Jesus the Son of God: John 5:16–30 (Part 4)

D.A. Carson discusses Jesus’ divinity and His unique relationship with God the Father. Carson highlights Jesus’ authority to give life and execute judgment, emphasizing His equality with the Father and the implications of this for understanding the nature of God and salvation.

The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.

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So far in this series, we have considered Jesus the Word of God, Jesus the Temple of God, last week Jesus the Gift of God, and tonight Jesus the Son of God. We’re going to begin with John chapter 5. The chapter begins with the healing at the pool of Bethesda, but we are going to pick up the narrative at verse 16 and I shall read to verse 30. John 5:16-30. This is one of the most dense passages in the Gospel of John.

It is not easy to follow because it is so tight, but I hope that by the end of the evening, the flow of the argument will be a little clearer. Nevertheless, we should begin by reading it through and following as best we can.

¹⁶ And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. ¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” 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. ¹⁹ So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. ²¹ For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. ²² For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, ²³ that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. ²⁵ “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. ²⁶ For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. ²⁷ And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice ²⁹ and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. ³⁰ “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. (John 5:16-30, ESV)

So reads the Word of God. I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So we recite from the Apostles’ Creed all around the world, so we believe. Yet it has to be said that the terminology is strange. Does God have a Son?

We become so familiar with the language that we forget that the language is part of our Christian heritage and our upbringing that we don’t reflect deeply on the proposition, God has a Son. To those who are outside the Christian heritage, what they hear us saying is certainly not what we want to say.

If you talk with your friendly local neighborhood Muslim, he thinks, unless he is remarkably well taught, and that’s not usually the case, he thinks that what Christians mean by the Trinity is that God copulated with Mary to produce Jesus, and God and Mary and Jesus constitute the Trinity. They think it grotesque, and they are right, but it’s not what we believe. If you talk with your friendly neighborhood Hindu, then of course he’s quite happy to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, but then again, aren’t we all?

God and human beings are all in the same spectrum of existence. Jesus was just a little farther along than most of us, and eventually you get far enough along and reach the highest state of exaltation and can actually be called a God yourself. Keep pressing on. Mormons have a similar Christology. They don’t tell you that when they first knock at your door, but they do. Even within the Bible, the expression, Son of God, is not univocal. That is to say, it does not mean just one thing. It means different things in different contexts.

For example, in the book of Job 1:6, when we’re told that the sons of God gathered together before Him, clearly the reference is to angels, to angelic beings. In the Sermon on the Mount, in the Beatitudes, Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called, literally, sons of God.”

⁹ “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Matthew 5:9, ESV)

The notion there stems from the ancient world in which most sons ended up doing what their fathers did, and most daughters ended up doing what their mothers did. So if your father was a baker, you turned out to be a baker.

If your father was a farmer, you turned out to be a farmer. That’s the way life was. And thus, if God is the supreme peacemaker, insofar as we are peacemakers, we’re acting like God. So blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. That is to say, insofar as we are peacemaking, we are reflecting His character, and thus we ourselves are God-like. It’s a functional category. That’s all. Then Christians who read their Bibles extensively know that in the Old Testament, Israel is called the Son of God. The whole nation.

When the nation is in captivity in Egypt, God sends Moses, and his plea is, Exodus 4:22, “Say to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord says, Israel is my firstborn son. And I told you, let my son go, so that he may worship me.” Thus, the nation as a whole is God’s son. And then later on, centuries later, Hosea the prophet, 8th century, refers to the coming out of Egypt of the entire nation, and he says, Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt, God says, have I called my son.”

And he’s referring to the whole people of God. And then, lo and behold, you flip through the Bible to Matthew 2, and the same passage, Hosea 11:1, is applied to Jesus. And he’s going down into Egypt and coming back out. What is going on? More complex yet. In the Old Testament, eventually, a king arises. And the king is called God’s son, Patek Selas. The nation as a whole may be God’s son, but the son can be peculiarly the king.

Thus, in an enthronement psalm, like Psalm 2, applied in the first instance to the kings of Israel and then finally to Christ in the New Testament, in the enthronement psalm, Psalm 2, we find the words, kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way. Kiss the son? What it means, of course, in the context is due obeisance to the king. The king is seen as God’s vassal. God is the sovereign. And the king is God’s son, as it were, exercising some of God’s authority over this theocracy.

And thus, the king is the son of God, Patek Selas. What is going on? Now, many passages could be examined to help us understand more of Jesus’ sonship. But one of the most important in the New Testament, I think, is the one here in front of us, John 5:16-30. It is preceded by a healing of this man, 38 years paralyzed. Jesus heals him. Then John remarks, halfway through verse 9, the day on which this took place was a Sabbath.

