Testimony Content

...the very works that I do – testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me. (John 5:36)

...you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. (John 5:40)

I have been documenting the various testimonies, the list of witnesses that Jesus has referred to here over the past few weeks. What I seeing more now in these verses and others in this context is the purpose and content of these testimonies.

One thing that was and is resisted in these testimonies is the truth that God the Father actually sent Jesus to us to reveal and represent Him. Why is that resistance? What do we find it so difficult to believe that the Father sent Jesus to us in love as a human being?

Secondly, Jesus says here that we resist coming to Him in order to receive life from Him. Again, what is the core cause of our resistance to doing this? Why do we find it so onerous to come to Jesus to receive the kind of real life that He wants to give to us?

Let me go back and add a few more statements from this passage that are part of what it is we need to believe about Jesus from the testimonies of these witnesses.

For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. (John 5:16)

Jesus disrupted the establishment's claim to authority as to who was supposed to define what true Sabbath-keeping was supposed to look like.

Jesus was calling God His own Father. (v. 18)

...the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. (v. 19)

...the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel. (v. 20)

Particularly for people who claim to know God and claim to represent Him to the world, these statements could prove to be rather disconcerting and threatening. For when the actions and words of Jesus tend to present a God radically different than what the religious establishment – whichever one we happen to belong to or endorse – might embrace, then the abilities of that establishment to control the lives of those under their influence and jurisdiction comes into question. Then the church or group or leaders or whatever is involved begins to lose their grasp over the minds and hearts of their followers and even their incomes and livelihood comes into risk.

I would like to point out here that the phrase, the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing, strikes at the very core of the origin of sin as it started in heaven long ago. Lucifer first became jealous of Christ when the councils of the Godhead included Him in their plans to create this earth before any of what we see now ever came into existence. Lucifer was excluded from those secret meetings and he began to allow jealously to sprout in his heart and refused to resist it or let go of it. As a result, according to the Bible, iniquity was found in his heart that eventually grew into full-blown rebellion that infected trillions of angels and eventually moved on to this planet and took it over as a beachhead of rebellion against God's government.

Lucifer believed that he was worthy enough and smart enough that he should rightfully have been included in the councils of heaven. When Jesus spoke these words I believe that the Jews were not necessarily the primary recipient of them even though it likely rankled their egos. Satan, who used to be Lucifer until he was cast out of heaven long ago, was reminded of his own deep-seated resentment against this same Christ who had now become a human subject to his ability to tempt and harass. He remembered how much he had come to hate Christ and how that had caused his expulsion from heaven – all because the Father had shared with Jesus everything He was doing and planning to do while not allowing Lucifer into His secret confidences.

As a result, these religious people who shared in the same spirit as their mentor Satan, the accuser, felt the same resentment and anger that had filled his heart for so long before them. Jesus had come to expose the contrast between Satan's spirit and methods and God's spirit and methods and this confrontation was one of those key events of exposure. In effect, judgment was already beginning to take place, for the light was beginning to expose what was in the darkness and those who loved the darkness and deceptions of Satan bitterly resented that exposing light.

What is more of the content that these witnesses were testifying about Jesus?

...the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.

...He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.

...he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. (v.21-24)

Each of these statements tears away at the facade of Satan's kingdom and threatens the claims to authority by many who administer religion even today. Religious institutions most all want people to come to them in order to receive life under their supervision, not go to Jesus to get it directly. In addition, most all of us secretly enjoy judging others around us and are very reticent to forgo judging people by our standards or leave all judgment in the hands of Jesus. And this issue of giving honor to the Son particularly rankled in the ears of Satan and continues to threaten the assertions of many who claim to be following God while teaching and acting in ways that contradict what Jesus revealed about the heart of the Father.

...He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.

...He gave Him authority to execute judgment.

...all who are in the tombs will hear His voice...

...As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just. (v. 26-30)

It might be easy for us to accept most of these statements theologically because we intellectually know what we are supposed to say for the 'right' answers. But when it comes right down to it, can we really say with true heart honesty that we believe that Jesus has the life in Himself that we so desperately crave and usually seek in all the wrong places? Are we really willing to submit to His authority in every area of our lives or just show up once a week in some church building and think that this is what it means to be under the authority of Christ in our lives?

And this last one is possibly one of the most difficult statements to swallow for most of us. How often we find ourselves seriously questioning the decisions of God when things start to go horribly wrong in our lives? How quickly most people begin to blame God or to rationalize bad situations by impugning His motives and distorting what He has said about His character to fit their warped ideas of religion and reality? How often I find myself questioning what God might be doing in my own life when things get uncomfortable. I am quick to begin thinking that God may be punishing me for some hidden sin in my life and maybe even threatening my salvation and my standing with Him until I figure out what it is that I need to correct in my life. This mode of thinking is often reinforced by religious leaders who want to maintain their influence over my life. But how much of this is in God's will and how much is a distortion of the witness I am reading here about the true Savior of the world?

God's fairness is probably one of the most tenuous issues that most of us have to grapple with on a regular basis. We either openly question God's fairness in what is happening in our lives or we hide behind religious platitudes in fear of openly questioning His love and the seeming contradictions of that claim with what is going on in our lives. I know that I have spent many years of my life so intimidated by a powerful, fear-inducing God that no one could mess with that I could not even admit to myself, much less to anyone else or even to God, that in my heart I was really resentful about how I felt He was treating me. I could intellectually assent that God was supposedly just and right and good, whatever that was supposed to mean. But in my heart my secret opinions about Him were very much the opposite – but so well hidden that I didn't dare to ever go there consciously for fear He would become offended with me.

Given that context, whenever I read verses like John 3:16, 17 I secretly disconnected from those words because they simply made no sense whatsoever in my own experience with God. I memorized the words right along with everyone else because that was part of keeping this God from hurting me too much. But inside, my heart was screaming out in pain and isolation and desperation for expressions of real love, affirmation, comfort and encouragement from those who claimed to represent God. But instead, most of what I received were more rules to follow, more formulas to learn and more punishments threatened if I did not conform enough to their nebulous standards of conduct.

As a result of that externalized religion of my past, I still find my internal wiring seriously damaged and malfunctioning, particularly when times get tough. I have learned a great deal of new truth about God over the past few years that has challenged most of the beliefs about Him I learned in my early years. But I still find myself too much in sympathy with these religious people Jesus was addressing in this chapter more than with the open acceptance I saw in the story of the woman at the well of Samaria. I long to have that kind of encounter with Jesus and to experience the abandon and joy of embracing His love for me so spontaneously as she did. But I am coming from a different direction and my story seems to move much more heavily and slowly as I gradually absorb these revelations about both Jesus and this Father He claimed to represent.

I too was trainded to search the Scriptures and I assumed to find eternal life by doing so, much like these Jews did that Jesus was speaking to here. But Jesus makes it clear that unless I come to Him personally and get far beyond just immersion in the Scriptures alone, that I will never really experience the kind of life that I long for so much. So I explore what it really means to come to Jesus, because I really do want that life much more in my own experience. I crave that rest and peace that Jesus promises to those who come to Him. I desperately want the protection of heaven in my life and to be free of the fear of pain and death that oppresses me so much of the time. At times I enjoy that experience in His presence and it feels so wonderful. But too much of the time I find myself not close enough to Him and feeling very unstable and even tentative in my relationship to Him more than I know I should.

Father, keep teaching me, mentoring me, drawing me and transforming me for Your glory and name's sake.