John 5:37-47
"And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form.
But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe.
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
I do not receive honor from men.
But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you.
I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?
Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you——Moses, in whom you trust.
For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me.
But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?"

MESSAGE: Jesus Christ has done a beautiful deed of compassion by healing a man who had been sick for thirty eight years. He told the man to take up his mat and go home. For this act of mercy and healing, and for instructing the man to carry his bed, because it was done on the Sabbath, the religious leaders charge Him with violating the regulations of the Sabbath...a charge that could result in death!
Jesus defends His actions by comparing His work with the work of His Father (God), a work that goes on day and night until eternity begins and time is no longer. Now, the religious leaders lay another charge upon Him...He is now guilty of blasphemy! Christ has been Himself equal with God.
To defend His claims, Christ proceeds to give witness

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Two)

to His claims. The setting is almost like the setting of a court room. The Pharisees who were the religious leaders are before Him, making their charges...and Christ calls His defense witnesses to prove His claims. In verse 31 of chapter 5, Christ calls the Holy Spirit as the first witness. He speaks of Him in these words: "there is another who bears witness of Me," and although there is some question in Bible scholars as to the witness referred to here, many scholars agree with the interpretation that His reference is to the Holy Spirit who was the first to give witness to the public ministry of Christ when He appeared as a dove at the baptism of Jesus.
Christ's second witness is John the Baptist. His third witness is His works.
Now, in verse 37, He calls upon His heavenly Father as the next witness. "And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me."
There had been the voice from heaven at His baptism. "It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
And immediately, coming up from the water, He saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove.
Then a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Mark 1:9-11)
On the mount of Transfiguration the voice from heaven is once again heard: "And a cloud came and overshadowed them; and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, "This is My beloved Son, Hear Him."
As Jesus nears the moment when He must face the cross, He said: "Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came from heaven, saying, "I have both glorified it and will glorify it again."
Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him" (John 12:27-29).
But in the text before us, it is obvious that Jesus is referring to the testimony of the Father in the Old Testament.

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Three)

The entire revelation of the Father from the very beginning has prepared the way for the coming of the Son. Rightly understood it bears witness to Him. This is the witness that means so much to Jesus. Because He has the witness of God, He is not troubled by the opposition of man. But though this witness is so clear and so valuable to Him, He does not anticipate that the Jews will respond to it. Their ignorance is three fold. (1) They have never heard God's voice. Moses heard that voice (Exodus 33:11), but they are no true followers of Moses, otherwise they would have heard God's voice in Jesus (3:34; 17:8). (2) They have never seen God's form. Israel saw that form (Genesis 32:30), but they are no true Israelites. Were they, they would have seen God in Jesus (14:9).
Paul makes reference to who is really a Jew! "For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God." (Romans 2:28-29)
(3) They have not God's word abiding in them. The Psalmist laid up God's word in his heart (Psalm 119:11), but they do not share his religious experience. Had they done so, they would have received that word from Jesus.
THE VOICE OF GOD IS, OF COURSE, THE CHRIST HIMSELF:
THE FORM OF GOD, TOO, IS THE CHRIST.
Paul writes: "But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them." (2 Cor. 4:3-4)
VERSE 38 in our text reads: "But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent. Him you do not believe."
Jesus does not deny that in a sense the Jews have the word of God. What He does say is that they do not have this word in their hearts as an abiding possession, the reason being that they had not placed their confidence in the One commissioned unto His Messianic task by the Father.

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Four)

In the 38th verse, Jesus begins to make solemn application of what He had said to the consciences and hearts of these Jews.
Note the awful charges which He brings against them: "ye have not his word abiding in you" (v.38); "Ye will not come to me" (v.40; "ye have not the love of God in you" (v.42); "ye receive me not" (v.43); "ye seek not the honor that cometh from God only" (v.44); ."Ye believe not" (v.47). All because God's word has no place in their hearts! If God's Word has no place in man's hearts they will not come to Christ, they will not receive Him, they will not love God, and they will not seek the honor that cometh from God only. It is only as the Word is hidden in our hearts that we are preserved from sinning against God.
Faith has its foundation in the word of God!
"So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Romans 10:17)
In verse 38, Christ brings to the witness stand the witness of the Scriptures.
"Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of Me."
This is the last witness which our Lord cites, and, for us, it is the most important. John has long since passed away; the "words" of Christ are no longer before men's eyes; the voice of the Father is no more heard; but the testimony of the Scriptures abides.
The Scriptures testified of Christ, and affirmed His Deity. Their witness was the climax! The Holy Writings given by inspiration of God, were the final court of appeal. Beyond them there was no appeal; above them no higher authority; after them no further witness.
So Jesus begins to speak about the witness of the Bible to Himself stressing two points. The first is the divine origin of the Scriptures. The second is their primary purpose, which is to point to Him.
It is unfortunate that we need to stress the divine origin of the Scriptures, but the reality of the matter is this...there is a low view of the Bible that prevails in our day and it is a fairly recent development in the light of the broad flow of church history. It goes back no more than two hundred years. A student of church history knows that up to the time of the Reformation (in some ways even for two hundred years beyond that) almost no one within the church doubted that the

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Five)

Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are uniquely the Word of God. Even heretics accepted this principle.
Thus, all who claimed to be Christians recognized that the Bible is a divine authority binding upon all men and that it contains objective truths that transcend human understanding.
We recognize, of course, even as we refer to the divine origin of the Scriptures, that in one sense all the biblical books have been written by men. Men wrote, but God stood behind the writing. Men used their own vocabulary and literary style, but God nevertheless guided them in the choice of the words and guaranteed the outcome. This point--which would have been heartily endorsed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself--is stated in a memorable way by Peter. Peter wrote: "No prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God" (2 Peter 1:21) A point of interest--in this verse the Greek word translated "moved" is the word used by Luke in the second chapter of Acts to compare the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost to "the blowing of a violent wind" (Acts 2:2) We are told through Peter that the writers of the Bible were borne along in their writing to produce words that God intended to be recorded. They wrote as men, but as men moved by the Holy Spirit. The result was the revelation of God!
The Christian need never fear to stand upon the Word of God, recognizing its full authority, as the Lord Jesus Christ did.
According to Jesus Christ, the purpose of the Scriptures is to point to Him and reveal Him. Jesus becomes the subject of the Old Testament in two ways: (1) by fitting in with its general themes and (2) by fulfilling the specific prophecies to be found there.
Consider the dealings of God with Adam and Eve on the occasion of their having sinned in the garden. Sin had separated the man and woman from the Creator. They tried to hide. God, however, came to them in the cool of the evening, calling. It is true that God spoke in judgment, as He had to do. He revealed the consequences of their sin. Still, at the same time that He spoke in judgment, He killed animals, clothed the man and woman with skins, covering their shame. Thus He began His teaching of the way of salvation through sacrifice. In the same story He spoke to Satan, revealing the coming of the One who would one day defeat him forever. "He will crush your head,

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Six)

and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15).
Nine chapters later we find another, somewhat veiled, reference to the "seed" who shall crush Satan. This is God's first great promise to Abraham stressing that in him all men would be blessed (12:3). Paul explains this truth in Galatians 3:16: "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, "And to seeds," as of many, but as of one. "And to your Seed," who is Christ." The blessing referred to here certainly is not a blessing to come to all people through Abraham personally. It is not a blessing to come through all Jews indiscriminately, for all Jews are not even theists. It is not even a blessing to come through believing Jews. The blessing foretold is that which was to come through the SEED of Abraham, the promised SEED, the MESSIAH.
Moses also spoke of the One who would come. Speaking for God he declared, "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him" (Deuteronomy 18:15)
The Psalms contain great prophecies. The second Psalm tells of Christ's eventual victory and rule over the nations of the earth. In the twenty-second, twenty third, and twenty-fourth Psalm are three portraits of the Lord Jesus: the suffering Saviour, the compassionate shepherd, and the King.
And the prophecies of Isaiah speak so clearly of the Coming One!
"Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man. And His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Seven)

"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth."
(Isaiah 52:12--53:7)
Jesus said: "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and THESE ARE THEY WHICH TESTIFY OF ME." (John 5:38)
The Pharisees regarded the Scriptures with such esteem that they thought that by studying the parchment and letters of Scripture they had eternal life. In actuality, the Jews had a superstitious reverence about the Word of God that led to all manner of eccentric behavior among those who dealt with the Scriptures.
Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet was given a numerical equivalent, and each word had a numerical equivalent.
Each line thus formed a mathematical equation. In fact, the Jews numbered the center letter of each line of Scripture, the center letter in each book, and the center letter in the Old Testament.
In copying the Scriptures, a scribe was not allowed to write more than one letter before looking back to the text. That eccentricity is wonderful for us because the transmission of the Scriptures was consequently so incredibly accurate, but it points to an underlying mistake in the focus of their faith. They really felt, as Jesus said, that in the Scriptures they had life.
In other words, life is found in the words of Scripture. The Jews believed this so firmly that some of them linked Scripture and memorization with salvation.
All of this combined to create a misplaced enthusiasm and emphasis. The word used in the phrase "You diligently STUDY the Scriptures" in verse 39 is a technical word for scribes like those who labored at Qumran with such concentration and obsession. But tragically, although they always had their noses in the Bible, they seldom

***PAGE BREAK***
(Page Eight)

got beyond the paper and ink. "Amazing!
There is a tremendous lesson for all of us here in this verse. To study the Scriptures, have a great and in-depth knowledge of the contents of each book...yet, to miss the glorious theme and supreme person of the Bible is a tragedy! While I am committed to the need for detailed study of the Word of God, it must not be done just for the sake of literary analysis, graphs, or statistics. The Bible is not an end in itself but is a window through which we can learn marvelous truths about God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
In my years of ministry, I have known people who pride themselves in their knowledge of the Scriptures, but the truths of the Book have never transformed the person. Whatever they know in their head has never gotten to their heart. Just like the Pharisees of Christ's day.
As I type these notes, laying on my desk is a book with the title...THE KING JAMES ONLY CONTROVERSY. In recent years, the Church has been deeply hurt and divided by books and people promoting the idea that only the King James Bible is God-approved! They say that all other translations are the work of the Devil! The King James Version controversy feeds upon the ignorance among Christians regarding the origin, transmission, and translation of the Bible. At the heart of the controversy is a basic idolization of a version of the Bible, which ends up bringing great shame and disgrace to the glorious Person...the Lord Jesus Christ...the theme of the Bible.
I believe that any translation or version of the Script. which helps you to know Christ better and deepens your love for Him is safe and helpful. I have eight or nine different translations sitting in front of me as I study and find that each one contributes something to my knowledge and love for the Christ of the Scriptures.
The word translated SEARCH in the verse before us means to search diligently or anxiously. It is the picture word for a miner who searches for precious metals. It also means a diligent, faithful, anxious investigation. But the aim of the search is to get to know the person who is the theme of the Scriptures...not just to get knowledge.

© Copyright 2001 Church of the Highlands