He who comes from above is above all. He who has his origin in the earth is of the earth, and speaks [as] of the earth. He who comes out of heaven is above all,
John the Baptist's disciples had come to him worried: crowds were draining away to Jesus. He did not defend his own standing. He pointed instead to where each of them came from. Origin, he says, settles everything.
John had just said that the One coming after him must grow greater while he grows smaller. He said it with joy, because he knew where Jesus came from.
Like the sun, Christ was to rise to His zenith with increasing glory; so, like the moon, John was to fade out and disappear. He knew it and rejoiced, for at that moment Christ was everything in his thoughts. He knew Him as One coming from heaven and not of earth at all. Being such, He spoke in a way impossible to all others.
Notice whose lips these words come from. The Lord could have defended His own place. Instead the man losing ground makes the claim.
It was fitting that John the Baptist's own lips should declare the unquestionable supremacy of the Lord Jesus. He said it in front of his own disciples, who were jealous for their leader's honour. The Lord may vindicate John, but John asserts the glory of Jesus.
"Above all" is not a ranking at the top of a list. It removes Jesus from the list altogether.
The glory of the Person of Christ shines with rich brilliance here. It is not only that He stands nearer to His people than John did. It is not only that He increases while the greatest man born of women decreases. He is superior to all comparison. "He who comes from above is above all." Neither Adam nor Abraham, Enoch nor Elijah, could take such ground. They, like John, did not come from above, nor could any one of them be said to be above all. Nor could our blessed Lord Himself be so described, as born of Mary and heir of David, had He not been God — the great theme of this Gospel.
The verse says the earth-born man speaks as one of the earth. Jesus was a real man on this earth. Yet His Person lifted His humanity, not the reverse.
Jesus lost none of His own supreme dignity when, in divine love, He chose to become man. Like all other men, John could claim no other origin naturally than the earth. Jesus alone is out of heaven. His Person has such power that He raises humanity up into union with His divine nature. Humanity does not drag Him down into its degradation by sin, as some have wrongly imagined.
The contrast is not moral — John was no sinner in view here — but a matter of range. A man from earth can only report earth's business, even when he reports it under inspiration.
John bears witness to the glory of Christ as coming from above — from heaven. So He must take a place above all who come from earth. John came from the earth, so he was earthly in character. He spoke only of earthly things: the Messiah and His earthly kingdom. The One who comes from heaven speaks of heavenly things which He has seen and heard. A prophet like John can speak only of earthly things. Even those are things still to come, which do not yet exist on earth. Christ, by contrast, speaks of actual things which exist in heaven.
This chapter draws the line between earthly and heavenly twice. That line also shows where to look for what in the Bible.
In this chapter both the Lord and the Baptist separate things earthly from things heavenly. They speak of Jesus as the great distinct prophet of the heavenly things. This prepares us for two conclusions. In the old prophets we must expect to find earthly things. In the teaching of Jesus to His apostles we must expect heavenly things. Hints of the heavenly things may be scattered or shining through the prophets. Hints of earthly or Jewish hopes and calling may also appear in the apostles. But the Spirit's main purpose through the prophets is to tell of the earth's interests. His main purpose through the apostles is to tell of the Church's heavenly interests.
The order of the verse matters. What Christ is comes first; what He says follows from it.
First "above all," as to Himself, His place, His Person; then testimony. John was merely a witness.
- Origin — the verse starts with "from above." What a person is decides what a person can say.
- Above all — coming from heaven puts Christ beyond comparison. Adam, Abraham, Enoch and Elijah could not stand on that ground.
- Undiminished — becoming man cost Him none of His dignity. His Person lifts humanity; humanity does not lower Him.
- Range — an earth-born prophet can speak only of what is still to come on earth. The One from heaven speaks of what He has seen there.
- Order — Person first, testimony second. John was only a witness, and he said so to disciples who wanted him bigger.
[and] what he has seen and has heard, this he testifies; and no one receives his testimony.
John the Baptist has just said that the One who comes from heaven is above all. Now he says what that Person does. He reports heaven itself. The verse ends with a verdict so bleak it has puzzled readers ever since — the perfect Witness meets an empty room.
Prophets before Him spoke of things still to come. The One from heaven speaks of what is already there.
John came from the earth. He was earthly in character, and spoke only of earthly things — the Messiah and His earthly kingdom. The One who comes from heaven speaks of heavenly things which He has seen and heard. A prophet like John is limited to earthly things. Even those are things still to come, which do not yet exist on earth. Christ, on the contrary, speaks of actual things which exist in heaven.
That difference is not one of degree but of source. A prophet delivered a message handed to him; Christ describes the place He came from.
Christ came from heaven, and spoke of what He Himself had seen and heard, not as a prophet — whether of future things, recalling the law of Moses, the servant of God, or of a Messiah to come, even upon the earth. No, Jesus spoke of the actual things which existed there, where He had come from. No one received His testimony, for these were heavenly things, things which existed in God's presence, of which He spoke: man did not understand them, and did not want them.
Nothing was lacking in the witness. That is what makes the closing words so heavy.
His testimony is perfect. What was there of God, of the Father, and this in heaven, that the Son had not seen and heard? There could be no defect in the glory He came from, or in the grace with which He made it all known to man. How crushing, then, is the sad result! ... But this is man's state through sin. It is not only the savage and the brutal. It is not only the idolater or the sceptic. It is also those who pride themselves on their religion — theory or practice, ordinances or tradition, effort, ecstasy, or experience. Of them all: "no one receives His testimony." Grace did open some hearts, here and there, now and then. But the point noted here is man's rejection of His testimony, not what sovereign mercy held in reserve when all was lost in sin and ruin.
