The Inescapable Christ

The Malady of Redefinition

There is a quiet, persistent tension in the act of waiting. My family finds itself in just such a season, as we expectantly, yet patiently, await the arrival of our fourth child. Though her projected birth date of February 24th has passed, she appears to have found more solace within the womb than without. We are profoundly grateful for your continued prayers, particularly for my wife, as we navigate these final, lingering days of anticipation. Yet, in this period of waiting, there is no better occupation for the mind than to meditate upon the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. For while we wait for the entry of a new life into our home, we must confront the reality of the One who is the very Author of life.

It is a wearying characteristic, that man seems possessed by a compulsive need to reconstruct God in his own image. There is a certain pathology in the human mind that prefers a “domesticated” Jesus: a teacher of ethics, a social reformer, or perhaps a tragic martyr, over the Christ of the scripture. This sport of redefinition, as it has been called, is not only an intellectual failure; it is a spiritual amnesia. We find ourselves surrounded by skeptics who, in their desire to avoid the severity of the truth, offer us a Christ who is everything but God.

Yet, to understand the truth of Jesus Christ is critical. To preach “another Christ” is to short-circuit the only power that can save the human soul. If we are to find the true architecture of faith, we must look past the accumulation of wrong answers and return to the primary record. In the fifth chapter of the gospel according to John, we find a presentation of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ that is unparalleled in its clarity and staggering in its claims.

The Lord at the Pool

The scene opens at Bethesda, a place aptly named the “house of mercy.” Here, in the shadow of the sheep market, lay a multitude of “impotent folk,” the blind, the halt, and the withered. They were men and women waiting for a “troubling of the water,” a system that demanded a capability they did not possess. In this, the pool serves as a vivid picture of the law: it offers hope only to those with enough strength to help themselves.

Into this theatre of helplessness walks the Lord of Life. He encounters a man who had been in his infirmity for thirty and eight years, a chronic disability that mirrors the wandering of a soul in unbelief. The Lord’s question cuts with intent: “Wilt thou be made whole?” (John 5:6). He does not probe for willingness so much as He exposes the man’s complete incapacity. The man’s reply is the epitaph of human effort: “Sir, I have no man” (John 5:7).

In a moment of transcendent power, Jesus does not put the man into the water; He speaks a word. “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk” (John 5:8). Immediately, the man is made whole. The miracle is not only a display of compassion; it is a christological confrontation. By performing this act on the Sabbath, Jesus was not seeking to de-escalate the hostility of the religious leaders; He was elevating the discussion to the very nature of His identity.

The Five-Fold Equality

When the religious leaders accosted the healed man for carrying his bed on the Sabbath, they revealed the terminal blindness of legalism. They were more concerned with the legal minutiae of their traditions than with the miraculous restoration of a human life. Jesus’ response to their persecution was not a defense of His actions within the parameters of their law, but a staggering claim to be outside that law altogether.

1. Equality in Nature: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17). Jesus identifies His work with the work of the Father. Just as God does not “rest” from His governance of the universe on the Sabbath, holding the stars in their courses and the grass in its growth, so the Son is not restrained from His acts of mercy. The Jews understood this perfectly; He was calling God His own Father, making Himself “equal with God” (John 5:18).

2. Equality in Works: The Son doeth nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do (John 5:19). This is not a statement of weakness, but of absolute impeccability. The Son and the Father are so perfectly one that it is impossible for the Son to act independently or in contradiction to the Father. Whatever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son “likewise.”

3. Equality in Power: “For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will” (John 5:21). Whoever is the source of life is God. Christ claims not only the power to raise the physically dead but alo the authority to give spiritual life to whomever He wishes. He possesses “life in himself” (John 5:26), an underived, eternally self-sustaining energy that flows from His own nature.

4. Equality in Authority: The Father hath committed “all judgment” unto the Son (John 5:22). The ultimate authority in any realm is the judge. By claiming the right to execute judgment, Jesus identifies Himself as the Supreme Judge of the universe. He determines the eternal destiny of every soul, an authority given because He is both the Son of God and the Son of man.

5. Equality in Truth: He who hears the “word” of the Son and believes on the Father has “everlasting life” (John 5:24). The word of Jesus Christ is equal in authority and truth to the word of the Father. To believe the Son is to believe the Father; to reject the Son is to remain in condemnation.

The Triple Testimony

Lest any man think these claims were without witness, the Lord provides a “triple record” of His character and mission. He points to John the Baptist, that “burning and a shining light“; He points to His own works, which were the Father’s finish; and He points to the “scriptures.”

“Search the scriptures,” He commands, “for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39). The tragedy of the religious mind is that it can search the word and yet miss the Word. The leaders of Israel loved their status and their honor one of another more than they loved the truth. They were willing to rejoice in a “season” of light, but they were not willing to come to Christ that they might have life (John 5:40).

The Verdict

The conclusion of the matter is found in a single, sobering principle: “That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father” (John 5:23). There is no middle ground with Jesus Christ. You cannot honor the Father while demeaning the Son as a man or an insane person. If He is not God, He is a blasphemer; if He is God, He is our absolute Master.

As we look upon the Christ of John 5, let us renounce the sport of redefinition. Let us see Him not only as a Galilean with a pleasant accent, but as the “I AM” who upholds all things by the word of His power. May the “sweet air of the hills” refresh our souls as we realize that the One who healed at Bethesda is the same One who offers us life to-day.

He is the resurrection and the life, and to believe in Him is to pass from death unto life.

Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist Church