Resisting Advancing Light

He was the lamp that was burning and was shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. (John 5:35)

I see here that Jesus affirmed the Jews who had allowed the testimony of John the Baptist to stir their hearts and cause joy to spring up inside of them. Even though John's message was just a starting point and was not complete, he had a very definite role to fulfill in God's plan for growing His people into a more mature experience, and those who embraced the compelling messages of John were in a position to potentially receive even more advanced insights and experience even greater joys if they were only willing to allow the presence of Jesus and His ministry to better clarify the real truth about the Father.

In this verse Jesus is saying that the Jews He was speaking to had evidently participated in the public enthusiasm resulting from John's stirring messages and words of warning. For whatever reasons they had allowed their hearts to be ignited to the point that Jesus says that they actually rejoiced in his light. But something tragic had taken place since that first introduction and now the advanced light from Jesus was not having the same effect on their hearts as what had happened in their response to John.

What I am beginning to see in the next verses is what Jesus wished for in the lives of these Jews as well as in our lives.

But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish – the very works that I do – testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me. And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me.... (John 5:36-37)

This whole passage is very focused around the idea of testimonies and what they are intended to accomplish. Jesus has already started into the list of witnesses including His own testimony. But there is more to the idea of testifying than simply putting it out there. The whole purpose of a testimony is to produce a change in the minds and lives and beliefs of those who receive that testimony. And herein lies the problem.

Last time I talked about the need to receive rather than just get. To receive strongly implies an intentionality and a growing relationship. To receive with joy introduces the element of bonding and synchronization and identification with the source of a testimony. It is not enough just to hear a testimony, to listen with the mind and to intellectually process the facts presented by it. If the heart is not stirred and engaged and transformed through the power of a testimony then the opposite effect will begin to take place. The heart will start to be hardened with unbelief and very soon the power of deception will move in to steel both the heart and the mind to reject the real truth that could have created even more joy in the life if it had been embraced.

In these last verses Jesus lists even more sources of testifying. The works that He did were also witnesses that were intended to produce even more effect than even the powerful preaching and convicting messages of the great preacher John. But just as Elisha's ministry was in stark contrast with the bold moves of his predecessor Elijah, so too the ministry of Jesus appeared so different than that of John the Baptist that many were tempted to believe that the two were actually not in agreement with each other.

It is easy to become so enamored with the powerful ministry of some bold preacher of righteousness that one is tempted to discount or discredit the ministry and teachings of another person who has a strikingly different approach and personality. Jesus Himself pointed this out in His own testimony.

Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.' For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon!' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. (Matthew 11:11-19)

What were the works of Jesus intending to convey for His testimony? How can we perceive the wisdom behind His deeds? Jesus states it clearly in His very next words in John 5 – that the Father has sent Me. (v. 36) But what is the point even more importantly implied behind even that? For the Father had also sent John the Baptist, but his testimony seemed to be strikingly different than that of Jesus in many ways.

This takes me directly back to the amazing truth about the life and death of Jesus that has been dawning on me for several years now. That is, Jesus came to this earth, not to run interference for us with a Father who was angry at us but to reveal the unbelievable truth that God has never held a grudge against us and has already forgiven us in His own heart and longs for full reconciliation with all of His rebellious children. Jesus came to demonstrate the real truth about how God feels about us through everything He did and said and every nuance of how He interrelated with sinners around Him. He who has seen Me has seen the Father.... (John 14:9)

And this was the core issue of contention that became the stumbling block preventing many of the religious people of Jesus' day from accepting His testimony about God. Because they had so entrenched themselves in a view of God as a stern, exacting, demanding Judge eager to dish out punishments or to reward those who performed well enough with blessings and privileges, that they felt very confused and frustrated with the witness of Jesus that portrayed a God radically different than what they had always assumed or what they thought John had preached.

Nothing has really changed yet today. I find myself many times still struggling to embrace a picture of God who is not angry with me or ready to inflict pain and punishments for my infractions of some law or rule I may have broken. That is not to imply that there are not consequences to violating principles of reality which is what God's laws really are all about. But there is a stark difference between suffering natural consequences and having a Supreme Being ready to dish out arbitrary punishments because He is upset with those who cross His will.

I am beginning to appreciate more and more the reality that God is seeking a relationship of joy with His children rather than conformance to a list of rules in a system of rewards and punishments to control behavior. Embedded in these verses is that very message. Jesus spoke of the joy of these Jews when they listened to John the Baptist and implied that He longed for them to experience even greater joy if they would only advance with the light that was being granted them.

If they had allowed the light of Jesus and the testimony of both His works and His Father's voice to their hearts to have their intended effects, they could have entered into the much greater joy of the Lord and would have been advanced from one glory to the next instead of remaining stuck at first base with the testimony of John.

It is so easy for us today to make the very same mistake as those Jews long ago. We mistake the strong messages of a preacher of righteousness as messages of threats instead of perceiving them as warnings of impending danger from natural consequences of continuing in the path we are currently following. We can get so caught up in the sensational nature and style of a preacher or teacher who stirs up our fears or excites our passions that we fail to follow on to know the God behind that initial introduction that is far greater than the messenger we became enamored with ourselves. We fall in love with the style of the temporary messenger and become addicted to the sensations, the fears, the intensity of the first emotions of conviction, but we fail to move on to believe in the gentleness, the meek and quiet spirit of the one we are directed to follow on to know. In doing so we lose the joy of real salvation.

I have observed for many years an addiction to fear messages among many religious people. It has become very popular in some places to promote the practice of fear-brokering. I grew up around such messages and today I see fanatical movements thriving on this, focusing on stirring up as much fear and anxiety as they can produce in others with the result that their ministries grow and expand their influence and receive more monetary support as they become more strident. They dig up all sorts of conspiracy stories and fan the flames of suspicion and terror, frightening poor souls who shudder under the shadow of an offended God waiting to unleash plagues of wrath upon the earth any minute. I have seen the effects of this style of 'ministry' in people very close to me and the results are very debilitating and even disgusting at times.

This does not mean that the original inspired sources of some of these messages are necessarily wrong. What is happening is that it is so easy to become more enchanted with the sensational and the power one can gain over other minds by inflaming them with fear that we lose sight of the real purpose of the original warnings intended to move people toward a greater revelation of the meek and lowly Jesus. He came reveal the much greater revelation about the true nature of the Father who seeks to draw us into joyful intimacy with Himself. As a result of these misguided people God once again gets painted in dark colors of wrath and negative connotations and sinners become even more frightened of Him rather than being melted by the kindness of God that leads to repentance. (Rom. 2:4)

Jesus in this passage wanted these Jews to get past the testimony style of John's electrifying preaching and realize that His own demonstration of the Father was far more advanced and accurate than the perception of the Father they had deduced from the preaching of John. These Jews assumed that Jesus and John were too different to be revealing the same God, but Jesus was saying that if they would believe His teaching and embrace the testimony of how He related to sinners that they would be elevated to even greater heights of joy than they had ever experienced from the sensational style of John's ministry.