“How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44)
Looking for glory in the wrong places is a deadly barrier to saving faith in Jesus. This is one reason some people refuse to trust in Jesus. And it was a major problem for the Jewish religious leaders in John 5.
Near the end of John 5, Jesus indicts the Jewish leaders for their failure to believe in him and be saved. He lists four witnesses that give ample evidence to his identity of God’s Son: John the Baptist’s testimony, the powerful works Jesus is doing, the Father himself, and the Scriptures (especially the writings of Moses).
Yet, the Jewish leaders did not have the Father’s Word abiding in them (5:38). They did not really believe the Scriptures. They did not have God’s love within them (5:42). They refused to receive Jesus and so missed the eternal life he brings.
In the end, it came down to this glory problem. In John 5:44, glory refers to where a person looks for honor, approval, or praise. The Jewish leaders were looking at each other for approval and honor. Their main grid for living was how to gain and hold on to honor and praise from each other.
Trusting in Jesus, however, meant giving up approval from people they esteemed. It put at risk all that honor they had built up. Jesus’s claims were too massive for them. They were more comfortable with teachers who flattered them and curried their favor. Jesus came claiming authority from God the Father himself.
But Jesus wasn’t seeking their glory or praise (5:41). He was working for the glory of his Father. He was seeking the approval of his Father. Yet the Jewish leaders were the opposite. They were pursuing the glory of people, not the glory of God.
Trusting in Jesus today still involves abandoning a human-centered approach to life and embracing a God-centered approach. When we turn to Jesus, we leave behind a life that craves human approval, and we receive God’s Son. He reveals the glory of God, and in him, we experience the Father’s smile—and that is all the glory we’ll ever need.
