John 5:17-32 (Who Did Jesus Say Jesus Is?)

The Pastor’s Calling to Proclaim Christ

All right, so the primary job of a pastor of a preacher is to proclaim Christ. If a preacher is not doing that if he's not proclaiming The beauty of Christ the excellency of Christ the glory of Christ The humanity and the divinity of Christ the mercy grace and love of Christ.

If he's not proclaiming the atonement and the sacrificial death of Christ the justifying sanctifying and glorifying work of Christ. Then that man is not a preacher. He's not preaching the gospel. He may be a motivational speaker.

He may be a toothy grinning fool who's leading other people into his warm-hearted foolishness, but he's not a preacher. A Preacher's purpose no matter what it costs no matter what the season no matter what the verse is to preach Christ.

Because all scripture points to him. If you remember if you were here back in our very first series the book of Ruth. Every week every verse every story every scene is all about Jesus Christ. If you're here in Jude, it was all about the glory of Christ in the church.

That's contending for the faith, but it is all about him his glory. It ends with that beautiful note to him who is able to make us stand in the presence of God's glory. It's all about Christ. If you remember every week every jot and tittle of John is all about Jesus.

The entire Bible is all about him purposefully. All history is all about him. The law and the prophets Anticipate him. The Torah foreshadows him the Kings typify him the prophets foresee him the temple prefigures him and the feast and the sacrifices herald him.

Every word of every verse and every section of the Bible is all about Jesus Christ. Because that is the only hope that we have. See, the Bible is not a self-help guide that you'll find in the clean up your life section of Barnes and Noble.

It's an announcement of your death certificate. It's an announcement of your death. That you are not capable of saving yourself. You're a desperate need of a Savior and without Someone else operating on your dead and soul you are lost.

You're not good enough. You have fallen short of the glory of God. You've sinned against an infinite God and when you sin against an infinite God it carries An infinite consequence which is an eternity in hell and that's one sin.

Imagine a lifetime of sins piled up in front of the king of glory. That's what we have done. The case against us in our own flesh and our own merit is Insurmountable and that word doesn't even adequately describe it.

That is why a preacher must preach Christ. Because only Christ is pure enough and righteous enough and holy enough and merciful enough and loving enough to take upon himself the debt that we owed to our God only he is able to Absolve our guilt and satisfy and assuage the wrath of God only Christ so that you and I will stand before him no longer as convicted criminals, but as Children as dearly loved children daughters and sons.

If a preacher is giving you anything other than Jesus Christ He's asking you to take your eyes off of the cure and to put them back on the disease. Which is you and I if a preacher is giving you anything other than Christ.

He's abusing you. He's bearing he's putting a weight of the law on top of you that you cannot bear. If a preacher is giving you anything other than Jesus Christ He's performing a spiritual hate crime against your soul.

He's willingly leading you down a road of ruin that will end in eternal peril. That is why I say this so strongly. That we must preach Christ. He's the very best thing that I could ever offer to you. He's the only encouragement that you'll ever need.

He is most satisfying supremely sufficient. Anything else is not encouraging. It's paralyzing. That's why everything we do here. The Shepherd's Church is all about Christ. I pray to the Lord. By the power of his Holy Spirit that we continue down that road and we never drift from that mission.

Every week you're gonna hear that today. You're gonna hear that even more. Today is Jesus's answer to who he says that he is. Last week we learned at the pool of Bethesda that Jesus physically healed this man, but he didn't spiritually heal this man.

And as a result of his dead and soul he goes and he turns in the Lord of glory to the Pharisees who it says now Are more increasingly persecuting him. So now Jesus is it's his turn to respond. Who does Jesus say that he is.

That's what we're gonna cover today and we're gonna cover it in three sections. Who does Christ say that he is? What does that require of you and I and how can we know that it's true? That's what we're gonna look at today.

So if you will turn with me to John 5 17 through 32. As we look at the Word of God together, but he answered them. My father is working until now and I myself am working. For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him.

Because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own father. Making himself equal with God. Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to him 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 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.

For just as the father raises the dead and gives them life even so the son also gives life to whom he wishes. For not even the father judges anyone, but he has given all judgment over to the son. So that all will honor the son even as they honor the father.