The problem is not that the message was unclear. It is that the human heart has no appetite for its subject.
Put man as man in front of Christ Himself, telling these heavenly things, and man's heart will not have one of them. A man would have nothing to do with them. Put a natural man in heaven, and he would get out as fast as he could. He would not find a single thing there that he likes.
Receiving this witness costs something that mere agreement with evidence never costs.
So His testimony puts the heart fully to the test. It tells the truth about the sinner as plainly as it announces the grace of God. The heart resists the one and distrusts the other. The last thing a person submits to is to think badly of himself and well of God. But this is just the effect of receiving the testimony of Christ. We then begin to take God's side against ourselves.
Kelly draws the contrast with the crowd of John 2, who believed after seeing signs but were not trusted by Jesus — a faith "merely of the mind drawing a conclusion from the probabilities of the case."
Earlier in this chapter, verse 26 reports crowds coming to Jesus. Verse 32 seems to say the opposite.
Some have set "no one receives His testimony" against verse 26. But in verse 26 we meet with exaggerated enthusiasm.
The very next verse speaks of people who do receive the testimony.
Man was in such darkness, under the influence of the god of this world, that he refused the word spoken by the One whom God had sent. Even though the Son was rejected, it could still be said, "Whoever receives His testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true." Left to themselves, no one would have received the testimony of the Son. But God, in sovereign goodness, prepared a remnant to accept the wonderful news of the Son. And there are still those whom the Father draws to the Son to accept His testimony.
- Source. He does not pass on a message about heaven. He reports what He has seen and heard there — things that already exist in God's presence.
- Perfection. Nothing was missing in the witness — no defect in the glory He came from, and none in the grace with which He told it.
- Refusal. The failure is on man's side. Heaven holds nothing the natural heart wants. Religious people are as unwilling as anyone else.
- Test. This testimony tests people. Receiving it means thinking badly of yourself and well of God. That is not the same as being convinced by evidence.
- Exception. Some do receive it. Writers credit that to the Father drawing them to the Son, not to anything better in them.
He that has received his testimony has set to his seal that God is true;
The verse sits right after a bleak line: no one receives His testimony. So who is the exception, and what is a person doing when he sets his seal to God's word?
Read straight through, verse 32 and verse 33 look like they cancel each other out. One writer shows why they do not: one line describes man by nature, the other what God's Spirit produces.
The opening words of verse 33 appear to contradict the closing words of verse 32. But the contradiction is only in the wording. It rests on one of those general statements that appear so often in John's writings. Man in his natural condition is wholly dead and unresponsive to the divine testimony. That is the general statement at the close of verse 32. But God works by His Spirit in the hearts of some. So in practice we do find people who receive the testimony, and in doing so they set their seal that God is true. At the beginning the devil attacked the testimony God gave to Adam, and so sin came in. Faith vindicates the truth of the testimony, and so life and salvation are brought in.
Why do men turn it down? One writer points to what the testimony is about.
This testimony about heavenly things — things that exist in the presence of God — has no interest for men who neither understand nor want the things of heaven. No one, left to himself, receives the testimony of Christ. Faith alone can receive it. The one who receives the testimony does so on the authority of God; he sets his seal that God is true.
So what does the seal certify? One reference work names what the believer credits: what God says about man, and what God says about His salvation.
The believer credits what God says about man and what God says about His salvation. In doing so he attaches his seal — he vouches for the fact — that God is true.
Signing is not a formality. It commits the one who signs.
But the one who did receive His testimony was, by that act, fixing his seal to the fact that God is true. He had committed himself to this stand of confidence in Him.
So what makes faith real faith? Not the strength of the case, but the One who speaks.
This is the essential character of real, living faith. We receive His testimony because He gives it. Nothing is simpler — but we are not simple. Nothing is more right, or more due to Him — but we have been all wrong, and most wrong toward Him. We receive it because He says it, not because it seems reasonable, or wise, or good, or because of evidence of any kind... A divine testimony calls for a divine faith. Faith grounded on human motives is not divine. Only faith founded on God's word truly searches heart and conscience.
That has a sharp consequence. If I need someone else to guarantee God's word before I will trust it, my confidence is in the guarantor, not in God.
To receive the word of God on someone else's authority is to reject God's testimony. If I accept another person's account because you have put your name to it, that shows I do not believe the one who gave the account... To be saving, it must be faith in God, and "Whoever receives His testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true." The man who demands the church's authority before he will receive it has not done so.
There is no neutral verdict on a witness. Refusing the testimony is itself a judgment about the God who gave it.
As John 3:33 puts it, whoever receives His testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. But the one who does not believe God carries the dreadful guilt of making Him a liar.
This is where assurance comes from. Taking God at His word is not presumption — it is repeating what God Himself has said.
For instance, I am a sinner — so how can I get into the Father's house? Because God has said, "I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more." Well, God is true, and He will not remember them. Do you say I am presumptuous to say so? I do not say it; God says it... So when the power of the Spirit brings the word home, I have certainty.
- Testimony. Left to himself, no one receives Christ's testimony: man by nature is dead to it.
- Signature. To receive it is to attach your seal — to vouch, with your own name, that God is true.
- Authority. The seal counts only when you take the word because God said it — not because it sounds reasonable, and not because someone else vouched for it.
- Alternative. The one who refuses does not stay neutral; he charges God with lying.
- Certainty. When the Spirit brings God's word home, certainty follows: it rests on God's truthfulness, not on ours.