And so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, it is the Sabbath. The law forbids you to carry your mat. Now, one of the characteristics of John is that he is very able to give pen sketches of the people he introduces. They are three-dimensional characters. This man has a brain that operates at three speeds, slow, dead slow, and stall. He’s not far off being a twit. He’s very unlike the chap in chapter 9, who is. very quick with the mouth, and has a smart response for everybody. This fellow is really slow.

He blames the one who heals him. “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk,'” a whiner. They said, “Who is he?” “I don’t know.” The chap doesn’t even know who healed him. Now, that is slow. And then when he does find out, he goes back and rats on him. This is not a very pleasant character. Jesus says to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you.”

In other words, in this instance, though certainly not in all instances, some illnesses may be the direct result of specific sin. Then the man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. And thus, it was Jesus who had authorized him to carry his mat on the Sabbath, which was a naughty thing to do. And so, verse 16, because Jesus was doing these things, that is, he was actually healing on the Sabbath, and he was authorizing a man to carry a burden on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.

And this then precipitates a long discussion, a long exchange in which we find four things of what it means to confess Jesus as the Son of God. First, the Son insists he has the right to do what the Father does. The Son insists he has the right to do what the Father does. In particular, like the Father, the Son works on the Sabbath, verses 16, 17, and 18. Now, when Jesus is challenged about what he is doing on the Sabbath, he could have answered in many different ways.

In fact, if you read through the Gospels, you discover how many different responses Jesus does give, depending on the context, to Sabbath controversies. For example… He might have said here, you people are misinterpreting the Sabbath laws rather badly. The Old Testament Sabbath laws insisted that you work only six days a week, and the seventh day was to be a Sabbath of rest and worship. What law have I broken?

It’s not as if I’m a medical practitioner who is trying to earn a little extra money on the side by charging for healings on the Sunday and thus boost my income. you’re being ridiculous by blaming me for anything. Ah, the Jews could have replied, we have a law. They had broken down the Sabbath law into 39 categories of prohibited work. For example, it was judged inadmissible to carry any burden whatsoever from one domicile to another. So the man was guilty of carrying his mat home.

And then, even if you carry something within your domicile, you must never carry it higher than your shoulder. And probably, if the chap rolled up his mat, he probably put it on his shoulder, and he was probably breaking two commandments. But Jesus could have easily said, look, those are the commandments of your tradition. They are not the commandments of God. It’s not as if this man is a professional mat carrier who’s trying to sneak in a little extra income on the side. But it’s not what he answers. His answer is startling.

They challenge him, and he says, “My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” In other words, he turns the controversy into a Christological issue. That is who he is. Not into a Sabbath issue. He turns it into something more fundamental.

Now, we must understand that in some theological circles among the Jews, there was an intense debate going on. Does God keep the law? Does God keep the law? And it was argued, pretty well universally, that yes, God does keep the law.

The one place where there was dispute was on the Sabbath. There, some rabbi said, God can’t keep the Sabbath law, because if he did, the whole universe would fall apart every Sabbath day. I mean, surely he’s got to keep on going with his work of providence and oversight and sovereign governance, or else every Sabbath day, the whole thing would fall apart. So he can’t cease from all his work every Sabbath day, can he? This triggered further discussion and debate. Some Jews said, yes, clearly God does work on the Sabbath.

But when he does, he is not breaking Sabbath law. For, you see, the whole universe is his domicile, and if he moves the pieces around, he’s not moving them outside his domicile. Not only so, he’s bigger than the whole. So if he moves the planets and the stars and the constellations around, none of it is higher than his shoulder, so he’s obeying the law.

And thus, you see, what had been one stage of inference built on another stage of inference has now become a sort of rationale to defend the proposition that God does work on the Sabbath day, but without breaking the law. That was the majority view. All sides admitted that God does work on the Sabbath day. The only question was whether he broke the law when he did it.

Now, along comes Jesus. He’s challenged about what he does on the Sabbath day, and he responds, “My father is always at his work to this very day.”

They agreed on that. He never stops. Always at his work to this very day. He hasn’t stopped for any Sabbath. They all agreed with that, and I, too, am working, he said. In other words, Jesus claims the same exemption as God himself. An ordinary Jewish mortal would not make such a claim. And the Jews pick up on the problem. The Jews saw themselves as sons of God in some sense, but they perceive that Jesus is claiming something more than this by his reference to God as his Father. He is claiming God’s prerogatives.

Either he is to be in some sense at the very level of God, which in their view is unthinkable, or he’s a blasphemer, which in their view means he should be executed. Hence verse 18. For this reason, the Jews tried all the harder to kill him. Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. You see, Jews sometimes refer to God as Father, only collectively, so far as the sources go, our Father, never my Father.

