The God Who Gives Witness

Big Idea

Tension: How does God give us his glory?

Resolution: By providing witnesses that we might believe in his Son.

Exegetical Idea: God gives us his glory by providing witnesses that we might believe in his Son.

Theological Idea: God gives his glory to his people to be enjoyed by giving his witnesses so that we might believe in his Son.

Homiletical Idea: God gives his glory to us by giving us witnesses that call us to believe in his Son.

Big Idea: The Father calls me to bask in his glory by giving me witnesses to his Son.

Outline

Intro: How can I see his glory?

The Witnesses:

Witness is a legal category - vs. 30. This is a Jewish legal and principle, that someone’s witness about themselves cannot be considered credible. That someone needs witnesses in order to be considered credible in a court of law.

Knowledge requires witness - This is a major point for the gospel of John. We see throughout the gospel of John reference being made to witnesses. And maybe you’re here and you’re thinking, “Well, I don’t just believe what I’m told, I have to figure it out for myself.” Really? I mean, nowadays we can’t even tie our shoes without looking at Wikipedia, but we’re going to figure out ultimate reality on our own. The reality is that there is very little, if anything, that we believe that comes from ourselves. What we know and believe to be true is usually what we have heard from witnesses. cf. Richard Bauckhaum

John the Baptist - We see John referenced in vs. 33, and 35. And of course, John the Baptist was an apocalyptic preacher who preached in the first century about hte kingdom of God which was coming. And he attracted thousands of people. And we saw in chapter 1:19-23 exactly what Jesus is referring to here.

The works Jesus himself does - But Jesus also references the works that he has been given to do in vs. 36, that these works that he has done - clearing the temple, turning the water to wine, healing the official’s son, healing the cripple. All these things that he has done, bear witness about him.

The Scriptures - Jesus also pointes to the scriptures in vs. 39.And that word “you search” the Scriptures means intense, earnest seeking after. They were disciplined and rigourous. They were intensely interested in the word of God. And they missed this central fact that they bear witness about Jesus (39).

Moses - Finally at the end, Jesus says in vs. 45-47, I’m not going to condemn you. Moses will condemn you. Moses was kind of like George Washington and Martin Luther and Martin Luther King Jr all wrapped into one. He had been an amazing man who had led his people out of slavery and into liberation and freedom. He had been the founder of his nation, who was realliy a figure that jewish patriots looked to> he was also the man who wrote the first five books of the Bible, the one on which all the rest of the Bible built. And Jesus says, he bore witness about me.

The Father - But there’s one more witness. Because behidn each of these witnesses, is the witness of the Father. The Father has actually given all these witnesses about himself. It says in vs. 32 that he is “another” who bears witness about him. It says very plainly in vs. 36-38 that the Father is the one who gave the Son the works to do. It says implies that the Scriptures are the “word of God” which they do not have abiding in them. It says in vs. 45-47 that the writings of Moses are what bears witness to the Father. That the Father gives all these things as a witness about himself and about his Son.

God is a God who wants/desires/takes joy in being known - now, here’s a point which I think is very important to acknowledge. If this is true, this means that part of who God is is that he is a God who gives witnesses. In fact, in vs. 34, that it says that Jesus himself, and I take as an inference God himself, does not need the wtinesses to know it is true. But rather, God actually himself wants to bear wtiness. He actualy wants to give us witnesses. He is not a God who is content to hide in the dark. But he is actually a God who wants to be, who delights in, who desires that we should know him. If when Deut 29:29 says that there are secret things that belong to the Lord, it means that there are things which are indeed secret, then it is also true that the things that he has revealed are for us and for our children. God is a God who wants to be heard. He wants us to hear and to mark and to listen to his witnesses. He is a God who wants us to hear his witnesses.

The theological signififcance of this cannot be understated. If God is a God who knows himself, when God gives us witness to his Son, he is inviting us to participate in his own self-knowledge.

So why does he give us his witnesses? Well thsi passage gives us a number of reasons.

Why does God give witnesses

So we could have his word abide in us - First, we see in vs. 38 that he gives witnesses so that we could have his Word abide in us. So part of the reason that God gives his witness is that we could meditate on his word and hear it and receive it.

So we might be saved - Secondly, God gives witnesses so that we could be saved. This is extraordinarily in clear in vs. 34. “I say these things so that you might be saved.”

So we might have eternal life - Thrid, God gives us witnesses so that we couled havve eternal life in vs. 39. The Pharisees were not wrong to look in the Scriptures to find eternal life, they were just wrong in that they did not go where it pointed them to go.

So we might have his love in us - Fourth, God gives us witnesses so we might have his love in them in vs. 42. The witnesses of God were given so that we might have the love of God dwelling in us.

