Clough John Lesson 20

The Second Witness to the Religious Authorities Reaffirmed – John 3:22-36

Turn to John 3. We will be continuing with the collision between Jesus Christ and the religious authorities of the time. So far in this section that actually began in John 2:11 and extends to the last verse of chapter 3, or Jesus first visit as Messiah, definitely claiming to be Messiah to the city of Jerusalem, we have seen the collision with the authorities in the temple and then with one of the leaders, Nicodemus. We found in John 3:14-15 that the last words that Jesus taught to Nicodemus were so full of doctrine that John the Apostle must interrupt the text and so from John 3:16-21 we have a meditation inserted by John the Apostle to make sure that we all understand the tremendous doctrine that Jesus Christ is teaching to Nicodemus.

He said and the essence of this doctrine was judgment/salvation. He is speaking of the fact that Jesus Christ coming into the world did not come to judge but He came to judge; He did not intend to judge in the sense that this would be the final judgment that would damn all men to hell, but rather that Jesus Christ would provide a way out from judgment, yet says John, ironically the very provision of an escape from judgment provides the judgment, because men will turn away from it.

And in John 3:17-20 he takes up the metaphor of the serpent on the pole, and he says in effect that the provision of the healer to the dying patient implies that the responsibility for dying now rests solidly with the patient, for if the patient does not take advantage of the healing qualities of Christ, then if they die that’s their problem. And conversely in John 3:21 he said, “He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds might be manifest, that they have been wrought in God,” perfect tense, “that they have become” or “have been,” time past, the results which continue to the present, “they have been wrought in God.” What does that mean? It means, it refers to “he that doeth truth” to the Old Testament believer, plus you would have unbelievers who would be responding, positive volition, to their God-consciousness. Those two categories of men are “they that do truth.” “They that do truth” are those who walk in accordance with a Scriptural principle. Being “wrought in God” means that these persons are basically starting out from a starting point of submission to God-consciousness. Their starting point is not autonomous thought, their starting point is submission to God’s revelation and therefore they come to Christ when He appears.

Now John 3:22-36 finish that first confrontation in Jerusalem with a review; a review of that first witness to Jesus in the Gospel, John the Baptist. Remember the legal metaphor or the legal imagery behind the Gospel; there must be two witnesses and John always is a man fond of the words “witness” and “testimony,” legal terms. And so he is anxious that the reader understand that there were two witnesses to Christ’s claim: Christ Himself and John the Baptist. John the Baptist’s claim in John 1 was before Jesus appeared. So since there was always a tendency among Jews to elevate John the Baptist instead of Jesus into the position of Messiah, John wants us to understand again that after Jesus formally presented Himself and began His own separate ministry, John the Baptist still continued to bear witness to Him. There was no break in John’s witnessing of Jesus. Had there been so, then indeed there would have been basis for some of the Johannine disciples in the city of Ephesus a century later to claim no, Jesus was not the Messiah, John was. And we’ll just see how John remembers certain incidences that happened here.

So beginning in John 3:22 we have the second witness, John, once again, to the person of Christ. This is written in the same format that the passage was written in, namely from verses 22 on down through verse 30 you have the incident, and from verses 31-36 you have the commentary by the apostle.

John 3:22, “After these things came Jesus and His disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.” Jesus Christ came into the countryside, that’s what it means the land of Judaea, this would be the land around the city of Jerusalem. Here’s the north end of the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley, Mediterranean coast, Jerusalem is located right about here and Judaea is this area. So therefore Jesus Christ fans out and goes through the countryside proclaiming His message to the various small towns. This is the first active ministry of Jesus as Messiah that’s recorded in this Gospel He moves as far south as Hebron, presumably, and as far north as Ramah.

But the interesting thing of verse 22 in the light of future church conflicts, future that is to John’s day, we have them with us today, is what Jesus did in this country side because what He did and His disciples certainly gives further evidence to what Biblical baptism is and what Biblical baptism is not, for it says in verse 21 that Jesus and His disciples spent time in the countryside, “and baptized.” Now that passage is vital because this passage is going to argue that John’s baptism and Jesus’ baptism are one and the same baptisms. Why is that such a crucial argument? Because we have so much data that tells us exactly how John’s baptism was taken that we can then say Jesus baptism was taken the same way, and, conclusion, the baptism in Acts 2 was taken the same way. So we can tie all the ceremonial baptisms that were going on, John’s, this baptism, and the baptism of Acts and come up with certain doctrinal principles and those doctrinal principles are given in Matthew 3.

