he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.
They knew that Jesus claimed to be more than a man, more the prophets and kings of Israel's past, greater than Abraham, Jonah, and Solomon. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Jesus arrive. Moses and Elijah came on Mount Tabor to bear witness to him. Jesus himself claimed the authority to be a new lawgiver. "You have heard it said", he began, but then shockingly, he continued, "but I say to you". Furthermore, the people were not wrong when they said, "Who but God alone can forgive sins?"
The sense in which Jesus claimed to be equal to God required clarification. He was not a second God, different from and perhaps more powerful than the God Israel had known. His was not an invitation to paganism. Nor was he some vessel of avatar through which the Father himself was acting.
Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own,
but only what he sees the Father doing;
Jesus began to reveal the Trinity, showing that his own source and origin was in the Father from all eternity. He did nothing apart from the Father, but followed the Father's desires in all things. He did not wield any power, perform and works, or execute any judgment that was strictly his own and not given to him by the Father. Yet power and works and judgment were given to him by the Father, just as a the son of a human father would hope to inherit and share in the good qualities and habits of that father.
Whoever does not honor the Son
does not honor the Father who sent him.
When we see individuals who have been raised well and walk in integrity we may well attribute some of it to their parents, honoring, as it were, the one who sent them. Much more so then with Jesus, who, unlike earthly children, brought nothing that was strictly his own to the table. Since everything he had was from the Father, the way people responded to him was implicitly a response to the Father as well.
For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life,
so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes.
The Son gave life to all who would receive him and have faith in him. He and the Father together sent the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, to be our life and the source of our resurrection. It was from the whole Trinity together that new life was given. But there was a special way in which the Son himself, in revealing the Father, and in sending the Spirit, was our entry point into a new and divine way of living. Hence, he gave us his own flesh to eat, so that united with him we could share in the love between him and the Father, the love that is the Holy Spirit. If Jesus had not come to offer this invitation the Father would still be distant and obscure, possibly even threatening or menacing, and the Holy Spirit would have remained more or less unknown.
Do not be amazed at this,
because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs
will hear his voice and will come out
Let us learn to listen to the voice of Jesus now, in our daily life, so that we can recognize and welcome his call on the last day. By following the guidance of his Spirit and walking in the good works he prepared for us, relying solely on his grace and strength, we can come to trust that voice so much that we will need not fear it on the day of judgment. The last day may still be distant (or not, who knows?) but now is the time of favor and the day of salvation. We who listen to the voice of Jesus and are concerned above all with his judgment can already begin to taste the renewal promised to Isaiah.
Along the ways they shall find pasture,
on every bare height shall their pastures be.
They shall not hunger or thirst,
nor shall the scorching wind or the sun strike them;
For he who pities them leads them
and guides them beside springs of water.
Jesus did not reveal the Trinity so that we could pass a theology test, but rather so that we could learn to love God and to walk as sons and daughters in the Son. The invitation to share in the mutual love between Father and Son, who is Spirit, gives even more confidence to the assurance of which Isaiah wrote, since it reveals the logic behind it.
Can a mother forget her infant,
be without tenderness for the child of her womb?
Even should she forget,
I will never forget you.
No comments:
Post a Comment