My Father Is Greater Than I

The Context of John 14:28 and the Deity of Christ

Indeed, we would have only covered half a verse last week, but we'll get to it eventually. And going back to John 14 and this morning, definitely dealing with probably the most popular text that you will hear cited to attempt to deny the deity of Christ.

And so someone had mentioned, oh, I want you to get to that because it is a very common thing. Doesn't matter whether it's the Jehovah's Witnesses on a Saturday morning at your door. I was just reviewing a debate down in South Africa with one of the fellows I'm going to be debating down there in October.

And as he sort of gave this spiel of all the reasons he doesn't believe in the deity of Christ, this is one of the verses that was cited. Of course, in the vast majority of instances, all you get is the last phrase of a sentence.

You don't get the whole sentence.

You don't get the whole verse.

You don't get the verse in context. And in my experience, 99 of the people who will cite John 14 -28 couldn't tell you what the context was without looking it up and then might not even be familiar with it even at that point in time.

What you hear is, the Father is greater than I am. That's all you hear. The fact that that's the end of a sentence, generally not known to the individuals using the verse. So, the weight falls upon us to know it and to be able to give the context to it.

I realize that in the large majority of situations, you might not have even the time to do that, to be able to really explain things. But when the opportunity arises, it's good to know the text. And so, remember the context.

We actually pointed out, starting at verse 26, that we're referring to the Holy Spirit here. Remember last week, I emphasized the fact that you have Jesus using language here, that if you had the time to point this out, to provide somewhat of an overall context that's supportive of your interpretation of verse 28, it would be good.

But I especially emphasize the phrase, whom the Father will send in my name. And again, if you've been raised within the faith, you sort of go, nothing new there, nothing I haven't heard before. But again, you have to sort of step back from that and hear the words afresh, as they would have been stated.

And any prophet who would, in essence, say that God is, the Father is going to do something, but he's going to do it in my name, is an amazing statement, especially when you're talking about the sending of the Holy Spirit, who is always associated with God's purposes and God's power in the Old Testament.

So, the idea that the Holy Spirit would be sent by the Father in the name of Christ is an amazing thing. But then in verse 27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you.

Now, that verse in of itself is worthy of an entire study, we're not going to be able to do that. But I just place it within the context, again, of Jesus' announcement here of his soon departure. And the promise that he's not going to be leaving the disciples alone.

It's not just going to be them against the world. There is going to, he's not leaving them as orphans. Instead, the comforter, the parakletos, is going to come to them. And so, it is in the coming of the Spirit and the presence of the Spirit that you have this concept of peace.

Now, it would be fruitful to tie that together with Paul's statement in Romans 5 .1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God. And so, the whole work of the triune God giving us peace, peace in the midst of distress and tribulation.

And I was just this morning reading an article from one of the many groups that I follow that deal with Christian persecution. And just how bad things are getting right now, especially in the Middle East.

Our Syrian brothers and sisters are in deep trouble, primarily from the people that we are arming so as to kill them. Speaking of the United States, just brilliant move, especially led by a particular senator from a state called Arizona.

But anyway, that is just mind-bogglingly stupid on every level. But anyways, you can tell where I stand on that. And again, I'm just so concerned about the ignorance of our leaders about Islam and the various groups in Islam and things like that.

It's just unbelievable.

But anyhow, even in the midst of that, I mean, I even know, well, secondarily know some Syrian Christians through my Arabic tutor. His family is still there, very, very concerned for them. There's really no safe place left in Syria.

The last Christian church has been dismantled in Afghanistan. Over half the Christians in Iraq have been driven out. What's the consistent thing there? Anyways, even in the midst of all that, Christians can have peace.

Obviously, it's not peace with the world. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. This contrast is going to be carried on in the rest of John chapter 14 between the fact that the world cannot receive the Spirit.

