John 5:44 - Printer Friendly

ESV: How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

NIV: How can you believe since you accept glory from one another but do not seek the glory that comes from the only God ?

NASB: How can you believe, when you accept glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

CSB: How can you believe, since you accept glory from one another but don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?

NLT: No wonder you can’t believe! For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.

KJV: How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

NKJV: How can you believe, who receive honor from one another, and do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?

This comment matches the recent theme of this passage (John 5:43). The religious leaders who reject Jesus do so in a hypocritical way. They place great emphasis on traditions (Matthew 15:6–9), which are only the ideas of other men. They place themselves on pedestals above others (John 9:34). They claim to have great knowledge (John 9:28–29). And yet, they reject evidence related to Jesus because they refuse to believe in Him (John 5:39–40).

This refusal shows the truth of their so-called-faith in God. This is a consistent teaching in the New Testament: what a person does proves what they really believe (James 2:14). Jesus said that He "knew" these men did not really love God (John 5:42), because they are rejecting God's true messenger (John 5:38). Jesus provided plenty of evidence proving His claims (John 5:30–40), but that will never be enough for those who have made up their minds to reject God (Luke 16:31).

This is the "belief" Jesus is referring to here: an actual trusting faith in God. This is impossible for those willing to believe anything, and anyone, rather than the testimony of God (2 Timothy 4:3).

John 5:30–47 continues Jesus' response to His critics in Jerusalem. After healing a crippled man on the Sabbath and claiming to be equal with God, Jesus now speaks about evidence. Rather than simply saying, "have faith,'' or ''believe Me because I said so,'' He offers reasons why He should be believed. These include human testimony, the miracles He is performing, and the words of Scripture. Jesus also makes the point that those who reject the prior words of God—the Old Testament Scriptures—aren't going to believe in Christ, no matter what.

Jesus again returns to Jerusalem, as required for the various feast days. While there, He heals a man who had been crippled for nearly forty years. Since this occurred on the Sabbath, local religious leaders are angry. In fact, they are more upset with Jesus for working on the Sabbath than amazed at His miracle. In response, Jesus offers an important perspective on evidence. Jesus refers to human testimony, scriptural testimony, and miracles as reasons to believe His declarations. Christ also lays claim to many of the attributes of God, making a clear claim to divinity.

Chapters 1 through 4 showed Jesus avoiding major publicity. Here, in chapter 5, He will begin to openly challenge the local religious leaders. This chapter is Jesus' first major answer to His critics in this gospel. The fact that Jesus is willing to heal on the Sabbath sets up a theme of His upcoming disagreements with the Pharisees. Jesus also provides an important perspective on the relationship between evidence and faith, which He will expand on in later chapters. This chapter also establishes a key point made by Jesus' critics: His claims to be God.

The disciple John wrote the gospel of John decades after the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written. The author assumes that a reader is already familiar with the content of these other works. So, John presents a different perspective, with a greater emphasis on meaning. John uses seven miracles—which he calls "signs"— to prove that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate. Some of the most well-known verses in the Bible are found here. None is more famous than the one-sentence summary of the gospel found in John 3:16.