He Said, She Said, God Said

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One of the most irritating things to me about living in the world we live in is trying to figure out what’s true when different people are telling you different stories. You can turn on the news, whatever they’re talking about today, you can go turn on the news, whatever we’re all supposed to be outraged about today, you can turn to one station and they’ll tell you one version of the story and you can flip to the next channel and they’ll tell you a different version of the story and they’re completely opposite. And sometimes it’s hard to know who’s telling the truth.

And I mean, I always have my opinions, right? I’m often wrong, but rarely in doubt, right? I have my opinions, but I don’t know.

I wasn’t there. Look at some of the things that have happened over the last few years. Oh, this president did this.

No, he didn’t. the last president did that no he didn’t we left billions of dollars of equipment in Afghanistan for the Taliban to take hold of uh no they disabled it for I don’t know I wasn’t there this Supreme Court nominee did this when he was in college no he didn’t I wasn’t there I don’t know and everybody’s telling a different story and can we all just stop and get our facts straight and get our story together I hate I absolutely hate and we’re not here today just to listen to me complain but we probably all feel the same way, at least at times. I hate it when it just comes down to one person’s word against another’s, and you really don’t know who to believe sometimes.

He said, she said. Sometimes it comes down that way in my house, where one child says, oh, they did this, and the other one says, oh, no, I didn’t, they did this. It’s a literal he said, she said.

My favorite is when Madeline will come to me and say, Benjamin just said a bad word. And I’ll ask her. And it’s usually a word we’ve told them not to say, but not a word that will get bleeped out on television.

All right. I’ll say, Madeline, what did he say? And she’ll tell me, I’ll say, you’re the only one I heard say it.

And she falls for it every time. I love that girl. She’s fun to mess with.

But it turns into a he said, she said. Now, fortunately, my wife has put security cameras all over our house like East Germany, so we can usually go back and look and see who did what. But until then, you don’t know who to trust. And it’s frustrating, right?

The early churches faced a dilemma like that. Christians from the beginning faced a dilemma like that because people came into the churches and they were promoting some pretty off-the-wall ideas about Jesus. And they weren’t sure what to believe.

Because you’ve got these crazy ideas about Jesus, some of which we’ll talk about today, some of which we’ve already talked about in this series on 1 John. And then you’ve got over here aspects of the gospel which sound pretty incredible themselves. I mean, Jesus was born of a virgin.

Jesus died and rose again from the dead. Jesus was God in human flesh. These things sound pretty incredible the first time you hear them.

And so you’ve got these ideas that the early churches were dealing with as these teachers came in and taught other ideas that sounded incredible the first time you heard them. And these early believers didn’t always know who was telling the truth. They didn’t always know what to believe.

And sometimes it came down to a he said, she said sort of situation. And so John wrote to these people who were dealing, by the way, with some issues that we still face today. Who should I believe?

When it comes to God, when it comes to the truth, who should I listen to? We deal with some of those same situations today. And John wrote to these people and basically told them to ask themselves who was the most credible source in the debate.

And in particular, in the passage we’re going to look at this morning, he’s dealing with the debate that was raging at that time over who Jesus is. And as they’re trying to get to the heart of the matter and answer the question, who is Jesus? John’s advice to them is to go to the most credible source you can find in the debate.

Ask And he answers that question for them in 1 John 5. If you would, turn there with me in your Bibles this morning to 1 John 5. If you’re using a device, there’s a link in our bulletin to find it, or it’ll be on the screen.

And if you would, stand with me if you’re able to as we read from God’s Word together. We’re going to start in verse 9. Now, he actually starts the thought further back, but just for the sake of time this morning, we’re going to start at verse 9 and go through verse 13.

It says, if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. And when you see that word witness there, it means the same thing as testimony. So if we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

For this is the witness of God, which he has testified of his son. He who believes in the son of God has the witness in himself. He who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his son.

And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

These things I have written to you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. And you may be seated. Now again, he’s writing here to Christians.

He’s writing to believers who struggle with these questions. If you’re somebody who’s never trusted in Christ as your Savior and you’re asking, how do I know Jesus Christ is God? I’m going to take you back, as I’ve said multiple times through this series, I’m going to take you back to some things like the resurrection of Jesus Christ and talk about that.

But this is specifically for believers who are struggling with the question, okay, here’s what I know, or here’s what I’ve believed about Jesus, but here’s this person who says something else. How do I know who’s telling the truth? How do I know whose story is correct?

and the Gnostics. We’ve talked about the Gnostics nearly every week in this series. If you want to understand the book of 1 John, you’ve got to understand who the Gnostics were because that’s who John is talking about.

And they claim that Jesus was not the Son of God among their many other things. I think I narrowed it down to three main things that they taught a few weeks ago. Let’s see if I can remember them off the top of my head.

They believe that Jesus had not come in human flesh. He was not God. They believed that because of that, there was no sin, there was no need for salvation.

It was all about attaining secret knowledge that was going to get you into a relationship with God. Now that’s not a list, but I think all three things were covered in there. That’s basically who the Gnostics were.

Part of this though, was that they believed Jesus was not the Son of God. They said he became the Son of God. He became the Christ during his earthly ministry.

The idea of being the Son of God or being the Christ was like an office that you could occupy and then give up. So whereas I would say to you, Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus was the Son of God, Jesus always has been and always will be the Son of God, they would say, no, no, no, he became the Son of God like after his baptism. And he stopped being the Son of God before the crucifixion Because they said the idea of putting the Son of God through something as graphic, as crucifixion, it’s just not fitting for the Son of God.

So he stopped being the Son of God before that, and he was just Jesus again. That was part of their teaching. Now, there’s a real problem with believing that he became the Son of God, and that he stopped being the Son of God.

First of all, if he became the Son of God at any point, rather than always being, then he’s somehow less than God. Because part of God’s nature is that He’s eternal. If He could stop being God at any point, then He never was God. If God could ever not be God, then He was always not God.

Does that make sense? I know it’s still kind of early in the morning to be swimming in that deep of water, but here we are. But there’s another problem here, too, that if He stopped being the Son of God before the crucifixion, then some man got killed, and it does nothing for you or me spiritually.

It does nothing to atone for our sin. It does nothing to make us right with God. So there are some, I know this just sounds like, oh, theology, what does that matter in the real world?

This matters immensely. Because if Jesus became the Son of God and then became not the Son of God, like the Gnostics said, then there are serious implications for whether we’re saved or not. And so they really needed an answer to this.

It wasn’t just an abstract question. And so he brings them to verse 9, where he says, If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. and John wants them to understand that no one’s story is more credible than God’s.

The Gnostics would try to say, well, this teacher says this and this teacher says this. How do you know? It’s not my opinion versus the Gnostics.

And by the way, there are still people who teach this today. There are people in the new age movement. Be very careful about anything new agey.

I know some people try to combine it with their Christian beliefs and be very careful. Anybody talking to you about karma or astrology or horoscopes or any of it? Reincarnation, any of it.

It is not compatible with Christianity. But they will still teach today. I’ve heard New Age teachers say, well, Jesus became Christ. Oh, no, no. See, this is not my opinion versus some New Age teacher.

Because if that’s the case, then we’re on an equal footing. And how do you know who to believe? But John makes the case that this is God’s story about Jesus.

This isn’t his story. This isn’t the apostle’s story. It’s not any human’s story.

This is what God has said about Jesus. And so he says, if this is God’s story, then no one’s story on the matter is more credible than God’s. He argues that God testified to Jesus always being his son.

Because just before this, he wrote about some of the testimony that God gave, He says in verse 8, through the blood, I’m sorry, I knew I was going to get them out of order, the spirit, the water, and the blood. He talks about these three testifying. Now those are not just abstract principles he’s talking about, the spirit, the water, and the blood.

You look at some of the instances from Jesus’ life, and you can see how all throughout Scripture, God the Father is testifying that Jesus Christ is His Son who has come in human flesh to save us from our sins. The water refers to Jesus’ baptism. Because it was at Jesus’ baptism.

That’s not where He became the Son, or it’s not after that that He became the Son. God said there, He is my Son. When Jesus was baptized at the beginning of His ministry, there’s a scene there recorded in three of the other Gospels, not written by John.

Recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where they say that at that scene, the Holy Spirit came down and the Father’s voice was heard. Jesus was baptized. And the Father said, this is my beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.

He doesn’t say, this man has just become my Son. He says, he is my Son, and I’m already pleased in him. I’m already pleased with him.

The Father testified at Jesus’ baptism that this was his Son. Then you go to the blood, and at Jesus’ crucifixion, the Father, we don’t hear the Father’s voice, but we see the Father’s fingerprints all over everything that was happening when Jesus died. when the skies turned dark in the middle of the day, when the earth shook violently, when the veil in the temple was torn, when all these sort of natural phenomena took place at an unnatural time to the point where even a non-believer looked at Jesus and how all of this coincided with his death and the centurion there at the cross said, truly this man is the Son of God.

Now I’m not sure he just figured that out on his own. I think the Father revealed that to him through all the things that He was doing. And so there in that moment, when the blood was pouring out, at the moment of Jesus’ death, the testimony of God was there that this was His Son.

You say, what about the Spirit? I think this refers to the prophecies of Scripture that were inspired by the Holy Spirit. All throughout the Old Testament, you can see where God was pointing to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. An incredible number of prophecies that could only be fulfilled in one person.

I’ve heard an apologist say that the odds, I think he picked eight of the prophecies out. Maybe it was ten. I should have looked it up, but I didn’t think about it until just now.

Eight or ten of the specific prophecies that refer to Jesus in the Old Testament. And the odds of any one person fulfilling all eight or ten, however many, and there are many more, but just those prophecies, the odds of somebody fulfilling all of those prophecies would be the same as you covering the entire state of Texas in silver dollars one foot deep, marking an X with magic marker on the back of one, and having somebody pick that silver dollar out on the first try. The odds of anybody fulfilling all of these prophecies is just astronomical. The Old Testament points to the lineage, the ancestry that Jesus would have.

It points to where he would be born. It points to the timing that he would be born. it points to all these things that nobody could say, you know what, I’m going to go out and fulfill these prophecies today.

For him to fulfill those prophecies, he had to be God where he could plan it ahead of time. And all through Jesus’ life, he was doing things consistently that were fulfilling what the Old Testament said would happen. And so we have the witness of the Holy Spirit going back millennia, pointing to Jesus Christ, not just that some man would come, but that he would be the Son of God.

And so he points to these things and says, this is the testimony of God. And both Jewish and Roman law at that time required two witnesses for you to establish a fact. It required two pieces of evidence for you to be able to establish something as fact in a legal way.

Two witnesses, two pieces of evidence. And what did God provide? Three.

There’s more than enough testimony from God to say that Jesus is the son. And so while the Gnostics were running around treating who Jesus is as though it was a matter of opinion, a matter of he said, she said uncertainty, God had more than established who Jesus Christ is. And John said there was no question then about who to believe because he says in verse 9, if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.

If you’re willing to listen to the testimony of two men and establish a fact, you can hardly write off the testimony that God has given you through three pieces of evidence here. If you’re going to listen to people, do people lie to you sometimes? We seem unsure.

People will lie to us. The Bible says God cannot lie. So if we’re going to listen to what people say, how can we write off what God says?

And on top of that, we cannot love and honor God while rejecting what he says about Jesus. That’s John’s next point in this. Look at verse 10.

He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. See, when we believe in Jesus as the Son of God, it’s because we have accepted God’s testimony as credible. When we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, when we believe that Jesus is everything He claimed to be, it’s not because that’s the easy way.

It’s not because that’s what all the cool kids are doing. It’s because we’ve become convinced of that fact by the testimony of God’s Spirit. And it doesn’t matter if you’re 5 or 95, take what little or what much you understand, you believe that because the Holy Spirit has shown it to you and you responded to his call.

This is the testimony of God. This is the testimony of the Father that he’s given through the Holy Spirit. But it says in verse 10 also, he who does not believe God has made him a liar.

Now believe God about what? About who Jesus is. Well, really about anything.

If God says this is true and we say, no, I don’t think so, we’re calling God a liar. And about this in particular, he who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his son. And the Gnostics were running around trying to have a relationship with God.

They were trying to be close to God. They were trying to find a way to be reconciled to God, but leave Jesus out of the equation. And we run across this all the time today.

In many cases, people are fine if you want to talk about God, but the second you bring Jesus into it, everything breaks loose. That’s why there’s been so much controversy over our chaplains praying in Jesus’ name. Well, they can pray to some generic God, but you bring Jesus into it, people get offended.

And by the way, let’s not be mad at them about that. Jesus said it would happen that way. We should pray for them instead of being mad at them.

