Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                 Chapter Five

                                                                                                                                      Verses 33-35

Jesus then changed the aim of His sermon, and He began to preach about all of the various witnesses to the fact that He was God. Jesus preached that most of the Jews believed that John the Baptist was a prophet, and since prophets can only preach the truth, then they should have believed John when he preached that Jesus was their God and Savior. When Jesus taught that, "I receive not testimony from man," He meant that He did not desire that humans try to prove that He is God by any form of human reasoning. Jesus meant that humans who believe should preach the gospel to bring humans to faith that He is God and their Savior. The Bible (KJB) offers a witness that God exists, but it never offers a proof. If God provided a proof of His existence in His Word, that proof would abrogate free will. Christ desires that living humans choose to repent and believe in Him through the spiritual power of the Holy Spirit who preaches His Word. God will cause all living humans to repent and believe in the Lamb of God of their own free will which will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that His Almighty Love is true and real and that He has not programed His creations to believe. The Devil accused God of having programed Job to believe, but God allowed the Devil to do his worst to Job because God knew that Job would always choose to adhere to the faith that God had put into him when He created him. This exchange between God and Satan symbolically illustrates the entire history of the human race. Job 1:7-12. God's Love cannot fail. I Corinthians 13:8. God knows that the faith and free will that He has put into every human that He ever creates will cause all living humans to return to repentance and love for the Lamb of their own free will. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. God even allowed humans to put flaws in His Word to give humans a fair reason to disbelieve. Hebrews 8:7-13; Ezekiel 20:25.

The Holy Spirit alone preaches the gospel to humans and causes them to become saved by grace. John 1:9. But God also allows believers inspired by the Holy Spirit to preach His gospel so that living humans will hear the Holy Spirit and become saved. God desires to give rewards to his witnesses who obey Him. But if a believer disobeys God when He tells him to witness to a person or group of persons, that does not mean that some of them may be lost forever. God knows every believer who will become saved by grace. Ephesians 1:4-6. God will simply cause those persons to become saved by His grace in another way. John the Baptist's "light," symbolic of the Holy Spirit, would save living human by God's grace, not his preaching. But Jesus again preached past these unbelievers to those who would read the gospel of John.