The Unavoidable Claims of Jesus

Audio Transcript

Grab your Bibles please, and let’s turn back to John chapter 5. We’re going to pick up right where we left off last week. We looked at the first 15 verses, and we’ll be in verses 16 to 40 today as we continue our study through the Bible and now specifically through the life of Christ.

If someone walked up to you tomorrow at work or at school, or one of your neighbors came by and said to you, “I just want you to know that I am the Son of God, the Savior of the world. I have power over life and death, and everything in the Bible points to me.” How would you respond?

I mean, probably something like, “Listen, Ralph, I’ve known you for a long time and you keep this up, people are gonna think you’re crazy. You’re gonna lose your reputation!” And you would be right in responding that way. Today we come to a section of Scripture where Jesus said the same thing and more, and we must ask ourselves, “How will we respond to such audacious claims?” If what Jesus said in these verses is not true, then He is the most insane person who ever lived. But if they are true, the consequences for us are inescapable.

We saw last week in verses 1 to 15 that Jesus healed a man who had been an invalid for 38 years, but because Jesus did this on the Sabbath, the religious leaders attacked Him for violating their man-made rules. And so we pick right up now in verse 16, John 5:16, and it’s telling us now that this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. Now I’ll give you a quick footnote here to help you as you study the Gospel of John.

Whenever you see the phrase “the Jews” in the Gospel of John, John is always referring to the Jewish religious leaders. Keep that in mind, he’s not talking about the public in general. When he says “the Jews,” he’s referring to the Pharisees, the scribes, the members of the Sanhedrin, and so on. The powerful religious elite in that day.

And it’s those very religious leaders who gather around Jesus here and start accusing Him of breaking God’s law, but in fact He’s not breaking God’s law, He’s breaking their man-made rules. And the response that Jesus gives is such an astounding declaration of His deity that no one can walk away from this unclear on who He is claiming to be. Now I must tell you, these verses we’re about to walk through are holy ground. These verses are, I believe, the clearest declaration Jesus ever gave in all of the Gospels on the subject of His deity, of being one with God.

This is not unclear, this is not vague in any way. The problem is most of us have trouble dealing with this. And I can tell you, I have both been excited and terrified to come to these verses today, because these are so important, they’re of such enormous magnitude, that it’s like handling nuclear material. You better be careful.

I asked Kevin if he wanted to teach this today and he said no. I honestly–I was gonna fake death this morning just to get out of this. Not actually, but close. But on the other hand, I can’t wait for us to look at this. This is a unique section of Scripture, and I come to it with fear and trembling and just hope that God will set me out of the way and allow His Word to speak clearly to each of us this morning.

So how does Jesus respond to this accusation? Well, He begins with an absolute bombshell. Look at verses 17 and 18.

“But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I too am working.'” Now that doesn’t seem like much of a statement to us? Verse 18. “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him.” Why? Because He not only broke the Sabbath, but He also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.

Now you and I, look at that phrase again, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” If we didn’t have verse 18, would we ever come to the conclusion that Jesus was implying that He was equal with God? The answer is no. We would never draw that conclusion. And so we’re missing something, clearly, because the Jewish leaders responded with rage. They wanted to murder Him on the spot because of what He just said, and they gave the interpretation of why they were angry. Not only because He broke the Sabbath, but more because He was claiming to be equal with God. So we’re missing something here. What are we missing? Well, it’s hard for us to understand why this statement was so offensive, but the Jewish leaders understood it immediately. There was no confusion whatsoever in their mind about what Jesus was implying in these words.

The reason is, no Jew dared to call God their personal Father. Listen, they revered God and the name of God so highly that they wouldn’t even write it. I have a Jewish friend in South Africa who still emails me from all those years ago, and in his emails, every time he writes the name of God, he puts capital G dash D. He will not write it.

Now sadly, you and I live in a culture where we hear God’s name spoken in slander and cursing multiple times a week. In fact, please don’t ever use OMG. It’s become so casual to us, “Oh my God.” No, no, no, please. Let’s cut that out of our vocabulary. That is slanderous. And we hear people say “my God” all the time and it has lost the power that it should have for us. These Jewish leaders never referred to Him as “my God.” Now we see in the Old Testament they did refer to Him in a national sense as He is the God of Israel, sometimes as “our Father” but never as “my Father.” That was blasphemy in their eyes. Because they believed that calling God “my Father” was making yourself equal with God because you were saying you were one with Him in nature. None of us are equal with God in nature. We are all fallen sinners whose nature must be redeemed. And so for a sinful man to say, “My God,” he was making himself equal with God in nature and this infuriated them.