Why? Well, because the world remains at enmity with God. The Spirit comes to those who are at peace with God through Christ's work, so on and so forth. But again, we could expand out on all sorts of applications of that verse.

But the point is that the theme is continuing, and that is, I'm going to be leaving, but I'm not going to leave you as orphans. I'm leaving you with my peace. That peace is going to come through the Holy Spirit.

All of this looking to the departure of Christ. Christ is going someplace where they will not be able to follow now, as he said at the beginning of the chapter. That then, leads Jesus to say, do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

So, you have a command, and it's that then, the context of verse 28. But verse 28 is not a short verse. Notice it says, you heard that I said to you, I go away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

So, just on a first blush, the statement, the Father is greater than I, is actually a dependent clause. It starts with for. So, it's amazing that people would build entire theologies, or think that they're making a theologically relevant statement, when they're actually misquoting a subordinate clause that begins with for, and they don't know what the for is there for.

And yet, that's what we encounter in the vast majority of situations. For the Father is greater. What's the for there for? Well, the beginning of the verse establishes, you heard that I said to you, I go away and I will come to you.

So, you have the departure of Christ, and the return of Christ. And, this could be very troubling to them. It's troubling to them on many levels. I mean, the fact of the matter is, until the Holy Spirit comes, until after the resurrection, and the ministry of Christ, the disciples, Luke chapter 24, opening their minds to understand the scriptures.

Remember the two disciples on the way to the road to Emmaus, and he opens the scriptures to them. You would think, well, why didn't they understand the mission of the Messiah before this? It's amazing, my Muslim friends are always saying, these can't be, you Christians have misunderstood all this stuff, all this exaltation of Jesus, all these passages in the Old Testament.

Because, if that's what it was really about, why didn't the Jews get it? As if there is no spiritual aspect to the interpretation of scripture, and as if anybody is simply capable of disentangling themselves from the traditions that they have been taught.

The traditions concerning the nature of the Messiah, and what the Messiah was going to do were so strong, that you have on numerous occasions throughout the ministry of Christ, and even into that time period after, before the coming of the Holy Spirit, after the resurrection, there is still confusion on their part.

It takes time to get rid of all these things. In fact, even with someone like Peter, it takes the presence of the Holy Spirit, and supernatural visions from heaven to finally get it through Peter's thick skull, that what I've called clean, don't call unclean, and go and talk to that Cornelius guy, even though he's a Gentile.

It's just one of the fundamental differences between Muslims and Christians, is Muslims do not believe in original sin, or that man is fallen, that man is essentially good, and as a result, when they bring that to the interpretation of the text of the Bible, it results in some real problems.

Anyway, you have this concern on the part of the disciples. They hear Jesus saying, I'm leaving. Well, that doesn't fit with their understanding of what the Messiah is supposed to do, their interpretation of Messianic prophecies, whatever else it might be.

There's a conflict here, and so it causes trouble in their hearts, and Jesus points something out to them that should be obvious, and this is where we're getting to what you need to be able to communicate frequently in a short period of time, and my experience is, the better you understand any text, concept, doctrine, whatever else it might be, the better you understand it yourself, the more easily and quickly, and with economy of words, you're going to be able to express it to somebody else.

As my church history professor said long, long ago, that which is a mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew, so if the minister is not really clear on a particular concept, by the time he gets done trying to explain it, it's going to be even less clear on the part of the people listening, and I've certainly found that to be true.

I've said many, many times, if you really want to find out if you know something, try teaching it to the junior high schoolers, or maybe even younger. That will give you an idea of whether you've really got a grasp on it or not, and so in trying to explain this, I would probably, if you've just got a very short period of time, and sometimes you can't tell whether you're going to or not, obviously at the doorstep, or I remember a situation just a couple of months ago, I'm out riding, and I'm right toward the end of my ride, and here's some Jehovah's Witnesses out in my neighborhood going door to door, so why not?

