WWUTT 833 Healing by the Will of the Father?

Critics of Christianity will say that Jesus never claimed to be God. Have they read the

Bible? Jesus' own critics knew that when He called God His Father, He was calling

Himself God when we understand the text. Many of the

Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the

Gospel of John chapter 5, and I'll begin reading in verse 18 through verse 29.

The Apostle John wrote, "...this was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill

Jesus, because not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling

God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

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.

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. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the

Son gives life to whom He will. The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the

Son, 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. 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 is passed from death to life.

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. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the

Son also to have life in Himself, and He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the

Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming, when all who are in the tombs will hear

His voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

So in verse 18, this is a passage that kind of bridges what we were reading yesterday with this discourse that Jesus speaks in verses 19 through, well to the end of the chapter actually.

We've only concluded in verse 29, but He keeps going all the way into chapter 6.

So this statement here really illuminates for us what Jesus' enemies thought of the words that He said.

This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Jesus.

Why? What was the last statement that we read in verse 17 yesterday? Jesus answered them, my

Father is working until now, and I am working. Remember He healed a man on the Sabbath.

The teachers saw this man with his mat rolled up and was walking with his mat.

They said, hey, it's unlawful to carry your mat on the Sabbath. Well nothing in the law of Moses said that.

That was something that they just made up to kind of make themselves look more pious to the people, to be holier than thou.

And so they're telling this man he's breaking the Sabbath by carrying his mat. And that was a warning because strict penalty and judgment would befall this man if he didn't roll his mat out and just lay down there on the ground right in his spot.

But the man said, the guy who healed me told me to take up my mat and walk. And then later revealed that it was

Jesus who had healed him. And this is why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, verse 16, because he was doing these things on the

Sabbath. And Jesus answered them, my Father is working until now, and I am working.

So they're asking him to explain himself why he's doing these things on the Sabbath and what was his response?

Well, I'm working. No, that's the exact thing they didn't want him to say.

You don't work on the Sabbath. That's breaking the Sabbath. But Jesus says, my father is working and I am working.

And this was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath in their eyes, not that Jesus was breaking the

Sabbath, Jesus was sinless, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

So understand like the twofold offense in the eyes of Jesus enemies here.

First of all, he's saying that he's working on the Sabbath and he's saying that God works on the Sabbath in the book of Genesis.

After God created all things, the entire universe, everything in the span of six days.

It was six 24 hour days. It was not six billion years. It was a short period of time.

God spoke those things into existence and they came into being by the power of a word.

After six days, he rested. He rested from all of his work on the seventh.

And that was the day that would become the Sabbath day, a day of rest in the law of Moses, that people were not to do work on that day.

And that day was supposed to be kept so holy that if a person were to gather on the

Sabbath, they should be put to death. If even a sojourner in their midst were to work on the

Sabbath, they must be put to death. So the responsibility that was upon the Hebrews to even communicate to the sojourners, these are our laws.

This is what we abide by. If you break this law, the law of our sovereign

God whom we worship, the penalty for breaking this law will be death.

And so here is Jesus and he's not breaking the Sabbath, first of all, because he's the Lord of the

Sabbath, but also because what he told this man to do was not even against what was stated in the law of Moses.

There was nothing in there about not carrying your mat on the Sabbath. This was a lame man who Jesus made well and said, pick up your mat and walk.

And he did because Jesus is God had the power to heal this man and had authority over the

Sabbath because he's Lord of the Sabbath. But for Jesus to say, my father is working until now, one of the things that he asserts with this is an understanding that when

God rested from his work, it's not like God stopped being God. It wasn't like he was doing nothing.

And that's the way that we honor the Sabbath. Just do nothing. That wasn't what God did. And therefore, it's not what

Jesus does. Just lay down on a mat and not do anything. That would be the only way that you would appease these teachers of the law in Israel would be to just not do anything at all.

But that wasn't what God did on the seventh day. God was still holding all things together.

Wasn't like processes just stopped happening because God just stopped being

God on the seventh day. He ended his work, the work that he did in creating the universe.

He did in six days. He rested on the seventh. He ceased from that work, but he didn't stop working all together because, again, it is through Christ that all things hold together.

If God were to stop doing that on the Sabbath or any day of the week, things would just fly apart.

So Jesus is saying to these teachers, my father is working.

He's been working until now. And I am working what I am doing, what you're condemning me for on this day.

