Clough John Lesson 28

Christ’s Defense – John 5:31-47

As we said last time John 5 is one of those places in the Word of God where the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ comes through most powerfully. Jesus Christ is presented in His Father/Son relationship. You recall in verse 18 the problem was that He had made a claim; a claim that He was doing, in fact, the works that only God Himself could do and therefore it was perfectly all right for Christ to do the works that He was doing on the Sabbath. Anyone who knows monotheism and knows the authority of the Old Testament and knows anything of the Sabbatical law will see that Jesus was tampering with a bomb that was about to explode with this claim.

The Jewish people caught on very quickly that in claiming to do the works that only God can do and therefore it’s okay to do those kind of works on the Sabbath because God does too, Jesus was making Himself equal with the Father. Now from this point on in the discourse between Jesus and these people, Jesus is clarifying what is true about this claim of equality and what is not true about the claim of equality. How is the Son and the Father equal? Well equal, Jesus says, and they are right in this, that they do the same works. So the Father and the Son do the same works. Only the works that God can do the Son does and the Father does together. But He said there’s a wrong way of taking My claim to equality and that is the sense of separate plans, that is the Father has His plan going in this direction and the Son has His plan going in that direction. And Jesus is very careful to say My plans are the Father’s plans; there aren’t two, or three, or four different gods competing for the helm of the universe. We do not have polytheism; we have a monotheism and there is one moral will shared by both Father and Son. And the Son is subordinate to the Father in this sense.

Now this is a model in this day of defiance against every Godly ordained institution, we have women’s lib saying that because women are subordinate to men in the marriage relationship this makes woman unequal with the man. Take a good look at the Father and Son because this is an utter refutation of that foolish argument. Is the Son less than the Father? Is the Son less divine than the Father is because the Son is subordinate to the Father? Not at all. Therefore how can it be argued that the woman is less than the man when she is subordinate to the man under God. It’s obvious it’s not true. Any argument that you use to show subordination… now it can be that way if it’s not a godly subordination, granted, but any argument you choose to make that goes from woman being subordinate to man to woman being inferior to man, if you’re going to be consistent you’re going to have to say Son is subordinate to the Father, therefore Son is inferior to Father. It won’t work for the Trinity, and it won’t work any other place either. So be careful of that little argument, sloppy thinking.

As we have gone on in this passage Jesus has dealt with two of His names, the Son of God and the Son of man. These are loaded terms, terms which meant a lot to the people in His day, terms which mean less to people in our day. The Son of God refers to the Son in the sense of His reigning over creation; one way of putting it. The Son of God in the Old Testament was the king and the king reigned over the kingdom, and so when Christ takes on the label, Son of God, it means that He rules for God over the creation. He is an extension of God’s rule, so you can say it looks at God’s rule over His own creation through His Son. That’s the title, “Son of God.”

Now the Son of man starts from the bottom and works up. Son of man says Son of Adam and it says that Jesus Christ is the ideal man who under God reigns over creation. One of them takes you from the top down; God rules the creation, God rules via the Son. That’s the Son of God. The Son of man is that man rules via the Son, that’s how mankind is brought on to its final and complete destiny of subduing the earth through Christ. Those are those two titles.

Now tonight we begin in John 5:31 and finish chapter 5. The thrust of the conversation now moves in a different direction; Christ has spent much time clarifying His equality with the Father, what it is and what it isn’t. Now in verses 31-47 Jesus Christ gives the basis for Him making that claim. And we have, then as Dr. C. H. Dodd says, “in this discussion of Christian evidences we can hardly be wrong in finding the reflection of the practice of missionary apologetics in the early church.” In other words, beginning at verse 31 you have displayed for you how John and how the other apostles following Christ’s example argued the case for Christianity. This is the theory of how they went about proving Christianity to the world. On what base did they argue?

Now again it’s the same thing that we’ve covered in Matthew, the same thing that we’ve covered in the basic series, same thing we covered earlier in John 1, and that is that these men, if you look at their words very carefully are not proving Christianity at all. What they’re doing is refuting all opposition to Christianity but they’re never once proving Christianity, not in the usual sense of the word proof; they deal with evidences, yes; they deal with reasons, yes; but it’s not a formal proof of the truth of Christianity. As we go on tonight I want you to watch how Christ develops this; it’s a process, it’s a strategy, it’s a technique that’s missing from all together too much Christianity work today.