He who does not honor the son does not honor the father. Who sent him truly truly I say to you? He who hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment. But it's passed out of death and into life.

Truly truly I say to you an hour is coming and now is When the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For just as the father has life in himself. Even so he gave to the son also to have life in himself.

And he gave him authority to execute judgment because he is the son of man. Do not marvel at this for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and Will come forth those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.

Jesus finishes the section this way. I can do nothing on my own initiative as I hear I judge and my judgment is just. Because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me if I alone testify about myself.

My testimony is true. But there's another who testifies of me and I know the testimony which he gives about me is true. It's the Word of the Lord. Let's pray Lord, thank you so much for your words to the Pharisees that were given 2 ,000 years ago.

Lord, I pray that we would. Wow, there could be a million sermons given on these words and we can analyze every part. Lord I pray that as we try to look at this in a larger chunk that we would see the themes that you are communicating that Lord we would see the level of Necessity that it is for us to respond to you with honor.

And Lord, I pray by the power of the Holy Spirit that if there's anyone here today who is who is not in Christ. Or anyone listening to this online later. Who is not in Christ. That Lord by the hearing of this word that they would come into the kingdom that Lord you would quicken their heart to understand to believe that you would awaken them that you would open their eyes and That Lord they would see the truth.

It's in Jesus name. We pray. Amen. Now again today we're gonna be focused on three things. We're gonna be focused on who Jesus says that he is to the Pharisees. We're gonna be focused on how that requires a certain response from us and Then we're also gonna look at in the conclusion how we can trust these words are true.

Because of the way that Jesus verifies them. So let's begin with who is Christ. We're gonna look at two things. Christ is the incarnate Son of God as Scott shared with this earlier earlier. But he's also the glorified resurrected all-authority in heaven on earth Savior of the world.

So he's both and let's look at first the incarnated Christ. But he answered them the Pharisees. Saying my father is working until now and I myself am working the issue at hand here is the Sabbath. Jesus has just healed a man on the Sabbath and told him to pick up his bed and walk and the Pharisees saw this man in the temple courtyard and By all accounts by their made-up rulebook.

They could have killed him on the spot for this violation. It was perhaps the worst Sabbath violation that you could that you could have carrying your mattress on the Sabbath. So here it is. Jesus is the one that this man goes to the Pharisees and turns him in and says he's the one who told me to do This and all the more now they're persecuting him because Jesus has violated their law.

You see the Jews like I said before they took five or six verses in the Old Testament that really were Determinative on what the Sabbath would look like. Don't carry sticks because you're not supposed to build fires.

Don't buy and sell goods. Don't bear your burdens. There's five of these commands and they turn them into 35 categories of Sabbath regulation that they could wield over the people as A law book hitting them over the head beating them down into submission.

They were taking their traditions and they were viewing them as equal to Scripture. We have a similar phenomenon today in the Catholic Church. Where all of the councils and all of the creeds and all of the things that the Pope has supposedly spoken Ex-cathedra are now lifted up and equal to Scripture and that is false and that is abhorrent.

But it's the same thing back then. They were lifting up their traditions equal to Scripture and they were trying to accuse Jesus of breaking the law of God. Jesus was telling them in a sense that he was not under their arbitrary man-made system of religion.

Because he was innocent in the eyes of the Torah. He may have been violating their traditions but because they were man-made they had no power. So Jesus was innocent. He's also making a fairly significant claim.

When he says that God is his father. He is designating himself as the only human being in all of history. That ever was it ever will be that ever can be. Who has this sort of intimate relationship with the father.

He is saying that in the same way God is free to act on the Sabbath he is also free to act. He says my father's been working since the Sabbath day until now. Therefore I am working and the Pharisees understood it.

It was not uncommon to call God father in the Old Testament. The Jews understood this language, but they knew Jesus was saying Something different that he was an intimate relationship with the father.

So that as God is free to move Jesus is saying I am free to move and I am NOT under This command that you have given me. You see the Jews understood that God's Understanding of the Sabbath that God's relationship to the Sabbath was different than human beings.

