Chapter V
With this chapter begins a new section of this book. It is introduced by the phrase “‘After this,” or as it should be rendered, “‘After these things.” The Apostle John uses this expression frequently. It has also been translated by “Afterward” and “Hereafter.” Eight times this phrase is used sin his Gospel «(iit:22:” vil, AA Seville wind 3 xis xix: 38 and xxi: 1); in the Book of Revelation it is used ten times.
Verses 1-4. Wedonot know what feast it was; certainly not Purim as some think, more probably Passover. But the feast is no longer “Jehovah’s feast,’ but the “‘feast of the Jews”; simply an outward, religious observance, strictly kept as to the letter by a rebellious, unbelieving people, and therefore no longer owned by the Lord. And yet the Lord Jesus went up to Jerusalem. As “made under the Law” (Galatians iv:4), He graciously conformed to these institutions which He Himself had ordained. And if the feast was Passover, as we believe it was, it is of blessed significance that He went up to Jerusalem, beginning with the second Passover mentioned in this Gospel the more public teaching concerning eternal life, the life given through the sacrificial death of the true Passover Lamb.
At the sheep-gate (Nehemiah iii:1) there was a pool, called Bethesda (House of Mercy), surrounded by five porches in which a large number of sick people rested. They all waited for the moment when the waters of the pool became agitated. It was the evidence that an angel had stirred the waters, and
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a Le whosoever of the sick stepped in first was made whole. The troubling of the waters occurred only at certain seasons; we are not told how often. The genuineness of this verse has been doubted by many, among them such leading scholars as Tischendorf, Alford, Meyer, Tholuck and Olshausen. Others concede that the passage is genuine and should be maintained, but suggest that there was no real angel who
troubled the water, that it was only the superstitious belief
of the sick who had gathered there. So Dr. Bullinger in the “‘Companion Bible” introduces a parenthesis by which he attempts to clear up the difficulty — ‘‘For (it was said) that an angel went down..” But there is no need to omit this passage nor to add words to explain it. Why should this incident be thought impossible? The ministry of angels was not an uncommon occurrence in the history of the Jews. We find the record of their ministries elsewhere in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts. Why then should this passage be rejected as unreliable? The objection originates mostly in the minds of men who would like to eliminate, if possible, everything miraculous and supernatural manifestations from the Word of God. If ministries of angels are believed, and that these beings carry out God’s wishes and designs, then there is nothing strange at all in this record. We believe it as it reads. It is serious to meddle with any portion or statement of the Word of God. God sent this angel at certain times to produce the healing power of the water, to remind His people of His power as it had been in their behalf in the past, and that He was still the same Jehovah, who doeth wondrous things. But there is a deeper lesson than the historical fact.
The sick, the impotent, the halt, the withered, scattered throughout the five porches, are typical of the moral condition, the helplessness and ruin of the people to whom the Lord came, the people Israel. Though they had the Law, the five books of Moses, in which they boasted, yet they were without strength. Laying about in those five porches at the pool could not heal them; grace alone could do that.
Verses 5-9. Among the multitudes was a special case, an impotent man, who had been in that case for thirty-eight years. He is helpless. The remedy is in sight but for him it was unavailing, for he had no power and strength to get into the pool, and no one was there to have mercy on him to assist him.
Here again we have a picture of Israel’s condition as under the Law, and in a broader sense, of man in his sinful, helpless condition. The thirty-eight years remind us of the years of Israel’s wandering in the wilderness after the Law had been given. But that Law could not help them, as it cannot help the sinner, for he is without strength, like the impotent man who saw the remedy but could not use it. Then the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on the scene to do that which the man could not do. He knew the poor, miserable sufferer. He knew his disease and how it originated, for later He told him “sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee”’ (Verse 14). And what a comfort it is for God’s children that the Lord Jesus still knows every pain, every heartache, every suffering and every disease; yea more than that, we know He is still the same.