John 5:31. “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true. [32] There is another that bears witness of Me; and I know that the witness which he witnesses of Me is true.” Now we have to be careful that we don’t jump to conclusions. Everyone knows, or most people who have been in the Word for some time look at verse 31 and they say oh yes, I know what that’s referring to, by the mouth of two or three witnesses it shall be established, it comes out of Deuteronomy, it’s legitimate jurisprudence, legitimate law practice using the Mosaic Law. But that’s not what Christ is talking about and the proof that we know this is that if that’s the interpretation, if He’s really saying that it’s illegitimate for Him to bear witness of Himself, we’ve got a very big problem if you turn to John 8:14, because in John 8:14, “Jesus answered, and said unto them, Though I bear record of Myself, My record is true,” so if you take a simple approach to chapter 5 you’re going to wind up with a contradiction in chapter 8. So that interpretation won’t hang, it just won’t fit. So we’ve got to work this around some other way and ask ourselves, do we really catch what the Lord said here.

Now in the original language and those of who know Greek, there’s no reason why you can’t do the Gospel of John, John is elementary enough at various points so you can at least spot some words. Now if you notice in verse 31 this word is used: ego. It is used in addition to the usual verb form. So the way we would translate verse 31 is this: “If I Myself bear witness, My witness is not true.” The emphasis is on the “I” not on the witnessing; the emphasis is on the subject, not the verb. “If I Myself bear witness,” now does this give us any kind of a feel for what He’s talking about here so we don’t get a conflict with John 8:14. What He’s saying, [can’t understand word] with the context, He’s going back to the Father/Son relationship. The Son is always subordinate to the Father, and what He’s simply saying in verse 31 is what He has been saying in the previous verses, I don’t launch out on My own plan; the direction I follow is the direction I have received from God the Father. And what He means in verse 31 is if I launch out and try to prove My case on My own, using My own plan independently of the Father’s plan then My witness and My testimony is not authentic, it’s not valid. Translated in today’s terms it means if we don’t argue the case for Christianity on a Scriptural basis our testimony for Christianity is not valid. It’s a rather serious charge because I think I can prove that about 80% of the presentations of the gospel today are not Scriptural in this area.

For example, someone will go in the library, and it’s a very good book, you all should read it sometime, Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and he’s got another one out, More Evidence that Demands a Verdict, excellent summaries of the evidence. Well, the average person walks in there and they pick up 108 facts from Josh and they say okay, what we’ll do is we’ll start throwing these things out, [can’t understand words] proof for the Christian faith, just kind of shotgun the operation. Wrong! That’s not how the Biblical authors are arguing and this is why you have to not only know facts that you get out of Josh McDowell’s very, very fine collection, there’s nothing wrong with the collection, it’s how people use it, and there are a lot of wonderful facts there but you don’t take those facts and put them in your gun, like a bunch of birdshot and pull the trigger and have them blow all over the place. That’s not the way. In Christian testimony it’s the long sniper shot that’s carefully aimed that the vitals of the opponent. It’s premeditated, carefully planned, only one or two bullets in the right vulnerable area to take the opponent down. That’s the kind of Scriptural witnessing that ought to go on and it demands skill and that’s why we don’t see more of it.

But what Christ is arguing is that if He were to go out and make His own case independently of what the Father has already done in history to lay the ground for proving Christianity, then He says “My witness,” not is not true, but “is not valid.” It’s just spurious witness, it’s not effective because I haven’t followed the Father’s lead. So rather, He says, let Me just run that by again to show you what we’re talking about. Let’s take this statement: prove Christianity is true. That looks like a nice statement, a lot of Christians will say boy, let’s do that, let’s show Christianity is true. There’s one way in which we do but be careful. How do you define the word “truth?” How do you know how you tell what is true or not? You see, before you started proving Christianity you’re already assuming Christianity you already assumed something about the nature of truth and how you prove that. Now where did you get that from? Your autonomous mind focusing in on the creature or did you first come to the Word of God and consult the Word of God to find out how you even find truth to start with. You see, you have to keep going back and back and back to what is your real starting point.

And this kind of thing, how do we prove Christianity is true, might be we prove God exists, or we prove that miracles can happen. Now those are nice things to challenge a person to do. But you see, that doesn’t get at the heart of the case because when you say I’m going to prove that God exists you’ve already assumed a certain method of proof. And that itself is a presupposition. That itself, you’ve already laid, you’ve already poured the concrete for your building and now you’re discussing how you’re going to put the frame on the building. You already have in your mind an idea of what proof is, an idea of what truth is, and God will say that that’s wrong even because you have started with a neutral concept of truth and a neutral idea of proof and then using neutral methods you go and add Jesus to the method and then starting from neutrality you build a case for Christianity. And that is not the way Christ is going to argue in this passage. And this is what He denies that we ought to be doing. He doesn’t say start in the neutral zone, and then swing people the people over to our side; not at all, for one reason, there is no neutral zone to start with. The very concept of proof and truth itself is either human viewpoint or divine viewpoint.