But they were running around trying to have a relationship with God, just as many religions will do today, just as the New Age movement promises today, just as Facebook theology promises today. Try to have a relationship with God, but you don’t need Jesus to do it. When we do that, when we try to run to God without going through Jesus and think, oh, he’s not necessary.

I don’t have to believe in him. I don’t have to trust in him. What we’re doing is saying that we don’t believe what God said.

We are acting as though God cannot be trusted. And we’re treating God like a liar. Now, I don’t know anybody offhand who would say that, who would say, oh, God’s a liar.

He can’t trust him. I’m sure there are people who would say that. I don’t know of anybody offhand, but that’s how we’re acting.

When we act like what he said about Jesus doesn’t matter. We’re treating him like a liar. And so people will try to separate their beliefs about the Father and the Son.

But if we don’t believe what God says about his Son, which was a message that God emphasized like nothing else, if we don’t believe what he says about his Son, then our relationship with him cannot be one of trust. Imagine if I told you all the time, I love you, I care about you, you’re my friend, but I don’t believe a word you say. Now, we might tease each other that way, but that’s not really a basis for a relationship, is it? If I were to tell my wife, I love you and I love our marriage, but I don’t believe you meant your vows, I don’t believe you meant what you said, she would be justifiably upset.

Trying to come to the Father while ignoring what he said about Jesus is doing the same thing. Because he revealed, he said, that that is the basis for the relationship. And to say, no, he’s not the Son of God, there’s another way, is to try to have a relationship with Him while calling Him a liar on the single most important thing He’s ever revealed to us.

I’m not saying this to make anybody feel bad, but we need to understand who Jesus is is not just some abstract point of theology. It’s not an unimportant, negotiable issue. It’s not, oh, I can have a relationship with God on my own terms. Folks, He says we must come to Him through the Son.

John said there was no, there’s no other option here. Way back in chapter 2, he says, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He couldn’t be any more clear than that.

And so after he’s explained to us how important it is to believe what God the Father has revealed about his Son, he makes sure we understand what those things are. We need to believe the Father’s story. We need to believe what he’s said about his Son.

So John reminds us three things that the Father says about Jesus. first of all he’s God’s son he’s already alluded to that in this text already but we need to make sure we understand that verse 10 says he who does not believe God has made him a liar because he does not believe the testimony that God has given of his son Jesus Christ is not just some man he’s not just a wise moral teacher he’s not just a good guy Jesus Christ is God the son he’s the only begotten son of God the Father. He came to live a perfect sinless life.

He took on a human nature in every way the same as ours except without sin. And somehow he managed to take on all the attributes of humanity without losing any of the attributes of being God. Try wrapping your head around that one and it’ll make your head explode.

All right? But he did it. I don’t have to understand it.

I just have to believe the scripture says he did it. He is God’s son, not just another man. God says that his son came to bring us eternal life.

The second thing, verse 11 says, and this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life. Here’s the, here’s the witness. Here’s the evidence.

Here’s God’s proof that he’s given us eternal life. He says in verse 11, this life is in his son. If we want eternal life, Jesus has got it.

No one else does. God doesn’t have a plan B for bringing us eternal life. And the world will look at that and say that’s so harsh.

You might be sitting here this morning or watching online and saying that’s so harsh to teach that God would only make one way to heaven. And my answer to that is always, it’s one more than we deserve. It’s not harsh that God would only make one way to heaven.

It’s incredibly gracious that God would make one way at all. Because I know, folks, we come to church and we put on a good show. We’re all presentable and we’re nice.

But I know who lives inside my heart. and I’m not talking about Jesus. I mean, I know who I am and I know even on my best day, how far, how far short I fall of God’s perfect standard.

And even after decades of walking with Jesus, there are still times I look at the mirror and think, how does God love you? Why? I know that he does, but sometimes I don’t understand why folks hear me on this.

It is incredibly gracious that God has made even one way of salvation. He says that eternal life is in His Son. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes unto the Father but by me.

And I’ve already sort of bled over into the third point here, the third thing that God says about Jesus. There’s no salvation apart from Him. There’s none.

Jesus came to bring us eternal life. Eternal life is available through Him, but that’s the only place to get it. Verse 12 says, He who has the Son has life.

