10.08.17 ~ “Witnesses of Christ’s Messiahship: Part One.”
Previously in John 5 we studied how Jesus, the Christ [Messiah], God’s Son, is equal to the Father, in that:
They both have the power to raise the dead. They both have life within themselves.
They both give life to whomever they choose. They are both to be honored equally.
They are equal in authority yet, (verse 22) the Father has given all judgement to His Son, the reason being (verse 27), the Son of God is also the Son of Man.
Jesus was conceived in the womb of a woman in Nazareth, born in a stable in Bethlehem, raised as a child in Galilee; and yet, after He stepped out into the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist, He embarked on a 3.5 year ministry bringing the Light and Life of God to mankind, in order to expose our sin and offer His own life on our behalf, as payment to God, that we might receive forgiveness and eternal life through Him.
Jesus was tested and tempted as are we, yet He did not sin, for He (Hebrews 4:15), “has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet is without sin.” He is the Son of Man, God the Son, who came as the Lamb of God, the only acceptable sacrifice for our sins.
Read John 5:30... Christ came to do the Father’s will, and there were given several irrefutable witnesses to the divine nature and authority of Christ.
Read John 5:31... For a person to give testimony concerning himself, is not conclusive evidence and therefore considered invalid.
The NASB says, their testimony is not true, meaning, a man’s testimony about himself is not admissible as legal evidence in a court of law; there must be corroborating evidentiary testimony that provides proof of what he has stated (Deuteronomy 19:15), “A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
Read John 5:32-37... Jesus says John the Baptizer was a testifying witness as to who the Anointed One of God, the Messiah, is (see John 1:6-8; 19-34). But the supreme witness to Christ’s Messiahship is the Father.
In John 5:32, the NASB capitalizes the pronoun “His” in front of the word testimony, referring to the Father, this is further clarified, as we will see, in verses 37-38.
Notice in verse 34, even though John the Baptist was God’s witness to Christ’s divinity (cf John 1:23), the priority was on Christ the Lord (cf John 1:29-31), the provider of forgiveness and salvation.
Back to John 5:33-34... John (verse 35) was filled with the Holy Spirit and was a revealing light that captivated the Jews for a short time, as he (the first prophet of God for 400 years , since God left the Temple at the close of the Old Testament) was now proclaiming the imminent coming of Israel’s Messiah.
Luke 1:15, “He (John) will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.”
John called the people to repent, to be baptized and to come to the Savior, Jesus
Christ, the Son of God.
John’s ministry was to draw attention to Christ, for He alone is the Savior and provider of eternal life.
The Jews were superficially attracted to John’s powerful preaching, for a short time (remember, there had been no prophet for 400 years), but ultimately (cf. verse 35) they turned away from the light of the truth that John revealed about Christ — conditioned by hundreds of years of religious rituals, trying to maintain a relationship with God — they were blinded to the very presence of God [Jesus Christ] among them (see John 1:1-4, 14, 18).
Read John 5:36... The testimony of the miracles Christ did among them was divine evidence of His deity (see John 10:25).
Remember when Nicodemus (cf John 3:1-2) speaking to Jesus at night said, “we know you are a teacher who as come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs You are doing if God were not with Him.”
Everything Jesus said and did was given to Him by the Father, as a testimony that Jesus was from the Father, sent by the Father, with the full authority of the Father.
Read John 5:37a... The Father Himself testifies to the sovereign nature and purpose of Christ (see Matthew 3:13-17 [pp. Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22] 17:1-5 [the witness of Peter, James and John when Christ was transfigured before them]; see 2Peter 1:16-18).
Read John 5:37b-38... John the Baptizer testified that God the Son had come in the flesh of Jesus; the Father spoke from heaven about His Son, commissioning Him, as He began His ministry of the Gospel of Christ.
Jesus obediently proclaimed God’s message of salvation for 3.5 years, performing many miraculous signs, and yet, the Jews still did not believe in Him as their Messiah, called Immanuel [God with us], named Jesus [Greek], Yeshua [Hebrew] meaning God’s Salvation [Savior]. He was both Lord and Savior the One and Only Son of God (see Acts 2:36).
By rejecting God the Son, the Jews, as a Nation, also rejected God the Father who had sent Him, as they still do today; but through those first Jewish Christians, the message of Salvation through Christ has gone out to the ends of the earth.
John the Baptist is long since dead, and therefore is not testifying; Jesus Christ the Lord is at the right hand of the Father in heaven, He is no longer performing signs and wonders among us; the Father no longer speaks audibly from heaven concerning His Son; but today and until the Lord returns to bring us where He is, we have the witness and the sovereign testimony of the Scriptures concerning Jesus Christ, and next week we will study the sovereign testifying witness of the Scriptures themselves, but today, I want to close with the words of John the Apostle, concerning all that is written in the 66 Books of the Bible that have been revealed to us from God (John 20:31), “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.”
Pastor Mike <‘(((><