October 18, 2015 John 10:17 – 39
Download discussion questions: John 10_17-39 Father’s Hand
This passage begins with Jesus making some definitive statements about His ministry. Laying down His life (a polite way of saying death by torture) is His idea, His initiative, His volition. He is not being coerced (not by the Jews, not by the Romans, and not even by God) – He is acting on His own authority. And having the authority to give up His life in a most horrific way, He also has the authority to take it up again, to be restored to life in a most glorious way. He is the Lord of Life.
Who would talk like that? Maybe someone crazy or demon-possessed? That was the opinion of many of His Jewish hearers. But some (maybe a minority) recognized the contradiction. Healing lifelong blindness is not the work of insanity or the occult. Something else must be going on, they just can’t decide what.
Jesus said something else about His mission. His authority, His initiative, His volition, were based on a commandment He received from His Father. That combination may sound strange to us – He says He is acting on His own authority, but He is following the command of His Father. The strangeness is because we do not (cannot?) see the absolute unity of the Triune God. As someone in the discussion remarked, the Father commanded exactly what Jesus wanted to do. There was no conflict, no coercion, no debate about what was to happen. The Father’s eternal plan was carried out with the Son’s eternal collaboration, and (as we will see soon in John’s Gospel) by the Spirit’s eternal cooperation. The three Persons of the Holy Trinity is one God – bad grammar but good theology. He is one because They are perfectly relational, three distinct Persons in a perfect, eternally loving relationship.
His relationship with His Father, the God the Jews knew (or thought they did) continues to be the focal point of controversy. The Jews are asking the wrong question: “If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.” Jesus answer appears odd at first (that seems to happen a lot in John’s Gospel). “I told you.” When? What had Jesus said to answer their question about His status as Christ, or Messiah? What had He been telling them?
He has been telling them (at least until they keep picking up stones) about His relationship with His Father. One comment from the group summarized the problem of the Jews. They were trying to fit Jesus into their ready-made boxes. He was talking about completely different categories. They wanted Him to take a stand on Messianic claims. We discussed their motives (as best as we were able to speculate, since the text doesn’t elaborate). Maybe they were sincerely looking for the Christ, but on their own terms. They were probably more than ready for a powerful, charismatic military leader who would break the bondage of the Romans. And He recently talked about making them free (John 8:31-32). Maybe if Jesus told them He was the Messiah they would have (again) tried to force Him into the role of a king (cf. 6:15) which was certainly not part of His (or His Father’s) plan. More likely this was one more attempt to gather evidence against His for the capital offence of blasphemy (John 8:58, 10:31 in this passage). If they could get Him to say the right words they would have an ironclad case against Him.
In either scenario, Jesus did not engage them in a debate about the Messiah. His emphasis repeatedly was His relationship with the Father. When He says, “I told you,” they did not think back to all the statements He had made. Again, a group member gave us a great picture. Jesus was giving them all the dots, but they didn’t even try to connect them. If they had, they might have begun to understand that His eternal, divine nature was a much bigger category than their idea of a military Messiah. But they left the dots unconnected. And when Jesus gave them even bigger dots, they reacted violently.
“I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.
Later He gave another “dot” to help them see a bigger picture.
“The Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him.
The second statement is important in our growing understanding of the nature of the Trinity (or at least as much as our finite minds can grasp). “I and the Father are one” could be (and has been by some cults) grossly misunderstood. He is not describing different names for a single individual person, as in “I and myself are one,” or “I and Michael” are one. “Son” and “Father” are not just two names for a unitarian deity. These are not just different “modes” or “masks” of one divine person. The second statement (v. 38b) makes it clear that Jesus is talking about two separate Persons, but who even in their distinct beings somehow interpenetrate each other. The distinct persons of the Godhead have been implied throughout John’s Gospel in the forty-plus references to the Father “sending” the Son, one Person sending another Person on a mission (cf. v. 36 in this passage). Jesus frequently prays to His Father (John 17, etc.), one Person in conversation with another Person.
Seeing the emphasis and weight Jesus placed on His relationship with the Father should cause us to ask questions. Are we reflecting Jesus’ message accurately if we fail to maintain His emphasis? Are we distorting the message of Jesus if we don’t highlight His relationship with the Father and God’s Triune nature? Jesus Himself placed a high value on belief in His relationship with the Father, and therefore on a conviction of the Trinity. In verse 38 He was most interested in their belief in that Father/Son relationship. “Though you do not believe Me, believe the works [of the Father] so that you may know and understand…” What? What did Jesus desire that they “know and understand” – that He loved them? That He was going to die for their sins? That they should follow His moral teaching? What He actually wanted them to know and understand was, “that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” Just as He prayed moments before His arrest (John 17:21, 23) His desire was that the world would know something about the relationship between the Father and the Son He had sent.
To honor and follow the ministry and message of Jesus, we must honor and follow His focus on the Triune nature of God, the relational holiness of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Knowing and understanding (v. 38) will expand our vision of who God is and the centrality of relationship. The eternal Trinity is the essence and the core of reality. Before even empty space existed, God is love (1 John 4:8) in the mutual relational perfection of Father, Son and Spirit. That means that relationality is central to reality – our relationship with the Trinity (the Eternal Community), as well as our relationships with other humans, all created in His image. The more we grow in understanding the Trinity, the more we will know God, the more we will value relationships with others, and the more we will experience the abundant eternal life He offers.