“Have I been with you for so long, and you
have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How
can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe
that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I
do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his
miraculous deeds. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous
deeds themselves.” [John 14:8-11][NET]
In this way
Jesus responded to Philip’s request for Jesus to show them the Father that they
could be content. Jesus equates Himself with the Father; yet Jesus is the
Son. Therefore, through this response to
Philip, Jesus reveals the mystery of the Trinity to us.
As I
explained last time, all we can understand about God is what He has revealed
about Himself. This revelation has come to
us by His Word that took on flesh and dwelled among us--Jesus the Christ—God’s
Son—and through the written word—the Holy Scripture—the Bible.
Is the above
encounter with Philip the only time Jesus equated Himself with the Father, and
therefore reveals the Trinity? The
answer is no. We will examine several scenarios to support this.
Probably the
main reason the Jewish leaders sought to kill Jesus was Jesus’ mostly veiled
claims of His oneness with God. For
example, consider the account of Jesus healing the paralytic:
Just then some men showed up,
carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They were trying to bring him in and
place him before Jesus. But since they found no way to
carry him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down on
the stretcher through the roof tiles right in front of Jesus.
When Jesus saw their faith he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” Then the experts in the law and the Pharisees began to
think to themselves, “Who is this man who is uttering blasphemies? Who can
forgive sins but God alone?” When Jesus perceived their
hostile thoughts, he said to them, “Why are you raising objections within
yourselves? Which
is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority
on earth to forgive sins” – he said to the paralyzed man – “I tell you, stand
up, take your stretcher and go home.” Immediately he
stood up before them, picked up the stretcher he had been lying on, and went
home, glorifying God. [Luke 5:18-25][NET]
Jesus
forgives the paralyzed man’s sins, something only God can do; the Pharisees
were quite correct in their understanding of this. For this reason the Pharisees cried foul in
the most serious manner possible: “He blasphemes!” Of course, any yahoo could come along and
pronounce anyone forgiven; who would ever know if it was true or not? Jesus addresses this by asking, “Which is
easier, to say….” Jesus’ claim of bearing
the authority of God Himself, which I submit is tantamount to asserting Jesus’
divinity, was validated by the miracle He did.
Can you now see Philip nodding at the response of Jesus we started with? We should be nodding, too. This situation should also tell us that Jesus
is no mere prophet (more on this later).
It’s too
important to miss, so I must digress for a wee moment and point out that the
Father, by His son, through the power of the Holy Spirit was bringing about
restoration—yes, re-creation—in the account of the paralytic. You see, the forgiveness and healing, such as given the paralytic, that came through Christ weren’t parlor tricks, but real acts of justice
in Love; because of His great love for us, and in the power of that Love, God brings
order out of chaos, life back from death, and light into darkness. He accomplishes this in part by His
forgiveness and His healing balm made available through the faithfulness of His
son. And this would not be possible if
Jesus were not perfectly God.
During the
long confrontation between Jesus and some Jews who believed Jesus to be the
Messiah but didn’t understand what that meant beyond political aspirations,
Jesus would make a startling claim.
Let’s listen in….
Then the Judeans responded, “Now
we know you’re possessed by a demon! Both Abraham and the prophets died, and
yet you say, ‘If anyone obeys my teaching, he will never experience death.’ You aren’t greater than our father Abraham who died, are
you? And the prophets died too! Who do you claim to be?” Jesus
replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worthless. The one who glorifies me
is my Father, about whom you people say, ‘He is our God.’ Yet
you do not know him, but I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I
would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I obey his teaching. Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day, and he saw
it and was glad.” Then the Judeans replied,
“You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham?” Jesus
said to them, “I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence,
I am!” Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but
Jesus hid himself and went out from the temple area. [John 8:
52-59][NET]
Jesus,
by calling Himself, I AM, equates Himself with God. The Messiah (i.e., Christ) was never to be simply a human
being set up by God to free Israel politically, but God, Himself, come in the
flesh, to bring His eternal kingdom to all who acknowledge Jesus as King and
follow Him by faith. This was a huge
stumbling block for the Jews. Sadly, it remains
a stumbling block for some Jews and non-Jews—even those professing religion.
