Jesus Claimed to Be Equal with God (part 2)

Jesus Claimed to Be Equal with God (part 2)

John 5:16-23

In his book, “Loving God,” Charles Colson tells the true story about Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld, a Russian Jewish doctor who was sentenced to a most inhuman Russian prison for a minor political crime in the 1950s. Because he was a physician he did receive some privileges in the prison in return for treating other prisoners. Still he suffered much abuse. His treatment would have in fact been unbearable except that he developed a friendship with another prisoner who through the quality of his witness brought Kornfeld to a commitment to Christ.

Having been saved by Jesus, Kornfeld felt a great inner freedom. He had a patient, a cancer patient, who was awaiting surgery. Kornfeld shared with him what Christ had done in his own life. Kornfeld was so enthusiastic about this change in his own life, that he caught the patient’s attention in spite of his brief lapses brought on by the medicine. Late into the night, the doctor stayed with his patient, sharing with him the unsearchable riches of Christ. Later that night someone slipped into the doctor’s quarters and brutally beat him to death. From a human standpoint that should be the end of the story, but, it is not.

The patient recovered from his surgery, but he was a changed man. Writing about that experience the former patient said,

And now with measuring cup returned to me,
Scooping up the living water,
God of the Universe! I believe again!
Though I renounced You, You were with me!

Because of Kornfeld’s testimony, he became a Christian–and what a Christian he became. His name–Alexander Solzhenitszyn, who not only won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1970, but even more importantly became one of the world’s most influential Christian voices.

Kornfeld and Solzhenitsyn both learned that the claims of Christ were never meant to merely become another piece of jewelry or become something to adorn our car bumpers. The claims of Christ were always meant to make radical changes in the lives of those around us; changes as radical as the claims of Christ themselves.

We looked at some of those claims last week in John 5. Let me remind you what is happening in John 5. Earlier in this chapter Jesus has healed the infirm man on the Sabbath (5:8-9) and the religious leaders are hostile to Jesus because He violated their traditions regarding the Sabbath. When the religious leaders “persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath” (5:16), He replied in verse 17, that He was doing what the Father was doing. “But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” This statement further enraged the Jewish leaders because they perceived correctly that Jesus was claiming to be equal with God. Verse 18 says, “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”

The religious leaders did not reject Christ because they did not understand who He claimed to be, they understood perfectly, and they rejected Him because of these claims. The religious leaders elevated their charge against Jesus from “breaking the Sabbath” to “blasphemy” because Jesus claimed to be God. Jesus’ words gave them added incentive for getting rid of Jesus as soon as possible. They thought He was claiming to be equal with God, therefore, to be God. Later in chapter 10 when they try to stone Him to death they say, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”

And as we said last week, that is exactly what Jesus is claiming—to be equal with God, yes, even to be God! In response to the challenge by the religious leaders Jesus makes these claims about who He is in verses 17-23:

First, we saw from verses 17-18 that Jesus claimed to be:

1. Equal with God in His nature (5:17-18).

For Jesus to claim to be the unique Son of God was to claim to be one in nature and essence with God.

Secondly we saw that Jesus claimed to be:

2. Equal with God in His works (5:19).

Jesus says in verse 19, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.”

Jesus is saying that it is impossible for the Son to act independently of the Father. There is a complete correspondence in their actions. When Jesus worked, it was God working.

Their accusation was; “How can you dare to presume to act and speak as if you were God!” Jesus turns the accusation around to say, “If I am the Son of God, how it is possible for me to act and speak in any other way?”

We also saw that Jesus makes these claims because of His love relationship with the Father and therefore His perfect knowledge of God. So Jesus claimed to be:

3. Equal with God in His love and knowledge (5:20).

In verse 20, Jesus explains how the Son can do whatever the Father does: “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel.”

The “greater works” that Jesus refers to in 5:20 are in the next two verses: Giving life to whom He wishes and judging all people. It is on these two claims of His power and authority that we will focus today.

So from verse 21 we see that Jesus claimed to be:

4. Equal with God in His power to give life. (5:21, 24-26)

Jesus claims that as the Son of God He is the giver of life. See it in verse 21, “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.”

It’s a startling claim! What mere man could claim that he could give life to whomever he wants?

The Old Testament clearly teaches that only God could give life or raise the dead to new life. In Deut. 32:39 we read the words of God Himself saying, “Now see that I, even I, am He, And there is no God besides Me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.” Hannah prays in 1 Sam. 2:6, “The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.”

The ability to give life belongs to God alone. Therefore when Jesus claims to be able to give life, He is clearly also claiming to be God. And of course Jesus backed up that claim with His miraculous signs. In chapter 4 we read about Jesus giving life to the noblemen’s son by saying the words, “Your son lives!” (4:50). In Luke 7 Jesus raises from the dead the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17). In Luke 8 He raises up Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:49-56). And most convincingly later in John 11 Jesus raises Lazarus to life after he has been dead four days (John 11:1-44).

