Today’s Scripture:
“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me.” — John 5:39 (ESV)
Reflection
In today’s passage, Jesus tells of his various witnesses. Jesus’s testimony about himself is valid, yet the Jews would not have accepted his own testimony, so Jesus targets parts of the Jewish faith that also bear witness to him being equal with God and having divine authority. The first is John the Baptist: John was widely accepted as a prophet for a time, and he proclaimed the coming of Jesus. Next is Jesus’s actions: the works that Jesus is doing that are aligned with God’s divine will, including all the miracles and stuff, bears witness to Jesus having the authority of God. Third is God the Father: one simple example of this is Jesus’s baptism, where God speaks, saying “this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Fourth is the scriptures themselves, namely the prophecies of the Messiah: all the scriptures point forward to Jesus’s coming, and his authority on earth. Last is Moses, who wrote many of the Old Testament books: the first example I could think of is the passage that we read this morning, which is Genesis 1. We learned that all things were created by God, but Colossians 1:16 also points out that all the creation was made by Jesus, through Jesus, and for Jesus. Jesus shows that the unbelief of the Jews is really due to pride. The Jews seeked the glory of each other, but they failed to humble themselves and seek the glory of God.
Most of the witnesses are pretty self explanatory, so I won’t go over them again, but I would like to add one more witness testimony to this list.
Many people don’t realize it, but another testimony to Jesus himself is how we act as Christians. When we have our lives rooted in Jesus, giving him authority over everything, we are transformed into a new life. Both our actions and our words change, and we are being made more like Jesus every day by sanctification. This bears witness to Jesus because when other non-Christians see the different way that Christians live, they can see Jesus reflected through us. I hope we can all strive to show Jesus to others through the way we live as Christians.