Now let’s watch the argument and how it develops. He’s saying in verse 31 then, to sum it up, He’s saying “If I bear witness of Myself independently of the Father,” because remember the emphasis in verse 31 is subject, not action: If I independently of the Father launch out on My own concept of proof and truth and all the rest, and try to assemble a case for Christianity, “my testimony is not valid.” And the application of verse 31 to today’s show is that we can’t start out proving the Christian position without first discussing proof itself and truth, and then we’re right back to our presupposition.

Lets look at John 5:32, Jesus says, “There is another that is bearing witness of Me;” and the word “another,” the Greek has two words for other person, one is allos, and the other word is heteros. Allos, you can think of that as alloy, something that’s alloyed together. And that word, allos means another of the same kind, another being of the same kind. Heteros, we get the word heterogeneous from, it means different kind. And when that word is translated another then it means somebody that is unlike me. So here in verse 32 when it says “there is another,” allos, “there is another of the same kind as I am.” Now who do you suppose that is? That’s the Father. So verse 32 cryptically refers to the Father before you get verse 33 where it takes you to John the Baptist, and there’s a reason for it. “There is another,” He says, “that bears witness of Me, and I know the witness which He bears of Me is valid.” So Jesus defers, trying to prove the case, cranking upon His own system of proof. He says the Father has already laid the ground work for proof itself and all I am doing is following His groundwork that He has laid carefully.

Then in verses 33-35 Jesus makes a temporary concession. Verses 31-32 is the principle of bearing testimony to the Christian faith. Verses 31-32 are saying again that when you go to argue the validity of the Christian faith, even your argument has to be grounded on Scripture; it can’t proceed off of neutral ground. It’s like somebody walks on to a baseball diamond and is handed a set of rules and they say you play the game by these rules. Now the game that you’ve played, no matter how great a star you are, no matter how many people you strike out, it may be a no hitter, but the game has been played within the framework of a rule book that was given prior to the game. So no matter how great the game, the game still is limited by the rule book that you started with. So what Jesus is arguing, don’t argue the case for Christianity on the unbeliever’s rule book because no matter how brilliant your argument it’s still framed, trapped and bound in by the rules of autonomous man. And that’s what’s classically been wrong with all these proofs of the existence of God. They all start out assuming that man is not what the Bible says he is, that man is neutral, that man really doesn’t know deep in his heart that God is there and he has to indeed prove God is there. Well, that starts out with a false concept of man and the Bible doesn’t allow us to start there.

Now John 5:33-35 Jesus makes a temporary concession to John the Baptist and He admits it’s a concession. He skips from the witness of the Father in verse 32, the allos, to John in verse 33. He says, “Ye sent unto John, and he bare testimony unto the truth.” Both verbs in verse 33 are perfect tense verbs; that means action has occurred in the past, results which continue. What action occurred in the past? When did John bear testimony of the truth? Turn to John 1:15, “John bore witness of Him, and cried,” and then it goes on to describe his witness. John 1:19, “And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who are you?” Remember that, when we went through John 1 what did we say that was? That was an official commission, sent out by the authorities of the city of Jerusalem to go down that long road, you remember by topography we showed you that road, all the way down to the north end of the Dead Sea, out in the wilderness where John was preaching. The religious authorities heard about John making all these claims and under the Mishnah code of the Jews there were two rules that the authorities had to do: one, whenever there was anyone that mentioned anything that sounded like Messianic claims they had to have a committee of priests to go out and check, is this man making Messianic claims or is he not? That was one question. The second question was if that man is making Messianic claims are the claims true; is he really the Messiah or not.

Now this verse, John 1:19 was that first stage of investigation, when they sent out to find out, was John in fact claiming to be Messiah or was he just giving testimony to another one, and you remember in verses 20-21 how John denied that he was claiming to be Christ and that terminated the investigation. But when those people went back they filed a report, so in John 1 we have the investigation committee and we know they filed their report in Jerusalem. Now there’s the perfect tense of John 5; turn back to John 5:33, “You have sent unto John, and he has born witness to the truth,” pointing out when the investigation committee went out to check results continue to the present time, perfect tense, because the filed report is still on record. And so Jesus says you have a file on record in Jerusalem do you not? Did you not go out and check John and did you not hear what John said, and did you not write down very, very carefully what John said and did you not file it away in the files? All right, He says, “You sent unto John, and he has borne testimony, witness, unto the truth.” So Jesus is arguing that John confirms what He is saying.

