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♪♪ ♪♪ and to you, disciples, as we lift it up.
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This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
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And if you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, you eat and drink, and you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, turn in our
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Bibles, please, to John chapter 5. Lord willing, we'll complete this chapter today.
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I had the intention to whittle down our notes a little bit to 10 pages.
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It didn't work. But we do have a little more time this morning than we normally have for some reason.
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I trust that you have your Bibles opened to John chapter 5. Today we want to look at verses 41, actually through 47, not 46,
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I believe. And so it's our intention today to address this last paragraph of this third discourse of Jesus.
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That's recorded for us here in the Gospel of John, the third of seven,
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I believe, altogether. Last Lord's Day, we considered the testimony of four different witnesses that Jesus called upon to testify the fact that he was the
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Son of God. He is God incarnate. He's both God and man.
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Four witnesses that the Father sent forth to testify of his true identity.
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Well, we read in the passage before us today how Jesus responded to those who heard him bear this witness or call upon these four witnesses.
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And in doing so, the Lord Jesus diagnosed and addressed the true spiritual condition of the souls of these
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Jewish men. They didn't receive or respond to the testimony of these four witnesses.
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And so may the Lord use his words, our Lord's words this morning, to help us diagnose the condition of our own souls.
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And may he bring us comfort or remedy, one or the other, depending on the need that each of us may have.
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It's important that we state once again that this third discourse of Jesus in John 5 was addressed originally to unbelievers.
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It's critically important. These men were unbelieving Jews, presumably Jewish leaders, who were filled with rage toward Jesus as he was speaking these words to them.
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They persecuted him, they desired, and they plotted to kill him, even at this early stage of his ministry.
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Jesus held before them his enemies, these four witnesses who testified of his person as the
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Son of God incarnate. Now again, these four witnesses included, and these were witnesses that the
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Father had brought forth. First, the witness of John the Baptist. Secondly, the witness of the works of Jesus himself were actually works of the
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Father. The Father witnessed of Jesus himself. Several occasions, this is my beloved
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Son, hear him. This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. And really, all of God's actions through history testified to the person of Jesus.
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And then fourth, there was the witness of the Holy Scriptures that the Lord Jesus called upon.
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God the Father had sent forth these four witnesses to testify and validate that Jesus is the
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Son of God, setting forth his divinity, his true nature as both
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God and man. However, in spite of the clear fourfold witness that God the Father had provided them regarding his
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Son, Jesus said of these Jews, but you are not willing to come to me that you may have life.
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That was the verse we concluded with last Lord's Day. And so here we see the failure to believe on the person of Jesus Christ, to embrace him as eternal
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God, who became one of us. As a clear revelation of really, not only the presence of their sin, but the extent of their sin, in spite of all the testimony, irrefutable testimony and witness before them, they refused to believe and embrace him for who he was.
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The fact that these Jewish men refused to believe on him, although they had this infallible testimony that God had given them through these four witnesses, reveals that their unbelief was not just due to ignorance, but rather it was due to their rejection of the truth.
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Yes, they had been ignorant, but they could no longer claim ignorance. They had been truly informed with these solid irrefutable witnesses.
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And so they were not merely unable to believe because they were ignorant, as they once had been perhaps as uninformed persons, but they continued unabated in their hatred and efforts to kill him in spite of the solid witness that was given to them.
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Perhaps formerly they had been unable to believe due to ignorance, but now they were informed. And so what is shown is an unreasonable obstinacy on their part.
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It wasn't reasonable that they would respond this way. They refused to believe on Jesus Christ, although the evidence clearly substantiated his identity.
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And so they were hardened sinners, although they saw themselves as very devout men, godly men.
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Well, these four witnesses are the same witnesses that we can call upon today. They're valid, suitable for us to employ in our witness for Jesus Christ.
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In order for people to be saved from their sin, they must not only understand what Jesus did when he died upon the cross in order to save sinners.
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They lived and died on the cross, but they must believe fully and completely who he is in truth.
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He is the son of God as well as man. He's co -eternal and co -equal with the
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Father and the Holy Spirit. In other words, belief in the blessed Holy Trinity is an essential doctrine that must be believed in order to receive salvation.
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Non -Trinitarians do not have salvation. Those who deny the deity of the
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Lord Jesus Christ or those who deny his humanity, and they're around too, they do not have salvation.
