Some people claim that every religion worships the same god. Yet Jesus revealed Himself as the only God and the Judge of all. In this sermon, R.C. Sproul helps us understand Jesus’ response to his opposers and His identity as the second person of the Trinity.

We continue now with our study of the gospel according to Saint John, and our Scripture today is John 5:16–27:

For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.”

Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.”

Of what we have heard, I pray that you have ears to hear. Let us pray.

Father, now as we turn our attention to this text, it is indeed astounding in its content. We pray that You would give us a real understanding of it, that we may be moved to the proper response to Christ and to the Father that it demands. For we ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Jesus’ Defense

Last time, we saw that after Jesus healed the paralytic, the leaders of the Jews were furious because the man had carried his bed on the Sabbath day at the instruction of Jesus. We saw John beginning to introduce us to the deepening hostility of the nation’s leaders toward Christ as they set their minds toward His execution.

We pick it up at verse 16, where we read: “For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.’”

Part of me wishes that I had not included so many verses in today’s text. Then I could have taken the full time to look at just what I have read, because in this statement from Jesus, we have an astonishing declaration that requires more attention than I can give it this morning.

Verse 17 begins with these words: “But Jesus answered them.” Many times in the New Testament, we get a record of conversations between Jesus and individuals or the authorities, in which questions are asked of Christ and He gives a response.

The English Bible tells us that “Jesus said” or “Jesus answered,” but what is hidden behind the English here is something exceedingly rare. In this particular text, when it says, “Jesus answered them,” the form of the verb “to answer” is exceedingly rare. It is found only in the context of trials and courtrooms, used when a formal legal defense is given against charges that are made. John is saying that Jesus is not simply answering a question. He is giving His legal defense before the authorities, who are accusing Him of things worthy of death.

God’s Continual Activity

Let us look at the defense Christ uses for telling this man that it is okay to carry his bed on the Sabbath day. His defense is brief but astonishing. He says, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” What is so strange about that statement?

Jesus is reminding the Jewish authorities and the rabbis of something they should understand: The Sabbath rest was built into creation because God created all that there is in six days, and then on the seventh day, He rested. That set forth the pattern for us to rest in a cyclical manner, resting every seventh day from our common labor. Jesus is reminding these theologians, who certainly should know better, that when the Bible says, “On the seventh day God rested,” it does not mean that God ceased being active.

Remember the old view of the deists. They believed God was the great watchmaker in the sky, who formed the universe and established its laws. Like a clock, He fixed the gears and mechanisms of the machine, wound it up, then stepped out of the picture and allowed the clock to run on its own. That is not the biblical view of God. That is not the biblical view of creation.

The word for “to create” in the first chapter of Genesis is the Hebrew word bara. Olga, our violinist, will you help me? Help me preach. Preach with your violin. Give me some notes that are staccato, please. Now give me sostenuto. I think we would rather listen to that than hear the rest of the sermon.

We know the difference between staccato and legato, or sostenuto. The word bara is not like staccato. It is not like God just creates the world and steps out of the picture. Rather, whatever God creates, He sustains. He does not just bring it into existence, but He preserves and maintains it. That is why there is still a world. If God were to stop working for one instant, the whole universe would be annihilated because in Him we live and move and have our being. Without God upholding the universe from moment to moment, nothing could continue to be.

But that is not the way we think today. We have been overwhelmed by a naturalistic view of science, telling us that nature operates under its own steam, by its own power. It may have a debt to God for its origin, but once things get started, who needs Him? That naturalistic view of God has pervaded the church. How many times have I heard the question, “Where was God on September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Center towers were attacked?” The suggestion in the question is that He was off somewhere, taking a nap, uninvolved in human affairs.

Jesus is telling the people: “That is not our understanding of God. God is not some nebulous greater power or force that starts things rolling. He is the Lord God omnipotent, who governs everything He makes from moment to moment.”

Understanding Who God Is

We have a lot of strange concepts of God in our culture. A few years ago, I told you of an encounter I had on a train. At dinnertime, I was seated with strangers. I came to the table, and there was a young woman on one side and an elderly woman on the other. The steward sat me beside the elderly woman. The young woman sitting across from the elderly woman was excitedly relating a story to her. She was telling her that she was coming home after two years of training in a camp that indoctrinated her into New Age philosophy.

The young woman was excited as she told the older lady: “Do you know what I learned? I learned that I was God.” I did not say anything. I was just sitting there, minding my own business, listening to this, but she kept glancing over to see what my reaction would be. I was just being calm. Finally, she stopped and turned to me, and she said, “What do you think?”

I said: “This is a new experience for me. This is the first time in my life that I’ve been able to sit across a table from the Almighty, visibly. Of course, we do it invisibly every time we come to the Lord’s Table, but this time . . .” I said that to her, and she laughed. Then I looked at her, and I said, “You don’t really believe that you’re God, do you?” She was so sweet, and she kept on laughing. She said, “No, not really.”

I thank God that in thirty seconds we were able to undo two years of indoctrination. But when I said, “You don’t really believe that,” I was trying to show her what an absurd notion it is. But it is an idea that people everywhere are accepting because we have lost an understanding of who God is.

That is why this verse, John 5:17, is so important—it teaches us so much about the nature of God and the nature of Christ. Jesus said, “My Father works until now.” Though the work of creation was completed at the end of the sixth day, God’s involvement, His labor in creation, did not stop. It continues, Jesus says, even until now.