God made everything in six days he created everything out of new material because there wasn't any a Theological term that you might want to know is ex nihilo. On day one God spoke matter and reality into existence out of nothing.

That's what ex nihilo means out of nothing and Then on the second day, he created new material and on the third day He created new material and four five and six every day. He's creating new material that previously did not exist.

So then on the seventh day when he rested he did not kick up his feet. He did not hang his cosmological. What is that thing called a hammock? God didn't go to sleep. When the Jews understood that that God rested they understood that to mean he ruled.

He reigned over the material that he had just made. He wasn't inactive on day seven and he wasn't inactive on day eight nine ten or one billion. He was reigning over the material that he had made. He was ruling over it.

So when Jesus says as God is working in creation, so am I. Jesus is saying that I have the authority to rule over reality. So that when Jesus walks up to the sick man, and he sees that this man is disordered.

That he is not like God created human beings to be disease-free and healthy. Jesus has the ability like God himself to speak and the man is healed on the spot. Only God can speak things into existence.

Jesus is claiming not only equality with God. He's claiming the same Power authority and everything else that God the Father has he has. Jesus is saying That he is not under not only their arbitrary laws that they made up.

But he's also as a different relationship to the Sabbath than they do because he's God. Now the response of the Jews, I'm sure you can anticipate. Probably didn't go well. This is what they say for this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him.

Because he was not only breaking the Sabbath, but he was also calling God his own father and making himself equal with God. This is the first time in the narrative where the Jews decide that they're gonna kill Jesus.

Remember I said last week John 5 is where it all turns south. John 5 to 11 is the rising rejection of Christ that will culminate in the arrest death and burial of Jesus. It all starts here in John 5. You see in John 1 they were just investigating him when they sent a coalition of Jews To John the Baptist to find out who he was in John 2.

They're just confused by him. Why would he overthrow the tables and the money changers in the temple in John 3? They were just questioning him wondering what his theology is John 4. We don't hear about the Jews because it was Samaritans and Galileans John 5 in the beginning.

They're just rejecting him because of the Sabbath, but here now they're ready to kill him. They're ready to murder him because he has violated one of their sacred Understandings of Scripture and that is that God is one.

One of the most profound verses if you were a Jew in the first century. You would have said it all the time is here. Oh Israel the Lord our God is one in. And the way that they understood the Shema that's what it's called is that God is one being and one person.

They were monotheist just like you and I but they were Unitarians and that they did not see God as one being in three persons. So when Jesus claimed equality with God, they were thinking he was claiming to be a second God.

Not one God in three persons. They had no category for that. Two gods is what they heard him saying and even in the first century church. It's recorded that the Jews were persecuting Christians because they believed that they were polytheist and even more specifically that they were tri theist.

The Jews believed that they were Worshiping multiple gods and they believed that that was so abhorrent that they murdered the followers of Christ. They arrested the followers of Christ and they persecuted them violently.

Now, of course Jesus is God. And he could have responded that way he could have said you know what guys you're right I am God you need to bow down and worship me or I'm gonna strike you dead. He could have said that.

But he doesn't respond in that way. Often Jesus doesn't respond in the way that we would think he would respond. He begins by describing his unique status. His unique role is the incarnate Son of God.

This is what he says. Therefore Jesus answered them and was saying to them truly truly I say to you the Son can do nothing in himself and Let's say it's something that he sees the father doing. For whatever the father does these things the Son also does in like manner.

I Find this to be an absolutely brilliant Response by Jesus because I need you to understand he is not talking about his inability here. He is undermining the entire Pharisees argument. He is essentially saying that I healed this man because God wanted me to.

I told him to pick up his bed and walk because God told me to. I'm not acting on my own authority. I'm not speaking on my own authority. I'm not even thinking on my own authority. Every thought action.

Everything comes directly from the father, which means that If they don't understand him, they don't understand the father. That's what Jesus has done. That's the rhetorical brilliance of the way that he's answered this question.

He's temporarily made aside his his some of his freedoms his Omniscience his omnipotence. He's been bound in a body. He's been bound in a particular time and space. He is now Subjected to creaturely limitations like he gets tired.

