As many of you know, the Lord has led me to put to memory “The Gospel According to John”. This past week by the will of God I have now memorized the first 5 chapters. As I have gone through this journey in scripture I have endeavored to write about my Lord, through “The Gospel According to John”. It has been some time now since I have written about my Lord through “The Gospel According to John”, so I would like to get back to that today.
John chapter 5 is an amazing work; the story begins in Jerusalem at a pool called Bethesda, where the sick hung about hoping to be healed. Jesus heals a man who had been sick for 38 years, He tells him to take up his mat and walk; and he did so walking right into some Jews who got on to him for carrying his mat on the Sabbath. This leads to a confrontation between Jesus and these Jews on His authority, and the heart of unbelief.
These unbelieving Jews first sought to kill Jesus because He healed a man on the Sabbath, then when Jesus said to them; “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working” (John 5:17). “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (John 5:18); a truth that Christ never denied. In fact He takes that accusation by these Jews and adds to it, leaving no doubt who He claimed to be. The acropolis of the text is in John 5:21-23, where Jesus said three things that are His, that inherently belong to God and no one else.
1. He says that He is the one who gives eternal life, the life giver: “For Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes” (John 5:21). We are all created beings; dirt, we are just dirt and water; we do not have life in ourselves, life comes from the one and only God, the giver of life, yet Christ says He gives life to whom He wishes.
2. He said that He is the judge: “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). Judgment of the good and the evil are God’s alone, He does not share that with any created being, yet Jesus says that Judgment belongs to Him.
3. He expects to be afforded the same honor as God the Father: “so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23). God does not share honor and glory with created beings it is His and His alone, yet once again Christ expects to be honored as God.
Then He tells them, “If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true” (John 5:31). He then gives four different types of witnesses that testify of who He is.
1. The first witness is John the Baptist. If you go back to John chapter 1 and 3 you can take a look at what John said about Jesus, but here are a couple of exerts. “Behold , the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God” (John 1:34).
2. The next witness is His works. Just a few examples, for there are many, many. In John 2:1-12 He turned water into wine a miracle of creation. In this chapter John 5:8-9, He had just healed a man who was sick for 38 years and could not walk. The man gets up at the command of Jesus picks up his mat and walks off. The following chapter John 6:1-14 He feeds 5,000 men with five barley loaves and two fish. In John chapter 11 He commands Lazarus who had been dead for four days; “Lazarus, come forth” and he came forth out of the tomb. Last but certainly not least, Jesus Himself rises from the grave defeating death in John 20. That is but a small fraction of the works Christ did.
3. The next witness is the Father. In Luke 9 Peter, James, and John went up on a mountain with Jesus and He was transfigured. Then a cloud overshadowed them. “Then a voice came out of the cloud, saying, ‘This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him” (Luke 9:35).
4. Lastly the witness of the Scriptures. Moses wrote about Him in the law, the psalms spoke of Him, the prophets’ spoke of Him, in fact all of scripture spoke of Him and yet they did not believe. Jesus said this of them, “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words” (John 5:47).
Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the One and only God; He was born of a virgin (The Son of Man), He was conceived of by the Holy Spirit (The Son of God); He is God incarnate (God in human flesh). He is the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Him. “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5).
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Mike Peek a salve of Jesus Christ
