Today my attention was drawn to these words of our Savior: “For the Father loves the
Son and shows him all that he himself is doing.”[1] It cannot be
different from this. The Triunity of God is glorified in this, that the
invisible God shows the image of God all that he himself is doing, so that the
image of God is able to work in full harmony with what the invisible God has in
mind.
Jesus spoke these particular words after he was attacked
for doing the good work of healing a man on the Sabbath.[2] His answer thoroughly shocked the religious
leaders of the day. He replied to their accusing thoughts by declaring, “My Father is
working until now, and I am working.”[3] Jesus expanded the issue into something that was
even more offensive to the religious hypocrites than they had initially
thought. Not only was Jesus “working” on the Sabbath, but Jesus “was even calling God his
own Father, making himself equal with God.”[4]
Jesus went on to explain himself by declaring, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do
nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever
the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”[5]
In other words, Jesus took the opportunity afforded by the
animosity of his opponents to teach his disciples a wonderful lesson. Since
Jesus was “God with us”[6], “deity in
bodily form”[7], “the Word
become flesh”[8], he was the Son of God in the body of a man (while
not being a son of Adam, of course[9]). The Son of God was just as much “the image of the invisible God”[10] while in the body as he was prior to his
incarnation. As the Son of God, he was in a fellowship with his Father that
could only be described as doing nothing independently of his Father, and
missing nothing of what the Father was doing (since ‘whatever’ the Father did,
the Son also did).
All of this brings me to this question: since believers in Jesus Christ are “in Christ”,[11] is it fair for us to say that, because the Father
loves his adopted sons, he will also show us all that he himself is doing?
While I love the thought of this, my love for God is greater than good
thoughts, and so I want to know if he tells me anything so clearly as what
Jesus expressed about himself and his Father. Can I find Scripture that says
that, because we who are the adopted sons of God are “in the Beloved”,[12] we can have this same experience of knowing what
the Father is doing, and joining him in his work?
The answer comes very clearly in something Jesus said to
his disciples on the night of his betrayal and arrest. He told them, “No longer do I call you
servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have
called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known
to you.”[13] Jesus
assured his disciples that they could think of themselves as his friends
because of this characteristic of his relationship to them, that he had made
known to them all that he had heard from his Father. He had said that the
Father loved him and showed him all that he was doing. Jesus had told the
disciples that he was the vine and they were the branches,[14] and that he had the greatest kind of love for them,
as he was about to show by laying down his life for his friends.[15]In that love, he was making known to them what the
Father was doing, and inviting them to share in his work as he shared in his
Father’s work.
Jesus had already told his disciples, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the
works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I
am going to the Father.”[16] Since Jesus had said that, “greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel,”[17]we
can see a parallel in what Jesus says to his disciples.
This picture assures me that, because God’s children are
created and recreated in the image and likeness of Jesus Christ our Lord, we
can walk in this same kind of love relationship with our Savior where we can
know that he shows us what he is doing. This will come in circumstances that
suddenly invite us into a good work that we could not have planned in any kind
of board or committee meeting we could imagine. It will come in our hearts
being burdened to put a certain Scripture into practice by reaching out to a
particular person. It will show up when we find ourselves moved to pray for
specific people, only to find later that they were going through something at
that time that required fellowship in prayer with other believers.
The point for me was that, on the day prior to this lesson,
God had given me a day filled with divine appointments, and the next day he
gave me his commentary on why it was happening. It was not because I was
exceptionally good and deserved a reward. It was not because I was so filled
with faith about my life-circumstances that God just had to do good things in
response. It was simply that my Father wanted me to know his love in the same
way Jesus spoke of it, that God shows us what he is doing because he loves us.
It is not the only nuance of the love of God, but it is one that Jesus pointed
out in reference to his life, and so it was a delightful surprise when he
pointed it out in my life as well.
From my heart,
Monte
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517,
Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted,
Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English
Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good
News Publishers.)
[1]
John 5:20
[2]
John 5:1ff
[3]
John 5:17
[4]
John 5:18
[5]
John 5:19
[6]
Matthew 1:23
[7]
Colossians 2:9
[8]
John 1:14
[9]
It is a very significant and wonderful truth that Jesus was the only man who
came into the world “of a woman”, not of a man, thereby being the only man who
did not inherit Adam’s sin nature. There are much more joyful things that could be said about this, but let
this divinely orchestrated piece of information thrill your heart that God
brought about such a miracle as the virgin birth, something he promised in
Adam’s last moments in the Garden of Eden when he told the serpent, “I will put enmity between
you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall
bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
(Genesis 3:15)
[10]
Colossians 1:15
[11]
The New Testament makes this an emphasis, with a strong focus in the book of
Ephesians
[12]
Ephesians 1:6, in context of vss 3-14.
[13]
John 15:15
[14]
John 15:5 in context of 1-11
[15]
“Greater love has no one
than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
[16]
John 14:12
[17]
John 5:20
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