Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 19:35)

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The ninety-third occurrence of faith in John’s Gospel is John 19:35. The text reads: “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (KJV). Okay, so given the long distance between the previous occurrence of the language of belief, John 17:21, and this occurrence, I’m not going to examine it in my usual way of going from John 17:21 to John 19:35 to describe what is going on. Rather, I’m going to start with the text and then work backward to the immediate context right before the text so we can get a reliable idea of what John 19:35 is talking about. Then, I will list some facts about faith that I can derive from this passage. And I’ll probably do it this way until the distances between the passages we will cover becomes short. So, let’s do it!

First, what is the immediate context of John 19:35? Again, the text says: “And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe” (KJV). Right before it (this is after Jesus’s crucifixion and death), some Roman soldiers came to break the legs of Jesus and the two criminals on the other crosses to ensure all three were dead. They broke the legs of the two criminals, but, when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead and refrained. John then tells us that one of the soldiers pierced Christ’s side with his spear, immediately resulting in blood and water pouring out. The apostle then informs us that he who saw this bore record, that his record is true, and he knows that he is speaking the truth, before telling us, the Gospel’s readers, that this is so we might believe. This is the immediate context of John 19:35!

Second, what are some facts about faith from John 19:35? First, the object of faith, or what is believed, is a record, or testimony. In Christian faith, faith is believing the testimony that God has given of His Son in His Word (1 John 5:9-13). Since news is testimony, by definition, the testimony about Christ in Scripture is another way of referring to the Gospel, or Good News, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, a faith is only as good as the testimony in which it believes is true. John is emphatic in chapter 19 verse 35 that the testimony of Christ given here is true, the underlying assumption being that, if this testimony was false, it would do no good to those who trust in it (1 Corinthians 15:12-20). And this is what makes Christian faith saving and all other faiths damning: Christ, and Christ alone, is the Truth (John 14:6) and is therefore solely worthy of our trust. Putting our confidence in anything else is self-deception and self-destruction. These are some facts about faith from John 19:35!