Chapter 39

“Because He is the Son of Man”

“But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work. Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God. Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth [them]; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all [men] should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” (John 5:17-27).

After the sin and fall of our father Adam, before the fallen pair were driven from the garden, the Lord God promised a man whom he would send to be the Savior of fallen men, a man who would come to crush the serpent’s head, a man who would make restitution to God for men and restore that which he took not away (Genesis 3:15).

            Abraham understood that this man would be God incarnate, God in our flesh, God in our nature. He told his son Isaac that God himself would be the sacrifice by whom sin would be put away, the sacrifice by whom fallen man would be brought back to God (Genesis 22:8).

            Throughout the Old Testament era, believing sinners looked for the coming of one man, who was known as “the Son of Man” (Psalm 80:17; Daniel 7:13-14). That man is the God-Man, the Man-God, whom we worship, Jesus Christ the Lord.

            We have before us one of the deepest, most solemn and profound passages to be found in the entire volume of Sacred Scripture. Here the Lord Jesus asserts his own divinity in words so plain that even the unbelieving Jews understood him clearly. He declares his own eternal power and Godhead with such distinct clarity that his words cannot be misunderstood, except by those who willfully reject the Word of God as the Word of God. In these verses the Son of Man, the man Christ Jesus, states both his own divine nature and his complete, eternal union with God.

            Yet, it is in this portion of Scripture that our Lord Jesus speaks most plainly of himself as that Man who is “the Son of Man,” Jehovah’s righteous Servant. In fact, the very words used here by our Savior to declare his Godhead are the words by which he reveals himself as “the Son of Man.” Truly, there is much in the verses before us that our puny brains simply cannot comprehend. Of the things here spoken by our Savior and recorded by divine inspiration for our learning, we must confess, — “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it” (Psalms 139:6).

            Here our Lord Jesus Christ holds before us seven glaring declarations of his eternal Godhead. Yet, the things he here asserts are all said to be true of him in his office capacity as our God-man Mediator, “because he is the Son of Man.” Here the words of the psalmist are fulfilled: — “His glory is great in thy salvation: honour and majesty hast thou laid upon him” (Psalms 21:5). Nowhere is the dignity of his character, the greatness of his being, and the glory he possesses more fully displayed than in these seven things.

His Redemptive Works

First, our blessed Savior declares that he is one with the Father in his wondrous, redemptive works. — “But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (v. 17). This work of redemption, the complete salvation of God’s elect, was begun and finished by the Triune Jehovah, our great God, before the world began (Romans 8:28-30; Ephesians 1:3-6). — It is written, “The works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Hebrews 4:3).

            Though fully accomplished in the decree and purpose of God from eternity, our Lord Jesus engaged himself as our Surety to perform all the great works of redemption for us and in us in time, bringing to the light in the sweet experience of grace that which was done in eternity in the purpose of grace (2 Timothy 1:9-10). In all his wondrous, redemptive works the triune God is one. The works of the Father are the works of the Son; and the works of the Son are the works of the Father (John 9:4; 14:10). The Jews standing before him understood exactly what the Lord Jesus was saying.

            “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God” (v. 18). — These Jews were horrified that the Lord Jesus had healed a man on the sabbath. So, being the typical legalists they were, they tried to kill him on the sabbath day for healing on the sabbath day. Would to God I could get the ear of every child of God in this world whom religious legalists seek to bind in legal shackles, whose souls they would murder with law works if they could. I would tell them that all healing is in the Sabbath. Christ is our Sabbath. We rest in him! Pastor John Chapman wrote…

“Natural men will do anything and everything except rest in Christ and the believer has to labor to do it because of remaining sin. ‘There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief’” (Hebrews 4:9-11).

            “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.” I repeat; these men understood exactly what the Lord Jesus said. They sought to kill him for declaring that he is God (John 10:30-33; 19:7).

            In his work our Lord Jesus is one with the Father. Yet, his great, redemptive work is a work performed in obedience to his Father (John 10:15-18), “because he is the Son of Man,” our Surety, Mediator, and Substitute, Jehovah’s Righteous Servant.

His Will and Purpose

Second, God the Father and God the Son are one in will and purpose (v. 19). Remember, our Savior is specifically talking to religious legalists and self-righteous zealots who were trying to murder him. — “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” This does not imply a restriction or limitation placed upon his power by his incarnation. Rather, our Savior is simply declaring that he never does anything independently of his Father. Everything he does he does in pursuance of his covenant engagements as our Surety.

            We must never imagine that the incarnation of God the Son placed limitations upon him. Assuming our nature enabled him to do what he never could have done otherwise. Only by becoming one of us, only by the Word being made flesh, only by the Son of God becoming the Son of Man could he…

·      Bring in righteousness for us by his obedience to the law.

·      Be made sin for us, bearing our sins in his own body on the tree.

