Proof in Jesus’s favor—if you’re willing to see it.

John 5.30-40.

You might recall the story where Jesus cures some guy at a pool in Jerusalem. He’d been disabled for decades; people should’ve been rejoicing at this, ’cause God has a prophet in Israel who can cure the sick!

But instead the Judeans pitched a fit: Jesus cured this guy on Sabbath. To hypocrites like these guys, it sets a bad precedent: If God empowers good deeds on Sabbath, now they might have to do good deeds on Sabbath! Hence all their ridiculous arguments about how Jesus can’t be of God; God would never. Exactly the same as hypocrites nowadays, when they don’t care to help the needy, and offer ridiculous objections about any Christians who do. “Oh those people are active, unrepentant sinners,” as if Jesus didn’t regularly eat with sinners. “Oh those people are breaking the law,” as if Jesus didn’t likewise interact with people who violated the laws of Israel and God. But I digress.

Jesus correctly points out he can cure on Sabbath because his Father authorized him to do so. Because he is the Son of Man. This, despite all the obvious evidence Jesus is exactly who he says he is, his Judean critics didn’t care to hear.

Now before we get to today’s passage, I need to explain some of the historical and biblical context so it makes sense. Otherwise you’re just gonna read it and go, “Hmm. Why does Jesus say his testimony isn’t true?”

Elsewhere in John’s gospel, certain Pharisees object to Jesus’s teachings on legal grounds. No they’re not in a courtroom; no they don’t need to follow courtroom proceedings! But if you’ve ever debated someone, you might notice how, every once in a while, they might try to base some of their arguments and defenses on legal procedure and precedent. As if we’re in a courtroom, or in Congress, which we’re not. It’s not actually a valid debate tactic, but they’ll try it out anyway, and hope you never call ’em on it.

John 8.13 NRSVue

Then the Pharisees said to him, “You are testifying on your own behalf; your testimony is not valid.”

Literally they said ἀληθής/alithís, “true,” but no they weren’t accusing Jesus of lying (like the NKJV and other translations have it). Historical context, folks. Testifying about yourself didn’t count in court. It wasn’t “true,” i.e. valid, unless you had a second witness to confirm you. Like Moses put it:

Deuteronomy 19.15 NRSVue

“A single witness shall not suffice to convict a person of any crime or wrongdoing in connection with any offense that may be committed. Only on the evidence of two or three witnesses shall a charge be sustained.”

I should point out some commentators claim Judeans wouldn’t accept anyone’s testimony about themselves: If you were ever put on trial, you had to be silent, because your testimony didn’t count. This is of course rubbish; if you’ve read your bible you know people regularly spoke up at their trials. Jesus, Peter and John, Stephen, and Paul all made statements at their trials; Stephen took up an entire chapter. Ac 7 Jesus was even sentenced to death on his testimony: Nobody else’s testimony was proven valid! Mk 14.56-59 But Jesus testified he’s Messiah, Mt 26.63-66 and his testimony was certainly valid. Self-testimony certainly could be. Jn 8.14 It’s just Jesus’s listeners, in this case and others, wanted more witnesses.

Now whenever Jesus made significant statements, he usually started ’em with “Amen,” which gets translated “Verily verily” in the KJV, and “Very truly I tell you” in the NIV and NRSVue. He did so before these statements too. Jn 5.19, 24, 25 It’s actually an oath: He swears what he’s saying is true. He is the Son of Man; he will judge the world on the Father’s behalf. But yeah, by legal standards, he only provided his own testimony, so it shouldn’t hold up in court.

Thing is, they weren’t in court! (Well, there’s the court of public opinion, but you know how lawless that can get.) But if you wanna challenge Jesus on a point of Law, you’re in for it: Jesus knows the Law better than anyone. Whom do you think gave it to Moses? Yes, the correct answer is “the LORD”—and that’s Jesus.

So he’ll play along. You demand a second testimony? Fine; he’s got witnesses.

Starting with John the baptist.

True, not every Judean was sold on John the baptist. But plenty were, so Jesus brings him up. And as for the other two witnesses he points to—his Father and the scriptures—every Judean should have considered them fully valid.

John 5.30-35 KWL

30“I can’t do anything on my own.

I judge just as I hear,

and my judgment is fair

because I don’t seek my own will,

but the will of the One who sends me.

31When I testify about myself

my testimony isn’t valid.

32Another is testifying about me

and we knew the testimony is valid

which he testifies about me.

33You sent people to John,

and he gave a valid testimony.

34I don’t accept testimony from people,

but I say these things so you might be saved:

35This John is a burning light, and shines,

and you’re willing to celebrate for an hour in his light.”

John had referred to Jesus as “God’s ram, taking up the world’s sin!” Jn 1.29 KWL He knew Jesus had pre-existed; Jn 1.15, 30 he’d seen the Holy Spirit stay upon Jesus, and identified Jesus as the one who baptizes with the Spirit. Jn 1.32-33 John knew who Jesus is. So if you consider John a valid prophet (and we Christians do), he totally counts as a second witness to Jesus.

True, some interpreters claim John’s testimony was private, just for his pupils. It obviously wasn’t. John spread this around. Remember, the whole reason he came to baptize people was so he could make Messiah known. Jn 1.31 He’d be a crappy forerunner if he knew who Jesus was, yet kept it private instead of proclaiming it.

