John 8: 13 –30
Can I Get A Witness
13 The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.” 14 Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. 15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. 16 And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me. 17 It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. 18 I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me.” 19 Then they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” 20 These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come. 21 Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself, because He says, ‘Where I go you cannot come’?” 23 And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” 25 Then they said to Him, “Who are You?” And Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. 26 I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.” 27 They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father. 28 Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. 29 And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.” 30 As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.
Just last week I was talking to a few of my police officer friends and we were talking about giving directions. On many occasions I have witnessed people driving up to the police car and ask for directions. On many occasions the people get the same answer, go down about four traffic lights and turn right. It should be right around there’ Of course that is the wrong information. Having accompanied city officers on their jobs I can be the first to admit it takes time knowing where the streets are located in your district. If I hear the call to go to a certain street location, thank God for the satellite driving maps.
I like the story I once heard of a couple who were lost and drove by an old guy sitting on his porch. ‘Hey, can you tell me how I can get to I 95 south? The old guy answered, ‘I don’t know how to get there?’ They the guy driving asks if there is any place close by where he could ask for directions. The old guy answered, ‘I don’t know where I could tell you to go to for that.’ Frustrated the driver responded to the old guy, ‘You don’t know very much do you old man?’. The old guy replied, ‘Well one thing I do know is that I’m not lost.’
Our Holy Master will remind the religious leaders that He Is not lost either. He knows where He came from and He knows where He Is going. Like the driver who got angry being lost we will see how the religious leaders who were also lost respond in like manner.
13 The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.”
The Pharisees did not receive the testimony of The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ Who claimed that He Is The Light of The World sent from Father God, Adoni Yahweh. They did however recognize the enormity of His claim, and they replied, ‘You testify about yourself. What you say is not true’. They were no doubt appalled that a man should claim to be the light of the world, and that in the context of the festal light which pointed to the presence of God with His people as revealed by that light. Their prejudice prevented them from giving fair consideration to His life and teaching and they therefore fell back on claiming that what a man says about himself carries no weight. Indeed their rabbinic law of evidence stated that a man’s own testimony to himself was invalid.
14 Jesus answered and said to them, “Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going.
Our Lord Jesus’ reply is that in His case the general principle does not apply. As the heavenly Son of Man, Who had come from Heaven and would return to Heaven, He had authority to testify about Himself, and indeed it was necessary, for no other man on earth could do so. He alone knew His source and His destiny. As with men’s conceptions of the Messiah, His source was mysterious and unknown.
15 You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.
Thus they should recognize that they were not in a position to judge His testimony for they judged only ‘according to the flesh’ as earthly men. They were unable to enter Heaven and so they could not truly be aware of Who He Was, where He had come from and where He was going. They were limited to earthly knowledge. That is why they saw only a man like themselves, but their very starting point invalidated their judgment.
Some skeptics might create a stir over this verse. They will question, In the book of Revelation it says that Jesus will be the Judge at the Great White Throne Judgment, then how does this match when He says He judges no one?
Verse 15 more accurately says ‘I am not (at present) judging anyone’. The Judge of the entire world when here on earth would not pass judgment, even on the Pharisees. There was still an opportunity for them to open their eyes and see. The heavenly court was in remission, waiting to see who would respond to Jesus, and who would turn away. The light was here and men would pass judgment on themselves, depending on how they responded.
We just covered the situation of the adulterous woman. This is a good example of this point. In her case judgment had been deferred and she had received forgiveness. It was now up to her whether she took advantage of it. So it was and is with all people. Our Lord Jesus’ time to pass final judgment is still in the future. At this point in His earthly travel He shone as a light in the world, calling men and women to the light. And some came to Him as the Light, aware that their sins were judged and through Him forgiven. And they began to walk in the light, while others turned away into darkness. And this continued to be true for them even though they were sinner. It is revealed to us in John’s first letter chapter 1 verse 7 that, ‘if we walk in the light as He is in the light, --- the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us continually from all sin’.
16 And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me.
However, He also points out to them that rightly He Is in a position to judge, and that if He were to judge, they should be in no doubt that His judgments would be accurate and just. For His relationship with the Father was so close that any judgment He did make would be in association with the Father, and would be one with the Father’s. Thus it would be totally reliable. For He and His Father judged as One.
17 It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. 18 I AM One Who bears witness of Myself, and The Father Who sent Me bears witness of Me.”
He then goes on to point out that the Law of Moses says in the book of Deuteronomy 17 verse 6 that the testimony of two men is true. Well, let them then consider this, He can give them two witnesses, Himself as the sent One, and His Father as the One Who sent Him, for He Himself bears testimony through His own works and words, and by the Spirit.
I want to point out something significant here. Please notice again the statement by our Lord to these religious leaders - ‘Your Law.’ That is, the Law (the Torah) which they loved and on which they continually laid such emphasis and which was the very basis of their lives, the Law which they had multiplied by a multiplicity of regulations. There is the specific suggestion in the ‘your’ that they have altered God’s Law and replaced it with a Law of their own, making it far more onerous. It was no longer God’s Law, but their Law. Yet even their own Law acknowledged that the witness of two men was true.