Now Jesus was fully aware of this when He made this statement. He knew exactly what He was saying and they knew exactly what He was saying and it enraged them so much that they wanted to kill Him. Now let me just ask you, if people were going to kill you because they mistakenly thought that you were claiming to be equal with God, wouldn’t you be quick to correct them? If someone put a gun to your head and said, “How dare you claim to be equal with God?” you go, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, there’s been a big misunderstanding here. I never claimed that.” Again, as I said to you recently, sometimes the things that are not said in the Bible speak profoundly. You notice Jesus didn’t correct what He said. They wanted to kill Him. Jesus didn’t say, “Oh, fellas, let’s not get crazy. I didn’t mean that.”

His silence affirmed that He was indeed claiming to be equal with God. He didn’t back down, He didn’t explain, He didn’t apologize, in fact, He’s about to raise the stakes even higher. Look at what He says next in verses 19 and 20.

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly,” it means amen, amen, it’s a way of saying, you know, amen means “so be it,” or “it is so.” It’s a way of saying, “Fellas, what I’m about to tell you is already settled, it’s already so, whether you believe it or not.” “Truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself is doing, and He will show Him greater works than these, so that you may marvel.” This might sound like Jesus is limiting Himself, saying that He can’t do everything or there are things that He can’t do, but that’s not what He means.

He’s saying, “I am so perfectly one with God the Father that everything I do is an exact expression of who He is. Everything I do is what God does. No human can claim such a thing.”

It’s my desire. Is it yours? Wouldn’t you love to be able to say that about your life? “Everything I did this week was an exact expression of God.” Wow. That’s what Jesus is claiming. That’s why He would later say, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. I and the Father are one.” It’s no wonder they lost their minds.

Who has the audacity to say such a thing? What kind of man rocks up on the scene and says, “I am one with God. Everything I do is an exact representation of what God does. I do nothing that He doesn’t do. I only do what He does.”

Here’s this lowly carpenter’s son, from despised, hated Nazareth, telling these religious experts that He and God are one. And if that wasn’t enough to make their heads explode, Jesus takes it up another notch by making three jaw-dropping claims in verses 21 to 30.

First claim is that He is equal with God in power. Verse 21.

“For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.” Life and death are the exclusive domain of God alone. No one can claim the power of life and death but God alone. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He repeats it in verse 25. “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, speaking of Himself, and those who hear it will live.” He’s not done yet. He repeats it again in verse 28. “Do not marvel at this, for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice,” speaking of Himself, “and will come forth.” Here’s an ordinary-looking man standing in front of you, saying that He has the power over life and death, that one day all the dead will hear His voice and will come to life again. What do you do with such a man?

Now those who are standing there questioning Jesus, they already knew from their Old Testament that this had been foretold. Way back in Daniel chapter 12 verse 2, this prophecy was written, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” Now Israel knew this prophecy. These religious leaders knew this prophecy and they believed that God would do it. But now, this common-looking man comes along and says, “I am the one who has the power to raise the dead and give them life.” The audacity of this claim must have knocked them over.

Not only did He claim to be equal with God in power, but secondly, He claimed to be equal with God in authority. The Old Testament Scriptures that these religious leaders were so familiar with had already stated back in Genesis 18 that God is the judge of all the earth. But now look at what Jesus says in verse 22. “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son.” He repeats it in verse 27, “And God has given Him,” referring to Himself, “authority to execute judgment.” The Jews knew that God would judge the earth, but Jesus says, “God has entrusted all judgment to Me.” Now if Ralph from work walked up to you tomorrow and made this claim, you’d call somebody in Human Resources or, you know, the company nurse or something and say, “There needs to be some kind of evaluation here.”

