Sermon Tone Analysis

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We are moving into a deep theologically rich sermon given by Jesus today.

He wants the hearers, those in that day and us today, to understand who He is and what He has come to do.

It something we can not miss, if we do, it’s to our own detriment.

He has come to give life.

In high school I had started to grow in my understanding of Jesus and His Word (the Bible)… Mormon friend, challenged him, other friend pointed out my ignorance… it’s important to know why we believe what we confess to believe.

If you have your Bibles, or on your devices, please turn with me to John 5:19-29.

Would you stand with me as I read our text this morning… this is the word of the Lord.

Let us pray.

Thank you.

Please be seated.

Like Father, like Son (19-20)

After the healing of the lame man, John tells us that they started their plot to kill Jesus, thinking Him to be a blasphemer.

As theologian and pastor AW Pink would speak to this…

An Exposition of John (Chapter Eighteen: The Deity of Christ: Sevenfold Proof (John 5:16–30))

Did they (the pharisee’s of the day), like the prophetess Anna, give thanks unto the Lord, and speak “of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38)?

Alas, it was far otherwise.

Instead of being filled with praise, they were full of hatred.

Instead of worshipping the Sent One of God, they persecuted Him.

Instead of coming to Him that they might have life, they sought to put Him to death.

Jesus gives us a deep theological sermon around who He is and what He has come to do.

He says it is through Him that God has granted life for those that believe.

This is an uncommon belief for many.

When we think through the idea of what is God like, here we have a helpful text that clues us in on the heart and nature of God.

There can be a skewed perspective when we fail to take in the whole counsel of scripture.

In the argument against the exclusivity of Christ (Jesus is the only way), there has been a metaphor that I’ve seen more and more to describe God and varied religions that exist and have existed.

In trying to reconcile God, many have equated it to how three blind men come upon an elephant.

In trying to describe what they are experiencing they seek share their findings:

The story is that four blind men were walking along the road and came upon an elephant.

One man grabbed the elephant’s tail, another grabbed his leg, another his ear, and one his trunk.

The one who held the tail said, “We have stumbled upon a snake!”

The one who grabbed the leg said, “No, it’s too thick and solid to be a snake; it’s a tree!”

The one who held the ear said, “What are you guys thinking?

It’s thin and dry: it’s a piece of paper!”

And the one who held the trunk said, “No, it’s a hose.”

The assertion of the story, of course, is that the different religions of the world are like these men, each having a small glimpse of total truth but not a comprehensive understanding of reality.

We do our best to interpret data, but in the end, we are all talking about the same thing.

Leslie Newbigin, pastor, theologian, missionary to India for 30yrs responds this way

So Newbigin says:

The story is constantly told in order to neutralize the affirmation of the great religions, to suggest that they learn humility and recognize that none of them can have more than one aspect of the truth.

But, of course, the real point of the story is the exact opposite. . . .

The story is told by someone who can see and is the immensely arrogant claim of one who sees the full truth all the world’s religions are only groping after.

It embodies the claim to know the full reality [which it claims that religions can’t].

It has been revealed to us, that if we have seen Jesus we have seen God the Father.

John 14:8-11 “Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

Hebrews 1:1-3 “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

Exodus 34:5-8 “The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

And Moses quickly bowed his head toward the earth and worshiped.”

The language used here is like that of an apprentice and their Master.

Jesus compares the reality of His relationship to the Father with that of a handicraftsman to his son.

The Gospel according to John (a.

The Relation of Jesus to His Father (5:16–30)) - DA Carson

If the Father out of love for his Son shows him all he does, and the Son in consequence and out of love for his Father obeys him perfectly and does whatever the Father does, such that people observe the Son and wonder at what he does, then two important truths follow: (1) The Son by his obedience to his Father is acting in such a way that he is revealing the Father, doing the Father’s deeds, performing the Father’s will.

The Son is ‘exegeting’ or ‘narrating’ the Father cf.

notes on 1:18).

(2) This marvellous disclosure of the nature and character of God utterly depends, in the first instance, not on God’s love of us, but on the love of the Father for the Son and on the love of the Son for the Father.

The same theme is developed in chs.

14–17: the achievement of the divine self-disclosure in Jesus, climaxed in the cross, was supremely the outflow of the reciprocal love of the Father and the Son within the Godhead.

To put the matter another way, if Jesus the Son of God stands with human beings, over against God, in dependence and obedience, he stands with God, over against human beings, in authority and revelation.

Granted the incarnation, it is hard to see how God-made-flesh could reveal himself in any other way.

The very obedience and dependence that characterize Jesus’ utter subordination to the Father are themselves so perfect that all Jesus does is what the Father wills and does, so it is nothing less than the revelation of God.

In the immediate context, this means that Jesus’ implicitly claimed ‘equality with God’ (vv.

17–18), as real as it is, must never be taken to mean (as the Jews apparently assumed) that God himself was compromised (if the claim were given any credence) or demeaned (assuming it were false).

Far from it: the claim was true, but God was thereby revealed.

We see His compassion and desire for all people to know Him and come to salvation...

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”

Matthew 9:36-38 “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.””

From death to life (21-24)

Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,”

What Jesus is saying is that the Father has given Him authority over the judgement of all things.

Remember from last week they have just accused Jesus of blasphemy (equating Himself to God being the Son).

For the Jew, God is Father and Israel is the son.

So for Jesus to take this on was not “on their radar”.

They didn’t expect it.

But rather than looking at what had just taken place with the healing at the pool of Bethesda, healing a man who had been there for 38 years lame, and asking, “woah, who is this that brings life”… they focused on the their law/authority.

So the fact that they are not honoring Jesus, they are dishonoring the Father.

The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volumes 1 & 2 (1C.

Honor the Son Who Gives Life and Judges (5:21–23)) C.Keener

Further, Jesus both answers the basic charge and returns it, a common rhetorical technique.

In contrast with their charge of blasphemy, Jesus honors his Father.

But because he is the Father’s representative whom the Father honors (5:23), by dishonoring Jesus they are dishonoring the Father (cf. the same idea more explicitly in 8:49).

Jesus thus effectively returns the charge against them: it is they, not he, who dishonor the Father.

Jesus tells them that it is the Father that raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life (vs21).

That word “raises” is the same word that Jesus uses with the lame man as heals him and tells him to get up.

Jesus is saying I’m showing you this is true, look at what has happened.

Whoever hears His words and believes Him who sent Jesus has eternal life.

It can not be more clear.

It’s not just about hearing (though important), but belief and action are indicative of that belief.

We’re given the lame man as a visual representation of what Jesus is breaking down theologically.