How lovingly He then addressed the man, ‘‘Wilt thou be made whole?” Was that his earnest will, his deep desire? Hast thou a wish to be made whole? It was addressed to him so that faith might be produced in the heart of the man. Desire and willingness to be healed is all Grace asks of the sinner, and with it acceptance of what is offered. ‘The man answered: “Sir, I have no man when the water is troubled to put me into the pool.” He did not answer the question directly yet his reply shows his earnest desire. Perhaps all he expected of the Lord who had spoken to him, was the friendly assistance, when next the water was troubled, to help him at once to it. But the friend of sinners did not touch him, nor make him a promise. From His lips came the word of - command, the word of omnipotent power, which now produced the faith needed in the heart of the helpless sufferer. “Arise, take up thy bed and walk.” Grace had spoken and power is there also. The first word ‘“‘Arise” was for faith to obey, and as the man obeyed the quickening power of the Lord was manifested. ‘And immediately, the man was made whole, took up his bed and walked.” This is the third miracle reported in the Gospel of John. We have called attention before to the number three, as the number which signifies resurrection and restoration. “This healed man, raised up, completely restored, is a typ of Israel in that coming third day when they will be raised up and walk before Him (Hosea vi:1-2).
The three miracles as given in this Gospel, che water turned into wine on the third day, the healing of the nobleman’s son, and the third miracle, the healing of the impotent man, are all prophetic pictures of what will be when the Lord returns. The healing of the impotent man was a sign for the Jews that the King promised to them was in their midst. The first miracle done after Pentecost when once more the Kingdom was offered to the Jews, was the healing of another impotent man (Acts ili). The use of the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, His power, had made him whole, so that he leaped and praised God. It was a miracle to show to the Jews that the same One who had healed the impotent man, who lay in the porch at the pool of Bethesda, the Christ whom they had delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, who was crucified and who died, is risen from the dead and is living. Among the signs of the Kingdom promised to Israel is the sign of the lame man who shall leap as an hart (Isaiah xxxv:6). Both healings in the Gospel of John and in the Book of Acts were witnesses to the Jews that the Lord Jesus is the promised King with the powers of the Kingdom.
Verses 10-16. The healed man at once attracted attention. But it was not, as one would suppose, on account of his miraculous healing, but because he had taken up his bed (a very light thing consisting perhaps only of a rough blanket). That the miracle was witnessed by others who had known the man for many years is certain; yet the Jews, those in authority, did not take notice of it. The evidence of Sabbath-breaking was the chief concern of these extremely self-righteous religionists; and when they found out that it was the Lord Jesus who had healed the man and told him to take up his bed, they were ready to manifest their zeal by killing the Lord. The Sabbath was everything to them; the Lord of the Sabbath they did not want. It is true that bearing of burdens on the Sabbath is mentioned in Nehemiah xili:19 and Jeremiah xvii:21. But the burdens in both passages mean merchandise, and the command could hardly be applied to a poor man, who had been miraculously healed and who took his belongings from the ground to carry them away.
When the Jews asked the healed man, he told them that he but obeyed the one who had made him whole. If he had manifested such gracious power towards him, how could it be wrong to obey him and take up the bed and walk away? The maliciousness and heart-hardness of the Jews becomes evident when they tried to get more information as to the person who had healed him and told him to take up his bed. They did not care about the healing, the act of. mercy and the miracle which had been performed, but they were eager to display their zeal for the Sabbath. The man did not know that it was the Lord Jesus; not could he find out, for the Lord had suddenly disappeared, perhaps in a miraculous way (as the word indicates) the same as in Luke iv:30 and John x:39. But some time later the Lord Jesus found him in the temple. From the words which then our Lord spoke to the man whom He had healed we may gather that it was a special sin which had been responsible for his long affliction. That sin had brought its awful harvest for his body. Here again we see the divine omniscience of our Lord. The man had committed that sin before our Lord had appeared on earth in the form of man; but He knew, for He is God. But what is the worse thing which would happen unto him should he after this deliverance go on in deliberate sinning? Thirty-eight years of helplessness is an awful harvest from sin, but the worse thing is the loss of the soul and eternal punishment. This our Lord solemnly means in speaking of the worse thing.