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Yes, there are other truths that must be understood and believed in order to have salvation, but really this truth, this understanding of the
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Trinity and the dual nature of our Lord Jesus as God and man is really at the top of the list.
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People must know who Jesus is. And as Jesus held forth these four witnesses to himself as the true son of God, we may also hold forth these four, same four witnesses before others when we speak to them about the person of Jesus Christ.
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We can call upon these four witnesses to substantiate before unbelievers. Jesus himself called upon these four witnesses before these
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Jewish leaders. And in this way, the Lord may reveal to the ones to whom we are witnessing that they too are obstinate sinners as the
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Jews were. Wasn't a matter of ignorance only. The sin that they have is evil.
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And we wanna bring them to the point they see that and that they realize they're in need of God's grace toward them or they're never gonna change.
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They're gonna remain in their hardened unbelieving state. However, just as Jesus did not have a favorable response from these
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Jewish leaders, we shouldn't think that just because we bear faithful witness from the scriptures about who
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Jesus is that they're gonna respond to us. They may indeed, they probably will unless God's doing a work of grace in their souls.
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They will reject our witness. And so we shouldn't be surprised. Nevertheless, God can, by his grace, use our witness to convict and convert those who are presently in unbelief and rebellion.
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They need to hear. And then God, Lord willing, will work grace.
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Everybody changes their pages to one and two. By the time we get to six or seven, I hear fewer pages turning. Somehow we lose people on the way.
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I don't know. Let's now read the final paragraph of this third discourse which is
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John 5, 41 through 47. And I have to admit, when I turned to this at the beginning of the week and thought, what does this say and how am
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I gonna deal with it? I was a little bit daunted by the challenge but as I read and studied, it just became a wonderful, very rich paragraph as I considered the truthfulness of it.
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I just hope I could convey that in a measure to you. May the Lord bless it.
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Jesus said in John 5, 41, I do not receive honor from men. But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you.
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I have come in my Father's name and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
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How can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only
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God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father.
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There is one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believe
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Moses, you would believe me for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?
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There are actually six statements of our Lord in this paragraph that were addressed to these unbelieving men.
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And these six statements may actually be seen as setting forth two major themes. And the first theme is verses 41 through 43, three verses.
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Jesus revealed the true spiritual reason for the unbelief of these Jews. And then the second theme, which is contained in the next four verses,
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Jesus revealed the terrible and fearful consequences of their unbelief. And so let's consider the paragraph and particularly these six statements of Jesus by first considering the spiritual reason for the unbelief of these
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Jews. First, Jesus, we read, desires no honor from men.
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Verse 41, Jesus first stated, I do not receive honor from men.
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Now, this translation is from our New King James Version, which we've been using. The newer
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English translations use the word glory or the word honor, or instead, or in the place of honor.
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And probably the word glory is preferable to the word honor that's in the New King James Version. Jesus said,
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I do not receive glory from men. In other words, from people. And the ESV, of course, makes a modern translation generically people rather than just the masculine pronoun that used to be understood as mankind.
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But somehow we've moved away from that. In this context, what Jesus meant was that he did not desire or derive recognition or honor from man.
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That wasn't his concern. He didn't desire it. He didn't seek it.
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And whether or not they gave it to him was immaterial. That's not what his concern was. The translation that Edward Klink gave, and he's a professor of Biola, I think, out in California, in his commentary on John, which is quite good, it reads this way.
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For I do not receive recognition from humanity. Klink then defined the word that he translated as recognition rather than glory or honor.
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And so he wrote, while the word recognition, and he includes the Greek word here, doxon, and that's the Greek word for glory, commonly, or honor.
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He translates it here as recognition. It's often translated as praise or glory.
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That is in the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Version. In this context, it must be referring to what
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BDAG, that is a common authoritative lexicon,
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Greek -English lexicon of the New Testament, defines as recognition of status or performance.
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In other words, I don't receive from you people any recognition of my status.
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I don't derive anything from you. It means nothing to me, whether or not you give me praise, is what
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Jesus was saying to them. So this first statement of verse 41 is in the context of Jesus calling upon the
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Holy Scriptures that he referenced earlier in the previous paragraph we dealt with last week, as to his true identity in nature as a son of God incarnate.
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Verses 39 and 40 recorded his words. You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and these are they which testify of me.
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But you're not willing to come to me that you may have life. And now here in verse 41, it's a continuation of the context.
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He declared that the only honor, only honor from his father was what really concerned him, not the honor that men could give him.
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And that's significant. Perhaps the Lord Jesus perceived an attitude on the part of these
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Jewish leaders that they thought he, Jesus was upset with them because they failed to honor him or give him the recognition that he thought he deserved from them.
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And Jesus was essentially telling them that it was immaterial to him whether or not they glorified him or they gave him honor.
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His concern was that he would please God his father, that he would receive the father's approbation, approval, not their approval.
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It meant absolutely nothing to him. They might have thought so. They probably thought they were so important people that everybody wanted their recognition and their acknowledgement, their congratulations.
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He says, I don't seek honor from you at all. That's not my concern. I seek honor from my father and him only.
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Robert Linsky, he was a Lutheran commentator, died about in the middle of the 20th century. Very good commentator,
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I'm finding, especially on the Greek text. Jesus has said these Jews would not believe in him, verse 38, the scriptures testify of him.
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The Jews will not come to him. Jesus reads their hearts and sees how they may think that he is motivated just as they are, that he's piqued because they do not honor and glorify him.
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Thus, this he cuts off at once, glory from men I do not take. And what
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Linsky did was give a very literal translation of the Greek here because the word dokes on glory is actually put as the first word of the sentence.
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And the Greeks would do that for emphasis. And so Jesus was pressing the emphasis here to these Jewish leaders, glory from men
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I do not take. And then he says, you know, compare
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John 8 .50 for this. The object is placed forward for emphasis. In other words, the word glory is put forward in the first part of the sentence for emphasis.
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Glory, honor, praise, distinction from men is distinction from the glory that comes from the only
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God, which is in verse 44. Even when men offered it to him, in other words, honor, he spurned it and did not catch it.
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He throws in the Greek word lambano, which means to receive or take. In the sense of capto, he throws in a
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Latin word there. Jesus took only the glory which God gave him, God directly and God through the faith of believing men.
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Let not these Jews imagine that Jesus is miffed because they don't honor him. And that is why he is scoring.
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In other words, rebuking them so severely. They thought they were so important that it would be important to Jesus that they honored him.
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I don't receive honor from men. He's completely dismissive of them, isn't he? And so what
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Jesus revealed in these words is that these men thought so highly of themselves that they thought it really mattered to him what they thought of him.
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Their opinion of him was absolutely inconsequential to him. And we might say that this same attitude should characterize every believer, every true disciple of Jesus.
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If the Lord will honor me, that's all that I desire. The praise of man means nothing in comparison to receiving
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God's approval, his honor for having lived and served before him in faith, fellowship and obedience.
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And although that ought to be a characterization of every one of us as Christians, I believe it's an essential characteristic of a pastor.
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A man who stood up here that's concerned about you honoring him is no servant of Christ.
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He's a deceiver of men. Well, secondly,
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Jesus declared their desperate sinful spiritual condition in verse 42. Jesus said to these men, "'But
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I know you that you do not have the love of God in you.'" That to me is a terrifying statement when you consider the implications.
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First, Jesus declared, I know you. It may be that Jesus drew this conclusion from observing their refusal to believe on him due to these four witnesses.
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Their rejection of Jesus revealed the absence of the love of God in their souls. Or perhaps
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Jesus could see in their hearts and assess their hearts. Now, although in his divine nature,
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Jesus Christ was omniscient, he's the God -man. His knowledge is infinite.
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While Jesus was doing his ministry on earth, he did not call upon his divine nature to serve
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God or serve men. But rather, everything that he learned, everything he did was due to the
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Holy Spirit informing him and directing him. And perhaps the
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Holy Spirit enabled his human nature on this occasion as the Messiah to know the spiritual condition of those about him.
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We saw that happening already earlier in John chapter one. Remember, he saw Nathanael under the tree.
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Now again, in his divine nature as omniscient, he knew everything.
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But he didn't call upon his attributes as God, eternal
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God. He trusted the Father to teach him, the Holy Spirit to instruct him.
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And we would say, I would say, the Holy Spirit revealed to Jesus Nathanael's true spiritual condition.
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And I think here, the Holy Spirit revealed to Jesus the true spiritual condition of these people.
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But also, he could conclude that simply because they failed or refused to honor him. The Lord Jesus, of course, is now enthroned in heaven.
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And his divinity, his divine nature, is in no way withheld from being manifested.
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But rather, he, of course, is reigning over all things as the divine man, his two natures, working in beautiful harmony, as he superintends the realization of God's decree as Lord over history, bringing salvation to the ones the
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Father gave him from eternity, and bringing his just judgment upon all those who continue in their sinful rebellion to his kingdom.
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Second, not only did Jesus say to these men, I know you, but he said to them further, you do not have the love of God in you.
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And this was at the heart of their spiritual condition. As one wrote, the rejection of Jesus by the
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Jews is therefore the rejection of God. And since his mission is the exposition of the love of God, we have that in John 3 .16
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and elsewhere, his rejection by the Jews declares them to be void of the love of God.
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I know you that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. And this judgment means that the gulf between Jesus and the
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Jews is unbridgeable, for the division between them concerns the reality of God.
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They direct their eyes to God in order that their selfish desires may be strengthened. That is, he,
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Jesus, in order that every trace of egotism and independent desire may be destroyed.
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This is righteousness. They were only looking to God for what they could derive from God.
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That was not Jesus' concern. They had a whole different worldview than what Jesus had.
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And there was no common ground between them. I know that you don't have the love of God in you, is what
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Jesus could say, because you're not given the honor that I'm warranted to receive from you.
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And so, look at the words closely. When Jesus said to them, you do not have the love of God in you, we should ask ourselves what he meant precisely by the phrase, the love of God.
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You know, that prepositional phrase in English, of God, can carry all kinds of meanings.
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Is it talking about love of God, our love for God, or is it talking about the love of God that God puts within our hearts?
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Both is conveyed by the idea of the love of God, isn't it? And so, the expression could be understood in a couple of different ways.
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He could have been saying to them, you do not have love for God in you. You do not have the love of God. Or, Jesus could have been saying, you do not have the love that God gives.
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You don't have the love of God. You see, both ideas can be conveyed by that expression. And so, the
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Bible not only speaks of the love that we should have for God, but the Bible also speaks of the love that God imparts to the hearts of his people.
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Paul wrote about that in Romans 5, how the love of God, God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
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And so, which is the meaning of the love of God here, objective or subjective? Is it talking about our love for God, or is it talking about the subject of love that he gives to us so that we love him and love others?
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Which one is it? And it's interesting, as I was reading my shelf full of commentaries, one commentator said objective.
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In fact, most of them said objective. He was talking about love for our God. Few argued the love that God gives.
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And I have a very good book, an intermediate Greek grammar, Daniel Wallace, who's a
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Dallas man, top -notch guy. And he argued, and I think he was right, talking about both.
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And clearly in this expression, Jesus was speaking about both. You don't have love for God, you don't honor me.
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And you don't have love that God gives, or else you wouldn't love me. It's all encompassing here.
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They didn't have the love of God. So he was declaring they did not love
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God, nor did they have God's love in them. And he declared this of them, because they did not and would not honor him as God's only begotten son.
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1 John 5, one records, everyone who loves him who begot also loves him who's begotten of him.
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Now that's a statement where it says every true Christian loves other true Christians. But it can certainly be said of the only begotten son of God, right?
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If you're born of God, you're gonna love the only begotten son of God. If you don't love the only begotten son of God, you don't have the love of God in you.
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That's what Jesus was declaring to these men. And so again,
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Jesus said to these men, I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. And if he were standing here, he could say to each one of us, he could say to you, to me,
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I know you. The question we might ask is this, would he say to you or to me, you do not have the love of God in you?
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May that be not so respecting any one of us. But let's be honest with ourselves. Do you have the love of God in you?
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In other words, as your outlook on life characterize what Jesus described as a manifestation of the love of God, or are you more like these
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Jewish leaders? You're primarily concerned about yourself and your own glory that you might receive from the world about you and even from God.
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Whole different worldview. Do you have the love of God in you?
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How can you tell? Very simply, do you love Jesus Christ supremely?
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That's how you know. Do you truly desire above all other matters, as we read in our passage a little earlier, that he, the son of God would be glorified by you and through you to the world about you?
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Is that your principal desire in life? Yes, we've all got other desires, but at the top of the list, is that it?
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I want to glorify God. I want to make Jesus Christ known. I wanna be a testimony for who he is and what he's like to my family, to the world, to my church, to everybody about me, if he would enable me to do so.
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Do you desire that his cause rather than your own, his interests rather than your own, his name would be recognized, acknowledged and celebrated by others, not your own name?
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And if you conclude that this is not true of you, then beseech the
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Lord that he would shed abroad in your heart his love so that you will then love
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Jesus Christ supremely. If you don't desire to honor Jesus Christ supremely, if you don't love the
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Lord Jesus supremely, you don't have a love of God within you. You know better than these
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Jewish men. They thought they were very devout, very religious. They attended services all the time, worship services.
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They didn't, they were void of the love of God because they did not love God's son, which is a manifestation of God's love.
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Well, thirdly, in verse 43, Jesus described the manifestation of their sin. We read in verse 43,
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I've come in my father's name, you don't receive me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive.
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Here we see that Jesus charges them with an additional crime. While they would reject the true son whom the father sent to them, at the same time, they receive another who comes to them without any divine credentials or authentication.
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First, Jesus said, I've come in my father's name, and you don't receive me. Jesus did not come to promote himself, but he came to represent and reveal the father.
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There was no self -exaltation on his part. There was no desire to promote his own cause, to make a name for himself.
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This itself should have commended him to them as one who is true and righteous. He was not self -serving.
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Jesus Christ never once did anything to serve himself. Satan said, turn these stones to bread.
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You're hungry, you've been hungry for 40 days. Turn these stones to bread. Nuh -uh, he was never self -serving.
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And God the father gave him all authority in heaven and earth on his resurrection, and he has all authority now, but never once does he issue an edict from the throne of God to serve himself.
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He serves us, serves his father. He is the epitome of one who is denying self.
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But then secondly, Jesus said, if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. If one came among them promoting himself as somebody to whom they should give and show regard, will they embrace him readily?
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So they would embrace one another, but they wouldn't embrace him, the son of God. And so they not only turned away from the truth, but they preferred error instead.
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And so they were like the ancient Israelites, that Jeremiah the prophet, of course, condemned them.
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God spoke to Jeremiah, my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters.
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And then secondarily, they hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. And so they not only failed to honor
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Jesus, but they honored people that had no business being honored by them, because really they wanted honor in return.
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They wanted an exchange as it were, slapping one another on the back, congratulating one another how great they were.
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These Jews would not receive Jesus who came in order to promote the cause of his father, who had his father's commission, whose father's witnesses testified to him, who sought only to further his father's name, but they would embrace liars and deceivers who sought to promote themselves.
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And they're shown therefore not only to be ignorant, but totally perverse. And by the way, we didn't have time, but Paul said the same situation happens in the churches.
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He warned Timothy, you're gonna be pastor in the church, Timothy. You're gonna have to watch out for this. You know, people are not seeking the glory of God, they're seeking their own glory, beware of them.
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Matthew, Henry, a wonderful commentator, drew some generalities from these words of Jesus.
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They have hewn out broken cisterns, they've hearkened to everyone that will set up in his own name, they'll forsake their own mercies, which is bad enough, and it's for lying vanities.
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In other words, they exchange it, they desire lying vanities, which is worse. Observe here first, those are false prophets who come in their own name, who run without being sent, and set up for themselves only.
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There's a lot of them in the world and in churches. Secondly, it's just with God to suffer those to be deceived with false prophets who receive not the truth and the love of it.
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In other words, God does this, and he talks about 2 Thessalonians, how the errors of Antichrist are the just punishment of those who obey not the doctrine of Christ.
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In that passage, of course, God says he'll send strong, Paul says, God will send strong delusion that they'll believe the lie of the
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Antichrist, and I don't believe that's a future personage, by the way. They shut their eyes against the true light, or by the judgment of God, given up to wander endlessly after false lights, to be led aside after every ignis fatuus, or fatuus, you know what that is?
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I had to look it up. It's back in the Puritan days in England, it was, he was calling upon a common belief or superstition, not that he was endorsing it, but this is like swamp gas, or when you see lights over swamps, a will -o' -the -wisp, for example, will -o' -the -wisp, that it was like a mirage, a falsehood, a deception, and he's talking about how they're willing to run after every one of these false teachers, rejecting
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Jesus, and then third, it's the gross folly of many that while they nauseate or cast away ancient truths, they are fond of upstart errors.
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They loathe manna, and at the same time, feed upon ashes, an allusion to the Old Testament.
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After the Jews had rejected Christ and his gospel, they were continually haunted by specters with false
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Christs and false prophets, Matthew 24, and they're prone as to follow such occasion those distractions and seditions that hasten their ruin.
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And so Jesus charged them with pride, vainglory, unbelief, and the effect of them, those things.
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And so having sharply reproved their unbelief like a wise physician, Jesus here searches into the cause.
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He lays the ax to the root. Again, these are Matthew Henry's words. They therefore slighted and undervalued
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Christ, and this is the reason, because they admired and overvalued themselves.
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And so there's the heart of the spiritual problem of these unbelieving Jewish men.
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They had no room to give glory to Jesus. They were too busy seeking glory for themselves. Well, then after the
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Lord revealed the spiritual reason for the unbelief of these Jews, he then went on to describe the terrible and fearful consequences of their unbelief.
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And so we're continuing with these six statements, and now the fourth here. Jesus disputed with them, showing their unreasonable sinfulness.
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We read in John 5, 44, how can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the
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Holy God? He's implying you can't. Here, Jesus speaks of their inability to rise above their sin.
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How can you believe considering what drives your hearts? He charges them with self -pride and vanity, seeking glory for themselves and from one another.
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They therefore slighted and undervalued Christ, because they admired and overvalued themselves, wrote
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Matthew Henry rightly. And so they set their hearts to obtain glory for themselves.
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They were driven by the desire to be esteemed by others as better than others.
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This climate is rife for envy, petty jealousies, backstabbing, rumor mongering, the kind of climate that's characteristic of many workplaces today, isn't it?
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And sadly, it's the conditions in many churches so -called. I hear stories, not of our church, thank
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God, but churches that have long since forsaken the faith and the practice of God's word.
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But this was true even in the first century. The same gospel writer, John, who wrote this gospel, later wrote in his third epistle of one church that had a guy who just sought glory for himself.
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I wrote to the church but diatrophies who loves to have the preeminence among them.
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He was a Christian supposedly, but he was just like these Jewish men. He does not receive us.
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Therefore, if I come, I'll call to mind his deeds, which he does, prating against us with malicious words.
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And not content with that, he himself does not receive the brethren, forbids those who wish to, putting them out of the church.
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He was like a little Pope and he wouldn't have any challengers. And John wrote, beloved, don't imitate what is evil, but what is good.
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He who does good is of God. He who does evil has not seen God. And so this man, diatrophies, was much like these
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Jewish men whom God, whom Jesus had braided due to their pride and their self -promotion. He wanted the chief plates to be regarded as the preeminent one in the church.
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That was diatrophies' motivation. This is what governed his thinking.
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This is what shaped his relationships within the church. He was a pastor run amuck with authority.
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And when someone came along like the Apostle John, who might be regarded by his peers as having more honor than diatrophies, well, he wouldn't even allow his presence.
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And he began to, he would denigrate his name among the others. So Jesus asked, how can you believe who receive honor from one another, implying that they could not and would not believe on him with honor, for they would perceive that their own desires would be frustrated.
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Their desire was for their own glory, not for Jesus's glory, not for the glory of God, although they might have claimed that was their motivation.
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The fact is, much of the opposition to Jesus by this generation was due to envy on the part of the
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Jewish leaders, even Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, recognized this.
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And so we read in Mark 15, as the crowd came up, began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them.
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He answered them, say, do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews? And then verse 10 explains why he asked this question.
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For he perceived that it was out of envy that the chief priests had delivered him up. They were concerned about their own name, their own reputation, and their own glory.
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They didn't care about the glory of the Son of God. Two different worldviews, different entire motivations for their lives.
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This attitude and behavior continued among unbelieving Jews toward the early Christian leaders, particularly the
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Apostle Paul. You read the same thing happening. Down in verse 45, when the
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Jews saw all the crowds gathering to hear Paul the weekend after he had preached the gospel, they were filled with envy, contradicting and blaspheming.
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They opposed the things spoken by Paul. Paul was getting more honor than they were, and so they would resist him.
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But again, not only did they seek honor from one another, but they had no true desire to receive honor from God.