He's hungry. He's thirsty. But what I think even more important that he's doing like I just said a second ago is he's telling The Pharisees since I am the one who's hearing perfectly from God, then you are not.

That's what he's doing by telling them this. He is showing them that they're actually on the opposite side that they're actually enemies of God. And we see this in three surprising ways in verse 20 Jesus says for the father loves the son the father loves the son.

So you can expect that the people who hate him and want to kill him are not on the side of truth. And they're not on the side of the father. That's the first way he shows them that they're enemies of God because they want to kill the son.

The second way he says the father shows the son all things that he himself is doing. What Jesus is saying is that if you don't understand me, you don't understand the father. You don't understand what I'm doing.

You have not heard from God. You think you have. You think you've heard from God and your religion and your textbooks and your man-made rules? You think that you have this relationship with God, but it's a farce.

You don't know him. Because you're opposed to me you're opposed to God. The last thing that Jesus shows them how they're opposed to God is is a future event where they're gonna reject God ultimately. It's a subtle foreshadowing of the cross this is what he says and The father will show him greater works than these.

So that you all will marvel. See the greatest thing that God ever did. Was he crushed his one and only son on the cross it says that it pleased him to bruise him and The Pharisees they marveled when this happened, but this is not marvel in a worshipful kind of awe.

This is not a reverential scratching of the head wondering what God is doing. This is a sort of confused and frustrated scoffing mocking angry scratching of the head searching for any sort of Explanation to fit the empty tomb except the truth.

We learn in the book of John that they made up lies that said the disciples stole the body. They were willing to believe anything except the truth that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead the greatest act of redemption.

That God ever did was their greatest moment of rejection. They killed God's Son and then when he rose from the dead, they refused to believe. They were not on the side of truth. They were not on the side of God.

They were enemies of God. That's what Jesus is showing them. That's the first aspect who Jesus is. He's the humble Lord. He's the incarnate Lord. He will be the rejected Lord. The second aspect is the glorified Lord.

This goes beyond his humility. It goes beyond his incarnation his perfect submission to the Father his rejection by men and it goes to his glorification. Where he will rise from the dead on the on the dead on the third day.

Jesus tells them for just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life. Even so the Son also gives life to whom he wishes. If Jesus stays dead, he gives no life to anyone. Jesus is prophesying here that he will rise from the dead and he will have a limitless life to be able to share with anyone that he chooses.

He says for not even the Father judges anyone but has given all judgment to the Son so that all who honor the Son even as they honor the Father. But he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father.

But Jesus is alluding to as a coming hour. It's actually two years from the events of John 5. When the Pharisees will surround him when the armies of hell will be chanting. When the people will be young crucify him crucifying thinking that they had put him down.

But yet he will rise to life with the keys to life the keys to death. And the only people who get life from the Son is whoever he chooses to give it to. This not only makes Jesus our Savior, but it makes him the Lord over salvation.

Because if he alone can give life to whoever he wishes then salvation is not determined by our decisions. Salvation is not determined by our raising our hands. It's determined by the only one who ever rose from the dead.

The obvious implication to this is that if you are saved then is because Jesus determined to save you. Not the other way around. John says plainly he gives life to whom he wishes. He saves whom he wishes he raises whom he wishes meaning.

There's not a single person that Jesus determined to save who did not get saved. It also means there's not a single person who sincerely turns to Jesus that he will not receive. You ask yourself. How do those two work together?

Well, because he gives life to a dead soul that dead soul then responds to him. It turns to him loves him longs to be with him and yet in that he receives them. Christ does the first work in sharing life with those he wishes and those whom he will wakens turn to him and love him.

So that both points of those are true. No one ever comes to him unless Jesus gives him life first and all who come to him will always be received. Both are true, but this Jesus also brings judgment as well.

He dispenses the judgment of God because God has given over all judgment to the Lord. Jesus Christ. Those who refuse to honor him. Who act according to their sinful natures who never turn who never honor the Lord Christ are doomed for an eternity.

Separated from God in hell. It's like a blind man. Looking up and squinting and trying to see the Sun. A blind man and his own blindness can never see the Sun just like you and I are in our own sin can never see the Sun.

