SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/4/2016
9:51 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: Jesus
is Equal to God in His Works
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 5:19-20
Message of
the verses: “19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them,
"Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it
is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these
things the Son also does
in like manner. 20 "For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all
things that He Himself is
doing; and the Father
will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.”
What we are looking at in these verses, the ones we
looked at yesterday, and the ones that we will continue to look throughout this
discourse that Jesus is saying to these Jews is some of the most important
verses in all of the Word of God.
Therefore we must take out time to understand the fact that Jesus is
claiming to be God who came in the flesh, the promised Messiah that was written
of in the Old Testament. If these Jews
(the religious leaders) of this time would have bothered to understand the OT
Scriptures they would have realized that Jesus Christ was who He claims to be,
but instead they were so involved in their false religion that they only had
one thing on their mind and that was to kill Him. As we read the New Testament we see only two
Pharisees who became believers in Jesus Christ, the first one we meet earlier
in the gospel of John, that being Nicodemus who later on we know He became a believer
in Jesus Christ, and when we look at the 9th chapter of the book of
Acts we will see that Saul of Tarsus who later was known as the Apostle Paul
became the second Pharisee to believe in Jesus.
I am not saying others may have become believers, but we have no record
of them, and I believe for good reason, and that is that they were so involved
in their false religion that the thought of Jesus being the Jewish Messiah
would have been too hard for them to accept.
The same problem is prevalent today, as people just think that Jesus is
a prophet, a good teacher, or some other thing, but these verses show us that
He is the very God who created all that we see when we look up at the
stars. Jesus shows us in this section
that the works that He does, or did while on earth were equal with the Father’s
works.
Now we see as we look at verse nineteen the words “truly,
truly” and they are found 29 times in the gospel of John. When we find things one or two times we know
that they are important, but 29 times shows us that they are extremely
important. John MacArthur writes about
this statement, and we may have looked at it earlier, but it bears repeating “The
phrase amen, amen (truly, truly)
appears in the New Testament only in John’s gospel. It solemnly affirms the veracity and
significance of what follows.” So as we
look at it in verse 19 what follows is “I say to you, the Son can do nothing of
Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the
Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Jesus is making sure that the Jews knew that
His claim to be God come in the flesh is what He is saying to them. Perhaps they thought that He was not really
saying this in the previous verses, but now he affirms this truth even more
with these words. MacArthur writes “He
always acted in perfect harmony with and subordination to the Father’s
will. Thus, His works paralleled those
of the Father in both their nature and extent, ‘For whatever the Father does,
these things the Son also does in like manner.’
Obviously, only someone who is equal to the Father could do everything
that He does. Christ’s statement, then,
was a clear declaration of His own divinity.”
The perfect harmony that characterizes the joint
working of the Father and the Son stems from the absolute unity of essence that
they share (cf. 17:21). ‘that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in
Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe
that You sent Me.’ Because they are one
in being, one eternal God (10:30), to see Christ act is to see God act (John
12:45; 14:9-10). By accusing Jesus of
wrongdoing, the religious leaders were actually doing what they charged Jesus
with doing, impugning the
holy nature of God Himself.”
Verse 20 we see the description of the oneness of
the Father and the Son in their union of love.
This is not the only place where this is seen (cf. 3:35; 17:26; Matt.
3:17; 17:5; 2 Peter 1:17), as these show that the Father loves the Son and as
we continue in verse 20 we read “and shows Him all things that He Himself is
doing.” MacArthur writes “The verb
translated loves is not Agapao, the
love of will and choice, but phile~o,
the love of deep feelings; the warmth of affection that a father feels for his
son. This is the only time in the New
Testament that it is used to refer to the Father’s love for the Son. The present tense of the verb indicates an
eternally uninterrupted and all-knowing love that leaves no room for ignorance,
making it impossible for Jesus to have been unaware of God’s will, whether
about the Sabbath, or about anything else.”
In the rest of verse 20 we see that Jesus tells the
Pharisees that even though this miracle was spectacular, that they would be
seeing even greater miracles, and when we get to chapter eleven and see that Jesus
will raise Lazarus from the dead after being dead for four days this may be
what He is referring too, for that indeed was a tremendous miracle.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I believe that it is the will of God to love
God and to understand that God loves me in a similar way that we see the love
between the Father and the Son.
My Steps of Faith
for Today:
To better understand the love that God has for me, and to love the Lord
the way He desires me to do so.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Cyrus” (The reference that was given to this
answer is not correct, although the answer is correct. I believe that Isaiah 44:28 best suits the
place where this is found.
Today’s Bible question: “Where is the first promise of the Redeemer
given?”
Answer in our next SD.
3/4/2016 12:03 PM
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