John 5:40
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The context
John 5 begins with a healing at the pool on the Sabbath and becomes a controversy about authority. Jesus answers with a discourse on the Son's dependence on the Father, then lists witnesses: John the Baptist, his own works, the Father, and the Scriptures. Verse 40 closes that list with a charge, and verse 41 turns to motive.
What it establishes
The charge is unwillingness, not ignorance. The hearers are described as men who search the Scriptures diligently and still decline to come. Life is located in coming to the Son, and the refusal is presented as a decision rather than a failure of information.
What it does not establish
It is not a verdict on every doubter. The verse addresses a specific audience in a polemical setting, and it names refusal rather than intellectual difficulty. It does not say that questions, uncertainty or slow conviction are the same thing as the willed refusal described here.
Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.
Cited in these answers
- THE Truth
- According to 2 Timothy 2:25, it is GOD who grants repentance. Yet, somehow, it is WE who are held responsible for our fate?
Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.