Jesus Hearkens Back to the Truth Spoken By John the Baptizer

May 17, 2021              John 5: 33

 ²⁸Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice ²⁹and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. ³⁰“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

³¹“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. ³²There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. ³³You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. ³⁴Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. ³⁵He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. ³⁶But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. ³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, ³⁸and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.

            So one of the bits to keep in mind when looking closely at the verses of the Bible is context.  How does one verse fit into the wider context?  Is it dialogue?  Monologue?  Narrative?  When it comes to Jesus, another question to remember is ‘To whom is Jesus speaking?’  Because he speaks very differently to his disciples than he does to the Jewish leadership, the difference between his allies and those who were arrayed against him.  It is particularly needed in John’s gospel as John provides us with some of Jesus’ longest monologues. 

            These verses are aimed at those who have come at Jesus in regards to the Sabbath question.  He was the one who ‘broke’ Sabbath when he told the man he healed to take up his bed and go.  And the Leadership is not simply in an adversarial relationship with Jesus, they are after his life.  Go back to verse 18, they presumed Jesus was making himself equal with God, so they were out for his life. 

            Thus the very specific steps Jesus is laying out to map the relationship between the Father and himself.  He is not back-pedaling what he said, but he is seeking to make it as clear as he can.  Because Jesus is not out to defy the Leadership, he is there to convince them of the Plan of God being made manifest through himself, as the Son.

            Now Jesus points back to John 1:19, where the Leadership sent priest and Levites to John the baptizer specifically to figure out what he was all about.  John was another figure of Godly authority outside the mainstream of the Leadership.  His presence and ministry were forerunners to the ministry of Jesus.  Jesus is taking them back to what they already know as he continues to make the case for who is and what he does. 

            You may notice that I call them the Jewish Leadership while John calls them the Jews.  This is an important clarification built on a bloody history.  I still remember my preaching professor pointing out this clarification.  Simply to call them ‘the Jews’ is to misrepresent things.  It is not the entire Jewish people who are out to get Jesus.  But that presumption has been made in times when there has been persecution of and pogroms against the Jews.  Christians have called the Jews, as a whole, the Jesus-killers, and that is a sentiment that continues in White supremacist thought to this day.

            To read the Gospel, when John refers to the Jews, it is obvious from the context that he is talking about the Leadership in Jerusalem.  Jesus’ presence and ministry are challenging the status quo, which is preserved by the Leadership, priests, Levites, Pharisees, scribes, and so on.  The Jews as a people, they were the ones benefitting from the testimony of John and Jesus.

            It is interesting that the Leadership is interpreting Jesus’ Sabbath work as the impetus for Jesus equating himself with God.  There are some examinations of the Sabbath that might help deepen our understanding even more of what Jesus did.  But that is for later, when there will be more.

For now, peace.  Pastor Peter