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HONOUR THE SON: (John 5: 17 - 29)

HONOUR THE SON: (John 5: 17 - 29)

By Roger Salter
Special to VIRTUEONLINE
www.virtueonline.org
January 4, 2016

The passage at hand presents us with the weightiest of matters. It should not be skimmed over or read hastily. Every statement in Scripture should have the impact of a hammer blow upon our consciousness. Its statements are striking. Every sentence should stir us into lively apprehension. There is force in every phrase. A force that alarms us in our drowsiness or that attracts us in its compelling appeal. We may doze off over a novel, or dream over a piece of poetry, but Scripture has a power that stirs us. Every word constitutes the speech of God to our soul and it is charged with meaning for our ultimate weal or woe. There is an energy, an electricity in Scripture turned on by the touch of the Holy Spirit if he deigns to make it alive to us.

Most readers do not expect or experience the current that runs through lines of Scripture. To the conscience it is a source of shock. To the converted mind it is the thrill of the Lord's presence making contact. The Bible is our means to brush up against the bosom of the Lord, to feel the beat of his heart and the breath of his mouth. Through the writings he has inspired the Lord is with us. Scripture facilitates the meeting of minds as if God and the believer were thinking brow to brow and looking at the same things. This is why William Tyndale can recognize and describe the wonderful efficacy of Scripture in the following terms: The Scripture is that wherewith God draweth us unto him. The Scriptures sprang out of God, and flow unto Christ. Thou must therefore go along by the Scriptures as by a line, until thou come at Christ, which is the ways end and resting place.

"As by a line" means careful point by point perusal continuous and consistent, developmental understanding, tracing the teaching and logic of the Lord. Flitting here and there through disjointed texts plucked from their context does not construct a sound biblical theology. There is a movement and momentum to Scripture whereby great principles fall into their inevitable place. Underlying themes beneath the surface strata solve and sort out points of disagreement and error that superficial reading creates. Every Christian "ology" or branch of belief (soteriology, ecclesiology, sacramental theology, etc) becomes consistent, congruous, and concrete at the deep level of Scriptural research and understanding, which doesn't involve enigma and complexity, but a step by step recognition of what the word of God says, at a given point first, and then more - further "along the line". The patient reader discerns connections and thereby discovers sound truth. Many of our denominational differences would be eliminated through adherence to the guidance of the Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent (BCP) concerning the Holy Scriptures: Help us so to hear them, to read, note, learn, and inwardly digest them. [As Christians our insight is blighted by the rapid eye and the quick conclusion. Better to follow the theologian soaked in Scripture than the systematic theologian in spite of all the benefit he brings to the church through his academic prowess. Scripture followed line by line has a superior wisdom of its own in spite of its "technical naivete". But we love to be flattered by our clever theologians whose vagueness of vocabulary gives us a sense of mastering something remarkably profound. This is the era of Neo-Caroline theology i.e Lewis Carroll jabberwocky, but without comedic effect].

The apostle John confronts us with the very boldest claims of Jesus. If Christian readers fail to note them in their full significance, and biblical experts and critics dispute them, the enemies of Jesus reacted with true understanding to the self-identification of the Saviour: "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working" (v17). Here is an attestation to inter-divine collaboration. "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 (v18).

Jesus unequivocally pronounced his equality with God in a unique and eternal Sonship. He described the closest possible kinship and intimacy with God emerging from sameness of substance and nature. In the setting of unity with God he declares himself joint source of life and creation. He is the sovereign donor of life (v21), and as proprietor he is rightfully judge of all that is, the maintainer of the fitness of things and sustainer of proper standards in all manifestations of existence.

Our attitude toward this Son determines the correctness and safety of our standing before him and the destiny that will be awarded to us. There is an inevitable and solemn final judgment at the conclusion of a running, always current, judgment revealed in our estimation of the Son. As offenders of God we must pass from the curse of death to life, if all is to be well for us, at some point in the span of this life (v24). Here and now our destiny is sealed by honouring the Son or failing to do so. The final judgment is the confirmation of our lifelong positive or negative regard for the Lord Jesus, a life of reverence or rebellion. How we rate him determines how he rates us.

The status of the One who will receive or refuse us at the judgment is awesome. We have observed his equality with God (v17); his living, willing, active unity with God; his shared sovereignty with God - his participation in divine prerogatives (v21); his exercise of authority and judgement within the Godhead (v22). He is the Arbiter of the fate of every human being that was ever born (v27). His decisions over us count and are incontrovertible. It pleases him above all else to bestow eternal life upon chosen ones (vv24-25, Matthew 11:27).

Once again, the decisive factor in our in our state hereafter is our regard toward Jesus Christ. Do we esteem him with honour, reverence, reliance? Or do we despise him with hostility, rejection, neglect? Our passage poses the crucial question as to where we stand concerning Jesus.

Everything to do with the Father and the Son springs from the same divinity, they are inseparable in initiative, purpose, and action. Our evaluation of the Son counts as our evaluation of the Father. We may not know him savingly but through Jesus alone. Jesus is the sole medium of saving love. Redemption is the sweet and precious fruit of Calvary's tree. All salvific benefit is through Christ. Through Christ the great transition is negotiated, for through confidence in him the supplicant has crossed over from doom to deliverance.

Our intimacy with God and our joy in the affection of our adoptive Father are only attainable in and through Christ our Mediator and Advocate (precious terms). He is our only but sure access to God and life with him. He imparts communion with him and we join the society of the Holy Trinity, thrilling to their accord and mutual love.

Our prospective joy is indescribable. Such infinitely sweet bliss of the divine fellowship is bestowed upon us forever.

Happiness flows forever from honouring the Son - our creaturely duty and new-creaturely delight.

The Rev. Roger Salter is an ordained Church of England minister where he had parishes in the dioceses of Bristol and Portsmouth before coming to Birmingham, Alabama to serve as Rector of St. Matthew's Anglican Church

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