KBM Equal With God
KBM The Life Of Christ • Sermon • Submitted
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As you guys know we have been going through a series of lessons on “The Life of Christ” with the hope of each of us drawing closer to our Savior by way of knowing him better. Having last looked at what it takes to be a disciple of Christ we now turn our attention to an interesting situation that takes place in John 5:1-18 and why the Jewish leadership wanted so badly to kill their Messiah. John 5:1-17 finds Jesus walking near the pool of Bethsaida. This pool was believed to have healing powers. Jesus came across a man that had been trying to get in this pool for 38 years. Jesus knowing this asked the man if he wanted to get healed. The man, naturally, said yes and explained why he hadn’t been able to get into the pool thus far. Jesus simply tells the man “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” The man did just that, but when some of the Jewish leadership found this man they asked him why he was carrying his bed. Why, because in their “book of traditions” or “commentary on the Old Testament” it said no one was to take up their bed on the Sabbath. The man told them told them that the one who healed him told him to do so and so the Jewish leadership found Jesus and were angry that he healed this poor man. Jesus responded in John 5:17…
17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”
Now this brings us to our text and study for today in John 5:18…
18 This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Jesus continues in John 5:19-47 to explain that he is worthy of being “Equal With God” because he is “God himself.” You can see why the Jews, not believing this, wanted to kill him so. However, in this lesson I want to focus on why we know Jesus is truly “Equal With God.”
First, we know this to be the case because he was “working with the Father” not against him. Notice what Jesus explains in John 5:21…
21 For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.
Jesus was working hard, just like the Father and the Spirit, to bring life back to humanity that had corrupted their spiritual life with sin which is why Jesus would say later in John 14:6…
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Jesus knew that his credentials “as God” were on trial and he also knew it wouldn’t be good enough to simply say “my father is God.” God has always required witnesses to confirm truth outside of one’s own claims.
13 So the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.”
So, Jesus not only points out that he is God’s only begotten son but there were others witnesses to this claim as well, beginning with John the Baptizer. Jesus knew the Jewish leadership had sent delegations to John to try and determine who he was and what his message was all about, which Jesus pointed out to them in John 5:33.
33 You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.
John often explained he was the one preparing the way for the Messiah and not the Messiah (John 1:26-27). Jesus points out that if they had excepted John as a witness to Jesus they would have known Jesus was the Messiah (John 5:35).
Next Jesus points out that his miracles are a witness that what he is saying is from God and true.
36 But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.
In Mark 16:20 we read that the purpose of miracles being allowed at this time was to let people know that they could trust what was being taught because that person was from God. Only the righteous could do actual miracles and all others “supposed ones” were simply slight of hand or what we might call illusions today or magic. So Jesus now has “two witnesses” that point to him being who he says he is “the Messiah.”
Thirdly, Jesus points to God’s word itself.
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
Literally hundreds of passages in the Old Testament point to Jesus being the Christ such as Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. Jesus even declared in Luke 24:44…
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”
With this being true, why did the Jewish leadership reject Jesus as the Messiah?
They rejected him because their heart was all wrong Jesus said in John 5:40-42 and because they wanted the standing that comes from man instead of God in John 5:44).
So, Jesus clearly was able to point to three witnesses that pointed to him being the one and only true Messiah. The evidence is clear, Jesus of Nazareth, born to Mary and Joseph was and is the Savior of the world and thus “Equal With God.”