Last week look in detail at five witnesses that Jesus used to prove His authority and power. But men still reject Jesus’ claim to be equal with God. So tonight we are going to study John 5:40-47 and look at six reasons that Jesus gave for man’s rejection of Him.
READ 40-41. Man’s free will is stressed in these verses. When God created us, He didn’t make us love Him. He gave us our own free will to choose to accept or reject Him. Jesus is stressing this free will in that men still refuse to come to Christ. They deliberately reject Him. After all He has proven man still chooses by his own free will to not accept Christ and His authority and power. They refuse to accept the fact that He is God’s Son. In today’s world, who can you think of that still rejects Christ as God’s Son, as the Messiah?(Jews, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses)
So these actually exercise the will not to come to Christ for salvation. This is nothing more than obstinacy and a hardness within man, a rebellion against God.
This is nothing new. Have someone read: Acts 7:51; 2 Chron. 24:19; Jer. 32:33; Jer 44:16. So you can see this is nothing new.
Look at the facts:
1. Jesus claimed that life was in Him.
Jn. 1:4 – “In Him was life.”
Jn 10:10 – Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”
Jn. 11:25 – Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life.”
Jn. 14:6 - Jesus said, “I am the life…”
2. Men receive life by coming to Christ. They keep from dying by coming to life.
3. Jesus wasn’t claiming to be the Son of God in order to receive the praise and glory of men. READ v. 41. He was proclaiming the truth because He loved them, and the fact of His deity is the truth. He is of GOD. And a person has to face that truth if they want to be saved. When we reject Christ we cut the heart of Christ, and the hurt shows in the tenderness and the appeal of this verse. You can feel the pleading when Jesus says, “You refuse to come to me to have life.”
READ v. 42. When we get down to the nitty gritty, why does a person reject Christ? Because they don’t love God. The love of God is NOT in their hearts.
Now, the people Jesus was speaking to here professed to love God deeply. They worshipped faithfully, they knew the Scriptures, they were always praying, they were unashamed to talk about Him. Sound like anyone you know?
But even though they did all this, Jesus stated that they didn’t have the love of God in them, not really. It didn’t pour out from their hearts. They didn’t exhibit the type of love that honors and praises God. So what Jesus is saying is that if people really loved God, they would receive Christ. Maybe that’s what I should start saying during the invitation time. “If you haven’t ever accepted Christ and you still refuse to do so, then YOU DON’T LOVE GOD!” Sounds harsh, right? But that is exactly what Jesus is saying here.
The first thing Jesus says in v. 42 is “I know you.” He knows a person’s heart. He knows if a person’s profession is true and genuine or false and counterfeit. I think some of you have had doubts when I presented someone who has come during invitation time and professed that they have accepted Christ. Some have never returned for baptism. Some were baptized and then never showed up again. And I know some of you might be thinking, how can Bro. Jerry present them as saved. It’s not for me to decide. God knows their heart. We accept them on their word, on their profession of faith. If it isn’t genuine, God weeds them out. I don’t have to do a thing. We don’t have to do a thing but allow God to do it. And He will. Jesus sees right through a person’s words and actions, down deep into their heart.
READ v. 43. What is Jesus saying here? People receive false Messiahs. Jesus said, “I have come in my Father’s name.” He came in the authority and truthfulness of God. Then Jesus says, “Someone else comes in his own name.” That’s the false messiah. The false messiahs come in their own authority and word.
Jesus said, “You do not accept me but you will accept him.” Men reject God’s Son, the true Messiah, but they receive the false messiah. Why?
Man wants basically one of two things. They either want to escape the world or to get all they can from the world. Some want to escape the pressure, the tension, the immorality, the selfishness, the hatred, and the injustices of the world. Others want either prosperity, power, or recognition, or they want fame. They want to be in the spotlight.
Jesus, being God’s Son, cannot lie. He has to tell the truth. The way to life is not by escaping the world or by getting plenty of the world. The way to life is to do exactly as Jesus said.