They're between houses, and so I come riding up and stop and talk with them, and it's probably not going to be an overly long conversation, but if you're on a flight to London, you might have some more time.

You've got no place to go, especially if they've got the window seat, you've got the aisle seat, they're stuck. It's sort of a great situation there. You can just sort of go for it until they call for the flight attendant and ask for another seat, I suppose, but some of those flights, there wouldn't be any to be had anyhow, I assure you.

Anyhow, you have to sort of decide, if I had a real short time period, all I do is put the phrase into the sentence from which it's taken, and explain it from there. The more time you have, the more you can provide a proper foundation.

It's almost sort of like I heard Rich talking about the fact that those of us who come from the west side came across Indian School, and they finally decided that that cow path section between 19th Avenue and the freeway, with the Grand Canyon truck holes and everything else in it, it might be a good idea to put some pavement there.

So they resurfaced it, but I don't know if you noticed, but that was a pretty quick job. That was sort of a, let's get rid of a few of the things here, and then just throw some more stuff on top of it.

It ain't going to last long, I can guarantee you. Eighteen months from now, and there's going to be holes developing and everything else, because it just wasn't done very well. It was just sort of meh, meh, meh.

Eighteen months from now, there's going to be ruts and stuff breaking up.

They did that a few years ago.

Yeah, and if you don't do a good job the first time around, you get to go back and do it again. It's something about, well, it's not like the same problem they had back east. You don't do it right back east, and the first good hard freeze breaks all that stuff up, and then you've got a real problem.

Here, we just melt it. I think it takes a little longer here with it melting than breaking it up via freezing water, but still, just as I was driving over it, I could just feel they had not really taken the other surface off.

They're just covering it over, and so it's just not going to last very long. Well, similarly, if you've only got to, you know, if you've got to do the quick patch, just go for the sentence that is the second sentence here in verse 28.

If you've just got to, you want to do something, but you know you're not going to have the time to do the whole context, then at least do this sentence. Now, even when you do lay out the context, you've got a little more time, you're still going to want to spend most of your time, the majority of your time, in establishing this sentence and what it's really saying so they can understand what Jesus was really stating.

Their interpretation of Jesus' words is, I am a lesser being than the Father. That's what their takeaway is. So often, false beliefs and false understandings are you take a phrase of Scripture, you read something into it, you rarely actually ask the question, where does that come from?

Is that what the context indicated? Is that consistent with what John was intending to communicate? That's not how most people do theology, unfortunately. They're happy with their traditions, and they've had these words, this concept sort of stuck in there.

What you're trying to do is to say, well, you've taken those words, you've put a certain meaning, but in the original sentence that Jesus uttered, that's not how you would understand what he was saying.

Why so? If you loved me, it's a conditional sentence, if you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I am. So, what's the actual point of the sentence?

First, there's a little bit of rebuke here. There's a little bit of rebuke here. Clearly, the disciples' first concern is for themselves. And while that's an understandable thing, it also would seem to indicate that there is not exactly a fullness of maturity of their love for Christ, you would think the first question would be, you're leaving, where are you going?

But their first thought is for us,.

What are we going to do if you're gone?

So, if you loved me, you would have rejoiced. So, when Jesus says, I'm going back into the presence of the Father, if their first love is of Christ, then they should have rejoiced that he said this.

Why?

Because the Father is greater than I am. Now, if the statement was, Jesus is saying, I'm just a human being, and I'm going to get to go to heaven, that would be a very odd way of putting it. Because the emphasis is on, I go to the Father.

Now, what has Jesus already said about his relation to the Father? Well, he's come forth from the Father. John chapter 13, John 1 .1,.

The beginning of the Word of God, the Word of God.

The point is that Jesus is here on earth now. His disciples well know that he walks the dusty roads of Galilee. He is constantly under the attack of the Jewish leaders. They were there in John chapter 8, when Jesus says, before Abraham was, I am.