We will take note by the remarks of these Jews that our Lord’s words hit a nerve.
19 Then they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.”
They responded to His challenge by putting the question, ‘where is your father?’. It may well be that they had mistaken His meaning and were genuinely confused. He kept speaking of His Father. Well, where was his father? Surely his father Joseph was dead? How then could he be They were merely trying to blur the issue by speaking in terms of an earthly father because they did not want to accept His claim that God Is His Father.
Our Lord Jesus’ reply is outstanding. It wasn’t possible for them to see Jehovah Elyon, Father God, because they were spiritually blind. That is why they did not know the Father, nor recognize Him. In fact their failure to see what He meant was itself significant. They possibly thought they were being clever but they were really indicating that they did not know either Who He was or Who His Father was. They were demonstrating their spiritual blindness, and proving that they did not know God.
For the truth was that the fact that they did not recognize Him for what He was, demonstrated that they did not really know what God was like. For had they really known the Father and what He was like, they would have recognized His Father in Him and in what He was doing. How then can He tell them of the Father? Of what use would it be? Their minds are equally closed to knowledge of the Father.
It simply demonstrated that with their entire claim to special knowledge they actually did not know God. This was indeed the real reason why they failed to recognize Him. They were still in darkness. For as the light of the world He had come to reveal the Father, and if they would but come to see Him for what He was, by considering His words and His activities, and what He was in Himself, and would respond to Him, then they would really come to know the Father also. But they did not do so because they were in darkness.
20 These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come.
These words were spoken ‘in the treasury’, that is in the Court of the Women, where there were thirteen trumpet shaped boxes placed there to receive offerings. A question to ask oneself is why would our Precious Holy Spirit make sure to identify the ‘treasury location’?
I see a beautiful reason on why He did so. We have just read and learned that our Master and King Lord Jesus said that He Judges no one – that is judging their eternal judgment. Yet He does judge things currently in harmony with our Heavenly Father. It is at this same location that our Holy Lord observes the people giving their offerings. He notices especially this little old lady come to these trumpet offering boxes and quietly drop in the box a few pennies. However, our Lord knew and observed that this act by this woman was more impacting than all the other people He and His disciples had witnessed. For she was poor and all that she had were these few coins yet Her love and devotion to God and the maintenance of His earthly house was important to her and our Great God readily noticed.
Let us look at the Gospel of Mark chapter 12. See if you can see the importance of our Lord Jesus judging the poor widow?
“41 Now Jesus sat opposite the treasury and saw how the people put money into the treasury. And many who were rich put in much. 42 Then one poor widow came and threw in two mites, which make a quadrant. 43 So He called His disciples to Himself and said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the treasury; 44 for they all put in out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all that she had, her whole livelihood.”
Our Lord watches what we do. He Is Love. Even though we are wicked fallen sinful creatures He loves us. On our own we can do nothing. Yet when The Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts we are transformed into the image of our Lord. We even from time to time actually do some things from a loving motivation inspired by our God Who dwells within us. For example we read in chapter 9 of Mark’s Gospel how Gracious our Great Holy God Is. Even if we do something small He records it to our account - “For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
The emphasis now moves away from the fact that He is the light of the world, to the fact that He is the One Who has come from above. That is why their failure to recognize Him is very much an indication that they are of this world.
21 Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.”
Please take note of this important repeat information from our Lord to these people - ‘He said to them again --’. We do not know how long after the previous verses He spoke these words. In addition we do not have the tone of our Lord words but I pick up a significant sadness associated with them. The Son of God from the foundation of the world volunteered to be our Savior. As you know He desires that no one should perish. Our Holy Lord Jesus knew He was going away to Heaven via the cross. And they would go on looking for Him in vain. They would go on searching for eternal life and for a Messiah from God (‘this is what He means by the statement ‘for Me’), and they would fail in their efforts and would die in their sin, because unknowingly they had rejected the One Whom they were pretending to seek, the true Messiah Who was the only source of eternal life. And because they would not come to Him their search would be blind and futile, and they could never go where He was going.
22 So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself, because He says, ‘Where I go you cannot come’?”
Have you ever been betrayed or set up to be harmed by someone? Perhaps it was a fellow co-worker who schemed to do you in? You know in your heart that these one or two conspirators were behind the action to seriously hurt you? And somehow our Great and Kind God had your back and their scheme backfired. You come into these evil individual’s presence in a meeting or some other group conference and you see them play out like they are on your side and care for you. They speak up in your behalf like they have been in your corner all the time. These snakes play this game until they feel it is safe to come out of their holes in order to bite you again.
Can you see the same situation being done to our Holy Lord and Master Jesus here by these religious phonies? Our Lord Jesus’ statement ‘where I am going you cannot come’ then made them ask themselves whether it was His intention to kill Himself. This is pointed irony. Even while they were seeking His death they were avoiding the issue even among themselves, and pretending that they had no such aims. They still seemed to think that He was not aware of what their true aims were. When men have reached such depths of evil plans and blindness there is little hope from them.