Work on the Sabbath

There is something subtle in what Jesus says, because the Jewish rabbis also had a theory about God’s work. They granted that God continued to labor after He finished creation, and the question was, “Was it okay for God to work on the Sabbath?” That is the question underlying this encounter: Is it permissible for God to work on the Sabbath day? In all the chicanery of the rabbis, they had formulated reasons why it would be legal for God to work on the Sabbath day.

Last time, I told you that the rabbis had constructed thirty-nine laws that defined what work was and was not allowed on the Sabbath day. Law number thirty-nine reads that you are not allowed to move your possessions from one domain to another. So now the question is: Can God move what He owns from one domain to another?

During the choral introit this morning, we sang “Holy God, We Praise Your Name.” Let me read it to you:

Holy God, we praise Your Name;
Lord of all, we bow before You;
All on earth Your scepter claim,
All in heaven above adore You.

Now listen to the last phrase:

Infinite Your vast domain,
Everlasting is Your reign.

“Infinite Your vast domain”—do you see that? The rabbis understood that, and so they justified God’s working on the Sabbath this way: You are not allowed to move anything from one domain to another. God rises above that restriction because He is infinite, and His domain is infinite. So, whatever He does on the Sabbath day always takes place within the confines of His personal domain. That is theological chicanery at its finest.

But what Jesus says that is so radical is this: “My Father keeps working. He works on the Sabbath day. So do I.” The defense is this: “God is allowed to do it, and God is My Father, ergo I’m allowed to do it. If you argue with what I’m doing on the Sabbath day, you’re arguing with God.”

This is not the only place where laboring on the Sabbath became a major issue between Jesus and the authorities. Elsewhere, He said: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27–28).

When Jesus said that, everyone understood what He was saying. When He said, “I am the Lord of the Sabbath,” everyone knew that it was God who created the Sabbath, and only God could be Lord over the Sabbath. So, when Christ says that He is Lord of the Sabbath, that is an unambiguous claim to deity. That is what He says right here in our text: “The Father works up until now, and I work too.”

The Father Sends the Son

Now what happens? “Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but He also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” Listen to this difficult text:

Then Jesus answered and said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will. For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

Let me give you a pop quiz. Pretend you are in seminary. Maybe that is too scary. Pretend you are in Sunday school. That is not as bad, is it? How many of you have ever heard the word Trinity? That is an everyday word. You have all heard the word Trinity, right? Now, what if I were to ask you to distinguish between the ontological Trinity and the economic Trinity? Let us be honest. If I said, “Please describe for me the difference between the ontological Trinity and the economic Trinity,” how many of you would say, “I have no idea”? Let me see your hands. Those of you who did not raise your hand, I might ask you to stand up and explain it.

Let me take a moment to make that distinction, because it is very important for understanding our doctrine of the Trinity. When we talk about the ontological Trinity—ontology is the study of being—and when we say that God is three in one, three persons in the Godhead, we mean that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one being. The ontological structure of the Trinity is a unity. There is one being.

When we distinguish between the three persons of the Godhead, we distinguish them in terms of what we call the economy of God—that is, how God operates. It is the Father who sends the Son into the world for our redemption. It is the Son who acquires our redemption for us. It is the Spirit who applies that redemption to us. It is not three gods. It is one God in three persons, and the three persons are distinguished in terms of what they do.

In orthodox Christianity, we say that from all eternity, the Son is equal to the Father in power and in glory and in being. This discussion goes back to John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” This indicates a difference from God, and then in the next breath, “The Word was God.” So, in one sense, the Word and God are identical. In another sense, they are distinguished, and those distinctions are Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. From all eternity, the Father sends the Son. The Son does not send the Father; the Father sends the Son. Even though the Father and the Son are equal in being, power, and glory so that there is no eternal subordination, there is an economic subordination of the Son to the Father in terms of redemption.

That is what Jesus is getting at here. He says, essentially: “I don’t do anything on My own. I do what the Father tells Me to do. I do what the Father sends Me to do. I watch the Father, and I do what He does. The Father is preeminent. The Father is the One to whom I am obedient and subordinate.” Listen to what Jesus says:

The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.

Jesus the Judge

Jesus goes on to say, “The Father judges no one.” Now, you read that verse, and you might say, “The Bible says God doesn’t judge anyone because Jesus says God doesn’t judge anyone.” Maybe that is why people today do not believe in divine judgment. But the Bible does not say “God doesn’t judge anyone.” It says the Father does not judge anyone. Why does the Father not judge? Because the Father has delegated the task of judging the world to the Son.

“For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” We live in a country where people say you can believe in anyone you want, and we all worship the same God; you can come to God by any means possible, and you can reject Jesus and still have the Father. No, you cannot honor the Father without honoring the Son, and the Father has appointed a day when He will judge the world by the One whom He has appointed to be the Judge: the Son of Man, the heavenly being who comes to this earth to judge the world. So, if you do not honor Christ, you do not honor the Judge whom God has appointed.

Can you believe what Jesus was saying? He was on trial, and He said, “Fellows, you’re talking to the Judge here. You’re talking to the Lord of the Sabbath. You’re talking to the One before whom you will stand in judgment. You’re talking to the One whom the Father has given the power of life in Himself. If you don’t honor Me, you don’t honor the Father.”

This is only the beginning of His defense, which goes on for not just a few more verses but a few more chapters. It is heavy going, I understand. It takes us into deep theological waters, but those deep waters are at the very heart of the Christian faith. It is because of these things that we come together to worship and to honor Him. It is because of Him that we are here today. We are here to honor the One who has given His life for us and who has invited us to His table.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.