But they never drew this sort of inference, that their relationship with the Father was such that whatever prerogatives God had, they had. They would have viewed that as blasphemy, rightly so. But here was Jesus making exactly that connection. In other words, he was claiming a unique sonship. And they picked up enough of the overtones to realize that they had to divide over him. Still, it is important to see that what Jesus means by equal with God is not quite what the Jews mean. They think he is equal with God. That is another God-center.

Here is God, and he is making himself equal with God. A parallel God. Another God. Equal with God. Jews, through much of the Old Testament history, had been guilty of succumbing to idolatry and worshipping other gods. The exile had stopped so much of that. The exile had whipped that out of them. Now many Jews, especially of a conservative sort, were very zealous about preserving the oneness of God, the uniqueness of God. There is only one God. And now here’s a man coming along and saying that he is, in their reading, equal with God.

That makes two gods. But that’s not what Jesus has in mind. So what we find in the next verses is just what is meant by saying Jesus is the Son of God. That is, we find a defense of the peculiarly Christian form of monotheism. There is but one God. But he turns out to be a surprisingly complex God. And that brings me to the second point. The Son insists he is subordinate to the Father, but it is a uniquely defined subordination.

The Son insists he is subordinate to the Father, but it is a uniquely defined subordination. Verses 19 to 23, we’ll take it step by step. Verse 19, Jesus gave them this answer, I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He can do only what he sees his Father doing. Now, for all of our defense of the deity of Christ in evangelical circles, that’s subordination. The Son can do only what he sees the Father doing. That’s what he says. In fact, the Son can do nothing by himself. That’s what he says.

In other words, far from being a competing God, another God center, a parallel God, a second God, Jesus immediately insists that whatever his sonship means, it is not challenging the oneness of God. He is subordinate to God in certain ways. He says so. He can only do what the Father says. Now, this is not a unique passage in John. There are many places in John that say this. Most of us are aware, if you’ve been Christians for a while, that John’s gospel is a great inquiry for proving the divinity of Christ. That’s true.

We can cite the passages. We remember John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:18, “This unique one, Himself God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared it.” Or we remember the confession of Thomas in John 20, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus doesn’t rebuke him. He tells him, in effect, it was about time. Or the great confession of Jesus himself in John 8, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

In other words, John’s gospel is a great inquiry of texts that affirm or imply his deity. But it is also a great inquiry of texts that affirm or imply his subordination. Look farther down in this passage. Verse 30: “By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me.”

Or John 8:29,

²⁹ And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” (John 8:29, ESV)

John 14:31,

³¹ but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here. (John 14:31, ESV)

“Do you see? Passage after passage. Now, this is a functional subordination, but it is important to recognize it never works the other way. You never have the Father saying of Jesus, ‘I always do what pleases Him,’ or ‘the Son sends me.’ Thus, in John 8:29, as we’ve seen, the Son says, ‘My Father does not leave me alone, for I always do what pleases Him.’

The Father doesn’t say, well, the Son doesn’t leave me alone either, because I always do what pleases Him. It’s always one way. And in John chapter 14, as we’ve seen, if the Son there says that He demonstrates His love for the Father by obedience, the Father then doesn’t turn around and say, yes, and I demonstrate my love to the Son by obeying Him too. That’s not what it said. In other words, there is a functional subordination. There is a functional subordination.

Now, let me insist before we go on, I see some worried expressions; how heterodox will this become? Let me insist before we go on that although it is a functional subordination, it is not an ontological subordination. That is, it is not a subordination of being. One of the most remarkable passages in this regard is the end of John 14, which is much loved by Jehovah’s Witnesses and other Aryan heritage. John 14:28,

²⁸ You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. (John 14:28, ESV)

Jehovah’s Witnesses love that passage. They say, “you see, that proves that God is greater than the Son, and therefore, the Son can’t be as big as God, as great as God; he’s got to be inferior to God, he must be some kind of inferior God.” It just doesn’t follow. One must always examine the categories of greatness when they’re introduced. For example, I can say with a straight face, “President Clinton is greater than I.”

He is greater in political prowess. He is greater in his military might. He is greater in age. But I sure won’t confess he’s more of a man than I am. He’s only a man. I’m only a man. He’s not ontologically greater than I am. He is greater in certain areas. There might be one or two areas where I’m greater than he is. I bet you I’m greater in my knowledge of Scripture. There’s nothing to boast about, but it’s just a fact.

So when one makes these comparisons of greatness, one has to see what the context is in order to see what is the scale that is being used. Now, for Jesus to say, “The Father is greater than I,” is already saying something remarkably strong about Him. Supposing I stood up in front of you and said with a very serious expression on my face, “I have a great truth to tell you. Listen carefully. It’s very important that you understand it. God is greater than I am.”