Jesus’ miracles were signs, they were illustrations of spiritual truth. Here in chapter 5 Jesus gave life to a man who had been physically feeble for 38 years. He proved He had power to give physical life to whomever He wills. But more than that, His power over physical death and life demonstrates that He also has the power to give spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead. In John 5:24 he says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”

How do people pass from spiritual death to spiritual life? By hearing the Word of Jesus and believing. The result is everlasting life with no condemnation. And Jesus shows the urgency of the hour in verse 25, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.” The time is now. If you hear the words of the Son of God, believe in Him and live! Without Christ the Bible says you are dead in your trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). You are alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:18). If you do not have the Son of God, you do not have life (1 John 5:12).

Jesus claims to have the power of life and death, both physically and spiritually, because of who He is as the Son of God. Verse 26, “For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself.” Just as God the Father is self-existent, even so Jesus the Son of God is self-existent. God’s life, His existence derives only from Himself. No one created God or gave Him life. He eternally exists. And the relationship of the Father and the Son is one of unity so much that Jesus can say that the Son has life in Himself in the same way. Only God can make such and claim and back it up. Jesus did just that.

So Jesus claims the power to give life and next Jesus claims to be:

5. Equal with God in His authority to judge. (5:22, 27-30).

Verse 22, “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.”

Here again Jesus claimed that He would exercise a function that the Jews universally held belongs to God alone—judgment. In Genesis 18:25 Abraham calls God, “the Judge of all the earth.” Again Hannah prays in 1 Samuel 2:10, “The LORD will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to His king, And exalt the horn of His anointed.” Psalm 75:7 says, “But God [is] the Judge: He puts down one, And exalts another.” Isaiah 66:16 says, “For by fire and by His sword The LORD will judge all flesh; And the slain of the LORD shall be many.”

Jesus is claiming to be the supreme judge of all beings. In verses 27-30 Jesus says, The God the Father has “… given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. 28 Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice 29 and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. 30 I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.”

The Father has delegated all judgment to the Son, because (as Jesus explains in 5:27), “He is the Son of Man.” Because He took on human flesh and died for the sins of the world (1:29), the Father delegated all judgment to Jesus (Acts 17:31).

In John 3:17, we saw that Jesus did not come “to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” His purpose for coming was to provide salvation. But those who reject Him are already under condemnation because they have not believed in the only provision for their sins that God graciously provided (3:18). All eternal judgment hinges on what you do with Jesus Christ. Will you believe in Him and be saved or will you continue to reject Him and be condemned?

All of that leads to the amazing claim in verse 23. Jesus claimed to be:

6. Equal with God in honor (5:23).

Here is the significance of all of Jesus’ claims:

23 “that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

If Jesus is not fully God, then His words in verse 23 are nothing short of blasphemy! What created being could say that we should honor him just as we honor the Father? Clearly, Jesus is claiming to be God.

He insists that He is to be honored in the same way God is. He is to be worshipped, praised, adored, respected, trusted, obeyed in the same way as God the Father. That’s the positive statement at the beginning of verse 23. Then he flips it to a negative in the second half, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”

This means that you can test anyone’s claim to believe in God by their views of Jesus. If they claim to believe in God, but they think that Jesus was just a good man, they do not believe in the living and true God. They only believe in a god of their own making. If they do not honor Jesus, they do not honor the Father.

John MacArthur recalls a conversation that he had with Larry King after he had taped a TV show one evening. Larry said, “You know, John, I’m going to be okay…going to be okay.” John said, “What do you mean you’re going to be okay?” “I think I’m going to make it to heaven.” John said “Based on what, Larry?” He said, and he named a certain evangelist and said, “He told me because I’m Jewish, I’m going to be okay.” John concludes, “That may be the worst thing that anybody told him. But to come from a Christian evangelist to tell him that?” (“The Most Startling Claim Ever Made,” Part 2, on gty.org)

It is impossible to be saved apart from believing in Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” Jesus said, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” Jesus claims to be equal with the Father in honor. No one will be okay on judgment day who has not honored and loved and worshiped Jesus Christ as God!

Polls have shown that a majority of Americans in some way believe in Jesus, but that belief has not changed way most Americans live. It’s not enough to believe that Jesus is God intellectually. You must trust in Him as your Savior from sin and judgment and live in submission to Him as Lord of all your life. If you have been saved you will honor the Son and the Father with your life.

As I said at the beginning of this message, the claims of Christ were always meant to make radical changes in the lives of those who believe; changes as radical as the claims of Christ themselves. Has believing in Christ radically changed you?

The two most important questions you will ever answer are these;