They saw them pick up stones to stone him. They know what happened in John chapter 9, with the blind man, and the people being put out of the synagogues to confess Jesus. And the picking up of stones to stone Jesus again in John chapter 10, when he talks about his relationship with the Father, and that he and the Father are one in the salvation of God's people.

And the Jews had rightly understood exactly what that meant. And they knew the Jews were now really upset because of Lazarus, he is dead, I am the resurrection and the life, etc., etc., etc. They know that Jesus, his public ministry, is constantly receiving an escalating resistance from the people who should have known better.

And he is constantly surrounded by the sick. He is raising the dead. His was not an easy lot. And so, once they heard Jesus' statement, I am going back into the presence of the Father, they should have rejoiced if their love of Jesus was complete, because it is then a given that they should understand that he had always been in the presence of the Father.

The presence of the Father is an exalted place, and to go back to that place is to go back to where he was before, something that is made very explicit in John chapter 17, in his prayer to the Father, where he talks about how before the world was created, he had shared the very glory of the Father in his presence.

And so, to them, if what was best for Jesus, what would be good for Jesus, should be what would cause them to rejoice, and that is if you love somebody, that is the way things are, then they should have rejoiced, but they were not rejoicing.

So when it says the Father is greater than I am, it uses the term, my zone, my zone. The position of the Father is greater than that of the Son. Now, has this eternally been the case? Will this eternally be the case in the future?

Or is this talking about the very context that Jesus provides, and that is, right now I'm here, I'm going to be going here. It's a positional thing. If Jesus is going back into the presence of the Father, that is an exaltation of him, and the point is, has he always been down here, and he's just going to get exalted?

Or is the teaching of the book of John that he has eternally been here, and for us and for our salvation, for a period of time, as John 1 .14 says, that eternal word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten, and again, all those verses coming before John chapter 14.

He doesn't use the term chriton, which would be a more likely term to describe what it is that they think Jesus is saying, that is, that he is a different kind and better kind of being than I am. This is a positional issue.

And you say, well, can you really prove it's a positional issue? Yeah, because I go to the Father is the very phrase before, for the Father is greater than I am. So, the question really that we have to think about is, why is it so many people, well, we know the answer to the vast majority of people, they haven't actually ever been challenged to think this through, but if you actually read the text, because I go to the Father, that's a positional thing.

We can all tell that's a positional thing. Right now he's here on earth, he's going to go prepare a place for us, it's going to be in heaven, et cetera, et cetera, that's all the preceding part of John chapter 14.

So, why is it so many people, the first part of the, it's sort of the fulfillment of the conditional clause, talks about a positional change, I go to the Father, why in the next phrase say, and then the next thing is not positional, it is ontological, it is the Father is something.

Other than I am,.

I am not truly deity. Why not see the position stays the same? It's a positional thing here, it's a positional thing there. The Father is in a greater position, he's in this place of glory, he's constantly under the worship of the angels and the saints in heaven, and I'm going to be going back where he is.

And remember, this is the very same John who barely a chapter and a quarter ago, remember John chapter 12? Remember we spent quite some time looking at 1239 and following, where John gives us the vision of Yahweh in heaven in Isaiah chapter 6, and identifies the one who was seen by Isaiah in Isaiah 6 as Jesus, it is Jesus upon the throne that is seen there who clearly is Yahweh.

So, the idea that an author and this is where the real problem comes I think for most people, evangelicals as well I'm afraid. Interpretation of any one text is practiced in isolation from every other text.

And especially from looking at alright, what's the flow of this text, what's the flow of this portion of the book, what's the flow of the book itself, what's the view of the author, that kind of purposely thinking through the levels of context you know, you have that modeled for you in almost every sermon.

Whether you know that or not, whether Pastor Fry or I stand up there and say now let's review how we do exegesis,.

You have that modeled for you.