²⁸ You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. (John 14:28, ESV)

It’s so stupid because the scales are entirely disproportionate.

But Jesus says it with a straight face, which means, at very least, that he’s in the same ballpark. To say that sort of thing with a straight face… It means that you’re either a nut, or you have some kind of scale with Almighty God Himself, such that you have to listen very carefully to what He is saying. Now, in the context of John 14, He makes it pretty clear what the scale is. Jesus has been talking about going away.

Now Jesus tells His disciples, listen, you’re moaning and you’re whining because I’m going, but it’s a selfish kind of moaning and whining. you’re sorry for yourselves because I’m going. If you really loved Me, you would be glad for My sake, because I’m going home. I’m going back to My Father, to use the language that He uses in John chapter 17.

⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. (John 17:5, ESV)

I’m going back to that sphere in which the Father is greater than I. I’m going home, but you don’t see it.

I’ve told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you believe. In other words, Jesus is not even there saying that He is ontologically inferior to the Father. He is claiming a certain kind of oneness, and then He’s saying that the Father is greater in glory, and His whole desire is to go home.

Nevertheless, having said all of that, having insisted that Jesus is God, having insisted that Jesus is not ontologically inferior to His Father, it has to be said that the Son insists He is subordinate to the Father, and that recurs in passage after passage. Nevertheless, the rest of this passage is structured around, in the original, four “for” clauses, four “because” clauses, and they carry the flow of the thought forward, and they help us see in what ways Jesus’ subordination is a uniquely defined subordination. The subordination itself is now made clear.

Now, the first four crops up at the end of verse 19. Verse 19 reads, I tell you the truth, a 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. Now that’s remarkable. That’s really remarkable. You and I might be called son of God because we’re peacemakers. That is to say, God is the supreme peacemaker, and insofar as we engage in peacemaking, then we are acting like God and show ourselves to be his sons.

But none of us would be so presumptuous as to say, and whatever God does, I do. Now, this whole model, of course, is still functional, and it’s built on the fact that I’ve already mentioned, in a pre-technological, in a rural or handcraft society, most sons do what their fathers do. Stradivarius Senior teaches Stradivarius Junior how to make violins. He tells him how to cut the wood, how to choose the right wood in the first place, how it has to be properly cured. Then he’s got to give him instructions on gluing.

He’s got to show him what kind of varnish to make, how to put the arsenic in that makes it illegal today, how to choose the best horse hair. He shows him all the skills and all the craft of making a Stradivarius violin. And eventually, the son says, whatever the father does, the son also does. And that’s how a handcraft was passed on from generation to generation. It’s how farming secrets were passed on from generation to generation. Now, Jesus says that his sonship with respect to God is of that sort.

That is, whatever the Father does, the Son also does. That makes His Sonship utterly unique. No other Son can make such a sweeping claim. I have never spoken and worlds have leapt into being. I cannot raise the dead. I do not know everything. I cannot create light and darkness. I am not master of my own fate. But Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He can do only what He sees His Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”

In other words, Jesus grounds His functional subordination in His claim to coextensive action with God. Let me repeat that. It is very important. He grounds His functional subordination in coextensive action with God. The Son can do only what He sees the Father doing, for whatever the Father does, the Son also does. He grounds His functional subordination in His coextensive action with God. That makes His Sonship utterly unique.

Which brings us to the second John 4:20, “the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does.” Stradivarius Senior loves his Son.

Stradivarius Senior does not want to show Him everything there is to know about wood, but then hide His special secrets when it comes to the varnish. No, He loves His Son because He loves His Son. No, he loves his son. Because he loves his son, he shows him everything that he knows about making Stradivarius violins. Everything. Now the father, we are told, loves the son. And he shows him all that he does. So that in this relationship, the father shows the son, and the son does it all.

We’re still dealing in functional categories, but there is nothing the father does that the son doesn’t do. And this because it is a love relationship. Twice in John’s Gospel, we are told, the father loves the son. Once here, once in John 3. We’ve already found the passage, John 14, that says the son loves the father. But in that passage, the son’s love for the father is exemplified; it is deployed in obedience to the father. John 14:31 says.

³¹ but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here. (John 14:31, ESV)

So the son’s love for the father works itself out in obedience to the father. Stradivarius Jr. loves the old man. The old man’s been around a long time. He knows what the father, he knows how to build good violins, he’s got an international class reputation. The son wants to be obedient to the father and expresses his love in this handcraft society in learning the trade from his father exactly as the father shows it to him.

