Jesus Will Not Accuse Nor Excuse

A Study of John 5:41–47

“I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?””

John 5:41–47 (ESV)

Definitions of the original language in the context of this passage:

-Glory: “δόξαν”, “doxan”; noun, accusative, singular, feminine | direct object — opinion, estimate, whether good or bad, concerning someone; but (like the Latin existimatio) in secular writings generally, in the sacred writings always, good opinion concerning one, and as resulting from that, praise, honor, glory.

-I Know: “ἔγνωκα”, “egnōka”; verb, perfect, active, indicative, first person, singular | finite verb — know, perceive; used by John to describe our Lord’s direct insight into divine things.

-Love: “ἀγάπην”, “agapēn”; noun, accusative, singular, feminine | direct object of the dependent clause — affection, good-will, love, benevolence; in John 5:42: of the love of men towards God.

-Name: “ὀνόματι”, “onomati”; noun, dative, singular, neuter | prepositional object — By a usage chiefly Hebraistic the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is roused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i. e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds, etc.

-Receive: “λαμβάνετέ”, “lambanete”; verb, present, active, indicative, second person, plural | finite verb — to take, to admit, to receive; not to refuse or reject one, in order to obey him.

-Believe: “πιστεῦσαι”, “pisteusai”; verb, aorist, active, infinitive | complementary infinitive — used especially of the faith by which a man embraces Jesus, i. e. a conviction, full of joyful trust, that Jesus is the Messiah — the divinely appointed author of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God, conjoined with obedience to Christ.

-Only: “μόνου”, “monou”; adjective, genitive, singular, masculine | attributive adjective — alone; it is joined with its noun to other verbs also, so that what is predicated may be declared to apply to some one person alone.

-God: “θεοῦ”, “theou”; noun, genitive, singular, masculine | prepositional object — spoken of the only and true God.

-Will Accuse: “κατηγορήσω”, “katēgorēsō”; verb, future, active, indicative, first person, singular | finite verb — to accuse; of an extrajudicial accusation.

-The Father: “τὸν πατέρα”, “ton patera”; noun, accusative, singular, masculine | prepositional object — God is called the Father: of all rational and intelligent beings, whether angels or men, because he is their creator, preserver, guardian and protector; the Father of Jesus Christ, as one whom God has united to himself in the closest bond of love and intimacy, made acquainted with his purposes, appointed to explain and carry out among men the plan of salvation, and made to share also in his own divine nature; of Christians, as those who through Christ have been exalted to a specially close and intimate relationship with God, and who no longer dread him as a stern judge of sinners, but revere him as their reconciled and loving Father.

-Moses: “Μωϋσῆς”, “Mōusēs”; noun, nominative, singular, masculine | proper name — Moses = ‘drawing out’, the legislator of the Jewish people and in a certain sense the founder of the Jewish religion. He wrote the first five books of the Bible, commonly referred to as the Books of Moses.

-Have Set Your Hope: “ἠλπίκατε”, “ēlpikate”; verb, perfect, active, indicative, second person, plural | finite verb — to hope; in a religious sense, to wait for salvation with joy and full confidence; to direct hope unto someone.

-Wrote: “ἔγραψεν”, “egrapsen”; verb, aorist, active, indicative, third person, singular | finite verb — to write; with reference to the contents of the writing; in John, is used of things written in the sacred books.

Observation/Summary (short explanation of what the passage says in your own words):

In this passage Jesus tells the Jewish religious leaders that He is not looking for glory from people. And He also knows they do not have God’s love in them because they are refusing to believe in Him as the one and only Son of God. It is nearly impossible for them to believe because all they really want is to receive glory from each other, and if someone were to come along proclaiming the things they wanted to hear, they would receive such a person.

Because they only looked for their own glory and not God’s glory, they were blinded to the glory of God in Jesus Christ who stood before them. They also thought their obedience to the law of Moses was their salvation, but Jesus tells them if they really believed in Moses’ teaching, they would have believed in Him, because Moses wrote of Him. In fact, the very content of Moses’ writing accused them because Moses prophetically wrote of the coming Messiah, Jesus, who these religious leaders were rejecting.

Implication (what does this mean to us):

This passage is the conclusion of a long discourse between Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders that began with His healing of a man who had been disabled for 38 years on the Sabbath. After healing the man, Jesus told him to stand up, pick up his bedroll, and walk. None of this violated the true Sabbath law to rest from work one day a week. But it did violate the man made traditions that the Jewish leaders had added to the Sabbath law. Their added traditions turned what was meant to be a gift from Yahweh to the people, a day to rest from working, into yet another burden of man made religious ritual. The Jewish religious leaders did not care that they had just witnessed yet another miraculous healing by Jesus. They only cared about preserving their own little kingdom and their own power. They saw Jesus as a threat and because of this they wanted to kill him (John 5:18). In His response to them, Jesus does not even bother to explain why their interpretation of Sabbath law was wrong. At this point Jesus explains that He is one with God the Father, God incarnate, and as such He has not violated the true Sabbath law because everything He says and does is in perfect unity with the will of God the Father.