The false messiahs are not truthful. They are in it for themselves. A false messiah is a person with leadership qualities and charisma who has learned to promise what people crave. Jesus says that most men will accept such a false messiah. Keep in mind that Jesus has just given 5 witnesses to His power and authority yet He knows they still won’t accept Him. So He blatantly tells them, “I have proof of all these things, I have witnesses, yet you will still believe in man and not Me.”
READ v. 44. Jesus is talking about those who seek self approval. He’s talking about pride. People seek the approval and honor of mere man. In that they make two gross mistakes.
1. Their approval from other men instead of God becomes the driving force of their lives. And Jesus was right. Still today we have those who seek man’s approval:
• The right position in which to be seen.
• The right place to live and work
• The right car to drive
• The right clothes to wear
• The right looks to attract
• The right gifts to secure honor
• The power and wealth to possess
• The recognition and fame to be known.
They don’t seek the acceptance and approval of the only One who really counts, and that is from God.
2. They measure themselves against other men, instead of against God. Put yourself up beside some other man or woman and chances are you will eventually find someone to whom you feel superior. And when a person is being praised and honored by others, they feel acceptable, complete, fulfilled. And in that they often sense no need for God.
It’s only when people measure themselves against God that they see themselves for what they are: “short of the glory of God.” Only then do they bow in humility and beg forgiveness and cast themselves upon the mercy of God. Jesus asks, “How can you believe?” Gal 6:3 says, “If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
READ v. 45-46. Now here is where Jesus has gone to meddling. He knew that these accusers knew the Pentateuch very well. (The first 5 books of the Bible WAS their Bible. And they knew it very well.) So that is now where Jesus focuses.
Jesus says, “I’m not the one who is your accuser. Moses is the one who will accuse you and he is the one whom you set your hopes on.” Again Jesus is telling them, “All the prophecies in Genesis through Deuteronomy are the prophecies that Moses wrote about Me.” He said, “Moses is the one who condemned man’s unbelief, not Me.”
You see, the men standing before Jesus professed to believe Moses, but they didn’t—not really. Because Moses talked about the promised Messiah. They didn’t believe it. Moses told them how to live. They weren’t doing it. Their profession would be condemned by the very one whom they said they trusted, by Moses himself.
Jesus is recorded as saying in Luke 24:25, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!”
All of this was prophesied in the OT. To show you once again how the OT points to Jesus Christ, listen to these verses.
Isa 5:24 – “…they have rejected the law of the LORD Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel.” That’s what Jesus has just said in our passage.
Isa 30:9 – “These are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction.” That’s what Jesus has just said in our passage.
Isa 30:12-13 – “Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit, this sin will become for you like the high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.”
Jer. 6:10 – “TO whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear, The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it.” That’s what Jesus is saying in our passage tonight.
Jer 6:19 – “…they have not listened to my words and have rejected my law.”
Zec. 7:12 – “They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.”
READ v. 47. These OT prophecies were known by these religionists. And Jesus knew how well they knew them. So He concludes by saying, “Since you don’t believe what has been written, how are you going to believe what I say?”
I said earlier that when a person rejects Christ, it shows that they don’t love God. Why can’t people believe the words of the true Messiah? Jesus gave two reason why men don’t believe Him. And I will close this passage with these 2 reasons.
1. They didn’t believe Moses. So if they didn’t believe someone who was an honorable patriarch, why should they believe the promises of the Messiah?
2. They honored Moses, calling him great and yet they treated him as a liar, a man whose testimony was unreliable. So it’s expected that they are not going to believe the words of Christ.
Jesus will later say in John 8:51, “I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
So we see so far that it hasn’t mattered what Jesus had said and done, or what John the Baptist has said, they still refuse to listen and believe. Not much different than today. Preachers stand in pulpits around the world and speak of Christ trying to get people to believe, and yet many still refuse.
