“You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.”

It dawned on me as I reread what Jesus has said so far in response to the outrage that was started over His Sabbath healing, and then in reading ahead to verses 39-47 for next week, that His words form a slowly closing trap that the religious leaders are oblivious to – if they weren’t oblivious, it wouldn’t be a trap at all, but a revelation of the truth.  As Jesus speaks, He embodies the principle of the instructions that God gave Ezekiel when He establishes him as a watchman for Israel in Ezekiel 3:16-21,

“And at the end of seven days, the word of the LORD came to me: ‘Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, “You shall surely die,” and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. Again, if a righteous person turns from his righteousness and commits injustice, and I lay a stumbling block before him, he shall die. Because you have not warned him, he shall die for his sin, and his righteous deeds that he has done shall not be remembered, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the righteous person not to sin, and he does not sin, he shall surely live, because he took warning, and you will have delivered your soul.’”

This shows the importance of speaking the truth, honoring that which is God’s. The wicked may chose to remain in their wickedness, but it should not be because their condition is not pointed out to them by one with eyes to see. This is underpinned by what Jesus says in John 15:22–25,

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’”

As Jesus addresses the religious leaders in John 5, we’ve seen Him systematically claim and then validate His position as the Son of God, all of which the teachers reject with ever growing fury. Jesus claims God as His own Father, declares His authority in carrying out the Father’s will, promises greater signs and wonders to come to further validate His station, and continually circles back to His work being from God and not Himself alone. Next week, as a sort of final nail in the coffin, Jesus calls them out directly over the Law with which they’re so obsessed, which He fulfills. But before we arrive at that we have one more layer to His beautifully articulated case. A connection that brings us to the doorstep of the Law and the prophets, and convicts the religious leaders over yet another hypocrisy: the ministry of John the Baptist.

1. God’s Testimony Through Man.

“You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.”

John the Baptist was God’s fulfilment of Isaiah 40:3-5,

“A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”

From before his birth, the role that John the Baptist would serve for the coming Christ was told, in that he would prepare the way for the ministry of Jesus. If we look earlier in John’s gospel, we see the Baptizer’s testimony to those sent by the Pharisees, the truth he claimed about his position, and that one far greater than he was coming. His dialog with the religious elite in Matthew’s gospel is a bit more pointed. There was obvious derision on the part of the Sanhedrin in regard to John the Baptist. He was a man with no formal religious education, a nomad, living in the wilderness. He lacked any of their refinement, their ceremony and forced outward piety – but what he did have was an ordained mission from God, wisdom in the Spirit and raw, honest joy over the coming Messiah, and it was to this that the people responded. Looking ahead in the gospel accounts, we see that when the Sanhedrin wanted to kill Jesus during Passover week, they stayed their hand for fear the people, who at the very least held Jesus to be a prophet. The Jewish council showed their commitment was not to the spirit of the Law, but to their social positioning, and so despite the authority that we see them lord over others, they betray their own ideals to not openly go against the will of the people. It is primarily this, that despite their contempt, brings Pharisees and Sadducees to be baptized by John. Matthew 3:7-10 says,

“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’”

He counseled them to “bear fruit in keeping with repentance.” Essentially warning them, “don’t come to receive baptism just because everyone is doing it, and you want to be thought well of by the people. Repent, turn, don’t rest on your lineage in Abraham to save you, but seek God and produce good fruit – or face destruction.” Jesus says that John “has borne witness to the truth.” The greatest truth he proclaimed was that of the coming Christ, the second being his open acknowledgement of his position as the one preparing the way, not being the Christ himself. But another truth that John testified to was the spiritual condition of these same religious leaders who now want Jesus killed for claiming the truth.

“Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.”

If we cross-reference this verse with the section from John 15 that I referenced earlier, it might seem contradictory. Jesus tells them in John 5:34, that while He’s not reliant on the testimony of John the Baptist, He makes the connection for them so that they can hear it, see it and be saved by this truth. But in John 15:22 He says,

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”

But if we truly look at what is said, there is no contradiction. 5:34 is an offering, an opportunity, it’s the truth presented again so that they may be saved. 15:22 is a result, it’s the final product of their refusal of the truth, their rejection of the Son, and in rejecting the Son, the Father as well.

“He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.”

If we look again at the beginning of John’s gospel to the interaction between John the Baptist and those sent by the Pharisees to investigate him, we see the light of the Baptizer completely misunderstood. It makes sense that the religious leaders would have had an appreciation for the effects of his ministry for a time. A more repentant people who are seeking God and more eagerly expecting the coming Christ, would presumably be more compliant under the teachers of the Law. But it seems there came a point where John the Baptist’s ministry grew to a size and degree of influence that the Pharisees expected answers from Him.

John 1:19–27,

“And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’ And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the Prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No.’ So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?’ He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” as the prophet Isaiah said.’ (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) They asked him, ‘Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?’ John answered them, ‘I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.’”

Under a little scrutiny, the line of questioning is ridiculous. John the Baptist openly admits, he’s not the Christ, not Elijah and not the Prophet that Moses foretold. Who is he then? He is the fulfilment of a prophecy given to Isaiah – a man on a literal mission from God, preparing the way for the Messiah. But their next question shows that they completely miss the relevance of his role – “well if you’re not one of the three figures we were looking for, by what authority is your ministry operating? Who gave you the status to baptize these people?” And so the testimony that God gave to man, John the Baptist heralding the arrival of Jesus, the fulfillment of a prophecy waited on for hundreds of years, falls on deaf ears.

2. God’s Testimony Through Christ

“But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me.”

