"I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.
Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me.
Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.
I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?
Today's quote is a furtherance of yesterday's in that Jesus continued to explain to the Jewish leadership how both His message, and supreme authority, had come from God the Father and how as professed followers of Moses, they had rejected the message God sent through Moses and thereby had rejected Jesus Himself, because Moses prophesied His coming.
Jesus established that the message of John the Baptist was good and that it served its purpose, but that there could be no salvation attained through mortal man.
Jesus went further in the latter part of today's quote to establish something those Jews should have already known, that eternal salvation could only come through the divine sacrifice of the Son of God.
This tells us that the total righteousness required by God for entry into heaven, as referred to in yesterday's lesson, can only be accheived through faith in Jesus Christ. The truth of this point can't be made any clearer than Paul makes it in Romans 4:4-5; "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
The "saints'' of the Old Testament were saved by faith just as we are today.~
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