Pro equal rights

In John 5:19, Jesus Christ emphasizes, “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.

Jordan explains, “Be careful about that to understand that as God the Son, if Jesus Christ had chosen to do something independent of His Father’s instruction, He would have never contradicted or disappointed His Father. He couldn’t do that. You know the verse: ‘God cannot lie.’ There’d be no way as God that He could do something that would disappoint God because of who they are.

“When He says, ‘The Son can do nothing of himself,’ in verse 30 He says, ‘I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.’

“He chose to demonstrate the superiority and excellence He placed in the Father’s will by putting it in front of His.

“You see, the faith of Christ is that He made a choice to personally depend on what His Father’s will and word was. What He’s doing in this is not like saying, ‘Well, I could have done something that would have disobeyed Him,’ because He couldn’t have disobeyed Him; it wasn’t His nature.

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“Everything He does—the words He preaches, the works He accomplishes—is what the Father planned to do, so it’s a great statement that He’s demonstrating how completely and thoroughly . . . it’s that oneness with the Father that demonstrates, actually, His deity.

“The verse in Amos says, ‘Can two walk together, except they be agreed?’ God says, ‘I’m not going to do anything that I don’t show it to my servants the prophets.’ So Christ says, ‘The Father has completely shared with me His heart,’ and there’s an intimacy there and that oneness is part of the thing the (persecuting Jews in John 5) were so angry about.

“Verse 5:21 says, ‘For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.’

“You see the ‘as’ and the ‘so’? That comparison, using ‘like’ or ‘as,’ ‘as’ and ‘so,’ is one of the great tools in Bible study.

“Whatever the Father can do, the Son can do and then He adds, ‘The Son quickeneth whom he will.’ In other words, He’s got this capacity to give life. Only God can do that. He’s got this equality with the Father, of divine rights and privileges. He’s not any less than the Father.

“Verse 22 says, ‘For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.’

“Not only can Christ raise people from the dead, He can quicken them (giving them life) and that, by the way, is going to talk about what He told Nicodemus about being born again and regenerated.

“Verse 21 is really talking about spiritual resurrection, in addition to the physical resurrection that will come in a minute.

“As the Father does, the Son has equal authority, equal rights, equal privileges as the Father. For the Father judgeth no man. Now, if anybody has a right to judge, it’d be God the Father.

“You know that verse in the Old Testament: ‘Shall not the judge of the whole earth do right?’ He is the judge of the whole earth.

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“David said it in Psalm 51 after he confessed his sins with Bathsheba, and the murder of her husband and the betrayal of his nation, he has that great prayer of repentance:

“Against thee and thee only have I sinned.’

“When you realize that the sin, in the final analysis, isn’t really against Uriah or Bathsheba, or the little baby that died, or even the nation that he led; he sinned against all of them grievously, but the real sin was against God.

“That’s why he says it’s like ‘the breaking of the bones.’ That’s what he described guilt as. ‘Blood guiltiness.’

“When you get to the place where you see God--the holiness and the righteousness of God and his justice; his right to avenge His offended righteousness—and you see that your sin is against Him, that’s where you really have a problem.

“Compared to God, Uriah was just a flash in the pan. Compared to Him, what David did with the nation . . . it was against God, and if you sinned against God, God’s justice has a right to judge.

“So the Father has the right to judge, but the verse says the Father doesn’t exercise that right, instead committing all judgment to the Son. The Father gave the Son the responsibility to do the judgment; it’s His right but He gave the privilege to the Son.

“The reason is, as verse 23 says, ‘That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.’

“God the Father has set the situation up so that the Son receives the same honor the Father has a right to. If you’re going to honor the Father, you’ve got to honor the son. And if you honor the son, you’re honoring the father. Because there’s equality when it comes to the issue of honor, and esteem and approbation. That’s the way the godhead works, by the way.

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“The members of the godhead have no thought about glorifying or honoring themselves; it’s always honoring the other one. When you think about that, it kind of explains to you some of the things about the trinity.

“If there were two people in the trinity you couldn’t do that. If there was only one person there would be no one else for them to love and be loved by. If there’s two, you can share it back and forth and you could take your love and give it to the other and their’s back to you, but really to love and be loved requires that third person because now ‘I love freely them and they love freely each other and yet they love me too.’

“There are three people in the godhead and that’s why the life of the godhead is each living for the other in this unique and distinct way. There could be 50 people in the godhead and it wouldn’t make any more difference than if there’s three.

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“Jesus continues in the passage in John 5, [25] Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
[26] For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;

“Again, He’s talking about spiritual life being imparted to those who believe. The Father has appointed the Son to be the one who can give life inherently. He holds it and He can apply it to others. He has it in Himself. God’s life isn’t derived. Your life is. Prior to your conception, you didn’t exist. You derived life. Where’d you get it from? Your parents.

“Ecclesiastes calls it ‘the silver cord.’ It goes all the way back to Adam who begat sons and daughters in his own image. And that silver cord of human life, the spirit of life that’s passed down, we don’t have it inherently but God does. He is life.

“And not only does the Father have it, the Son has it, and He’s given it to the Son to manifest the fact that He does have it by allowing the Son to be the one who imparts it to others, because it’s His.”