A
Study of the Book of John
“That
You May Believe”
Sermon
# 16
“The Claims of Jesus”
John 5:16-30
In his book, “Loving God,”
Charles Colson tells about a Russian Jewish doctor by the name of 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 unbear-able except that he developed a
friendship with another prisoner who through the quality of his witness brought Kornfeld a
commitment to Christ.
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. 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 voices for Christ.
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 themselves found in John chapter five.
Earlier
in Chapter five Jesus has healed the lame man on the Sabbath (5:8-9) and the religious
leaders are incensed because the Sabbath has been violated. As we observed in the previous
sermon, the religious leaders are not concerned about the lame man – they do no even
acknowledge that he has been healed – let alone rejoice over it. Their only concern
is that the rules concerning the Sabbath have been broken. After determining that
Jesus was the one who healed the man, the religious leaders confront Jesus about violating
the Sabbath, He replied in verse seventeen, that He was only doing what the Father
was doing. “But Jesus answered them, "My Father has been
working until now, and I have been working." (18) 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.”
Jesus
defends His actions by pointing out that He is mere imitating His father. Jesus states
that God’s creative and sustaining work upon which the world depends has never ceased
nor will it. He says, “My Father is working and I am working
too!”
The
Jews immediately grasp what he was saying. Jesus is stating He is equal with God. The
religious leaders did not reject Christ because they did not understand who he claimed to
be, they understood perfectly, and rejected him because of these claims. The religious
leaders changed their charge against Jesus from “breaking the Sabbath” to “blasphemy”
because Jesus claimed to be God. Liberal theologians who claim that Jesus never claimed to
be God have to skip right over passages like this one.
Notice
that John does not tell us that from this point on the Jewish authorities are trying to
kill Jesus, it says for this reason “the Jews were trying even harder to kill Him.” The
authorities have already determined that he must be put to death. This incident only
provided them with added incentive for doing it as soon as possible.
In
response to the challenge by the religious leaders Jesus makes three claims about who He is.
First, Jesus Claims Equality With The Father. - He
Is The Son Of God. (5:19-20)
“Then Jesus answered and said
to them, “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. (20) 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 first statement that Jesus makes is an
assertion that everything that the God the Father does, He does, and everything He does is
also done by the Father. The only possible conclusion is not lost on the religious leaders
and is that Jesus is claiming to be God.
For not only is the God “the”
Father, God is “His” Father.
Today we more or less take it for granted that God is to be spoken of as “Father”
but this was not the way it was in the first century. Jews would sometimes refer to God as
“the Father” but they would usually
add something like “in heaven” to
make it clear they were not being too familiar. But when Jesus uses the term “my Father” it was a claim to
special intimacy and the Jews recognized it as such. Jesus is claiming a relationship
to the Father which cannot be applied to any other being in the universe; He is only
begotten Son of God.
Jesus turns their accusations on its head.
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 God, how it is possible for
me to act and speak in any other way?”
Jesus Claims Equality With The Father and…
Secondly, Jesus Claims Power To Give Life. (5:21,
24-26)
Beyond His claim that he is equal with the
Father, He claims that as the Son of God He is the giver of life. (v. 21) “For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He
will.”
The Old Testament clearly teaches that only
God could give life or raise the dead to new life. In Deut. 32:39 we read, “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.”
1
Sam. 2:6 states, “The LORD kills and makes alive; He
brings down to the grave and brings up.”
The
ability to give life is the prerogative of deity. Consequently when Jesus claims to be
able to give life also he is clearly claiming to be God.
Verses
twenty four–twenty six state, “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. (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. (26) For as the Father has life in Himself, so He
has granted the Son to have life in Himself.”
Verse twenty-four contains words of great
peace and assurance, because it speaks of everlasting life as a present possession.
Salvation is not just something we can have in the future; it is something that we can
have now. How??
In Romans 10:17 the Apostle Paul
states, that one must hear and believe, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of
God.” Earlier in Romans 10:9-10 the Apostle Paul wrote, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your
heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (10) For with the heart
one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
In verse twenty-four of our text,
Jesus says the person who believes “has eternal life.”
The tenses of the verbs indicate that when a person enters into this process, it remains
theirs. A believer need not be uncertain about whether they have eternal life for as John
says in 1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to
you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal
life…” Salvation is something we can know we possess!
Some believe that to be saved means to be
able to pinpoint the moment of salvation, and for some this is possible. But not for all.
I like what the great old preacher G. Campbell Morgan said on the subject. Years ago he
was preaching in Tennessee and during the sermon he stated, “By no means can every Christian remember the
time when he was born again.” At the end of the sermon someone challenged his
statement and Morgan turned to then and asked, “Are
you alive?” The man replied, “Of
course I am!” Morgan then asked, “Do
you remember when you were born?” The man said, “No, but I know that I am living.”
Morgan replied, “Exactly, some Christians may
not remember the exact moment of their new birth. But they are spiritually alive and know
it, and that is what counts.” You can know that you have eternal life. [R Kent Hughes. John: That You Might
Believe. (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 1999) p. 165]
Jesus
Claims Power To Give Life and …
Third, Jesus Claims The Authority To Judge. (vv.
22, 27-30)
“For the Father judges no one,
but has committed all judgment to the Son, (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.”
Jesus was claiming that he would exercise a
function that the Jews universally held belongs to God alone.
In verses twenty-seven to thirty 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 condemn-ation.
(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.”
There are three crystal clear facts that
these verses tell us regarding eternity.
· There is definitely life after
death.
Jesus is teaching that physical death is not
the end of existence. Life here on earth is not the complete span for man, beyond this
life there is another different existence which one cannot avoid.
· Every one will be affected by it.
Verse
twenty-eight says, “…all who
are
· All mankind will fall into two and
only two categories.
Death is not the end, all will stand before
God; with judgment unto life for those who have a personal relationship with Christ and
judgment unto condemnation for those who do not. When some who have yet to place their
trust in Christ hear of this judgment, they still refuse to believe, saying things like, “I don’t believe a God of love would condemn
anyone!” Others state that all they
ask of God is justice. But I pity the person who is satisfied with justice when mercy is
available.
Christian author C. S. Lewis wrote the
By the authority of his voice of Jesus will
Conclusion
It
is clear from the text who Jesus claims to be! The two most important questions you will
ever answer are these;
· Is Jesus right about who He claims to be?
If He is right, what have you done about it?