Christ's Doctrine of Faith: A Study of "Believing" in John's Gospel (John 5:44)

Image Credit: Media from Wix

The twenty-fourth time the idea of “believing” occurs in John’s Gospel is John 5:44, wherein Jesus rhetorically asks: “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (KJV). As always, what is the context of this passage, and what can this passage teach us about faith?

Our context is still in the discourse that Jesus is having with a group of Jews who oppose Him. And our reflection in this post begins immediately after John 5:38, where Christ charges these Jews with not having the Father’s Word dwelling in them, because they don’t believe the One whom He sent. While the KJV has “Search the scriptures” in John 5:39, where Jesus is commanding the Jews to examine God’s Written Word, some other translations word it something like “You search the scriptures,” which, instead, is Jesus telling the Jews that they are, in fact, examining the Scriptures. Which is the proper translation, learn the Greek that the text was originally written in, and you’ll find out when you read the original Greek. However the first half of John 5:39 is translated, Jesus tells these Jews that they think they have eternal life in the Scriptures, and they are what testify of Christ. He then charges them that they are unwilling to come to Him in order to have life. He then declares that He does not receive honor from men before informing them that He knows that they do not have the love of God in themselves. Jesus tells them that He has come in His Father’s name and they do not receive Him, but that, if another comes in his own name, that man will be received by these Jews. And now, we get to what our text says: Christ asks these Jews, rhetorically, how they can believe, as people who receive honor from one another and do not seek the honor that comes only from God. This is the context of John 5:44!

Now, what can we learn about faith from this passage? One fact, which it does not appear that we specifically covered previously, is that the love of man’s honor, instead of God’s honor, [1] is something that makes saving faith impossible for the one who has this preference. So, in order to believe on Christ, the only One who can save (Acts 4:12), a man must cast aside his desire for the honor of man and embrace the honor of God, though it means gaining the contempt of man, who has been anti-God and sinful ever since the rebellion of his first father, Adam (Romans 5:12-21; Ephesians 2:1-3). That appears to be all I can say about this passage that hasn’t been said before. But I will close with this fact: again, we must keep in mind that the Holy Spirit’s own thesis statement for this Gospel in mind: the signs (and why should this not be said for everything else in John?) are meant to cause us, the readers, to believe that Jesus is the Christ (that is, Messiah), the Son of God, and, believing, to have life in His name (John 20:30-31). So, we can reasonably conclude that the love of man’s honor keeps one from seeing just who Jesus is as the Messiah and Son of God (see also 2 Corinthians 4:3-4). In contrast, preferring the honor of God will enable one to see who Jesus truly is, and therefore believe in Him for salvation and eternal life. This is what we can learn about faith from John 5:44!

[1] As we can see, God’s honoring a person, rather than a person honoring God, is the idea in this text behind the honor that comes from God only.