How many of you have ever served on a jury before? I haven’t. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, but never have been able to. I’ve been summoned before—several times. We lived in Denver, CO when I joined the Air Force. And almost all of my time in the Air Force, I kept my state residency there. The problem was, when they wanted me to serve on jury duty, that’s where they thought I was. So I would always have to send them a letter explaining that I was in the military, living out of the country or out of the state and couldn’t serve. As you know, our last assignment was in Montgomery, AL. Wouldn’t you know it that Alabama would finally catch up with me to serve on jury duty. Of course, it was after we had already moved back here. So I still have never been able to serve on a jury. I know it would be time consuming and that it would be inconvenient. But I think it would be fascinating to watch the legal system at work up close. It would be fascinating to see the prosecution state their case. And then to see the defendant take the stand in their own defense. But I think that one of the most interesting things would be to see the witnesses called to the stand. Why does that happen in our court rooms? Why do witnesses have to be called? Are they called because prosecutors and defendants are always lying? Sometimes they do, but not always. But there always is the possibility that someone is lying. And that’s what the witnesses are for. They are there to corroborate the testimony of either the prosecutor or the defendant. That’s what we have in our passage this morning. In the verses that we just read, Jesus is basically calling four witnesses to the stand to corroborate His testimony. Remember the scene. The Jewish leaders have just accused Jesus of what was, according to their laws, a crime. As a matter of fact they accused Him of committing two crimes. They accused Him of working on the Sabbath. But they also accused Him of committing blasphemy. It was bad enough to be convicted of breaking the Sabbath. But if you were convicted of committing blasphemy, Jewish law said that you were to be stoned to death. You were to be brutally killed. So it was a very serious charge that they were attempting to prosecute Jesus with. Essentially, they charged Jesus with two crimes. Then they called for His defense. They called Jesus to the stand as the defendant. For the last several weeks, we have seen Jesus’ defense. And His defense can be summed up like this. Jesus did not break the Sabbath laws by healing a man on the Sabbath. He didn’t break the Sabbath laws because He is God. And as God, Jesus instituted the Sabbath in the first place. Remember what He said back in 5:17? “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” But the charge of breaking the Sabbath wasn’t the most serious charge they were laying at Jesus’ feet that day. Because they were also charging Him with blasphemy. Verse 18 says, “the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” So that was at the heart of the matter. That was the big one. That was, in essence, what they called Jesus to the stand to defend. And what a defense He gave. He didn’t back down one bit. He fully and completely and unambiguously claimed to be God in the flesh. He claimed to be God in person. He claimed to be God in works. He claimed to be God in power. He claimed to be God in honor. He claimed to be God in salvation. And He claimed to be God in judgment. But then, notice what He said in verse 30-31 of our passage this morning. Look back to 30-31:
JOHN 5:30-31
Now, don’t get thrown off by Jesus saying what He did in verse 31. Don’t think that Jesus is saying that His words are not true. What He is saying is that His own personal testimony isn’t enough. See, He knows that the Jewish leaders are trying to make a legal case against Him. They are charging Him with a capital crime deserving the death penalty. So because He knows that, He is going to make a legally acceptable defense. And according to the Old Testament Law, you needed more than one witness to convict a person of a capital offense. Deuteronomy 17:6 says, “At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death—but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death.” So Jesus was doing a couple of things here. First, He was very subtly telling the Jewish leaders, “You don’t have enough witnesses against me to legally convict Me.” While they were so worried about Jesus breaking their version of the Sabbath laws, they were in direct violation of the clear teaching of God’s law. This was another way of Jesus very subtly pointing out their hypocrisy. But that wasn’t all that Jesus was doing. Even as He was pointing out the hypocrisy of their charges, Jesus was completely fulfilling the letter of the Law. He was providing His accusers with witnesses to His defense. How many witnesses did the Old Testament law call for? It called for a minimum of two. And it said that it might be necessary to provide three witnesses in order to remove all doubt. But Jesus did better than that. He brought four witnesses to corroborate His defense. What was His defense? Remember that Jesus’ defense was that He claimed to be God. And in our passage, He brings four witnesses to the stand—four witnesses that testify to the fact that Jesus is God. The first witness that Jesus calls to the stand is the witness of human testimony. Look back at verses 32-35:
JOHN 5:32-35
Jesus is claiming to be God. And the first witness He calls to corroborate His claim is a human witness. Isn’t that amazing? Think about that for a minute. Jesus is God. And as God, He has all power at His disposal. He has all of creation at His disposal. He can do anything. He can cause anything. He could immediately send a multitude of the heavenly host to defend His claim. He could have rolled the clouds back as a scroll and rained down fire from heaven to defend His claim. He could have made the rocks cry out in His defense. But He didn’t. What did He do instead? He called upon the witness of a mere man. The first witness to the fact that Jesus is God is a man. Of course He is talking specifically about John the Baptist. You remember John the Baptist. He’s the one who, back in chapter 1:29 told the crowds, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” Then in verse 30, he said, “This is He of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me for He was before me.” Then verse in verse 34, he said, “And I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God.” Later on in chapter 3, we run into John the Baptist again. And he’s still doing the same thing. He’s still pointing people to Jesus. He’s still testifying to the fact that Jesus is God. In 3:31, John said, “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth. He that cometh from heaven is above all.” Then in verses 34-36, John went on to say, “For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Jesus is reminding His accusers of how John the Baptist testified that Jesus is God. Jesus said that he bore witness to the truth. He was a prophetic light to them. And Jesus reminded them of how much they had enjoyed listening to him at one time. But even though they enjoyed listening to John the Baptist, they obviously didn’t hear a word that he said. Because they refused to see Jesus as God. And when they refused to see Jesus as God, they refused to see Him as their Lord. So Jesus called the second witness to the stand. After He called the witness of human testimony, He called the witness of miraculous testimony. Look at verse 36:
JOHN 5:36
The second witness that Jesus calls to corroborate His claim is a miraculous witness. For all of the ways that John the Baptist testified of Jesus, he never performed a single miracle, did he? But Jesus did. I would think that would be a pretty convincing testimony, wouldn’t you? If I had all of the power in the universe at my disposal, and I was trying to convince you of something… I’d think my message would be pretty effective if I performed a miracle. People like the idea of miracles, don’t they? All you have to do to fill a huge arena is claim to do some miracles. And what’s crazy is that they are not even dramatic miracles. People falling down and claiming to be healed of all the things that we can’t really see. That’s not the kind of miracles Jesus did. Jesus took things and completely transformed them. He turned water into wine—instantly. He healed the blind and crippled. He raised the dead. What brought this whole incident on was that Jesus healed a man who had been physically paralyzed for 38 years. That kind of a miracle is undeniable. It’s not something that can be faked. You would think that when people saw things like that… you would think that they would immediately recognize the fact that Jesus is God, wouldn’t you? But they didn’t. As a matter of fact, as Jesus’ continued His miracles, more and more people rejected Him. So why did Jesus continue doing miracles? Because they served as a witness to the fact that He is God. Do you remember when John the Baptist started to have doubts about Jesus? He had been thrown in prison and was just looking for some confirmation from Jesus that He is who John thought He was. In Matthew 11, John sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus the question. Verse 3 says, “And [they] said unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” Now, notice what Jesus’ response was. Verses 4-5: “Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” Jesus didn’t do miracles in order to make people believe in Him. He didn’t do miracles in order to attract a crowd. He didn’t even do miracles primarily to meet people’s needs. Jesus did miracles to bear witness to the fact that He is God. You would think that would be enough, wouldn’t you? He had the witness of human testimony. He had the witness of miraculous testimony. But Jesus provided another witness. He called yet another witness to the stand. He called the witness of divine testimony. Look at verses 37-38:
JOHN 5:37-38
