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.

The bible’s not a biology textbook!

Leviticus 11.13-19, Deuteronomy 14.11-18, Jonah 1.17, Matthew 12.40

During a talk with a fellow Christian, we went off on a bit of a tangent.

ME. “…Like when Jonah got swallowed by the whale…”

HE. “Sea creature.”

ME. “Whale. How’re you getting ‘sea creature’ from kítus?”

HE. “From what?”

HE. “Kítus. The Greek word for ‘whale.’ The word Jesus used when he talked about Jonah being in the whale’s belly three days and nights. Mt 12.40 It’s the word we get our adjective ‘cetacean’ from, which refers to whales, dolphins, porpoises, and other marine mammals.”

HE. [confused; betcha he didn’t expect me to know what I was talking about] “But Jonah said he was swallowed by a great fish.” Jh 1.17

ME. “Sure.”

HE. “Well a whale’s not a fish.”

ME. “But it was a fish in Jesus’s day.”

HE. “Whales used to be fish…?”

HE. “Because the ancients classified them as fish. They figured if it lives in the sea, it’s a fish. Then somebody eventually realized some of these ‘fishes’ have lungs, and decided if you have lungs you’re not a fish, and humanity redefined ‘fish.’ Well, bible’s still using the old definition. So in the bible, whales are big fish.”

HE. [still confused] “But whales aren’t fish.”

ME. “Aren’t fish anymore. They were fish back in Jesus and Jonah’s day.”

HE. “So are you saying the bible’s wrong, or we are?”

ME. “Neither. The bible doesn’t define fish; it explains God. We define fish. You remember Adam got to name the animals. Ge 2.19-20 We get to decide what’s a fish and what’s not. And if we redefine fish, we can do that; it doesn’t violate the bible to do that. The only problem is when we try to update the bible to fit our definition of fish, and make the bible look inconsistent when it’s really not.”

This very issue came up again this weekend. My pastor had a little quiz about bible literacy, and I pointed out to him Jesus said Jonah was swallowed by a κήτους/kítus, “whale.”

Matthew 12.40 KJV

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

It’s right there in red and white. Well, unless you’re reading a more recent translation which renders kítus as “sea creature” or “big fish.”

Amplified, LSB, NASB, NRSV: “sea monster”

CEV, GNT: “big fish”

CSV, NET, NIV: “huge fish”

ESV, MEV, NKJV: “great fish”

ISV: “sea creature”

But I remind you: None of these translations are accurate. None. They’re all conforming to the דָּ֣ג גָּד֔וֹל/dag gadól, “great fish,” of Jonah:

Jonah 1.17 KJV

The LORD arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah.

Jonah was in the fish’s bowels three days and three nights.

But to Jesus’s mind (at the time) a whale was a great fish. And isn’t Jesus in a position to know which species of “fish” swallowed Jonah? He said kítus, “whale”; so it was a whale.

My point is, if you know your history, there’s not actually a bible difficulty here! The problem is people don’t know history, and think there’s a difficulty if Jesus says “whale”… so y’notice a fair number of bible translators have changed the Lord Jesus’s words so that there’s no difficulty anymore. Which reveals all sorts of disturbing things about them. Namely a bothersome amount of intellectual dishonesty.

Quit praying to Satan!

There’s an traditional African folk song called “What a Mighty God We Serve.” If you grew up Christian, maybe you heard it in Sunday school. Sometimes adults sing it too. Goes like so.

♫ What a mighty God we serve

♫ What a mighty God we serve

♫ Angels bow before him

♫ Heaven and earth adore him

♫ What a mighty God we serve

Years later I found out it has more lyrics—words my children’s and youth pastors never bothered to teach us. You might be able to guess why.

♫ I command you Satan in the name of the Lord

♫ To take up your weapons and flee

♫ For the Lord has given me authority

♫ To walk all over thee

There are variations. I often hear “put down your weapons” in the second line, which makes way more sense than “take up your weapons.” There’s also “stomp all over thee” in the fourth—which comes with stomping movements, which are always fun.