But then Jesus qualifies it and this is a very intriguing verse because if John 5:34 wasn’t there we’d all say well, you know Jesus argued just like we do, we get somebody’s testimony as to how affective Jesus is in their life or we get somebody else’s testimony and we pile it on as proof for Christ. Christ says no, I am using this, He says, but watch. Verse 34, “I receive not testimony from man; but these things I say, that you might be saved.” In other words Jesus is arguing it is not necessary for My character to be proved by John the Baptist; it’s not necessary that you prove I exist. It’s not necessary to the unbelieving man that you go through this rigmarole of building evidences this way. But He says I go ahead and use this because you’re so locked into your little pieces of evidences that apparently it’s the only way you’re going to see the light right now. And Jesus makes a logical concession to men’s obsession with these little piece type proofs. If you want the proof, Jesus says, all right, go through them, at least they’ll get you steered in the proper direction. Here’s God’s grace and this is how most of us got saved. Most of you who are believers tonight did not get saved because you had a proper presentation of the gospel. I didn’t and I know most of you didn’t. You have an approximate presentation of the gospel and it was good enough in your case, and that’s what Jesus is arguing here, I’ll go ahead and use the evidence but I don’t need to. I’ll use it, “I do not receive the testimony of men., but that you may be saved” I’ll go ahead and mention the record.

John 5:35 is a testimony to John, “He was a burning and a shining light, and you were willing for a season to rejoice in his life.” He was a burning and shining light, implies that by the time of verse 35 John has either had his head removed, a sweet little procedure, or he is in jail just prior to having his head remove. John’s ministry has terminated at this point, it’s past tense. “John was a burning and a shining light,” and the very fact that Jesus uses the word for lamp rather than light suggests something. You see there are two words here, again here’s John’s beautiful economic use of words, lamp, not light, lamp. Now what’s the difference between a lamp and a light? A light is something physical, it’s always there, it’s part of creation. A lamp can run out of fuel and lose its light, and it’s a cryptic way of saying John’s burned out, his ministry is over. John for a while was a burning and shining lamp and you were willing, for a season, that is, to rejoice in his light.

Now here Jesus begins to, in these verses, remember verses 33-35 are not part of the logical argument; it’s a temporary concession for these people and the reason for this temporary concession is given right here. He says you people have your happiness, the word “rejoice,” to make joy, your happiness was based on something other than the truth, it was based on group pressure, it was based on secular hopes for a political kingdom that would come about right away so you wouldn’t have to pay taxes to Caesar or something like that; it was based on something other than true valid work. We read in Josephus that John did stir the people up, he stirred them up quite a bit. We also know that the moment John phased out people just phased out; his ministry was not as large at it appeared at the moment; his ministry was really to that faithful remnant that became the core of the disciples that came to Christ to form the Church; that was John the Baptist’s role.

But if we had been there as a news reporter and watch John’s ministry develop we would be appalled to see the number of people that came out to Jerusalem to hear this guy and many of these people probably were on positive volition, but Jesus says, basically, He says, you people never have gotten the message; basically the Word of God has never taken root in your soul because you were willing only for “a season,” we’d translate that you were willing temporarily to rejoice; as long as the emotions lasted, as long as the group pressure were there you people were high and the moment the group collapsed, you collapsed because your happiness was based on what people think; your happiness was based on that nice feeling you get when you’re around people that care for you. It’s nice to be around people that care for you but if you’re going to build your happiness on what people care for you, you’re in for a big, sad awakening some day because the first time you’re around a group that hates your guts you’re going to fall apart because you just made all of your happiness based on people’s thoughts about.

Now that’s one of the early lessons in the Christian life just get over, get rid of that garbage right away, as fast as possible. Ground your happiness on what the Lord thinks of you, not what people think. Now to a degree we’re all subject to that pressure, true. But Jesus is castigating these people because He is…ultimately it’s going to go and even get worse but right here He’s saying you people failed to listen to John carefully enough so you’d see what it was that made John happy. What was it that made John happy? I made him happy He said. John’s focus of attention was on Me, not on himself, not even on the kingdom but on the King. And you people, you heard a little word of the kingdom and it made you happy for a while and you gravitated all around, made pledges and raised hands and came down the aisle and all the rest of the hoi polloi stuff that goes on. But it was all phony, and the moment John vaporized you vaporized. And so it’s a warning against joy that is grounded on what people think and what the present is. See, there were all present centered people. What does it say, “you were willing for a while” and that’s typical of present centered people. Present centered people are very undisciplined people. You can always tell an undisciplined person because they can’t endure. You can watch it here, you can watch who endures the Word and who doesn’t. Watch it on the job at work, who’s given a job and you have to stand over them with a whip to make them do the job or do they just do their job because they’re self-motivated people and they have discipline and can carry a task through to its conclusion. Or are they just flakey types. Oh yeah, yeah, I’ll do that tomorrow and “tomorrow” translated means whenever I feel like it. So this is the concept that Jesus Christ is attacking at this point, you people are flake-outs is what He’s saying. You grounded your truth, your happiness, everything that counts to you is a product of the present, is a product of what people think and so on.

