30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. 31 If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. 32 There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. 33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. 34 Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. 35 He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. 36 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. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, 38 and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. 39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. 41 I do not receive glory from people. 42 But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. 43 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. 44 How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? 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. 46 For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. 47 But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”
Verse 31
Jesus is not saying here that what He says is false, He is affirming the biblical law of two to three witnesses being necessary to establish a matter in the court of law. He is establishing biblical, judicial ground on which He is justified. Why does He do this? Because during this time of ministry, Jesus is establishing before us all in Scripture, and before the Jews, His innocence in charges of blasphemy, knowing that in a short amount of time these very Jews are going to drag him into court where He will remain silent as a sheep before its shearers, so that He might go as the pure and spotless lamb of God to the cross, to be the sacrifice for the sin of the world. This condemns the Jews for they put to death an innocent man.
In doing such, He lays out these several witnesses to Himself, that testify that He is the Son of God; and in so doing Jesus shows that the Jews’ rejection of Him is not on solid ground, but simply on the ground of unbelief, rebellion, and sin.
The Witnesses to Christ
John the Baptist, v. 32-35
John is the weakest testimony here, yet one which the Jews enjoyed for a while. While John the Baptist is a witness to Christ, Jesus is not dependent on John’s testimony, because He has a greater witness than John.
Jesus’ Works, v. 36
(Water to wine, temple cleansing, healing the official’s son, telling the invalid to take up his bed and walk on the Sabbath, His many other works and teachings, and the greater works that were to come, the raising of the dead – spiritually, physically, His own resurrection, and the general resurrection of the dead on the last day).
How do Jesus’ works testify to Him being the Son of God?
- One: He does things that only God can do, both in power and authority, such as raising the dead at will, judging the dead when He raises them, healing and commanding a man to take up his bed and walk on the Sabbath, and cleansing the temple.
- Two: some of his works are properly called “signs” such as the wedding at Cana where he turned water into wine. There we saw in John 2 that it was a sign that pointed to covenant realities. The lack of wine, or the dryness of the vessels pointed to the barren spiritual state of Israel and the world at that time; and the overflowing wine that Jesus provided was a sign of new covenant blessings and substance that Christ was bringing, taking on the role of husband in providing the best wine for last – for the new covenant – and for his wedding celebration.
- Third: The Jews would’ve been expecting a messiah who would come doing these works that Jesus did. There is much Old Testament language that describes the blessings of the redeemer and the new covenant as water in a desert place, the blind seeing, the lame walking, the deaf hearing, and the dead rising. Isaiah 35 is one such place. Jesus brought this and is bringing these things. The Jews would’ve been looking for it, and the works Jesus did inaugurating the beginning of these blessings. Thus the works of Jesus are a witness to Him.
The Father, v. 37
The Father has done this in various ways. We could think of the Father as doing so through the voice of the prophets, or through the angel Gabriel who told Mary that she would give birth to Christ, or at Jesus’ baptism where a voice from heaven says “this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.”
But its interesting, Jesus says that they have never heard the voice of the Father or seen His form. Them not having seen His form, we understand. God is Spirit, and no man shall see God and live. He is the invisible God. But what about His voice? For we’ve just stated a few of the ways that the Father has spoken and testified of His Son. The meaning here is that they have not seen or heard by faith. He speaks but they do not hear. For as we’ve said, He speaks through the law and prophets, and now the very image of the invisible God stands before them, the incarnate Word speaks to them, yet they do not see nor hear, for they do not believe.
The Scripture, v. 39
The Scriptures are a witness to Christ, for they speak of Him, they foretold His coming and works, they are about Him. Jesus is the diamond, the pearl, and the treasure of Scripture. So to search the Scriptures, and then refuse to come to the one to whom the Scriptures bear witness is to refuse to have life; for the Scriptures cannot give us anything apart from Christ. Apart from Christ they cannot give us wisdom, for in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2). We cannot understand the mystery of God in scripture apart from Christ, for the knowledge of God’s mystery is Christ (Col. 2). We cannot have life in the Scriptures apart from Christ, for it takes the very Word of God to incarnate Himself in flesh, condescend to earth, take our sin upon His body, and bear it with nails to the bloody cross to take our sin and death and give us life. The written Word bears witness to the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who alone gives life to the dead. In one sense we could say here that Christ is our mediator to the Scriptures, for we cannot understand them, or receive what they offer apart from Him.
Do you commit the same error of the Jews here (in v. 39-44). Do we read the Scripture without Christ?
Moses (the law), v. 45-47
The final witness to the Son of God that we have here is Moses. There are a couple ways we could understand this. I think its actually a both/and situation. This could literally be a reference to Moses, the person. As during his life he was a type of mediator between God and the people. But also, what I believe Jesus has in mind here is the law. Throughout the Scripture the term “Moses” is used to refer to the law. For Moses was the “law giver” – or God gave the law through Moses. So I think that is the primary intent, for the Jews loved the law, yet I think both things can be in view here: Moses himself, and Moses as a representative of the law.