And the father, for his part, shows his love for the son exactly by showing him everything, not hiding anything, holding it all back. And this, we are told, this love explains verse 19. That’s what the point of the “for” is. For the father loves the son. In other words, if the son does everything that the father gives him to do, it is because the father loves the son. Now, there are two very important implications of this. Important implications.

The first is this, the Son by His obedience is acting in such a way that He is revealing the Father. Let me repeat that, the Son by His obedience is acting in such a way that He is revealing the Father. In John’s Gospel we’ve seen again and again that Jesus is presented as the one who reveals God. Do you want to know what God looks like? He looks like Jesus. Why in looking to Jesus can you be so sure that you’re looking at God? Quite apart from the ontological claims.

The point is the Son claims that whatever the Father does, the Son does. And He only does what the Father gives Him to do. It’s precisely in the perfection of the Son’s obedience that we can be so assured that everything that the Son does is precisely what God wants to have disclosed of Himself. In other words, Jesus doesn’t take time out. Today I’ll obey God. Today I’ll do my own thing. Rather He does only what the Father gives Him to do. He says only what the Father gives Him to say.

But He says and does all that the Father gives Him to do and say. And thus, He is the perfect reflection, the mirror image, the copy, the stamp, to use the language of Hebrews, of God Himself, precisely in His deeds and words. It is His obedience as a man that ensures that all that He says and does is perfectly the reflection of God’s will and way and mind. But there’s another implication. See, this first implication we’ve already seen in John 1 in the prologue. What did we read? The Word has narrated Him.

The Word has disclosed God. Isn’t that what we saw? The Word has revealed God. The Word who is one Himself with God? Now he has revealed God, but now there’s another implication and it all turns in the love of the Father for the Son. You see this marvelous self-disclosure of the Father in the Son turns in the first place not on God’s love for you and me, but on God’s love for His Son.

And likewise, dare I say it, Christ’s redemptive work turns in the first place not on Christ’s love for us, but on Christ’s love for His Father. I just cannot say that strongly enough. We so often think of the love of God in terms of His love for us, and that’s natural. God knows we need to be loved. And we think of the love of the Son in terms of His love for us. But in the first instance, the way this thing is set up in John’s Gospel, that is, dare I say it, secondary.

In the first instance, the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things so the Son does it. And how does the Son demonstrate His love? By obeying the Father, even all the way to the cross. The world must learn that I love the Father and I always do what pleases Him. What drives Jesus to the cross is not in the first instance His love for me. Now, I’m not denying His love for me, don’t misunderstand. But not in the first instance, but His love for His Father.

He cannot imagine doing something other than what the Father gives Him to do. Hence the agony in the garden. “Not my will, but yours be done.” And hence, ultimately, it is the love of the triune God that is supposed to become a model for our love. In the so-called High Priestly Prayer, John 17:24 and following,

²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:24-26, ESV)

So what is basic? The love of the Father for the Son, the love of the Son for the Father. In other words, this is one of the great truths of any Trinitarian view of God. I have not yet introduced the Spirit. We’ll come to that in due course.

But God, though He is one, is not simple. If God were one and simple, like a Muslim, Allah, what was He doing in eternity past before anything else was? You cannot speak of Him loving in that context, gazing at His own navel maybe, but not in any sense loving others. But God, the God of the Bible, though one, has always been not simple, complex. The Father has always loved the Son. His Sonship is not merely a function of His humanity. No, no, no. John 3:17 says that God sends His Son into the world.

Even the mission that brings Him here in the first place is part of the commanding function of God, and His coming is part of His obedience. The Son?

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17, ESV)

In other words, we are too quick to think of our salvation almost entirely with respect to its bearing on us. A growing maturity in Christian things will think through also our salvation from the perspective of its bearing on God. We were given by the Father to the Son. We’ll pick up that theme next week. The Son went to the cross, yes, out of great love for me.

I can say He loved me and gave Himself for me. But in the first instance, He loved His Father and went to the cross out of obedience, loving obedience to Him. Which brings us to the fourth four, the third four. For the Father loves the Son, verse 20, and shows Him all He does; yes, to your amazement, He will show Him even greater things than these, for, now the third four is introduced, an exemplification of how the Son does all that the Father does.

This introduces an example, an exemplification, something still greater than what they’ve seen. 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. Now, it was a commonplace that only God finally could give life. We remember the story of Naaman. The king of Israel, when he is challenged by Naaman, by a letter from his monarch, the Syrian king, to heal Naaman, the king of Israel replies, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring to life?”

And the answer, of course, is no, he’s not God and he can’t bring to life. But there is a God in Israel who can, and hence the story with a prophet introduced. Elijah serves as God’s agent in such matters. But Jesus claims more than that. He claims not to be simply God’s agent. He claims to have in this matter of raising the dead the prerogative of life. of God Himself, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son gives life.” Do you see? No Old Testament prophet says that.