So we might have the glory that comes from the Father - But all of these witnesses were given so that we might hav ehte glory that comes from the Father. All of this is descriptive of what he says in vs. 44, that we might have the glory that comes from the only God.

What is that glory? Now the question is, what exactly does it mean to have the glory that comes from the only God. Does it mean that glory in a similar sense as when we sit around and we “glorify God”? I don’t think so. I don’t think god is up in heaven singing praises to us. Rather, that we might experience the glory which is being given to teh Father. That we might be satisfied in the glory which is his. Or as WSC says, “That we might glorify him and enjoy him forever.”

Now, that’s only part of the problem. Causse that only describes what it means that we “have” it, it doesn’t tell us what it is. So what is the glory that comes form teh Father? I would say a better questoin is not a what, but a who. it is Jesu shimself. Jesus is the glory, the radiance of the Father as Hebrews says. <Shekinah, Isaiah 6>

How does he give it to us? In such a way that we might rejoice in the light, or that we might bask in that glory. What does it mean to enjoy this glory? Well, if to be near John is to enjoy the light that he has for a little while, to receive the glory of God is to receive the glory that he has for all eternity. It is to enjoy the glory of the Father, the only begotten Son, for all eternity. Much as you go outside to bask in teh Son, or you go to a Museum to stare at a beautiful piece of art, or you go to the ocean to stare at teh ocean or the Grand canyon to stare at the grand canyon, so for all eternity, we will be basking in the glory of the Father, the only Son himself for all eternity.

Why don’t people receive it

They receive the witnesses themselves but not what the witnesses bear witness to. - So what precisely is it that happens? Well what happens is that some people would rather have the witness tehmselves than what the witness points to. So the Pharisees loved Moses, but they hated the one Moses witnessed to. ANd htis istrue for many today. Many read the Bible but reject the God of the Bible. Many love miracles and signs, but they don’t seek the one who does miracles and the reason he does them. That the reason God gives witnesses is so that they can point to his Son. But so many people todya, and if we’re honest, often ourselves, want the witness but not what they bear witness to.

They are content to rejoice for a little while rather than for all eternity - And look at vs. 35. Isn’t that a sad sentence, you were willing to rejoice fo ra while in his light. That many people are cntent with the lesser glory of a witness, even though it only lassts for awhile. Some people would rather have those witnesses for an hour, than the one they bear witness to for all eternity. WHy is that/?

They want the glory that coems from man. Well, they want the glory that comes from man. This is very clear in vs. 44, they want the glory that comes from man. They want human glory. They love, and long, and yearn, and search after, and eagelry desire, and give themselves over for the glory that coems from man. They have a love for the glory of man, but it is a twisted perverted kind of love.

In his excellent, but, at times confusing, book, Til We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis says there is a kind of love which is is 9/10 hatred. This is the kind of way that men love the glory that comes from other men. They love it so much they hate it. they can’t stand it yet they’re afraid of losing it. They’re nervous and anxious and fearful and hateful and they crave the attention and the applause that comes from others.

And this, Jesus says in vs. 44, is what keeps them from receiving the glory that comes from God. this is what causes them to cut off the witnessed from its witnesses, to cut off the sign from that they signify, to cut off eternity from joy. God wants us to know him, he desires that we would receive his Son and that we woudl have eternity and life by basking in his glory. He gives us witnesses for that, but we are so absorbed with the glory that comes from man, that it is diffficult, if not impossible to receive that.

Application

God wants you to know him.

Do not be easily satisfied. Seeking the glory that comes from man is a God that will never satisfy. There is a reason these things always fail us.

If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

Do be satisfied with the glory that comes from God - Augustine

Guard your heart from people-pleasing glory seeking. If you find that you are seeking teh glory that comes fro mman, if you are people pleasing, afraid of their disapproval, afraid of losig them, afraid of loss, Christian, y ou are putting yourself in eternal danger. It is a frightening thing how often when you read the four gospels, we are told that the Pharisees (Matt 21:46, Mark 11:18, 32, 12:12, Luke 20:19, 22:2) and Herod are afraid of man (Mark 6:20) and Pilate (John 19:8). This is because if you crave and desire and long for the glory that comes from man, it will be inordinately difficult to receive the glory that comes from teh only God.

There is a correlation between being wanting the glory that comes from man and our inability to hear Scripture right.

Read your Bible like Jesus <Luke 24>

There should be great comfort from the fact that Jesus knows what it is to be mistreated by people who misused their Bibles

There is great conviction in the fact that Jesus still wants us to trust the Bible and his Word despite that

This is a joy and life and glory that God gives irrespective of life circumstance, but it is totally dependent on where your heart is at.

Conclusion: