Team Jesus
We don't want to go through life on the wrong team, do we?
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. "If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth. Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But I have a testimony greater than John's. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent. "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life. I do not accept glory from human beings. But I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?" - John 5:30-47
Sometimes, I wonder if Jesus said the words John said he did. I am not questioning what he said so much as how he said it. John's Jesus has a unique way of talking.
It is repetitious and somewhat confusing. I believe there is a reason for this.
Jesus was a teacher. He encouraged discussion among his followers. He would state a premise, or a parable, and the students would have to struggle with it until the meaning became clear. How do you write that so others get it?
John gives us three or more ways that Jesus could have said the same thing so we can understand the meaning.
This paragraph is all about testimony to the truth.
It boils down to what do you believe? What you see and hear or what you were told?
If you can believe that Jesus is who he says he is, and you look at what he did, you can come to your own conclusion about who he is.
But if you want to reject him at the start, because he doesn't fit the image you had of a Messiah, you can find nothing in his actions or words to support who he says he is.
In other words, you have to be on Team Jesus to see Jesus for who he is.
More to come...