Now John 5:36 he gets back to the main argument. That was a diversion. Verse 36 starts out how Christ bears testimony; now watch this and how different it is from the usual standard evidences approach. We’re not knocking evidences; what we’re saying is that the way you present the evidence is itself an evidence. Verse 36, “But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given Me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of Me, that the Father hath sent Me. [37] And the Father himself, which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape. [38] And ye have not His word abiding in you: for whom He hath sent, him ye believe not. [39] Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. [40] And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.”

Now what is Jesus getting at here. All right, in verse 36, “I have greater witness than John,” He returns to the allos of verse 32, verse 36 goes back to verse 32. Verse 32 said allos, there is another of the same kind who is bearing testimony of Me.” Now in verse 36 He says the work which that allos gave Me, those are His works, and when I do His work I have testimony, not My works, His works. See that subordination within the Trinity, the subordination of the Son to the Father that has been the theme so far in this discourse. By the way, look at verse 19, “whatever the Son sees the Father do; for whatever things He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” So what Jesus is saying is that I like plenty of work, the Father creates, I create; the Father damns and I damn. Jesus Christ created the universe, it’s taught in John 1, it’s taught in Colossians 1. The Father created but the Son was there too and the Son create. So what Jesus argued simply is that the work is self-authenticating, you look at these works and you know in your soul that only God can do them. And don’t pretend you don’t know that; only God creates and only God makes moral judgments of a final sort; only God judges and only God gives life and only God damns. God alone does those things and I do those things, and when I do those things you know God is there. Now it sounds like a very simplistic way of arguing the faith but it’s the way, in fact, that Jesus argued the faith. He argued that the works themselves, the manifestation, My revelation is self-authenticating.

John 5:37, “The Father himself, which hath sent Me, has borne witness of Me.” Perfect tense; no He goes back in time, the Father at many points in time has borne witness of me and that witness remains to the present; it’s in present force. See, Jesus just didn’t come on the scene and say hey guys, I’m a new person, I’m arriving in an intellectual vacuum of ignorance here and I’m going to start right off from the first step and from step A I go to step B to step C to step D to prove the faith. Not at all says Christ, I don’t start with step A, step A is laid back in eternity past. I just continue the evidence that the Father has been giving all the time. Mine is not a new departure, it’s not an origin point for the proof of Christianity, I just continue the Father’s evidence.

Now He has a little slam in here in verse 37, you have to know a little Old Testament history to catch what the slam is all about. “Ye have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His shape.” Now who in the Old Testament was famous for hearing the voice of God? At Sinai an entire generation of Jews heard the voice of God; they heard Him speak the ten words and what has He said? You’ve never heard His voice any time. You people don’t even belong to the first generation of Jews, that’s how bad off you are; you are a totally unregenerate group of people; that’s what He’s calling them. You are not part of the elect nation and you never heard God speak; you have no part with that first generation under Moses, you haven’t heard His voice any time.

“Nor seen His shape” and who is famous in the Bible for seeing for seeing His shape at a place called Penial? Jacob, I have seen the face of God. He says you haven’t seen His shape, you haven’t seen it; Jacob did you haven’t, you’re not even of Jacob. So verse 37 is a clear attack; Jesus, rather than prove His case disproves His opponents; He carries the force over to those who would discredit claims and you’ll find this growing. It’s kind of like a piece of ivy that wraps itself around a tree trunk more and more and more. By the time you get down to verse 47 you can’t even see the trunk, just one big mass of ivy growing there. And the trunk, you see, was the attack these people made because the insinuation was, well Jesus, you see, you just really haven’t given us enough information; you see Lord, you haven’t made your revelation clear enough. You see Lord, it’s not our responsibility to believe because it’s Your responsibility to reveal Yourself some more. The blaming, in other words, for rejection is on the Lord’s shoulders when this whole thing starts; come on, prove it to us Jesus.

That statement is satanic; it argues that He hasn’t proven it already, which He has. And for a Christian to start there is for him to start on very slippery ice, very thin ice because if you respond to somebody who says prove Christianity to me and I’ll believe it, you can’t start on that ground. That person has already thrown out the rule book for you and he says play my game and if you play his game you’re never going to get to showing the validity of the Christian faith. You’ve got to attack his rule book and that’s what Jesus is doing. He’s not going to accept this claim that He hasn’t put out enough revelation, therefore I’m sorry Lord, we just can’t believe until you do a little bit more for us. He’s saying what’s the matter with you people, we’ve done lots for you; all during the centuries of this nation God the Father has spoken and you haven’t heard. He’s shown His shape and you haven’t seen; you’re the problem, not the revelation.

