John 5:31-40 If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.… Jesus compares the Jews to children who, instead of taking advantage of the precious moments during which the torch burns to accomplish an indispensable task, do nothing but dance and play the fool in its light till it goes out. It is impossible to characterize better the vain and childish satisfaction which the national pride has found for the moment in the appearance of this extraordinary man, and the absence of the serious fruits of repentance and faith which it was intended to produce. "Instead of being yourselves led to faith by John, you made him an object of curiosity. You pleased yourselves with him." Comp. Luke 7:24, etc., which charges them with making it an amusing spectacle, and closes by comparing them to a group of children playing in the market-place. Playing with the light: — "All you ever seriously contemplated was to leap, dance, make sport of, like gnats in the twilight, like flies round a lamp, like dancers at a wedding." The phrase marked not the progress of the Baptist's career, but the short-lived character of their favourable mood towards him, or the celerity with which their satisfaction in the radiance emitted by him turned into disgust. (T. Whitelaw, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. |
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