Life of Christ 54
When the infirm man told
his friends the wonderful news about Jesus Christ you would expect them to
rejoice with him, and you would expect wrongly. Actually, the response of these Jews wasn't to rejoice with a man whose
entire life had been fixed, but to run straight to Israel's religious
leadership with the news that it was Jesus who had been breaking the Sabbath.
And immediately, instead of discussing what this meant in relation to His
claims to be the Messiah, the leadership begins to plan just how to go about
killing Him (John 5.16).
He isn't hard to find in
Jerusalem that week, and Israel's religious leadership sends a delegation to
confront Him about this event. Jesus readily admits it, 'But Jesus answered
them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work' (John 5.17).
First, He points them to
the witness of John the Baptist. 'Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto
the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that
ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing
for a season to rejoice in his light' (John 5.33-35).
John wasn't just any
other man. He was accounted, even in His own time, as a prophet, and his views
about Jesus were widely known, clearly spelled out, and oft repeated. 'Behold
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world' (John 1.29).
Israel's religious leadership
could not ignore this because the great mass of common people loved John the
preacher and John the man. Jesus knew this, and He knew Israel's religious
leadership had no rational explanation for how John could be right about so
many things, and good for Israel, but completely wrong about what he said in
relation to Jesus.
Second, He points them
to His own miraculous works. 'But I have greater witness than that of John: for
the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear
witness of me, that the Father hath sent me' (John 5.36).
Miracles, as I have
already mentioned, were signs pointing toward the authenticity of Jesus'
claims, and He did the kind that could not be ignored. He did the kind that
could not be faked. He did the kind that involved many people. He did the kind
that nobody else would even have considered making up. He did the kind whose
results were immediately and visibly apparent. He did the kind whose results
continued. He did miracles for the nobility. He did them for the working class.
He did them for the outcasts of society. He did them from a distance. He did
them on land and on water. He clearly and repeatedly had power over nature,
disease, and the demonic world.
They had no answer for
John the Baptist. They could not possibly dispute the authenticity of His many
miracles. But He wasn't done yet. He also offered them the third witness, that
of the Father. 'And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness
of me' (John 5.37).
When did this happen? At
Jesus' public baptism just over a year ago, in front of crowds of people, many
of them from Jerusalem, down at the Jordan River. 'And Jesus, when he was
baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were
opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and
lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased' (Matthew 3.16-17).
There may well have been
in the group that gathered around Jesus and Israel's religious leaders in
Jerusalem that very day people who were at the Jordan River a year ago when
Jesus was baptized. If there were not such people surely would not be hard to
find. If Israel's religious leadership really did want to establish the veracity
of Jesus' claims let them interview some of these people, and then let them try
to weasel out of the fact that Jehovah had spoken in an audible voice at Jesus'
baptism, and pronounced that Jesus was God's Son.
They had no answer for
John the Baptist. They could not dispute the authenticity of the many miracles.
They could not disprove the publicly audible testimony of the Father in front
of many assembled people. But that's not all as there was also a fourth
witness, that of the Scriptures themselves. 'Search the scriptures; for in them
ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me' (John
5.39).
As if the first three
witnesses were not compelling enough Jesus sends them a clear challenge: 'You
claim to be experts on the Old Testament; go take a look at the dozens of
prophecies about the messiah and see how they correspond to My life.'
This is one of those
aspects of Jesus' life that is absolutely impossible for the skeptics to
ignore. These prophecies were clearly in existence prior to the time of Christ.
These prophecies were spread amongst dozens of Old Testament writers. These
prophecies referred to numerous different aspects of the messiah's life and
ministry. The existence of these prophecies could not have been faked after the
fact, nor could it be ignored that they pointed, like a laser beam, smack dab
at Jesus.
Even though most of them
had not yet been fulfilled at the time Jesus was having this conversation at
His second Passover many of them had been. The messiah was to be born of a
virgin. Check. The messiah was to be of the house of David. Check. The messiah
was to have spent time in Egypt. Check. The messiah was to be preceded by a
messenger. Check. The messiah would minister in Galilee. Check. The messiah
would be called a Nazarene. Check.
It is almost like Jesus
is throwing these things at them, piling up a mountain of evidence, forcing
them to confront the fact that their unbelief in Him was not a careful and
responsible diligence to establish the facts with painstaking care, but was
instead a stubborn rebelliousness that rejected indisputable truth. To me, one
of the saddest verses in all the Bible is found toward the end of this
conversation. After Jesus heals the infirm man, is attacked for it, and offers
clear and convincing proof that He is right, and is still rejected, we find
this awful statement: 'And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life'
(John 5.40).
There is an old
statement that says there are none so blind as those who will not see. That was
the case with Israel's religious leadership. Their problem wasn't an
intellectual one, but a spiritual one. It wasn't a head problem but a heart
problem. They didn't want, in their heart, to yield to Christ. He piled up
evidence after evidence after evidence, indisputably, and publicly, and all
they did was attack Him for telling a man to carry His bed on the Sabbath.
Beloved, this thing of
ours, this Christianity, is real. He is Who He said He was. And we are right to
bow before Him, and to embrace Him, and to live for Him.
If you would like to listen to the audio version of this blog you can find it here on our church website. Just press 'launch media player' and choose We Preach Christ 26, 'Four Witnesses'.
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