In John 5:38 the conclusion to that line of argument, stated very succinctly, “And you don’t have His word abiding in you: for whom He hath sent, him you don’t believe.” Look at that, He turns it right around, instead of accepting the attack and saying well, maybe it’s true, I just haven’t spilled out enough revelation to convince men enough to believe, He says rather the fact you haven’t believed is your own damnation. You haven’t believed because I’ve already revealed it to you and you haven’t believed. So He takes the point of departure that they ought to have believed on what basis of revelation they already had and He is under no obligation whatsoever to give one gram more of revelation. He’s already given enough; “You have not His Word abiding in you because you don’t believe in Me.” They thought that because they didn’t believe that they had God’s Word abiding in them, but they knew about to recognize that if Jesus were really God then He’d say something more, give them more information, and Jesus turns it around, no, not at all, see you people are so screwed up your method of proof is wrong. You haven’t even come in contact with the Word of God; that’s what He says, you’re not regenerate, you haven’t responded to God-consciousness and that’s why you’re coming with these absurd things that I have to prove myself to you. You ought to be concerned with how you prove yourself to God. Where’s your basis, that’s His argument.

Now let’s look at some details here. Why does He make that claim? Behind the claim of verse 38 stands some doctrine. John, the apostle who wrote this Gospel must have thought many, many decades about these words. Remember, John is an old, old man when he writes this Gospel. The other men, when they wrote their Gospel, Matthew, Mark and Luke were younger men, but not John. John had given this thought and more thought and more thought and more thought. Probably as testimony John was close to 90 years old when he died on the island of Patmos, or wherever he died but he was about that old. John wrote the Gospel apparently toward the end of his life, or at least late in life, after the other Gospels had been written, and as he thought more and more about this claim, the Holy Spirit began apparently to work in John’s mind until he came out with some doctrine which we covered it and when we covered it I said that we’d come back to this verse, John 1:4-5. Here’s the basis now why he said that way before.

Back in John 1:4 remember he made this statement, “In Him was life; and the life is the light of men. [5] And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not,” and remember what we said in verse 4, “In Him was life,” all kinds of life, biological life, spiritual life; “In Him was life and the life chiefly consisted in the light of men.” Now what is” the light of men,” do you suppose: how do we translate that in every day language? How we know things. What John is saying is that Jesus as the Logos is the very basis for truth in all men’s minds. So the very concept of proof itself in turn is based on Jesus Christ. So he says it’s foolish, isn’t it, [tape turns] to presuppose an independent neutral line of [can’t understand word] sort of like a branch that comes right out into space, unsupported by anything, not even a trunk, just hanging there; this is a method of proof we use. Not at all says John, the very concept of how you know anything goes back to Christ. If you know anything, he says, you have known it because of the operation of Christ in your mind, the Logos, true before 0 BC these men, or approximately then, before this in the preincarnate state you had the Son which is identical to the Logos, the Word, even then any person who knew anything to the degree they knew anything had already come in contact with the Logos. No man can say 2 + 2 is 4 without exercising logical reason which itself is a product of Christ.

As Van Til has said many times, “A child cannot slap his father’s face without sitting on his father’s knee, and the creature cannot deny God without supporting his arguments that makes sense only if God is there after all.” One, in other words, cannot deny God without affirming that He exists. You can’t identify and prove without presupposing God is there. See, you have to presuppose God is there to deny that He’s there. And all the arguments that men can ever make start presupposing the universe is exactly the way the Bible says, that I, with my mind, can know the universe because I am made in God’s image and my mind fits the universe; that presupposes Christ as your Creator. So you’ve already presupposed all these things in the very method of proof and so this is why he says, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men,” all men, not just the saved, but the unsaved man too; not that he is saved by this, but just as he draws his breath in and he is sustained by God, even when he spits in God’s face, he’s still sustained by God during the spitting. And when the man who intellectually denies that God is there, he’s using the tools Christ is giving him to deny Christ. See, this is the big picture you get of Christ in proof and truth in the Bible. Foolish, says the Apostle John, to start out with a neutral idea that well here we have truth and let us see whether Christianity fits into this prior framework of truth that we finite people have established for ourselves. Not so; Christ is the basis of all proof.

So now let’s turn back to John 5 and watch how Jesus continues the argument. “You have not His word abiding in you,” you ought to, you’ve had God-conscious long enough, you’re adult people. Paul says in Romans 1 you know God is there but you’ve not been thankful upon discovering that fact. From childhood you’ve rejected, you’ve always complained about what God has done for you and therefore you’ve turned away from God, and therefore your mind has become filled with crud, all sorts of religious distortions of the true picture, and finally as an adult you’ve got yourself so fouled up you can’t even understand what proof means. That’s what the Bible is saying here, “You have not His Word abiding in you,” if you did, you’d recognize it.

