47

Introduction:  Today, we come to the closing verse of this amazing fifth chapter of John’s Gospel.  As we do so, let me summarize briefly the content and context of the important teachings contained here.  Briefly, the chapter began with the healing of a cripple on the Jewish Sabbath.  This miracle led to a confrontation with the rulers of the Old Covenant Church over the proper use of the Sabbath.  Then, perceiving that Jesus was thereby claiming equality with the Father, the Sanhedrin moved their nefarious plots to destroy Jesus into high gear.  Jesus responds to their refusal to consider the truth of the situation by admonishing them that they would do better to honor both the Father and Himself.  And to that end He lays out not only the veracity of the witness given by John the Baptist, but also goes on to claim three further witnesses:  the Father, the Word and the prophet Moses.

Like many trial lawyers in our own day, the Lord lays out twice the necessary legal requirements to make His case.  Instead of the usual two witnesses, He asserts the authority of four.  Last week, of course, we looked over the witness of John the Baptist.  This of course was wise, since John’s words were fresh in the memory of all the people and there were those who had witnessed the strange and wonderful happenings at the baptism of Jesus.  But, this is not enough to the doubters who ruled over spiritual Israel in that day and time.  And so, in our text for today, we read of three further witnesses that Jesus would lay before the court of public opinion as well as that of the church leaders in His day.

Well do I understand the dilemma of our Lord before the leaders of His day.  Three decades ago when I was first entering Seminary, I began to run into the progressive liberals who intended to take over and control Christ’s Church.  It had taken them man many years, but by the early seventies they were in a position to keep anyone who did not agree with them out of every position of authority within the main line denominations.  Many of my seminary friends succumbed to the financial and educational pressures to avoid not being perceived as progressive.  Almost the whole academic and professional structure was in cahoots to purge the church of orthodoxy, confessionalism and even basic piety.  There was not anything that a person like me could say or do to remain in the good graces of the wicked and evil men who denied not only the confessions, but also the Bible and even our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Development:  This is the same phenomenon that our Lord faced in His day and age.  The Jewish Sanhedrin was corrupt politically, spiritually, intellectually and judicially in everything they said and did.  Whenever you read the Gospels, one ought to be struck by the thunderous accusations that Jesus lays before the administrators and teachers of the Old Covenant Church.  The very people who had kept the scrolls, who had transcribed further copies and studied them their whole lives, these same impoverished souls did not comprehend or believe what they had been given and entrusted to pass on.  To this wicked and perverse generation – the very Son of God spoke vainly of the proper witnesses to which they should have by all expectations heard and thereby come to faith.

He had begun by appealing to the prophetic voice of His day and age:  John the Baptist.  This evidence was ignored and so in our text today, Jesus appeals to the higher authorities before whom every Jew worthy of the name should have bowed and believed.  “But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John.”

In the rest of that thirty-sixth verse, Jesus appeals to the miraculous work of the Father in and through the agency of Himself: the very Son of God.  “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.”  Mighty works and deeds had been accomplished in Israel by and in the Name of the Son.  Calvin claims “two things, by which he was proved to be the Son of God.”   These are the miracles themselves as well as the abundant testimony revealed in the sacred writings of Israel.

The use of miracles was nothing new under the sun.  After all, very many of the prophets in Israel had been established in their reputation by the works of God through their ministry before the eyes of the people of God.  The reputation and standing of Moses had been well established in the plagues of Egypt and even into and through the desert – whenever the people murmured against the Lord’s anointed leader.  Moses reputation was sufficient to establish Joshua after him.  And of course the successes of Joshua’s campaigns proved God’s favor upon him.  All throughout the long history of Israel and Judah, God’s men were carefully established by the power and work of the Almighty Creator God.  Prophets came and went down through the ages, charting the course, calling people into spiritual dependence and most of all pointing to the everlasting hope of Israel: the coming Messiah.

Greater miracles, than all of the prophets, did Christ perform to substantiate the Father’s blessing and calling.  Further, according to Calvin’s second point, the whole revelation history of the Old Covenant pointed clearly and carefully to the suffering servant of Isaiah’s Gospel, as well as the major themes within covenant law, sacrifice, worship and prophecy.

And yet, in verses thirty-seven and eight, we read the testimony of Christ that “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.”  This is a serious charge against the leaders of Christ’s time – that they know not the voice of their Father.  Neither do they have His word; all because they believe not in Jesus as the Lord’s Anointed Messiah.  Calvin notes that by the damning charges put forth here – these spiritually impoverished leaders “are utterly estranged from the knowledge of God.”

It was one pastor in the old church, with whom I worked for nine months who led the charge to make certain that I was never ordained.  His influence was wide enough to cause my national theology exams to come back negative every time I took the necessary test.  He it was who accused me that because of my commitment to orthodoxy, he was thereby labeled as a heretic.  He was right of course, but not because of my then limited understandings of confessional necessities.  He had spent the better part of a month lecturing me against the teachings of Chalcedonic Credo, which he firmly believed set the church on a heretical course for many hundreds of years.  In my mind, as well in the general wisdom of the historic Church, that creed was an absolute necessity for the spiritual health and welfare of Christ’s Church.  And so, since I was not progressive enough to deny the historic foundations, thereby I was black balled from ever being ordained in the church of my fathers.

