Jesus Claims Equality With the Father; John 5:19
John
“Truly, truly” is the Greek
is amen, amen [a)mhn, a)mhn], and although it
is translated in the NASB as “Truly, Truly,” is has a greater significance than
that. It is a sort of call to attention; this is an important principle that is
being articulated here and you need to pay attention to it. There are three
times in this passage that Jesus does this. He does in verse 19, then again in
24 & 25. Then literally, “I say to
you, the Son is not able to do from Himself nothing”—literal Greek; bad
English. In English if you have a double negative it indicates a positive, but
in Greek that is not true. In the Greek, if you ever want to say that something
in not ever going to happen you say, “It won’t not never
happen.” Negatives are just piled on top of one another for emphasis. So by using
two negatives here Jesus is emphasising that the absolute position of the Son
is being under the authority of the Father. Remember that in the kenosis Jesus
restricted the independent use of His attributes. He is not going to operate
independent of the Father, He is subordinate to the
Father’s plan for the human race and has made a volitional decision to fulfil
the plan of God set forth in the council of divine decrees in eternity past.
There is an important little
shift in the verbs here. In v. 17 there was the synonym ergazomai [e)rgazomai] which means to work. Here we have the verb poieo [poiew]. Four times it is used in this passage, each time with
a different nuance and mood shift which is instructive doctrinally. The basic
meaning of the word is to perform, to do, to enact, to complete, to execute, to
implement, to apply, to operate, to work, to function. Here it is the present
active infinitive, it is an infinitive of purpose, that the Son should not do
or perform anything from the ultimate source of Himself.
We have to notice that Jesus uses a very important word here to refer to
Himself, and that is the term huios
[u(ioj], a word for an adult son and is the title that is
referred to Jesus both in terms of His being the Son of God and the Son of Man.
The doctrine of the Sonship of Christ
1)
“Son of” can mean
offspring of or descendant of, but it does not restrict itself to that meaning.
In the idiom, especially of Hebrew, the term meant “of the order of.” For
example, in 1 Kings
2)
In Jewish usage
the term “son of” indicated equality and identity of essence or nature.
3)
The term “son of”
indicated the essential character of someone. For example, Barnabus
who was Paul’s travelling companion on the first missionary journey was called
the son of encouragement. That meant that his personality was that he was an
encourager. So encouragement characterised the essence of Barnabus.
Also the sons of Zebedee, James and John, were called
the sons of thunder. That indicated something about their personality, that
they were rather strong and had thunderous personalities of a fairly volatile,
strong nature.
4)
The term “Son of
God” also has a strong meaning related to kingship and the royal role of the
Messiah. It is tied to the messianic King, the son of David. 2 Samuel 7:14 NASB
“I will be a father to him and he will be a son to Me; when he commits
iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of
men, [15] but My lovingkindness shall not depart from
him, as I took {it} away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. [16] Your
house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever;
your throne shall be established forever.” There is a promise that David would
have a son who would reign forever. So we have the connection here between
royal kingship and the Messiah. Psalm 2:1 NASB “Why are the nations
in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing?”
The picture here is of war against God and His anointed. The nations are
gathered on one side, God and His anointed on the other. [2] “The kings of the
earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel
together Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying,” The Hebrew word
for anointed is meshiach
from which we get our word Messiah. Translated into Greek it is christos [Xristoj]. So here we see something interesting in terms of
the relationship to the doctrine of the Trinity in the Old Testament, a mention
of God and His Christ, His anointed one. This is a prophesy
that takes place at the end of human history. [3] “Let us tear their fetters
apart And cast away their cords from us!” This is the
cry of autonomous man who wanted to be free from the authority of God and
rejects God in negative volition. [4] “He who sits in the heavens laughs, The
Lord scoffs at them. [5] Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His fury, saying, [6] ‘But as for Me, I
have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain.’” This is the inauguration
and coronation of the messianic King at the beginning of the Millennial
kingdom. [7] “‘I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to
Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You’.” This
is a quote from the King. In v. 6 it is Yahweh,
God the Father speaking, but in verse 7 the one who is speaking is the Son. The
decree of the Lord takes us from the future event of this final conflict
between the Lord’s anointed and all the nations of the earth and the coronation
of the King and the establishment of the messianic kingdom, all the way back to
eternity past where we have the council of divine decrees. This was an eternal
decree, which means that there never was a time when this decree did not exist.
So when, according to this passage, was God the Son begotten of God the Father?
