The Father himself . . . hath borne witness

The Lord Jesus here made the most astonishing claims. Prefacing His words with a solemn, ‘Verily, verily’, v. 19, He asserted first of all that unity of action characterized Father and Son. That is to say, everything the Father does the Son does. ‘Though Man, He was so wholly and perfectly and altogether in the unity of the Godhead that it was impossible for Him to act apart from the Father’, F. B. HOLE. But He went further, insisting upon an unchangeable unity of affection, v. 20. Seven times in John we read of the Father’s love for the Son, 3. 35; 5. 20; 10. 17; 15. 9; 17. 23, 24, 26, and each time the word is agapao - except here, where it is phileo, ‘to love fondly and affectionately’. No one loves the Son like the Father.

These claims find specific expression in the Saviour’s unique ability to perform divine actions - He has the right to raise and quicken the dead, 5. 21, and to judge all mankind, v. 22. All this gives the Lord Jesus equality of honour with the Father, v. 23. But words alone can be cheap. What evidences did He have for such startling claims? The Old Testament demanded a plurality of testimony for judicial certainty: ‘at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be stablished’, Deut. 19. 15, and the Lord graciously submitted to His own law. His first witness was John the Baptist, John 5. 33-35, that brightly shining lamp whose purpose was to draw attention to Christ. Second, there were His miraculous works, v. 36. Peter’s argument at Pentecost was that the Lord Jesus was ‘a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you’, Acts 2. 22. The signs were His messianic and divine credentials. Finally and conclusively, the Father testified through the scriptures, John 5. 37-47, for the written word points insistently to the Living Word.

But the Lord Himself simultaneously bore testimony to the Pentateuch, validating its authorship (‘Moses’), authority (‘his writings . . . my words’) and theme (‘me’), vv. 46, 47. Let us make sure that, unlike the Jews, we do not search the scriptures and yet fail to see in them the Saviour.