Jesus’ Self-Witness (John 8:12–30) — A Sermon by R.C. Sproul

SPROUL: Our Scripture this morning again is from  the gospel according to St. John. We’re in the   eighth chapter, and today I’ll be reading verses  thirteen through twenty-nine. Hear, then the   Word of God. “The Pharisees therefore said to Him,  ‘You bear witness of yourself. Your witness is not   true.’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Even if  I bear witness of myself, my witness is true for   I know where I came from and where I am going. But  you do not know where I come from and where I am   going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge  no one, and yet if I do judge, my judgment is   true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father  who sent me. And it is also written in your law   that the testimony of two men is true. I am one  who bears witness of myself, and the Father who   sent me bears witness of me.’ And then they said  to Him, ‘Where is your Father?’ Jesus answered,  

‘You know neither me nor my Father. If you had  known me, you would have known my Father also.’   These words spoke Jesus in the  treasury as He taught in the Temple,   and no one laid hands on Him,  for His hour had not yet come. “And then Jesus said to them, ‘Again, I am going  away, and you will seek me, and you will die in   your sin. And where I go you cannot come.’ And the  Jews said, ‘Will He kill Himself because He says,   “Where I go you cannot come?”’ Then He  said to them, ‘You are from beneath;   I am from above. You are of this world; I am  not of this world. Therefore I said to you   that you will die in your sins. For if you do not  believe that I am He you will die in your sins.’   Then they said to Him, ‘Who are you?’ And Jesus  said to them, ‘Just what I’ve been saying to you   from the beginning. I’ve many things to say to  judge concerning you. He who sent me is true,   and I speak to the world those things that I have  heard from Him.’ But they did not understand that  

He spoke to them of the Father. And then Jesus  said to them, ‘When you life up the Son of Man,   then you will know that I am He, that I do  nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me,   I speak these things. And He who sent me is  with me. The Father has not left me alone,   for I always do those things that please Him.’ And  as He spoke these words, many believed in Him.” He who has ears to hear the Word of God, let  them hear. You may be seated. Let us pray. Again,   our Father, we ask that you would give  us ears to hear what the Savior has said,   that we may not judge Him according  to the flesh but that by Thy Spirit we   might know Him according to truth.  For we ask it in His name, amen.

Last Sunday we looked at the beginning of chapter  eight. We end at verse twelve where Jesus made   one of His famous “I AM” statements – “I am the  light of the world, and he who follows me shall   not walk in darkness but have the light of life.”  And we read that the response of the Pharisees   to the response of our Lord was this: “You bear  witness of yourself. Your witness is not true.” Now there are a couple of things we need to  note in this response of the Jewish leaders to   Jesus’ proclamation. The first thing they said was  obvious – that He was claiming to be something on   the basis of His own testimony. He had just said,  “I am the light of the world.” This was not John   the Baptist declaring that Jesus was the light.  This was Jesus Himself making this affirmation,   and under Jewish law, when testimony was given  in the law court, for someone to be convicted,   they had to be convicted on the basis of  two witnesses, and the two witnesses had   to agree in what was testified. And so here’s  Jesus declaring on His own, using those words  

ego eimi, which called back to the title of  God in the Old Testament, a title of deity,   and He said, “I am the light of the world,”  and they say, “You’re saying that by yourself!   Your witness is not true.” Now you see  the inference that the leaders made at   this point was that unless two testimonies  were given that corroborated one another,   then the testimony had to be false and that  the witness of Christ was a false witness. I’ve said to you on many occasions how I react  to that bumper sticker “God said it; I believe;   that settles it.” I don’t like that sticker. It  should simply say, “God said it; that settles it,”   whether I believe in it or don’t believe in  it, if the Lord God Almighty opens His sacred   mouth and makes a declaration He doesn’t need  other witnesses to corroborate His testimony.   What He says is true. And here is the one who is  the very incarnation of truth speaking to these   leaders in Jerusalem, and they now forget  about subtleties. They’re in Jesus’ face,   and they said, “Your testimony is not true.  They accused Christ of being a false witness.

Now there’s irony here because in the Greek text  the Greek word for witness is the word marturia,   from which we get the English word “martyr”;  and because there’s such a close relationship   historically between the martyrs of the early  church and their witness to the truth claims   of Jesus – in other words they bore witness  to Christ by giving their lives – and because   their testimony and their witness was so  emphatic because it involved their own blood,   the word “martyr” has now come down in our  language from the Greek word that means “to   bear witness.” The irony is this: the first martyr  of the Christian church was Christ Himself, and   in His martyrdom He bore supreme witness to the  truth of the things that He is speaking even here.