In the eternal decree. So Father and Son are functional terms describing the
role of the first person and the second person of the Trinity in their
essential nature and relationship to one another for all eternity. God the Son
did not become God the Son simply at the incarnation or at some other time, or
at the coronation. This raises an important question that has come up in theology
that we have to deal with, that is, when Jesus was begotten. The day that is in
view here is the day of the coronation and ties the fulfilment of the begottenness and His sonship as the messianic King through
coronation, but it relates it back to eternal decrees and the eternal begotten relationship
of the Son to the Father. Psalm 2:8, the Father is talking to the Son, NASB “Ask
of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the {very}
ends of the earth as Your possession. [9] You shall break them with a rod of iron, You shall shatter them like earthenware.” This is
Jesus Christ coming back at the second advent at the
head of the armies of angels, the Lord of hosts, to subdue the earth. The messianic
King is portrayed here as the conquering hero who rules and subdues the earth,
but as time went by in Israel it became apparent that all of the kings in the
south failed, so there was going to be an ideal King and two psalms were
written that were related to this.
Psalm
45 anticipates the idea King. Psalm 45:6 NASB “Your throne, O
God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is
the scepter of Your kingdom.,”
indicating that the rule of the messianic ruler is characterised by
righteousness. “Your throne” is addressed to Elohim. Then it gets a little
more complicated in the next verse. [7] “You have loved righteousness and hated
wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You
With the oil of joy above Your fellows.” Two Gods here.
This is a clear expression of the Trinity: address of God in verse 6 and then
the addressing of that same God in v. 7 and referring to “Your God.” The word “anointed”
in the Hebrew is meshiach.
“God” being addressed here is the Messiah, the messianic King, the ruler in the
Millennium. “Your God” is God the Father. “Therefore God [God the Father], has
anointed you [God the Son] with the oil of joy above your fellows.”
Psalm
110, the enthronement psalm. Verse 1 NASB “The LORD [Yahweh] says to my Lord: ‘Sit at My
right hand Until I make Your enemies a footstool for
Your feet’.” This psalm indicates the time when God the Son ascended into haven
and sits now at the right hand of God the Father until the second advent when
His enemies will be made a footstool, a symbol of conquering and domination,
when Jesus Christ returns to establish the 1000-year Millennial reign on the
earth.
Amos
3:7 NASB “Surely the Lord GOD does nothing Unless He
reveals His secret counsel To His servants the prophets.” So we have the
revelation of God to His servants the prophets and His ultimate prophet is
Jesus Christ, and that revelation is going to be discussed in John chapter 5.
5)
When did Jesus
become the Son of God? Some say it was at the incarnation, others at the public
presentation by John the Baptist at His baptism, others say it was at His
ascension, and still others say it is at His coronation.
6)
The term “Son of
God” relates to Christ’s essential deity and not generation. Therefore this
term relates to His eternal relationship to the Father and is not a term
acquired at any time in human history. He is the eternal Son of God, Galatians
4:4; Romans 8:3; Colossians 1:13-17. All other nuances which relate to Son of
God are simply derivatives of this main idea. So when we talk about the Son of
God in terms of His coronation it is derivative to the main idea of His eternal
generation from the Father.
7)
The eternal Son
of God became the Son of God in relationship to His humanity at the
incarnation, but He was eternally the Son of God.
8)
The Sonship is
recognised at the baptism when God the Father announced, “This is my beloved
Son in whom I am well pleased.” But it didn’t start there because when Jesus
was twelve he stayed behind at the temple and He said he had to be about His
Father’s business.
9)
It doesn’t occur
at the resurrection or ascension because Jesus addresses the Father as Father
all throughout His earthly ministry. He refers to Himself as the Son in John
chapter five, chapter ten, and other places.
10)
The term Son in
Hebrews 1:3 which relates to the coronation relates to the sonship in relationship
to the Davidic covenant and the coronation of the Son of God as the Davidic
sons in fulfilment of the Davidic covenant.
11)
Jesus is declared
to be the eternal Son of God in the day of the issuance of the eternal decree
in Psalm 2:7, which is not a prophecy of His coronation but is a prophecy of
His victory because He was declared the Son in eternity past.
Back to John
“…for whatever the Father
does,” and this is a present active subjunctive, indicating potentiality,
whatever the Father planned, “these things the Son also does in like manner,”
present active indicative. He carries it out and fulfils it in complete
submission to the plan of the Father.
The bottom line on this is
Jesus is the Son of God and that is why he can redeem us—because He is fully
God. We cannot have life in any other than one who is eternal life, and that is
where Jesus is going in this argument. Because He is who he is, He is the only
one who has the ability to go to the cross and die as our substitute. For that reason
all judgment is given to Him and He becomes the one who is the source of
eternal life. So that man can have life in no other name, for there is no other
name given among men whereby we must be saved.