As Pastor Fry is going through Romans, the reason he reads the whole section and reminds you of what we talked about last week and then establishes a context is because you can't, you know, we're in Romans 8, you can't read Romans 8, 19 and not see that verse 19 is going to be impacted in some way, shape or form by what was up at chapter 8 verse 1.

Or what was the discussion of chapter 7. There is a theme and there is an argument and there is a consistent flow of thought that you have to track through a book.

Well, unfortunately,.

The vast majority of people who talk about the Bible know what the flow of thought in the book is. And the funny thing in our society now is well, everybody's interpretation of the Bible is equal. I mean, you know, you can just hand a verse to somebody who has never looked at it before and they go, well, I think it means that.

Well, that's wonderful. No one can question that. If you question that,.

You're a terrible, horrible person. You're a hater.

As if anyone would let that happen if you were taking classes on Shakespeare or if you were taking classes on Mark Twain or Goethe or someone like that. You're supposed to know the world view of that author and what else they've written and stuff like that.

And in those classes, you would be laughed out of the room if you thought that your ignorant interpretation of one particular verse without knowing anything about the author or the context is somehow equal to a meaningful interpretation if someone's actually taking the time to do their homework.

But when it comes to the Bible, well, that's a completely different thing. Everyone just can, you know,.

It's just Plato.

Just form it into whatever you want to form it into. It's a little bit like, I don't know if any of you have seen this, but there's a new New York Times bestseller. Don't you love New York Times bestsellers, especially when they're on the subject of Jesus.

Oh, yes.

There's a new New York Times bestseller. Let me tell you what sells in books.

Unbelief.

Unbelief sells books. You want to make money, ask Bart Ehrman how you can make money. Well, there's Reva Aslan.

Has just put out a book.

What's it called? Not Rebel. Zealot.

Thank you.

Who said that? Oh, yeah, Zealot.

And it's climbed the charts and everyone's talking about it. And, oh, it's so insightful and all this stuff. And I look at it. I just have to chuckle with sadness, but chuckle anyways. First of all, there's nothing new about this book.

Nothing.

It is old, old, old liberalism. Jesus was not who you thought he was. The Gospels don't accurately record his life. You have to pick through it.

And come up with what you want.

And Jesus was actually crucified for sedition against Rome. And that's all it was all about. And Jesus was just this apocalyptic figure. And it's like, wow, retreading stuff from the late 1800s and still selling and making money.

It's great. It's wonderful, isn't it? And not even trying to interact with all the refutations of this that have been written over the past century and a half and not even bothering to provide meaningful references and stuff like that.

But all because it's unbelief. It's like, oh, this is wonderful. And look, did you come on the Today Show? And I actually ended up exchanging a few tweets with this individual. I got dragged into a tweet bait.

That's the new term is a tweet bait. And I got into a brief tweet bait with this particular person. And as soon as I challenged his overarching presupposition that you have to start with the assumption that the Gospels are all wrong, that there's nothing historical.

About them whatsoever.

As soon as I challenged him to even interact with the tremendous amount of literature and basically said, you're taking the easy way out. It's easy to say, oh, we can't harmonize any of this. So you just get to pick and choose what you feel free to have.

And I replied,.

And you feel free to have yours. At least I know mine are. I mean, these folks, they will not even condescend to try to defend their position. I agree. That is exactly how I felt about it, too. I think that's a very appropriate commentary on this particular stuff.

But this is the kind of stuff that's out there. It's just the kind of stuff that is everywhere out there. The idea of actually contextualizing words.

And going,.

What did John intend us to understand with this phrase? Just doesn't cross most people's mind.

It's, well,.

It's what I get out of it that matters. It's gooey, postmodern, emotional,.

Blah, blah, blah, blah stuff,.

Which none of us can actually live with in real life. I mean, I don't want my car after my last oil change has started leaking some. So I've got to take it in, see if they didn't do something right, or if I've got a leak start, I've got to take it to the mechanic.