The motive of the man when he told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him was not evil, but probably because as a good Jew he felt it was his duty. From that moment began the Jewish leaders to persecute the Lord Jesus and sought to kill Him.
Verses 17-18. They had charged Him with breaking the Sabbath. He tells them, ‘““My Father worketh hitherto; and I work.” Their understanding of the Sabbath was that of a blind and literal legalism; but the Son of God told them that
4 7 § neither God His Father, nor He as one with God, knew any cessation of labor. It is true God rested on the seventh day, but that rest was soon broken by man’s sin. He had rested in creation because it was good. But when sin entered in and produced the horrible results of suffering, misery and death, God could no longer rest. He began after the entrance of sin His work of redemption, manifesting His love and His grace. If He had been satisfied with the conditions which sin produced, and continued His rest, He would not be God. But while the Father and the Son (as well as the Holy Spirit) had worked in creation and then rested; the work of redemption began at once when sin and its ruin had come, and ever since it has been as the Lord told the Jews, “My Father worketh hitherto (literally: until now) and I work.” And this still is true. While God has found His rest in a sense in the blessed, finished work of His Son on the Cross, who came to work the works of Him who sent Him, the great Sabbath is not yet come and will not come till “God is all in all” and there “‘shall be no more curse.” All this the Jews knew not; equally ignorant of these facts are professing Christians.
But here is a greater truth of vast importance. By uttering this weighty sentence the Lord states His equality with God. If we analyze these few words we discover in them the same great facts which stand out so boldly in the beginning of this Gospel. He is God; He is one with God; He is in fellowship with God and shares His councils and His work. His hearers at once detected the one meaning of this statement. ‘They saw that He claimed a Sonship which was nothing less than Oneness with God. The Jews understood Him in this way. Had He said “Our Father” perhaps no objection would have been raised; but when He said “My Father’ they concluded “that God was His own particular Father” in a sense as no other being could claim it.
Dean Alford in his Greek New Testament remarks: “The Jews understood His words to mean nothing short of peculiar, personal Sonship, and thus equality of nature with God. And that this their understanding was the right one, the subsequent discourse testifies. All might in one sense, and the Jews did in a closer sense, call God their, or, our Father; but they at once said that the individual use of ‘My Father’ by the Lord Jesus had a totally distinct, and in their view a blasphemous, meaning; this latter especially, because He made God a participator in His Sabbath breaking. Thus we obtain from the adversaries of the faith a most important statement of one of its highest and holiest doctrines.”
Verses 19-23. In these marvelous words of self-witness our Lord tells now the Jews that they had not misunderstood Him, that He, the Son, is in full union, in complete identification with the Father, that He does nothing without the Father, but all He seeth the Father do He does also. Deniers of the essential Deity of our Lord have tried to twist these words around to prove that He is not God, especially the statement that He can do nothing of Himself. Well said Bengel in his Gnomen: “This is a glory and not an imperfection.” The words do not mean limitation, but attest the complete, perfect unity which is between the Father and the Son. In His relation to the Father, the Son can do nothing independently, or separately, from the Father; if He would act independently He would be another God, which would be an impossibility. “He can do nothing of Himself” therefore does not affect the question of power (He is omnipotent), but it is the question of His will; He will not act differently from the Father, from His own independent will. Of course the fact that He, the eternal One, became man also enters into this saying. He is in the place of dependence on earth, yet He does what the Father does, doing His work and carrying out His will.
