The Testimony

He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. (John 3:33)

It is becoming more and more clear to me as well as more significant what the content of this testimony is that is referred to here. It is a testimony that is vital for me to accept, appreciate, embrace and believe if I ever hope to live with God for eternity or to enjoy the bliss of heaven.

The more I meditate on this chapter the more clearly this testimony emerges into my awareness. It is the primary reason that Jesus came to this earth – to bear witness, to declare His testimony in the case of the false charges against God in the great trial going on in the universe. This trial will someday come to a final conclusion in the last day of judgment and full revelation but at this point we are still caught up in the titanic struggle to capture and lock in the testimony of as many witnesses as possible from both sides of the trial.

The only way to understand the real significance of these words is to appreciate the actual trial context that is vividly going on behind the scenes. Jesus did not come to this earth to deliver instructions on how we can get perfect enough to get ourselves into heaven or to escape hell. Neither did He come to demonstrate and encourage us as to how to get along better or have more platitudes to live by. Jesus did not come to help us out but to rescue us, to save us from ourselves and the enormous mass of lies about God that continue to suffocate and blind us even yet today. But at the same time He never violates one the highest principles of freedom that is honored by all of heaven, the freedom of our personal choice.

I continue to be amazed at the blindness and ignorance that all of us, myself included, still retain in so many of our assumptions. We think we really understand what religion means and what God's purposes are for us. Our bold confidence in how we interpret Scriptures is often far beyond our true abilities. I know that this is all we seem to be able to see right now and God meets us where we are, but each time I sense God taking me to a deeper level spiritually it is always in the direction of clarifying the issue of what His character is really like and His disposition toward us as sinners. And the clearer His feelings about me emerge to my consciousness, the darker and more cynical become the claims of most all of religion including many of my own.

I am realizing that the Light is much, much brighter than I can even imagine and that it is urgent that God opens my eyes and heals me to be able to endure the brightness of His glorious truth and love if there is ever to be hope for me. I am not talking about physical light here but about the enormous intensity of pure, unaffected, passionate love that is untainted with any dark motives whatsoever. I am also becoming more aware that to cling to any false beliefs or fears in the presence of that kind of pure and holy passion is to guarantee self-destruction, and God is keen to cleanse me of all of that before I encounter His presence at those dangerous levels of intensity.

So, what does this have to do with the testimony of Jesus mentioned here? How does Jesus' coming to this earth help me prepare to successfully encounter the dangerous levels of love and passion that are inevitable in the presence of God? And why is it so important to see this in the context of a great trial going on?

The testimony of Jesus focuses on one thing and one thing alone. Everything else is peripheral and explanatory to that. The testimony of Jesus is the same testimony that will be seen in the life of every person who accepts and embraces Jesus' testimony and is stated plainly at the end of this verse. The testimony of Jesus is that God is true.

One of our problems in understanding this phrase is that the very concept of truth itself has become so narrowed in our thinking that it is hard to grasp the significance of this statement properly. This whole chapter helps to unpack the meaning of truth even more, and the writings of John expand on this even more thoroughly. One thing that becomes very clear as I look around in this chapter for related concepts to this core declaration is the clear message that God loves and that His love is unconditional and unmerited – it cannot be earned or induced by what we do or don't do.

That element of truth at first seems to be easy enough for most Christians to think that they believe. But it does not take long at all to notice that most tend to view God as two-faced when it comes to love. The teachings that most people promote about God infer that if sinners don't respond the way God wants them to and become obedient or compliant with His demands to love Him, that He will run out of patience with them someday and will suddenly turn to anger and violence to accomplish His revenge against all those who reject His mercy.

We also maintain very confused notions about God's forgiveness as well. Most people believe that forgiveness is somehow conditional in some respects and they are scandalized at even the thought that God forgives unconditionally. Most people believe that God withholds forgiveness at least until we come and ask for it, but this is not what the Scriptures really teach if one is open to studying it carefully. Our beliefs about God's forgiveness are much more reflective of our own notions and feelings that we carry toward those who offend us rather than based on the truth revealed in the Word. And this is strongly influenced by deep, subconscious misconceptions about God that we have not yet confronted in our own hearts.

It is in these ways that we weaken and discount the testimony of Jesus about the character of God. What we are really describing in our teachings about God is a god that is reflective of our personalities and our character rather than the real God of heaven. Instead of relying on Jesus to be the primary source of revelation about who and what God is like, we are inserting our own feelings and desires and confusion into our beliefs about God and coming up with a God that often acts the way we want Him to act and treats our enemies the way we want to treat them.