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Jesus said to them, how can you believe who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes from the only
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God? And so this is ultimately the manifestation of sin in people's lives.
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It's what characterized our first parents and continues in all of us to a certain degree.
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Rather than truly desiring and seeking the glory of God, as Jesus Christ sought the glory of the
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Father, sinful people desire glory for themselves. In other words, people, sinners, wanna be as God.
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It's the very essence of sin as found in the garden. These Jews who would not believe on him, they could not believe on him because of their sin.
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Their entire worldview and their entire drive, their motivation for living, were diametrically opposed to one another between them and Jesus.
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No common ground between the two of them. These men did not want the honor that comes from God, although they would have claimed the desire of this honor.
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In reality, they wanted the honor of their own peers. Jesus was driven by a desire that they could not understand and they would not embrace.
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Jesus desired to be honored by his Father, which would only come to him as he denied himself and take up his cross and be willing to suffer and die in order to glorify his
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Father through his faith and obedience. But there's no way they would deny themselves because that was their chief aim and desire in life, to gain recognition, to advance themselves in the opinion and minds of others, to think themselves to really be somebody.
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F .F. Bruce stated it this way. To admit the claims of Jesus would have won them the glory which comes from the only
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God, but at the same time, they would lose the esteem of their peers. Probably why
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Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. He was concerned about what others thought of him, which meant so much to them as it means so much to most people.
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The situation is summed up later by the evangelist in John 12, 43. They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.
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And thus, they could have little sympathy with one who saw so clearly the difference between true glory and false and desired his
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Father's approval above everything else. Total different worldview and a total different understanding of self.
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Well then, fifth, Jesus discredited their false confidence in Moses. This is set forth in verses 45 through 46.
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Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father. There's one who accuses you, Moses, in whom you trust.
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For if you believe Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. This is a very significant statement by Jesus.
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The Lord Jesus declared to them that he would not be their prosecutor on the day of judgment, rather Moses would be.
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Rather than believing Moses' words, they believed, notice, they believed in Moses himself. They wouldn't put their faith in Jesus because they had their faith in Moses.
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Notice that, Moses in whom you trust. They looked to Moses as their savior rather than Jesus.
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But in reality, they did not believe what Moses had taught them, for he taught them to believe in Christ as their savior, the one
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Moses promised would come. Jesus said that Moses wrote of me. You put your trust in Moses, he wrote of me.
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You don't believe what he wrote. Now, when Jesus spoke of Moses in whom they trusted, he was referring to the law that God brought to his people through Moses.
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They thought they were safe through keeping the law rather than understanding that Moses had intended the law to direct them to place their faith in Christ, the
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Messiah who would come. All of the law taught them that. In other words, the law of Moses was to them as a covenant of works whereby they thought that they possessed or would merit
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God's favor, receiving eternal life as a reward that they thought they deserved.
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Paul described their approach to God's laws terribly flawed. He wrote of this in Romans.
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He described the Gentiles, they came to faith in Christ even while Jews didn't. Why didn't the Jews believe in Christ in mass?
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Some did, a remnant did, because they didn't seek the word of God as it pointed to Christ, but rather they sought the law in and of itself, thinking that they could attain their own righteousness by what they did, rather than submitting to the righteousness that God gives as a gift through faith in those, the faith of those who have faith in Jesus Christ.
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And he basically cited Moses as teaching the gospel of grace.
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He cites Moses in Romans 10. So Moses spoke about the righteousness of the law, but he also,
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Moses wrote of the righteousness that comes by God's grace. He pointed them to that.
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God gave his law through Moses to Israel as a covenant of works. However, God promised to bless them, even though he promised to bless them in their obedience, he in reality cursed them in their disobedience to this law as a covenant.
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And so that law was to point them to Christ. It was to reveal to them their sin and their inability to achieve that righteousness that God demanded.
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And so the law of God pointed them to Jesus Christ. Everything in the Mosaic law did so. All the sacrifices, the entire temple, tabernacle, observance, everything pointed to Jesus Christ, but they couldn't see it.
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Jesus said, Moses wrote of him. If you believe Moses, you would believe me for he wrote of me.
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We're at the bottom of page eight. Had they really understood Moses, they would have realized he'd never promised them salvation by keeping the works of the law, but rather by their attempt to keep the works of the law, they would have been brought to see their helplessness in sin and their need to trust in the
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Messiah who would one day come to save them from their transgression of God's law. And so Jesus essentially said in John 5, 45 and 46, and I'm not expecting all of you to understand this, but some of you may.