Turn to Matthew 3 and we’ll see the classic passage on how to understand properly baptism. Baptism is not a sacrament of grace. That is a doctrine that is developed later on by the Roman Catholic Church. It is not based on the text of the New Testament, it is based upon Church tradition. This is a baptism of repentance and it is identical in form to Jesus baptism and Peter’s baptism, so when you get someone in Acts 2:38 and they jump you and say [can’t understand words] baptized in Jesus’ name and all the rest of it, just understand that they are taking Acts 2:38 and keeping you very carefully isolated from these other passages.

In Matthew 3:7, this shows you how baptism was originally conceived. First of all, there weren’t any children out being baptized. “But when he saw,” John that is, “saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of poisonous snakes, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? [8] Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet for repentance.” So the prerequisite for baptism from the very beginning was conversion. Conversion first, then baptism afterwards. Baptism itself does not regenerate. Regeneration occurs before baptism; baptism is only a ritual that signifies the reality that ought to have taken place before baptism proceeded. Baptism is nothing more than a memorial ritual, the same thing as communion; it means absolutely nothing as far as your spiritual condition of your soul if you have not personally trusted in Christ. Some people have been baptized and they bet their last dollar on their baptism to save them, or it is because somebody dropped some water on my head when I was a little baby and that made me a Christian. A little water on your forehead isn’t going to make you a Christian. The Holy Spirit is going to make you a Christian and He will do so at the point you trust in Christ and no child can trust in Christ until he reaches God-consciousness and so therefore there’s no such thing as infant baptism, not originally. The Church later on brought this in but not here. Here originally there was baptism only for professing believers. It was baptism by the mode of immersion, or possibly effusion, it was not by sprinkling either though the mode is not really crucial. Basically it is a prerequisite; baptism is an act of obedience after you have become a Christian.

So this is why John 3:22 is so crucial, that provides the bridge between John’s baptism and the baptism of Acts 2 and tells us that people would have understood Peter’s command to come forward and be baptized the same way they would have understood Jesus and John; the same group of people, the same place, the same culture and the same issues. There is no difference.

So Jesus and His disciples were baptizing, and now there appears to be two Messianic movements let loose in the nation Israel. And this leads to controversy and the resolution of this controversy is one of the most beautiful examples of meekness in all of God’s Word. It says in verse John 3:23, And John also was baptizing in Aenon, near to Salim, because the was much water there; and they came, and were baptized.” Now we don’t know exactly where this place was, somewhere along the Jordan, but there is a place, here’s the north end of the Dead Sea, here’s the Sea of Galilee, here’s the Valley of Jezreel, and you know a place of called [can’t understand word]. South of it today is a Tel, called Tel [can’t understand word, sounds like: Shallim], this Tel may have been the site because it says here there was much water. We have some slides of this area to give you an idea where this was happening and maybe a little insight into some of the background for the controversy.

The place must be some place nearby Jordan, though we can’t be dogmatic and it’s a place where there has to be a lot of water; the leading candidate is this place at Tel Shallim [?], Once again our map to acquaint ourselves with the terrain, the topography, here is the Jordan Valley that runs north-south, here is the triangular shaped Valley of Jezreel, and the break out from Jezreel into the Jordan Valley. This is where Gideon chased the Midianites down through that valley. [he continues showing slides] If you go up on Mount Gilboa and look across this area you can see all the water that’s there. Most scholars take this to be the place where this incident with John occurred; lots of water for baptizing, more water now than there was at that time simply because if you look closely those are artificial lakes that have been developed. But the area still is very, very rich in water, so this verse that you read in John 3 is very accurate geographically.

“John was baptizing because there was much water there … and they came, and were baptized” which means many of the people that were joining up with the Messianic movement, [24] “For John was not yet cast into prison.” Verse 25, the beginning of the controversy, “Then there arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews about purifying.” Now in the best texts it seems to indicate that there was a struggle between one Jew, several “of John’s disciples and a Jew,” the argument was, and we must infer this from the text, the argument was, well, which of these two movements is the true Messianic movement. You’ve got two of these, you’ve Jesus, you’ve John. Jesus is down south, John’s up north, and who do we go to; which baptism is right. And people tried, as they still do, to set one believer against another believer to divide and conquer which has always been Satan’s strategy. Now you watch the techniques that John the Baptist, as a very mature leader uses to heal what could have been a tremendous satanic attack against his ministry and against Christ’s ministry. It’s elegant, not only for it’s just sheer grace but it’s elegant in its wisdom. Satan wanted to split John and Jesus at the very beginning and so the controversy.

John 3:26, his disciples “came unto John, and said unto him, Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou barest witness, behold, the same baptizes, and all men come to him” You can see the hint of jealousy; we had no competition before, now this new Jesus you helped on His way is now taking converts. There’s competition, we don’t like it. Verse 27 is his answer, and beginning here is the tremendous answer, and this, by the way, is a picture of what meekness is; a definition of meekness in Scripture. Meekness is not weakness; meekness means that you assume willingly your position in God’s plan. That’s the definition of meekness, you assume willingly your position in God’s plan. And if God wants you to be promoted, “Yes Sir.” If God does not want you to be promoted, “Yes Sir.” It’s that attitude toward whatever God’s will is for you as an individual. That is meekness and three outstanding men in the Bible portray this characteristic: Moses, John the Baptist and Barnabas. All these men faced serious reversals in their life and all these men went along with it with thanksgiving. Moses, after leading the people 40 years was prevented himself from ever seeing the land, and it was a bitter pill for Moses to have to swallow, to say “Yes Sir” to God and willingly accept exclusion from the land that he looked forward to for so many years. John, you’ll see him react here and Barnabas was the man who John Mark, the author of the second Gospel dropped the ball and failed with Paul, Paul wouldn’t take John Mark with him and so Barnabas took John Mark with him and there was a controversy that erupted and Barnabas took John Mark and Barnabas showed that he had a meek attitude. He also showed he had a meek attitude because Barnabas was the man that got Paul started and it’s very tough to train someone and then have the person you trained outdo you and it was very hard for Barnabas to have trained Paul and then have Paul become a greater shining light than he was. So John is the one who has introduced to the nation and now Jesus outshines John. This is a very difficult position.

So how does John answer it? In John 3:27, “John answered, and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.” This means that he recognizes that success and promotion come from God. Turn to Psalm 75:5-7, here is a tremendous promise for those of you who are in business, worried about promotion, those of you who are in ministry of some sort, here is the divine viewpoint of advancement on the job. “Lift not up your horn on high; speak not with a stiff neck.” That means autonomous advancement, your “horn” is your power and your success. Because, verse 6, “For promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, [7] But God is the judge; He puts down one, and He sets another up.” Now that is the proper mental attitude towards promotion. It doesn’t mean that you fade into the wall. It does mean that you make sure your works praise your name, but it means that you don’t go around trying always to ram, cram and jam your own individual promotion.

This is an area where a Christian must trust the Lord on the job. Why? Again because the promotion doesn’t come ultimately from men, it comes from God. And if you worm your way into a job promotion or a promotion in life that is apart from God’s will you are going to be a very miserable person because you’re not prepared for that yet and God doesn’t want you to have that responsibility and you’re going to have a lot of pressure that you would not have had had you just relaxed and trusted the Lord for advancement on His time schedule. But believers who are over zealous on their achievement often get themselves into some very tight jams. If they would relax and understand when God trains you and He sees that you have enough training you will get the promotion.

This goes for witnessing and evangelism; God will give you more opportunities to witness than you could ever think of, once you’re trained and he will not give you good opportunities until you are trained. So therefore these programs where you knock on so many doors on Thursday night visitation and get so many big points is a lot of bologna and they’re getting in the way of God because God will open the doors and you won’t have to knock when you’re trained. That’s been my experience and it’s been the experience of many in this congregation; patiently taking in the Word of God over a certain time period and then all of a sudden God opens doors in very interesting ways, to people that you would never reach by going around beating on doors for points. So remember this, whether it’s witnessing, whether it’s rising to positions of leadership in Christian organizations, whether it’s on the job you’re on now, whether it’s on some job, promotion comes from the Lord. And if you can just relax in that you may save part of your stomach lining from a serious case of ulcers, at best physically. At least you’ll have a relaxed mental attitude; you do your job as unto the Lord and the Lord sees it; that’s what the promise is in Ephesians 5, the Lord sees it.

Turn back to John and watch how he assumes this attitude of grace in the promotion of himself. Here the very man that he has helped now appears to be promoted ahead of him, and that’s what John means. He’s not a fatalist when he says in verse 27, “A man can receive nothing,” in context he’s talking about promotion. A man will not be promoted in his ministry until heaven has given it to him. That’s his attitude, so verse 27 is John’s relaxed attitude; it could have been a tense situation, Satan could have driven a wedge between John and Jesus and it would have blown the whole movement from the very start. And here you have a chance to see how a great Christian or a great believer operated under a time of pressure. First of all he started out with a proper mental attitude to the whole thing. He was a grace oriented believer; he said my promotion comes from the Lord, if the Lord wants to promote me fine, if the Lord doesn’t want to promote me fine, that’s up to Him, not to me. So he didn’t worry about it.

John 3:28, he settled the issue doctrinally, “Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before Him.” In verse 28 he’s simply saying that his teachings are no doctrinal contradiction with Jesus’ teachings. So he denies any cause for a split between the two movements on the basis of doctrine. The doctrine we teach, says John, is the same. Jesus’ claims do not undermine my claims because my claims were never Messianic in the first place, so don’t get all upset when you see Jesus going around making Messianic claims, I told you, you were here if you heard me. Now just listen to what I taught you, he says.

Then in John 3:29 he illustrates doctrine, and here we have one of those magnificent illustrations that we are now probably very used to seeing in this Gospel, and illustration that has many layers of truth to it; an illustration that when you come down to the bottom layer you suddenly discover hey, wait a minute, do you know what this illustration is telling us? That Jesus is God. Now it doesn’t look on the face of it in verse 29 that any claim whatsoever has been made about Jesus deity. When we get through explaining the illustration you’ll see that this is a claim to Jesus Christ’s deity. It’s been very subtly made in the course of another illustration.

John 3:29, “He that has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice; this my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. Now he is going to use a Jewish marital custom to get across a doctrinal principle and we want to spend a little time to develop this and if you are a little queasy and legalistic in the area of sex, pardon me, but this is one of those passages so put your seat belt on and just relax.

The Jews had a custom of “the friend of the bridegroom,” incidentally this is one of the evidences that the author of this Gospel knew his geography extremely well, because when you mention the wedding feast in John 2 the friend of the bridegroom was missing from that narrative, and we now know properly so because the marriages in Galilee had no friend of the bridegroom for reasons you’re about to see. But in Judea and in the areas outside of Galilee, all the marriage ceremonies had this friend of the bridegroom, or sometimes it’s plural, the friends of the bridegroom. Therefore, John, when he mentions this illustration, shows intimate knowledge of the marital customs of that day, and it’s one further evidence this Gospel wasn’t written, as the liberals insist, by some second century Christian making all this up as the Church’s later version of the Christian faith.

What did the friend of the bridegroom do? He had four or five different obligations; he was kind of like the best man is in our wedding ceremonies, he had to see that nobody put paint on his chariot and a few other things to maintain security. But he also had another function that we have lost and dropped out of the marriage and that ws the couple was married under a chuppah, which is a type of thing that is held up, symbolic of a tent. After this wedding, after this marriage was legally contracted, the couple would retire to a room for the physical consummation of that wedding and the bridegroom would accompany them and stand outside of the room. I suppose you never read that in the devotional on this verse. And when you read in verse 29, “He that has the bride is the bridegroom,” this is after the wedding, he who has the right over the bride is the bridegroom, “but the friend of the bridegroom stands and hears him.” This is when they are actually physically consummating their marriage and this is why the Galileans were far more… people that just didn’t go for this kind of thing and you can obviously see how this is misused. Part of it was a legal basis, it was partly to show that this marriage was a valid marriage but you can see how that would have been very… you had to watch out who was your best man and so on, some guy make a tape recording and pass it all around wouldn’t be quite the thing to do. So this was abused and therefore later dropped out. And that’s why the Galilean weddings did not have the friend of the bridegroom.

Well, in verse 29, because it’s outside of Galilee he’s referring to the custom and he very beautifully relates it to a tremendous spiritual truth. He says I am the friend of the bridegroom, and I stand and I hear my friend the groom, bringing his relationship to consummation and that gives me joy. Now let’s look at a few more points at the example, then we’ll go to the theology behind the example. The man who was the friend of the bridegroom could have been filled with mental attitude sins of envy and jealousy as this occurred. It would take a remarkably mature individual to be happy in another man’s happiness because it is part and parcel of our sin nature never to rejoice in someone else’s happiness. We always have a tendency in our sin nature to rejoice in someone else’s unhappiness; there’s that secret lusting to see the other person get it. And so therefore there’s always this rebellious attitude, not joy but anger, envy, mental attitude jealousy and so John says I am the kind of the friend of the bridegroom that rejoices that this marriage has occurred.

