Alison Trites ( The New Testament Concept of Witness ) finds parallels between the use of witness in the fourth gospel and that found in Isaiah 40-55: “There the controversy between Yahweh and the false gods turns out to be a lawsuit between God and the world. God is represented by Israel and the world by the pagan nations. Similarly, in the Fourth Gospel God incarnate has a lawsuit with the world. His witnesses include John the Baptist, the scriptures, the words and works of Christ, and later the witness of the apostles and the Holy Spirit. They are opposed by the world, represented by the unbelieving Jews. In Isaiah 40-55 the debate is over the claims of Yahweh as the Creator, the only true God and the Lord of history . . . . ; in John it is over the Messiahship and divine Sonship of Jesus . . . . John, like his Old Testament counterpart, has a case to present, and for this reason he advances his arguments, challenges his opponents and presents his witnesses after the fashion of the Old Testament legal assembly.”
He makes the point that the ultimate silence of the witnesses against Jesus in the fourth gospel is similar to the silence of the nations in Isaiah 40-55. The pagan gods or the nations that represent them are called to witness, but they say nothing. They “neither see nor know” (44:9) and have nothing to say: “Accordingly, by their silence the nations, who function as the legal representatives of the false gods, acknowledge that Yahweh has won the lawsuit.” By contrast, Israel is a garrulous witness on Yahweh’s behalf (43:10, 12; 44:8), and this links to “Yahweh’s own refusal elsewhere in the Old Testament to keep silent in court when acting as a witness or judge (Ps. 50:3-7; Mal. 3:5).” In John, Jesus is the Father’s agent in “the cosmic lawsuit with the world.”
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