The apostles don’t say that. They are always quick to say, no, no, no, I raise this man in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. This miracle is done only by the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I’m only God’s spokesperson, but not Jesus. Just as the Father has the power to raise life, so the Son has got it as well. And ultimately, that theme is developed a little farther in ensuing verses. In other words, there is no power that God has that the Son does not have. And that brings us to the final four.

It’s moreover in the NIV, the beginning of verse 22, but it’s a four in the original, four. Four, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son. What does he mean by that? Well, Stradivarius Senior ultimately says to Stradivarius Junior, Son, you know all that I know. So from now on, you do all the glue. I’ll do all the woodcutting, you do all the glue. And within that framework, thus, there comes to be differentiation of function.

So in terms of the Godhead, the Father did not die on the cross, despite the fact that you sometimes hear untutored Christians praying, Father, we thank you for dying on the cross for us. In fact, he didn’t. The Son did. So there are distinctions introduced into the functions of the members of the Godhead. One of these distinctions is the Father then gives the function of judging, including the final resurrection on the last day, to the Son. That’s what he says.

Now, this does not mean that now, finally, at last… As the Son does His own thing. Now, Steladivarius Junior can make a whole new batch of glue without any reference to the antecedent tradition. No way. At the end of the passage, verse 30, the Son is still saying, “By Myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and My judgment is just, for I seek not to please Myself but Him who sent Me.”

Thus, although verse 22 insists that the Father has delegated all judgment to the Son, even here the Son insists that He is not acting independently. He is still acting entirely in concord with His Father. Now why has the Father done all of this? Verse 23, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. That’s remarkable.

For the jealous God of the Old Testament to say this about anyone either means that that one is one with God in all of His rights and prerogatives and privileges. In other words, God has now so disclosed Himself that He insists that all of the glory and honor and worship and adoration that He has insisted is exclusively His because He is God. He alone is God. He now insists He accorded the Son. For He is not less God. He does whatever God does. He says what God says. He is on a mission sent by God.

He is one with God. Functionally subordinate, He may be, but He is to be worshiped, and He is to be honored. He is to be worshipped as God is worshipped. He is to be worshipped as God is worshipped. And so strongly does God put this in the teaching of Jesus that if we withhold that worship from Jesus, we are withholding it from God Himself. That’s what the text says. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Now, there are many passages like this in the New Testament, but this is the most condensed. Read the opening verses of Hebrews 1:1-4. What this tells us is that on the last day, the question God will ask us, as it were, is not, “What church did you belong to? How hard did you try? How sincere were you? How faithful were you in prayer?” He will ask first and foremost, “What have you done with My Son?” That’s what He will ask.

Now, there are many other things that derive from that, but that is the fundamental question: What have you done with My Son? I have determined that all should honour the Son as they honour the Father. Why? Because the Father loves the Son. Not to honour the Son is to violate the Father’s love for His Son. In the third place, the Son insists that, like the Father, He has, now if I were writing this on a blackboard, I would use hyphens: Life in Himself? Life-in-Himself?

The Son insists that like the Father, he has life in himself. The text now is verses 24 to 26. Verse 24 is often cited in evangelistic settings, but I think it’ll be easiest if we begin with 26 and work backward. As the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. The more you think about that verse, the more your brain hurts. It is a very difficult verse. As the Father has life in himself, what does that mean? He has life in himself.

It is not an expression we normally use of other people. I don’t say, yes, my wife has life in herself. Who else would she have life in? It must mean, with reference to God, that he is self-existent. He has life in himself. That is, he is not a derived being. He is not dependent on any other. He has life in himself. It is not a derived life. But now the text says, as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. Now, wait a minute.

If he’s granted the Son to have life in himself, how can you speak of it as life in himself? In other words, if what life in himself means is self-existence, how can you grant self-existence? If it is self-existence, how is it granted? If it is granted, how is it self-existence? In other words, from the point of just abstract logic, it would make more sense to say, as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life.

But of course, if he said that, the Son would not be on a par with God. It would clear up the logic, but then the Son would not be self-existent. Listen, and as a result, when this verse has been talked about and thought about in the whole history of the Christian church, the best explanation that I’ve ever heard for it is this. This is an eternal grant.

That is to say, this does not mean, as the Father has life in Himself, and the Son at one point didn’t, so the Son eventually was granted life in Himself. Because then it wouldn’t be life in Himself, it wouldn’t be self-existent. It has to be rather a depiction of the eternal state of things, an eternal grant. There has always been this kind of relationship between the Father and the Son. The Father has life in Himself, and the Son has life in Himself. Both are self-existent.