Now what is the theology, the startling theological claim that appears to be so innocently attached to this illustration. In Old Testament doctrine who was the bride and who was the bridegroom? The bride was Israel and the bridegroom was none other than Jehovah God. Now do you see what verse 29 is saying? John says Jehovah God has come to the nation and He is consummating His relation in history with the nation and I, as the friend of the bridegroom, I stand by the sidelines and I rejoice that Jehovah finally has his bride. So, now verse 29 means a lot more because it is a claim that Jesus Christ is the bridegroom and the only way that word would have been taken and believed in that time by Old Testament doctrine would be therefore, John, what you have just said is Jesus is Jehovah. And obviously he’s talking about Christ’s ministry, there’s no problem there, the Old Testament categories tell us more about what he’s teaching. This verse is a claim to Jesus’ deity.

And then in John 3:30, John comes out with what Leon Morris has called one of the greatest utterances that ever fell from human lips. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Now you couple verse 30 with verse 27, couple those two together, along with Psalm 75:5-7, which we studied, and you have the example of meekness, the ability to be content with what God has provided. Now this is not just some little small point in passing; this is a major point. Every sin, every mental attitude, every sin of the tongue, every overt sin that you and I do starts here. I’ll prove it, turn to Romans 1, famous passage, classic passage of the origin of sin.

Romans 1:21, it’s the mechanics of how sin starts. In the Old Testament there were Ten Commandments given; commandment number one and commandment number ten are mirror images of each other. What was the first commandment? Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” What was the tenth commandment? “Thou shalt not covet.” What does that say? The same thing; if I am coveting something I have just confessed that I have other gods than Jehovah because if I covet something it means that Jehovah’s provisions do not please me, I am not really pleased with my God and His provision, and therefore I covet and grasp things that I want in addition to what God has provided, and that is coveting and that is the same as a denial of the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods,” you will accept Me, says Jehovah, and My provisions plus nothing, and if you don’t do that you’re coveting.

And the same here in Romans 1:21, “When men knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful.” So where does sin always start, whether it’s mental attitude, whether it’s in word, whether its in deed it always starts right here; we don’t appreciate what God has given.

Now if you’ll analyze this with some besetting sin in your life, you don’t have to pay a psychologist $50 an hour for this great discovery but this discovery will help you solve your problem because it will relate it immediately, theologically to what’s happening in your soul. If you have some sin pattern out here that’s causing you problems, relate that doctrine and ask yourself, where is it that I am dissatisfied with what God has given me that makes me do this. All you have to do is ask yourself that question, keep pushing back and you’ll find it, and that’s the source of the sin. And this is why often times you take somebody, say they have alcoholism or something, they have some –R learned behavior pattern out here, you don’t fight the thing by fighting the alcoholism, that’s not the place to do the battle; the place to do the battle is back… suppose some guy on the job starts hitting the bottle and he becomes an alcoholic and you work with a person, you can’t work with this alcoholism, that’s already a frozen pattern, no way you can break that thing. Oh yeah, AA does it but I’m talking about as far as Christian principles of solution; you’ve got to go back and say now look, wasn’t it because you were ultimately dissatisfied with your job; isn’t that what drove you to drink in this case, perhaps. Yeah. All right, what does that show theologically about yourself? It shows you number one that you probably couldn’t handle pressure on the job and whose fault is that? Doesn’t God say I’ve given you all these promises to supply all your need, in everything? Now you either disbelieved what God has provided or you’ve refused to apply what God has provided; you have refused to see that job as a Romans 8:28 situation, you have refused to give thanks for it and therefore over a prolonged period you have gradually increased your rebellion against this thing until it’s become a major problem in your life, until, when you get a learned behavior pattern like this it becomes a totally life dominating style and it all begins with lack of thanksgiving. No charge for that.