As we saw, we have Jesus’ statement in verse 39 that they search the Scriptures because they think that in them they have life, but it is the Scriptures bear witness to Jesus. And here in bringing up Moses, our Lord reiterates that point, saying, “…if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.” Now, what Scriptures was Jesus speaking of in verse 39? Well the Old Testament of course; the New Testament was not yet written. And where do we find Moses in the Scripture? In the beginning of the Bible, the books of the law, the Old Testament. This is huge. Jesus is saying that the Old Testament bears witness to Him, and the law is about Christ. In the books of the law, Moses wrote of Jesus Christ. Now, you might go back and read through Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and say, “I don’t see the name Jesus of Nazareth anywhere?” But Christ is there so loudly and clearly; and He is in the types and shadows and images and prophecies so that it might be with the clear eyes of faith that one might latch on to Christ. There is a thing called “progressive revelation” where in God, progressively revealed Himself, more and more over time, through covenant, prophecy, and revelation. Think of the way the New Testament talks about Abraham. Abraham, before Moses, had a very primitive revelation of Christ, yet he had faith. In Romans 4, Paul speaks of Abraham being justified by faith, and he says this started in verse 11 of Romans 4, “He [Abraham] received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” And Paul again in Galatians 3:7-8, “Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed.’” Now, those passages have their context into which they are speaking, but I bring that up to say that we who have the fullest revelation of God until the end of all things, are heirs of Abraham through faith – a man with far less revelation than we. And yet he is “the man of faith” – our father in the faith. Do not tell me that the Old Testament does not testify to Jesus Christ. That’s the point I’m making: the Old Testament Scripture, delivers Christ to us, as they did to Abraham, and the many others. If you’re going to unhitch yourself from the Old Testament, you better be sure you know exactly what, or Whom, you are unhitching yourself from. So Abraham, in primitive times had faith, yet, the Jews are standing right here in front of God incarnate, and they don’t see.
There is a two-fold point here: if you believe the Scripture, but reject Christ, you don’t actually believe the Scripture (because you don’t know what its actually saying); but also, if you believe Christ, yet reject the Old Testament, you don’t really believe Christ (how could you, since we know Christ through the Old Testament?).
We know the condemnation Jesus is making in this statement in His day to the Jews, but for us today it is a condemnation to the ghastly Hebrew Roots Movement, and also to the neo-Marcionites. But it is also a blessed exhortation to Christians to “read the Scriptures with the express design of finding Christ in them,” as Calvin put it.
Imagine the court room scene in heaven with the law thundering forth, indeed Moses himself thundering as a witness against the sinner who trusts in the law, or in him. “Did you not read?” “Did you not understand?”
I love what Calvin says here, “Moses had no other intention than to invite all men to go straight to Christ. And hence it is evident that they who reject Christ are not the disciples of Moses.”
Will Moses accuse you?
Let us direct the scalpel of Scripture to our own hearts now. The Jews hoped in Moses to be their mediator between God, rather than Christ, the One to whom Moses pointed toward. Maybe it’s not Moses for us. What great theologian is it that you love most? Spurgeon, Calvin, or Edwards? Oh what a great tragedy it would be should we spend our lives in the preaching of these men, yet on that day we stand before God having not truly latched upon Christ as the object of our faith, and thus Spurgeon, as it were, is there only to accuse us, for there is no man who can be our mediator before God, only the Lord Jesus Christ. You can be sure, that there will be those who spent their lives in the greatest theologians, yet not in Christ. Let us truly benefit from these great men of the faith, God has providentially furnished to us in our day, by reading deeply of them, yet looking through them unto Christ, as they would have us do.
Conclusion
The Jews to whom Jesus spoke hoped in Moses. In other words, they hoped in the law. So when Jesus comes along and starts healing people on the Sabbath and telling them to take up their bed and walk, it angers them because it seems to them that Jesus is beginning to knock down that which they are hoping in – their idols. Their hope was bound up in their version of the Sabbath, not in the True Sabbath Rest. So when Jesus says that Moses and the Scripture bears witness to him, He is rebuking their view and implementation of the law, for the law bears witness to Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus Christ is the True Sabbath, therefore he cannot break it. The Sabbath pointed forward to Him. Therefore, for the invalid to be healed by Jesus, and to obey Jesus’ command to take up his bed and walk on the Sabbath, was not to break the Sabbath, but to participate in the Sabbath.
The Jews thought that their problem was with someone breaking the Sabbath, the law of Moses; they just did not realize that that someone was them.
Christ is our Sabbath Rest. He completed all the works of God necessary for our Salvation, that we might cease from our working to rest in Him.
Are you working today, trying to Justify yourself, hoping in the law, hoping in Moses? Let us look to the law of Moses and see it fulfilled and completed by Christ, that we might rest in Him for righteousness, life, and freedom from the curse of the law. Maybe you’re not looking to Moses, but your own man-made law; that’s no better.
Where is your hope? Moses or Christ?
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