And so it terrifies me to think of  anybody standing before Christ and saying,   “Your testimony is false.” If somebody says to  me that my testimony is false, that’s one thing;   but to hear it from Jesus Himself and to declare  that His testimony is false is quite another. And   yet, beloved, that’s what every believer in  this world says to Jesus – every unbeliever   in this world says to Jesus, because  the Spirit of unbelief accuses Christ   of false witness. And if there are any such  people here in the congregation this morning,   I plead with them to be very, very careful  before you call Christ a false witness. And so Jesus responds to this charge and says  to them, “Even if I bear witness of myself,   my witness is true. Why? Because I know who I am.  I know where I came from and where I am going.   But you don’t know where I come from and where  I am going. You judge according to the flesh.   I judge no one” – now this phrase is elliptical,  and so what is understood here when Jesus says,   “You judge according to the flesh; I judge  no one,” He is saying, “I don’t judge anybody  

that way. You judge everybody by the flesh; I  don’t ever judge by the flesh. I judge from the   perspective of where I came from.” And of course  what He’s saying is, “My origin is heaven. I   will ascend into heaven because I first descended  from heaven. I know where I come from, and where   I came from was eternity.” But of course He’s  speaking in a cryptic way to them at this point. “I know where I came from; I know where I’m  going. But you don’t know where I come from;   you don’t know where I’m going. You judge  according to the flesh. But if I judge,   my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am  with the Father who sent me. As it is written in   your law that the testimony of two men is true, I  am one who bears witness of myself, and the Father   who sent me bears witness of me.” Now again,  when we hear this, when we read this, we know,   obviously, in light of the rest of Scripture, that  when Jesus refers to His Father who sent Him, He’s   obviously referring to God, who is His heavenly  Father. But if you can put yourself in the shoes  

of these people who first heard Jesus make this  affirmation, they’re scratching their heads when   He says, you know, “My father sent me here, and  my father backs up my witness. My father agrees   with the testimony that I give, and he testifies  to me.” “What are you talking about? Joseph?   Who’s he to back up your testimony?” When we were kids, I had a friend who lived up  the street. He got in more fights than anybody   in the community, and he got beat up every time;  and every time he got beat up, he would go away   crying, and he would say, “I’m going to get my  cousin, and my cousin will come and beat you up.”   Now is there any boy who hasn’t done that or said  that – “I’m going to get my brother” – I wouldn’t   say that because I didn’t have a brother. I’d say,  “My sister’s going to come and get you, because   she could take care of most of these guys.” But we  had Eric who was always talking about his cousin,   and wouldn’t you know, a few years ago  at one of the PCA ministry conventions,   I met a fellow who had the same last name, and  I said, “You’re not related to Eric, are you?”  

“That’s my cousin.” I was afraid he was going to  say, “I’ve been looking for you for twenty years.” But there’s always this idea: I’m going to get my  dad; my dad’s bigger than your dad. And so they’re   looking around to see who this Father is to whom  Jesus is appealing, who has so much authority that   He sent Jesus to say what He’s saying, and He’s  going to back up that testimony. They have no   idea that He’s speaking of His heavenly Father,  and so Jesus said, “It’s not my self testimony.”   And as this interrogation continues, throughout  the gospel of John, we see Jesus appealing to the   writings of the sacred Scriptures of the Old  Testament that were the word of God that the   Father had given to the Jewish people that  bore witness to His Son, who was to come.   These people obviously weren’t present when the  heavens opened and God declared with a voice that   was audible, at the time of Jesus’ baptism, “This  is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Nicodemus got it. We remember when Nicodemus  came to Jesus at night, and He said, “Teacher,   we know that you are sent by God or you  would not be able to do the things that  

you are doing.” Nicodemus understood  the function of miracles. I hear people   say that the miracles of the New Testament  prove the existence of God. No they don’t.   God demonstrates His existence long before  a single miracle is ever performed by   anybody. The function of the miracle  is not to prove the existence of God,   but it is to demonstrate and authenticate  a messenger of God. That’s why Jesus said,   “If you don’t believe me for what I  say, believe me for my works that I   do. Don’t they manifest that God  is with me, that God has sent me?” But here He doesn’t talk about  God. He talks about the Father,   and He says a string of contrasts here. Notice  this: He said, “I know where I came from,   and I know where I’m going. You don’t  know where I come from, and you don’t know   where I’m going. You judge according to the  flesh; I don’t judge according to the flesh,   and yet if I do judge, my judgment is true.  I am one who bears witness of myself,” and   so on. And they said, “Where is your Father?”  And here’s a verse that we need to pay close   attention to. Jesus said, “You don’t know  me or my Father because if you had known me,  

you would have known my Father also. I came to  you. You don’t know where I came from, and you   don’t know who I am; and the reason you don’t know  who I am is because you don’t know my Father.” Now later on He’ll turn this around when they  appeal to be children of God, and He will say   to them, “You don’t know the Father because if  you knew the Father you would know the Son.”   There are millions, if not billions of people  out there in this world who claim to know God,   who claim to know God as their Father, yet  they reject the Son. You cannot know God the   Father and repudiate the Son, and you cannot  know the Son and repudiate the Father because   their testimony is one. The Father bears witness  to the Son; the Son bears witness to the Father.