Anyway. Lots of Sunday schools skip these lines, so lots of Christians aren’t aware of ’em. I hadn’t heard them in years; then they came up again in summer youth camp. The pastor got all the kids to sing along with the first part, but when she broke into the second part, the kids sat there confused: “Why’s she singing to the devil?” Anyway, because they didn’t sing along, she concluded, “I guess you don’t know that part,” and went right back to the “What a mighty God we serve” bit they did know.

As to why churches don’t teach it: Well you are singing to the devil! And shouldn’t. Don’t do that.

Likewise there are a number of Christians who pray to the devil. You may have seen it happen. Someone gets up to pray. Then, in the middle of all their other praises and petitions to God, they put the Lord on pause, and dial Satan in on our conference call.

“And Satan, we rebuke you. We bind you. We cast you out. You have no authority here. You have no business in this place. You get out of here, Satan. You’re under our feet.”

And so on. You get the idea.

Again: Don’t do that!

I know; I know. You’ve seen pastors and prayer leaders do it. You’ve seen Christians whom you greatly respect doing it. Loads of people do it. But they shouldn’t do it either.

“Don’t make me come down there!”

1 Corinthians 4.14-21.

The church of Corinth’s confusion about which faction to follow, about clever Christian teachings, about how blessed they are in Christ, provoked the apostles to send them someone trustworthy to correct the church: The apostle Timothy. 1Co 4.17 In the 60s Timothy wound up leading the church of Ephesus, but at this point in the 50s, he was apparently sent by Paul to various hotspots where the Christians were losing sight of the main thing, i.e. following Christ Jesus.

’Cause churches get like that! Still get like that. They follow popular teachers, they get all agitated about what sinners are up to, they dabble in politics (or get fully invested in ’em), they invent loopholes to justify all their sins, they relabel their fleshly behavior to make their evil attitudes sorta sound Christian. The Corinthians did all that stuff and more, and though Paul and Sosthenes rebuke ’em a lot for stuff like this, here Paul recognizes a letter alone is not gonna cut it: He has to send them a good example. Can’t be him right now; he’s in Macedonia. 1Co 16.5 But Timothy’s a good man, so he’ll send ’em Timothy.

1 Corinthians 4.14-21 KWL

14I don’t write these things to embarrass,

but to caution you all, like my beloved children.

15You may have myriads of teachers in Christ,

but not many parents,

for I’m your father in Christ Jesus, through the gospel,

16so I urge you to mimic me.

17This is why I send you Timothy:

He’s my beloved child and has faith in the Master.

He’ll remind you of my way in Christ Jesus,

just as I teach it everywhere in every church.

18Though I myself am not coming to you,

—and some will puff up about that—

19when the Master wills, I will come quickly.

I will know what’s what,

not by the teaching of those who’ve been puffed up,

but the power.

20For God’s kingdom isn’t about teaching,

but about power.

21What do you want?

Should I come to you with a stick?

Or in love, and a spirit of gentleness?

To be fair, though the apostles say, “I don’t write these things to embarrass, but caution you,” no doubt some of this stuff did embarrass them. They thought they were doing great! 1Co 4.8 But they were confusing material prosperity, and clever teachings, with success—as pagans typically do. By pagan standards they’re doing great! But by God’s kingdom’s standards—which to pagan minds, is upside-down in an awful lot of ways—they were completely buggered, and needed some hands-on course correction. They needed Timothy.

Read the bible this August. Yes, all of it.

Back when you were making New Year’s resolutions, one of them mighta been to read the bible. All the bible, from Genesis to the maps; probably using one of those bible-in-a-year plans. Lots of Christians do.

Then, somwhere around February or March, you kinda fumbled the plan. It happens to the best of us! Hopefully you got right back on it and caught up with the reading. Many don’t. Some skip over all the parts they missed, figuring they’ll read ’em next year. Some never do read ’em next year.