I've got one particular mechanic I go to because I trust him, and he does a good job, and he's fair in his prices, and he especially helped take care of Summer's PT Cruiser and helped her out a lot.

So I'm one of those guys,.

I went to the same bike store for 19 years. The only reason I'm not going there now is they closed. I outlasted the bike store. So I'm sort of into, you know, once you find a place that does a good job, you keep going there type of a thing.

But I do not want my mechanic to be a postmodern when it comes to the repairing of my car. Do you want a mechanic who's postmodernist in the reading of the manuals for the proper installation of new seals in my car?

I mean, there's only one way that seal goes in. But if you're a postmodernist, it's sort of like,.

Well, I don't know,.

I think the color on the backside's prettier. I don't want a mechanic like that. We can't live that way. We'd have engines blowing up right and left if we lived that way. But we don't do that. In fact, we get really upset and we stop going to that mechanic if they're postmodern.

Everybody's feelings are just all equal. It's just like, oh my goodness. So, we go back to the text. We want to make sure that in the few minutes left, we nail this down. So, if you loved me, you would have rejoiced because positionally, I here on earth am going to the Father who is in heaven for the Father in heaven is greater than I am here on earth.

I'm not going to go back. I'm going to go back to the glory that I had before. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced that the object of your love is going to once again no longer be the object.

Of the derision.

And the temptations and the attacks of sinful men, but I'm going to go back to that place which was mine in eternity from which I came out of love to bring about the redemption the sacrifice that I'm going to accomplish upon the cross, but I'm going back into the presence of the Father, the place that I had before.

So, I would be ready with a couple of those texts that I mentioned before to establish the pre-context. That is, you know,.

The prologue of John.

Here's where the author lays out his purpose.

He says,.

That the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We beheld his glory. The glory is the only begotten, the unique one from the Father full of grace and truth. He's even described as the monogamist theos, the unique God in John 1 .18.

You have that as the author's purpose in introducing this. The context is Jesus is going.

To heaven,.

Saying to the disciples, do not be troubled,.

Do not be afraid.

Even though I'm going to the presence of the Father, I'm going to send to you the Holy Spirit. So, when he says, the Father is greater than I am, he's not saying, I am a mere creature. He is saying that right now, I am in a state of humiliation.

The word became flesh. The word had not eternally been flesh, but the word became flesh. The word's not going to cease being flesh.

When he goes back.

Into the presence of the Father.

A lot of people have that.

Silly, strange idea. But he's going back that position of glory. And then if you want to establish that, then you point out, you simply say, and obviously, if you interpret this text in this way, there's a number of problems.

First of all, Jesus is going to pray at the end of the section in John chapter 17, and he's going to specifically say that not only is it eternal life to know he and the Father, but it's also the fact that he had eternally existed in the presence of the Father sharing his glory in John 17 .5.

But then you might also want to just provide the immediate context, which again, 99 .9 of the objectors.

You're going to be talking to.

Don't know what's in verse 29.

I mean,.

If you really want an absolute conversation stopper,.

When someone says,.

Well, Jesus said the Father's great,.

And I said, yeah,.

What was the next word you said? And I'll use that with some people who are just being really,.

You know,.

If they're being arrogant, if they're being,.

You know,.

Maybe they're trying to interrupt a conversation I'm having with somebody else, and you want to quiet them. I just go, what's the very next word?

Well,.

I don't know. The very next word.

Now I have told you before it happens so that what happens you may believe. Now a lot of you are going, why is that overly significant? And you might be going,.

Hmm,.

Well,.

The very next words are prophetic.

I mean,.

Jesus is talking about.

Before it happens, that is before my going to the Father,.

You know,.

Prophecy of his own death,.

Burial,.

Resurrection, all that stuff is there.

There's no,.

There's no doubt about that.

But,.

Does that phrase remind anybody of a text that we have looked at in the past in here? Where do you,.

Where do you have.

The closest.