'But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. 18.
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had
broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making
Himself equal with God. 19. Then answered Jesus and said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but
what He seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these
also doeth the Son likewise. 20. For the Father loveth the Son, and
sheweth Him all things that Himself doeth: and He will shew Him greater
works than these, that ye may marvel. 21. For as the Father raiseth up
the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.
22. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto
the Son: 23. That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour
the Father. He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father
which hath sent Him. 24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that
heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death
unto life. 25. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and
now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they
that hear shall live. 26. For as the Father hath life in Himself; so
hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself; 27. And hath given
Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of
Man.'—JOHN v. 17-27.
'The Jews' were up in arms because Jesus had delivered a man from
thirty-eight years of misery. They had no human sympathies for the
sufferer, whom hope deferred had made sick and hopeless, but they
shuddered at the breach of the Sabbath. 'Sacrifice' was more important
in their view than 'mercy.' They did not acknowledge that the miracle
proved Christ's Messiahship, but they were quite sure that doing it on
the Sabbath proved His wickedness. How formalism twists men's judgments
of the relative magnitude of form and spirit!
Jesus' vindication of His action roused them still farther, for He put
it on a ground which seemed to them nothing short of blasphemy: 'My
Father worketh even until now, and I work.' They fastened on one point
in that great saying, namely, that it claimed Sonship in a special
sense, and vindicated His right to disregard the Sabbath law on that
ground. God's rest is not inaction. 'Preservation is a continual
creation.' All being subsists because God is ever working. The Son
co-operates with the Father, and for Him, as for the Father, the
Sabbath law does not apply. The charge of breaking the Sabbath fades
into insignificance before the sin, in the objectors' eyes, of making
such claims. Therefore our Lord proceeds to expand and justify them.
He makes, first, a general statement in verses 19 and 20, in which He
sets forth the relation involved in the very idea of Fatherhood and
Sonship. He, as perfect Son of God, is perfectly one with the Father in
will and act, and so knit to Him in sympathy that a self-originated
action is impossible, not by reason of defect of power, but by reason
of unity of being. That perfect unity is expressed negatively ('can do
nothing') and then positively ('doeth likewise'). But it is not
manifest in actions alone, but has its deep roots in the perfect love
which flows ever from each to each, and in the Father's perfect
communication to the Son, and the Son's perfect reception from the
Father. Jesus claimed to stand in such a relation to the Father that He
was able to do whatsoever the Father did, and 'in like manner' as the
Father did it; that He was the unique object of the Father's love, and
capable of receiving complete communications as to 'all things that
Himself doeth'; that He lived in such complete unity with the Father
that His every act was the result of it, and that no trace of self-will
had ever tinged His perfect spirit. What man has ever made such claims
and not been treated as insane? He makes them, and likewise says that
He is 'lowly of heart'; and the world listens, if not believing, at any
rate reverent, as in the presence of the best man that ever lived.
Strange goodness, to claim such divine prerogatives, unless the claim
is valid!
It is expanded in verses 21-23 into two great classes of works, which
Jesus says that He does. Both are distinctively divine works. To give
life and to judge the world are equally beyond human power; they are
equally His actions. These are the 'greater works' which He foretells
in verse 20, and they are greater than the miracle of healing which had
originated the whole conversation. To give life at first, and to give
it again to the dead, and not only to revivify, but to raise them, are
plainly competent to no power short of the divine; and here Jesus
calmly claims them.
That tremendous claim is here made in the widest sense, including both
the corporeally and the spiritually dead, who are afterwards treated of
separately. The Son is the fountain of life in all the aspects of that
wide-reaching word; and He 'quickeneth whom He will,' as He had
spontaneously healed the impotent man. Does that assertion contradict
the other, just before it, that He does nothing of Himself? No; for His
will, while His, is ever harmonious with the Father's, just as His
love, which is ever coincident with the Father's. Does that assertion
imply His arbitrary pleasure, or make man's will a cipher? No; for His
will is guided by righteous love, and wills to quicken those who comply
with His conditions. But the assertion does declare that His will to
quicken is omnipotent, and that His voice can pierce 'the dull, cold
ear of death,' and bring back the soul to the empty house of this
tabernacle, or rouse the spirit 'dead in trespasses.'
