Like Father Like Son

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
The Apple Doesn’t Fall From the Tree
John 5:17-47

Read John 5:17-30

My Son and I are a lot alike. It makes me nervous for him because I was a very shy and insecure boy. I was the youngest of 5 kids and I got teased by my siblings a lot. One of the things I got teased about was that I was a cry-baby. My son can be that way. They say the “apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” Watching my children has taught me a lot about myself.

But my kids are different from me in many more ways then they are like me. They are more secure and extroverted. They have more joy and happiness. They also love to sing and they like Tuna and Spinach. I guess a part of who we are is determined genetically; but a larger part of our personality is shaped by external ingredients, like life experiences, family situations, education and culture etc.

But Jesus was different. Yes he inherited many human traits from his mother, he was fully human, and shaped by the culture around him, but he was like Adam before the Fall- he had no sin.[1] Just as Jesus is perfectly human like Adam was, he is also perfectly God like his heavenly Father.

Don’t hear me saying that he was another god. A key attribute of God is his uniqueness, (his singular oneness). “Here O Israel, the Lord your God is One God, Halleluiah.” The Bible teaches that there is only one God who has revealed Himself in the persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. (We may not fully comprehend the unity of God revealed in three persons, but we can grasp it.) Jesus has ALL the attributes of God. But unlike his human attributes, which were inherited genetically, his divine attributes were not inherited. He has had them because he has always been God.

In our scripture this morning, Jesus made three claims of equality with God the Father. There was no ambiguity in his claims; his announcement was so clear that it further incited the resolve of the Jews to kill him. At first, verse 16 says that the Jews only wanted to kill Jesus for healing on the Sabbath, but after verse 17, it says, “they sought to kill Jesus all the more” for making himself equal with God.

So Jesus uses the aggression of the Jews to incite greater hostility by making three claims about his equality with God the Father: first he is equal with his Father in nature (vv. 17-18); second, he is equal with his Father in power (vv. 19-20); and third, he is equal with his Father in authority (vv. 22-30).

I. Equal in Nature
This whole controversy erupted because Jesus was healing on the Sabbath. The Sabbath law began with Creation: on the seventh day, God rested. Nobody believes that God literally rested on the Sabbath day because he was tired. God is perfect, He cannot tire. God holds the universe together even on the Sabbath. But that’s not work, because God never tires, so it is not a violation of the Sabbath.

So what Jesus was implying by claiming equality with God in nature was that it is not work for him to heal on the Sabbath because He is like his Father, who also works continually and never tires. Because Jesus is God, his work is from eternity past, it is infinite and it never ceases. The only fatigue he experiences is in his humanity. Isaiah 40:28 says this about God: “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God… Neither faints nor is weary.”

Let’s make this theological proposition personal. Why does his equality in nature with God matter to me and you? Because Jesus is one in nature and equal with his Father- tireless in labour and offering rest to us:

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light
(Matt 11:28-30).

The rest that he offers is a perfect rest!

He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength. …those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary …walk and not faint. (Is 40:129ff).

II. Equal in Power
V. 19, Jesus claims, “whatever the Father does, the son does in like manner.” Everything that the bible describes as God’s activity is Jesus’ activity:
· Creation
· Judgments
· Law
· Exodus
· Covenants
· The Cross

Likewise, whatever the son does, the father does. Jesus heals the lame, the Father heals the lame; Jesus raises the dead, the Father raises the dead; Jesus suffers on the cross; the Father is right there suffering with Him… (until he turned his face away and Jesus experienced the God forsakenness of hell that we deserved when our sin was imputed to him.[2])

“Even so” it says at the end of verse 20, the Son has “power to give life to whom he wills.” Jesus has the sovereign right and power to offer life to us and it is life unlike the life we now live, because the life he offers is perfect eternal life without end because he has accomplished our salvation on the cross. He will hear your cry for salvation and give you life.

III. Equal in Authority
“God has committed all authority to the Son,” …v. 23, “That all should honour the Son just as they honour the Father….” Jesus has the authority to judge the eternal destiny of souls…. “the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God,” he says, “and those who hear will live” (v. 25) hearing means believing- those who do not hear will perish.