And this self-existence in the part of the Son is a function of this eternal grant from the Father to the Son. If you ask me, what does an eternal grant look like? I don’t know. I scarcely know what time is. I certainly don’t know what eternity looks like. But I don’t know how else to read the text. In other words, the Son has life in Himself exactly as the Father has life in Himself. And that harks back likewise to the prologue, doesn’t it? In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Now read v. 26 as an explanation of v. 24-25. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus says, “whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me.” Notice the change in pronoun. “Whoever hears My word, you hear My word, and as a result, you believe in Him who sent Me. Because My words are God’s words. It’s not just hearing My word and believing Me. If you hear My word, you believe Him who sent Me. Because My words are God’s words.”

So, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. you’ve moved out of the sphere of death and into the sphere of life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. Now, in the spiritual arena, that happens.

As the Son rises from the dead, he calls a whole generation of men and women to him from across the centuries, and the dead live. Paul uses the same language in Colossians chapter 1. We have been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Now, why can the Son do this? How can the Son do this? Because he has life in himself. He’s self-existent. He’s not a derived being. He’s the first source. He is one with God. He has life in himself. That’s part of the Father’s eternal grant.

The Son insists, in other words, that like the Father, the Son has life in himself. Every time we stand up to preach, to witness, to invite men and women to taste eternal life, we are saying, “We know the one who has eternal life because he has life in himself.” That’s the kind of God he is. That’s the kind of Savior he is. And then we say, on that ground, “I tell you the truth. Whoever hears his word hears the word of God.” And he passes over from darkness to light.

For, verse 26, he has life in himself. In other words, the gospel invitation of verse 24 is predicated on the identity of Jesus as the self-existent one in verse 26. And that brings me to the last four. The Son of God insists he is also the Son of Man. And as such, he is also the Son of God. He is the God-sanctioned Judge of all. The Son of God insists He is also the Son of Man, and as such, He is the God-sanctioned Judge of all.

Verse 27, And He, that is God, has given Him, that is Christ, authority to judge, because He is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this. For a time is coming when all who are in their grace will hear His voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself I can do nothing, I judge only as I hear. And my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.

Now we look at the final resurrection. And Jesus insists that He has peculiar authority to judge, not independently of God, verse 30, He judges only as the Father wants, but He has peculiar authority to judge because He is not only Son of God, He is Son of Man. What does that mean? Well, the title Son of Man is applied to Jesus in many, many places in the Gospels. In every other place but this one, the article is used, the Son of Man in Greek.

Now the article is not used the same way in Greek as it is in English, so one can’t just transfer across. But one of its functions is to make something particular, is to point it out. Jesus is not just a human being, a Son of Man in that sense, He is the promised Son of Man. It harks back to Daniel chapter 7, where we are told, one like a Son of Man approaches the Ancient of Days, God Himself, and receives a kingdom from His hand that shall never be destroyed. Jesus is that Son of Man.

He’s the Son of Man who comes in the clouds of heaven. He’s the Son of Man who suffers for others. He’s the Son of Man who is a human being. But He’s above all the Son of Man who is the fulfillment of that Danielic vision. But in this passage, and in this passage alone in the New Testament, there’s no article. The effect in Greek is to make you think through not so much the identity as the quality. That is to say, though doubtless he still is the Danielic Son of Man, he is a human being.

He is a human person. He’s a Son of Man. Not just Son of God, he’s also Son of Man. And for that reason, it is peculiarly appropriate that he be our judge. In other words, he judges us not only with the knowledge of omniscience, but with the knowledge of experience. God’s justice is perfect. He’s omniscient. He takes all possible factors into account. But it cannot be said of God the Father that he has entered into our experience as human beings. It can be said of the Son. He has become a human being.

And thus, he shares not only the perfection of his Father’s knowledge and will, and judges in accordance with that will, but he judges also because he is a human being. To use the language of Hebrews once again, he has been tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.

¹⁵ For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15, ESV)

And therefore, on the last day, when he calls someone forth, that person will come forth. You see, in part, this is a setup for the wonderful account of the resurrection of Lazarus in John 11. That’s only a step toward the final resurrection.

I’ll say more about that one in a couple of weeks. But even then, he very carefully says, Lazarus, come forth! And Lazarus comes forth. Someone has said, had Jesus said simply, come forth, all the graves would have opened. Oh, that may be a stretch of the imagination, but not much. For he is the one who finally will say on the last day, come forth. He will say to my father on the last day, Thomas Donald Macmillan Carson, come forth. And my father will have a resurrection body. He will say, Adolf Hitler, come forth.

And Adolf Hitler will have a resurrection body. Do not even be amazed at this, the text says. After all, he has life in himself. The time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out. Those who have done good will rise to live. Well, this isn’t advocating salvation by works. We’ve already defined who the good are, what the good deed is. The good deed here is precisely to hear Jesus’ word and believe on him who sent him. Verse 24, the argument recurs in chapter 6.