And some, of course, quit altogether.

But you realize you can pick up thty resolution at any part of the year, right? It doesn’t have to be in January. You don’t have to start reading the bible in January. In fact, some of the bible-reading plans have you read the bible twice or three times a year, meaning you start in January and July; or January, May, and September. But September’s usually super busy, and August is not… so hey, why not start in August? Get done in November instead of the busy, busy December.

Of course you can also read the bible in a month. It’s totally doable. I do it in January; you can do it in August. Or September, or October, or any month; if your August happens to be crazy busy, maybe next month would be better. But there’s no reason to procrastinate reading the bible… well, other than crippling depression, and for that you oughta see a doctor. But otherwise there’s not!

As I’ve written elsewhere, the year-long reading plans makesthe bible sound like a massive project, and it’s really not. An audio bible will be less than 100 hours long, and if you listened to it three hours a day (or 90 minutes twice a day), you’re done in 33 days. Audiobooks tend to go at a slow pace, so if you sped it up to 150 percent speed, those three hours will now be two. I of course read much faster than an audiobook will go. So can most of you. An hour of bible a day can get the bible done in a month. I know from experience; I’ve done it for years.

Though the bible’s a big thick book collection, going through the whole of it in August is far from impossible. Go for it!

How Jesus submits to his Father.

John 5.30.

After Jesus cured some guy, the Judeans objected because he did it on sabbath, so Jesus went into a teaching about how he works because his Father works—and he’s also gonna judge the world at the End.

He ends this declaration with this statement, which I figured I’d discuss on its own because it has to do with how Jesus submits to his Father. Submission is a loaded concept for certain Christians—especially since some of ’em are interpreting the idea in ways which wind up going heretic. So it’s turned this statement into a loaded one.

Statement first though.

John 5.30 KWL

“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.”

Just to remind you: Separation of powers is an American thing. Our executives don’t judge, and our judges don’t carry out their rulings but have cops and marshals who do that. But that’s obviously not how ancient kings work. Kings were the supreme rulers of their land, and were by themselves the supreme court—if a king ruled, there’s no overruling him.

Our ideas of plaintiffs and defendants, who got to argue their case before the judge; of laws and precedents the king was supposed to follow: Those are important. If the king actually follows those things, you’ll get a fair trial. But despots don’t care about any of those things, and do as they please. Rogue Supreme Courts ignore the Constitution and precedents, ignore the people who argued in front of them, rule according to their agendas, and make up ridiculous arguments to defend their rulings. Ancient and medieval kings didn’t even bother to defend themselves; they figured they had every right to rule as they pleased. Fairness? Fairness doesn’t matter.

In comparison, Jesus says he’s not a despot. He doesn’t judge on his own. He judges as he hears, meaning he listens to the plaintiffs and defendants before him. He follows a Law which defines good and evil. He takes God’s will into consideration; not his own.

As any good Israeli king should. As Solomon did. And of course, as Romans didn’t—they might be bothered to have fair trials when it was a fellow Roman on trial, like Paul, but if you didn’t have citizenship they’d simply torture you, as they almost did Paul. Ac 22.24-27 Or they’d delay your trial ’cause they wanted a bribe, likewise as they did with Paul. Ac 24.25 Right here, Jesus is contrasting his fair and righteous rule with that of Romans—and corrupt judges, like the senators who later sentenced him to death.

Because being a fair judge is what God wants. God cares about truth. God doesn’t want people unjustly punished and penalized. God doesn’t want the guilty to go free, the evildoer to unrepentantly get away with it. Corrupt judges look the other way because they favor the rich and powerful, and maybe want their wealthy friends to take ’em on vacations and help ’em buy RVs. Jesus in contrast will always rule fairly. Always.

