04 - John 5:19

’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.’ --John 5:19.

Christ had incurred the displeasure of the leading men among the Jews at Jerusalem, by healing the impotent man on the Sabbath. The real offence was in healing him at all, thus giving evidence of a Divine power attendant on his word; but if the miracle had not been wrought on the Sabbath they would have had no excuse for their opposition. There was, however, a special bitterness in the thought that the miracle told strongly against their conception of the Sabbath, and made very light of the miserable righteousness which they had been accumulating by an excessive strictness in externals. At first blush the words we have cited seem to intimate that Christ followed the Father in the doing of certain works; he saw the Father doing them, and then he did like them. But looking at the entire context, it is evident that the truth set forth is the identity of the Father and the Son, so that the works of Christ were really the works of God. He says to the Jews, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." They understood him as making himself equal with God. A few chapters on he tells them plainly, "I and my Father are one." The great Teacher, as he used not a dead language, nor a language more perfect than that which was spoken by the people whom he addressed, so he ever had regard in his instructions to their mental calibre, their measure of intelligence. Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts, whom the Old Testament had made known to him, dwelt on high in majesty unapproachable; the Lord their God was one God; woe unto the man or angel who should presume to assert power or authority like that of God! Jesus of Nazareth was in the midst of them as a man; they could see, hear, handle him; a veritable man clothed in a body like their own. He may be a sinless man, but that is a point to be slowly ascertained. Now let Christ begin his ministry by asserting that in him is all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; the thought would naturally arise, even in the breasts of good men, that such an assumption is an outrage upon the glory of the invisible God, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain. Thus did not Christ. He makes constant references to the Father on high; speaks of himself as "the sent of God;" is content that men should recognise him as a divinely commissioned envoy, conveying the words of God. Nevertheless his mission requires that he should be at last known as God manifest in the flesh; that men should see the very character and mind and being of the blessed God, in his words and works and sufferings, in his entire life and death. Let us then bear in mind, as we read the Gospels, that our Lord has to guard against the readiness to misapprehend that of which we have spoken, and to preserve in the minds of his hearers the necessary interval between the invisible Father and the flesh inhabiting Son; and on the other hand, that he has to teach men to see in him the full revelation of the Godhead, and we shall find the solution of many of the difficulties presented by his successive teachings. For instance, Christ does not, during his ministry, encourage men to prostrate themselves before him. On one occasion the mother of James and John casts herself at his feet with a petition which is not granted; Peter once does the same, in a moment of impulse; the young ruler did it; but the thing is quite exceptional; the disciples have no such way of approaching him, and even publicans and sinners sit and eat with him. His flesh was a veil between them and the indwelling Godhead, and needed to be rent upon the cross, that the Divine glory might be fully revealed. ’’If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I said, I go unto the Father; for my Father is greater than I." "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father."

’I can of mine own self do nothing: you can. What you do reveals simply your own character, betrays your own perverted will. You follow simply your own impulses, without regard to the will of God. But I do nothing without a conviction that it is the Father’s will. I will to do that only which he wills. It was because I was conscious at every step that the Father went with me, that I went to the pool of Bethesda; if I spoke, it was because the Father gave me the words; and that my words were those of the Father is evident from the result, - the man was made whole. Thus am I proclaimed to be the Son of God. The Son can do nothing of himself, only what he seeth the Father do.’

Men find pleasure in magnifying the importance and value of their own individual nature; they also find complacency in whatever confers a higher dignity upon human nature. So far as they can they persuade themselves that they are, individually, heroes, and they compensate themselves for what they cannot find in their own natures by the worship of the world’s heroes. What a man can do of himself, without help from without, without help from above, that determines the measure of his greatness. How indeed shall they idolise a man if he is not the artificer of his own character and fortunes? The self-made man is the hero. And men have lately had the good fortune to find a new hero, even Christ. Is he not a self-made man? Where did he get his character and his wonderful teachings and his unparalleled power over humanity? Did he get wisdom from the Egyptians or Greeks? nobility from the Romans? did the Jews mould and train him in their schools? Did he learn refinement in the courts of princes? self-denial among fishermen? No, we are frankly told by our hero worshippers; Jesus, by virtue of his own inherent powers, his felicitous organisation, made for himself, unaided of men, a position above all men; and in him we see what this humanity of ours is capable of, and glory in it accordingly.

It is very true that Christ owed nothing to mankind. But what does Christ tell us of himself? "I can of mine own self do nothing; why callest thou me good? there is none good save one, that is, God; the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." Hero worship is at an end when a man truly knows Christ. We shall to all eternity adore the Lamb that was slain; but it is God thus revealed whom we shall thus adore.

"The victory which overcometh the world" is the faith that enables us to offer up moment by moment our whole being to God, that he may dwell in us, reign in us, use us, be manifest in us. Christian growth is not in adding strength to strength, but in knowing that man is nothing apart from God, and was only created for a vital union with God, and is redeemed by Christ from his own selfness, that he may be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Let us then take heed how we read the Gospels. May we see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In everything recorded of the Saviour let us see the manifestation of God; for Christ of his own self did nothing.