Let’s go to John 3, “He must increased, but I must decrease.” This is John’s response, he sees the handwriting on the wall, he knows what’s going to happen. He knows that Jesus Christ is going to rise in fame and probably he will die in oblivion and he will, because what verse do you notice that John the Apostle has set in the text to remind us how John died? See verse 24, he knows that John will die in prison, the victim of a little teenage girl who was a brat; on her birthday she wanted a present, and father, one of the Herod’s asked his daughter what she wanted for her birthday; the head of John the Baptist. So they cut the man’s head off and that was her birthday present. And so that’s the ignominious end of this great man of God, in a dirty filthy prison winding up in a beheaded situation for some little brat teenager.

He knows he’s going to decrease but here you have his last recorded public declaration of the gospel, and it is “He must increase and I must decrease,” and I am thankful and that shows his maturity. He knew it and then he responded positively and said Father, I thank You because this is the plan for my life, I wouldn’t be happy doing anything else, I know that if I got out of line at this point and willed something else for my life than this I would be a perpetually miserable person. So I am going to learn to give thanks in my own situation.

Now with such a statement like this John the Apostle just can’t let it sit there, so from verses 31-36 John the Apostle tells us his thoughts. They’re the Holy Spirit’s thoughts through the apostle but they are mediated, of course, through Himself. John 3:31, “He that comes from above is above all; he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaks of the earth; he that comes from heaven is above all. [32] And what he has seen and heard, that he testifies; but no man receives his testimony.” What’s this all about? “He that comes from heaven is above all,” what John the Apostle, not John the Baptist, John the Apostle takes this statement, “He must increase and I must decrease” and he enlarges it for us. He says why does John think this way? Because of the person of Christ. Who is the Lord Jesus Christ that is doing the increasing, just who is He? He is the One “from above” and as the One from above He that speaketh from heaven is “above all,” and in the context “all” is all earthly spokesmen. And immediately you have the character of Christ uniquely separated from those on earth that includes John plus all prophets. John says that every human prophet, Moses, Elijah, Nathan, Samuel, all the men who received God’s revelation in history, all men with skill, he says we are still of the earth, and that’s his way of expressing finiteness. We’re still creatures, we’re still limited; we still speak only out of our own perception of revelation. God has given us revelation, it’s partial revelation and we mediate this to the human race and that’s our position, we are of the earth. But “He that comes from above,” says John, speaks above us all, He has authority over us. And so when he says “He must increase and I must decrease” that’s John’s way of saying I confess that Jesus is my Lord and Savior. It’s just another way of confessing his allegiance to Jesus Christ, to who Christ really is.

Now John 3:32 is rather astounding for those of you who are interested in the areas of philosophy and you’re absorbed in the problems of the absolutes, I want you to notice in verse 32 how the Bible presents knowledge of the absolutes. “What he has seen and heard, that he testifies,” in other words, the claim of verse 32 is that Jesus, in His omniscience, has knowledge which is mediated empirically; it is not just direct intuitive knowledge, that Jesus Christ as God the Son sees and He hears. It means that when we go to heaven, for example, and God is going to teach us all through eternity; you don’t become God when you die and know all things like some people think 1 Corinthians 13 means; it doesn’t mean that, it has reference to the canon, not rapture. And in that passage people always say well, you see, when you die everything is clear. Huh-un, when you die and go to be face to face with the Lord that begins a whole new phase of teaching and training because God is going to train us into His character forever and ever and ever and ever and ever because we’re finite; we can never master His character. There will always be something new to learn about God, so don’t worry about being bored in heaven.

John is simply saying that Jesus Christ, he perceives this in the same way that I see and I hear; the knowledge isn’t going to be some mystical thing, it’s not going to be some sort of numerical board on a computer, ding dong ding dong ding dong ding and then you learn all the doctrine. It’s not going to be that way; you’re going to learn just the same you learn here, through senses, not through in intuition but through senses, and so in verse 32 He claims that even Jesus’ knowledge can be mediated through the senses. “What he has seen and heard” in heaven, that’s what he testifies, but he says sadly, “no man receives His testimony,” not in the absolute sense because obviously the remnant does but as a whole the human race rejects His testimony.

