What He Does

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

WHAT HE DOES

John 5:16-23

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."  18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

19 Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

NIV

Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath and he, being God, can do whatever he wants to do, whenever he wants to do it. We know this, but the Jews, who have to be the Pharisees or teachers of the law cannot wrap their minds around the truth for they are so steeped in their own form of religion. They have taken the commands of God and twisted them to fit into their idea of being religious. What did they do on the Sabbath? Did they go to synagogue? Did they eat at all? Did they dress? They did their form of work, and the poor priests had to work conducting the service in the synagogue, but they form of work was acceptable, but healing a man and having him take his mat and walk away from a place filled with other lame and blind people was unacceptable. So Jesus tells them God is always at work and so is he, which in short, he is saying he is God. They just could not get it. Sometimes it seems there are Christians who have tried to make it very difficult for themselves to simply just get it. The scholar-theologians have overthought everything about Jesus. As an example, they have come up with five different working theories of his work of atonement, much like the Jews overthinking the commands of God. Here we are seeing the truth about Jesus will always heal. That is the work of God he is talking about in this situation. That is the nature of God, and it is the nature of the Son, Jesus, to heal any day of the week, even on the Sabbath. It is just like our nature is to sin and we sin every day of the week, even on Sunday. To say we do not sin only serves to prove we are a liar and that we call God a liar which both are a sin. Jesus goes on to explain to them the relationship between him and the Father. This is what our relationship is supposed to be like with God as well.  Because we have been given the right to be called children of God, we are now, in fact, his son or daughter. We are his children and as such, just like Jesus, we are to do the same as our Father. The Father loves us and he will show us everything he does. Although we are not in the giving life business as the Father and the Son are, in some sense we are purveyors of life. When we witness or testify bringing the truth of the gospel to light in someone’s life, we are bringing them life, or at least giving them the opportunity to be exposed to the light, to the Son, in order they may have life. This might be a little off the point Jesus was making to the Jews, as he was telling them he is the Son of God, he is the Messiah they have been waiting for. He did not say it as plain as that, but how could they not understand that truth? Again they were blinded by their own brand of religion because it gave them authority over others. That is why they felt they had the right to question this former lame man regarding the work of carrying his mat on the Sabbath. These are random thoughts stemming from this response of Jesus. We should stay focused on that idea of Jesus always doing what God the Father does and because we are in Christ, we should be doing the same thing. So we could start with something simple. God loves.