John 5:39, now He goes on to relate it to Scripture, “Search the scriptures;” go ahead He says, I challenge you, “Search the Scripture,” and what Scriptures, the Old Testament at that time, no New Testament existed, “Search the Old Testament for in those Old Testament books you think ye have eternal life: but they are they which testify of Me.” In other words, the life is not in the physical pages of the books of the Bible. Fundamentalists, when we argue that we accept an inerrant Bible, we’re not worshipping the book, we’re worshipping the author of the book. Now this liberal takes this to mean well, therefore the book is fallible and we ought to just ash can it. No-no, the book is truth but the book isn’t where the life is; the life is in the One who wrote the book. And therefore He’s arguing to these people, you Scriptures, the Pharisees studied the Bible daily, the wrong hermeneutic, their theology is all screwed up and as we go through Matthew I’ll show you what their legalistic theology got to be like.

He says go ahead and “Search the Scriptures,” you think that actually in putting the words through your mind, sort of like a Wall Street ticker tape, that putting the Word through your mind is saving you. Huh-un, it’s submission to the Word that saves you; you won’t come to Me, He says in verse 40, and when He says “Search the Old Testament, for they are they which testify of Me,” do you see what He said. The Old Testament testifies to Christ, from Genesis to Malachi it’s one story of Jesus Christ. That was what He insisted. Don’t you get the message, you’ve read the Bible wrong. You have come to the Bible with a method of proof, you started in your human viewpoint, you said I am going to prove something. And you’ve come to the Bible and you’ve said does the Bible fit my concept of proof? Is the Bible true and so on. And from there He says you’re so fouled up that you can read the Bible, read the Bible, read the Bible, read the Bible and read the Bible and you’re not even believing while you’re reading the Bible. [40, “And ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.”]

Then He concludes in John 5:41 and following and here is one of the summary statements of the reason or the doctrine why apologetics flows in this direction. “I receive not honor from men. [42] But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. [43] I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive Me not: if another shall come in His own name, him ye will receive. [44] How can ye believe, which receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor that cometh from God only? [45] Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. [46] For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. [47] But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” Now what is Jesus arguing here? Let’s start out with a baby; a baby is born in a point in time, the human spirit is joined to that body. By the time a child is two or three years they reach the point where they begin to use language. They begin to have a sense of what is right and what is wrong; conscience begins to function about three or four; four or five they have a good command of vocabulary and I think we can say that most children in our country by the time they are four or five are God-conscious. They’re held accountable for what they’re going to do in response to this. Paul says in Romans 1:18 and following that all men know God is there.

This is called God-consciousness. It starts right there. And for the rest of your life, as long as you live, in the innards of your soul, you know God is there, just as well as you know the external universe is there, just as well as you know there are these two-legged creatures walking around outside of you called people and you know they are there too. You know nature, man and God are there. God-consciousness, person consciousness or human consciousness, and nature consciousness; you’re conscious of these. And that itself is revelation, that the light of men given by the Son into your soul so you can function as a creature because who is Christ, after all, but the sustainer of the creation; He sustains you, He sustains your very process of knowing. Isn’t it wonderful God’s grace toward the man who uses God’s methods of knowing to deny God and God continues to grace him out, allowing him to continue in his soul to know the universe to some degree, in spite of the fact that the man who already has seen God has there says no He isn’t there. While he’s saying no God is saying yes, you’re knowing, you’re knowing, you’re knowing, you’re knowing and He holds and supports this knowing process. It’s a tremendous picture of grace.

Now Jesus, instead of being on the defense and saying oh, I have to defend Myself begins to cut and pick at the way…you people, there’s something wrong with you, not something wrong with me. It’s somebody walks in and they hear a nice piece of music and what a piece of junk that is; they’re not passing judgment on the music, they’re passing judgment on themselves an that’s exactly the same kind of thing that Jesus is saying. You know you people that deny Me, you’re not passing judgment on Me, you’re passing judgment on yourself, it just shows how stupid you are. And that’s basically the Christian apologetic for Scripture, if you don’t believe Christianity, how stupid, how stupid you are, how foolish.

Let’s look at the details, “I receive not honor from men,” says Jesus in verse 41; it’s just an idiom, I’m not going to vaporize because people don’t like Me, what do you think I am, that I need the honor of men, that I’m somehow dependent upon your methods of proof, that you’re not going to allow Me to live unless you support Me with your proofs. NO, get off of that line, He’s saying, I don’t need your honor. “I receive not honor from men,” it’s an idiom I don’t need it. He would like it but He doesn’t need it.