He who does not have the Son of God does not have life. It’s that simple. This doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation.

If you have Jesus, you have eternal life. If you don’t have Jesus, you don’t have eternal life. That’s not my opinion.

Let me rephrase that. That is my opinion. That’s what I believe.

But it’s not true because it’s my opinion. It’s not true because it’s the position of this church. It’s not true because it’s the position of the denomination.

Who cares what I or the church or the denomination say? It’s true because God’s word said it. There’s no salvation apart from him.

He who has Jesus has life. He who doesn’t have Jesus does not have life. We’re not making up the rules.

We’re not telling people that they have to live by our standards or they go to hell. We’re simply telling them what Jesus has told us. What God has testified of about Jesus.

That if you have Jesus, you have life. And if you don’t, you don’t. If God wants us to remember the things that he’s told us about his son, those are the three big ones.

Those are not the only things that God has revealed about his son, but they’re the three big ones from this passage. Those are the three big things the Gnostics needed to understand. Those are the three big things that the early church needed to stand secure in and realize that it wasn’t a matter of what this preacher said versus what this preacher said.

It’s a matter of believing what God said. And folks, the same thing is true for us because there are people today that will tell us, oh, that’s just some church’s opinion. Baloney, it’s in here in black and white.

God said it. The world wants to treat Jesus like a he said, she said debate. The world wants to treat Jesus like every opinion is equally valid.

Free speech is a wonderful thing, but it doesn’t mean that every opinion is equally true. It doesn’t mean that every thought is equally valuable. The world wants to treat things like spiritual truth as though every thought is equally valuable.

But God’s position is clear. You can take all the opinions in the world and stack them up, and they don’t matter as much as what God has said. His position is clear that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus is the source of eternal life, and that Jesus is the only source of eternal life.

So for Christians, for those of you here this morning who trusted Christ as your Savior before, the answer for us is to walk confidently in our faith in Jesus, even when other opinions are presented. We don’t have to cower in fear when somebody comes up with a thought or an argument that we’ve never heard before. First of all, there’s no argument that anybody can make that they’ve never made before.

So just because somebody comes up with something they think is new that’s going to destroy Christianity this time, no, it’s all been tried. It’s all just variations on the same old things and the truth of the gospel is still here. But we don’t have to live in fear of something we can’t answer.

Number one, there’s an answer out there somewhere. We just may have to dig and find it. We should walk confidently in what we believe.

Not arrogantly, but not feeling like we have to hide what we know to be true. Not feeling like everything’s going to crumble. If somebody asks us a question we can’t answer, or somebody presents an objection we’ve never heard, because ultimately we know that God has staked His entire reputation on Jesus Christ being His Son and our Savior.

Because when it says God has witnessed these things, God has given His testimony. I know in the modern world, our word doesn’t mean that much sometimes, but in the old days, especially in these days, all you had was your word and your credibility. And for it to say that God has witnessed, God has testified, God has staked His entire credibility and His entire reputation on Jesus Christ being His Son and our Savior.

If Jesus Christ is not His Son and our Savior, then none of the rest of this matters either. God staked His entire reputation on that being true. These things have I written to you, verse 13 says, to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, to you already who believe, he’s speaking to Christians here, that you may know that you have eternal life, that you may be sure of it, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

He said, I’ve written these things so that you may know that you have eternal life and so that you may continue to believe in Jesus, so that you will be built up and strengthened and not crumble when objections come. This should give Christians confidence to walk with the knowledge that our faith isn’t true just because it’s somebody’s opinion, but it’s what God has said. And to anybody who’s never trusted Christ as their Savior, this is clear this morning that you must put your trust in Jesus Christ. If you’re looking for eternal life, you must put your trust in Jesus Christ, believing that He’s God’s Son and that He’s our Savior.

Believe the things that God said about Him, just like God said, in order to have eternal life. This morning, the way you have that eternal life is to acknowledge that what God said was true. That you need a Savior.

We need a Savior because we’ve sinned against God, we’ve disobeyed Him, and that sin has separated us from God. Jesus Christ came to be that one and only Savior. He’s the only one who could do it because He’s the only one who was God in human flesh who could pay for all of our sins.

And if you believe this morning that Jesus was God’s Son, that He died on the cross to pay for your sins in full and rose again from the dead, you can ask for that forgiveness. And you have it.