Jesus also makes it clear that as the God the Son, He has been given power to execute judgment and to give or withhold eternal life. Also, in verses 31–40, He explained that He is not making a baseless claim to be the Son of God. John the Baptist, the miraculous works of Jesus, God the Father, the Old Testament Scriptures and Jesus Himself all testified to who He is, but sadly, even with all of this corroborating testimony, in verse 40 Jesus says to them, “yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” This reveals to us that the sincere desire of Jesus is that we would receive the testimony of who He truly is so that we may have life. He is a good, life-giving God, and He wants us to come to Him in sincere belief from the heart so that He can give us eternal life. This statement also reveals that while God is always the first mover and must therefore “grant repentance” to us (2 Timothy 2:24–26), He has also given us the choice of either refusing or rejecting Him. While He is totally sovereign over all of time and space, as beings created in His image, we have been given free will to choose whether or not we will love and worship Him.

As Jesus continues in verse 41 He says that He does not receive glory from people. The word used for glory here is a form of the word “doxa”. And doxa refers to the opinion of others concerning one. In other words, the glory of God refers to His reputation, fame, honor and majesty; how He is rightly honored and venerated by His creation. After referring to the testimony of John the Baptist in verse 33, Jesus made it clear that John’s testimony of Him was for our benefit. It was not what Jesus based His own identity on. It was merely yet more evidence of who He is. Here, in verse 41 Jesus says He does not receive glory from people either, in order to communicate the fact that He does not need them to confirm who He is. He does not need them to be saved, or to approve of Him. With the testimony of God the Father, the OT Scriptures and His miraculous works, Jesus is not in need of their approval.

In fact, if He lowered Himself to meet their expectations, and to become the type of Messiah they wanted, He could have easily gained their praise. But that is not why he came, and if He did that it would not have done them any good. They wanted freedom from Rome, but Jesus came to free them from sin and death. He came to warn them of the condemnation they already face, and to provide a path for everyone to be saved and receive eternal life (John 3:16–18). Jesus came to seek and save us all because of His love for us. And He has made it abundantly clear already that He is committed to pleasing His Father in Heaven (John 5:19), and the glory or honor He will receive as His just due comes from the Father (John 5:23). This glory has belonged to Jesus from eternity past (John 1:14), so He has no need of the glory that comes from man. To rightly honor and glorify Jesus is of benefit to us, not to Him. He tells us to love and honor Him because He loves us and He wants what is best for us.

However, from verse 42, it is obvious that these religious leaders do not have God’s love in them, because they desire and seek glory (or praise) from one another instead of God (v.44). This is one important mark of people who love God truly from the heart. Those who truly love God and have His love in them, seek the glory of God, not the glory of humans. And also in verse 42, Jesus says He “knows” they do not have God’s love in them because as was communicated in John 2:24–25, Jesus possesses Divine knowledge that can see into the hearts of humanity and discern the true motives and desires that lie beneath what is presented outwardly. These leaders may have presented legal or intellectual reasons for their dispute with Jesus, but the real reason for their rejection of Jesus was a deficit of God’s love in them and an absence of desire for God’s glory, reputation, honor and fame.

As Jesus continues in verse 43, more evidence of the religious leader’s insincerity in regards to the things of God is seen in their rejection of Jesus because He came in the “Father’s name.” This is a sort of restatement of verse 19 where Jesus said everything He does is in perfect unity with the Father’s will. The point being, if they truly worshiped God the Father, they would have received His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But instead of receiving Jesus who came in the Father’s name, Jesus says, “If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.” This prophetic utterance alerts us to one of the many dangers of rejecting Jesus the Messiah. We all have to worship someone or something. We were created to worship. It is in our very nature. So if we reject the true Messiah, the true Savior, we will find one somewhere else. Everyone does this. It might be another false god or religion, or it might be money, fame, romantic relationships or accomplishments. We all need to find satisfaction and purpose outside of ourselves, and if we don’t come to the only One who can give us that purpose and satisfaction, we will look elsewhere to people and things that can never truly satisfy us. And this is exactly what happened to the next generation of these Jewish leaders.

This statement from Jesus is a reference to the many false messiahs who have risen up in Israel and throughout the world in the years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The historian Josephus wrote of a whole string of false Messiahs that rose up in Israel after the time of Jesus. And we know of many others throughout history. For example, in AD 132 a man named Simeon ban Kodesh rose up from among the people of Israel and claimed to be the Messiah descended from the line of King David. This man led the people in a military revolt against Rome and it resulted in defeat and much suffering for the people. Besides this, there have been many other false messiahs, prophets and gods who have and continue to rise up all over the world, and people follow them to their own utter and eternal ruin. To reject Jesus is to reject the truth and cling to a lie. This is what these religious leaders were doing and D.A. Carson sums up the result of this kind of thinking well by saying, “The chief punishment of the liar is not so much that he is not believed but that he does not believe; similarly, the chief judgment on those who deny that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Son of God, is not so much that they have no Messiah, but that they follow false messiahs.”

