The Abuse of John 5:26 and the Pan-Canonical Nature of Christian Truth

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Alright, I've only got a few minutes left in the program today. Let's talk with Chris. Hi, Chris. How are we doing,

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James? Doing alright. I've got a question for you. I've watched your debate with Greg Stafford about three times now, and one of the things that I've found dealing with Unitarian and things

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I've seen come up in the forums is they'll bring up John 526, where it says, as far as the father hath life in himself, so hath he given the son to have life in himself.

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And they also quote John 657, it says, as the living father hath sent me, I live by the father, so that he is me, even he shall live by me.

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You know, they use this as an attack against the ontological trinity, and talk about how

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Christ is dependent upon the father for life, and I know he used this at the end of your debate with Greg Stafford in his following closing statements, and I was just curious on how you would answer that, if you had the opportunity to maybe give a response on that.

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Well, the way to answer any utilization of John chapter 5, or really any biblical text at all, is to once again challenge the fact that the heretic, the false teacher, the antichrist, will never be able to allow any text of scripture to stand within its own context.

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They will never be able to allow a contextual reading, whether it's John chapter 5, and the sovereignty of God, John chapter 6, and the sovereignty of God and salvation,

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John chapter 5, and the unity of the father and the son. And so, 526 is coming after an entire discussion, and this is where, you know,

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I've tried to be consistent on this all along. I think down through the years,

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I have been pretty consistent in exhorting Christians to have a knowledge of the scriptures that allows them to recognize a contextual abuse of a particular passage of scripture.

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And so, if we know what John chapter 5 is about, then we know what has prompted the discussion that leads

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Jesus to say the words of John 526. And what is that? Well, it is what has happened in regards to the

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Sabbath and Jesus' statement in John 517, that my father's working until now, and I am working.

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And the result, and understand the Jews, that he was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

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And then beginning in verse 19, then, you have this lengthy discussion of the relationship of the father and the son.

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Now, Unitarians, who just have to tear the gospel of John apart, whether they be

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Muslim Jehovah's Witness or anything else, completely miss the point of Jesus' response.

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He is not denying that he is making himself equal with God. He is denying that he is some separate deity who is in disharmony with the father.

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The entire emphasis of 519 and following, and of course 526 is a part of that, is to talk about the absolute unity of the father and son.

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The son does nothing off of himself. He's not off, he's not some separate deity that's off in competition with the father.

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There is perfect unity between the two. They can't see that because they have their external sources, their watchtowers, their cults, whatever it is they're going for.

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But they are missing the fact that what Jesus is saying is, he's going to say, you have to honor the son just as you honor the father.

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If you don't honor the son, you don't honor the father. The same writer is going to tell us in his epistle, if you don't have the son, you don't have the father.

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It's the unity between the two, and when you see that, then what's being said in 526 makes perfect sense.

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If Jesus has life separately from the father, af hayal too, if any of the divine persons have life separately from one another, you're forced into tritheism.

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If John 526 was not true, we would be tritheists. The Muslims would be right. But you see, people don't see that you have to have the same affirmation of monotheism as you have of the existence of the divine persons, and as long as you don't care about holding to the balance of scripture, as long as you don't allow the scriptures to speak for itself, well, then you can isolate one text and say, ah, this means this to me.

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But if you are trying to handle the word and allow it to speak for itself, then very clearly what would be necessary in a situation like this would be the absolute affirmation of the unity of the father and the son, absolute monotheism.

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The son is not some separate deity that has life unto himself. In fact,

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I don't know if you saw it, but we did an Aramaic Broadcasting Network program called

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Jesus or Muhammad. I posted them on my website last week. And...

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In one of those, we went through the text in, it was

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John 14 or John 16, one of the two, where the spirit does nothing offhale to nothing of himself.

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Exact same phraseology used of the son in John 519. And what is all of that emphasizing?

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The absolute unity, monotheism, one God, the very things the Muslims say we're denying is right there.

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But at the same time, when you find those truths, the Unitarians will use them to promote their viewpoint at the expense of other things.

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That's why I've said many, many times, we need to recognize Christian truth is a whole.

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It is found in all of the text of scripture. And it is found not just in one text, but all, but in the unity of texts coming together with that.

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I think the music's up. And so, Chris, I'm going to have to run, but thank you very, very much for your phone call. God bless you.