But let’s be honest: Jesus totally has an agenda. He’s totally biased. He admits it. Ignore all those Christians who claim Jesus and God are the only unbiased judges in the universe; of course the LORD is biased. Fortunately for us, grace means he’s biased in our favor, which is why Jesus says in this very same passage, “I promise you the one who hears my word, and trusts the One who sends me, has life in the age to come and doesn’t go into judgment.” Jn 5.24 KWL Those who follow Jesus don’t get a trial! They go straight into the age to come. That’s the team we wanna be on.

So what other bias does Jesus confess to? He says it right there in today’s verse: “I don’t seek my own will, but the will of the One who sends me.” He’s not a despot who does whatever he wants; he only wants to do as the Father wants. The Father is a righteous judge; therefore the Son’s gonna be a righteous judge.

If you’re anxious Jesus is gonna be furious at sin, much like angry preachers are… well okay, he certainly hates sin. Especially when people exploit the poor and needy, and figure it’s okay because they went through all the proper religious motions to wipe out all their bad karma. The LORD already said, through Isaiah, he’s not listening to such people. Is 1.15 He wants ’em to repent!

Therefore he’s gonna be a righteous judge—who may be exorbitantly lenient on those who follow him, but judges everyone else fairly, on merit. And while there are many Christians who insist only the people who follow Jesus are gonna enter the age to come, I’m pretty sure Jesus is gonna extend grace to a lot more people than they’re expecting. People who honestly didn’t know any better; people who died before hearing the gospel, so they’re not penalized for rejecting it; babies who died before they could hear it, of course. Jesus is far more gracious than angry preachers. Or me!—there’s lots of people I wouldn’t let in, but thankfully I’m not the judge.

Terrified of God-experiences.

Here’s the dirty little secret you’re gonna find among the vast majority of people who insist we shouldn’t seek God-experiences: The very idea of coming face-to-face with the living God? Scares the poop out of ’em.

The reason they insist God doesn’t appear to people anymore, is because they’re hoping to goodness he doesn’t. They absolutely don’t want him to. Frightens them.

They’re also extremely nervous about the second coming. They might talk, and talk a lot, about how it may happen in their lifetime… but they really don’t want it to. That’s half the reason they’ve embraced End Times interpretations in which certain things must take place before Jesus’s return (even though nothing else has to): They want a heads-up. They wanna know he might be coming soon so they can get ready. Not because they’re sinning themselves sore and they wanna clean up first; mainly it’s to brace themselves for the absolutely petrifying prospect of encountering our Lord in person.

And of course they’re extremely nervous about death. Same reason.

Why are they afraid of God? Lots of reasons; none good. I suspect most of it comes from growing up, or worshiping, with Christians who don’t do grace. Been there! Instead of being introduced to a loving God who wants to save us, who already has a positive attitude towards us, who doesn’t merely have infinite patience for us but wants us to be with him… they’re taught all sorts of other unhealthy, dysfunctional things about God.

Mainly that God hates sin. That he can’t abide it; it absolutely cannot be in his holy presence. And since we humans are sinners… well when we stand before him, it’s not gonna be pleasant, is it? He’ll be furious with us. Good thing Jesus steps between his holy rage and us, and stops his Father from vaporizing us with a syllable. Although sometimes they’ve not been taught that either; sometimes Jesus is the one with all the holy rage, slaughtering sinners until the blood and gore is waist-deep over the land.

Seriously, that’s what they expect a God-experience to consist of. So of course they’re scared witless! They don’t want any such encounter with an wrathful God. They think we’re nuts for wanting to go there… and when we tell ’em how gracious God is, they’re pretty sure that can’t be a legitimate God-encounter, because God shoulda burnt us to a crisp. Must be the devil tricking people into believing God’s some kind of infinitely tolerant liberal. That way when Jesus finally does appear, these fools will run to embrace him, only to get butchered along with all the other sinners.

Yep, those graceless Christians really did the devil’s work on ’em—getting them to be terrified of the One who loves them the most in the universe.