Hence Jesus pointed to John. His listeners knew who John was, and what John taught. All of ’em wanted “to celebrate for an hour in his light”—they heard John announce Messiah was coming, and they were all for it! But they balked when Jesus began to claim Messiah isn’t just the earthly king of their country, but a cosmic one—something the scriptures had already stated, but they were too fixated on their own End Times theories to realize any of this.

Next, the Father and the scriptures.

Too many Christians don’t believe in miracles. Either they’re theological liberals who assume the bible’s miracles are mythology, or they’re cessationists who assume miracles stopped after bible times, and today’s miracles are fake or devilish.

Yet, weirdly, all of ’em accept Jesus’s statement in the following passage: If he really did the supernatural acts attributed to him, he’s gotta be from God. Jn 3.2

But the Judean critics didn’t wanna believe in Jesus. And didn’t really trust the scriptures. So they didn’t believe.

John 5.36-40 KWL

36“I have a greater testimony than John,

for the works the Father gave me so I might complete them—

these works I’m doing—

testify about me,

that the Father sent me.

37This Father who sends me

testified about me.

You’ve never heard his voice,

nor seen his shape.

38You don’t have his word abiding in you,

for you don’t believe this person he sends.

39Examine the scriptures!—

for you think you have life in the age to come in them.

These are the testimonies about me!

40—and you don’t want to come to me

so you might have life.”

The problem, as Jesus said, was these people didn’t actually know God. Jn 5.37 Thought they did; didn’t. Never heard his voice, despite the fact he’s never been silent; that he still had prophets during the times certain Christians claim were “silent years.” Never let the Father’s word abide in them; didn’t meditate on it, didn’t practice it, didn’t base their lifestyle on it, and embraced loopholes which let ’em evade it, yet pretend to be holy for public approval.

They’d never seen God’s visible form, his εἶδος/eídos. They were seeing it now; it’s Jesus. Cl 1.15 If you see the Son, you see the Father. Jn 14.9 And if you knew the Father, you’d immediately recognize the Son is telling the truth. But Jesus’s audience didn’t know the Father, at all. Hence their hostility towards his Son.

As for the scriptures—well, if they didn’t know the Father, clearly they didn’t revere his scriptures. They studied them because they were looking for End Times theories, same as many Christians still do nowadays; they wanted to know the future, and be ready for it, and maybe stock up on swords and bows, for all the good those things did ’em. Yep, we got our Christian parallels with them today.

In some recent translations, verse 39 gets rendered “You search the scriptures…” despite the fact ἐραυνᾶτε/erafnáte, “study!” is a command. The KJV has it correct: “Search the scriptures.” Why rephrase it as a statement instead of a command? ’Cause interpreters assume the Judeans already were studying the scriptures—and they don’t see why Jesus would command ’em to do what they were already doing.

Probably the latter is the correct translation, for Jesus was stating a fact, not giving a command. After the destruction of the temple of Solomon in 586BC, the Jewish scholars of the Exile substituted the study of the Law for the observance of the temple ritual and sacrifices. They pored over the OT, endeavoring to extract the fullest possible meaning from its words, because they believed that the very study itself would bring them life. By so doing they missed the chief subject of the OT revelation. Jesus claimed the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Writings) as witnesses to his person and claims. Lk 24.44 He rebuked his hearers for their inconsistency in studying the scriptures so diligently while rejecting his claims, which were founded on those same scriptures. [Merrill C. Tenney, Expositors Bible Commentary at John 5.39-40]

But Jesus wasn’t telling his hearers, “You already study the bible; you might’ve noticed it’s all about me.” He told them, “Study the bible!—for you don’t properly study the bible. If you were, you’d have found me in it.”

Yeah, the Judeans had a reputation for studying the bible. It wasn’t legitimate!Just like American Christians claim the bible’s their favorite book, and they read it every day—and try to prove this by quoting it like crazy, and regularly quote it out of context, thus exposing they don’t know it as well as they claim.

Quiz Americans on bible, and they’ll know trivia. They’ll know Sunday school stories. They’ll know about Samson and King David and Job and Peter. But they’ll know jack squat about what’s taught in the Law, the Prophets, the proverbs, or by the apostles. When it comes to theology or revelation, the level of ignorance is dumbfounding. And depressing. America ain’t all that biblically literate.

Neither, honestly, was ancient Judea. Scribes knew the bible, but your average Pharisee, not so well. They knew what the rabbis taught ’em, but likewise lost the forest for the trees. It’s why they went nuts whenever Jesus “broke Sabbath”—even though, from the Law’s standpoint, Jesus never did. Never sinned. Not once. Not ever.

So why do people prefer to teach, “You already study the bible”? I suspect it’s so they can make the same accusation to today’s bible scholars. “You guys study the bible, and think you know what it means, but you don’t know Jesus like I know Jesus.” It’s a great way for a pious buffoon to take the piss out of a few puffed-up know-it-alls.

And to be fair, a few of us know-it-alls really don’t know Jesus. But way more of us do than don’t. When times get rough, as they always will, how often do you hear of bible scholars ditching Christianity? Yet you hear it all the time about newbies, Christianists, pop stars who write Christian music, Sunday-morning-only Christians, or people who only dabble in deeper things instead of actually going there. The only reason people wanna knock bible scholars is because we embarrass them with how often we catch ’em misquoting bible and misrepresenting Jesus. It’s a spite thing.

Being ignorant of the bible is hardly a new problem. It’s all too human to believe anything we hear, so long that it suits our biases, prejudices, and frame of mind. At the same time, we reject anything which doesn’t suit us, no matter whom it came from. Even if it came from God himself—or the Christ he sent us.