Jesus is claiming to be acting as God in this role of authority and judgment. And the ironic thing is, the sad thing is, those who refuse to believe in Jesus will one day stand before that very One and be judged. I can’t imagine that moment. Remember, we looked at this fairly recently in Matthew chapter 7. It was Jesus who said, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did not we prophesy in Your name? And in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will say to them, ‘Depart from Me, I never knew you, you workers of iniquity.'” It was Jesus passing that judgment.

He claimed to be equal with God in power. He claimed to be equal with God in authority. And thirdly, He claimed to be equal with God in honor. In honor. Now this is shocking. This one of all of them, I think, is the one that just causes me to just wince when I hear this, if Jesus was not who He said He was. Verse 23, “That all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” Can I just read that again? That’s a lot to take in. “That all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father,” in the same way, to the same degree that they honor God the Father. Now here’s the exclamation point on that statement. “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” Now we’re getting into the heavy stuff.

Have you noticed that in our society people seem to have no problem invoking the name of God? God gets mentioned at State of the Union addresses, graduation speeches, concerts, “G’night, God bless!” That was my best British rock star there, right? You’ve heard it, “G’night, God bless!” and you go, “Which God?” People have no problem invoking the name of God, but the name of God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, that’s the name that empties rooms and ends careers and enrages millions.

There was a clip I saw years ago. I tried to find it. I couldn’t. It’s before I started saving everything I found and putting it in research files. But there was a Fox News or something, you know, some ungodly organization, CNN, MSNBC, whatever, all of them are corrupt. Fight me afterwards on that, I dare you. They’re all corrupt. They had, you know, this person beaming in from satellite and they were interviewing them, and during the interview this person mentioned the name of Jesus. And this woman who was interviewing him, you saw her face go just beet red, and she was furious. And she ended the interview abruptly. What is that? People talk about God all day long because it’s become a generic term. “God bless!” “Okay, which one are we talking about?” But Jesus? That is the name that is above every name.

And every living being knows at some deep unconscious level that one day their knee will bow, their tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, to the glory of God the Father. And this is why when the name of Jesus is invoked, people become enraged. It’s another one of those small proofs that all of this is true.

And boy, when Jesus said this, “I deserve equal honor with God,” what? But then He doubled down and said, “He who does not honor Me does not honor the Father.” Put yourself in their position. It infuriated those religious leaders. He literally said, “Honoring God without honoring Me is not possible.” He also stated it clearly later in John 15 verse 23, He said, “He who hates Me hates My Father also.” Uh-oh.

People say, “I believe in God, but I don’t believe in Jesus.” Friend, you don’t have that option. You don’t have that option. You cannot believe in the God of the Bible and not believe in Jesus. 1 John 2:23 says, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. He who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.” Why is this so important? Because God validated His Son as being the one He sent to save the world from sin. God gave His stamp of approval–we looked at this at the baptism of Jesus–God gave His stamp of approval, saying, “This is My Son.” So if you deny Jesus, you’re calling God a liar. And that’s not my words. 1 John 5:10 says it clearly, “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. He who does not believe God has made Him a liar.” Why has he made God a liar? If he doesn’t believe God. Because he’s saying, if you don’t believe what God said, here it is, because he has not believed the testimony that God has given about His Son.

You really want to honor God? But you’re not so sure about the whole Jesus thing? Well, I want God to be happy with me, do you? Okay, here’s what God requires of you, John 6:28 and 29. “Then they said to Him, to Jesus, ‘What shall we do that we may work the works of God?'” Great question. Verse 29, “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God that you believe in Him whom He sent.'” Checkmate. There’s no escape from this. There is no escape. You cannot honor God unless you honor Jesus.

Now, these religious leaders who are surrounding Jesus here have put Him on kind of an impromptu trial, and Jesus knows that no one can serve as a credible witness for Himself, so in these remaining verses, He calls four witnesses to testify on His behalf that He truly is the Messiah and the Son of God. Now, He doesn’t call people from the crowd, He goes up a level from that. And briefly in these final verses, I want to show you these four witnesses that Jesus calls to bear testimony of who He is very quickly.

