In our daily meditations, we continue to explore some of the teachings Jesus gave His disciples. One time, after healing a man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath (John 5:1-16), the Jewish leaders started persecuting Jesus because He healed the man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees believed that healing was work that was forbidden on the Sabbath. During this persecution (John 5:16), Jesus responded with five claims of equality with God. To keep this meditation brief, we'll focus today only on the first two.
1) Christ is Equal with God in His Person (vs. 17-18).
17Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." 18For 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 (John 5:17-18).
Some people believe that Jesus never claimed to be God. I’m unsure where they get that idea because the Lord clearly declares His divinity in this particular passage of Scripture. Just as His Father never ceased working on the Sabbath, the same was true for the Lord Jesus. The religious Jews certainly understood Him to say that He is equal with God (v. 18). Because of that, they responded by trying even harder to kill Christ (v. 18).
2) Christ is Equal with God in His Works (vs. 19-20).
19Jesus 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. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these (John 5:17-20).
Jesus said that He could only do what He saw His Father doing. We shouldn’t interpret this as Jesus being weaker or inferior to the Father, because that would be heresy. Instead, it means that everything He did was in cooperation with the Father and was done out of their Oneness. There is only One God, and Jesus is 100% God in human flesh. In one instance, Christ told the disciple Philip:
Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father?' (John 14:9).
The Lord Jesus taught discipleship through modeling. Everything He did was based on listening to and following what the Father showed Him. As disciples of Christ, we should always keep one thought at the forefront of our minds: “Lord, what do you want to do through me in this situation? What do you want me to say to this person?” Sometimes, we might stumble because we have said or done something we believed the Lord was telling us, yet see no visible fruit. Even when results aren’t evident, we must trust that God is working and remain obedient to the Spirit’s leading. I remember sharing Christ with a couple of young girls many years ago. After explaining how they could be saved, I never followed up because there didn't seem to be any interest. Later, I realized they were so eager for God that they took the initiative to come back and ask if I would share more with them. I led both of them to Christ. How blind I was to the work of the Holy Spirit! The more we learn to be sensitive to His voice and guidance, the more we see Him work through us.
We must listen for that gentle whisper (1 Kings 19:12) of the Spirit, which becomes clearer the more we walk with Him and obey His prompting. Remember, the whisper of the Spirit never contradicts the Word of God. The prompting of the Holy Spirit will always seem like something Jesus would say and align with the Scriptures. The Lord said that the relationship between the Father and Son operates out of love for each other, “For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does” (v. 20). When someone is genuinely in love with Christ, the gifts of the Spirit will flow in and through them to touch lives. Jesus was saying that He is equal to the Father and that everything He did on Earth was guided by the Father's prompting. Keith Thomas
This meditation is a shortened version of the in-depth study: Jesus the Life-Giver.