Much has been written on these great words of our Lord which is very helpful, and it may not be out of order to quote some of the sayings of the servants of Christ of past generations, as today we are surrounded by so many false witnesses, and the leaven of “Unitarianism” as well as ““Russellism”’ and other cults is working, denying the essential Deity of our Lord. Augustinus said tersely: “Our Lord does not say, whatsoever the Father doeth the Son does other things like them, but the very same things. If the Son doeth the same things, and in like manner, then let the
Jew be silenced, the Christian believe, the heretic be convinced; the Son is equal with the Father.”
Hilarius (401-449 A. D.) wrote: “Christ is the Son of God because He does nothing of Himself. He is God because whatsoever things the Father doeth, He doeth the same. ‘They are one because they are equal in honor. He is not the Father because He is sent.”
Bishop Joseph Hall (1574) made the following paraphrase on verse 19: “I and the Father are one indivisible essence, and our acts are no less inseparable. The Son can do nothing without the will and act of the Father; and even as He is man, can do nothing but what He seeth, agreeable to the will and purpose of His heavenly Father.”
Hundreds of similar words of comment could be quoted showing that the leading teachers of the Church agree in their interpretation. If another meaning is given to them it shows how darkened the mind of the natural man is.
In verse 20 our Lord speaks of the Father loving the Son, showing Him all things He doeth and greater works than these, that they might marvel. It is all a matchless setting forth of His Oneness with the Father. Neither statement implies that the Father is superior and the Son inferior. Well has it been said: ‘“This love is not the love of an earthly parent to a beloved child. The ‘showing’ is not the showing of a teacher to an ignorant scholar. The ‘love’ is meant to show us that unspeakable unity of heart and affection, which eternally existed and exists between the Father and the Son.”* The greater works are explained in the next verses, that is, the power to raise the dead and to quicken them, and His work as Judge. These words show still more His Divine authority and equality with the Father; yet they also have woven in them the fact of His work in incarnation, of redemption as Saviour and Lord. Only God can raise the dead and give them life, whether they are the physically dead or the spiritually dead; God has the power to do this. The same power belongs to the Son of God, not a derived power, by Divine commission, but sovereignty, “even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.”
*Bishop Ryle.
It is sovereign power. How He exercised and manifested this power the Gospel of John reveals also.
Next our Lord speaks of judgment, and when He does He no longer speaks of the Father doing and He doing the same the Father does. He does not say “The Father judgeth and I judge,” but “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.”’ Judgment, therefore, is committed into His hands. It is one of His acquired glories, which belong to Him as the risen, glorified man. The occupant of the different judgment thrones is the Son of God, who died for sinners. All judgments are still in the future. The first to be executed will be the judgment seat (the award-seat) of Christ, before whom His own people will have to appear, not to be judged by their works, but that their works may be manifested (1 Corinthians v:10). Then follows the judgment of nations which will take place when He has taken His own throne in connection with the earth, after His visible and glorious manifestation. In the age which follows He will judge the earth in righteousness. ‘God hath appointed a day in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained; wherefore He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead” (Acts xvii:31). The day in this passage is “the Day of the Lord,” which will last a thousand years, during which He reigns over the earth and His redeemed people with Him. ‘The final judgment throne He fills is “the great white throne’; then all the wicked dead will have to face, in that second resurrection, Him whom they rejected.
But more than that, the Son is to be honored and therefore worshipped as the Father is honored, “that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father.”’ Some have taught that God alone should be worshipped and not the Lord Jesus Christ. In the light of these words of our Lord this invention is completely answered. And all who do not honor the Son do not honor the Father, for He sent Him; rejection of God the Son means rejection of God the Father. This unity with the Father we have elsewhere expressed by our Lord. “He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and He that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent me” (Matthew x:40).
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“He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me — but on Him that sent Me. And He that seeth Me seeth Him that sent Me” (John xii:44-45). How anyone in the presence of such words can deny the Deity of the Lord Jesus and His Oneness with God is difficult to understand.
