In John 5, Jesus is calling attention to several sources that bear witness to His Godship. Standing in front of the Pharisees, Jesus appeals to several references that the Pharisees should affirm, either because of their position in Jewish leadership or because of their educated backgrounds.

The first witness Jesus uses is John the Baptist. He reminds them that John declared that Jesus was the Messiah the world had been waiting for, the Promised Savior God ordained for us to put our faith in. John was like a light on a lampstand. He proclaimed the coming Christ for the whole of his life. Jesus reminds the Pharisees that they embraced John’s testimony that the Messiah had almost arrived because they were expecting God to send Jesus in a different way.

Up until this point, we’ve gone through a lot of false gospels that run rampant in the charismatic or modern-day church, but we haven’t talked about the ways that traditional, old-school church can lead people astray from true, God-glorifying faith. Because the traditional church was so popular 50-60 years ago, chances are, you’ve been to at least one service and know what I’m talking about.

The struggle between works-salvation and faith-salvation is one that I find many Christians grapple with. Like it or not, many in the church pew tend to think that their ticket to heaven gets upgraded based on how many good things they can do for the world and other people. And don’t get me wrong, sometimes I get in my head like that too because this whole world runs off of a performance-based lifestyle. How many likes can I get on this post? How can I excel at work to get a promotion? How can I excel at school to get good grades?