May 11, 2021 John 5: 30
26For just as the Father has life in himself, so
he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; 27and he has given him authority to execute
judgment, because he is the Son of Man. 28Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is
coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29and will come out—those who have done good, to
the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of
condemnation. 30“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my
judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who
sent me.
31“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. 32There is another who testifies on my behalf,
and I know that his testimony to me is true. 33You sent messengers to John, and he testified
to the truth. 34Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that
you may be saved. 35He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a
while in his light. 36But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father
has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf
that the Father has sent me.
“I
can do nothing on my own.” One of the
difficulties in listening to someone like me who pretends to be deeply immersed
into the theology of Christianity and the meaning of the Bible is that it
sounds like I actually sound like what I am talking about. Read a book of theology, read the confessions
of the church, and there is a similar…certainty. THIS is what we believe, and here is
why. There are usually bible texts to
prove things from there.
But
no one person is nearly that smart. Our
theological conclusions of today are based on generations, literally thousands
of years of biblical interpretation and understanding, trying to translate what
God, in the divinity of our Creator, has laid out for us to seek to understand
as broken, sinful, created beings.
Why
such an apology to begin this diatribe?
Because of what Jesus leads off with.
How can he do nothing on his own?
Who is Jesus? What is Jesus? Those are questions that plagued the early
church and have plagued those who seek to understand our faith more
deeply. The standard theological answer
is that Jesus is “fully God and fully Human”, but what does that even
mean? Because there is no clear verse
say, in Paul, where he tells us, “And oh yes children of faith, in case you
were wondering, Jesus does all this salvation stuff because he is the Son of
God and the Son of Man, perfectly, inseparably both, God and Human, because…”
Again,
who is Jesus? He can do nothing of himself,
but it said back in John 1:1 that he is God.
But how can God give Jesus all these things if Jesus is already
God? Did God create a shell of a man? Is this some kind of hybrid? Some kind of uber-angel?
And
what is Jesus doing in this verse?
Creating a train of connection to God the Father. “I hear.
I judge. My judgement is
just. It is not my will but that of him
who sent me.”
It is
the crowning achievement of human theological thinking, in taking what the Bible
teaches us seriously, in looking at Jesus and what has been done for us, in
laying it out as a statement that Jesus is fully Human and fully God. It is the work of sinful human understanding
attempting to wrap its mind around the divine.
God lays out what God has done.
We humans have this drive to make things fit.
And
as we read about Jesus doing for us while receiving that authority from God, we
seek to make the connections. But what doing
this study has given me is the up close and personal of studying the Scriptures
and connecting to these truths myself.
It is what I am trying to share in this blog. This is where I am, with a lifetime of
experience in the faith, here is Jesus speaking and acting out, how then shall
these things crisscross? There is
certainly an invitation to those of you who have followed along to continue,
watching one man’s interaction with the Bible I hold to be so holy.
More
later.
Peace, Pastor Peter
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