But when we do this we are not receiving the testimony of Jesus but in fact end up bearing false witness against God in contrast to what Jesus came to do. When we do that we are following a different course than believing in Jesus, no matter what our claims and professions may be to the contrary.

As I look around in this chapter I find many relevant statements that start to unpack what is really contained in the testimony of Jesus talked about here. And as I choose to embrace these truths about God and displace the assumed beliefs that I have had all of my life then I will find myself being sealed as my own testimony about God comes more and more into alignment with the testimony of Jesus.

...I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. (Revelation 19:10)

Looking Closer

As I look more at this passage in John 3 the more I find compelling parallels with Jesus' words to Nicodemus earlier in the chapter. Here is what I am finding:

He who comes from above is above all, ...He who comes from heaven is above all. (verse 31)	No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man. (verse 13)
he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. (verse 31)	If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? (verse 12)
What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. (verse 32)	Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. (verse 11)
He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. (verse 33)	Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged.... (verse 15-18) He who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. (verse 21)
He whom God has sent speaks the words of God. (verse 34)	[Nicodemus] came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." (verse 2) For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (verse 17) The Light has come into the world.... (verse 19)
He gives the Spirit without measure. (verse 34)	The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (verse 8)
The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand. (verse 35)	For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. (verse 16-17)
He who believes in the Son has eternal life... (verse 36)	...Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. ...Whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (verse 15-16)
He who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him. (verse 36)	...He who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. (verse 18-19)

I don't believe that these connections are just incidental. In my view it seems that the writer John is recapping the main points that he wants to get across that were introduced earlier. The first time they were brought out it was in the context of Jesus dialogging with Nicodemus and the second time it is John commenting on the attitude of John the Baptist in relation to his disciples and Jesus.

There Was No One

What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. (John 3:32)

At first I thought that this verse was an overstatement, a dramatization of the resistance of people to accept God's truth as revealed in the life of Jesus. But the more I look at it and research the original words behind the translation and pray about it the more I think differently.

Another verse from the Old Testament comes to my mind in relation to this.

And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was no one to intercede; then His own arm brought salvation to Him, and His righteousness upheld Him. (Isaiah 59:16)

This whole section of verses in John 3 is closely parallel to verses 11-13 earlier in this chapter. The more I look at this the more I am coming to believe that indeed not one single person on earth other than Jesus has ever truly received the testimony of God. That is reflected in the verse from Isaiah which also affirms that there was no man, even to the point of astonishing God Himself.

It was because of this very situation that Jesus was sent to become a human, to take on the situation of this earth blinded and held hostage by sin and to become THE witness for the truth about God. Jesus became a human to reveal explicitly and emphatically that God is indeed true. This is the core issue of the whole battle between right and wrong, between sin and righteousness, between Christ and Satan. No one else really believes thoroughly that God is true even though many may profess it and believe it to some degree.

He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. (John 3:33)

So evidently from the context here Jesus is the only one who has really received His testimony. He received it from His Father and is bringing it into humanity through the means of His own living out of that testimony as well as His words about God. It is only the life and death of Jesus that perfectly confirms and testifies that God really is true and that He can and will do everything that He says is true. Jesus came to reverse the lies of Satan that God cannot be trusted to speak the truth. He insinuated to Eve and Adam that God did not have their best in mind when He instructed them not to imbibe of the forbidden fruit. Humanity has lived under the spell of those lies ever since and Jesus came to bring fresh light, life and truth about God into the minds and hearts and the very soul of humanity at its core.

From this perspective it becomes more clear to me that by becoming a real Christian through the new birth experience we may not really be becoming new witnesses for God, separate witnesses from Jesus, but in fact we are simply becoming reflectors and extensions of His witness and giving voice to His testimony. That is part of what it means to live “in Christ”. Thus everything is totally dependent on Christ and His righteousness alone. Nothing, not even our testimony as witnesses and certainly not any righteousness found in us is originated with us or even becomes ours to claim ownership over. Everything in the plan of salvation for us is dependent on the life and testimony of Jesus our Messiah.

And a great voice in heaven came to my ears, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: because he who says evil against our brothers before our God day and night is forced down. And they overcame him through the blood of the Lamb and the word of their witness; and loving not their lives they freely gave themselves up to death. (Revelation 12:10-11 BBE)