Wednesday in the Fourth Week of Lent, March 17, 2021

John 5:17-30

Jesus answered the Jews: “My Father is at work until now, so I am at work.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but he also called God his own father, making himself equal to God.  Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, the Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also. For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also does the Son give life to whomever he wishes. Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. Amen, amen, I say to you, the hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he gave to the Son the possession of life in himself. And he gave him power to exercise judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, because the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out, those who have done good deeds to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked deeds to the resurrection of condemnation.  I cannot do anything on my own; I judge as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

The Lord Jesus, the eternal Son of God, speaks here of the inner life of the Trinity of which he is a Person.  He speaks of his unity with the Father, and his procession and, hence, diversity from him.  What he reveals is almost too bright for the human eye to read, let alone the human mind to comprehend.  To gain some perspective on what he tells us, we should think of how the Son is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1, 15), that is, of God the Father; and how we can only peer “through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13, 12) into these mysteries.

“The Son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for what he does, the Son will do also.”  The Lord Jesus speaks of his unity with the Father.  In this way we can understand God saying, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1, 26).  The Fathers tell us that this is God the Father speaking to the Son and the Holy Spirit.  We call the Father the Creator because he is the principle of all life, human and divine, but the creation of the world and of the human race was an action of the three Persons in union.

“The Father loves the Son”.  This unity is not something cold and abstract but is a bond of the deepest love, of the infinite love of the Persons for one another.  It is light pouring itself into light through the endless ages.  

“Nor does the Father judge anyone, but he has given all judgment to the Son.”  Here we see the diversity of the Persons of the Father and the Son.  The Father gives the authority and mandate for the judgment of the human race.  That is not to say that the Father disassociates it from himself, for the judgment the Son renders is in accord with the will of the Father and that of the Holy Spirit, but it is the prerogative of the Son to exercise it, as he was the Person who became incarnate.  

“I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation.”  The Lord speaks now of the necessity for salvation of believing in him as the Son, and that he was begotten by the Father from all eternity.  One who truly believes this will be saved because through faith we are joined as members to the Son.  A person must believe in the Son as the Son of God in order to be made his member, as one cannot be a member of that which he does not believe.  “Hearing the word” of the Son comes through the good witness of those who are already his members.

“The hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”  These were the souls of all who had died from the beginning of the world until the Death of the Lord: Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, peasants and kings and queens, artists, soldiers, prophets and those who killed the prophets.  All heard the voice of the Son of God after his Death, when he descended to the place of the dead.  Those who lived justly followed him to heaven, while those who did not went hurtling into the everlasting fires of hell.

“I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”  This is the will of the Son, to do his Father’s will.  It is the will, too, of all who would become saints: to do the will of the one who sent us into the world.  In this way, we are true members of the Son, and adopted sons and daughters of the Father.