John 5:42, “But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you.” So what Jesus is arguing is at the point of God-consciousness these men have rejected, you don’t have the love of God, what you know of God and you know something of God because all men know something of God, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Jew and had training in the Bible or not or you’re a Gentile and you just know God from creation and the nature and the world around you, you still know something… it might be this much, it might be that much but you know something and you’ve not responded to what you do know, and so “you have not the love of God in you,” He says.

John 5:43, “I am come” and here’s why, “I am come in My Father’s name,” and the word “name” means nature, “I have come in My Father’s nature, and you don’t receive Me: if another shall come in His own name,” in other words I’ve identified Myself with God’s being and because you hate God’s being you hate Me, but “if another comes in his own autonomous way, him ye will receive.” And that’s a prophecy of the antichrist, the antichrist will come in his own nature and men will receive him but they won’t receive Christ.

And then the heart of this passage is verse 44, here’s why He’s saying that you must understand when you’re dealing with proofs, in effect verse 44 is saying you can never believe because of the predisposition of your souls. And why can’t you believe? He says, “How can ye believe, when you are receiving honor one of another, and you do not actively seek not the honor that comes from God only?” In other words, your soul is not directed to what you know of the Creator in your God-consciousness, you don’t seek that, you seek rather a horizontal thing from creature to creature and it’s holy creature centered. He says as long as your soul thinks in those ways and searches in those paths you can’t believe; it’s not that you won’t, it’s because you can’t. You’re not able to believe as long as you have chosen that path. So Christ places the volition ahead of faith itself at this point. You can cut off your faith by an act of the will, you choose to orient to the creature and you just are unable to believe.

And thus He concludes with irony, John 4:45-47. See, the whole conversation started out, remember, verse 10, “The Jews said unto him that was cured, it’s not the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for you to carry thy bed.” And they quoted the Sabbath day from Moses’ writings and they said see, Moses accuses you Jesus, and now by the time we get down after chapter 5 Jesus so worked it around that Moses is accusing them. It’s a beautiful line of argument; you have to re-read this and reread this and reread this to catch the flow. But I’m sure these people felt like they were all wrapped up in a pretzel when He got through with them because the very thing they insisted that He had violated Moses, He turns around and says friend, you’ve not only violated Moses but you’ve violated the whole spirit of the thing, every one of Moses’ writings you’ve violated, so don’t come to Me saying I’ve violated point 6A12 of the Mosaic Law Code, when you’ve violated the whole code.

So he says, John 5:45, “Don’t think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuses you, even Moses, in whom ye are trusting,” you came to Me and said I violated your little code, you were trusting in the authority of Moses, weren’t you, well, Moses is going to pull a surprise on you. “If you had believed Moses,” if you had believed Moses “you would have believed Me for He wrote about Me.” See, verse 46 is the same thing as verse 49. What does the Old Testament ultimately speak of? The Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 47, “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. [47] But if you don’t believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”

Now I want to, I summary conclude by backing up on these verses in this thought process. Verses 46 through 47, if you diagram it in a time line is saying over here we have the point of…these are belief stages; here I believe in Christianity or Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the point in time when I believe on Him, but Jesus is arguing that prior to that step there are other steps involved. That is, here in this case these people had revelation out of the Old Testament and they believed that, and prior to revelation out of the Old Testament they had revelation of God-consciousness, and did they believe that. So what Jesus is arguing is that by the time someone hears the gospel they’ve already made choices back here in the area of God-consciousness, in whatever exposure they’ve had to the Bible before the evangelistic situation occurred, and then finally the gospel message.

To make it very, very simple there are two points in your life that are very, very crucial. One point is the point when you first become God-conscious; the other point is when you first hear the gospel. Now the argument is that prior to this second point, gospel hearing, you had a first point, God-consciousness. And if you did not seek after God at the first point, you’re not going to be seeking after God at the second point, and since the God-consciousness controls things like proof, truth, and how you find them in your mind, what he’s arguing is that you come to Christian with even your systems of truth and proof all screwed up because you haven’t responded to God-consciousness in your soul and for this reason Christian apologetics that is Biblical will not tolerate for a moment just questions thrown at it by the unbeliever. You will analyze and restructure the questions and throw them back but never will a true Christian apologist receive a bare raw naked unanalyzed question from the unbeliever for the reason the unbeliever’s question itself is loaded. It’s like do you beat your wife regularly? I mean, either way you answer it it’s bad news.

So the point is that the questions that are thrown at the Christians are loaded statements. There’s no way you can answer these statements without denying Christianity. So our common ground with the unbeliever is not the way he thinks; it’s [can’t understand word] this is the creature and that’s as close as we can get to it; we must change radically even his very idea of proof and truth to show that Christianity is correct.

Next week we’ll go on to chapter 6.