“These words Jesus spoke in the treasury as  He taught in the Temple,” and the treasury   there was a portion of the Temple. They had  thirteen receptacles that were shaped in the   form of the shofar, the ram’s horn, and each  one had inscribed upon it a different need or   concern where the alms would be used to alleviate  suffering in the community. And in the midst of   this place where the donations were given, the  greatest gift that God has given us is attacked. “But no one laid hands on Him,  for His hour had not yet come.”   How many times do we get that strange, foreboding  comment throughout the gospel of John, where Jesus   speaks it, or John speaks with respect to  Jesus’ hour? “My hour has not yet come.” Oscar Cullman, the Swiss New Testament scholar  wrote a trilogy of books that were very important   in the twentieth century, one of which was called  simply, Christ and Time, where Cullman analyzed in   great detail and in great depth the “time” words  that we find in sacred Scripture. He noted, for  

example, that in our language we have two words  for time from the two different words of – we have   one word, “time,” two words in the Greek. There’s  the word “chronos.” This is called a wristwatch;   more technically it’s called a chronometer –  something that measures chronos. It measures   the moment-by-moment passage of time. And  that’s one way in which the Bible speaks   of the word “time,” in terms of chronological  sequence. But there’s another word for time in   the Greek that is pregnant with meaning,  and it is the word kairos, and the word   kairos refers to a specific moment in time. We  have something close to it, but not exactly. In our language we distinguish between the  word historical and historic. Somebody just   said to me the other day, “Such-and-such was a  historical moment,” and I smiled, and I said,   “Every moment is a historical moment.”  What he meant was it was a historic moment,   a moment that was of great significance,  a moment that would define the future,   a moment in which the movement of  the past had reached its climax.

And throughout Scripture we have many such  moments, kairotic moments. The Exodus is a   kairotic moment. The birth of Christ is a kairotic  moment. The cross is a kairotic moment. It’s a   moment in time that is so pregnant that it defines  all of time, and that time Jesus keeps referring   to as “His hour.” But there’s also a little  vacillation in the use of this term “hour” in   the Bible. Sometimes it is filled with the idea  of the hour of glory, the hour of exultation,   His finest hour. But other times it refers to  the darkest moment of Christ’s life, the hour   of His agony, the hour of His grand passion,  the hour of His suffering, and of His death.

But again, there is irony in this very text  here. Let me just drop down here for a second.   Jesus says in verse twenty-eight, “When you lift  up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am   He and that I do nothing of myself; but as  my Father taught me, I speak these things.”   What does Jesus mean when He says, “When I am  lifted up”? It’s clear that there’s a double   significance to this because His hour comes when  He is lifted up on the cross to be crucified,   and that’s what He’s talking about when He said,  “I’m going away, and where I’m going you can’t   come.” And the initial movement there is not about  His ascension into heaven, but He’s talking now   about leaving them, and they are confused about  this. They said, “Is He going to kill Himself?”   He could have answered, “No, you’re going to do  it for me, but when I am lifted up on the cross,   that being lifted up as a public spectacle  of scorn and hatred and animosity is also   the time of His exultation as the redeemer of  His people. It is at once His darkest hour and  

at the same time His greatest hour, as it is  in that hour that He brings us our redemption. The contrast continues in verse twenty-three.  “You’re from beneath; I’m from above. You’re   from this world; therefore I am not of this  world. Therefore I said to you that you will   die in your sins, for you do not believe that  I am He, ego eimi. You will die in your sins.” Let me just conclude this with this careful  warning. In the Bible, when the Bible speaks   of death, friends, it speaks of dying in one of  two ways. For the people of God, for the saints   of the Old Testament and of the New Testament,  their death is precious in the sight of God;   and it is said of them when they pass that they  die in faith. And all of those who die in faith   enter into that place that God has prepared for  His people from the foundation of the world.   The only other way you can die is to die in  your sins. Now the Bible makes it clear that  

we’re all sinners, but when the Bible  speaks of being in sin or in faith,   it talks about the state of our souls before God.   A person who has no faith, the unconverted person,  remains in their sin; and the worst calamity that   could ever befall a human being is to die in that  state. There are people in this room this morning   who are still in their sins, and who, if they  do not come to Christ, will die in their sins.