²⁹ Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:29, ESV)

That’s what God requires. Conversely, those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. The authority of this Son of God, then, is unmistakable and on the last day will prove inescapable. And some will cry, as in Revelation 6:16,

¹⁶ calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, (Revelation 6:16, ESV)

Now, this is a dense passage. I know that. We’ve been very patient through a long and difficult passage.

It is a wonderful passage, but it is difficult because the argument follows clause upon clause, line upon line. I know that. But I think I would be remiss if I did not conclude with some practical implications. I will merely summarize these first. The passage is important for putting your Bible together. The passage is important for putting your Bible together. We’ve seen this kind of thing already in John. It’s part of a pattern in which the Old Testament rites and laws and temples are taken up as models anticipating Jesus, pointing to him.

The temple, which looks ahead. The Passover feast, which looks ahead. The lamb, which looks ahead. The serpent on the pole in the wilderness, which looks ahead. These all become part of a whole nexus of anticipations in the Old Covenant that look ahead. Here there is one more. The Son of God. For Israel was God’s son. A failed son. A disobedient son. The king was God’s son. A failed son. A disobedient son. The monarchy was cut off.

But God promises that out of the Davidic stock, a child will be born, a son will be given, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and of his kingdom there will be no end. Thus, Jesus, as the Son of God, becomes the true Israel, the true king, the ultimate locus of God’s people and word and disclosure, and all before it was looking to Him.

Thus, in the Old Testament, if Israel is the vine, God’s vine, in almost every passage where that metaphor is used, in almost every one, every one where it’s used extensively for more than a few verses, in every one, Israel turns out to be a stinker, a failed vine. Something produces bad fruit. Read, for example, Isaiah 5, where Isaiah breaks out his guitar and says, let me sing you a ballad of my vine, and it turns out that the vine is disgusting. Or Psalm 80, where again, Israel is the vine.

Then Jesus comes along and He says, I am the true vine. So also here, He’s the true Son. He’s the ultimate Israel. And those who are incorporated into Him, thus, feed from His branches, become sons and daughters with Him. In other words, this passage is critical in helping us put our Bible together. Second, this passage is critical also to help us re-establish in our day the doctrine of the Trinity. There was an earlier generation of Christians for whom most of the things I’ve said tonight were simply givens. It was part of the heritage.

But that generation is largely gone. We have to rethink our way through to the formulation of Christian doctrine again. This passage is one of a handful that is essential for a well-articulated doctrine of the Trinity. Now, that’s not merely an esoteric demand. But that generation is largely gone. We have to rethink our way through to the formulation of Christian doctrine again. This passage is one of a handful that is essential for a well-articulated doctrine of the Trinity. Now, that’s not merely an esoteric demand. It is important, for example, in our witness to Muslims.

I have used this passage with people who have no understanding of Jesus as God, but works through it very slowly, very carefully to see what kind of claim he’s making, what kind of claim he’s not making. But at the end of the day, this is an excellent passage to use to begin to explain what we mean by the deity of Christ to Muslims and others and what we don’t mean. Similarly with modern pagans who have lost the heritage of Christian terminology.

You know, Gallup in 1950 asked Americans, amongst many other questions, did you receive any biblical or religious instruction when you were growing up? And only 6% of Americans said no. The same question was put in a poll in 1989. The percentage was 38% who said no. We are dealing now with a whole new influx of people, when they are converted at all, into the church, who have no heritage in biblical or Christian or historical theology things. None.

And in that frame, we’ve got to go back to basic texts again and work them through and make sure that we can articulate the elements of Christian faith. And finally, I think a passage like this ought to help us in our worship of God. We improve our worship, not as we introduce a new religion. better singing, or more guitars, or smoother trumpets, or more polish, all of which things I like, but that’s not how we improve our worship. We improve our worship by improving our knowledge of the living God.

The more we know about Him and think about Him accurately, rightly, thinking His thoughts after Him, the more we are drawn to think about Him all during the week. So that in thought, in word, in motive, the things that we turn over in our minds during the day, the things we tend to dream about at night, what we think about when we wake up in the middle of the night and our minds are in neutral, we think about God, what He is like, His love for His Son, His mystery, His oneness, yet His complexity.

We think about God, we think about His Son, and we are drawn with our whole beings to worship Him. I do not think we can improve our worship in any real sense unless we improve our knowledge of God. And so we sing one more time. From the sun’s rising unto the sun’s setting, Jesus our Lord shall be great in the earth, and all earth’s kingdom shall be His dominion. All of creation shall sing of His Word.