This goes back to the problem of starting points; in John 3:33 it says, “He that has received his testimony hath set his seal to this, that God is true.” The point John is making in these verses is that when you have a situation, here is an isolated human individual; if God never spoke to you, you wouldn’t have this problem, but the moment that God speaks to you… suppose you’re in Eden, suppose you’re Adam. Visualize yourself in Eden, it’s one second after you’ve been created and you look around, all of a sudden, just total new experience; this is your first moments of existence. And in this first moment of existence as you look around the Garden of Eden, suddenly in some way God the Son appears and He says to you, I want you to subdue the earth, and I want you to do this and I want you to do this but don’t eat of the tree, lest you die. Now you have experience, you have no prior history, nothing to go on except the fact that God has appeared to you and He’s uttered that sentence. You have no test of that sentence, you have no way to check out that sentence, you basically can do one of two things. You can say, yes God, I trust you, or you can say no, I want to find out for myself. And that’s always the way it is with man, whether it is in the Garden of Eden or in present history, when the Word of God comes to man you can go on positive volition, which is to submit and accept the fact that God’s Words are true because God is true, or you can demand that it will be screened first by your test, you in your finite autonomy, you will devise the proof and God must come up to your proof and your standards before you will believe. It’s one or the other. One starting point or the other starting point; that’s what John is saying.

Verse 33, the man who has “received Christ’s testimony,” the revelation through Jesus Christ, has admitted that “God is true,” the corollary being that if you reject you’ve just declared God a liar. See, usually you’re in a problem; the only way to visualize this in your own experience is personal utterances. Now I can say to you I don’t feel well tonight, and you have no way of testing that apart from my credibility. Suppose I say to you I don’t feel well because I have a certain symptom and it’s undetectable by temperature, undetectable by EKG or undetectable by any other system, yet I insist that I don’t feel well. Now you can argue with me, but there’s no way you’re going to disprove my statement, I am the ultimate witness to my own soul and you are the ultimate witness to your soul and no external observer can refute you in these kinds of statements. Therefore, when God speaks into history He is witness to His soul and when Jesus Christ therefore says I tell you what I have seen and heard, you have to accept it or deny My character. That’s the issue.

And this is why some harsh words are going to be said at the end of this chapter, and I’m building you up for them, otherwise you can’t appreciate how suddenly we get so harsh in this text. Why all of a sudden does John get so angry, so vehement at the end? Because right here he’s just shown us the issue. Once God has revealed Himself we are stuck. It would have been all right had God not spoken, but once God speaks, now we must choose and we no longer can be neutral. Either we admit He means what He says or we want to qualify by our judgment what He says.

And John says, John 3:34, to show that this is a unique case, it is not the case of a spokesman for God, like when I go out or you go out to teach the gospel, you don’t people to accept it on your credibility alone and if they don’t buy it from you they’re going to hell. That’s not the way we preach the gospel; we say we accept it on God’s credibility; I didn’t write this, you would say in this situation. This is God’s message, now here’s the content of the message, here’s the evidence in history of the message and you present these to the person, because you’re not God when you’re doing this speaking and I’m not God when I’m doing this speaking. Thus we present the content and the credibility of the content. There’s a place for it. But when Christ speaks because He is not one of us, He is not just a creature, He is God Himself, He doesn’t have to give any evidence. And that’s the point John’s making. When Jesus speaks He may give evidences; that’s His prerogative, but He doesn’t have to give evidences. His words are, by definition, true because He is God.

That’s why it says in verse 34, “For he whom God hath sent speaks the words of God; for God gives not the Spirit by measure unto him.” That means that Jesus, in His God-man nature, spoke in a unique way. The Spirit was given without measure, the comparison being it was given with measure to every prophet; Jesus is unique.

John 3:35 he further emphasizes the point, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand.” This means “all things” includes now judgment. So he says, winding up his meditation on this conflict between Jesus and human viewpoint religion, there are those who are going to erect their own autonomous human viewpoint and there are those who are going to submit, but just remember, the man whom you’re choosing to defy or to accept is going to be your judge; the Father has loved Him and has given everything into His hands.

That’s the last verse, John 3:36, “He that believeth on the Son has everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” Now that’s an awfully powerful sentence. It ought to be memorized by every Christian. “He that believes on the Son,” who has accepted. And in the context of chapter 3 it’s not just believe with your eyes closed, but actually seeing this revelation for what it is, and you say yes to it. “He that believes the Son” and responds to the words of the Son, he has everlasting life. He’s healed from his dying-ness, the poison of Satan. “But he that believes not the Son,” and the word “believe” in the Greek is not the word “believe” here it’s obey, it’s more powerful, “He that disobeys the Son shall never see life, but the wrath of God remains on Him.” “Remains” means that the wrath of God was there before the message of the gospel came to you and will be there forever and ever and ever and ever.

Potent words that John uses to close this meditation; they’re the only choice—life or death, and the choice is yours.