In
the account of the paralytic (above), Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of
Man. Indeed, the two most common terms
spoken by Jesus the Christ during His ministry on earth were the Kingdom of God and the Son of
Man. One might think by the latter
title Jesus meant His humanity. In fact,
Jesus is perfect Man. But the name Son of Man refers to more than His
humanity; it speaks to the fact of Jesus’ Divinity. The name comes from the prophecy of the
Messiah given to Daniel, and recorded in the seventh chapter of the book of
Daniel in the Old Testament:
I
was watching in the night visions, “And with the clouds of the sky one like a
son of man was approaching. He went up to the Ancient of Days and was escorted
before him. To him was given ruling authority, honor, and
sovereignty. All peoples, nations, and language groups were serving him. His
authority is eternal and will not pass away. His kingdom will not be destroyed.” [Daniel 7:
13,14][NET]
Only God
deserves the worship afforded the Son of Man, here. By referring to Himself as the Son of Man, Jesus again asserts the fact
of the distinction with inseparable union of the Father and Son of the Trinity—God
who took on flesh to save His world.
Okay, perhaps
we can concede from all the discussion thus far that Jesus reveals the binitarian relationship of the Father and Son within the Godhead—that is, each
person—Father and Son—is fully God, and one God. But does Jesus ever reveal the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity?
Jesus’
clearest declaration of the Trinity is found in His great commission to His
disciples:
Then
Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven
and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son
and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I
have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
[Matthew 28: 18-20][NET]
In the Gospel
of John 14: 15-31, Jesus describes the Holy Spirit and the purpose of His
coming. We can infer the Holy Spirit as a person from Jesus’ description; but we must look elsewhere for
confirmation of this (more on this next week).
During
another event where Jesus had cast out a demon, the Pharisee observers accused Jesus of doing this by the power of Satan.
Jesus’ response to them implies the perfect Trinity indwelling Christ:
Now
when Jesus realized what they were thinking, he said to them, “Every kingdom
divided against itself is destroyed, and no town or house divided against
itself will stand. So if Satan casts out Satan, he is
divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And
if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this
reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out
demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you.
How else can someone enter a strong man’s house and steal his property, unless
he first ties up the strong man? Then he can thoroughly plunder the house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not
gather with me scatters. For this reason I tell you,
people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but the blasphemy against
the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word
against the Son of Man will be forgiven. But whoever speaks against the Holy
Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. [Matthew 12:
25-32][NET]
Now, scads of
things can be learned from this account, but I would have us make three
observations about the Holy Spirit: 1) He is equated with God because He is
doing work only God can do, and receiving honor only due God (note also, the
binding of Satan—the rendering him powerless—by the work of the Holy Spirit in
casting out demons is all part and parcel of the justice I spoke of earlier in
terms of forgiveness and healing, expressed here by Jesus holistically as God's kingdom purpose: “then the kingdom of God has already
overtaken you.”); 2) The Holy Spirit is
seen as a separate person of the Trinity of the Son and the Father by the role
the Holy Spirit takes in the overall redemption process; indeed, the church
Fathers used the roles of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in creation and in
salvation as one way of understanding the idea of persons (we’ll explore this
more next week); and 3) it is by the agency of the Holy Spirit that Jesus casts
out the demons.
The last point
deserves a bit more explanation before finishing this post. As I said earlier, Jesus is no mere
prophet. Other prophets did miraculous things,
but only because God gave them the Holy Spirit temporarily to do them—that is,
the Holy Spirit had been measured out to them.
But Jesus is perfect God. John
said,
For
the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he does not give the
Spirit sparingly. The Father loves the Son and has placed
all things under his authority. The one who believes in
the Son has eternal life. The one who rejects the Son will not see life, but
God’s wrath remains on him. [John 3: 34,35][NET]
By “does not
give the Spirit sparingly” John means, unlike a mere prophet, Christ has the
Holy Spirit without measure. We see this
graphically illustrated when the woman who had been suffering from bleeding
touched Jesus' cloak without Him seeing her, and power went out from him and healed
her on the spot (see Mark 5: 25-34).
Therefore, it
is God who touched the blind man’s eyes with Jesus’ hand and caused the man to
see; God did it: the person of the Father willed it, the person of the Son
spoke it, the person of the Holy Spirit effected it—God did it. The Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
each fully God, and one God, took on flesh and dwelled among us as Jesus the
Christ His one and only unique son. And
Jesus has revealed this to us by both His words and His miracles.
Reeling? Join the club. While we can never explain the Trinity, we can certainly
appreciate it, and therefore fully trust God who loves us dearly.
Next week we
will see if Scripture reveals the Trinity.
In the meantime, rest up.
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