Number one, first witness He called was John the Baptist. Look at verse 33. We’re back in John 5 now. John 5:33. Now He’s turning the tables and He’s saying directly to these religious elite, “You have sent to John, John the Baptist, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He, John the Baptist, was a burning and shining lamp and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.” What is He talking about? Well, when John the Baptist began preaching, and again we looked at all this, the religious elite came out to hear him. They were for a while thrilled with this man coming on the scene, and we looked at one Sunday that these people sent a delegation out to John the Baptist to interrogate him to see if he was the Messiah.

And John answered plainly, “I am not the Christ.” He said, “He who comes after me is preferred before me, whose sandals I am not even worthy to untie.” And when they asked him if he was the Messiah, John the Baptist pointed where? He pointed to Jesus. Remember the day we saw this? As Jesus was walking by, John pointed to Him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” Where was he pointing? He was pointing to Jesus.

Those religious leaders had enjoyed John for a while but the moment he said Jesus was the Savior they walked away because they didn’t want to hear it. He wasn’t the Savior they wanted. How many people today do the same thing? They love a passionate preacher, as long as his message stays at the level of, you know, inspiration and motivation. “I’m here to give you a boost for the week.” You can find your own boost, I ain’t giving anybody a boost, I need some myself. I just give you God’s Word and if it boosts you, great, if it crushes you, great too. That’s what we all need. Yeah, some people love preachers who inspire them and motivate them, but boy, as soon as a preacher confronts their heart, they don’t want to hear it anymore. There’s lots of people in the world like that.

Jesus says to these men, accusing Him, “You loved John the Baptist for a while, but his entire purpose was to point people to Me so that they could be saved. You want to witness, fellas? You put Me on trial, you want to witness? John the Baptist, your once hero, he pointed people to Me. But that’s when you rejected his message.”

Now Jesus calls His second witness, and this time it’s the miracles. Verse 36 of John 5, “But the testimony,” Jesus speaking, “but the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given Me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about Me that the Father has sent Me.” The miracles that Jesus performed weren’t magic tricks. They weren’t sleight of hand. They were announcements from heaven. They were fulfillment of prophecy.

There are so many prophetic passages that talk about what the Messiah would do, and Jesus has now been slowly fulfilling those works, those miracles. There’s a passage in Isaiah that describes exactly what the Messiah would do when He came. Isaiah 35 verses 5 and 6 prophesied hundreds of years earlier, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be open and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then the lame man shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute shall sing for joy.” And these miracles bore witness, Jesus says, that He is the Messiah. When Jesus performed some of these miracles, the people in the crowd said, “We have never heard of a thing like this,” because no one had ever done that in their lifetime.

Later, and we’ll get to this specific incident in… well, next week is Easter, we’re gonna take a pause for that, but in a few weeks we’re gonna get to this message, and man, this message makes me want to weep when I think about it. This great one, John the Baptist, the one of whom Jesus said there’s never been a greater man born than John the Baptist. Remember I told you recently this whole time now we’ve been studying through the life of Christ up to this point, John the Baptist has been arrested and thrown in prison. And when I show you that prison you’ll shudder to wonder how any man could keep his sanity. John’s been in prison this whole time and we’ll reach a point soon where John is under such duress that his mind begins failing him and he sends word to Jesus asking, “Are You the One? Or should we look for another?” That’s John the Baptist. Be very careful judging people when they fail. People say, “Oh, I’ll never compromise my faith.” Time will tell.

John, this great man, the one who pointed to Jesus, said, “Boy, I’m in such a mess. I don’t know what I believe anymore. Jesus, are You the One?” Jesus didn’t say yes. Here’s what He said, talking about miracles, bearing witness of who He is. He said, “Go and tell John, the blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear and the dead are raised. That’ll jar him back to who I am—the miracles.”

He was saying, “Look at the evidence of My miracles, they’re all around you and they all testify and bear witness of who I am.” Well, quickly, the third witness Jesus calls is the Father. The Father. John 5:37 and 38. “And the Father Himself who sent Me has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form, but you do not have His Word abiding in you.” Oh boy! “For you do not believe the One whom He sent.” As I said, when Jesus was baptized, the voice thundered from heaven, God spoke and said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Again, at the Transfiguration, God spoke from the cloud and said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased, listen to Him.” God also bore witness about His Son in the very conscience of men, convicting them of the truth about Jesus, and Romans spells that out clearly.

