You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
John 5:33
Anyone can say anything about themselves. Many people throughout history have claimed to be God or the Messiah or some great deliverer or prophet. Jesus' claims have to be examined. As we shared yesterday from C.S Lewis' Mere Christianity, either Jesus is a liar, a lunatic, or He is Lord.
The religious leaders were not happy with Jesus because He wasn't fitting into their established religious patterns. They openly tried to say that He was doing things wrong. He never did. He always did what was right. Jesus never lost an argument. We can look at His example to understand how to better defend the gospel.
This chapter of John is one of the greatest Christological (the study of Christ) chapters in the Bible. In John chapter 5 Jesus gives His own defense of Who He is. As we studied yesterday, Jesus claimed to be equal to God in nature, in power, and in authority (vv. 17-30). Today we are dealing with Jesus' defense of those claims by the testimony of others. Interestingly enough, the Bible tells us that "by the testimony of two or three witnesses every word shall be established." (2 Corinthians 13:1 Deuteronomy 19:15) Jesus goes above and beyond the law. There are four witnesses that Jesus calls upon to substantiate His claims:
Jesus calls upon the witness of John the Baptist
Jesus calls upon the witness of His miracles
Jesus calls upon the witness of God the Father
Jesus calls upon the witness of the Old Testament
No one else in History has the testimonies to back up their claims like Jesus did. These testimonies, which we will take a look at in the next couple days, are solid and powerful witnesses which will help us to be both to be confident in Who Jesus said He was and give us an understanding of how to better defend the claims of Christ.
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