You never see the Son of God never love the Son of God never worship him. We need God's help in order to see him in order to love him. He is the one who came to give his life. So that he could give his life to whomever he wishes and to those that he gives it they will respond.

They will turn to him they will love him they will worship him and to those who don't He will dispense the judgment of God which leads us to our second point. Once we understand who Jesus is that he's a humble incarnate Savior and that he's the glorified Lord.

How are we going to respond to him? Because his existence demands a response. Who he is demands something from us he cannot be who he is and us look at him indifferently. There's only two options in this text on how you and I will respond to Jesus.

We will either honor him or we will dishonor him. There is not a third option. So we need to know what it means to honor Christ says. So that all who honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him truly truly.

I say to you he who hears my words and believes him who sent me has eternal life. That is what it means to honor the Son. It means to hear the words of Christ. Now we know that Jesus doesn't just simply mean to let the sound waves from Jesus's mouth bump into our eardrums.

So that we hear him. Yeah, Jesus. I hear you, but I don't care about what you said. That's not what he means. Biblical hearing goes beyond that it goes to listening it goes to obeying. We learn from this that to honor Christ is to listen learn love study and obey the words of Jesus.

Even as he speaks, but it goes beyond that. Because Jesus's words are not just the red letters in your Bible. Jesus is the incarnate Word of God. Jesus is the one who sent his spirit to commission the writing of the Word of God.

Every page of the Bible is Christ's Word and I believe that Christ wants us to honor every page of the Word to love the Word to obey the Word. To study the Word to memorize the Word to search the Word like like it's a lamp unto our feet.

That's what it says. To apply the Word and to seek that we would understand the Word of God to honor Christ is to live a word. Central life. That's the first aspect of honoring. Jesus is to honor the Word of Christ.

The second aspect is that we must believe. To honor the Word and to understand everything that it said about Jesus we must believe it. I've sent this many times in Seminary, I read a book from an atheist who could describe the gospel better than any of us in this room and He did not believe.

He believed in something Scott mentioned to us earlier, but he didn't believe in Christ. It's not enough to know the words. It's not enough to know the doctrine. It has to trickle down into your heart.

Because if you just know the word and you don't believe that's not enough. It's like the man healed at the pool. He heard the words of Jesus he understood that Jesus was gonna heal him, but he didn't believe.

It's like the Pharisees who only had faith in their traditions. They heard Jesus. It didn't trickle down into their hearts. If we want to honor the Lord we have to have faith. Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please God.

We have to believe that Jesus is the Christ. We have to believe that he's the Son of God that he's equal with God that he won our redemption on the cross. Is that good news to you that he has all authority on heaven and on earth now?

Now he is worthy of our worship that he is in control of every aspect of our lives and that he is satisfying. That he is sufficient. You see it's and it's not enough to hear me say Jesus is sufficient.

I think Jesus wants us to live that way. We are not meant to get our hope from this world. We are not meant to get our joy from this world. We are meant to find our Satisfaction in him in light of all that he's done for us.

Doubt is a way of dishonoring Christ. Living in a defeated sort of way when Christ has made you victorious in His redemption is a way of dishonoring Christ to live scared and to live in fear and to live defeated and dejected as a way of dishonoring Christ.

To live in worry and in dread over tomorrow is A way to dishonor Christ. Jesus died to make you and I alive. Jesus was crushed in order to make you and I well Jesus was bruised so that we could be healed mind body heart emotions all of it.

He was silent before his shearer so that you and I could go out into the world being vocal. For the Lord who has saved us of so much. Everything he did was for us to heal us to save us and I think he wants us to live differently.

Not to save ourselves. That was his part. He did that in light of the salvation. Now this is what we do. James says it this way brilliantly. Chapter 1 verse 21 and 22. Therefore putting aside all filthiness and All that remains of wickedness and humility receive the word and plants it in your heart which is able to save your soul and Prove yourself doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.

It's not enough to hear the word. The word that's planted in your heart will bear fruit and the fruit that it will bear is love joy peace patience kindness Self-control. The word that is planted in our hearts will bear fruit.

