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John 5:17-30
The Astounding Authority: Equality with God, 5:17-30
!
The Fathers Relationship To the Son.
In the spiritual realm, Christ knows God better than anyone.
Better than theologians who have written about Him through the centuries.
Even better than the prophets and apostles, who received divine revelation.
Christ knows God so well because He was in God’s presence from before eternity (John 17:1-5)
The Apostle John said it this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God” (John 1:1).
Christ was face-to-face with God.
If anyone knows about God, Christ does.
It stands to reason, therefore, that if we really want to know what God is like, we ought to listen to what Christ said about Him.
To begin with,
q He spoke of God’s holiness, addressing Him as “Holy Father” (17:11) and “righteous Father” (v.
25).
q He spoke of God’s justice, telling a parable about rendering due penalty to tenant farmers who killed the landowner’s son in an attempt to gain his inheritance (Matt.
21:33–46).
q He spoke of God’s power, pointing out that “all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27).
q He spoke of God’s sovereignty, saying, “Your kingdom come.
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt.
6:10).
q He spoke of God’s omniscience, saying He is a “Father who sees in secret” (6:4).
q He spoke of God’s goodness and love, characterizing Him as a gracious Father who provides all that His dear children need (7:9–11).
Those are all wonderful truths, but there is one theme that supersedes them all.
More than any other concept of God, Christ knew God as His /Father./
1.
Jesus Claimed Equality with God (v.17-18)
/a) //The Father Is One with His Son. /
1) /His claim: My Father (v.17)/
/(a) /Jesus was saying, “I am one with God.
He works on the Sabbath and I work on the Sabbath.
We are equal.”
Leon Morris explains:
Here His defense rests on His intimate relationship to the Father. . . .
The expression “My Father” is noteworthy.
It was not the way Jews usually referred to God.
Usually they spoke of “our Father,” and while they might use “My Father” in prayer they would qualify it with “in heaven” or some other expression to remove the suggestion of familiarity.
Jesus did no such thing, here or elsewhere.
He habitually thought of God as in the closest relationship to Himself (/The Gospel According to John/ [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971], pp.
308–9).
/(b) //My Father has been working until now & I have been working/
1. /God never ceases to work, even on the Sabbath (Sunday).
/It is true that when God created the world, Scripture says He rested on the Sabbath day; but this means He rested from His creative work, not from His other work.
His work of love and mercy, helping and caring (compassion), looking after and overseeing (sovereignty) continued.
2. Note: Jesus said, “And I work,” meaning that He did good on the Sabbath as well as God.
Again, He was claiming to be equal with God, claiming to have the same right to work even as God works: that is, to erase the wrong laws of men and to establish the just and compassionate laws of God.
2) /His claim clearly understood (v.18)/
/(a) /Christ’s critics clearly understood what He was suggesting.
That’s why they “were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He . . .
was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God” (v.
18).
/No Middle Ground:// /A person either accepts the claim of Jesus to be equal with God or else he rejects the claim.
The claim was clearly made.
There is no longer a middle ground upon which men can stand.
Man is now forced to make a decision.
2.
Proof 1: His Obedience (v.19)
/a) //He Did Not Act Alone (v.19a)/
1) /He did exactly what He saw the Father do (v.19b)/
I can of Myself do nothing.
As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. (John 5:30 NKJV)
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. (John 6:38 NKJV)
Then Jesus cried out, as He taught in the temple, saying, "You both know Me, and you know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.
(John 7:28 NKJV)
Then Jesus said to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am /He/, and /that/ I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.
(John 8:28)
Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own /authority/; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
(John 14:10)
2) /Christ was saying, “The Father and I are One.
We work together.”/
/(a) /This oneness between the Father and Son is also evident in Christ’s high-priestly prayer on behalf of all believers (John 17:20-22).
/There was a holy intimacy and communion between the Father and Son./
/ //The Application Don’t Miss It!/
q /Jesus Christ was perfectly obedient; He acted exactly in the nature of God.
/
q /A challenge for obedience (1 John 2:3-6)!/
3.
Proof 2: His Great Works (v.20)
/a) //The Father Loves His Son (v.20a) /
1) /Christ was very well aware of the Father’s love,/
… for He went on to pray in His high-priestly prayer, “I in them [all believers] and You in Me.
May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. . . .
I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them” (17:23, 26, niv).
1.
The Father’s love for the Son is the root of our love for one another as believers.
2. Since we are /“accepted in the beloved”/ (Eph.1:6)
God loves us as His Son.
/b) //God shows Him what to do (v.20b)/
1) /All Things Which Jesus did were the Very Things which the Father Did./
/(a) /Jesus said that the Father was going to show Him greater things to do, greater things than the healing of the paralyzed man (John 5:8-9).
Jesus would be...
q controlling the forces of nature (storms on the Sea of Galilee).
q multiplying food.
q raising the dead and healing multitudes of people.
a. Jesus glorified the Father by totally exhibiting the Father’s attributes and fully doing the Father’s will.
b.
Likewise, we glorify God when we allow His attributes to shine through our lives and obey His will in everything we do (Philippians 2:13).
Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe.
The works that I do in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me. (John 10:25 NKJV)
If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; "but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father /is/ in Me, and I in Him." (John 10:37-38 NKJV)
Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own /authority/; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
"Believe Me that I /am/ in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.
(John 14:10-11 NKJV)
If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.
(John 15:24 NKJV)
4.
Proof 3: His Power to Quicken and to Give Life, to Raise Up the Dead (v.21)
/a) //The Father Raises the Dead (21a)/
1) /1 Kings 17:17-24—Miracle of the Resurrection of the Gentile Son/
Now see that I, /even/ I, /am/ He, And /there is/ no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor /is there any/ who can deliver from My hand.
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