This coming Sunday, by your decision as to whether or not to continue to gather with the body of Christ, you will give clear witness to all as to whether or not you really do believe what you professed on Easter Sunday, namely, that Jesus Christ is bodily risen from the dead.
Jesus introduces the topic of the Father’s witness in 5.36-37 and then expounds more thoroughly in a probable chiastic structure in 5.38-47:
A They reject God’s word in his shaliach Jesus (5.38)
B Scriptures witness to Jesus (5.39-40)
[Life in the Scriptures (5.39)/life in Christ (5.40)]
C Jesus does not receive glory from people (5.41)
D Jesus knows them (5.42a)
E They do not love God (5.42b)
E Jesus comes on his Father’s behalf (5.43a)
D They do not receive Jesus (5.43b)
C They receive glory from one another, not God (5.44)
B Moses testifies to Jesus (5.45-46)
[Judgment from Moses (5.45); Moses speaks of Christ (5.46)]
A They reject God’s word in his shaliach Moses (5.47)
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Hendrickson, 2003), 1:657-658
