Truth or Consequences?

These religious leaders thought the act of studying God’s Word would bring them favor with God. They assumed their devotion to the Scriptures would cause God to accept them. But God’s Word isn’t a lucky charm. It’s a sign that points us to Jesus Christ. Martin Luther preached on this passage just a few months before his death:

Here Christ would indicate the principal reason why the Scripture was given by God. Men are to study and search in it and to learn that He, He, Mary’s Son, is the one who is able to give eternal life to all who come to Him and believe on Him. Therefore he who would correctly and profitably read Scripture should see to it that he finds Christ in it; then he finds eternal life without fail. On the other hand, if I do not so study and understand Moses and the prophets as to find that Christ came from Heaven for the sake of my salvation, became man, suffered, died, was buried, rose, and ascended to Heaven so that through Him I enjoy reconciliation with God, forgiveness of all my sins, grace, righteousness, and life eternal, then my reading in Scripture is of no help whatsoever to my salvation. I may, of course, become a learned man by reading and studying Scripture and may preach what I have acquired; yet all this would do me no good whatsoever. For if I do not know and do not find the Christ, neither do I find salvation and life eternal. In fact, I actually find bitter death; for our good God has decreed that no other name is given among men whereby they may be saved except the name of Jesus. (Cited in Boice, John, 2:421–22)

Do you realize it’s possible to focus on the minutiae in the text and miss the larger point? Many people I’ve met argue vehemently over peripheral issues while neglecting foundational ones. They argue about the length of a skirt or the beat in the music while ignoring the centrality of the gospel to our lives as believers. If you’re a Christian and you read the Bible while missing the point, you’re going to struggle with confusion, discouragement, frustration, ineffectiveness, and stagnation:

It’s about Jesus. It’s all about him. We need to guard against being distracted by secondary concerns. A church should be defined by its commitment to Christ, not personal preferences. As Christians, we must be vigilant to help one another keep the main thing the main thing. The main thing is “Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2).

John 5:42-43

If you deny the deity of Jesus Christ, it’s impossible for you to love God. You can write songs to God. You can go on mission trips. You can feed the poor. You can give money to the church. But if you don’t worship Jesus Christ as the true God, you cannot love God. If one of your children was completely rebellious, constantly disobeying your instructions, directly defying everything you said, would you believe her when she said, “I love you”? No. You’d probably say, “You don’t love me. You only love yourself.” Her actions reveal her heart’s condition. Jesus says these men who claim to love God reveal a lack of love by their refusal to believe God. They’re unwilling to accept the one God sent.

Four times in this passage Jesus describes himself as having been sent by God (vv. 30, 36,37,38). Yet he was being rejected by those who claimed to love God. Their declaration of love does not square with their lives. If they loved God, they wouldn’t receive false prophets while rejecting God’s Son. Right after my wife and I got engaged, we spent the summer apart. Because we were apart and busy, with infrequent opportunities to call each other, we wrote letters—a lot of letters. Partway through the summer, I went to visit her at camp. Imagine if I had walked in and seen all of my letters unopened and filling the wastebasket. “What’s going on? I thought you loved me,” I’d say. “Oh, I do,” she’d reply. “Then why haven’t you read any of my letters? If you loved me, you would listen to what I have to say,” I could argue. We can claim to love God, but if we don’t listen to what he says, we don’t love him (cf. 14:23-24).

The reality of our love for God is seen in our submission to Jesus Christ. Love is more than the declaration of our lips. Love is seen in our actions. The proof of love is not what we say but what we do. In high school I took geometry. You generate a hypothesis, and then you prove your hypothesis. You couldn’t just turn in your hypothesis to your teacher. You had to prove why your hypothesis was true through a series of logical steps. You may think you love God, but where is your proof? You need to think about what would prove your love is true. Maybe you look at your works and think, I give money in the offering. I go to church. I pray before meals. I try to do the right things. Therefore, I love God. Didn’t the religious leaders do all of these things and more? Yet Jesus said they didn’t love God. The only proof of your love for God that matters is your submission to Jesus Christ. If you refuse to submit to Jesus as Lord, if you deny his deity, then you can write poems to God and paint murals of Bible scenes on the walls of your house, but it doesn’t matter. You cannot love God if you refuse to submit to Jesus Christ as God.

John 5:44

These men were more concerned about how they would appear to others than they were about the glory of God. They were unwilling to humble themselves, believe on Jesus, and submit to his will. Like them, we care too much about what other people think about us. Why do you choose the clothes you wear? Is it not to craft a certain image? Some people wear a certain kind of thing to church each week for one reason—to impress people. They want people to think they’re spiritual. Often the same motive causes one person to dress fancy and another person to dress immodestly. Both are trying to draw praise. Both are hoping to be noticed. Both are worried about what people might think or say. So the one dresses to catch the eye of the righteous, and the other dresses to catch the eye of the rebellious. Both are still making decisions based on what others might think and say about them. They both want honor from others.

The religious leaders in Jesus’s day could spout great truths about the glory of God. They could wax eloquent about the Shekinah glory and regale you with all the details of God’s glory revealed in Israel’s history. But when it came down to it, they were more concerned about being honored by men than they were about honoring God.

To embrace the deity of Jesus Christ is inherently humbling. If you embrace the gospel message, you’re admitting your life is so messed up that God’s Son had to enter the human race in order to fix you. In order to believe the gospel, you must admit you’re not righteous. You must admit you’re a sinner who desperately needs a Savior. The sad testimony of these men is they liked flattery more than the truth. They swapped God’s salvation for man’s admiration. What a terrible trade! If you were to chart the trajectory of your life on a graph, would it look like you were aiming at man’s applause, man’s acceptance, and man’s appreciation, or God’s approval? The only way to honor God is to humble yourself and admit that he sent his own Son, Jesus, into the world to rescue you. You cannot deny the deity of Jesus and still honor God.

John 5:45-47

Rejecting Jesus Christ is going to bring the religious leaders under God’s judgment. In verse 45 Jesus tells them directly, “You will stand accused before God.” Jesus won’t accuse them though; Moses will. They will make their defense: “We held to the law. We obeyed what Moses wrote.” The divine decree will judge them guilty.

Moses wrote that mankind was sinful and rebellious and needed a Savior. That’s what the Ten Commandments are all about. They show us what it means to obey God, and they also show us that we each fail. No one has worshiped God alone. No one has loved his neighbor like himself. No one but Jesus, that is.

Moses wrote that a promised Deliverer would come. The Son of God would come to redeem his people from their sin. These men who put their hope and confidence in Moses’s writings missed the point of what he wrote. He wrote about Christ. He wrote about the coming of Jesus.

In spite of all their religious training, these men had misplaced their hope. Their hope was in their own righteousness. They were trusting in their commitment to reading and obeying the Scriptures. Hope in anything other than the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross for your sin is a fool’s hope. The sad verdict of their lives is offered by Jesus in verse 40: “You are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.” The only way to have life is to come to Jesus, and the only possibility for the man or woman who rejects Jesus Christ is judgment.

When Bob Barker hosted Truth or Consequences, he ended every show by saying, “Hoping all your consequences are happy ones.” If you deny the truth about Jesus, your consequences are not going to be happy.

But if you embrace the truth about Jesus, these four consequences flip around and become happy ones.