--John 5:33-34
If there was ever someone who shouldn't have needed anybody to stick up for Him, it was Jesus. He shouldn't have needed anyone to testify, “Yeah, He's God”--because He was God. The words of some man couldn't make His claims any more or less true, because He only told the truth.
If I was claiming to be Taylor Swift, I would need a lot of backup. For one thing, I don't look like her. For another, I don't sound anything like her. No one would believe my claims, because I'm not her.
But for Jesus to say He was God was for Him to declare the truth. And it was a truth that should have been obvious. He fulfilled every single Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, yet the Old Testament scholars were the ones that hated Him most (John 5:45-46). He healed the sick, proving He had both the compassion and the power of God His Father, yet even the ones He healed betrayed Him (John 5:15-16). He offered the bread of life to people enslaved to insatiable desires, yet they forsook the gift of God for earthly food (John 6:26-27). It should have been obvious to everyone that Jesus was exactly who He said He was, yet people refused to believe (just as they do now) that this Man was the Son of God.
So Jesus did something He should never have needed to do. The perfect Man referred the Pharisees to the testimony of a sinful, finite man. He showed that He understood their small-mindedness when He said, “If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not deemed true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that He bears about me is true (John 5:31-32).”
Sinful people, deserving of Hell, had raised a finger and said to the One who could save them: “We don't think you are who you say you are.” Jesus didn't ignore their vain, useless arguments. He didn't leave them in their self-deception without a word of how they could escape. He took the argument down to their petty level. “Alright, so you aren't willing to believe the Bible. You aren't willing to believe the words of the very God you claim to serve. You'd rather believe the unwarranted claims of imperfect human beings than the indisputable truth of the Most High God. I get that. So go ahead and listen to John. He's a man like you, so listen to what He says about Me.”
This is the humility of Jesus Christ. He did what He never needed to do, in order that sinners might believe what they needed to believe. “I do not receive glory from people,” He said. “But I know that you do not have the love of God within you....How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God (John 5:41, 42, 44)?”
How could they believe, indeed? They had made a narrow door to their hearts. They ostensibly wanted to hear God's truth, just not from His Son.
And today it happens in much the same way. People have all the evidence they need readily available in the Bible, yet they don't believe. So Jesus uses another means to get His gospel to people--us! Just as Jesus didn't need John, He doesn't need you and me to be the ones telling a disbelieving world that He is the Christ, the Son of God. The God-breathed scriptures bear more than enough testimony to this truth. But still, God has chosen to use people like us to be messengers to the hard-hearted. He lets pitiful, failing sinners like you and me be the ones who get to tell a dead girl about Life for the first time. He lets earthly, tainted eyes like ours be the first to see a lost person's face light up at the realization he can be found. He gives dishonest, untrustworthy people the unspeakable privilege of bearing witness to the Savior of the world—though we wouldn't even believe our own words unless He had quickened our hearts.
Jesus doesn't need glory from us. But he wants it! Just as He used John the baptist, He is pleased to use us as testimonies to His great salvation. What an honor.
Great connection between John as a human witness and us.
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