Literally, who is judging now? Our passage in John began with Jesus healing an invalid of 38 years. He then ran into the authorities who, instead of celebrating the miracle, challenged Jesus for daring to break the Sabbath, at least the Sabbath according to their rules.
Jesus, in response, claimed a higher authority than theirs, the authority of God Above. Instead of making the authorities happy, this added fuel to the fire of their desire to see Jesus dead.
So now Jesus lays it out for them. What is the relationship between the Father and the Son? Step by step, he builds this relationship out, the Father taking the Son to the heavenly heights, finally assigning Jesus the task of the judgment of all humanity. That is a foundational plank for the right understanding of Scripture in our day and age.
Biblical interpretation splits right and left within the church, it splits conservative and liberal. The mainline has tried to find its place somewhere in the middle. The result is that we usually get the mud kicked up on us as groups splinter right and left. But our voice must remain!
Sunday, we take a look at the Jesus of the Gospel of John. What does it mean to have Jesus as Judge over and against the Father as Judge, given the Father's 'trial history' of the Old Testament? What does it mean to have Jesus as Judge over and against 'the historical Jesus' with all that 'divine accretion' stripped away?
Somewhere between the fiery furnace of hell eternal and the best selling self-help guru of the last two millennia, we find our Lord Jesus.
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