In verse 44 Jesus says the true reason for their willingness to accept false messiahs is that they seek glory from one another instead of from God. They, like all of us today, naturally desired praise and acclaim from other people, and made no effort to seek the favor and praise that comes from God. For this reason, when false messiahs arose who told them what they wanted to hear and shaped themselves to be the type of messiah they wanted, they were all too willing to follow them. In John 12:43 the apostle John will again record the sad fact that so many of his countrymen did not believe, “for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.” And in Romans 2:29, the apostle Paul states that a true Jew, a true follower of Yahweh, is one whose praise is from God, not humans.

These religious leaders also liked to think their knowledge of and obedience to the law of Moses would save them, but in verse 45 Jesus makes it clear how wrong they were. He tells them that He would not stand up to accuse them on the last day, but rather, Moses, the one they set their hope on, would accuse them. This reminds us of John 3:17 where Jesus explained that He did not come to condemn the world. The world is already condemned, and He came to save the world.

Jesus also does not need to accuse us. We are already condemned, but because of His love for us He came to lovingly warn us and provide us a path of salvation through faith in Him. So, Jesus will not need to accuse them because Moses himself would accuse them. But his accusation would not be based on failure to obey the law. No one can be saved through obedience to the law because no one, except Jesus, can perfectly obey the law. The reason Moses will accuse them is because the very writings of Moses they claimed to hold in such high regard spoke of the coming Messiah, Jesus, and they rejected that very Messiah.

Jesus is Yahweh, and Yahweh spoke through Moses to the people of a coming Messiah. Jesus did not come preaching a new religion. In the sermon on the mount Jesus says that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets, not to abolish them (Matt. 5:17). The Jewish religious leaders knew the law and the prophets, but intellectual knowledge cannot save anyone. They failed to take the Scriptures to heart, so when Jesus, the fulfillment of the Scriptures appeared, they did not believe in Him. As we read on in John’s gospel we will continue to see the pressure and controversy around Jesus rise. And when Jesus is eventually arrested and crucified it will be claimed that it is because He has violated the law. But accounts like this serve to communicate to us, the readers, that Jesus never once violated the Law of God.

What we need to take note of is how these very smart and capable people, leaders in Israel, had such great knowledge of God’s Word, and yet completely missed the point. They used and abused God’s Word for their own selfish reasons. They did not seek to truly understand the Word of Yahweh. They did not love Him or devote their lives to honoring Him. The call for us who read this today is to not be like them. We who read this account of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection must respond humbly in faith. We must learn from the error of the Sadducees and Pharisees, and seek the glory and life that only come from the one and only true God, Yahweh, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Response (How does this change how I think, act and pray?):

This passage should cause us to examine how we read the Bible. Do we read truth “into” it, or do we read truth “out” of it? Are we coming to God’s Word humbly to learn about Him and His ways, or are we coming to His Word to seek for phrases and sentences we can twist and abuse to justify our presuppositions? The leaders in Israel at this time, by and large, used the Scriptures, added to them, and twisted them to shore up their own little power structures. They had no sincere desire to know, love and honor Yahweh. They only wanted to grow in fame and prestige themselves.

What are our motivations for studying God’s Word? And are we willing to be humble and teachable? Are we willing to let Jesus speak to us through His Word, as He reveals more of His beauty and majesty, and show us the ways in which we are not like Him, and how our thoughts and desires do not line up with His?

If we are to avoid the horrible and eternal ruin of the leaders who rejected and murdered Jesus, we must seek the glory of the one and only true God, Jesus; and we must believe His writings that have come to us through the apostles and the prophets. Jesus, the Word who became flesh, must become our very life, for apart from Jesus, we will all wither and die an eternal death. But if we accept His free gift of salvation by confessing and repenting of our sin, and believing in Him as our one and only Lord and Savior who died and rose again, we will be saved for an eternal and glorious life of incomparable joy and unimaginable pleasure forever (Psalm. 16:11; Rev. 21:1–8).

Self Reflection:

Is the glory of God, God’s reputation and honor, the main motivating factor in my decision making? Or is my own reputation and honor what motivates my decisions?

I know I am saved by grace alone through faith alone, but as I live in this grace, do I desire to live and act to please other people or to please God?

Do I read and study God’s Word with a humble, teachable heart? Am I coming to God’s Word as a student who is hungry to learn and submit to the changes God will tell me I need to make, by the power of His Spirit, through His Word?