In this great self-witness, our Lord reveals Himself as very God, the Lord of life and death, and as the Judge of all. The words which He speaks next give the practical consequences of this, the manifestation of Himself as the Life-giver and the Judge in connection with man.
Verses 24-27. Four times He uses the word “Verily” — Amen, Amen — emphasizing the solemnity and importance of what He now declares. These words show indeed how He will have to be honored by all men. Those who hear His Word and believe are quickened by Him; the spiritually dead who hear His voice shall live. Thus He is honored as the Life-giver. And those who reject the Son and do not honor Him by believing on Him, will be compelled to honor Him by undergoing judgment.
And what a blessed, precious assurance it is the Lord gives in the twenty-fourth verse! It has been used countless times in the salvation of the souls of men, and in leading nominal and doubting professing believers out of the mists of uncertainty, into the sunshine of grace and perfect assurance. The Son of God gives the positive, unchangeable assurance, that sinners who are by nature destitute of ‘‘eternal life,” who are children of wrath, can have eternal life, and not come into judgment, and pass out of death into life.
We have frequently asked professing Christians the question: “Do you know that you have eternal life?” Many times we received the answer — ‘“I hope so” — while others said: ‘‘It is presumption to be too sure about going to heaven” — as if going to heaven would be decided at the time of physical death. But eternal life is not something bestowed when man dies physically, but it is a present gift and a present possession. “The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ‘That it is something in the believer, which he possesses as abiding in Him, we learn by way of contrast from 1 John iii:15, where we read of having “eternal life abiding in him.” It is the great, fundamental need of the human soul, to pass out of the state of spiritual death into life, to receive life, eternal life. This eternal life, which man does not possess because he is in the state of spiritual death, is received, fully assured and forever bestowed by hearing Christ’s Word and believing God (not on God) who sent Him. “He that heareth My Word and believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life.” God sent His Son into the world that He might give eternal life to sinners dead and lost. Therefore believing Him means the gift of life, the impartation of the new nature, which is spiritual, eternal life. The Lord Jesus says nothing about works, nor about ordinances or anything else; hearing and believing is all needed for the present reception and abiding possession of eternal life. Thus every sinner who heareth His Word and believeth Him who sent Him hath, not shall have, but hath, eternal life. If any one questions this, it means nothing less than questioning the truthfulness of the Son of God. Acceptance of the “Verily” of the Lord means assurance and perfect peace. Furthermore, in having this eternal life, judgment is forever gone (not condemnation) — “‘cometh not into judgment, but is passed out of death into life” (not shall pass). Sinners saved by grace, in possession of that life which is in Him, can never come into judgment; the judgment seat before which the believer has to appear does not decide whether he is saved or lost, but the believer’s works will there be manifested.
The hour in verse 25 began with the declaration of these truths by our Lord and covers the entire dispensation, the day of grace. The dead are the spiritually dead. What a testimony the Son of God gives as to the condition of the whole race! What a rebuke to those teachers who deny the truth the infallible, omniscient Son of God states! Those who receive life are they who hear His voice, that is, who hear and believe.
When next the Lord speaks of the Father having life in Himself and that He gave to the Son to have life in Himself, and that He hath given Him authority to judge, He speaks of Himself as the Son of Man, the sent One of God. As Son of Man He quickens, and as Son of Man He will judge. The day in which He quickens still goes on, but some day it will end. Then comes another hour, of which He speaks jn the verses which follow.