Let us make this point from the material thus far:  Jesus informs the spiritual leaders of His day that they do not know the Father and therefore they cannot understand the revelation testimony of the Old Covenant canon. 

Our second point for the morning becomes prominent in verses thirty-nine and forty.  “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.”  This is a very important point.  Let us suppose that a medical doctor came to the conclusion that in order to save your life, every last drop of blood needed to be purged from your system.  Don’t laugh too loudly at such a suggestion – George Washington very possibly died from the once popular practice of draining blood from the body!  This is an absurd treatment you must argue, of course it is.

Now, look back at our two verses.  If the spiritual leaders of Jesus’ day deny the power of His blood and atonement – they deny eternal life itself.  We of course have better vision of the focus of the Old Covenant scriptures because we live after the time of Christ.  We can all the more easily see that if you search the sacred texts for eternal life, one must finally and fully come to the Lord of life Himself:  Jesus Christ.  The priests and teachers of Israel in His day denied the very life blood of eternity.  Let me give you one example of what I mean.  Up until the time of Christ, the Jewish commentators understood the suffering servant of Isaiah to be the promised Messiah and they eagerly awaited the day when “Messiah shall come!”  However, one Jesus came – the next generation of commentators reassessed the text and decided that it was the nation of Israel that must suffer and in that suffering they could only hope for the final justice of God at the end of the age.  In that twisted logic, they deny their own Messiah and in their ever popular demand for justice, they shall receive what they so earnestly hope and pray for:  justice. 

Thank the Lord for all His grace and mercy – we know better, and because of what Christ has done, we must always hope and pray for the great mercy of God, knowing that Jesus Christ shed His own blood that we might live eternally.  And in that knowledge we know what the lost people of Israel seldom know:  life in their own Messiah.  Some years ago, I was making some phone calls in Dayton, Ohio to held get a PCA congregation started.  By chance I talked to a Jewish family or three and each time, once they identified themselves I simply urged them to consider carefully the Gospel written by Isaiah the prophet and commended them to study their own prophet in the light of Christ.

So now, let us make our second point crystal clear:  even though the Priests and Sadducees studied the law of God extensively, carefully and year after year – it did them no good because the misunderstood the whole law and the prophets completely.  Their knowledge proved absolutely useless in every sense.  One has only to visit almost any school of religion in the greater majority of colleges today to find the same abysmal ignorance and stupidity.

Our third point comes near the end of our text for today and this involves the prophetic work of Moses.  Look at verses forty-five to seven:  “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.  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?”  What an impassioned charge:  the Jewish leaders are so corrupt and ignorant that they must not even believe in Moses!  This charge was certain to stir their blood to a fever pitch!  Calvin lays this out carefully:  “When he says, that they trust in Moses, he does not accuse them of superstition, as if they ascribed to Moses the cause of their salvation … they do wrong in relying on the protection of Moses, as if they had him to defend their wicked obstinacy.”

I remember the story of a relative who once decided to bake something while his mother was away.  He got out the recipe, looked around and gathered the necessary ingredients.  However, a couple things were missing, and so he began substituting different items.  One missing item was baking soda.  Now I forget what he used instead, but in the recipe in question, that was an important commodity.  What an inedible disaster he ended up with and providentially burnt to a crisp as well.

Our essential point here is this:  Moses certainly is a teacher of righteousness and the greatest prophet of Israel in a certain sense, but even in his willingness to lay down his life for Israel at one point – no good could come of such a sacrifice.  This was not his office, calling or purpose.  Only our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ could accomplish our redemption.  Moses’ job was simply to establish a form of worship that pointed towards the final sacrifice of the very Lamb of God, nothing more and nothing greater than that.  So when the Old Covenant Church leaders appealed to Moses and his law – they misunderstood the purpose and witness that had been laid down for their salvation so many generations before!

Application:  Now, we skipped over a couple of verses to wrap our list of witnesses up in the person and ministry of Moses.  So let us go back and look over verses forty-one through forty-four:  “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 his 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?”

Here we see the claims of Christ laid bare before a doubting world.  The very Son of God does not need the reference of mere humanity to establish His glory and power.  Calvin writes that: “The glory of men” truthfully “gives him no concern or uneasiness to see himself despised; and indeed, he is too great to depend on the opinions of men, for the malignity of the whole world can take nothing from him, or make the slightest infringement on his high rank.”  Do any of you remember my definition of our Calvinistic understanding?  It really is never important what we think of Jesus Christ!  What is really and eternally important: is what the Lord God of heaven and earth thinks of us!

Consider that definition in the context of our lesson today.  How many times in the course of human history have false messiah’s come and led the majority of people astray?  Whether they be Joseph Smith, Karl Marx, or Mohammed – it doesn’t matter.  But what matters is that they have not a shred of truth to offer an impoverished mankind.  Even the ancient Church of the Old Covenant fell into apostasy and failed to recognize the Lord of life when He appeared.  Such is the case of numerous cults and churches even in our own day and time.  The whole point of our text today is this:  even if we have the witness of John the Baptist, Moses and the prophets and all the sacred texts – the love and mercy of the Father through the Holy Spirit is only sufficient to bring us to faith in Jesus Christ.  May we take this lesson well and give thanks always that our eyes have been opened to see the Lord of life Himself.  And in the light of Him, let us celebrate the good news forever and ever in the presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES
Calvin, John:  Commentary on the Gospel of John.
Tasker, R.V.G.  Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St John.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

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