·      Suffer death as our Substitute.

·      Satisfy divine justice.

·      Put away sin.

·      Put all things under the feet of man.

·      Be a merciful and faithful High Priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

            He who is our Savior is one with the Father in everything he does. The will of the Father is the will of the Son; and the will of the Son is the will of the Father. The work of the Son is the work of the Father; and the work of the Father is the work of the Son. — “Because he is the Son of Man!”

            In all that our Savior here declares, he is identifying himself as the one and only Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. He is showing us his character, authority, and power as the Man-God, the God-Man, our Mediator. These things show him to be God, but more than God: God in human flesh, God and man fully united in one person. He is fully God and fully man, “because he is the Son of Man!”

His Perfect Knowledge

Third, the same thing is true with regard to our Savior’s knowledge. In knowledge he is one with the Father. — “For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel” (v. 20). If the Son knows all things that the Father does, he is one with the Father. As there is no lack of omnipotence in him, there is no lack of omniscience in him. No mere creature is capable of knowing and understanding all the ways and works of God (Romans 11:33-36). Yet, the knowledge spoken of here is a knowledge conveyed to him as the Son of Man, the Man-God, our Mediator. All that the Son beheld the Father do in his eternal decree, he knows and he performs in time, “because he is the Son of Man” (Proverbs 8:22-31).

            Then, the Lord Jesus asserted that the Father would reveal greater things than the healing of impotent folk, things that would cause even the unbelieving to marvel (John 6:61-62; 2 Timothy 1:10).

            It is by his perfect knowledge as Jehovah’s righteous Servant, “because he is the Son of Man,” that the Lord Jesus justifies his elect (Isaiah 53:12). By the knowledge of his Father’s will and his fulfilment of it for the salvation of his elect (Hebrews 10:5-9), the Lord Jesus justifies all who trust him.

His Glorious Sovereignty

Fourth, the Father and the Son are one in glorious sovereignty. — “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will” (v. 21). Here, our Lord Jesus, the Man-God our Mediator, lays claim to divine sovereignty. When he healed a lame man, he did not heal all the impotent folk, but singled out one identified only as “a certain man,” and made him whole. The Son, like the Father, gives life to whom he will. Nothing more need be said. That ends the matter. God’s absolute sovereignty is not a fine point of theology to be debated in the coffee shop, but a glorious revelation of grace to be proclaimed from the house-top, believed in the heart, and rejoiced over in the soul (Exodus 33:18-19; Romans 9:13-16).

His Rightful Honor

Fifth, the Lord Jesus Christ is one with the Father in worship, praise, and honor, “because he is the Son of Man”.

“For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him” (vv. 22-23).

            The Father is the one we might most naturally expect to be the Judge. He has been sinned against, wronged, and his claims denied; but the Father has committed all judgment of Satan, of men, and of this world to the Son, “because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:31). The reason for this is “that all should honor the Son even as they honor the Father,” “because he is the Son of Man” (Colossians 1:14-18).

His Saving Power

Sixth, the Son is one with the Father in his saving power, snatching poor sinners from the jaws of death and bringing them into the joys of life. That is a work none can perform, but God alone.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (vv. 24-26).

            All who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ were once dead in trespasses and in sins. They have been called by the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And being called by his irresistible, effectual, omnipotent, life-giving voice, we now live. Faith in Christ is the evidence of life, the result of having passed from death unto life. The life Christ gives is everlasting life. If we have everlasting life, we shall not come into condemnation. “Because he is the Son of Man,” he has life in himself; and the life he has in himself is the gift of life for his elect.

His Execution of Judgment

Seventh, the Son is one with the Father in judicial power and authority, in the execution of judgment at the last day. — “And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” (v. 27). God the Father, the triune Jehovah, gave his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the power and authority to execute all judgment, “because he is the Son of Man,” because he took our nature into union with himself to save his people from their sins.

            He who is to be the final judge of the quick and dead, is now, and will be then, our Brother, our Head, our Surety, our Advocate, and our Husband. Oh, how precious the thought! — All judgment is committed to him who was judged in our stead upon Calvary’s cursed tree!

            It was because the Son of God took our flesh and walked this earth as man that he was despised, rejected, and crucified. Because he became one of us, his divine glory was denied and disowned! Therefore, the despised one shall have the place of supreme honor and authority. All will be compelled to bow the knee to him and confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Acts 2:36; Philippians 2:5-11; Matthew 28:18; John 17:1-2; Isaiah 45:20-25). All this honor and glory, all this authority and power has been and is heaped upon the Lord Jesus Christ, “because he is the Son of Man,” because he is our Mediator. It is his to have life in himself, and his to communicate life to whom he will. It is his to save or to destroy. It is his to deliver us from going down into the pit, or to cast us into the pit. It is all his, for his people! How this ought to endear him to our souls!

Don Fortner

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