And He also, the Father also testified of Jesus in the Scriptures. In the Scriptures, Jesus is saying, “You need testimony about Me, you need a witness to stand on My behalf and vouch that what I’m saying to you is true, these outrageous things I’m saying, you want to know whether they’re true? Call God the Father. He’ll come and stand in the dock and give testimony of Me.” Wow.

And He says, “The Father also testified of Me through Scriptures,” and this is our fourth and final witness that Jesus calls, the Scriptures. The Scriptures. He says in verse 39 and 40 of John 5–now I just… I want you to listen to this and try to put yourself into the sandals of one of these powerful religious elite standing there casting judgment upon this carpenter from Nazareth. Put yourself in their position, these men of Scripture.

Listen to what Jesus says to them, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.” They taught that if you search the Scriptures enough, it will add to your chances of getting eternal life. Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.” He says, “These are the Scriptures that testify about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life.” What a slap in the face this must have been. These men attacking Jesus were experts in the Scriptures. They had memorized huge portions of the Old Testament and could quote it by heart. They would put every one of us to shame and yet Jesus says, “the Word of God does not abide in you.” How is that possible? Because, folks, you can read the Scriptures your whole life, you can become a religious scholar and teach at a university, but unless you believe in the One the Scriptures testify of, you have no spiritual life in you at all.

This is why I’m telling you, the most dangerous people in the world are not terrorists. The most dangerous people in the world are these experts who teach from the Bible but deny the Son of God. Stay far away from them.

The very Scriptures those Pharisees studied so fervently were pointing to the man standing right in front of them, but they refused to see it. And their blindness continues to this day. People want truth, but only if it confirms what they already believe. Have you noticed that? I’ve said this before, I’m really working on this in my life. We build echo chambers around ourselves and we only hear what we want to hear. That’s true spiritually, it’s true politically, it’s true in so many areas. You hear the truth, but if it doesn’t align with you, you label it as untruth. People will believe in God, but only a God that doesn’t meddle with their affairs. Even Jesus is fine, as long as He is an optional add-on to their life, and not Lord of their life.

My mom was in a doctor’s office years ago and she was sharing Christ with the doctor, who was very perturbed by this, and my mom made a comment like, “Boy, you know, in this world we live in, I don’t know how anybody could live without Jesus,” and the doctor said, “Yeah, He comes in handy once in a while.”

Here’s the thing that should jolt us. These Pharisees weren’t atheists. They weren’t pagans. They were religious and they were lost. The question is not how many Bible verses you know, the question is, have you believed in the One the verses point to?

This morning, I have put all of us in the place of these religious experts. We’ve come face to face with the claims of Jesus, and He hasn’t left us any middle ground. “You reject Me, you reject the Father. You don’t believe in Me, you call God a liar. The Scriptures, search them all you want, but if they don’t point you to Me, then you’re missing. You’re missing it all.” He stood there that day and declared in no uncertain terms, “Everything hinges on what you do with Me.”

You don’t get to admire Jesus from a distance. You don’t get to stay neutral. You either receive Him or you reject Him. I wish there was a third option, sure, make my job easier, but there isn’t. There isn’t. So the only question is, what will you do with Jesus? Maybe let me change the tense on that. What have you done with Jesus? What have you done with Him? You like that doctor? Yeah, He sure comes in handy once in a while.

Folks, there will come a day when you will stand before this One. And the only thing that will matter in that moment is did you believe in Him or not. Oh, not intellectually. The demons believe and they tremble at the thought. Did you believe in Him by bowing your heart and your will before Him and saying, “Lord, I am a sinner. I don’t need anyone to tell me that, and I believe by faith that You came and died in my place and took the punishment for my sin upon You to give me Your righteousness and to give me eternal life. Jesus, I don’t understand it, but I believe that and I put my faith in You to save me.” Have you ever done that?

There’s a hard message, but the beautiful thing is, if you have never done that, Jesus stands right now with His arms extended, inviting you to come. Imagine if Jesus had said these words and then left you with, “Well, tough luck, bunch of suckers, bunch of losers, bunch of sinners. I’m the Holy One of God, you have no chance.” But He didn’t do that. He came that we might be saved.

And after this heavy message this morning, I leave you with beautiful promise that Jesus gave. “Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me has everlasting life.” Believe on Him today.