And if there is no fruit in your life, then the word was not planted there to honor Jesus. Christ is to hear his word to love his word and to do his word. That's what it means to honor Christ while we live and this has eternal consequences.

Jesus said truly truly I say to you that he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has Eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death and into life. What Jesus is saying could not be more clear.

If you hear the word love the word and do the word and especially the one who's under the word, which is Christ. If you love him Then you are gonna have eternal life. That means that you're not gonna face the coming judgment that the world is going to face.

Verse 25 through 28 makes this even more clear. Truly truly I say to you an hour is coming and now is when the dead those who were there were faithful in Christ. But died in Christ. They're gonna hear the voice of the Son of God and those who here will live.

For just as the father has life in himself. Even so he gave the Son also to have life in himself and he gave authority to execute judgment. Because he is the Son of Man do not marvel at this for an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs Will hear the voice of God and they will come forth those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life and those who committed evil deeds to a resurrection of Judgment, if you die in Christ, you need not fear.

It's a wonderful passage if you're preaching the funeral and I want it to be hopeful for us and no one died here today. You know while your body lies in the grave decaying if you're in Christ, you'll never decay.

You'll never rot. When a Christian dies their soul goes immediately to be in the presence of Christ in heaven. It's a spiritual existence and you're awaiting what Jesus is saying here. You're awaiting that moment when the trumpet blasts and when Christ stands up from his throne.

He's been seated for two thousand years reigning over his kingdom. There will be a day when Christ will stand and well and where Christ will step out and He will come forth and he will call the dead out of the tombs.

And if you are in Christ the moment that Christ calls you forth. Just like that man who was healed physically by the words of Christ your dead and decaying body will leap forth out of the grave. If you're cremated don't worry.

I think God is capable of reanimating you no matter if you were scattered in All seven continents of the earth the same God who has the power to create earth can put you back together. Had a Christian asked me that one time if you get cremated will you miss the resurrection?

No. It's okay. He can call dry bones to have new flesh. He can make cremated ashes. Reassemble. He can take those who are lying in the graves and in the morgues in the Ossuary's and the cemeteries and he can put them back together again.

If you are in Christ He will give you a perfect sinless glorified body that one day you will live physically with Jesus. The hope of the Bible is not heaven. Not in a spiritual sense. The hope of the Bible is not floating around on clouds like little naked shaman babies.

It's not the hope of the Bible is a physical Resurrection where you have a new body and a new heaven and a new earth and you will live physically with Jesus. There will be a day when you dear Christian will look at your Lord.

And I believe you'll wrap your arms around him and he'll wrap his arms around you and he'll say well done my good and faithful Servant. You will see him and you will see the wounds in his hands and the wounds in his side and you will know him.

Physically if you're in Christ honoring Jesus in this life goes way beyond this life. It dictates how you will spend eternity. Now what happens for those who dishonor Christ. Jesus gives us a list. Obey the Word.

Believe those people will have eternal life. What does it mean if you dishonor Christ what will happen? There's a term. I want you to understand. Two terms, I think one you're probably already familiar with.

The first one is benediction and the second one is malediction. Benediction is what happens to you when you honor Christ. You were blessed. You were lifted up. Malediction is what happens to you when you dishonor Christ.

It is the equal and opposite of the blessing. So for instance. When we see. Actually, let me give you an example. My wife and I we take our kids to the grocery store and we say we bribed them. That's what we do.

We're not supposed to but we do we say if you're good. Then I'll give you some sort of candy and I'll let you have that if you are good, but if they don't obey. If Graham jumps out of the shopping cart and knocks over a display of toothpaste.

That actually has not happened yet, but it totally is possible. Then the blessing doesn't come to them and actually what will happen is the equal and opposite thing will happen. A punishment will come to Them that is what a malediction is is that you did not honor Christ.

Therefore you dishonored Christ and you get the curse. So what is the equal and opposite of what is going on in this passage if you dishonor the Sun and you have dishonored God? That's the first thing.

You stand with the Pharisees on the side of error and on the side of enmity with God. If you were dishonoring God you will not hear the word the blessing is to hear the word the curse is you will never hear it.