The testimony of John the Baptist ultimately sails over the heads of the religious rulers. But there is a greater testimony than John’s standing right before them if they only have ears to hear and eyes to see. Jesus, with His authoritative teaching and miracle work, all of which testifies to His position, is right before them. The entire thing that started this altercation was Him healing a man who had been crippled for thirty-eight years. But considering that Jesus’s Sabbath healing and His instruction that the man take up his bed and walk caused such indignation from the Jewish authority, it’s not surprising that they grow more hostile at the truth of His words.

Matthew 9:9-13,

“As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ But when he heard it, he said, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.’”

What we see from those that make up the Sanhedrin is a distinct and profound hardness of heart. God says in Ezekiel 11:19-21,

“And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. But as for those whose heart goes after their detestable things and their abominations, I will bring their deeds upon their own heads, declares the Lord GOD.”

To the Jews scattered in the Babylonian exile, God offers a physical restoration of their homeland, and more importantly a spiritual restoration before Him. But this is not a forced process; those who seek their own paths that are not in line with the will of the Lord will still suffer for their actions, but there is an opportunity for reconciliation. But the ruling Jews that seek to contend with Jesus over His position, finding petty fault in the violation of rules they’ve heaped upon the original Law, show an opposition to the Father. To act as God commanded Ezekiel, to seek the lost and speak the truth that they might turn from wickedness to the Lord, is the responsibility of any who would seek the face of God. To love your neighbor, to have compassion for the lost and broken, as God has had compassion for us is our calling. But again and again the ruling Jews, the Pharisees most frequently display hard hearted hypocrisy, going so far as to claim that Jesus is only casting out demons by using demonic power. Their hearts are so hard, their eyes so blind and their ears so deaf that in their commitment to their own station they are completely oblivious to the truth before them. The testimony of John the Baptist, of Jesus, the Son under the will and authority of the Father  – that their Christ stands before them, and they simply cannot see.

3. God’s Testimony Unreceived

“His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.”

1 Kings 19:11-14,

“… And he said, ‘Go out and stand on the mount before the LORD.’ And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ He said, ‘I have been very jealous for the LORD, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.’”

God used His prophet Elijah to accomplish great things. Backing up a little to 1 Kings 18, he confronted Ahab, the wicked king of Israel, called out the 450 prophets of Baal, repaired the altar of the Lord, upon which God sent fire from heaven, showing a glimpse of His power to Israel and revealing the emptiness of Baal. This, coming after years of drought and famine is an extraordinary event, and after the fire from heaven, Elijah slaughters the prophets of Baal. He has every reason to be confident in his course before God, but when Jezebel, Ahab’s wife, sends word to Elijah that she intends to kill him just as he did the prophets of Baal, he’s terrified and flees the region. In his flight, he’s given bread and water by an angel of the Lord and is sustained forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb – the mount of God. This is where we find him in verse 11, lodging in a cave, still fearing for his life and desperate for guidance from God. What we see here in Elijah is something that Jesus reveals to be missing entirely from the Pharisees understanding of God. Elijah is jealously longing for the word of his God, but in that desperation and thirst, he is listening for the voice of the Lord. God has manifested Himself previously in great clouds, in strong winds and in ways that show His grand command over the forces of nature that He created. But Elijah, hearing a wind so powerful that it tears at the mountain and breaks the rocks does not mistake, or deceive himself into believing this is the word of his God. Neither with the earthquake, nor the fire does he become focused on the display of power and forget what he’s seeking – God Himself. When the Lord does approach, the herald of His arrival is a low whisper, or my Bible offers alternatively, “a sound, a thin silence.” Elijah wanted – he needed God. This is the discernment between prizing the gold of the temple, verses knowing that what matters is the temple itself. Between obsessing and fine tuning the minutia of the Law, while forgetting the spirit of love and mercy it was given in. The teachers of the day do not know the voice of God, they can’t comprehend the forms He takes or His Word, His Spirit does not exist in their hearts or minds. All this is revealed in the fact that they do not believe the words of Jesus and reject their Messiah, the prophesied Son of God. They are blind, seeing only what they want to see and hearing only what they want to hear. They are so enamored with the moral authority and societal positioning afforded them by their interpretations of the Law and the lineage they hold as “sons of Abraham” (things equivalent to the wind, the earthquake, the fire), that they miss the point of it all – they are deaf to the whispered sound that is the voice of God. Because Christ came, not as they expected, but humbly and with the offer of love and salvation for all. For teaching the truth of the Word, healing on the Sabbath, and rejecting their petty tyranny, they rejected Him – and in denying the Son, denied the Father they claimed to seek.

Throughout this outline (and in others before it) I’ve consistently made a point of drawing attention to the wickedness and hypocrisy of the religious elite. While I feel I’m more than right in doing this, seeing as they were actively rejecting Jesus as the Christ and seeking to kill Him (also, see Matthew 23 – Jesus did it first). But it’s important to remember that this is about more than the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the council of the Sanhedrin. While we may feel a sense of distance from the legalistic Jews of the intertestamental period, and Jesus’s time, they show us a place that we must always guard against in our walk with God, serving as a warning against forgetting who we serve and why we serve Him. While the example may seem extreme, no man is fully beyond any temptation. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13,

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

To consider yourself entirely insusceptible to a particular stumbling block, simply makes you more vulnerable to it and there are many who have fallen to extreme legalism church. Those who become so preoccupied with the rules, so caught up in the ritual of worship, in the moral authority they find in the faith, that they forget the aim of it all – they forget that God is the Beginning and the End, the One from whom all good and perfect gifts come. The greatest commandment, that we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind, must always come first, and in the spirit of obedience, all else will follow.

Pastor Chris’s sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s24op57dKEs