Main news for 12 May 2026

Jesus and the Pharisees who listen to Him have different ideas of what testimony is. The issue is not that they want human testimony while He speaks of God's testimony. The problem, rather, is that the people listening to Jesus, who are quite sincere religious people, want external testimony where testimony is possible only as something internal. The Pharisees are religious people who observe the Torah, and they demand from Jesus proofs of His messiahship, or at least of the truth of His testimony, in the same way they might demand testimony of the same kind in court on some accusation.

The logic is simple: present us reliable witnesses that You are telling the truth and really have the right to do what You do and say what You say. Testimony is required, certification, but strictly formal and external. And in this case it is impossible: Jesus brought into the world something that cannot be proved by external testimony alone, and this is exactly what those demanding proof from Him cannot understand - or simply do not want to understand.

This is not surprising: after all, we are speaking about religious people. They need proofs of the corresponding kind - proofs that fit within religious frames. But there proofs can only be external. For any religion is an external thing, a kind of tool originally developed for establishing relations with higher powers - and for verifying those relations. But precisely with God there can be no purely external relations, and no verification is possible here. One might just as well try to prove friendship or love: one can bear witness to both, but prove them...

If he wishes, a skeptic or cynic will always object that this is not friendship or love at all, but simply self-interest or attraction to a partner, and nothing can be proved on the external level, only from within, where certainty about the spiritual authenticity of the relationship lives. So it is with God: proof can be found only within, in one's own heart, and in no other way. But this is no longer religion; it is a relationship with God, one that fits into no religious frames and cannot be proved in any way inside those frames.