Tuesday 22nd November
Read John 5:19-23
“Jesus gave them this answer: ‘Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it.22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son,23 that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father. Whoever does not honour the Son does not honour the Father, who sent him.” (NIVUK)
We wander into holy ground with these verses. Jesus’ response to the charge that He has made Himself ‘equal with God’ (v18) – patently blasphemous to a people fiercely monotheistic – forms the basis of what would become trinitarian thought in the early church. The Jews would consider any statement that Jesus is equal to God as necessitating something akin to di-theism (two gods). Consider the beliefs of the Gentiles around them. Roman emperors often claimed divine status to justify the state-sponsored emperor-cults that would develop after Augustus. Pharoah was the incarnation of the divine Horus, son of Re. Such di-theism revolted the Jews – “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) (NIVUK).
But note carefully what Jesus actually said in His answer. His first point is that He is not in opposition to the Father or independent of Him in action. His equality cannot be compared to two competing gods for ‘the Son can do nothing by himself’ (v19a). He cannot act independently of the Father. There are not extra ‘god-like’ things that Christ can or will do (v19b). He can only do what he sees his Father doing. He is co-extensive with God.
Whilst the Son is not a second deity, independent of the Father, and potentially in opposition to Him, the final clause in Jesus opening statement is as direct a claim to ‘equality with God’ that one can find! The implication that ‘whatever the Father does the Son also does’ is that everything the Father can do the Son can also do. All of the divinity present in the Father is present in the Son. For the only way that the Son can do all that the Father does is if the Son is also divine. Divine but not independent.
If your brain hurts at this point you are not alone. The mystery of the divinity of Jesus has taxed the minds of far, far wiser folk than us! It breaks the categories we routinely think within. Jesus will gently seek to help us as His answer continues. In the meantime though, spend time pondering the conclusion the early believers drew from Jesus’ thoughts. For His mindset was the mindset of one,
“‘who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage”
(Philippians 2:6) (NIVUK).
