John 5. For He who spoke was divine. Thus we feed on Him and drink into Him, as man, unto life everlasting life in Him. (VerseJohn 4:1; John 4:1) It was strange to her that a Jew should thus humble himself: what would it have been, had she seen in Him Jesus the Son of God? Verse 39. No doubt there are intervening applications; but such is the ultimate result of His work as the Lamb of God. Verses 39 and 40 summarize a crucial point about the difference between faith and belief. His exaltation there is not without notice in the gospel, but exceptionally. His aspect as thus tabernacling among the disciples was "full of grace and truth." (ver. It is our evangelist's way of indicating His Galilean sojourn; and this miracle is the particular subject that John was led by the Holy Ghost to take up. No mere man, nor angel, not the highest, the archangel, but the Son. Governmental healing even from Him might only end in "some worse thing" coming. The close of the chapter shows us the Lord in Galilee. b. (Verses John 7:16-18) , The Jews kept not the law) and wished to kill Him who healed man in divine love. WITNESS. Knowing the scriptures does not save you. No man hath seen God at any time. It is this which our Lord so emphatically marks in the case of the Jews. Accordingly, we have in this chapter a miracle and a sermon. Be they who they may now, as many as receive Him become children of God. Karoline Lewis, Joy J. Moore, and Matt Skinner for a conversation on the Revised Common Lectionary texts for Second Sunday in Lent (Year A), March 5, 2023. I. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." Was this false and blasphemous in their eyes? In the Word was life, and the life was the light of men. Observe, it is not (as is often very erroneously said or sung) a question of sins, but of the "sin" of the world. 29) on which, as it were, Jesus speaks and acts in His grace as here shown on the earth. Let them learn, then, that as Son of man (for which nature they despised Him, and denied His essential personal glory) He will judge; and this judgment will be no passing visitation, such as God has accomplished by angels or men in times past. John 5:39-40: "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.". John 8:31-James : . He was God. Search the Scriptures The writings of Moses, and the prophets, which were of divine inspiration and authority, and are often appealed unto by Christ, and his apostles, for the truth of what they delivered; and were the standard of faith, and the test of doctrines; and therefore to be searched diligently into, for finding divine knowledge and improvement in it, and for the trial of . None but a divine being could thus deal with the world. Verse 39. (See Hebrews 12:2, Hebrews 13:11-13) Again, let me just remark in passing, that although, no doubt, we may in a general way speak of those who partake of the new nature as having that life, yet the Holy Ghost refrains from predicating of any saints the full character of eternal life as a present thing until we have the cross of Christ laid (at least doctrinally) as the ground of it. "They search the Scriptures, but they will not come to Jesus. For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Just as distinct and beyond comparison is His testimony who, coming from heaven and above all, testifies what He saw and heard, however it might be rejected. Following on from yesterday's share here is the wastewater treatment explanation, nice and simple as before. But the Scriptures point to me! It is the wider, universal glory of the Son of man (according toPsalms 8:1-9; Psalms 8:1-9); but the most striking part of it verified from that actual moment because of the glory of His person, which needed not the day of glory to command the attendance of the angels of God this mark, as Son of man. 41 "I do not accept glory from human beings, 42 but I know you. Hence, then, we have the Lord Jesus alluding to this fresh necessity, if man was to be blessed according to God. (Ver. You may be familiar with the story: "The Princess and the Pea". He could have healed the man without the smallest outward act to shock their zeal for the law. Jesus, therefore, answered, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. He tells Philip to follow Him. Exegetical Commentary on John 5. (VersesJohn 5:8-12; John 5:8-12), But were the Jews mistaken after all in thinking that the seal of the first covenant was virtually broken in that deliberate word and warranty of Jesus? They are rejecting Jesus and His message (John 5: . Isaiah 44:3; Isaiah 44:3, Isaiah 59:21, Ezekiel 36:25-27 ought to have made the Lord's meaning plain to an intelligent Jew. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." If His time was not yet come, their time was always ready. Besides this, goodness overflows, in that the Father is gathering children, and making worshippers. How withering the words! God orders matters so that a favoured teacher of men, favoured as none others were in Israel, should come to Jesus by night. The results for the believer or unbeliever are eternal in good or in evil. (VersesJohn 3:20-21; John 3:20-21). Flesh and world are judged morally. Now, it is the Holy Ghost in the power that gives rivers of living water flowing out, and this bound up with, and consequent on, His being man in glory. For them, Israel, or the world, all is over. Hence, after having first unmistakably laid down the necessity of the cross, He next shows the grace that was manifested in the gift of Jesus. (SeePsalms 2:1-12; Psalms 2:1-12) But the Lord tells him of greater things he, should see, and says to him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, henceforth (not "hereafter," but henceforth) ye shall see the heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of man. It is His person as incarnate first, then in redemption giving His flesh to be eaten and His blood to be drank. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. Pharisaic jealousy had wrought; and Jesus, wearied, sat thus at the fountain of Jacob's well in Sychar. "Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?" When Jesus said, "You search the Scriptures" (John 5:39), the New Testament had not yet been written; the "Scriptures," which in the original language is (graphas) and literally means "writings," Jesus is referring to is just the Old Testament. The Lord, it is true, could and did go farther than the prophets: even if He taught on the same theme, He could speak with conscious divine dignity and knowledge (not merely what was assigned to an instrument or messenger). (39) You study the Scriptures diligently, because you think that eternal life is found in them. He acts as such. Nor was it from any indistinctness in the record, or in him who gave it. But the Scriptures point to me! Further, it is connected intimately with the evidence of man's ruin by sin. Thus the Holy Ghost, given by the Son in humiliation (according to God, not acting on law, but according to the gift of grace in the gospel), was fully set forth; but the woman, though interested, and asking, only apprehended a boon for this life to save herself trouble here below. Jesus not only could go up, as He did later, but He had come down thence, and, even though man, He was the Son of man that is in heaven. Lastly, closing this part, we have another most remarkable contrast. He will have all honour the Son, even as Himself. The Lord Jesus presents Himself as putting an end to all this now for the Christian, though, of course, every word God has promised, as well as threatened, remains to be accomplished in Israel by-and-by; for Scripture cannot be broken; and what the mouth of the Lord has said awaits its fulfilment in its due sphere and season. After these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Was my salvation real in the first place? John 7:25-31) He is going where they cannot come, and never guessed (for unbelief thinks of the dispersed among the Greeks of anything rather than of God). If, on the contrary, a soul has been taught of God the glory of the person of Him who was made flesh, he receives in all simplicity, and rejoices in, the glorious truth, that He who was made flesh was not made flesh only to this end, but rather as a step toward another and deeper work the glorifying God, and becoming our food, in death. website along with the . The first four chapters of John precede in point of time the notices of His ministry in the other gospels. Thus, in fact, we have the Lord setting aside what was merely Messianic by the grand truths of the incarnation, and, above all, of the atonement, with which man must have vital association: he must eat yea, eat and drink. As this chapter sets forth the Lord Jesus with singular fulness of glory, on the side both of His Godhead and of His manhood, so it closes with the most varied and remarkable testimonies God has given to us, that there may be no excuse. Rest is not the question now at all; but the flow of the Spirit's power while Jesus is on high. Nor will the full force of this expression be witnessed till the glorious result of His blood shedding sweep away the last trace of sin in the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Of this we learn nothing, here. There was purpose in it. It is here we learn in what condition of His person God was to be revealed and the work done; not what He was in nature, but what He became. (Ed. (John 5:39) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have (Ver. the 'bad people' and Alas! The person of the Son was there the object of divine and overflowing joy even then, although, of course, in the full sense of the word, the Holy Ghost might not be given to be the power of it for some time later; but still the object of worship was there revealing the Father; butJohn 7:1-53; John 7:1-53 supposes Him to be gone up to heaven, before He from heaven communicates the Holy Ghost, who should be (not here, as Israel had a rock with water to drink of in the wilderness outside themselves, nor even as a fountain springing up within the believer, but) as rivers flowing out. John chapter 5. and they are they which testify of me; as they do of his proper deity and divine sonship, calling him Jehovah, God, the mighty God, and the Son of God; and of his offices as prophet, priest, and King; and of his incarnation of a virgin; and of the tribe, family, and place of his birth; of the miracles which he should work; of the treatment he should meet with from men; of his sufferings and death; of the circumstances leading on to them, and attending them; as his riding on an ass into Jerusalem, the betraying him by one of his familiar acquaintance, the selling him for thirty pieces of silver, the spitting upon, and scourging him, giving him gall for his meat, and vinegar for his drink, and parting his garments, and casting lots for his vesture, and the crucifixion of him, and that between two thieves; and of his burial, resurrection from the dead, ascension to heaven, and session at the right hand of God, and of his future coming to judgment. Verse 1. Alas! So in the baptism with the Holy Ghost, who would pretend to such a power? He who owns the reality of Christ's incarnation, receives most thankfully and adoringly from God the truth of redemption; he, on the contrary, who stumbles at redemption, has not really taken in the incarnation according to God's mind. 5:39-44 The Jews considered that eternal life was revealed to them in their Scriptures, and that they had it, because they had the word of God in their hands. It is not a question of the law, but of hearing Christ's word, and believing Him who sent Christ: he that does so has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment; but is passed from death unto life. He is a divine person; His manhood brought no attainder to His rights as God. And Jesus answers, "I that speak unto thee am he." Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life." John 5:39-40 NLT. As there is an absolute necessity on God's part that man should be thus born anew, so He lets him know there is an active grace of the Spirit, as the wind blows where it will, unknown and uncontrolled by man, for every one that is born of the Spirit, who is sovereign in operation. 5:39 The indicative of eJrauna'te fits the context better (indicative and imperative forms are the same here). A second and wholly new man appears the bread of God, not of man, but for men. David Allan Coe (born September 6, 1939) is an American singer and songwriter. Here, then, we have a remarkable display of that which preceded His Galilean ministry, or public manifestation. It was much, yet was it little of the glory that was His; but at least it was real; and to the one that has shall be given. Accordingly, if the law raised the question of righteousness in man, the cross of the Lord Jesus, typifying Him made sin, is the answer; and there has all been settled to the glory of God, the Lord Jesus having suffered all the inevitable consequences. Their refusal to come to Jesus was despite their searching of the Scriptures ( John 5:39 ). "He came unto his own [things], and his own [people] received him not. Man might pull Him down destroy Him, as far as man could, and surely to be the basis in God's hand of better blessing; but He was God, and in three days He would raise up this temple. Truth and grace were not sought nor found in man, but began to subsist here below by Jesus Christ. One needs no more than to read, as believers, these wonderful expressions of the Holy Ghost, where we cannot but feel that we are on ground wholly different from that of the other gospels. Her testimony bore the impress of what had penetrated her soul, and would make way for all the rest in due time.