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Jesus was essentially saying in John 5, 45 and 46, these Jews sought to be saved by a covenant of works rather than submitting to the honor that God would convey to them through the covenant of grace, through believing what
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Moses had written of Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah. Well, sixth,
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Jesus demanded that they consider their hopeless condition. We read in John 5, 47, but if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?
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They neither had understanding of the scriptures nor faith in what the scriptures taught them. They were characterized by both ignorance and obstinacy.
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Unless God saved them by his grace, they would perish in their unbelief and rebellion. How will you believe my words?
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They couldn't, they were sinners. God would have to do a great work of grace.
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We'll close with just this thought, an understanding of a few implications of our passage. Apply it to yourself.
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God knows you, the Lord Jesus knows you. Could he say to you as these
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Jewish men, you have not the love of God in your souls? And how do you know if you do or not?
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I came across a sermon, a written sermon by a rather unknown Puritan, John Howe, who gave a sermon based on this verse.
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He was a humble guy and he basically, how are you to act or respond if you examine yourself, discover you don't have the love of God in you?
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You really care nothing about Jesus Christ with regard to his honor and glory? You're really motivated out of concern for yourself.
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This is how you live in the world. Concerned about what the world can give you? You're envious and jealous of the things of the world.
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The approval and approbation of men, and you envy those that are on the stage or on the screen as though they've really arrived.
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Or the wealth that people acquire or the reputation of the glory. We live in days when people want the glory for 30 seconds, don't they, on some
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Facebook or something. It reveals the desire, sinful desire of man.
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I want others to esteem me. I want glory for myself. Or I want the glory that they seem to have achieved.
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But there's no motivation in the soul to really desire the glory of Jesus Christ. That only comes when
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God sheds his love abroad in your heart. And so the proper response that John Howe puts forth, and I include it in your notes, we won't go through it now.
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There's no time, is to get alone with God if you conclude this about yourself.
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I've got no love for God. Why, I really do just love myself. Yeah, I come to God, but it's only because of the perks that I think might come to me if I do.
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I really don't wanna glorify Christ in my life. I have other concerns that are more important to me.
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And John Howe urges his people, and by the way, it was his congregation that took his sermon and published it.
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He didn't wanna draw attention to himself. He didn't want the glory of a man.
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And he said, get alone with God and examine yourself very honestly and seriously.
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What's your true motivation in life? These Jewish men thought they loved
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God. They would have told you that all day long. They had no love of God in them because they did not love
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Jesus Christ whom the Father sent. They did not desire that Christ receive glory.
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They did not desire to obey and follow Christ. They wanted people to follow them and honor them.
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And although true Christians can have this sinful desire well up within us, hopefully when it becomes apparent, like in the word before us, we acknowledge it and repent of it.
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Amen? Even the sons of thunder, right, the two brothers, when they were going to Jerusalem, Jesus about to die, they pulled
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Jesus aside, grant us that we would have the chief places in the kingdom.
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And you recall the reaction of the other disciples, they got angry because they wanted that.
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Even Christians, when they're not thinking spiritually, fall into this sinful pattern of desire.
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May the Lord put afresh the love of God in us that we truly desire the glory of Jesus Christ, that he would look past us, maybe through us, the works we do, but that people would glorify
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God in heaven and glorify Jesus Christ because they see that it's his life and his love that he's placed within our souls that have moved us to desire and see life in a way that they're clueless regarding.
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But hopefully it gives them a desire and a foretaste to enjoy what we enjoy.
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And to desire what we desire. And that's the glorification of Jesus Christ, amen? Let's pray.
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Thank you, Father, for your word and for what it reveals before us and to us.
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Help us as a church, Father, to continue to glorify Jesus Christ as fully as we possibly can as a body of believers.
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Forgive us, our Lord, for our self -serving spirit, for the attraction of the world that seems to have all too great an appeal at times.
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Help us, Lord, to have afresh your love shed abroad in our hearts by the
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Holy Spirit that we would live rightly. For we know that this is the way of peace, the way of true joy, and the way to receive honor from you as well.
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For those who honor your Son do honor you. And you tell us in your word, you will honor those who honor your