Day 26: John 5, 11
In John 5, Jesus makes several audacious claims about himself after performing a particularly audacious deed. This chapter alone dispels any notion that Jesus thought of himself simply as a good teacher. First, he cured a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years simply by the word of his power. Then, he explained his actions to the Jewish leaders in such a way that they “tried all the harder to kill him” (v. 18). Several specific instances are worth noting:
-vv. 20-23 - Jesus places himself (the Son) on equal ground as God (the Father) in the areas of giving life, raising the dead, judging others, and receiving honor. These acts were normally only accorded to God the Father and would have been utter blasphemy from the mouth of anyone but one who was equal to God in every way.
-vv. 24-27: Jesus ascribes to himself the power to grant eternal life to those who hear his word and believe in him. He has “life in himself” (v. 26) and is not dependent on anyone else. Rather, through his universal authority, he can bring life to others.
-vv. 36-37: Jesus claims that not only did John the Baptist testify about him, but God himself has testified about him as well. If anyone claims to believe in God the Father but not Jesus the Son, they have to ignore this part of God’s testimony.
-vv.39-40 & 45-47: Jesus states that the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures point to him. It is not enough to simply read and understand the Scriptures, but to see the “light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:4) in them.
When we realize the claims that Jesus is making about himself in this chapter through his actions and his claims to authority, we have to make a choice about who this man was. In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis describes this choice:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Then, in John 11, both Jesus’ full humanity and full deity (or God-ness) are on display in this chapter. We see him weep with his friends at the death of Lazarus and then miraculously raise him from the dead. Verses 25-26 encapsulate his teachings on this. He says to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus does not simply say that he gives resurrection and life, as amazing as that alone would be. Rather, he states it as part of his identity: “I am the resurrection and the life.” These words also call to mind God’s proclamation of his name to Moses in the burning bush as “I am” (see reading for Day 5). His nature is such that final death is impossible for him, as it is for all those who believe in his name. We will experience a physical death, but the deeper life that Jesus gives means that death will be unable to triumph in the end.
Martha’s response to Jesus is a beautiful confession of faith: “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world” (v. 27). Even in the midst of her grief at the death of her brother and her confusion over why Jesus didn’t come earlier, she knew that this Jesus was the promised Messiah, the one equal to God himself. She placed her trust fully in him, and he did not disappoint her.
Questions for reflection and discussion: Why were the Jewish leaders so upset with the claims that Jesus was making? Do you believe that Jesus was a liar, a lunatic, or Lord? When has physical death seemed to triumph in your life, and how does this passage speak truth into those times? Do you agree with Martha’s confession of who Jesus is?
