Then, while Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyard, he said loudly, “You know me, and you know where I come from. I didn’t decide to come on my own. The one who sent me is true. He’s the one you don’t know.
No longer will each person teach his neighbors or his relatives by saying, ‘Know the Lord.’ All of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” declares the Lord, “because I will forgive their wickedness and I will no longer hold their sins against them.”
Listen to the Lord’s word, you Israelites. The Lord has brought these charges against those who live in the land: “There is no faith, no love, and no knowledge of God in the land.
“My Father has turned everything over to me. Only the Father knows the Son. And no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son is willing to reveal him.
At that time Jesus said to the crowd, “Have you come out with swords and clubs to arrest me as if I were a criminal? I used to sit teaching in the temple courtyard every day. But you didn’t arrest me then.
“My Father has turned everything over to me. Only the Father knows who the Son is. And no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son is willing to reveal him.”
So Joseph went from Nazareth, a city in Galilee, to a Judean city called Bethlehem. Joseph, a descendant of King David, went to Bethlehem because David had been born there.
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? What I’m telling you doesn’t come from me. The Father, who lives in me, does what he wants.
However, I want the world to know that I love the Father and that I am doing exactly what the Father has commanded me to do. Get up! We have to leave.”
He came to Jesus one night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that God has sent you as a teacher. No one can perform the miracles you perform unless God is with him.”
Jesus replied to them, “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is true because I know where I came from and where I’m going. However, you don’t know where I came from or where I’m going.
I have a lot I could say about you and a lot I could condemn you for. But the one who sent me is true. So I tell the world exactly what he has told me.”
As I was going through your city and looking closely at the objects you worship, I noticed an altar with this written on it: ‘To an unknown god.’ I’m telling you about the unknown god you worship.
That would be unthinkable! God is honest, and everyone else is a liar, as Scripture says, “So you hand down justice when you speak, and you win your case in court.”
We are his servants because the same God who said that light should shine out of darkness has given us light. For that reason we bring to light the knowledge about God’s glory which shines from Christ’s face.
God did this so that we would be encouraged. God cannot lie when he takes an oath or makes a promise. These two things can never be changed. Those of us who have taken refuge in him hold on to the confidence we have been given.
Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony of God in them. Those who don’t believe God have made God a liar. They haven’t believed the testimony that God has given about his Son.