The third witness that Jesus calls to corroborate His claim is a divine witness. I love this one. Because it’s almost like Jesus is poking His accusers in the eye with this one. Remember who Jesus’ accusers are. They are extremely religious people. They were God’s chosen people and they knew it. Not only did they know it, they let everybody else know it. But even that wasn’t exclusive enough for these people. Because all Israelites were God’s chosen people. So just being a Jew was way too common for these Jewish leaders. They were the religious cream of the crop. They were Pharisees. They wore their righteousness on their sleeve. The clothes that they wore told people how religious they were. The way that they talked told people how religious they were. The way they ate—and who they ate with—told people how religious they were. They piously prayed out loud so everybody would know how holy they were. Everything they did was religious. And everything religious that they did, they did it in public so everyone could see. If anyone was in touch with God, these people should have been. They were the elite among God’s chosen people. But what did Jesus tell them? He said, God the Father bears witness of me. But there’s no way that you could know that. You couldn’t know that because you have no idea who God is. You don’t know anything about God. You’ve never heard Him. You certainly have never seen Him. You haven’t even seen His shape or His form. That doesn’t mean they hadn’t had the opportunity to hear the Father’s voice. Remember that many people heard the Father speak in an audible voice about His Son when Jesus was baptized. When John the Baptist raised Jesus up out of that water, God the Father spoke in an audible voice. Do you remember what He said? He said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” God the Father testified that Jesus is God the Son. Wouldn’t that be enough for anyone? You would think. But Jesus called yet another witness to the stand. He called the witness of Scriptural testimony. Look at verses 39-47:
JOHN 5:39-47
The final witness that Jesus calls to corroborate His claim is a scriptural witness. If anyone knew the Scriptures backwards and forwards, it was these people. They were experts in the law of God. They knew every jot and title of it. They could spot a sinner a mile away. They just couldn’t recognize the one that stood in their mirror every morning. You see, they read the Bible in order to apply it to other people’s lives. They used the Bible as a whip and not a mirror. And they thought that if they could just follow the law to the T, they would have eternal life. They thought that they could be righteous enough to earn godliness. Do you know what that means? It means that they might have known a lot of things about the Bible, but they didn’t know the God of the Bible. If they had known the God of the Bible, they would have known the One who was standing before them. Because, from cover to cover, the Scriptures testify of Jesus. There are a lot of people who know the Bible a whole lot better than you and I will ever know it. There are scholars who know every little textual and historical detail about the Bible and still don’t believe it. Salvation isn’t a matter of what you know. It’s a matter of who you know. And when you boil it all down, the Bible only points to one thing—the Bible always and only points to Jesus. Jesus testified on His own behalf. But He told these Jewish leaders that that wasn’t enough. So He called a human witness. And He called the witness of His miracles. And He called the witness of His Father. But the greatest witness of all was that He called the witness of Scripture. Each of the four witness is a valid witness. Each of them is indisputable. Each of them has presented overwhelming testimony. So if that’s the case, then what is keeping you from accepting Jesus as God? What is keeping you from making Him Lord of your life? These Jewish leaders were relying on their own witnesses. They were ignoring the ones Jesus provided. Verse 39 indicates that they were relying on the witness of their own wisdom. Verse 41 indicates that they were relying on the witness of their own honor. Verse 43 indicates that they were relying on the witness of their own self-promotion. And verse 44 indicates that they were relying on their own pride. Let me tell you something—self-wisdom, self-honor, self-promotion, self-pride—none of those things will give you life. Because life is only found in the One who created life in the first place. Life is only found in the One who willingly gave up His life. Life is only found in the One who had the power to lay down His life and three days later, take it back up again. Jesus has told you who He is. He has given you many witnesses to show you that He’s telling the truth. Have you believed Him? Or is He saying to you what He said to the Jewish leaders in verse 40: “And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” You know who Jesus is. Jesus is God. And as God, He is calling you to accept Him as Lord of your life. Will you do that this morning?