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Verses 28-29. Here then He speaks of His authority to raise the physically dead and to judge. That hour has not yet come, nor will it come as long as the gracious purpose of the present age remains unaccomplished. When this is reached, when the out-called company, the Church is gathered, then begins that future hour of which the Lord speaks. His voice will be heard to call forth those that are in the graves. But the Lord does not teach here a general resurrection, when the righteous and the unrighteous are raised up together. Such a general resurrection is nowhere mentioned in the Word of God. Matthew xxv:31-46 is mostly used to confirm the belief in such a resurrection; but this passage does not concern the dead at all, but it reveals a judgment of living nations. Our Lord teaches that there will be two resurrections. ‘The first will be the resurrection of those who have practiced good and theirs will be a resurrection of life. This class are they who believed, and as a result practiced good, lived a righteous life. The second resurrection is the resurrection of judgment, and those concerned in it did not practice good, because they believed not and did not pass from death unto life, and hence they come into judgment; while those who believed have share in life and are exempt from judgment. The details of these two resurrec — tions are not revealed here, nor the chronological order of events preceding and following the two resurrections. The Spirit of God unfolds this in the Epistles, and the last Book, the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, speaks more fully of these two resurrections.
Every Christian who searches his Bible knows that the voice of the Son of God will be heard first when He descends from heaven with the shout (1 Thessalonians iv:13-18). That shout will open the graves of those who have died in Christ; their bodies which slept* will rise, and all believers, those who heard His voice and who believed Him that sent Him, who live in that most blessed day, when His voice breaks the silence of many centuries, will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. Thus begins the first resurrection. The risen Saints, with those who were changed, will be caught up together in clouds to meet Him in the air.
*Sleep of the body, not the soul.
110 THE GOSPEL SOP JOHN On earth the tribulation rages after that; Satan and the beasts will have control. Then others die the martyr’s death. They are beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the Word of God. They worshipped not the beast, neither his image. And these tribulation Saints will also be raised up when the great tribulation is ended (Revelation xx:4). Then we read “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection” (Revelation xx:5). The thousand years are literal years when the Lord Jesus Christ will reign and His Saints with Him; then He judgeth the earth in righteousness. And after the thousand years are ended His voice will be heard again, and a second resurrection takes place of the wicked dead. The description of it we find in Revelation xx:11-15.
Verse 30-31. Some have pronounced this utterance of our Lord as one of the most difficult in the entire Gospel. We pass by these supposed difficulties, for the believing heart finds none in these words. It is evident that our Lord speaks once more of His oneness with the Father, which makes it unalterably impossible to do anything solely of Himself. His relation to the Father, as one with Him, necessitates that all He does must be done just as the Father does it, and never separately from Him. As very man He had of course a will, but that was in entire subjection to the Father; it could not be otherwise. An ancient writer (Chrysostom) comments on this verse as follows: “‘Just as when we say it is impossible for God to do wrong, we do not impute to Him any weakness, but confess in Him an unutterable power; so also when Christ saith ‘I can of mine own self do nothing,’ the meaning is that it is impossible, — my nature admits not — that I could do anything contrary to the Father.” ‘These words therefore do not mean, as some teach, that He is not very God, but they are the evidences of His oneness with God. It is the same truth as we found it in the nineteenth verse of this chapter. And He judged as He heard, therefore His judgment must be just and will be just in all the future judgments committed into His hands as the Son of Man. It shows that all He heard (from the Father) is manifested by Himself, and therefore what He utters is the Word and Will of God. But if He bore witness alone, just He Himself, this witness would not be true. It does not mean in the least that if He were only to witness of Himself, that this witness would be a false witness. He spoke to the Jews, and in point of law a self-witness, uncorroborated, is invalid and open to suspicion. The law demanded at least two witnesses. And of the other witnesses He speaks next.
Verse 32. Not a few have applied these words to the witness which John the Baptist gave of Him. But this is incorrect. The use of the word “‘witnesseth”’ excludes this application, for John had witnessed, but had passed away; but here is One who witnesseth, that is a witness which continues. ‘The witness whom our Lord means is the Father Himself. Then follows the threefold witness of the Father — the witness of John the Baptist; the works the Father gave Him to do, bearing witness that the Father had sent Him; and the witness of the Scriptures.