The other divine prerogative of judging is inseparable from that of
revivifying, and in regard to it Christ's claim is still higher, for He
says that it is wholly vested in Him as Son. The idea of judgment here,
like that of quickening, with which it is associated, is to be taken in
its more general sense ('_all_ judgment'), and therefore as including
both the present judgment, for which Jesus said that He was come into
the world, and which men pass on themselves by the very fact of their
attitude to Him and His Gospel, and also the future final judgment,
which manifests character and determines destiny. Both these has the
Father given into the hands of the Son.
The purpose, so far as men are concerned, of the Son's investiture,
with these solemn prerogatives, is that He may receive universal divine
honour. A narrower purpose was stated in verse 20, where the persons
seeing His works are only His then audience, and the effect sought to
be produced is merely 'marvel.' But wonder is meant to lead on to
recognition of the meaning of His power, and of the mystery of His
person, and that, again, to rendering to Him precisely the same honour
as is due to the Father. No more unmistakable demand for worship, no
more emphatic assertion of divinity, can be made than lie in these
words. To worship Christ does not intercept the honour due to God; to
worship the Son is to worship the Father; and no man honours the Father
who sent Him who does not honour the Son whom He has sent.
In verses 24-27 the two related prerogatives are presented in their
spiritual aspect, while in the later verses of the chapter the
resurrection and quickening of the literally dead are dealt with. Mark
the significant new term introduced in verse 24, 'He that believeth.'
That spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and self is wrought
on 'whom He will,' but He wills that it shall be wrought on them who
believe. Similarly, in verse 25, it is 'they that hear' who 'shall
live.' It must be so, for there is no other way by which life from Him,
who is the Life, can pass into and quicken us than by our opening our
hearts by faith for its inflow. The mysteries of the Son's divinity and
of His imparted life are deep, but the condition of receiving that life
is plain. If we will trust Jesus, we shall live; if not, we are dead.
Trusting Him is trusting the Father that sent Him, and that Father
becomes accessible to our trust when we 'hear' Christ's 'word.'
The effects of faith are immediate, and the poor present may be
enriched and clothed in celestial light for each of us, if we will. For
Jesus does not point first to the mysteries of the resurrection of the
dead, and the tremendous solemnities of the final judgment, but to what
we may each enter upon at any moment. The believing man '_hath_ eternal
life,' and 'cometh not into judgment.' That life is not reserved to be
entered on in the blessed future, but is a present possession. True, it
will blossom into unexampled nobleness when it is transported into its
native country, like some exotic in our colder climates if it were
carried back to the tropics. But it is a present possession, and heaven
is not different in kind from the Christian life on earth, but differs
mainly in degree and in circumstances. And he that has the life here
and now is, by its moulding of his outward life, preserved from the
sins which would bring him into judgment, and the merciful judgment to
which he is still subject is that for which his truest self longs. And
that blessed condition carries in it the pledge that, at the last great
day, which is to others a 'day of wrath, a dreadful day,' he whom
Christ has quickened by His own indwelling life shall have 'boldness
before Him.'
Obviously, in these verses the present effects of faith are in view,
since Jesus emphatically declares that the 'hour now is' when they can
be realised. Once more He states in the strongest terms, and as the
reason for the assurance that faith secures to us life, His possession
of the two divine prerogatives of quickening and judging. What a
paradox it is to say that it is '_given_' to Him to have 'life in
_Himself_'! And when was that gift given? In the depths of eternity.
He 'sits on no precarious throne, nor borrows leave to be,' and hence
He can impart life and lose none. Inseparably connected with that
given, and yet self-inherent, life, is the capacity for executing
judgment which belongs to Him as 'a Son of man.' It has been as 'the
Son' of the Father that it has been considered, in the previous verses,
as belonging to Him; but now it is as a true man that He is fitted to
bear, and actually is clothed with, that judicial power. No doubt He is
Judge of all, because by His incarnation and earthly life He presents
to all the offer of eternal life, by their attitude to which offer men
are judged. But the connection of thought seems rather to be that
Christ's Manhood, inextricably intertwined with His divinity, is
equally needed with the latter to constitute Him our Judge. He 'knoweth
our frame,' from the inside, as it were, and the participation in our
nature which fits Him to 'be a merciful and faithful High Priest' also
fits Him to be the Judge of mankind.