The Son of God
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Have you ever referred to yourself as a child of God? Have you ever heard someone else refer to Christians as God’s children? Today that is a pretty common way of referring to Christians but that has not always been the case. In the days when Jesus walked among us you could get killed for saying a thing like that. You see the Jews understood something that we have mostly forgotten. They understood inheritance.
There are people today who say that Jesus never said that he was God or that he was anything other than a teacher or a prophet, the Jews never said such a thing. In fact the Jews wanted to kill him on more than one occasion for claiming to be equal with God. The Jews never doubted that Jesus had claimed to be equal with God and to claim to be God’s equal was blaspheme and punishable by death because no one is equal to God, unless of course you are God.
For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.
Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.
“For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.
“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,
so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
“For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;
and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.
“Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice,
and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
“If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true.
“There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true.
The Jews wanted to kill Jesus because by calling God his father he was claiming that he was equal to God. You see the Jews lived under a Monarchy. They understood that if you were the son of a king then that was all that was required for you to be the next king. It didn’t matter how smart you were or how tough you were, it didn’t matter if people liked you or hated you, you didn’t have to worry about getting enough votes because there was not going to be an election. In order to be the next king the one and only requirement was that you be the kings oldest surviving son. That was all you needed to make you worthy of being king. Nothing else was required, just that you be the son.
Jesus stated that there is a king who is not just over Israel and not just over Rome but he is king over the entire universe, the king of all creation, the king of kings and lord of lords. Jesus said that this king had absolute authority and the absolute right to do whatever he wanted to do whenever he wanted to do it and however he wanted to do it. The Jews understood that and agreed with it. But then Jesus said something else. Jesus said I am the son of that king, I am the heir to the throne. Everything that the king of the universe has I will be given. Jesus was, in fact, stating that he was equal to God, he was the same as God, He is God’s heir, He is the prince and as such he had put himself above all men and angels and every created being. The Jews understood what he was saying and they wanted him dead.
So what does that say about us when we say we are children of God.
Paul says in Romans Romans 8:14-16
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
We call ourselves children of God because that is what we are! Have you ever thought about what it means to be a child of God, a fellow heir with Jesus to the kingdom of the father.
That brings us to another point. What Jesus said next was about the Resurrection.
“For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.
“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,
All life comes from God. God created us and the world we live in and he breathed life into us. We have our life because of God and it is through his power that we continue to live and breathe and have our being. It is just the same with the next life. We are only alive now because God gave us life and we will only live again in the next life, the resurrection because God gives us life. Our life is sustained by God now and in Heaven our life will be sustained by God then. But Jesus says something interesting here. Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life the Son also give life to whom he wishes.
In other words all life comes from God and there is no other source of life anywhere in the universe, but the Son also gives life to whoever he wants to. If there is only ones source of life and Jesus is claiming that he also has the power of life then Jesus is claiming that he is the same as God, he is equal to God in power and authority. Jesus is saying I am God.
The Jews also knew that only God had the power and authority to judge a man’s life. Jesus said
John 5:22
“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,
IN other words Jesus said “judgement is my job, not even the father judges but I am the only one who judges”. In this act, the act of judgement, the act of deciding the fate of any given person and deciding if their deeds were good or bad even God the father doesn’t decide but I decide says Jesus. He was doing the job of God and in their mind taking the place of God so they thought he was dishonoring God and should be killed. Of course Jesus was not dishonoring God because Jesus is God. If I tell you that I am doing the job of the pastor of this church and taking the place of the pastor of this church then I am doing the right thing because I am the pastor of this church. Of course if I was not the pastor and I told you those things I would be wrong and possibly mentally unstable.
Jesus was making it as clear as he possibly could that he and God were one in the same, they were, and are, equal in all things. There is only one way that the bible tells us about in which God and Jesus are not the completely equal. They have different roles or tasks. The father gives to the son and the son receives from the father. Now if I were to say that there would be some conflict and some tension involved.
My earthly father and I do not share all of the same goals and we do not see the world in exactly the same way. If I only did what my father wanted me to do I would not be able to do some of the things I wanted to do and I would have to do some things I did not want to do because my earthly father and I are different people with different goals and different thoughts.
But what would happen if I was exactly the same as my father? What if I wanted the same things and thought the same thoughts and had the same goals and the same talents and abilities, what if we had shared all of the same experiences and our thought processes were completely the same and our hearts were 100% in sync with one another. If that was the case and I did exactly what my father wanted me to do wouldn’t I also be doing exactly what I wanted to do. If I followed every desire of my father’s heart wouldn’t I also be following every desire of my own heart. That is exactly how it is between God the father and Jesus the son.
There is no struggle of wills and no sense of dominance or case of one person losing and the other winning because their desires are exactly the same. I know this is hard for us to imagine because we don’t know anyone who is exactly like us, but God does.
Jesus says John 5:30
“I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
So God has given all judgement over to Jesus and God does not judge anyone but Jesus does all the judging, but Jesus only judges according to the will of God the father so that neither one acts on their own and neither one is left out of the process. If this were any human court there would be disagreements and compromises because of differences in opinion and different perspectives but this is not an earthly court, this is Heaven. Jesus and God are one, they are perfectly aligned in thinking and in purpose so when they do things together they don’t argue and they don’t compromise, they agree, 100% total agreement every time and in every way. I can’t even imagine.
My wife and I have been together a long time and we often think about things the same way, but not always. Sometimes we see things completely different and sometimes we reach completely different conclusions. Every now and then we have some pretty heated discussions about our differences. What would it be like to have a relationship with someone where you never saw things differently and never reached different conclusions. I have no idea. It is so far outside of my experiences that I cannot even imagine it, but it must be nice.
Jesus is God, He could have just said I am God or I am the same as God and left it at that but Jesus went even further. He said I think like God and God thinks like me, I act exactly like God and for exactly the same reasons. I think he wanted to make it as clear as possible what he was saying and I think he also wanted to leave an example for us to follow.
We are children of God, but how do you act like a child of God, what is the right way to think and to act when you are a child of God. According to Jesus, the right way to think and to act is to think exactly like God thinks and to do exactly what God would do if he was in your place. Jesus said do nothing on my own initiative, in other words everything comes from God, and Jesus is saying this as someone who has his own authority and his own power. Jesus actually is equal to God and he says he does nothing on his own. We are not equal to God, although we are children of God and heirs of God. Should we not follow Jesus in doing nothing on our own, shouldn’t we imitate Jesus in thinking like the father and acting like the father. Jesus has given us an example to follow and laid down a path for us to take.
Will you take that path, or will you blaze your own trail. Being a trailblazer seems like a cool thing doesn’t it. Finding your own way, making your own path, not following anyone but doing it all yourself, and doing it all your way, after all, that’s what Satan did. Do you want to follow the path laid down by Jesus who followed the path laid down by the father, or do you want to follow the path of Satan who struck out on his own. It’s your choice, but as for me and my house we will follow the Lord.