John 5:31-33 - Testimony

5:31,32

Under Jewish law two witnesses were required to validate something. Interestingly enough under Scots Law corroborating evidence is required in order to convict someone. There are moves to remove this requirement, but this would be a grave mistake.

However, a person’s testimony about himself on its own is not valid. People can, and do, say many things about themselves, this does not make them true. Sometimes people are deliberately seeking to deceive others, at other times the person is genuinely deluded about themselves, having a false perception of who or what they are.

So Jesus was about to produce several witnesses that testify that what He was saying was true. A common accusation of sceptics and atheists is that faith is believing something despite the evidence, or without evidence, this is simply not true. The Bible is forever presenting evidence for what it says.

5:33

The first witness was John the Baptist. The previous verse ended with “I know that his testimony about me is true”. This is often taken as referring to the Father. Now of course the Father is a witness, and is obviously the most important and reliable witness anyone could have, but since Jesus then immediately talks about John the Baptist it could be John He is referring to. He will then refer to the Father, but is building up the case gradually, starting with things that they could more easily accept.

The Jewish leaders knew all about John the Baptist and they knew what he had been saying. John had quite clearly said that one greater than he would come, and he had quite clearly identified Jesus as that one. So if they rejected Jesus then they had to reject John’s testimony.