23 And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. 24 Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
Our Precious and Holy Lord Jesus now faced them with the central issue. He was as totally different from them as Heaven was from earth. They were from below. They had no knowledge or experience of where God dwells. They were tied to the ideas of this world. Their minds were unopened. But in contrast to them He was from above, He was not of this world. That is what they needed to recognize and accept.
The reason why He has stated that they were without hope is because they would not recognize Him for what He was, the One from above, the One Who Is not of this world. They did not recognize Him as the ‘I am’, something only hinted at here, but made clear in verse 58. So if they wished to be have eternal life they must accept His otherness, and His power to act, and His eternal being. At this stage, however, the phrase ‘I am’ was not unequivocal and it was thus not seen as creating the stir that would later erupt when He plainly declared that He Is The One Who spoke to Moses from the bush. The words ‘I AM’ here means ‘that I am the Messiah’ or ‘that I am He’, that is, ‘I am the coming One’.
The Pharisees’ total aim was so to live as to obey all God’s laws and by doing so prove they are faithful members of the covenant. They strove manfully to do this, seeking to fulfill hundreds of requirements, expanded in detail by themselves, in order to attempt to do so, hoping eventually to rise above their sins and prove themselves true members of the covenant for they were sure that once the covenant was truly fulfilled God would show His favor. But Jesus warned them that unless they came to know Him they would forever be unsuccessful. What they were striving for would be in vain.
25 Then they said to Him, “Who are You?” And Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.
His statement has stopped them short. They now recognized that He seemed to be claiming even more than they had at first realized. ‘Who are you?’ they asked. There is a stress on the ‘you’. Was the statement one of awed curiosity, or of angry cynicism? Possibly a little of both, for among the questioners would be some who were willing to give His words consideration
In this crowd there was now some who were giving sincere consideration that our Lord Jesus Christ was in fact the Messiah while others remained defiant in their blindness. In His awesome wisdom our Lord answers both sides of thought. He responded, ‘even what I have told you from the beginning’. He has been consistent in His claims from the start of His ministry. If only they had listened they would have known Who He was or His words mean ‘why do I talk to you at all?’ for He knew that they were hoping for something that was incontrovertible with which to condemn Him.
26 I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me Is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.”
We see here now a major turning point in our Lord’s earthly mission. Our Lord Jesus now no longer saw any hope that they would respond to His teaching, and He therefore wanted them to know that He was not blind to their failings. So He pointed out that, if He wished to do so, there was in fact a great deal that He could say about them which was not to their credit. There was much that He could show up about their attitudes and teaching (as He does in Matthew 23). However, He would not at present do so, although one day He would certainly do so. Meanwhile He wanted them to know that in contrast to what they were, He has brought the truth from the One Who is true, to pass on to those who will receive it.
Please notice the way in which He makes clear, not only that He has been ‘sent’ (something which many prophets could say), but that He has previously heard from the Father the things which He is now speaking to the world. There is a continual recognition that He has come from the Father into this world as the One Who was in existence from the beginning.
In contrast to them in their hypocrisy and evil plans there is One Who Is true. They might not be willing to listen, but the world was waiting for the truth, and what He would like to say about His antagonists must give place to His message to the world at large, coming from the One Who is true.
27 They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.
Like the blind religious people so too sadly are the same with people today. People are so set in their own arguments and opinions that they did not stand back and consider what our Lord Jesus Christ Was and Is really saying. Having misinterpreted Him they would continue to misinterpret Him, such was the stubbornness of their minds. I believe that the apostle John deliberately draws attention to their failure to respond with understanding. He hopes all who read His Gospel will not be the same. For like Jesus no doubt was, he was concerned at their failure to listen to, and understand, what Jesus was saying. But it is one of the characteristics of all ages that men listen, and then hear only what they want to hear, rather than listening with hearts open to learn the truth. ‘Eyes they have and see not, ears and hear not.’
28 Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I Am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.
Please take notice the words ‘lift up’. One movie that I enjoy watching over is ‘Rudy’ If you have never watched this sports film I encourage you to do so. The movie describes how a talentless and physical deprived young man thorough hard work and determination make the Notre Dame Football team. In his last season he was allowed to dress and be a part of the team. In the last few seconds of the game he was put into the game. At its completion he was ‘lifted up’ and carried off the field.
In a way, our Lord Jesus Is saying the same thing. These evil people plans were to have the Roman authorities crucify Him. But the result of their evil plans in lifting Him up on the cross in truth as you and I know full well is that as our Savior we will carry Him forever as our Hero.
29 And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.” 30 As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.
In spite of His rejection by them He wants them to know that He is conscious that the Father is continually with Him. They may reject Him but His Father will not desert Him or leave Him on His own. Indeed He Is with Him continually for He Is pleased with what He Is doing and as Jesus stresses, He always does what pleases Him. His whole life is given up to pleasing the Father.
There was something in what Jesus said which, while not fully understood, struck a chord in the hearts of some of His listeners, and they responded in full faith.