Verses 33-35. They themselves had sent unto that remarkable prophet who had arisen in their midst, John the Baptist (John 1:19). As the witness he had borne testimony to the Truth. They well knew the great witness this unimpeachable witness had borne in pointing to Him as greater than himself. In his light they had been willing to rejoice for a season, when all Judea and Jerusalem went out with many of the religious leaders of the people. The Lord thus bears witness that what John had said concerning Himself, that He is the Christ, the Lamb of God, who was before him, is true. But did He need this testimony? Was it necessary that He should receive a testimony from man as to His own person? Or did He seek such a testimony as others do? His claim does in no way depend upon such a human witness, but He permits it and uses it that they might believe on Him and be saved. How this reveals His loving heart, so deeply concerned about their salvation! But John’s witness pales in the presence of the greater witness.
Verses 36-38. John did no miracles, yet for a time at least they were ready to receive him, and believed that he might be the Christ. The miracles Christ had performed were the positive evidences that God had sent Him. The honoured Nicodemus, the great teacher in Israel, was convinced of that (Chapter iii-2). When later in Solomon’s porch they asked Him “Tell us plainly if hou art the Christ,” He answered, ‘““The works that I do in my Father’s Name, they bear witness of Me” (x:25). They could never deny the fact of His miracles. The system which is far worse and more damnable than anything else, the Destructive Criticism, may deny His miracles; the thousands who beheld them, who saw the blind restored to sight, the demons driven out, the lepers cleansed and the dead raised, could never doubt. They did not dare to deny them, but some attempted to explain them in that blasphemous suggestion, that they were wrought by the powers of Satan. (See Matthew xii). They were the miracles given to Him to do by the Father; the display of the Father’s power as well as His own.
“Five things should always be noted about our Lord’s miracles. (1) Their number, they were not a few only, but very many. (2) Their greatness, they were not little, but mighty interferences with the ordinary course of nature. (3) Their publicity, they were not done generally in a corner, but in open day, and before many witnesses, and often before enemies. (4) Their character, they were almost always works of love, mercy and compassion, helpful and beneficial to man, and not merely barren exhibition of power. (5) Their direct appeal to men’s senses, they were visible, and would bear any examination. The difference between them and the boasted miracles of Rome, on all these points, is striking and instructive.’’*
And besides these miracles the Father had witnessed of Him. His voice they had never heard, nor had they ever seen any appearance of Him. They had no knowledge of God, nor had they His Word abiding in themselves, the Word in which the Father’s voice is heard concerning His Son. For this reason they did not believe on Him whom the Father had sent. To believe on Christ necessitates first of all belief in the Word of God; when the Word of God is disowned, Christ also must eventually be rejected. This important truth, the witness of the Scriptures, is next given by our Lord.
*Expository Thoughts on John.
Verses 39-43. They searched the Scriptures (the Old Testament) and thought that they found in them eternal life, but they really did not search the Scriptures, for if they had they would have recognized Him whom the Father sent. “They testify of Me.” In Hebrews x:7 we also find the same testimony by our Lord, “In the volume of the Book it is written of Me.” Martin Luther once asked, “What Book and what Person?” — “There is only one Book” was his reply — “the Scriptures; and only one Person — Jesus Christ.” The Lord Jesus Christ is throughout the Scriptures revealed in many ways, not only in direct prophecies, but in types and in the levitical institutions. All this is known to every child of God. But it needs restatement in these days when the authority and inspiration of the Old Testament Scriptures are so widely denied. Our Lord endorses the Jewish Canon, as it was then, and as it is now, as the Word and revelation of Himself. The Critics, boasting of scholarship, audaciously calling it even “reverend Criticism,” deny this completely. If we refer them to this passage they tell us that our Lord but accommodated Himself to the current opinion of His times, but that in reality He did not mean to assert His own belief in these writings. What this involves we would rather leave unsaid.
