John 5:36

John 5:36. But the witness that I have is greater than that of John. Our Lord does not say ‘ 1 have greater witness than that of John,' as if He was about to specify additional testimony of greater weight than the Baptist's. No, that testimony to the truth was good, was useful (John 5:33-34), but ‘the witness' which He has the only witness to which He appeals belongs altogether to another order, not human, but Divine. Other witness may prepare the heart, external testimony may point the way, but there is only one evidence offered by Jesus Himself.

For the works that the Father hath given me to accomplish, the very works that I do, bear witness concerning me, that the Father hath sent me. The evidence is works that the Father hath given Him to accomplish; and these works are His evidence, not as external evidence merely, but because, as expressive of the Father in Him, they appeal to that inner light in men which ought to have led men to recognise the Father in the Son. Of these ‘works' miracles are one part, but not the whole. In two other passages our Lord uses similar language to this, speaking of the ‘accomplishment' of the work of the Father (chap. John 4:34) or of the work which the Father hath given Him to do (chap. John 17:4); and in both the work is more than miracles. True, we read in these of ‘the work,' not ‘the works,' but the difference is not essential: the many works are the many portions of the one work. Nor need we go beyond this discourse itself to see that the very widest meaning must be assigned to ‘works.' The keynote is struck by John 5:17, which speaks of the ‘working' of the Father and the Son; and in John 5:20 we read of the ‘greater works' which the Father will show unto the Son. The ‘works' then here denote all that has been referred to in earlier verses (John 5:20-30), whether present or future, the works of quickening, raising, judging, all that the Son does and will do until the purpose of the Father is accomplished and the redemptive work complete. These works, being manifestations of His own nature, are essentially different from all external testimony whatever. Such as they are, they have been ‘given' Him by the Father to accomplish: they are described not as a charge but as a gift (as in John 5:22; John 5:26-27): and they are the very works which He is now doing and habitually does. Special significance attaches to these added words, ‘the very works that I do,' for they show that the witness given by the Father to the Son is given in ‘works' now presented to their view. Every word and every deed of Jesus is, as a work, bearing testimony to the truth that the Father hath sent Him; for, where the heart of the beholder is prepared, every work reveals the presence of the Father, and is manifestly a work of God.