Imagine for a moment that someone came to you claiming to be God and said he was worthy of all the honor God was worthy of. You would likely have a problem with that. If you are reading this and are Muslim, you probably are offended by Jesus’s claim in the gospels we share because you have been taught that Jesus made no such claim. I know I would also be offended. In fact, I have a problem with most people who claim or have claimed to be prophets or gods. In my experience, those types of people are simply looking to advance their own power and enable their own lusts.
Jesus has now claimed to be God. We can’t explain that away when we read the story in context. He has claimed to be worthy of the same praise the Father is worthy of. He was either a lunatic, liar, or truly Lord. Christians and Muslims both must contend with Jesus’s clear claim because the gospels are our shared authoritative Scriptures, as I showed clearly at the beginning of this book. Where other men who claimed to be gods or prophets insisted that people believe them because they received a secret revelation from some god, Jesus did something different. He invited scrutiny. Instead of claiming to have received a secret revelation and demand people believe Him on that basis alone, never questioning Him, Jesus provided proof of His claim.
In court, when you listen to someone’s account but there are no witnesses, it is difficult to believe their testimony. As Jesus responded to His persecutors in this passage, He provided those witnesses. While most so-called prophets throughout history basically said, “Just trust me,” Jesus responded by appealing to what others have seen and heard. Jesus even recognized that if He was only testifying about Himself, His testimony was not true. Biblically, we can discern that if anyone is only testifying about himself, his testimony is not true—it’s not valid (eg. Deuteronomy 19:15).
Right from the start, we have an easy metric to judge whether anyone is a false prophet or god. If there are no other witnesses and he has claimed secret knowledge, his testimony is not valid. Be wary of anyone putting himself in such a high place.
Jesus reminded his persecutors about John the Baptizer’s testimony concerning Him. John the Baptizer even fulfilled Old Testament prophecies that said there would be one to prepare the way when God personally visited His people (Malachi 3:1-5; John 1:6-8). Jesus clarified; He doesn’t need people to testify about Him for Him to be God and worthy of all praise. John the Baptizer testified for the good of people because people need to verify who Jesus is. He doesn’t need us. We need Him.
John the Baptizer was not the only witness. There was a greater testimony. Jesus did great works—a testimony to His divine power. Here, Jesus claimed to be the one doing the works by His own will and power. He didn’t say, “the works the Father has done through me…” he said, “the works I do.” As I recall, the Quran also claimed that Jesus’s works proved who He was. Once again, we find that the Quran affirms Jesus’s claims. So, Muhammad is also a witness to Jesus’s divinity.
The Father also testified about Jesus. No one had heard the Father’s voice or seen His form, but they did have the Scriptures. People needed the Scriptures because they could not hear or see God. Though the Scriptures were written by human hands, they were ultimately the Father’s testimony. When Jesus was referring to the Scriptures, here, He was referring to the Old Testament, the Jewish Tanakh (Law, Prophets, and Writings). This means a couple things about the Old Testament:
- According to Jesus, it was from God.
- It is primarily about Jesus.
People who only view the Torah as Scripture have not believed Jesus’s testimony, that the whole Tanakh is God’s written word. When the Quran affirms the Gospels and all Jesus’s teaching, it also then affirms the entire Old Testament because Jesus affirmed the entire Old Testament. People often see the Old Testament as a rule book designed to make people holy. First of all, the Law (Torah) never claims to make anyone holy or provide anyone eternal life. It is not the type of “Law” that Sharia is for Muslims. There is no such thing as “Christian Religious Law.” The Torah does claim that it was given so Israel would live long and prosper in the land of Canaan. According to Jesus, the whole Old Testament was a testimony from the Father about Him.
“You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me. You are not willing to come to me so that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).
Hear what Jesus was saying to these Jews at the Temple. You think that you can be religious enough to gain eternal life? You can’t. You think that reading and keeping the Scriptures can save you? It can’t. You cannot make yourselves holy by following the rules in any Scripture. Those Scriptures you have given your lives to testify about something greater than the Scriptures—the person of Jesus. Even the Muslim Quran testifies to Jesus and affirms everything Jesus taught. Yet, in the Abrahamic traditions there are many people poring over their Scriptures trying to follow the perceived rules to gain life. Look at what Jesus, your prophet and ours taught: The Scriptures can never provide you life. Only Jesus can. This sentiment extends to the Quran. Neither the Torah nor Sharia can provide the life we so desperately yearn for. You don’t have life because you got lost in your Scriptures and are not willing to come to Jesus—who is God and deserving of all praise like the Father, according to His own words.
If the Father Himself took the time to testify about Jesus throughout the Old Testament for so long before Jesus was born, and the prophecies concerning Jesus were correct, how is our attention on anyone other than Jesus? He gives life, something no human religious practice or knowledge can provide. If our religion stops at any Scripture and our Scriptures fail to lead us to something greater, our religion is empty. We need Jesus personally.
Not only did Jesus not need anyone’s testimony, because He had all divine knowledge, He didn’t need glory from people. This is true of God. If ever we are required to win God glory through any means like Jihad, evangelism, expansion, subjugation, or outreach programs, we know that our religion is false because God, by definition, does not need people to give Him anything. We have failed to recognize that if God is truly in control, He has worked things together the way they are. Bad religions tells us that we need to go out and change things as if God worked together something that does not honor Him. But, this is impossible. That’s why any talk of Jihad, literal or metaphorical, is simply an absurd idea—unless we think God needs us to do anything. If we think God needs anything from us, we have made Him out to be less than sovereign. I would rather believe God is truly sovereign and there are no accidents—nothing that is in any way against His will as if He didn’t have all power.
Jesus was simply speaking what He knew to be true. People were quick to accept leaders who came in their own name proclaiming their own truth. They are quick to follow people seeking to gain glory for themselves. People who seek glory for themselves gain followers by working hard to persuade people to follow them—something Jesus didn’t have to do. With much grace, Jesus told these Jews that He would not accuse them before the Father even though they did not accept Him. Jesus didn’t need them; They needed Jesus. Instead, He would let them be condemned under the very Scriptures they loved and that testified about Him. They loved their Scriptures. They loved their religion. They did not believe what they read about Jesus in their very own Scriptures—a reality all too visible around the world today.
Brothers and sisters, we need more than religion. We need the person of Jesus Christ. He has done what no one else has done in all of history by providing actual evidence about who He claimed to be—God.
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