I'm doing the will of the father. So that was the first thing that they were offended by. And the second thing was that they were that Jesus was even calling

God his father. And I've said this before, even teaching through Matthew, where Jesus is telling his disciples how to pray in the

Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter six, he says, pray then like this, our father who art in heaven.

Now, that's not the first time he refers to God as father. It comes up before that even in the Sermon on the Mount. But to tell his disciples to refer to God as father, you can call

God in heaven, your father through me, whatever you ask for in my name.

So we are adopted into his family as his sons and daughters through the blood of Jesus Christ.

And so as adopted. Sons and daughters with Jesus as our elder brother. We get to call upon God as our father, just as Jesus did.

He is our heavenly father, our our benevolent provider who looks over us and loves us affectionately and disciplines us and is shaping us into the image of his son,

Jesus. And our father is doing that work all the time. So it's not just six days during the week.

Our father is working on our sanctification. And then that seventh day of the week, our father is not working. No, he is still working even then.

And so there is something that must be done on that day of rest. It's not like we would cease from our work and not do it at all.

But just as God has worked on that day and Jesus did the work to the will of his father.

So there are things for us to do. Likewise, I remember a critic of Christianity was saying to me once how the whole law of the

Sabbath is a complete paradox. There would be no way for us to feasibly keep that law because just by the very fact that you go to church on Sunday takes work.

So therefore, you're breaking the Sabbath. And I laughed at him. I said, you're doing the exact same thing the

Pharisees did. That was exactly the same as they're making up stuff that would apply to the

Sabbath. That is not what that meant to be. Jesus himself said that man was not made for the

Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man. And Jesus himself is the Lord of the

Sabbath. So what you have seen Christ do on the Sabbath, that's what we can imitate and know that we're not breaking a

Sabbath law. As I've said in the past, Jesus is our Sabbath rest. So every day for us in Christ, Jesus is a rest from work, for we don't work or labor to attain our salvation.

We cannot. Jesus did that work for us. And so every day for the believer is a

Sabbath rest. But every day for the unbeliever is a breaking of the Sabbath, for they are continuing to work to merit righteousness, which we can't do.

Our righteousness is not enough. Our righteousness is as filthy rags before a holy God, according to Isaiah 64 6.

And so we cannot come into God and be received by him as holy, no matter how many good things that we have done.

We need a righteousness that is not our own. And that's what is given to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

And this work, this growing us in righteousness and sanctification is a work of God that happens every single day.

And so there are things that we must do even on a day of rest. And Jesus demonstrates that here, not only by working on the

Sabbath, but also referring to God as his father and saying, God, the father himself works.

And then see how much more his critics are angered, infuriated by him because of what he's just said.

Verse 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.

There is a common criticism of the worship of Christ that comes from Muslim apologists.

Muslims will say, point to me in the Bible where Jesus says, I am God, worship me.

What they are trying to raise with this particular argument is the idea that Jesus never actually thought of himself as God.

That's something that Christians invented, and they kind of elevated Jesus to that particular position.

But you cannot actually find a place in the Bible or in the gospels where Jesus referred to himself as God.

The real conundrum with that, with any kind of argument that a person makes about, show me the place in the

Bible where Jesus said, well, if I go to the Bible and I point to you any passage anywhere from Genesis to Revelation, I'm showing you what

Jesus said. It's not just the letters in red in the four gospels. It's the whole Bible that is the word of Christ, the

Holy Spirit that inspired men to write what God meant for them to write.

And as Peter said in 2 Peter 1, we now have the word of God more fully confirmed.

This is the word of God. John said in 1 John 5 20, we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true.

And we are in him who is true in his son, Jesus Christ. He is the true

God and eternal life. That's the word of John calling Jesus Christ the true

God. What are we reading here in the gospel of John? We're reading what John wrote down.

So if he writes down the words of Jesus, we're not reading what Jesus wrote with Jesus pen in his hand and writing down the gospel.

He left it to his disciples, his apostles to write what he meant for them to write, which became the

New Testament. But it's kind of a fallacy for a person to say, point to me where Jesus said that you cannot find it in the red letters.

Well, if I find it for you in black letters, it's still the word of Christ. John, who wrote what you would have in red letters if you had a red letter

Bible, also wrote 1 John 5 20, who said that Jesus is the true God and eternal life.