Jesus intended us to understand his ability to raise the dead within the context of the healing of the paralyzed man. We are all spiritually like that paralyzed man, lying among a multitude of lame, blind and diseased. We are totally unable to save ourselves an no man can carry us. But with a word, “take up your mat and walk” Jesus can give us life because he has all power and authority equal to that of God the Father.

IV. The witnesses
I preached this in the prison last week and the inmates understood the importance of this next point. If this was a court of Law, and Jesus was giving testimony about himself, it would not stand. He needed witnesses (at least two according to the law). In verses 31-47, Jesus dealt a crushing blow to the unbelief of the Pharisees offering four witnesses to prove his claims to equality with God; I am going to offer a fifth witness.

1. First, in verses 31-35, Jesus offers John the Baptist’s testimony. It goes back to chapter 1: “This man came for a witness…. He was not the light, but was sent to bear witness to the light” (Jn 1:6-8). Those Pharisees heard John’s testimony that he was not the Christ. They heard John say that the one who came after him was preferred before him, whose sandal straps John was not worthy to untie. Then they saw John point out Jesus and declare him to be the messiah, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:26-29).

2. Second Jesus claims his own miracles in verse 36, as evidence in support of his claim to equality with the Father, “the very works that I do- bear witness of me….” And the Pharisees have all heard of his miracles, and his healings, and they saw him clear the temple. Nichodemus testified to their knowledge of Jesus when he came to Jesus under cover of the night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God has sent him” (Jn 3:2).

3. They also have the witness of the Father. John told them, that when Jesus was publicly baptized, in order that Jesus should be revealed to Israel, John saw the Spirit descending upon Jesus like a dove and he heard the voice from heaven declaring, “You are my beloved Son, in whom I delight” (Jhn 1:33; Mark 1:11). God the Father would also speak at the mount of transfiguration, commanding Jesus’s disciples to obey him. And then, a third time, six days before his Crucifixion, Jesus entered Jerusalem and prayer, “’Father, glorify Your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven saying, ‘I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.’ Therefore the people who stood by heard it….” (Jn 12:28-29).

4. Jesus then offers the scripture: “You search the Scriptures,” he says in verse 41, “… these are they which testify of me.” There are over 1000 prophecies in the Old Testament regarding Jesus and the church, and there are 50 very specific prophecies about him- some of them, like in Daniel, even gave the exact date in which he would present himself to Israel. Even the Maggi from the east knew when and where he would be born. When they arrived in Jerusalem, it was the chief priests and the scribes who told them to go to Bethlehem (Matt 2:4ff).

It would be impossible for any to try to fulfill 50 prophecies the way that Jesus did. They were prophesies about things that were out of his control, like the fact that he would be born in Bethlehem, and that at that time there would be a slaughter of children. Or how he would be betrayed by Judas and die, crucified to a tree, with a crown of thorns at the hands of Gentiles who gambled for his clothes, but they never broke a bone in his body.

Conclusion:
So four witnesses; if this were a court of Law, Jesus would be justified in his claim. John died for his testimony. Jesus miracles spoke for themselves- the once paralyzed man was standing right there. Who can argue with three public hearings of the voice of God? And the scriptural proofs are undeniable.

If you deny Christ, it is not because of the lack of evidence- the evidence is indisputable and irrefutable. He is God, he has the authority to judge you and he has the power to save your soul. If you deny the gospel, it is because “you are not willing to come to [him] that you may have life” (v. 40).

But I want to offer another proof… me! I should be dead or locked up in prison. “For you have heard of my former life… how I used to persecute the church… and tried to destroy it…. But when God, who had set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me….” (Gal 1:13 ff). Then I believed and was transformed from a son of darkness to a son of light.

And he can do the same for you if you believe and obey. Then you too will be a witness to support the claims of Christ, what greater life purpose could there be then to corroborate the nature, power and authority of God by a changed life? Imagine your reward for doing so.

Notes
[1] (this is an interesting point, because Jesus’ sinlessness meant it was impossible for him die. People think Jesus died on the cross because of the beating and asphyxiation from crucifixion. Jesus divinity dragged him through the beatings without dying, his humanity anchored him to the brutality and pain. What really killed Jesus was our sin, which was imputed to him as he hung there. Otherwise he could have hung there eternally).
[2] This is why (among other reasons) the doctrine of the Trinity is so essential to our Salvation- otherwise, how could Jesus experience our God-foresakeness in the infiniteness of that moment to atone for our sins?