The Scriptures bear their infallible witness both to His Person and to His work. How well Philip of Bethsaida spoke when he said to Nathanael — ‘“‘We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets did write” (i:45). He had searched the Scriptures, hence he believed on Christ as the promised one. And we also must search the Scriptures and find anew that they testify of Him, whom we know as our Saviour-Lord. Then follows that saddest of all words, “Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life.” What a word this is! It gives us the solemn reason why men are lost.
The Greek is more emphatic than the English version; it is more than ‘‘Ye will not come’; it means literally rendered “Ye do not will to come.” After hearing His wonderful testimony, the different witnesses He had marshalled, they still refused to believe on Him, and had no heart and no desire to come to Him to receive that life which He alone can give. But He did not speak thus in their, hearing because He desired honor from men. It was spoken for only one purpose, for their own good. But He knew as the omniscient One what was in their hearts; though they professed to be worshippers of God, the real love of God had no place in them. This fact was evidenced by not receiving Him who had come to them as the love-gift of the Father. If they loved and honored the Father they would never have rejected the Son.
Then He uttered a prophecy. “If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.’”” The words have been true in the past. After the death and resurrection of our Lord, during the first century of our era, over three score false Messiahs appeared among the Jews. They all came in their own names and were miserable deceivers, yet no matter how brazen they were, each had a vast following, and each led them to disaster. But this prophecy remains still to be fulfilled, for our Lord predicts that final Antichrist, the man of sin. The argument often raised about the personality of this Antichrist is settled by this passage of Scripture. He will be a Jew, for the Jews would not accept a Messiah unless he is of their own race. This Antichrist is the second Beast in Revelation xili, coming out of Israel’s land; the first Beast is the little horn of Daniel vii, the head of the Roman Empire and as such an apostate Gentile. The early Church believed that the Lord predicted in His words the Antichrist as he is to be revealed before the second Coming of Christ.
Verses 44-47. According to the word of the Lord, those who look for the honor which comes from man cannot believe. Seeking the praise of man is the constant tendency of the heart of man and excludes true faith, for true faith looks not to man but to God, and seeks the honor which comes from the only God. Such was the condition of the Jews and especially the condition of their leaders. And such is the condition of the great professing Christendom and their ritualistic and rationalistic heads. Still they boasted in Moses. While the Jews speak of Abraham as “our father,” they call Moses “our teacher.” By not believing the writings of Moses, Moses himself in whom they trusted became their accuser. Even today they read his books, the Pentateuch, and these are the accusing witnesses of their unbelief. If they believed Moses they would also believe Him, for Moses wrote of Christ. Every believer who studies the five books which were written by Moses knows what a wealth of truth they contain relating to the Person of our Lord and His work as Prophet, Priest and King. It is simply unsearchable. Yet that pernicious, infidel school, Destructive Criticism, claims that Moses never wrote anything and some go so far as to doubt the very existence of this man. But how true what the Son of God says in conclusion of this remarkable discourse. ‘But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” Reject Moses and you reject Me. Such has been the road of apostasy and the end is not yet reached. Well has the late William Kelly summed it up in the following paragraph.
“What an estimate of the authority of those very Scriptures, which self-sufficient men have assailed as untrustworthy! They dare to tell us that they are neither Mosaic in origin, nor Messianic in testimony, but a mass of legends which do not even cohere in their poor and human reports of early days. On the other hand, the Judge of all declares that these Scriptures testify of Him, and that Moses wrote of Him, setting the written word in point of authority above even His words. As the Lord Jesus Christ and Rationalism are thus in direct antagonism, the Christian has no hesitation which to receive and which to reject, for one cannot serve both masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will hold to the one and despise the other. So it is, and must be, and ought to be; for Christ and Rationalism (Destructive Criticism) are irreconcilable. ‘Those who pretend to serve both have no principle as to either, and are the most corrupting of all men. They not only do not possess the Truth, but they make the love of it impossible, and are enemies alike of God and man.”