He who is to be worshipped. John, likewise writing the book of Revelation, where Jesus says,

I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. That's a title that applies only to God.

So even when you're reading quotations of Jesus in the gospels, you are reading what the apostles themselves wrote down, not what

Jesus directly said word for word by taking his pen to paper. And so that you would actually see it that way.

Some of these things that we have in the gospels are summarized, like the Sermon on the Mount, for example.

If you were to read the Sermon on the Mount, it's about 15 minutes long at standard pulpit rate.

If you read it out loud, you come to around somewhere between 15 or 20 minutes, depending on how fast or slow you read.

It was much longer than that. There were people that would be out there for hours listening to Jesus talk.

But what the Holy Spirit inspired the apostles to write down was just enough of what we needed.

John will go on to say later on in his gospel, if we were to write down all the stuff that Jesus said and did just during his earthly ministry, there wouldn't be enough manuscripts out there to chronicle all of this stuff.

So the Holy Spirit has guided the apostles to summarize those things that are most important for us to know.

Every word is the word of Christ. It's not like John is going, well, let me just put my own twist to it. But it's ridiculous to say, well, point to me the letters in red and prove to me that that's what it is that Jesus said.

All of it is what Jesus said. It's all the word of Christ. So again, a Muslim apologist will say, point to me in the

Bible where it says where Jesus said, I am God, worship me. But that is a loaded argument, because what they what they want out of that is

Jesus identifying himself on their terms. How did Jesus actually present himself to the

Jews as the son of God, which meant what he was equal with God?

That's the way they interpreted that statement for Jesus to refer to God as his father made himself equal with God.

Verse 18. So so the Muslim apologist who's demanding a presentation of Jesus words as I am

God, worship me. Well, that's what you get when Jesus refers to God as father.

It's not on the terms that the Muslim apologist want, but it's the same thing. It means the same.

And even Jesus enemies thought that way when Jesus said these things. No one called

God father. No one called him that. Jesus introduced that and welcomed us to also call

God our father, access to whom we have through Jesus Christ.

It was known even by the Jewish teachers, if we were to call God father, it would be to say that we are equal with God.

Nobody did that. Jesus did because he is equal with God. He is

God. And this was the this was the interpretation of his critics. This is what his critics heard

Jesus saying. So we might want things worded a certain way, but we must understand what that meant in the context in which those things were presented.

We we in our American context, we want things worded a certain way. We even want things laid out in a certain way.

We love things linear. We love things in lists. We we love things to happen in a certain order.

And and sometimes we have to overcome that tendency to want those things in order to discern the

Bible properly because things are not always laid out in a way that we in an Americanized context expect things for us to be laid out for us.

So Jesus is calling God father and his opponents are hating him for it. But Jesus is one with the father.

Remember what we read in Colossians chapter one, verses 15 through 20.

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him.

And he is before all things. And in him, all things hold together again. God even working on the

Sabbath. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

He is top. He is above everything. And this is in reference to Christ for in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

In Jesus Christ, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

He was no less than God. Everything that we can know of the father we know in Jesus Christ.

He came to show us the father. And we have this in the in the very beginning of the

Gospel of John, chapter one, verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.

And then verse 18, no one has ever seen God, the only God who is at the father's side.

He has made him known. We know the father through the son,

Jesus Christ to to call Christ. The son of God is to call him

God for Christ to refer to God as his father is for Jesus to say that he was equal with God.

And indeed, though the son submits to the will of the father, that does not mean that the son is any less than the father himself.

That was what Jesus' own opponents heard him saying. And so that is how we should understand

Christ identifying himself as God in the flesh. God incarnate whom we remember and celebrate here at Christmastime, that gift, the father giving his son to mankind as a propitiation for our sins to be received by faith.

Let us conclude with prayer. Our wonderful God, we thank you for for the message and the testimony of Christ as shared by his apostles in the gospels and then also the testimony that we have in the remainder of the

New Testament as well. I pray that we would love this word. If we love

God, we will love his word and we will come to his word and we want to learn more about our savior and how we may be like him.

And here is where we find it in the Bible, which has been so wonderfully given to us that we may know

God through this word in Christ Jesus written down for our sake.

Paul in Romans 15, 4, for what was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we have hope.

And Christ is our hope, our promise of forgiveness and eternal life with God, our father in heaven.

Thank you, father, for your abundant grace through your son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.

Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a

New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.