“If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true” (John 5:31).
Jesus made some lofty claims about His identity. We can just picture the skepticism that must have been emanating from the crowd of Pharisees. They must have thought, “Who is He to make such claims, to consider Himself equal with God?”
Jesus responded to their skepticism by saying, “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true.”
What did Jesus mean that His own witness is not true? Some commentators think He referred to Old Testament law, which required more than one witness. The Pharisees would have understood the statement in this context. But Jesus made many claims elsewhere where His own testimony is sufficient (John 8:14).
Hendriksen, therefore, maintains that the solution is found in discerning Jesus’ tone. He was addressing a group of people who obviously didn’t trust Him. So He made the bold statement that if He testified concerning Himself, as He was indeed doing, they would still consider Him a liar by their own estimation. Jesus was sarcastically making the point that no matter what claims He made, His testimony would not be true in the minds of the Pharisees.
He went on to say that, even if the Pharisees didn’t believe His testimony, they could not deny the testimony of “another.” Who is this other witness? Was it John? The Pharisees probably thought that. But Jesus was referring to God the Father. If they were not walling to believe in Jesus’ own testimony, they could not deny the testimony of God. Yet, this is exactly what they would end up doing.
This account shows how men hear what they want to hear, how they believe what they want to believe. If they are hardened against the truth about Christ, they will not believe His Word. Even if He came into their presence in some physical form, they would not believe Him because their minds are depraved and their foolish hearts are hard. Only by the power of the Spirit can such hearts be softened to accept the truth, to believe the testimony of Christ’s Word as it is found in the Scriptures.
Until that happens, we should not be surprised that many will scoff and not believe. They didn’t believe when Jesus stood in their midst, and they do not believe Him today.
A famous atheist once told a theologian that he would believe the claims of Christ if he had some divine proof, if he could see a miracle first-hand. Do you think this devout atheist would really believe simply because he saw a miracle? Did the Pharisees believe on that basis? Why or why do you not believe Christ’s testimony to be true?
